the Trust’s archaeological projects in April

In April 2014, the Trust kept busy as always. We worked through the whole range of archaeological projects, from consultancy and research for desk-based assessments or heritage statements, preliminary tasks like site visits and Written Schemes of Investigation, through fieldwork projects, to varied ‘post-ex.’ work, all on behalf of our clients, while our team of dedicated volunteers continued all their hard work for the Trust at and on Roman Circus House.

We are specialists in the archaeology of Colchester where, of course, we are based, but our projects again took us over a wide area of Essex and into Suffolk. In April, our work on archaeological projects included the Williams & Griffin excavation in Colchester High Street, where we began investigating the first of three sites on the 14th April, with a full excavation team, and which will continue until September. Trust archaeologist Don Shimmin hand-excavated a large pit at the Greyfriars boutique hotel during our watching brief there, within the site of the precinct of the friary, and we conducted an evaluation in the new Castle Park playground. We made four preliminary site visits in Colchester, including 97 High Street, the historic East Hill House and the Colchester Institute. We undertook an initial survey on a site at Braintree and a historic building recording project at Great Dunmow. Senior Trust archaeologist Howard Brooks attended the annual meeting of the Advisory Committee for Archaeological Excavation in Essex, at Chelmsford, where archaeology professionals from all over the county get together and share what we’re all doing, and to discuss the future role and aims of the Committee.

At Roman Circus House we were preparing desk-based assessments and doing post-ex. work, including writing reports, and processing and beginning to study material from the Williams & Griffin excavation. Two of the reports which were ‘in prep.’ were for a site at Napier Road in the old garrison at Colchester and for a building recording project at Alphamstone. We completed three desk-based assessments and two reports, one for an evaluation at Coggeshall and one for an evaluation at Long Melford in Suffolk. We will be undertaking further fieldwork on the site at Long Melford. We also undertook some work on behalf of the Colchester Archaeological Group on their Great Tey project, and we liaised with Colchester Castle Museum on finds for their new displays. That’s what was going on upstairs; downstairs there was all the on-going hard work by our dedicated volunteers…

Also at Roman Circus House, there were a lot of other things going on! Trust director Philip conducted two media interviews about the Roman circus and inviting volunteers to come and help us in the garden of the former Sergeants’ Mess, next door to Roman Circus House, where we have built new stumps for the circus starting-gates. The volunteer gardening day was a success but, sadly, there had been a serious fire in the building of the former Sergeants’ Mess the night before. We hosted the Friends of the Colchester Archaeological Trust (FCAT) Roman army event here and, later in the month, an FCAT meeting. The Colchester Young Archaeologists’ Club (YAC) held their session for April in the large room of the circus centre, on the ground floor of Roman Circus House. The quarterly Council of Management meeting for the Colchester Archaeological Trust was held here, and also a full Health & Safety training day for all members of Trust staff. However, interesting and important as all this was, the most important activity here in April was probably all the work on and finishing of the new stumps of the circus starting-gates, to get them ready for visitors. The new stumps are now triumphantly completed!

With many thanks, as  always, to all our clients and partners and to our volunteers.

All our completed reports on fieldwork projects are published in our online archive at http://cat.essex.ac.uk/

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