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Personal Accounts
Location: Suffolk
PERSONAL ACCOUNTS OF THE BARBER’S POINT DIG, 24TH AUGUST 2004 – 10TH SEPTEMBER 2004
The Last Day
“It was a bloody great hole.” Said Richard Newman, surveying the cleared-up site.
A very hard core of volunteers, reinforced by Philippa Laurence-Jones and Roger Ball, responded to the call to restore the site at the end of the dig. Because Paul the digger driver was also the engineer of the lifeboat, and because the boat had to go to Hartlepool for a refit, the trench-filling was postponed from the Friday to Tuesday, 14th September. Blustery winds with heavy showers further delayed the work. It was finally completed by lunch time on Thursday, with all the turfs replaced, the site restored and tools removed; the mobile office and loos left on Friday.
It had been a marvellous experience, and a tremendous team spirit had developed, clouded only by the realisation among some of the more senior members that the years had taken their toll when it came to barrow pushing and digging!
Richard Marson
PERSONAL ACCOUNTS OF THE BARBER’S POINT DIG, 24TH AUGUST 2004 – 10TH SEPTEMBER 2004
Day 7
First the weather – an idyllic day, warm and sunny with one of the highest tides of the year. Then the team of nearly thirty over the day, who came on site to dig the two metre squares, to bore out environmental samples and to start the process of washing all the finds made so far. Today these remained mainly early Roman, but included a Paleolithic arrowhead nearly 10,000 years old, and a large piece of a more modern Saxon pot.
 The borers identified the Roman river shore line when the site was an island, and the diggers continued their competitive search for finds.
So the second and lasting memory of the day is the really marvellous esprit de corps which surrounds the whole project. The enthusiasm of everyone is magical and very well guided by Jezz Meredith, the County Archaeological Services Manager, presiding professional guide and mentor for us all.
Richard Marson
PERSONAL ACCOUNTS OF THE BARBER’S POINT DIG, 24TH AUGUST 2004 – 10TH SEPTEMBER 2004
Day 5
27 volunteers reported for work on this bank holiday morning. The sun was shining but there was a distinctly autumnal chill in the brisk wind blowing from the north east.
The first task was to lay out with string a grid of two metre squares covering the area from which the turf had been removed on days 1 to 3. The workers were then divided up into teams of 3 or 4 and allocated individual squares. The next task was to remove six inches of the surface soil and stones using spades and to sieve this from a selected cross section of the squares.
This was a painstaking exercise the interest being maintained by the excitement of the very occasional find of fragments of pottery. It was made more awkward by the high wind that spread a fine red sand over workers who were down wind of the siever.
The next group of squares had to be tackled by a trowelling technique. We were required to remove 4 inches or thereabouts of the soil systematically in two stages of around 2 inches each searching in the process for any pottery fragments. We had rather limited luck in our square (2044) finding only a half dozen fragments but two with nice identifiable rims. The character of the squares varied enormously. We found many flints some large in a pebbly base while some adjacent squares were almost pure sand with patches of clay.
The work continued through the high wind with scattered occasional showers which had the welcomed effect of dampening down the sandy dust while the Iken yacht race took place on the other side of the river wall. I think that it was felt that a good day’s work had been done with progress made but that an awful lot more had to be done in the remaining time available.
PERSONAL ACCOUNTS OF THE BARBER’S POINT DIG, 24TH AUGUST 2004 – 10TH SEPTEMBER 2004
Day 4
The weather was rather off putting this morning, to say the least, and many people made their excuses. The bravest of the team arrived, before the professionals, I might add, at 9 o'clock, ready for anything. Since the digger had already arrived Anna, who had not been involved in anything archaeological for the last ten years, was left in the unenviable position of deciding how deep it should dig, until David arrived to relieve her.
While the digger ate up the top soil, we continued to turf lift. Though this was a fairly miserable and wet task, particularly as the designated area continued to grow as we dug, it meant that we later appreciated all the more the chance to scrabble through the dug mud for finds. Wet, filthy, and with the digger spraying the sandy soil into our eyes, mouths and hair, we seemed to forget our woes as we became “real” archaeologists. As each of we amateurs found our first piece of pottery there were little triumphant squeaks coming from various mounds of mud. But we tended to get over-excited, and many a piece of flint and stone had to be kindly rejected by the ever-patient and good-natured professionals. We sieved and we dug and we scraped and we got in the way, until we were sent off to lunch, convinced that we had been of great help.
 As part of the “green team” I was on the surveying team after lunch. Most of this had already been done in the first two days, but John kindly taught us the basics anyway. On the first day John had taken an arbitrary point on the site and calculated the distance and angles of various other points to it. Then, some of these points having been points on the Ordinance Survey map of the area, he was able to match up each point on the site and get its co-ordinates. This was not as easy to do for Barber’s Point as it usually is, because of the lack of fixed points such as buildings, or roads. The river, being tidal, is of course no help. However, with the use of small mounds and the like, our eminent surveyor has succeeded in matching up the “geo-phys”, the OS map and his own survey of the site, ably abetted, I am sure, by the Red and Blue groups.
