Day 15
Friday 10th September 2004 - Final Day

“Oh, I’ve eaten my wheelbarrow.” Jezz

So today is the final clean-up. As the line works across the trench, moving every footprint and sweeping away the blown sand, Richard watches with mixed feelings. Much has been discovered but he would ‘dearly love to take up that little layer’. The 3D jigsaw puzzle remains ambiguous: the ditches shown by the geo-physical survey are really there; the little black blobs at the end match our own little cut; the distinctive blob on the survey can clearly be seen in the curve of the right-angle ditch. But the post holes are so big! And so many!

The line works assiduously with trowel and shovel. Jezz balances on a stepladder to get the photo from above and I sit high on the spoil bank listening to the clinks and scrapes. Waves lap. The tide is flooding in now and a warm south-west wind is blowing up. The sky is misty grey and the weather is changing. Duncan is still deep in the ground, drawing the side of the first huge cut. The 25 people on site today are for once easy to count as most of them are in a single line across the trench.

Lunch break, champagne and cake all round and Jezz is happy. Coloured earth shows up in patterns to his expert eye. The cows are lying down, and the forks and spades which have been hard at work for three weeks are neatly lined up against the bank.

At the end of the day Roy Damant took photos of the clean site from every angle. Then he drew in the features the archaeologists could visualise; this would later be added to the site drawing. Finally the last remaining volunteers lined the ditches and then stood on post holes, holding up the old Roman roof on strong arms.

Now the turf must be re-laid, and the site returned to the harebells and the birds.