07 April 2024
Excavations continue although with all the rain our one trench is so waterlogged we have had to leave it until it has drained - whenever that might be! Working in a different field a couple of weeks ago we had some interesting finds of worked tools. Today, in yet another field we have begun to expose an interesting feature made up of pieces of granite which needs much more work yet so we hope to get back to that soon.
29 January 2024
AiM members would like to thank Heart of England Community Foundation, under the WVCA Impact Volunteering Small Grants Programme, for the funding we have received. The funding and support will enable AiM to offer a free volunteering opportunity to the community, details of which will be announced soon.
21 January 2024
Due to the storm forecast for today (which is now arriving later than first thought) we changed our dig to yesterday. As our previous trench (we have two on the go now in different places) had dried out considerably we spent some time on this one which proved to be very interesting. However, we need to do some more work to prove/disprove our thoughts. We will post when we have news on this trench, hopefully next weekend.
18 December 2023
AiM members continued work with our latest trench last Sunday (17 December 2023) at Northycvote Farm. We will now have a break for Christmas and the New Year and will then return to carry on. Seasons greetings to everyone and best wishes for a happy New Year.
22 October 2023
We have now closed our site at Standeford for the winter; hopefully to return in the spring.
22 October 2023
AiM's next excavations will be at Northycote Farm when we return to our winter site. We have several new areas to excavate which will begin very soon; we are just waiting for our Licence to come through.
15 September 2023
Today AiM members completed the test pit dig at St Joseph's Catholic Primary School. The conclusion is that the site consists of waste material, much of which is industrial waste. The contexts also prove this as the artefacts are a mix of old and modern with much of the modern below some of the older eg pipe stem dated 1720-1750 found above an old crisp packet and a vending machine cup. Thank you to staff at the school for the invitation to dig there.
13 September 2023
Today AiM began the test pit dig at St Josephs School and immediately found large quantities of industrial waste and pieces of furnace lining. The other finds were quite sparse in comparison and consisted of pieces of iron, glass, white glaze pot sherds etc. Research prior to the dig had established that there was nothing built on this part of the field and as the finds were just below the turf this indicated that this was most likely material that had been ‘dumped’ from somewhere else....
11 September 2023
Yesterday we worked excavating two areas at Standeford; we also spent some time drawing a plan of the site and taking levels. Both areas were interesting, the original clay feature is very enigmatic; it now has hints of once being a kiln but that is yet to be proven as there is more work to do first. The other area around the original post hole (shown in the photograph) will need to be extended which will be worked on in two weeks’ time.