We’ll be digging at Basing House from
22nd July – 11th August 2013
This summer the Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton and Hampshire County Council Museums Service, will be excavating at Basing House.
We are lucky to have volunteers from the Basingstoke Archaeological and Historical Society on site with us.
Please come join us on site between the 22nd July and the 11th August to see what we are uncovering at Basing House.
Quick Links
- Events Calendar
- Planned Activities
- Join In Digging
- Meet the Team
- Basing House has its own blog, which we encourage you to also read. The team at Hampshire Museums share behind the scenes information about developments at the site, and new discoveries: http://basinghouse.wordpress.com/
Some of the staff and students from the Department of Archaeology working at Basing House in April 2013
Description of the Summer 2013 Excavation
Basing House is situated in the picturesque village of Old Basing, five miles from Basingstoke. This excavation is part of the Basing House: Community, Archaeology and Technology (CAT) Project and is in collaboration with Hampshire Museums Service and Winchester School of Art and is therefore a great opportunity to gain additional skills, including exhibition design, community archaeology, and using new technologies. Basing House is a multi-phase site, managed by Hampshire County Council. Evidence exists of Mesolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman activities on the site. There is also evidence for early Medieval settlement including the remains of a keep and motte & bailey.
Excavations will take place on the remains of the 16th century fortified house, which was destroyed in the famous Civil War sieges. The site has been excavated sporadically from 1875 to the present day and Hampshire County Council has continued to excavate portions of the site from with Basingstoke History and Archaeology Society. This is the first time that an excavation has explored early phases of the site. We will be continuing on from an extensive survey carried out in Spring 2013.
The major aims of the Summer 2013 season will be to investigate the findings a previous excavation by the Aldermaston Archaeological Society in the 1960s. We will be cutting new trenches and reopening all of the trenches worked on to confirm/refute claims of phases. Multi-stage occupation was uncovered, including evidence of Roman occupation and a Romano-British settlement, as well as Iron Age and Medieval material.
Excavation location
The excavation area is situated at the back of the Civil War earthworks, to the south of the site. Two students below offered to act as scales to the trenches that we will be reopening:
Students show the size of the trench to be reopened this Summer.
Other Activities & Events Calendar
We’ve got lots of other activities planned, including a digitisation project and the opportunity to see our Artist-in-Residence at work; you can read more about these plans and more on our ‘Other Activities’ page. You can also check out our Events Calendar.
Meet the Team
There are many people involved in making this excavation possible. We’ve been adding profiles to this website, so that you can meet us here and find out more about our specialisms, and more importantly, about what we are helping with at Basing House: Meet the Team
Spring 2013 Geophysical Survey
In March-April earlier this year, staff and students spent two week working at Basing House to carry out an extensive geophysical survey. We were delighted with the amount of data we were able to collect. Read all about the survey here: Spring Survey
Basing House Project 