Trench C and in the distance A. The chalk bedrock in C has been cut for a rubbish pit. The filling contained Iron Age pottery and the jaw bone of a horse.
Trench B down the bottom of the garden was disappointing. It looked like old plough soil and all we got was some bailer twine and a struck flint. Dave moved to trench C in the middle of the garden and I stuck with A closer to the house. By mid morning we were still in the 19th century lots of blue and white pottery. Then Dave showed me a plain black piece of pot. ‘BB?’ he said ‘yes’ but it was mixed with much later stuff. At 11.30 everything changed, we moved from 150 years to 1500 in a few trowel strokes.
Suddenly we left the early 1800s behind and chunks of Romano-British bone and pottery were flicking out of the soil. There were chunks of limestone and flint from demolished buildings, fragments of amphorae, Samian from France and jars and bowl pieces from BB (Black Burnished ware) made locally in Purbeck.
At this stage you wonder what you are above. Perhaps a building. Would it have a mosaic or remains of a wall with painted plaster on. In the end both our trenches came down on rubbish pits. Dave’s was Iron Age, mine was late Roman but these are part of something much bigger and its discovery is a good story.
Pottery from A includes black Purbeck pottery, orange Samian, a fragment of amphora and food remains include bone from joints of meat and oyster shells.
Archaeology National Trust SW 