Excavation at Chapelle Dom Hue, Guernsey day 11 Guernsey Archaeology 2017-09-15 | Just as we thought we were getting towards the end of the excavation, a totally unexpected discovery...
Houguette de la Taillie, Alderney, excavation 2024 Guernsey Archaeology 2024-10-04 | We're back on Alderney again, sooner than expected - this time in an attempt to find the remains of the Houguette de la Taillie, a prehistoric burial mound first investigated in 1853. But where is it?
Les Huguettes, Alderney, excavation 2024 - postscript Guernsey Archaeology 2024-05-21 | Although we didn't find what we hoped for in the first three trenches at Les Huguettes, we've had the opportunity to dig a few test-pits on the other side of the 1968-70 excavation. And one of these has come up with the goods...
Les Huguettes, Alderney, excavation 2024 days 5, 6 and 7 Guernsey Archaeology 2024-05-11 | A third trench opened at Les Huguettes but it hasn't improved the finds rate...
Les Huguettes, Alderney, excavation 2024 day 4 Guernsey Archaeology 2024-05-08 | End of day four and we've nearly finished our two trenches already... this is not quite going to plan!
Les Huguettes, Alderney, excavation 2024 day 3 Guernsey Archaeology 2024-05-07 | Three days in and a quick look at the site plan from the 1968-70 excavation, compared to where we are digging now. Still not getting the finds that we expected...
Les Huguettes, Alderney, excavation 2024 day 2 Guernsey Archaeology 2024-05-06 | End of the second day, and despite a lot of rain this morning we've made good progress with this trench, and have opened another one further up the slope. Apologies for the poor sound at the end of the clip, I'm saying 'it's surprisingly empty'...
Les Huguettes, Alderney, excavation 2024 day 1 Guernsey Archaeology 2024-05-05 | We're back on the southern edge of Longis Common, Alderney, investigating the area next to the site identified in the late 1960s as an Iron Age pottery workshop. As usual with Alderney archaeology, we're not finding quite what we expected...
Castle Cornet, Guernsey: Prisoners Walk excavation 2024, video 12 Guernsey Archaeology 2024-04-05 | A final video from the site. We've completed the last small area of excavation, which gives us a bit more information about the space immediately on the Castle side of the drawbridge pit. Now there's just the backfilling left to finish, and then an awful lot of finds to process...
Castle Cornet, Guernsey: Prisoners Walk excavation 2024, video 11 Guernsey Archaeology 2024-03-21 | We have nearly finished excavating, so here's a run through from one end of the Prisoners' Walk down into the drawbridge pit.
Castle Cornet, Guernsey: Prisoners Walk excavation 2024, video 10 Guernsey Archaeology 2024-03-14 | At last there's an end - or a bottom - in sight. We have finally hit bedrock about two metres down from the top of the cross-wall. The bedrock must carry on dropping off quite steeply, but all the same it's encouraging to know that it's within reach...
Castle Cornet, Guernsey: Prisoners Walk excavation 2024, video 9 Guernsey Archaeology 2024-03-08 | Down in the drawbridge (?) pit...
Castle Cornet, Guernsey: Prisoners Walk excavation 2024, video 8 Guernsey Archaeology 2024-03-05 | The sun is shining and the site is drying out a bit at last.
Castle Cornet, Guernsey: Prisoners Walk excavation 2024, video 7 Guernsey Archaeology 2024-02-29 | Just a short clip today to demonstrate why we can't carry on digging in these conditions... let's hope it's better after the weekend.
Castle Cornet, Guernsey: Prisoners Walk excavation 2024, video 6 Guernsey Archaeology 2024-02-27 | Back in the trench today and we have made good progress down into a layer of demolition material. We are now pre-clay pipe era so probably early or mid-sixteenth century.
Castle Cornet, Guernsey: Prisoners Walk excavation 2024, video 5 Guernsey Archaeology 2024-02-23 | The end of quite a difficult week on site because of the frequent torrential rain, but we didn't lose too much time and some good finds have come up, featured here.
Castle Cornet, Guernsey: Prisoners Walk excavation 2024, video 4 Guernsey Archaeology 2024-02-16 | We've finished cleaning the top of the cobbles and drain at the northern end of the site. Next week we'll start removing them and perhaps finally discovering whether there really is a drawbridge pit underneath here...
