CAER: Chester Amphitheatre Environs Research Project

Helen wishes next year's team well:  My blog post from the first day talked about the excitement of starting digging and the chore of removing backfill. Well, 4 weeks later we all entered the site excited to see the return of the sun (which of course only appeared on the first and last days) but sad to have reached the end of the excavation. Before morning tea break we: cleared the site of water that had accumulated over the past few days; put down a new breathable fabric layer (terram) to protect the site till next year and disassembled to marquee that we had for the last week. Over tea break games of frisbee and football were played (to make the most of the sun) with friends we had made over the excavation. Bailing out the rain water   We then recapped some of the photography tips from previous weeks. Returning to Grosvenor Park for lunch break we witnessed the JCBs putting the soil back in the trench. The speed at which to machines seem to undo 4 weeks wor...

After a bit of a slow start quite a large assemblage of finds has been retrieved over the last 3 and a half weeks and predictably this week the excavation of part of a ditch running north/south across the site is producing bags and bags of animal bone and pottery. Last year’s backfill produced an amazing range of finds: clay tobacco pipes, lead shot, fragments of Samian pottery, as well as Westerwald stoneware and post-medieval Spanish olive jar and a variety of other post-medieval wares, including slipware dish fragments, blackware vessels and pieces of Cistercian ware cups. It’s interesting to see what ended up on last year’s spoil heap rather than in finds trays but it is easy to miss fragments when it’s wet and muddy. Once the backfill had been removed the quantity of clay tobacco pipes found fell considerably and stopped completely after the last of the 17th century demolition deposits were removed from the south side of the trench. It looks as if we are firmly in the 16th ce...

Ben gets to grips with geophysics: Today began as every other day it seems, wet and cold. This morning me, Andrew and Dan were given the task of clearing a section of the site where it was believed the main wall would continue across the site. Needless to say this was not very pleasant as the area was covered with pools of water and mud, after this was cleared we began to trowel at the area, and started to uncover the wall. However after break we did not get a chance to finish our job as we then had the task of surveying an area using geophysics, more specifically a resistivity meter. This process was quite enjoyable and was certainly a new experience for all of us. Christian talks us through the last full day on site (boo! L ) After almost four weeks at Grosvenor Park today was the penultimate day of the dig and the last day of any excavation on site, so everyone was busy finishing digging and recording the features before the terram is laid and the tren...

Ryan’s plans are scuppered by the changeable weather… As the last day approaches it's all hands on deck as everybody is trying to finish the features and other areas of interest before Friday comes. The weather has been vile over the past few days starting mostly with the open afternoon which happened yesterday. To everyone's surprise, we had   quite a few people turning up, even in the continuous heavy downpour of rain. As for today, the morning was sunny and the afternoon was dull and overcast until the last hour when, yes, the heavens opened AGAIN. The context that Michael and I have been digging has finally been finished, removing the mortar and brick layer. We used the last hour of the day to plan the feature but with the dumpy level ready and set up it decided to rain so we left it until tomorrow. Group C finished the last session of finds washing this morning and we now have a completed list for the portfolio. All in all another day on site however with the end lo...

Maeve reflect's on Tuesday's events... Tuesday was a pretty fun day, despite it consisting of rain, mud and more mud. In the morning me, Cat, Jay and Dan were taught how to do geophysics with Amy and Meggen (who we were all happy to see!). We measured and set up the ropes and the resistivity machine adjacent to the site. This was to try and determine how far the features seen in the trench continue across the park. However we had some problems with the machine as the ground was too compact, so this will be continued another day. It was open afternoon after lunch and while some people were giving tours and washing finds me and Cat were still trowelling in the pouring rain. Our finds mostly consisted of bone and tiny fragments of pottery and after around 2 hours of trowelling we were slowly starting to sink into the mud! We swapped with some others so we could do finds after this and enjoyed talking to the public about our finds (in a nice dry tent!). Despite being covered...

Rafi... Today has been the coldest and rainiest day of the four weeks, but possibly the funniest! In the morning, my team went to the finds store for the final finds session in which we finished our "finds record sheet" with the help of Gill and many interesting books. We definitely have gained a lot of practice and we realized we can easily recognise most of the artefacts in our trays. After that, we carried on washing and marking some finds, while Gill explained what we were doing and what we had found. In the afternoon all the team were on site for an exciting (and wet) open day. Despite the rain, many people gathered around (we were really pleased to see people from past weeks coming back for the open day). We showed them the site and how we worked (digging and troweling), we displayed the best artefacts (pottery, glass, etc.) found also in past years, and we did some washing of finds directly on site, to make people see how it worked. Despite the rain, i...

Andrew finds the pressure too much… Friday was a good end to the week. The first half we troweled a new patch of the site and discovered a cut feature with some good finds in. Ben found the remnants of a 16th century glass drinking vessel and I found half of a copper alloy pin (similar to ones that Jay, Dan and I have found before). We made it through the windy and cold morning to then spend the rest of the day washing and marking finds. Finds marking was torturous, the guilt of messing up the finds was too much to bear and soon only Helen of team D was left marking finds. The rest of us went back to the calm waters of finds washing. The week was full of illness for myself, but next week looks good. I look forward to the open day which I hope many of the blog readers will attend. It has been a great experience and I have had a lot of fun.  Helen, Andrew, Ben and Daniel wash finds Daniel finds finds-washing peaceful… In the morning I continued the excava...