The site is put to bed...

Julie shows us what happens at the end of a dig:

The site having been cleaned, planned, photographed and viewed by the 100s of visitors to the Roman Festival in the Park, despite the awful weather, it was our task today to put in place a protective covering ready for backfilling on Thursday morning. The sun shone for us as we carried the ‘terram’ to site and figured out how to fit the sheets into field drains, deep robbing trenches and all the carefully excavated cut features.

The site was in a pristine condition after the excellent trowelling job done by everyone on Friday – all the masonry and different coloured deposits looked sharp and clear and not a loose crumb of soil in site! This made covering it all over quite sad but at least we know it’s all lying there safe and sound, well protected from baking summer sun and winter ice and snow. Next time the trench is opened up the fabric covering will just need to be rolled back and everyone’s acheivements and discoveries this year will be revealed once more.

The work didn’t take long even though we had to bail out the duck pond in the Roman road trench and one of the very deep robbed-out buttresses:

And sort out some of last year’s fabric to finish the job:

Almost done:

 

Finished!

Until a group of French school children arrived, the Park was quiet but a few visitors dropped by to see what we were doing, including Matt B who arrived for a final look (but my camera wasn’t handy, I didn’t leave all the work to Mike and Gill).
It’s been a fun four weeks, everyone worked hard, there was lots of great team work and the discovery of the stone building is a truly significant find that challenges the previously accepted ideas regarding this area of the City.

Now back to the office to record those beautifully washed bricks.......