Silchester 2007

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Remember this? Digging a well in 2007....always a nice surprise at the bottom!

I cannot believe that the last season at "Insula IX" is almost upon us; it feels as though it has been around for a lifetime even though we are only now coming into the 18th season!!

I realised the other day that I have been at Silchester in one capacity or another for the last 7 years and have taken many fantastic memories away with me. So many spring to mind right now but there are two in particular that really stand out for me.

First of all would be my experience during my first season back in 2007. My first real taste of field archaeology felt like something of a homecoming for me and I have thoroughly enjoyed expanding my knowledge and skills over the last several years; even though I may not have the opportunity to excavate as much anymore I fully intend to keep my skills sharp and participate in excavations when I can. I also wish to thank both yourself and the project for the support you gave me whilst I was fundraising for my trip to Tanzania to climb Kilimanjaro later that same year.

Secondly would be the opportunity you gave me to work as a member of staff during the 2012 season. I still view this time as one of the key experiences which helped me get my first commercial job with OA South. Working with Jim and Rob really helped me to develop further and built my confidence so that I no longer second guessed my own decisions.


Mark Fussey, TownLifer 2007

Silchester 2004

My first season was by far my best experience at Silchester for many reasons. It was great to be out in the field with my fellow 1st years and to actually get to meet them for the first time properly outside of lectures in a more informal setting.

This was also my (and a lot of their) first experience of an excavation and due to the material culture richness and functional setting of the site, it was an absolute pleasure to work on. The staff were fantastic, the site worked well on and off the dig - the cohesion was brilliant.

The UK weather, as anywhere in the British Isles, is another matter altogether...

I had started in the last four weeks of 2004 to do my 2 weeks compulsory (with 2 weeks on top of this because I wanted to gain experience) and the weather was gorgeous. I remember driving in (eventually) on one of those lucky occasions that the first time you get to see Insula IX and the campsite is in glorious sunshine.

As many of us know, though, the summer storms at Silchester are incredible and often destructive - never have I desired more walls that did not move when the wind blows and a space to dry out sopping wet clothing than after a season at Silchester!

The fifth week of the 2005 season saw a significant downturn in the weather, building to a rather peaceful-starting Thursday. The clouds gathered, the wind picked up and the temperature cooled. The clouds swirled around the low-lying hilltop that we called home and work and closed in.

I was on the spoil heap next to the south-east area and looked across the field to see the long grass move in a slowly approaching wave, a wave that I thought first to be the blades bending uniformly in the wind but then to determine that the darker, wetter colour was due to a wall of heavy rain moving in. I have seen before and since 'fat rain' but never in such an exposed location.

Site was abandoned and I scurried back to where Tim Ivil and I had been planning. As delicately as possibly he and I ripped up our planning equipment (a decision made for us by the previous weeks of being reminded to tidy up our tools). Tim carried soaked permatrace and a tangle of string and nails, I hoisted aloft a planning frame, we made our way off site.

We hadn't noticed the ferocity now of what could only be called a storm but the first flash of lightning and the almost immediate retort of thunder should have informed us, by the second (as we delicately picked our way through a 'safe' track between features) it had fallen to Duncan Sayer to inform us of our folly.

"What are you doing?!"

"Packing up!"

"Leave the frame before you get struck by-"

Queue flash of lightning.

Very indelicately we dropped our equipment and ran for the Finds hut, which Tim noted shortly after entering was also made of metal....

Aside from this I have a fond memory of forming a HI! on the campsite during backfill with people to say hello to Dan Wheeler and Nick Pankhurst as they flew over site in 2006.

Mike Shaw

Silchester TownLifer 2004

Silchester 2009

My immediate memory when I think of Silchester is stargazing in my first year (2009) on top of the supervisor cabin one evening. Everybody was merry and happy and laughing and just generally having a good time! Unfortunately the clouds scuppered our stargazing plans but everybody still had an awesome time just chilling out.

Having said that, if you'd rather use the other prominent memory of mine which is Henry Miller catapulting Emily Morris face first into the marquee pole - immediately after shaking it off she continued dancing like a loon - to promote the high spirits and sturdy heads of everybody there, then feel free :-)

Dan Strachan, Silchester TownLifer 2009

Silchester 2011

I became a town-lifer in the summer of 2011. Aged 27 I had just finished my first year at the University of Bristol studying Archaeology as a mature student. The whole idea of going away to a field for two weeks, knowing no-one and having no previous practical knowledge of excavation was beyond terrifying for me, and after an epic journey involving a very overladen bicycle, several (delayed) trains and a very kindly dog walker I arrived on site, exhausted, scared, slightly tearful and wondering what I’d let myself in for. I didn’t feel that way for very long as I was helped to put up my tent and shown to meet the rest of my group at ‘family dinner’. Over the next two weeks I quickly realised that at Silchester everyone looks out for each other and that’s how it functions and it does become like a big family. Eagle eyes can spot an excavator in need without you even realising it and someone will always try to help if you’ve got a problem, whether you just need a hug or a warm cuppa or a bit more help with something archaeologically.

For me being a town-lifer means so much. It was where my love of field archaeology really started. It has taught me so much about recording and excavation and given me such an incredible opportunity to work among so many like-minded people who have always been supportive and honest and impressively bonkers to ensure that everyone has a great time at Silchester. The 2014 season will be my fourth year and by the end I will have lived within the walls of Calleva Atrebatum for 18 weeks, something that makes me immensely proud!

So I guess I should share a Silchester memory – there are so many it’s hard to choose but I give you a fleeting but perhaps most important one from my first season at Silchester – the moment I knew that I had made the right choice to be an archaeologist.

It starts with a fire, nothing fancy, just a small allocated space on the ground upon which a surface of clay has been deposited to make a hearth.  And in this hearth a fire once burned, giving warmth on the cold days and heat on which food was cooked. How many eyes looked into the flames and watched them dance as stories were passed around? Now the memories of those moments are long forgotten but their possibility remains in the dark red clay that has once more been revealed by the edge of a trowel.  And now it is my trowel that is cutting through that hearth and pulling it apart but rather than be sad that I am destroying it I feel privileged that I am recording its every detail and discovering how it came to be, from the cut made into the gravel beneath it to the layers of clay and flints that formed its structure. I may never know the stories told around this hearth, or hear the voices of those who lived here but I am proud that through archaeology I am once more putting this little hearth back into the story of Calleva. Many archaeologists have their prized find, the thing they wish they could take home with them when digging is done. For me my prize find is a little flint pebble that has been turned ruby red by the clay and heat from that little hearth. That pebble sits on my desk at home and every day it reminds me that sometimes things need to be picked apart to be understood. 

Hannah Raines, Silchester TownLifer

Silchester excavator 2011-2014.

Where it all began.....

A view of our trench in 1997.....anyone remember this? Were you there?! I was!

Are YOU a Silchester TownLifer?

The Silchester Insula IX 'Town Life' project began life in the summer of 1997.From a relatively modest start of about 50 people on site, the project has grown in size and stature ever since. We now welcome more than 100 people on site each and every day of the excavation - and over 4000 people have worked with us over the last 18 years. This blog has been created because the summer of 2014 is the final season of the Town Life project - and we would like everyone who has ever dug with us to share their memories of their particular year! If you are a TownLifer, please e-mail a.s.clarke@reading.ac.uk with photos or reminiscences you would like posted on the blog!