After recovering from our long day on the road yesterday, James and Andy began by collecting some tools from our friends over at SSARG. Meanwhile Hayley, Chris and James H were tasked with organising the camp.

Later in the day the team recced the site. Whilst the trench was being marked out some of us performed a brief ‘fieldwalk’: we found several interesting sherds of pottery; including a New Forest Colour Coated beaker fragment dating between A.D. 270 – 400+.

Upon our arrival back at camp, a neighbour brought over a Roman hypocaust flu tile, which he had found in a wall on his property – an image of which can be seen below. This might have come from the villa or another high status Roman building nearby.

Tomorrow’s task is to begin machining back the top-soil and set up our tent on site.

But for now we’ve decided to make the most of the sunny weather and have a BBQ!

After a long journey, not helped by being stuck in traffic south of Worcester for three and a half hours, the advance party arrived.

Pitching camp in the dark was a bit of a trial, but the warm welcome from Colin and Maggie made us feel right at home. Most of the advance party are veterans of the 2014 season and it feels like we’ve never been away.

We’ve got quite a lot planned for tomorrow. We need to collect some tools from our friends at SSARG, recce the site, buy some shopping and strategise a bit.

Next on the agenda is a plate of fish n chips and a swift drink to make up for the long journey.

Fingers crossed for some warm(ish) weather.

We’re packed and pretty much ready to go. Tomorrow morning the advance party set off from Newcastle: James, Andy, James H and Hayley, collecting Chris somewhere in the midlands and hoping to arrive late afternoon in Lufton.

The rest of the team – Elliott, Ellie, Douglas, Holly-Ann, Samara, Tilly, Josh and Zara – will be joining us in a week’s time.

In addition to the blog we’ll be sending a few tweets @ArchaeologyNCL #Luftondig2015

The minibus has returned and it’s been fixed. Now to load up in preparation for the long journey south tomorrow!

James and Andy were in the office early today hoping to load the van up for the journey south. Alas, it was delivered with a fault and the hire company have taken it away to fix it.