Today on site the team were tasked with the huge task of cleaning up around 2/3 of the trench so that we could see what features and contexts were visible and so that we could photograph them before excavation.

.Imogen and Hayley identify a robber cut for a robbed out wall (above)

At the start of the day, Antonia, Imogen, James I, Henry, Kevin and Charlie (Charlotte) were led by Hayley and Elliot in trowelling back through the trench, starting in the South-Eastern corner of the trench, and working in line with the building’s walls.

James watching the team trowelling (above)

Meanwhile, Holly-Ann finished off chasing her wall further to the west of the trowel line.

Luckily, however, we were joined on site today by Sue from the South Somerset Archaeological Research Group (SSARG) and Hollie, a sixth-form student who wants to study archaeology after her A-levels.

Before long, Ski also arrived on site and located many targets with his metal detector. Where we could excavate these they were almost all iron nails.

Elliot then bagged up Ski’s finds before recording them in the Register, so that Andy could take their GPS location.

After this, James oversaw the whole group’s mammoth task of cleaning up a huge portion of the trench, ready for Andy to take some photos (below).

After a hard day’s work, the team returned home to a delicious meal of Chilli, prepared by Dan and Chris.

Overall, this was a slow day with a huge amount of work undertaken by the whole team. With this necessary exercise complete we’ll be able to get on with digging the building.

The first day on site was characterised by our intrepid team of diggers struggling against the elements.

Before anything started James G was interviewed by Claire Carter of BBC Radio Somerset. This was picked up people far and wide including a colleague who teaches at the University of Florida!

After arriving on site, Andy and James laid out Trench A, in preparation for the topsoil to be machined off tomorrow.

The team was joined today by our friendly neighbourhood metal detectorist, Ski (acting under a Section 42 license) who scanned the top of Trench A.

It didn’t take long for Ski to unearth a Constantinian coin from the early to mid 4^th Century – a promising start to the excavation!

While Ski scanned the trench, the rest of the team were split up and dug out some test pits.

Unfortunately, the weather had conspired to make our first day of work slightly harder by unleashing more rain during our working day than in the entire month of July! We also had trouble with a delivery, which couldn’t make it to us because of a gas leak.

We soldiered on, despite the difficult conditions and got a good day’s work done.

The team arrived home with muddy boots (see below) and a hearty meal of cheesy pasta prepared by Dan and Chris.

We’re all looking forward to opening our first trench tomorrow and getting to grips with a Roman Villa!

James, Andy, Hayley and Elliot arrived yesterday and spent their first full day in Somerset preparing for the weeks ahead.

After a trip to the shops to pick up our (ample) food and supplies, James and Andy scouted out the site.

Above: James and a wheelbarrow of shopping.

Meanwhile, Elliot and Hayley organised base camp and made preparations for the arrival of our first team of students.

Henry arrived first, followed by Holly (veteran of last season), Imogen, Antonia, James S, James I (lots of James’ this year!), Dan and Chris. Having set their tents up everyone enjoyed a delicious barbeque and settled in for a team briefing.

The advance party of James, Andy, Hayley and Elliot have arrived safe and sound to a warm welcome from Maggie, Colin, Alan, Poppy the dog and all the cats.

The marquee is up (hooray! Let’s hope it stays up longer than last year). Tents are pitched the night is yet young.

Andy reports that the minibus has been delivered. A day early, but that’s better than a day late. Even better it appears to be complete with four wheels, brakes and a steering wheel! We’ll be loading it up tomorrow.

James is busy packing and deciding how many socks to take.

All of a sudden it all seems very real.

In a week’s time we’ll be on site opening up our trenches.

We’re excited. Soon we’ll find out what this geophysical survey really means…