After heavy showers last night we expected the site to be soaked through when we arrived, however there were only a couple of small puddles to be mopped up. We took to other duties whilst we waited for the site to dry out: finishing the grid co-ordinates, organising the paperwork and established a Temporary Bench Mark on site.

We then took advantage of the moist conditions to trowel back a 20m x 5m section of the trench to reveal more features in the northern end of trench. There seems to be multiple features present in the changing colours of clay.

 https://flic.kr/p/ruw6rR

A brief diversion mid-day was a close fly-past by a flight of Merlin helicopters from RNAS Yeovilton.

We then continued to excavate our features from yesterday. Chris and Hayley found pottery dating from the 4^th century in their feature, whilst James H found pottery dating from the Late Iron Age to the Early Roman Period in his. The day finished with a team discussion regarding the sequence of our excavated features, it’s complicated but we will not be beaten!

Our efforts today began by tackling one of the larger features on the site, which stretched from one side of the trench to the other. We took a section across the feature, split into teams of two: Hayley and Chris, and James and James H – working from either end of the section towards the middle.

It quickly became clear that the feature is more complex than anticipated – it currently seems that there are approximately three intercutting features. James and James H are currently working on a possible track way, with various pottery finds and small amounts of worked flint. Hayley and Chris have had great success excavating a rather deep ditch with a complex series of fills and multiple pottery and iron finds!

It dawned on us today the size of our excavation – the trench measures 100m x 4m. With reinforcements arriving on Saturday and help from our friends from SSARG, we will take it in our stride!

Finally! We had a special visitor on site for the first time this season – Woofton spent the day supervising the team!

The excavation began in earnest today. When the boundaries of the trench had been marked out the top-soil and sub-soil was removed, James and Andy machine watched – looking for features identified on the geophysical survey.

Whilst the trench was being machined, Hayley, Chris and James H set about piecing together and erecting the tent on site.

After the team had taken a well-earned lunch break, we pressed on. The tent team were tasked in tidying the edges of excavation and troweling back the site, as James and Andy continued machine watching. As the trench was trowelled back several features stood out, some of which are the clearest we’ve seen during the Lufton Project.

By the end of today the team had made excellent progress: we have managed to remove all of the top-soil and sub-soil from our planned area of excavation, and we have trowelled back half of that area.

We also had our neighbour visit us on site with the infamous bread stealing dog, he presented us with the brilliant sign pictured below. To serve as a warning to all those in camp!

All in all we’ve had an excellent day, even managing to avoid the rain! It was topped off by a visit to the Masons Arms, which saw James and Andy deep in thought strategising tomorrow’s activities.

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.