The core team left to right Stephanie, Fay, Rob, Amy, Carol, Martin, Pete and Me
Well, we reached the last day and had a few last jobs to do as well as back-filling the trenches. Martin had recording, drawings and the odd extra bit of digging to do, to answer a few questions in the buttress trench. Fay and Amy had a little more digging in the bath house trench to find the wall, and the rest of us had finds and tools to pack up.
We have to record everything by scale drawing and photography, as once its dug out we cannot go back to check any details.
In the buttress trench Martin has been finding lots of painted plaster including different blues and greens. Then he found this large piece, amazing colours and design.
In the buttress trench Martin has found lots of lovely painted plaster, mainly blues, but then he found this stunning piece
A close-up of the plaster
One job we had to do was to put in a little extension to find out how big the water tank was, it turned out to be quite small, but perfectly formed. We also found the outlet hole!
The extent of the tank
The tank had slipped forward, note the crack in the lower right
The outlet hole
The last trench to be filled in was the buttress trench, we protected the tank with geotextile, then left messages for future archaeologists to find, in an empty bottle of fizz we had for Amy’s 21st birthday.
For future archaeologists to find
Nearly there
Also on the last day we had another birthday to celebrate – Pete’s. So it was a double celebration and a big cake provided by lovely Sue, who had been doing all the finds washing for us, thank you Sue.
When you only have a grubby wooden knife a trowel has to do
As we put back the last turf we had our last visitor, a frog that had managed to survive the back filling and the heat!
Our last visitor
As they say ‘that’s all folks’ for daily up dates from the dig, but Martin will do a summing up of the dig and we will post updates of the finds when we have their stories back from the specialists. So keep checking in.
All that’s left to say is a massive thank you to all our volunteers who came to dig with us and especially those who helped with the mammoth back filling task. We hope you all enjoyed your experience. Thank you to all our blog followers, and its been lovely to meet many of you on-site, your kind words helped to keep us going through the hottest parts of the day.
Until next time………
Archaeology National Trust SW 
Fabulous, fascinating work-well done!
And there it was all gone, another year over ….. but what a year, have thoroughly enjoyed reading all your blog updates, seeing the great photos and the fantastic discoveries you have all made, so thank you both for keeping us well informed and well done all – Jackie
A really good diary of the events and excitement in uncovering the finds. Looking forward to the next installment!