Pippa Bone
PERSONAL ACCOUNTS OF THE BARBER’S POINT DIG, 24TH AUGUST 2004 – 10TH SEPTEMBER 2004
Day 4
The turfing team are hard at it exposing Trench 2. We have got into a rhythm and are getting proud of our collectively gained new skills, exclaiming at the size or excellence of newly cut sods. This keeps us all going as it is heavy work and quite tough. Despite the wettest August in years the soil below about 3 or 4 inches is in fact bone dry sand. Some of us are slicing through the matted grass, some working the spade under the slices and lifting them into a wheelbarrow, and some taking the wheel barrows to the turf wall where we lay grass to grass and soil to soil. The wall-builders have to begin the day repairing the wall, which the cows, especially Number 30 who has eaten the label off the office key, having walked over or lifted up and chewed pieces with enticingly green soft grass during the night. And all this in a strong wind and driving rain. The ‘workers’ are clad variously in sailing waterproofs, a Sherlock Holmes coat, and anoraks while one dispenses with any coat on the basis that the wind will dry us as soon as the rain moves on.
After our morning coffee, expertly provided by Pippa Marson, back to the turfing ground to do another 5 metres more as the geophysics survey has not matched to the ground surveys done on the two preceding days by the red and blue teams. Then, feeling in need of a break, we walk over to Trench 1 which we de-turfed on days 1 and 2, when it was mostly fine and windy except for a couple of huge rain storms from which we ran to the shelter of the “office” as we saw the steel grey curtain advancing across the river from Iken. There the mechanical digger is taking off the soil above the ‘living level’ where the careful excavation will begin. The spoil, or unstratified layer, is heaped up on the river side of the trench, up to 6 or 8 feet high.
 As we start sieving the mountains of spoil we get all covered in a reddish brown sand from head to foot. The finds of pottery pieces begin. News passes along the heaps as Samian ware, the ‘Ritz’ of pottery is found, and we think, but will be learning more as the days progress, fragments of York grey, Colchester grey, and Belgian Black. Jokes pass around about small Roman boys putting broken plates from their homes on walls and shattering them with volleys of stones. A hard but enjoyable day as we discover more of the joys of archaeology.
Alison Andrews
PERSONAL ACCOUNTS OF THE BARBER’S POINT DIG, 24TH AUGUST 2004 – 10TH SEPTEMBER 2004
Day 2
 My first thought on arrival at the sight was, I must admit, “What crazy people would settle here?” And I love marshes, having lived next to Dingle in Dunwich, and a few yards from the river Blythe. However, when I had a look at the unfinished survey, I realised that the area formed a low knob or kopje and only needed a watchtower to give warning of any approach from the sea. There is fresh water and a harbour of sorts, and of course there were no cedar fences or river walls, so the topography was quite different.
 Next I was amazed by the energy of the turf-lifters, rightly rewarded at midday by cheers as the last sod joined the wall – which might have been designed for those of us writing the site diary.
I had to leave at lunch time so missed that soaking, and Friday’s, but I daresay I’ll catch up by the end of the project.
Judith Foorde
PERSONAL ACCOUNTS OF THE BARBER’S POINT DIG, 24TH AUGUST 2004 – 10TH SEPTEMBER 2004
Day 1
It was amazing to arrive on the site this morning, in a place where people have probably not lived for 2000 years. It is an empty landscape, only marsh, grassland and the river bordered by its mudflats. Lapwings flocked past and we could have actually been in Roman times, for all of the 21st century we could see.
Work opened today under a fast sky with clouds of every colour flying past. The dark ones were very wet and a torrential downpour chased everyone to the van in mid morning. However, enthusiasm was not damped and the red and green teams were soon hard at work ‘sodding’. The aim was to clear an area 10 by 30 metres as directed by the professional archaeologists, so that the digger could come in on Friday.
The work was very demanding, physical and with plenty of heavy lifting. All the turf had to be piled up into walls, where it will hopefully survive until we can replace it. Audrey Aves was in charge of building neat walls like miniature river defences with the removed sods.
Tom Miller Jones, Bob Prince and Neil Mahler chopped out a neat trench on the west side of the site, using a Victorian heart-shaped spade and lots of determination. They used a chunk of concrete and a stone to keep their line straight, and at one point went over an area of clay lumps. ‘Hope it’s not the sodding Roman Wall.’ was muttered at this point.
A more technical approach was taken by Richard Marson and his fast working team on the eastern trench. They used an old lead line to mark the edge of their trench, and were rewarded by The First Find.
A hugely dedicated group hacked away at the central area. Colin Fletcher and William Megraw were described as ‘demon workers’ but were ably supported by Pippa Marson , Alison Andrews and others.
Meanwhile the Blue team was being instructed in the art of surveying by John Duffy. The information was detailed and technical, but no-one was in any doubt that the novices would handle the equipment successfully. The aim is to look at the ground for hints and clues of earlier use.
Debbie Bone
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