Castle Cornet, Guernsey, Prisoners Walk excavation 2024, video 3 Guernsey Archaeology 2024-02-09 | Rained off this afternoon but we have made good progress with clearing the cobbles at the north end of the Prisoners' Walk, where there may have been a drawbridge pit. And an interesting find, a piece of worked bone - any guesses what it might be?
Castle Cornet, Guernsey: Prisoners Walk excavation 2024, video 2 Guernsey Archaeology 2024-02-02 | We have started excavating beneath the path surface along several stretches of the Prisoners' Walk. At the south end this has mostly revealed how close the bedrock is to the surface, but at the north end we are still making our way through 17th - 19th century deposits and hopefully getting closer to the medieval.
Castle Cornet, Guernsey: Prisoners Walk excavation 2024, video 1 Guernsey Archaeology 2024-01-31 | The surface of the 'Prisoners' Walk' in Castle Cornet needs repair, and we're taking advantage of this to excavate a stretch of about 14 metres along this passage. We're hoping that at the north end we might find evidence for the drawbridge pit which is thought to have been located here in the fourteenth century. So far we have just removed the modern surface, but over the next few days we should start to make some more interesting discoveries.
Excavation at La Varde dolmen, LAncresse, Guernsey Guernsey Archaeology 2023-06-27 | The Clifton Antiquarian Club have been busy for the past ten days or so excavating a trench across the front of the dolmen at La Varde, on L'Ancresse Common. This has revealed more details of the stone kerb which surrounded the monument and which has mostly been lost from view until now.
Longis Common, Alderney excavation 2023 - day 20 Guernsey Archaeology 2023-05-25 | A final look at Longis Common... until the next time.
Longis Common, Alderney excavation 2023 - day 19 Guernsey Archaeology 2023-05-24 | Day 19 on Longis Common and the site has had a final clean up for photography and last-minute recording.
Longis Common, Alderney excavation 2023 - day 18 Guernsey Archaeology 2023-05-23 | A closer look at the human skeleton excavated yesterday.
Longis Common, Alderney excavation 2023 - day 17 Guernsey Archaeology 2023-05-22 | Just a few days to go on our excavation this year and we finally have a body. But is this part of the Iron Age cemetery, or something much earlier?
Longis Common, Alderney excavation 2023 - day 16 Guernsey Archaeology 2023-05-21 | Day 16 on Longis and the contents of our stone cist are finally revealed... but all is not what it seems...
Longis Common, Alderney excavation 2023 - day 15 Guernsey Archaeology 2023-05-20 | End of the 15th day on Longis and we now have now almost completely revealed the stone 'cairn'. And another interesting stone has popped up in one corner...
Longis Common, Alderney excavation 2023 - day 14 Guernsey Archaeology 2023-05-19 | Exciting developments in our first trench - it's Iron Age, almost certainly, but what is it?
Longis Common, Alderney excavation 2023 - day 13 Guernsey Archaeology 2023-05-18 | We've come to a halt on our second trench - there is still some archaeology at 2m+ below ground level, but the water table has put an end to any further digging here.
Longis Common, Alderney excavation 2023 - day 12 Guernsey Archaeology 2023-05-17 | We're finally getting through the last of the Roman material in the first trench, and reaching what might be an Iron Age burial below... or is it just a heap of stones?
Longis Common, Alderney excavation, 2023 - day 11 Guernsey Archaeology 2023-05-16 | Day 11 on Longis Common (not 12, as I say at the start) and I'm back in Guernsey for the day, so taking the opportunity to look again at the geophysical survey carried out last year.
Longis Common, Alderney excavation 2023 - day 10 Guernsey Archaeology 2023-05-15 | Midway through day 10 on Longis and we are still removing the finds-rich black soil in the second trench, and starting to find features sealed beneath it.There won't be a day 11 update tomorrow due to commitments back in Guernsey - next update on day 12, Wednesday.
Longis Common, Alderney excavation 2023 - day 9 Guernsey Archaeology 2023-05-14 | We continued to focus on our second trench today, still producing lots of Roman pottery.
Longis Common, Alderney excavation 2023 - day 8 Guernsey Archaeology 2023-05-13 | A quick look at our second trench, which has produced a wealth of Roman pottery today.
Longis Common, Alderney excavation 2023 - day 7 Guernsey Archaeology 2023-05-12 | End of the first full week of digging and if you've watched the previous videos, it's not been quite as we expected. Today we hit the water table, 2.5m below the surface, so we're not going any further at that end of the trench...
