About Us
Lectures
The group has a lecture programme each year. Lectures are held in the Glapthorn Room, Fletton House, Fletton Way, Glapthorn Road, Oundle, Peterborough, PE8 4JA and are free for members. Non-members are welcome to attend for a small fee.
Subjects in recent years have included Oundle buildings, Peterborough Cathedral, Northampton Castle, Milestones, Landscape studies in the Welland Valley, mediaeval manors and charnel chapels, World War II Spitfires, Must Farm Bronze Age village, and field systems from the Bronze Age to mediaeval ridge and furrow, milestones, Chester Farm, Thorney, Neolithic Pottery, Samian ware production at Graufesenque and archaeology in town planning.
Field Trips
The group organises visits to places of interest. Past locations include Laxton village (mediaeval field system), Southwell Minster, Chatham Dockyard, Torpel Manor and John Clare’s Cottage in Helpston, local churches in Castor (allegorical capital carvings), Peakirk (14th Century wall paintings), Upton (Sir John Dove memorial).
Holidays
The group has organised occasional holidays with an archaeological theme for members. Past locations include Ireland, Dorset, Kent, Northumberland and the Orkney Islands.
Excavations
Nassington
Since 2015, we have been investigating Roman and earlier occupation of a site near Nassington and have excavated part of a farmstead with a barn-like structure and remains of a bath house. The typical pottery is from local kilns at Stibbington, with some Nene Valley colour coated. Personal artefacts include part of a jet bracelet, which still has red paint on.
Further geophysical survey and excavation has shown that this is set in the midst of an agricultural landscape with Iron Age origins, which the Romans then overwrote with a courtyard farm layout slightly askew from the Iron Age alignment.
Water Newton
In 2012, we were privileged to excavate in two of the gateways of Water Newton Roman Fort, a scheduled ancient monument. The dig showed the fort was only in use for a very short period, possibly while the road network was realigned to a new crossing point for the River Nene to the north of the fort. This indicated that the Roman town of Durobrivae, just to the east, grew up later as traffic along the new road increased.
Glapthorn
In March 2015, we excavated a small kiln near the village of Glapthorn. The surviving parts included a tamped clayey gravel and stone surface around the kiln, the lower 2 or 3 courses of the limestone kiln walls and a central pillar, but almost no pottery.