Anstey Big Dig

I and my son had a fabulous day yesterday on Sunday when we went to our friends' house in order to participate in Anstey Big Dig organised by the Charnwood Roots project. I felt originally that putting a whole weekend into an archaeological activity would be too much on my last weekend here for a month. In addition, considering the size of our garden and the terracing between the plots, I suspect there is very little left, even if there are bits of brick in the soil in our herb plot. But the houses tend to be brick here, so there are many fragments about. Luckily our friends wanted to dig a test pit and only committed themselves for a Sunday, which suited me and Alex perfectly. Phil ironically had a work commitment - in a community archaeology group near Market Harborough, so he only could come afterwards to the pub.

Dave removing turf (following my instructions)

It turned out that my decision not to go to London on the only Sunday I and Alex could to see the Natural History Museum due to the warm weather and curiosity (plus knowing that there was a paddling pool and tree house for the children) turned out to be a fortunate one. The Big Dig had fewer volunteers than originally anticipated and the area 'manager' just popped in thrice in order to check that the thing was started, ongoing and finished. I ended up explaining in a more detailed manner what we were doing and telling about the local geology and archaeology while keeping eye on the paperwork and weeding rocks from the find tray. Sadly, it turned out that the top soil had been stripped when this particular estate had been built in the 1960s and sold away, but we definitely could demonstrate that. There were only 25 centimetres of turf and soil on top of the virgin clay. There luckily were some finds, including an iron nail, tiny bits of porcelain, slag and a fragment from a clay pipe. The truncated stratigraphy meant that we managed to get the test pit finished while the children from four families ran riot and we had a nice outdoor lunch with hod dogs and ice cream.

Richard Huxley checks our progress

The Charnwood Roots project is related to the ongoing compilation of the Victoria County History for Leicestershire. The project got a large grant from the Lottery Heritage Fund and brought archaeologists from the University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) to Anstey. The preliminary results, communicated in a briefing at the end of the Dig, included at least some sherds of Roman pottery, a Stamford sherd and some Medieval Potters Marston. I and my friend also spotted a big piece from a black Cistercian beaker from near the church. The project will return to tell about the results of the recording of the finds. Let's see if I am in the country then!