We were blessed with dry weather on week 5 of the excavations as digging continued through the clay soil to reach the bottom of the ditch in Trench 1.  Meanwhile in Trench 2 more stones were being uncovered below the subsoil.

As more stones were revealed at the southwest edge of Trench 2 Neil took the difficult decision to suspend the excavations there for this season.  We knew the farmer was putting his cows out into the field at the end of May which meant that both trenches would have to be recorded and backfilled before then. (Who knew archaeology could be so stressful!).  The bottom of the ditch in Trench 1 was revealed after much hard work trowelling out the wet clay.

The first Dig Day in Week 6 started off very wet but our dedicated Director was on site recording the bottom of the ditch before backfilling commenced in the afternoon,  More equipment was bought for the completion of the backfilling on the second day.  With the help of a dozen volunteers, and a new wheelbarrow and spades we made short work of covering up the trenches in readiness for the invasion of the bullocks!

There will be no digging in June but we are hoping to begin excavations in the next field in July.