A visitor to our site today asked James G whether we were archaeologists or installing a gas pipe. The confusion is due to our new bigger and better trench. It’s 100m long and 4m wide.

The landowner came over to see what we’ve been up to and gave his blessing (many thanks!) to the new, enlarged trench, Most of the work so far has been due to Mike Grinter and his digger, which has been working flat out.

It’s early days but archaeological features are showing up (some where the geophysics say they should be, others don’t appear on the magnetometry).

One feature in particular contained a large and fresh fragment from a Roman jar and Andy began excavating a narrow ditch. This ditch we think might have been part of an enclosure around the villa and is an interesting feature. It’s got a number of fills, one of which is very charcoal rich and another contains sherds of a slightly micaceous greyware Roman period jar.

Chris, Hayley and James H continued trowelling, this time defining a large ‘blob’, which might be a number of intercutting features.

An excellent day with lots achieved and lots to do tomorrow.

The earliest feature excavated during the Summer of 2014 was a ?ditch beneath a layer, which we nicknamed ‘crunchy red’ on site.

This little ditch produced a handful of fragments of rock. It was immediately apparent that these fragments of rock were igneous and thus were thus imported to the site (the local geology is sedimentary).

Dr Kevin Hayward has examined these rocks for us and believes that this light green medium grained igneous rock, with white feldspar laths may have come from a number of possible sources. He writes:

The first are the dyke intrusions at Cheddon-Fitzpaine, 20km to the NW near Taunton, described as a Lamprophyre and seen at Yarford villa as rubble . Further away in Devon (40km) there are Early Permian intrusions and Volcanics from the Exeter Volcanic Series. These were identified in rubble fragments from the nearby Late Iron Age to Roman excavations at Montacute. Saddle quern in a pinker granodiorite was also recorded from later 2011 excavations at Montacute where a Cornish source is suggested as was a basic spotted dolerite macehead from these excavations. All bear some similarity to the fragments from Barrow.

The stones are likely to be part of a prehistoric object. We need to look carefully at the pottery from the ‘crunchy red’ and other early deposits. Nevertheless the geological report has confirmed that we have a long stratigraphic sequence at Barrow, running from prehistory through to the  medieval period.

Dr Kevin Hayward, a specialist in geological materials and ceramic building materials at Pre-Construct Archaeology, is examining the stone and brick finds from the Barrow DMV excavations.

He’s recently completed a report on part of a stamped brick we found in the upper fill of the medieval ditch. The brick probably belonged to a small barn that used to stand in the field and was demolished in the 1970s when the earthworks were bulldozed.

The following is an extract of Kevin’s report on the brick:

The edge of quarter of a kiln brick with a curved incomplete stamp read

…WN   CLA…

Each letter measured 15mm high with a neat stamped suggesting machine impression, typical of late 19^th to early-mid 20^th century manufacturer.

Consultation of the web site for brick stamps  could not find a match. However it would seem likely that the second word CLA forms part of CLAY or CLAYWORKS

The Crown Clay Company operating in the same district of Bristol (St Georges – Crews hole) on the bank of the River Avon as the Bristol Clay Company (see below) between 1880 and 1887 is a possible candidate given the lettering …WN CLAY

Use

Kiln or refractory bricks were used from the second quarter of the 19^th century onwards in response for the demand for building materials that could resist the increasingly high temperatures required in the iron and steel making processes, gas retorts, as well as kiln and glass manufacturing industries to name but a few. They are also associated with boilers, locomotives, ovens and any process that involves high temperatures – even heated greenhouses.

Geological Origin

The clay, derived from high alumina and silica palaeosols from the Upper Carboniferous Coal Measures is not local to this part of Somerset dominated by geologically younger Lower Jurassic sands, clays calcareous limestones and limestones. However with the advent of the railways, kiln bricks were distributed throughout the UK from fireclay manufacturers in the West Midlands (Stourbridge); South Wales, South Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear and Glasgow.

The Somerset Coalfield, some 30km NNE, lies closest to Lufton. With the Bristol Coalfield (further west) also relatively close by. Fireclays from these deposits were worked and manufactured into kiln bricks e.g. The Bristol Fire Clay Company in operation from at least 1876 to 1911 and Crown Clay Works 1880 to 1887 and Crown Brick and Tile Company into the first decade of the twentieth century

Sue, who dug with us this season, has brought to our attention these nice medieval tiles from Blackfriars in Derby. They show a hare riding a hound just like our seal.

On a sadder note we’d like to note the passing of Doug, a long-standing SSARG member who excavated with us in 2012. Our condolences to his friends and family.

Today was a very busy but cooler day, with lots of exciting finds.

In trench A Lucy, Chris and Pete excavate a very large amount of medieval pottery some of which was decorated. They also found some bone. The spoil from trench A was sieved by Hayley and Matt, who is a first year student from Newcastle visiting for the day.

Whilst trench A produced lots of finds, trench B produced far fewer. Kimberley, James G and Ollie continued to excavate the slot in the NE of trench B and uncovered the continuation of the field drain from the slot in the NW corner.

Also in trench B Jess dug and planned a circular feature. James SA continued to excavate another round feature and then helped Andy to remove a large red layer in the centre of the trench.

Flora and Elliot continued to excavate a pit in trench B where they found Two large pieces of bone.

You can see more photographs of the 2014 excavations on our Flickr account by searching for Lufton Archaeology.

We had an exciting find yesterday just south of Trench B.

A copper-alloy seal matrix (used for marking sealing wax with a design) dating from AD1250-1400 depicting a hare riding a hound and blowing a horn. Around the edge there’s an inscription reading ‘Sohev Roben’, which is a medieval phrase similar to ‘Tallyho Fido’.

The seal is a humorous little piece and mocks the medieval elite’s favourite past time. It may have belonged to a noblewoman poking fun at her male friends and relations or a clergyman.

A similar seal is noted on the PAS Database.

Thanks to Mike (Ski) for his help in finding this object.

Post-excavation work on last year’s excavation is still on-going. Normally we like to have an assessment of our work complete before returning to the field for another season of work. However, this year we haven’t been able to do this because James has been very busy with teaching and research commitments and Andy is busy wrapping his PhD up. Not to fear though – the work is in progress.

If you were following last season’s blog you might remember that Dave and Cubby found a very nice greyware flagon of Roman date in a ditch.

Dave worked on the pottery assemblage for one of his second year modules (ARA2101 Artefacts) and produced a very nice drawing, which will go into the assessment report when it’s complete.