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!