As part of our extensive Outreach programme for this project, team on site welcomed four ex-servicemen who are members of Operation Nightingale.  John, Liam, Jamie and Andy joined us for the whole week and got stuck in helping us unearth some of the archaeology.

Nick, the archaeological Project Officer running the excavation, had spotted a rather fine looking brick-built structure in the south-western corner of the site.  So this was handed over to the Operation Nightingale team. Under the supervision of and with help from members of the OA excavation crew, everyone set to work.

The team threw themselves in with great gusto and considering only one of them had previous archaeological experience, it was clear that they were all naturals at cleaning and revealing the brick foundations of this building.

The structure the team was working on consists of a network of brick-built foundations standing to about 30cm high.  The structure itself measures about 23m long and 7m wide in total.  Whilst the guys from Operation Nightingale did a sterling job this week, we've still got a bit of a way to go before we can work out what exactly this building is.

In the backfilled soil which has covered the structure, the team managed to collect a nice assemblage of finds, including pottery and clay pipe.  Finds like this are clues which will help us discover the age of the structure and (hopefully!) help us to understand its original function.