Week Five, 30th Sept - 4th Oct 2013

On Thursday this week I visited the Hereford Sixth Form College to meet with the head of their Archaeology Dept Jason Williams. The HSFC students had done some work experience with headland in the past and the plan was to discuss whether the students could work on an old site archive that is being stored at our office on behalf of the Warwickshire Museum Services.

The commercial excavation of a supposed Roman auxiliary fort and settlement at Bleachfield Street in Alcester some years ago has still not been fully completed. The unfortunate situation of this partially processed site is that the developer who commissioned the excavation failed to deliver the post-excavation phase of the project. Over the years there have been a number of attempts by both Headland and the fantastic volunteers at Alcester Heritage Centre to process of much as possible. However, there has been no real consolidated and completed effort due to lack of funds.

With the support of both the Warwickshire Museum Services and The Alcester Heritage Centre I intend to have the students process the site so that it can be archived and saved. This will take the form of weekly afternoon sessions where the students will be trained in finds and environmental processing with the aim of completing the work in time for the Alcester Roman Festival next summer.

I have spent a lot of time this week going over the archive, sorting the processed and completed parts from the unprocessed and partially processed parts, not to mention trying to get my head around all the associated paperwork. We seem to have our work cut out but it will be worth the effort to save what is an important site in regards to the early military occupation of Alcester, not to mention a fantastic opportunity for the archaeology students to contribute to archaeological research in their area and to develop their practical archaeological skills.

I am to go back to HSFC next week with a plan of action.

Picture of the finds store which has been home to the Alcester site for a number of years. The plastic bags on the floor and shelves contain the unprocessed and partially processed finds.