Longis Common, Alderney excavation 2023 - day 6 Guernsey Archaeology 2023-05-11 | Day 6 on Longis Common and we are puzzled by what is happening (or not happening) in this trench... not quite what we were expecting from the geophysical survey. How much further down will we have to go?
Longis Common, Alderney excavation 2023 - day 5 Guernsey Archaeology 2023-05-10 | The end of our fifth day excavating and we are beginning to get a possible Roman structure in one trench. Still lots of pottery coming up. I'm hoping that we'll get to some more meaningful structures in this trench tomorrow, but we'll see. Once we do have more to look at, I will actually get in the trench to film it!
Longis Common, Alderney excavation 2023 - day 4 Guernsey Archaeology 2023-05-09 | Day 4 on Longis and we continue to remove sandy subsoil in the expectation of reaching Roman structures. A very mixed day weather-wise - fog, sun, rain, drizzle - but we made good progress, finding more Roman pottery and a curious mystery object - any ideas what it might be?
Longis Common, Alderney excavation 2023 - day 3 Guernsey Archaeology 2023-05-08 | More sandy subsoil removal in both trenches today, which revealed lots more pottery and this very fine coin - a sestertius of Antoninus Pius, AD 150-151.
Longis Common, Alderney excavation 2023 - day 2 Guernsey Archaeology 2023-05-07 | Our first full day in the Coastguards Field has been very productive - two trenches now opened up and one in particular revealing large quantities of Roman pottery, and our first small-find...
Longis Common, Alderney excavation 2023 - day 1 Guernsey Archaeology 2023-05-06 | We are starting a three week excavation in the field uphill from the Paddock on Longis Common, Alderney, where we dug two trenches in 2018 and 2019 to reveal substantial Gallo-Roman settlement and part of an Iron Age cemetery beneath it. Geophysical survey in this field suggests that there ought to be plenty more archaeology to be found... we'll see!
Vale Mill Quarry Guernsey Archaeology 2021-04-16 | Earlier this year we uncovered a small building next to the old quarry at Vale Mill. It is probably related to the use of the quarry for water storage, c.1900, rather than the stone extraction which finished c.1895. But whatever it was used for, it has some curious features which we really don't understand...
More from the Sandy Hook excavation Guernsey Archaeology 2020-08-07 | Catching up with progress over the last couple of weeks. We have started to backfill the main site and are now digging smaller test-pits across the field next door.
Excavation at Sandy Hook, week nine Guernsey Archaeology 2020-07-10 | Coming towards the end of the excavation and we've got most of a small prehistoric pot, perhaps used for a cremation. A few shallow post-holes seem to be the only other prehistoric features on this part of the site.
Excavation at Sandy Hook, week eight Guernsey Archaeology 2020-07-03 | Another good week and we've answered a few questions posed by the excavation photographs of 1912. If the weather is good and there are no unexpected discoveries we should have most of the digging done by this time next week.
Excavation at Sandy Hook, week seven Guernsey Archaeology 2020-06-26 | Good progress again and the raised beach is visible across a large part of the site. Sorry I lost the last couple of words, just muttering about the drizzle...
Excavation at Sandy Hook, week six Guernsey Archaeology 2020-06-19 | Good progress this week. The bulk of the modern deposits have been removed from the excavated area and we are down to prehistoric contexts across most of the site.
Excavation at Sandy Hook, week five Guernsey Archaeology 2020-06-12 | We lost two days due to rain this week, so not as much progress as I had hoped. Here's just a short clip to tide you over until next time.
Excavation at Sandy Hook, week four Guernsey Archaeology 2020-06-05 | A closer look this week at the main 'cist' or tomb at Sandy Hook.
Excavation at Sandy Hook, week three Guernsey Archaeology 2020-05-29 | After a few more days of work we have reached the level of the 8 metre raised beach, formed about 100,000 years ago, across most of the site. We have confirmed that the main structure of the tomb was built virtually on the raised beach, as was suggested in the report on the excavation carried out in 1912.
Excavation at Sandy Hook, second week Guernsey Archaeology 2020-05-22 | Another fine week and we've made good progress in getting down to the 8 metre raised beach, formed about 100,000 years ago. The excavators in 1912 reported that the stones of the cist were laid directly on this raised beach - we want to check whether this is true.
