Peter Guest, Senior Lecturer in Roman Archaeology at Cardiff University and Dig Director, will guide us around Caerwent in the morning (forum-basilica, Pound Lane, Courtyard House, Temple and South Walls) and the Roman fortress of Caerleon in the afternoon (amphitheatre, Prysg Field Barracks, Fortress baths and the Roman Legionary museum)
Charge: £10.00 per head
Max. no. 25
Reading Roman Inscriptions - afternoon of 2 September 2017
*David Bird will lead a workshop on “Reading Roman Inscriptions” which will include a general introduction to Roman Inscriptions. This will be followed by a look at standard abbreviations, changes through time and examples of different types of inscription. There will be ample time for participants to try their hand at translation.
Charge: £7.50 per person
Max. no. 17
This is an opportunity to hear Emma Corke talk about the Roman tile kiln found in Reigate in 2004. She will be joined by Peter Burgess who will explain how it was rebuilt. After these talks, there will be a chance to visit Reigate caves.
Charge: none. Please put a donation in the box.
Max. no 15
If you are interested plese e-mail Irene Goring at irene@greenhayes.plus.com
To complement David Bird’s “ Reading Roman Inscriptions” workshop on 2 September, there will be a visit to the British Museum. Dirk Booms, Curator in the Department of Greece and Rome, will walk us round 2 galleries for about an hour to help us appreciate and translate the inscriptions there. He will explain the abbreviations and the different facts that can be interpreted from inscriptions in general.
Instructions and timings will be distributed closer to the time.
Charge: None. Please make a donation to the BM
Max. no. 15
This visit offers the opportunity to see two Sussex excavations in progress. In the morning David Rudling, Academic Director of the Sussex School of Archaeology, will take us around Plumpton Roman Villa, a winged corridor house, and tell us about the three years of excavations there. In the afternoon, either Rob Wallace or David Millum, Dig Directors, will guide us around Bridge Farm - a Romano British settlement - where excavations have been in progress since 2013. There will be a pub lunch between the two visits.
Below are the dates for the forthcoming Winter series of lectures . They take place on the first Tuesday of the month except for January, when the 2nd Tuesday has been chosen. As soon as speakers are confirmed the information willl be updated.
An 8th season of excavation in the current project took place in the field adjacent to the known Roman villa. Two trenches were sited to both pick up and clarify features found in 2015 and to explore magnetic anomalies to the NE of the 2015 trench. The smaller of the trenches to the west of the main trench uncovered just the base of the IA enclosure ditch and the lower 60cm of a storage pit, confirming the loss of archaeological features to erosion on the western slope of the field.
Excavations will continue between in June and July 2017 in the field adjacent to Cocks Farm Roman villa. Previous seasons have uncovered intense Iron Age and Roman activity with grain storage pits, IA enclosure ditches, Roman field boundaries, agricultural gullies, the remains of ovens/hearths, IA cremations, Bronze Age and Iron Age ritual activity . If you are interested in joining us please contact Nikki Cowlard at nikki.cowlard@btinternet.com.
Between 1995 and 1997 Surrey Archaeological Society carried out excavations under the direction of Steve Dyer to investigate archaeological evidence revealed when a tree blew over at Cocks Farm, Abinger. The presence of a villa had been known since the 1870s when Roman walls were found during the expansion of a kitchen garden . When well-preserved remains of an east-west range of a Roman building were discovered, the fieldwork was targeted to provide information for the future management of the site and to indicate a suitable area for scheduling as an ancient monument.
Ashtead Roman villa was first discovered in the 1920s and excavated by A. W. G. Lowther and A. R. Cotton, when extensive evidence for a tilery was also noted. Further work was carried out in the 1960s by John Hampton who carried out a site survey; the site had much less vegetation cover than is now the case.
