This week, ULAS co-directors Dr Richard Buckley and Dr Patrick Clay have been made Honoured Citizens of Leicester for their decades of dedicated work recording and promoting the city’s rich archaeological heritage. For more than 30 years (not 30 decades as some reported, although we like the idea that they have some insider knowledge of…
Tag: Archaeology
Iron Age settlement excavated near Lutterworth
During the autumn of 2013 ULAS carried out an archaeological excavation on land at Leaders Farm, on the south-western edge of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, for Bellway Homes (East Midlands) Ltd. prior to construction of a new residential development to be known as Whittle Fields. An evaluation carried out by ULAS in 2012 identified two areas containing…
Burrough Hill 2014
After five years, this summer saw the final season of excavations at Burrough Hill. John Thomas reports: this year, the Project aimed to tie up a few niggling questions that have developed over the years and have another look at the external settlement, previously looked at in 2011. Trench 10 was located in the centre…
‘Bloody will be thine end’ – Perimortem trauma in King Richard III
Today the fifth peer-reviewed paper on Richard III is published in The Lancet, providing a blow-by-blow account of the injuries inflicted on King Richard III’s body at the Battle of Bosworth Field on August 22, 1485. The remains of King Richard III—the last English monarch to die in battle—were found under a car park in…
Hallaton’s Lost Chapel
ULAS archaeologists have been working with local volunteers to uncover the lost chapel of St Morrell overlooking the small village of Hallaton in east Leicestershire. The Fourth year of excavations with the Hallaton Fieldwork Group (HFWG) has revealed the full plan of the chapel as well as the cemetery and evidence that the hillside has…
Icknield Way and Roman settlement excavated at Aston Clinton, Buckinghamshire
Over the summer, a team of archaeologists from ULAS led by Mathew Morris and Roger Kipling have been excavating a nine-acre site in Aston Clinton, Buckinghamshire. Commissioned by developers Taylor Wimpey, the work is being carried out before work begins on a new housing development. So far, the excavation has found evidence of Iron Age…
Evidence of Ice Age hunters found in Bradgate Park, Leicestershire
In February, Bradgate Park Trust commissioned ULAS to investigate remains found at the Little Matlock Gorge site – a project that, by its conclusion two weeks later has revealed that Ice Age hunters targeted Bradgate Park as an ideal hunting ground. The gradual erosion of a footpath at the eastern end of the site in…
Roman ‘smoke-house’ found at Pineham, Northamptonshire
From April to November 2013 one of the largest (7.5ha) single-phase ULAS excavations took place at Pineham, Northamptonshire. Directed by James Harvey and Dr Gavin Speed the site is located in the Nene Valley, 4km south-west of Northampton. The excavation revealed evidence for human activity from Upper Palaeolithic artefacts through to post-medieval ploughing, with the…
Iron Age activity found near Broughton Astley
Roger Kipling has recently completed a 71 trench evaluation of two areas to the east and west of Broughton Way at Broughton Astley, Leicestershire. As anticipated by a previously undertaken geophysical survey, a small ditched enclosure of Iron Age date was located in the central eastern area. Its fourth (eastern) side was absent, likely due…
Investigating lime production at Barrow Upon Soar
Grizzled veterans Leon Hunt and Jon coward (assisted by young upstart James Harvey) decamped to Barrow Upon Soar, Leicestershire for a few weeks to evaluate a large field (‘The Breaches’) where a recent geophysical survey had located a few dozen kilns or dumped material associated with kilns, along with many pits and other anomalies including…
Romano-British occupation found at King Edward VII School, Melton Mowbray
Fresh from Greyfriars II and making a point of only undertaking digs with a monarch in the title, Leon Hunt and Mathew Morris found themselves in the playing fields adjacent to the now disused King Edward VII School (where Monty Python’s Graham Chapman went, no less) for a 20 trench evaluation. A geophysical survey had…
Medieval Wellingbrough unearthed
Wayne Jarvis has recently completed an archaeological excavation at The Dun Cow Public House in Wellingborough (Northamptonshire), following on from a programme of trial trenching earlier this year. The site lies in the area of the former medieval settlement of Wellingborough, within a tenement group fronting Broad Green which forms part of the northern gateway…
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