Well, I thought Day 1 at Stroud could hardly have gone better. The weather was kind to us, the residents could scarcely have been more helpful and all the volunteers were really enthusiastic.
Chris Hayward's team completed their test pit and came up with some interesting finds, probably dating from the late 1800s or early 1900s. One lovely example was this army belt buckle, still with part of the leather belt attached, with an image of what it would have looked like originally:
Meanwhile Barry and Arthur did some metal detecting. Sadly no more lead coffins (yet) but they did find some coins (1907 farthing and 1983 £1 coin, so we have made a small profit) and some other intriguing pieces of metal. Ellis and Pam have even put up a marquee for us in their garden.
Over at the school playing field Carl and Lyn with their teams managed to complete both a magnetometry and a resistivity survey before moving on to one of the gardens nearest to the villa, which they also finished. We're really looking forward to seeing the results tomorrow after Carl has finished downloading and processing the data tonight.
Meanwhile at Sal's house, Dave Butcher's ladies also started a test pit on the high bank of the old sandpit, assisted (?) by one small dog and two hungry chickens. It was lovely to see Sal's family getting involved too.
Another full day tomorrow - a bit more geophysics but a lot more digging. My highlight of the day? Trying to rescue a stupid sheep that had climbed into a water trough and got its legs stuck!
Finally, this is a selection of the photos taken by Arthur Mills today, who was acting as our roving reporter: