CAER: Chester Amphitheatre Environs Research Project

Finally, the smaller of the trenches has been completely uncovered, and the tarp removed. While a sudden bout of rain hampered efforts to do much more than this, it was still cause for celebration, and we stopped to marvel at the sight. Most impressively, a stone structure – its angle likely caused by it sinking into a ditch – was now visible, although we’d stepped on it many times before! Unfortunately, it did start to rain, and our next task, scraping the top layer of dirt off, turned into a muddy slog. When break time rolled around, there was a brief moment of trying to all huddle together in the tool shed for shelter, before someone had a better idea and herded us back off to the pavilion. While it did stop raining eventually, it was almost time to pack up at that point! Hopefully we will have more progress tomorrow. Delenn

Da nielle  finds evidence for French cuisine?  Today I was working on an area near the wall of the building, I was gradually taking down the soil and found a large amount of snail shells and evidence of charcoal. Dan was not sure if it might be a feature or if it was a waste pit like Frances and Christian have been working on next to me. I will be continuing on with this area on Tuesday until I have come to the bottom of the charcoal. Liam avoids spoilers and gets spoils: Today, for me, was generally made up of the same activity. Excavating mine and Liz's trench never seemed to end, mortar and brick becoming the new bane of our lives. Luckily the site was calm and allowed everyone to have a friendly chat while working. Whilst avoiding spoilers for the ‘Song of Ice and Fire’, I managed to find some more carved stone, bone, lead, pottery and a shaped piece of quartz possibly from a Roman ring (cool! – Ed.). I plan to enjoy the three day weekend and ...

Catherine also reports on some more of Monday’s finds: On Monday I planned the section of wall that I had been excavating for the past week. I had to use a grid to draw each stone in the wall and lost my balance a few times almost falling into the supposed grave that was close by, much to Helen's delight! Later on in the day I moved on to digging with Maeve, Hayley and Rhianna, and Maeve found a Jet bead! Which was very exciting!  The jet bead! Lovely!  Rhianna, Maeve and Catherine on the look out for more finds

It’s here! The 2013 excavation season of the University of Chester and CWaC (Cheshire West and Chester Council) begins on May 7th in Grosvenor Park in the middle of Chester. The plan is to complete the excavation of the timber framed building(s) discovered last year, which may be late medieval or early post-medieval in date, and to further investigate and reveal more of the substantial medieval masonry building also found last year. Hopefully we will also dig deeper into history and find evidence of the Roman road that runs through the park and any settlement alongside it. We are digging Monday - Friday (except Bank Holidays) from 7 th to 31 st May. If you are in Chester, feel free to stop by the trench for a chat and see what we are up to, or visit us on our official Open Day on the 28 th of May for a chance to handle artefacts such as Roman pottery, Civil War lead shot and much more! We'll be posting regularly about the dig with a whole new cast of 2 nd year archaeology...

Mark starts us off early on Monday morning - Now that a good deal of the compacted overburden has been prized from between the gaps in the 17th c. rubble surface, it is much easier to envisage the footprint of the building previously mentioned by Heidi. Regularly occuring padstones on which timber posts may have sat protrude over the surrounding building debris. These padstones do not appear to be of homogenous manufacture. One appears to be made of a series of mortared Tudor-style bricks indicating that materials from an older building was used, and this structure may have been a service or lower status wing rather than a mansion hall (if at all associated with Cholmondley's Hall). A medieval green glaze sherd was also found in this level. Metallic artefacts have not been abundant at the dig as yet, but an interesting copper alloy chain and attached "T" bar (see pic - possibly part of a suspension mechanism, size approximately 30mm x 30 mm), was found centrally within th...