ULAS News

Coventry Charterhouse – a project in retrospect

With our excavation at Leicester Cathedral now finished, we are going to move away from Leicestershire and focus on another National Lottery Heritage Funded project that we have been involved with, the Coventry Charterhouse. This is the first of a series of blogs over the forthcoming months which will catching you up on our excavations…

Leicester Cathedral Revealed – a Roman shrine beneath the Cathedral?

Well, we have finished our excavation at Leicester Cathedral. It has been a long project, starting a year and a half ago in October 2021, and although it was a modest sized area, the dig has produced a remarkable amount of archaeological information which will allow us to tell the story of an area of…

Leicester Cathedral Revealed – A Curious Case of a Lead Coffin

Updated 18/10/2023. We have another exciting update from Leicester Cathedral. Project archaeologist, Amber Furmage, tells us more about the excavation of our first lead coffin and a newly named individual, Edward Entwistle Wilkinson (1796-1846). The coffin, recently found in the middle of the excavation area, was interred in one of the final burial rows in…

Leicester Cathedral Revealed – The Romans are coming!

Today is ULAS’s last day in 2022 digging at Leicester Cathedral, we will be back in the New Year to wrap up the excavation by mid-February if all goes to plan. Whilst the team shuts down the site for the Christmas break, excavation director Mathew Morris reveals some of the latest discoveries from the site….

Trenches, Training and Television: the importance of community engagement to the success of the Rutland Villa Project

The story of the magnificent discovery of the Trojan War mosaic and the Rutland Roman Villa captured the world’s attention when its discovery was finally announced to the public in late 2021. We were incredibly proud that the media attention shone a very positive light on the archaeology of Rutland, and in turn the collaborative…

Roman Lifestyles in Rural Rutland: Fresh insights give context to a unique Trojan War mosaic

Finding a unique Roman mosaic featuring gruesome scenes from the Trojan War cycle may have been more than enough for some people, but archaeologists have curiosity running through their veins, and this Summer we have returned to Rutland to discover more about this amazing new villa and the people who lived there. John Thomas, Deputy Director…

Leicester Cathedral Revealed – The story so far

Our dig team has now been on site at Leicester Cathedral for over a year! This has included nine months of excavation within the footprint of the new Heritage Learning Centre as well as monitoring of other groundwork both inside and outside the Cathedral. Archaeological work is due to continue for another couple of months…

Leicester Cathedral Revealed – Searching for the medieval church

So far, our blogs have focused on the archaeological work for the Cathedral’s new heritage learning centre. This is only one part of the Leicester Cathedral Revealed project, and in his latest blog excavation director Mathew Morris updates us on the archaeological work going on inside the Cathedral. Our work inside the Cathedral is what…

Leicester Cathedral Revealed – A tragic case of manslaughter

BREAKING NEWS (well, 185 years ago!). We have an update about Leicester Cathedral Revealed’s first named individual, John Wilson Ottey. Site director Mathew Morris previously wrote about John Ottey last November and further research in newspaper archives has brought to light a tragic incident when he was a young man. The Leicestershire Mercury reported events…

Leicester Cathedral Revealed – Telling Leicester’s life stories

What can we learn from human skeletons and what do we want to learn from the individuals excavated from Leicester Cathedral? In our next blog, Dr Sarah Inskip from the University of Leicester, and Project Leader for the Tobacco Health and History project, explains what we hope to learn from the burials excavated during the…

Brewing, lead working and Roman rural life at Melbourne

Early in 2021, ULAS began an investigation of a small strip of land at Melbourne in South Derbyshire. A trial trench evaluation was commissioned prior to the construction of eights new homes. Day one of the evaluation fell on the first truly snowy day of the year, quite a contrast to the wet weather conditions…

Leicester archaeologists expand excavations at Leicester Cathedral site

The team behind the discovery of Richard III have resumed major archaeological excavations at Leicester Cathedral, close to where the King was found. Archaeologists and other experts from University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) are leading excavations on the site of the Old Song School, at the eastern end of Leicester Cathedral, which could reveal…