It was the final day of work for everyone today before the final team head back home with just a few week before the university year begins again.

There was lots to do this morning. We started off by scanning the tessellated pavement with a Faro 3D laser scanner. This will allow an extremely accurate 3D computer model of the discovery to be made. Recording the pavement in this level of detail will allow other scholars to study the remains without the need to disturb them again.

Having scanned the pavement the next step was to backfill the sensitive areas of the site by hand. Pushing barrows of dirt over the painstakingly excavated hypocaust and tessellated floor was a strange experience but it will help to support and protect these parts of the site when we backfill by machine tomorrow.

One exciting last minute discovery was the realisation that a large ‘rock’ towards the northern end of Room 4 was actually a plano-convex lead ingot. This hefty item was lifted and will be taken back to Newcastle along with the other finds for study. Presumably it was manufactured when the building was demolished and robbed. All of the lead fittings will have gone into a crucible and been made into this leaden lump. Quite why it was left behind is a mystery…. and an avenue for future research.

This excitement over we got on with removing the fencing and creating a smaller enclosure around the trench in preparation. The hire company will be picking the fencing up tomorrow – here’s hoping they come nice and early.

Other jobs included striking the tent we use for a site office and getting all the tools and other kit back to base. An afternoon of sorting, packing and cleaning tools kept most of the team busy. Douglas (below) even got all the samples organised for their collection by GeoFlo tomorrow.

James G spent the evening checking paperwork and plans, which caused him at one moment to bless the invention of single context planning as a sneaking suspicion about one part of the site was confirmed by close analysis of the drawings. It was quite late by the time he was done and the team were, by this time, all lurking in the marquee clutching their purloined rubbers (or erasers for N American readers). By this time Andy had deserted us for the comfort of the Masons Arms.

Tomorrow will see the team depart to Newcastle and other parts of the country. Left behind will be James G, Andy, Elliot and Hayley who will oversee the backfilling of the trench and the final pack up of the camp. Ski will join us for one last time and hopefully find, as the spoil gets pushed back into the trench,  all the metal bits and pieces we missed.

The end is nigh and everyone’s thoughts are turning homeward.

Yesterday was a busy day with about 400 visitors being shown around site and another 100 attending the evening talk. We were all pretty exhausted and shell shocked by the end. We were pleased to enjoy a lie in before working a half day in the afternoon.

In the morning Andy and James G bought supplies for the week and the team wolfed down some sandwiches before lunch and a productive afternoon of archaeology.

An old friend – Woofton – joined us in the afternoon. Woofton’s been a companion and mascot for the dig since 2014 and he enjoyed sunning himself in the hypocaust!

Lucy and Becca were tasked with drawing a huge plan of the apsidal room, its joining hypocaust room and the connecting stoke hole channel.

While that was going on, James G, Matt and Freddie discovered that what we thought were capstones of a water pipe in the south east corner of the trench turned out to be the south end of the water pipe channel.

Meanwhile, Doug, James B and Tom were working on the burnt patch that Hayward identified as a squatter hearth. After Josh, Tilly, Jeff and Frankie had finished their work in Room 4 they came as back up to help Doug and co clean up their context for Andy to photograph it.

Elliot spent the day working all over the trench doing bits of recording and helping out the rest of the team. Hayley was tasked with taking out the rubble from the wall on the back of Room 2, revealing another water pipe channel.

At the end of the day, the team ordered pizzas for tea. Andy, James G and Elliot went to collect the leaning tower of pizza and brought back the team’s rations.

We’re entering the final week of excavation tomorrow – it’s the last stretch of work for the team and we need to make every minute on site count!

Today most of the team were rained off and it was up to James G, Andy, Elliot, Hayley and Pete to work on site.

At the start of the day, Elliot and Hayley were tasked with drawing the southern limit of excavation in its entirety. After entering the mirror world and accidentally drawing it backwards they managed to rectify it.

Meanwhile Andy was struggling with the GPS and the Total Station which both thought they were still in Greece!

While everyone else was working hard, James G and Pete started excavating a hypocausted room connected to the apsidal room in the north end of the trench.

At lunch time, the van was struck with tragedy as it found its back wheel in a ditch. After several (unsuccessful) attempts at problem solving, the team had to ask the landowner, James Pullen to pull the van out of a ditch with his tractor. James saved the day and pulled the van out of the hole to allow us to continue our work.

James G, Elliot and Pete continued to work hard all afternoon until Doug arrived with Hayley and Andy to provide some back up for the end of the day.

After Jeff decided to over salt the chilli, the team went to the Airfield Tavern for their tea.

The team are all looking forward to the open day tomorrow and continuing the excavation!

At the start of the day, Elliot and Doug were tasked with cleaning up what Elliot began working on yesterday – an unexcavated room in the Northern end of the trench.

After cleaning up the feature, Andy took some photographs and Doug was reassigned with working through the trench, filling out various masonry context sheets for the rest of the day.

Meanwhile, Andy led his team of Jeff, Freddie, Becca, Frankie and Matt in diving deeper into Room 4.  Although the team worked hard, they failed to turn up any mosaics in the room. Indeed, it would appear that any mosaics here are long gone. Removed by the excavations of the 1950s and 1960s.

Hayley, meanwhile worked with Lucy to continue to excavate their oven on the East side of the trench, before moving on to more mosaic hunting in the South-East corner of the trench (again to no avail). They did, however, identify the line of the stone channel for the waterpipe.

James G, Elliot and Pete returned to their room to peel back the newly recorded context…

… to reveal some exciting archaeology.  They discovered a channel bordered by two giant burnt hamstones, which may have been used as a stoke hole for the heated flooring of the villa.

At the end of the day, the team returned home to see that James B had been working hard processing finds, as Josh prepared our tea of Spaghetti Bolognese.