It's been a slow start to the new season with this being our sixth outing since 15th September. On our way to the site we passed several fields that had huge pools of water on them and we thought that we were in for a real struggle. Thankfully, the soil was very sandy and was absolutely fantastic to dig and wasn't claggy at all.
This was on a brand new permission and looked to be a Roman fort or marching camp. The fort covers 4-acres (1.2 hectares) so is quite a small fort and probably held about 600 men in total.
The winter wheat ran across the fort at about 10 degree's to the surrounding east and west 35ft defence ditches. The crop also provided the guidelines for us to follow with great accuracy and confidence.
We also cut sections across the entire field looking for signs of a vicus but didn't find anything of note outside the fort perimeter.
We did however recover 10 Roman coins and a small amount of pottery including a small rim fragment of Samian Ware with a little decoration within the forts perimeter.
Artefacts were very scarce with an early gold-gilded Medieval strapend being one of the highlights. Some of the coinage did reflect the age of the fort at being around AD 118 but later Roman coinage recovered indicated that the fort could have been re-used or at least used as a stop-off point at a much later date?
Part of a double-looped Post Medieval buckle frame and a Elizabethan half-groat minted in London were also found within the fort boundaries along with an Australian three-pence piece dating AD 1943. The Elizabethan hammered coin was bent double so a bit of gentle persuasion was needed to bring it back to a recognisable state.
A circular disc-shaped object and several service buttons were unearthed along with a London and North-Western Railways button (1846 -1922).
What was impressive was the depth at which some of the coins were retrieved reaching down to 12 inches.
We were near to another potential permission so we called in for a chat..... what a chat that turned out to be and a complete story in itself!
We used our usual settings as on previous outings but as stated, we were achieving incredible depths with even the deep signals sounding extremely loud and clear.
HD images of the finds recovered can be seen here.
This was on a brand new permission and looked to be a Roman fort or marching camp. The fort covers 4-acres (1.2 hectares) so is quite a small fort and probably held about 600 men in total.
The winter wheat ran across the fort at about 10 degree's to the surrounding east and west 35ft defence ditches. The crop also provided the guidelines for us to follow with great accuracy and confidence.
We also cut sections across the entire field looking for signs of a vicus but didn't find anything of note outside the fort perimeter.
We did however recover 10 Roman coins and a small amount of pottery including a small rim fragment of Samian Ware with a little decoration within the forts perimeter.
Artefacts were very scarce with an early gold-gilded Medieval strapend being one of the highlights. Some of the coinage did reflect the age of the fort at being around AD 118 but later Roman coinage recovered indicated that the fort could have been re-used or at least used as a stop-off point at a much later date?
Part of a double-looped Post Medieval buckle frame and a Elizabethan half-groat minted in London were also found within the fort boundaries along with an Australian three-pence piece dating AD 1943. The Elizabethan hammered coin was bent double so a bit of gentle persuasion was needed to bring it back to a recognisable state.
A circular disc-shaped object and several service buttons were unearthed along with a London and North-Western Railways button (1846 -1922).
What was impressive was the depth at which some of the coins were retrieved reaching down to 12 inches.
We were near to another potential permission so we called in for a chat..... what a chat that turned out to be and a complete story in itself!
We used our usual settings as on previous outings but as stated, we were achieving incredible depths with even the deep signals sounding extremely loud and clear.
HD images of the finds recovered can be seen here.
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