Great Yarmouth community test-pitting
A couple of weekends back, we led a team of volunteers from Great Yarmouth in a test-pitting project designed to examine the layers of archaeology within this historic town. We excavated seven test-pits at the southern and northern ends of the town, and selected locations inside and outside the town walls, so we could compare…
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A celebration of Hertfordshire’s A120 archaeology
To mark the completion of the new 3.9km-long A120 bypass north of Little Hadham, Hertfordshire, Hertfordshire County Council and Arup organised a celebration event in December 2021, illustrating the project’s success and showcasing the archaeology found by Cotswold Archaeology during road construction works. Beginning in 2016 and working alongside GRAHAM Construction, archaeological investigations uncovered evidence…
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Uncovering Great Yarmouth’s history
Cotswold Archaeology are delighted to be partnering Great Yarmouth Borough Council in the ‘Uncovering Great Yarmouth’ community archaeology project. This is part of the recently awarded High Street Heritage Action Zone Scheme, a four-year,£2.4m programme, led by the borough council in partnership with Historic England which puts heritage and the local community at the heart…
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Cotswold Archaeology and Clare Castle: schools’ outreach
During the third and final year of our community excavations at Clare Castle Country Park, our Outreach and Community Engagement Officer, Caroline Adams, has been working closely with two schools in Clare, Suffolk – Clare Community Primary School and Stour Valley Community School. In the summer 2021, well before the excavations started, an on-line programme…
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Cotswold Archaeology visit to local Brownies group
Our Outreach & Community Engagement Officer, Caroline Adams, recently visited the South Cerney Brownies to help the children achieve their archaeology badge. Activities included the Brownies comparing archaeology with palaeontology through group discussions and matching images to the correct discipline, and making ‘pinch’ pots: re-creating prehistoric pots with additional decorations using simple tools and fingertips.…
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Clare Castle: review of our 2021 excavations
We have now completed the third and final excavation at Clare Castle, bringing to an end a campaign that started in 2018 with the award of the NLHF grant to Clare Castle Country Park Trust. During this final season we have been able to excavate three trenches and two test pits in a three-week period…
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Fragments of a liturgical comb, Clare Castle 2021 Excavations
Sometimes the very best is saved until the last and this was certainly the case in the closing days of the community excavations undertaken at Clare Castle on behalf of the Clare Castle Country Park Trust. A discovery was made that is not only incredibly rare but is one also of extraordinary beauty and fine…
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2021 Clare Castle Excavations update
Following on from our first update on our excavations at Clare Castle, on behalf of the Clare Castle Country Park Trust, we are making good progress in our three trenches. The most involved of the three is Trench 6, which we started in 2019. Here the archaeology is deep and complex, and in the previous…
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New discoveries of Suffolk’s Anglo-Saxon past unearthed in the Deben Valley
Archaeological excavation near Rendlesham is adding to Suffolk’s rich history, with archaeologists uncovering evidence of settlement and community 1,400 years ago at the time of the earliest East Anglian kings. The discoveries have come as part of the community archaeology project Rendlesham Revealed: Anglo-Saxon Life in South-East Suffolk, run by Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service…
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Everyday objects from Clare Castle
Our excavations at Clare Castle in 2018 and 2019, on behalf of the Clare Castle Country Park Trust, recovered an assemblage of finds that help us envisage life at the castle in the medieval period, and also give a glimpse of the character of the settlement that preceded it. Both seasons of work produced considerable…
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2021 Excavations at Clare Castle, Suffolk
After the disruption of Covid in 2020, we are at last able to plan a third and final season of excavation at Clare Castle in Suffolk, which we hope can take place between mid-September and early October later this year. In 2018, Clare Castle Country Park Trust received a Heritage Lottery Fund grant to help…
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Mick Aston Annual Lecture 2021 is on YouTube
For more than a year now we’ve kept largely to our homes due to Covid and haven’t been able to attend events in person that would normally happen throughout the year. To combat this, Cotswold Archaeology has recently delivered our first online lecture, welcoming over 300 people from the UK and further afield, including the…
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