This post is being written from the farm on a stormy Wednesday. We’re rained off (again) – clearly the weather gods are restoring the balance for previous seasons when we had no rain at all.

Yesterday was a busy day in lots of ways.

James started early with a radio interview for BBC Somerset at 7.50am, he and Andy then did a run to Asda to pick up supplies for the end of the excavation. We started on site at 10am. Most of the day was involved in recording and excavating the deposits that lie outside of the building and between two of its buttresses.

The sequence between the buttresses is very interesting. When we first exposed the rubble in this area we weren’t sure whether it was backfill from Hayward’s excavation or in situ Roman deposits. What we have excavated is surely the latter. The uppermost layer was largely Yeovil Stone rubble of a small size. This is probably from the robing and collapse of the structure. Under this was a layer of smashed lias and also slate roofing tile. This shows that the building shed its roof before it collapsed or was demolished. The earliest deposit, below the roof tiles, contains a lot of Roman pottery and also animal bones. This seems to be rubbish dumped around the back of the bath house. Annetta, Charlie, Chris, James I and Josh all had a hand in excavating these deposits.

Roof collapse under excavation (above)

Roofing material (lias on the left), slate in the middle and tile on the right (Above)

Dan spent most of the day gently cleaning the mosaic with a sponge and water and Antonia was cleaning up the buttress. Andy enjoyed himself excavating the joint between the buttress and the robbed out external wall of the octagonal room.

Dan washing the floor

At 4pm we hosted our open evening, which was well attended (although not on the scale of last year’s crowd). The Yeovil Archaeological and Local History Society turned out in force and so did many members of the public (some of whom have been reading this blog). It was great to see such interest in our work by the local community.

At 7pm, tired from the day’s travails we packed up and headed to Palmer’s Fish and Chips where James bought the team (you guessed it!) fish and chips in celebration of his promotion to Senior Lecturer.

Today started bright and early with the decision to remove the rubble from the western side of  the trench. Quite a lot of heavy digging ensued and we lifted a lot of rocks. Under these were a wall and what appears to be smashed roofing slates.

After lunch we removed the rubble from the eastern side of the trench. This revealed what appears  to be another wall on a different alignment.

What is puzzling us is that so far neither of these walls matches what we are expecting to find. Where is the octagonal bath? Perhaps tomorrow will reveal the bath to us but James and Andy both suspect that the trench may need to be extended.

We continue to find Roman pottery and animal bones.

Andy laid out our site grid and worked magic with the GPS. James showed Megan, James P and Anneta how to reduce levels.

We knocked off slightly early and went in search of a BBQ. Having bought one Dan and Chris, who spent the day working hard to tidy the campsite, then managed to put it together and light it. All good and, at the time of writing, the food is eagerly awaited by the team.

We woke up early to hammering rain today. Assessing the heavens and the forecast James and Andy made the decision to rain the team off. The access to our site is quite tricky and made almost impassable in the rain. It seemed the sensible and safest option to not go to work today.

Things dried up in the afternoon, probably enough for us to get to back in the trench but there didn’t seem much point so the team enjoyed a relaxing day off. Meanwhile, Andy was working hard processing GPS data in GIS.

In the evening we enjoyed a fascinating and exotic addition to our camping menu: stir fry. This was new dietary horizon for the Lufton Project and was enjoyed by everyone.