As we all arrived and headed up to site we did wonder what the weather would have in store for us.  The forecast had not been great but we were all now knew we could not rely on that.  As it happens, we only had to down trowels the once which saw us retreating to the tents for lunch.

As usual the day started with the site brief from Andy for the new arrivals.  Today we were joined by Hilary and James as well as Hannah Kingsbury, whom I am sure you are all familiar with, and Rebecca.  Jan, Linda, Richard, Liz and Roger all headed out to the trenches. We were in for a busy day.

Linda and Jan were working in Trench A today on the area where the longhouse wall meets the enclosure wall. It was not long before they made a fantastic find of some glazed pottery that may be of medieval date.  The fragment of pottery was located within the lower deposit between the longhouse wall and the enclosure wall which is perfect in regards of dating evidence.

Trench B has now been completed and Rebecca and James carried out the last round of photogrammetry before Andy and Katie began backfilling.

Once Rebecca and James had finished the photogrammetry they then moved onto the recording of the north-west facing section within the north-eastern end of the longhouse.  Part of the longhouse wall was removed here to see if there was any evidence of a construction cut.  There was a possible suggestion of a cut visible on the south-west side but no evidence on the north-east side.

It was decided to extend Trench C to look further at the possible evidence of any surviving floor level within the north-eastern area of the longhouse.  After the turf was removed in this new area, Hilary was set the task, with help from Hannah, to clean back and look for any change in deposits. It will be interesting to see what we discover over the next few days within this area.

Richard continued his work from yesterday in Trench E on the north-east side of the dividing wall within the longhouse. Today he was sampling and removing the orangey deposit that they came down onto yesterday. He collected a bulk sample containing 4 sample tubs which will hopefully be able get some dating evidence from at a later date. We are looking extending this trench to the north-east to look at another area of a possible entrance. Hannah marked this out with string and cut the turf in preparation.

Last but not least is Trench F located on the north-west wall of the enclosure.  Liz, Roger and myself continued work on this today in a hope of possibly locating an entrance.  After we finished cleaning we moved on to the initial pre-excavation recording via photogrammetry and scaled trench photos.  

Once this was completed we then proceeded to work on the removal of the stone rubble within the trench and also a section of the wall.  We were lucky to have a deposit within  the wall structure which we proceeded to take a sample of.  It does not look like we have found the entrance but we should know more tomorrow.

Few words from Hannah after her visit to site today

We are now over halfway through the second season of excavation. Every time I visit the site progress has been made by the amazing group of volunteers and OAN team. One of the particular benefits of season two is that we are focussed on one area of the common. Although some aspects continue to be elusive, it is great to be able to answer questions about the form at this early stage. I can’t wait to see what might be revealed during this last week, and then through the post-excavation process.

It was lovely to see you today, Hannah and we look forward to seeing the volunteers on site tomorrow!