Exploring the legacy of Ethelburga – a community project focused on the Anglo-Saxon heritage of Lyminge, a village in the Elham Valley in East Kent.
The BBC were on site in the morning recording for the South East News programme. We were initially scheduled to give a live broadcast on the lunchtime bulletin, but this was pulled at the last moment. The broadcast went out on the 6.30pm bulletin, available here on IPlayer but only until 7pm on 21 August. … Continue reading Day 38 – Media Day!
The trench in the New Churchyard east of the War Memorial continues to reveal new features, so we now have quite an array of pits and postholes. At the eastern end of the trench, we now have the foundation of a significant wall. We don't have anything dating this currently, but this could be associated … Continue reading Day 32 – More activity in the New Churchyard
It may not look very much but this is a very important piece of pottery. It comes from a sealed layer in a pit in the trench we have opened to the east of the War Memorial in the New Churchyard, and it appears to be Middle Saxon, dating probably to the mid 7th Century. … Continue reading Day 28 – Filling a gap in our knowledge of Ethelburga’s monastery
We are continuing to excavate the burials within the chancel of the Anglo-Saxon church in order to see if we can understand when burial began. We think this was probably in the later medieval period, after the Anglo-Saxon church was demolished, but this is an hypothesis we have to test by digging. The observant amongst … Continue reading Day 27 -Exploring the boundaries of our dig
We were delighted to welcome Carly Hilts, Editor of the popular magazine Current Archaeology, to the site yesterday. There is planned to be a short feature in the next issue and then a longer article in the issue after that. Work continued in the chancel yesterday, excavating more burials including the adult whose torso and … Continue reading Day 26 – Broadening the coverage
With the arrival of the mini-digger, we were able to start removing the tarmac path in the Old Churchyard today. By the end of the day, we were still not down to the chalk bedrock, so the natural ground surface is either a lot lower than it is only a short distance away in the … Continue reading Day 4- Moving into the Old Churchyard
Work continued on site today in good conditions. Trench 1, opened yesterday in the New Churchyard has been taken down to the chalk bedrock and cleaned up. The pits appear to be natural formations. This trench will now be back-filled as there is nothing of further interest to be found. Close by, Gabor thought it … Continue reading Day 3 and the preparatory work continues
So here we are at last breaking soil! We have the permissions in place to begin the dig and here is the first archaeology taking place today. Gabor has decided to carry out some test excavations in the New Churchyard before moving back closer to the church to explore the known remains there. The current … Continue reading The start of the dig!
