The Canons Archaeological Dig

On the 23, 24, and 25 of May, we held the first Canons Archaeological Dig with Addyman Archaeology coming down from Edinburgh to deliver the dig.

In 2016, Addyman Archaeology visited The Canons to undertake a geophysics survey and desk-based assessment of the East Lawn of The Canons (please click the links to read the reports). They discovered a number of interesting anomalies in the ground. The archaeologists used these reports in deciding where to lay two trenches of 1m x 5m for the May archaeological dig.

Over the course of three days, the archaeological team and the core volunteers de-turfed the trenches then got digging and troweling to find out what lay beneath. Our volunteers received an in depth briefing from our archaeologists at the start of each day, and really got stuck into the work.

We had visits from Cranmer Primary School, SS Peter and Paul Primary School, Cricket Green School and Bond Primary School as well as the little ones from Jigsaw Nursery. In the afternoons and on Saturday we had lots of local people and families come try out digging, sieving and washing finds. The Addyman archaeologists were on-hand to answer questions, fill in reports and teach visitors more about the site and about archaeology in general.

Addyman Archaeology are currently working on a final report which we are excited to share with you as soon as we receive it. In the meantime, we have some great images to share from the dig, and we want to say a big thank you to all the volunteers who gave us so much of their time to make the dig a success.