The excavation began in earnest today. When the boundaries of the trench had been marked out the top-soil and sub-soil was removed, James and Andy machine watched – looking for features identified on the geophysical survey.

Whilst the trench was being machined, Hayley, Chris and James H set about piecing together and erecting the tent on site.

After the team had taken a well-earned lunch break, we pressed on. The tent team were tasked in tidying the edges of excavation and troweling back the site, as James and Andy continued machine watching. As the trench was trowelled back several features stood out, some of which are the clearest we’ve seen during the Lufton Project.

By the end of today the team had made excellent progress: we have managed to remove all of the top-soil and sub-soil from our planned area of excavation, and we have trowelled back half of that area.

We also had our neighbour visit us on site with the infamous bread stealing dog, he presented us with the brilliant sign pictured below. To serve as a warning to all those in camp!

All in all we’ve had an excellent day, even managing to avoid the rain! It was topped off by a visit to the Masons Arms, which saw James and Andy deep in thought strategising tomorrow’s activities.