of the barn and down into the hollow that would have been the old farmyard. After removing the turf and cleaning the exposed soil, we were ready to go. We worked on site for four weeks of four and a half days, losing two days to rain (this will surely be remembered as the worst summer for many years)
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From the survey it was possible to see that there had originally been two roads crossing the field (see left), one running from the south side of the churchyard to the north-eastern corner of the field, now followed by the public footpath, heading towards Nortonbury. The other crossed it at right angles towards the centre of the field, aiming towards Stotfold in one direction and Baldock in the other.
The Summer 2007 Dig at Church Field…Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews BA (Dig Director and the NHDC Archaeology Officer) When the idea of a community archaeology was first mooted, eighteen months ago, my first thought was “I want to see what's under Church Field”. I couldn't say this, as the project has to be led by its members, but I was delighted when the decision was made to set up the first formal excavation in the field in the summer of 2007. I was part of the original team that surveyed the earthworks in December 1985 and had known the field since childhood, so it has long held a particular fascination for me. There are also low mounds that appear to mark the sites of long-demolished buildings. We know that the road to Nortonbury had fallen out of use before 1766, as it is not shown on Dury and Andrew's map of 1766. In the south-western corner of the field, there is a sunken area next to the cottages at 125/127 Norton Road, with a mound to the north. This mound matches the position of a building shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1880, which a photograph of 1906 shows to have been a barn. Research by Deborah Giles has found that in 1915, it was described as thatched and weatherboarded. Beyond this, we knew very little about the structure and it was decided that this would be a good site to investigate first. There were several reasons for choosing this corner of Church Field. Firstly, the barn was unlikely to have been very ancient, probably no more than two or three centuries, so it was likely to have had brick foundations. These would be easy for inexperienced diggers to find and to understand. Secondly, there was a good likelihood that, underneath the barn, there would be the remains of earlier buildings. Finally, the field is part of an active farm and we wanted to cause the minimum disruption to either the farmer or to his bullocks. So, towards the end of July, we fenced off a small compound measuring roughly twenty metres by ten. When then laid out a trench running across the presumed site
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