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Day 1 – Deturfing and site tours

The first day on site is always a challenge. There is so much to set up and to get going. The weather was amazing. Hot, humid, close, and no clouds in sight. Despite this, we managed to put up the bell tent, take an extensive site tour, go through all of the risk assessment and health and safety information, introduce ourselves and even get down to some deturfing in the afternoon. Here are some piccies of our first day. After a morning of paperwork and introductions, we went on a site tour. Continue reading →

Civil War Inspired Music

Each day that we’re digging, we’ll be driving to site from the University of Southampton to Basing House. That means that each day we have nearly two hours to fill. We’ve been putting together a Civil War themed playlist to wile away the time. So far, we only have 8 or so tracks. Continue reading →

Final Preparations

I’ve been doing some last minute preparations, ready for the first day of our dig tomorrow. We how have a Facebook page! We’ve been live for half an hour and already have 17 followers. Join the crowd! The page is here: https://www.facebook.com/BasingHouseCAT I’ve also made a ton of stickers. So that when you come to visit us, you can easily see who is a member of the project team. We’ll be wearing these: Gareth and his stickers. Continue reading →

Counting Shovels

This morning, Dan, Chris, Gareth and I packed up the vans and transported all of the kit that we are going to need for the next three weeks of excavating up to Basing House. The weather was gorgeous (continuing on this week’s theme) and we stopped at Barton’s Mill (a very nice pub just next-door to Basing House) for a quick soft drink with lots of ice before returning in convoy to Southampton. Packing the vans. Continue reading →

The V&A’s games residency

I’m adding a link to the blogroll which come October, I’ll be following with interest. Sophia George is a young game designer who is about to take up a residency at the venerable museum. On the V&A website she says: I will use the history of British design shown in the Britain 1500-1900 galleries as the starting point for my research. Continue reading →

Paperwork and un-Commonly Hot

This week we’ve been working hard to get everything ready for our dig starting next week. We travelled up to Basing House on Tuesday to meet with all of the staff that work at the site to talk about last minute details. While we were there we walked over to Basingstoke Common to look at the areas that Clare Allen and her team will be surveying over the three weeks. Continue reading →

Mary Rose

I took a trip with work colleagues yesterday to check out the new Mary Rose museum. For those international readers who may be unfamiliar with “Britain’s Pompeii” Mary Rose is a Tudor warship that sank in Portsmouth Harbour during a battle with the French. Half the hull, and an amazing number of objects were preserved in the silt, and the site has been a marine archaeological “dig” for decades. Continue reading →

Background Reading – The 1964 Excavation Report

We thought that we would share the report of the excavation that we are revisiting this summer. Hampshire Field Club Report This is the 1964 report of the excavation from the 1960s that was published in the Hampshire Field Club’s proceedings: Combley_1964_BasingHouse (a very large PDF – 11MB). Continue reading →

Meet the Team – Dan Joyce

Dan Joyce, digging in Italy What will you be doing at Basing House? Supervising some diggers and experiment with some random recording methods. What you are hoping to experience at Basing House? Some exciting archaeology and a slight rest from dissertation writing. What’s the unique thing that attracts you to Basing House? The shear amount of different archaeology that is on site. Continue reading →

Guest Blog: Clare Allen – The Defensive Role of Basing House and its Environs

Clare Allen Student Basingstoke Common Survey Project We’re very happy to share the details of another fantastic project that will be happening at the same time as our dig. Postgraduate student, Clare Allen, will be working at Basing House for the duration of the excavation, to investigate the surrounding landscape of the Civil War period of the site. Clare has written a guest blog post below about her plans. Continue reading →

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