4/8/25: the Globe Field site has now been put to bed until next time. Although it always seems a shame to bury the results of all that hard work, the excavated surface would not last long if left exposed.

The initial stages of the post-excavation work are proceeding rapidly, with the major groups of finds already quantified at a superficial level, ready for more detailed investigation. The totals by weight of the main groups of ‘bulk finds’ from the 2025 season were 18.6 kg of pottery, 22.3 kg of animal bone and 283kg of slag (bringing the site total to 803kg of slag!). There are also 325 ‘small finds’ so far – and many more iron objects will no doubt be retrieved from the slag collection in due course. further updates on the post-ex will appear here in the coming months, but for now, the field season is finally complete – so thank you again to all those who contributed this year in whatever capacity – landowners, students, staff, volunteers… Thank you all so much!

16/7/25: we finally had some rain yesterday, so we able to tackle the last remaining tasks today. Thank you so much to the wonderful team who worked so hard today, not only in completing the digging, but in taking down the tents and sorting the tools, samples, finds, shelters and so on! The features in the western arm of the trench continued to surprise to the final moments, with, just showing inside the northern trench edge, the margin of a large stone-filled pit, as yet undated, with part of the skeleton of a large mammal (pig?) in its top.

20/6/25: after a ‘day off’ on Wednesday the small team has been back on site for two more very hot days. One or two minor issues were not quite resolved today, but the site is very nearly ready for back-filling. The infant burial found a couple of days ago was lifted – and showed surprisingly good bone preservation compared to the other skeletons in the child cemetery. The location of the burial outside the main cluster means it is likely there maybe others in that area. The early gully with the unusual elongate hearth in it appears to have had the hearth bisected by a large posthole. The western arm is a little too narrow to start making guesses about how the postholes relate to each other – but that will enter into the thinking for next year’s plan.

17/6/25: a small group has been continuing with work on the site on a small scale, after the end of the student placements. Today was a beautiful day in Llantwit – the downside of which means the site needed lots of water. The area around the infant cemetery continues to produce new features – today a small pit with a large bovine horn, another infant burial and further burnt deposits.

13/6/25: the final day of the formal part of the project for this season. The days efforts focused on attempting to finish those bits of Trench 4 that we don’t want to reopen next year and to leave the rest at a point that will be easy to pick up next season. The finishing-up will continue into next week, as there are still many features in the W arm of the trench that have not yet been dug.

Within the SE end of the Trench the work on the burial was completed. Full interpretation will come in due course, but for now it appears to have been a male, in their 30s or 40s, probably measuring around just 1.35-1.40m tall.

The day also saw two copper-alloy objects found by the two Izzys: a square strap-end with ring-and-dot ornament (right; Izzy B) from the basal medieval deposits and an, as yet unidentified, small casting (left; Izzy F) from early medieval deposits predating the burial.

There will be more comment on the season’s efforts when I’ve had time to collect my thoughts, but for now I’d like to give a heart-felt ‘thank you’ to all those who have worked so hard to make the project a success – and who have made the season so enjoyable.

12/6/25: most work was suspended today because of the rain. Beth and small continued work on the burial, which has some rather difficult stratigraphic relationships – some yet to be resolved. Conditions were pretty grim…

A start was made on packing away some materials, with hte site taking on a rather bedraggled appearance.

11/6/25: work in Trench 4 progressed well. Many of the features in the western half of the W arm are now resolved, much of the NE trowel-cleaned to base of the medieval, the last of the known infant burials in the centre has been lifted and progress was made on cleaning the adult burial in the SE. Given the poor forecast for the next couple of days, it is clear that we won’t achieve all our objectives for the season, but as much of the trench as possible will be completed to minimise the area needing re-opening in 2026.

10/6/25: another busy day with significant advances all across the site. Trench 5 was given a final clean for photography. The exposed bedrock probably represents an early (Norman?) quarried surface, which became covered in quarrying waste, through which the well was dug. The well was backfilled with waste from a further phase of quarrying (late 13th – early 14th century).

In Trench 4 the W arm produced several features, including a posthole, an elongate hearth and various less-easily interpreted circular and linear cuts. An additional four infant graves were investigated in the central area. The upper deliberate fills in the complex feature in the SE area were partially removed – to reveal an unexpected adult burial in a grave sealed by the heavy stone and metallurgical waste of the dumped material.

Its never possible to find a moment when everyone involved in the project is on site, but today seemed to be as good a moment as any – so here are most of the 2025 team:

9/6/25: the start of the final week with the whole team… It was very busy day. The W arm of Trench 4 is finally down to early medieval features (drone shot below), the central area saw progress with some of the remaining infant graves, the NE saw the removal of much of the remaining medieval cultivation soil and the S saw progress made with the complex ‘ditch’ area (including the retrieval of two adjoining Roman pottery sherds from a metallurgical waste layer). Trench 5 got a step closer to being closed down, with the trench sections and the well profile being recorded.

6/6/25: the end of week 3 was a very busy day, particularly in the W of Trench 4 where a massive effort went into removing the last of the medieval cultivation soils revealing tantalising glimpses of features below the truncation surface. The star find from this area was a substantial fragment of a red deer antler with one tine sawn off. Work started on resolving several of the probable infant graves located, but not dug, last year. Unravelling the complexities of the fills in the ‘ditch’ in the SE of Trench 4 progressed steadily and further investigation of the bedrock surface and the cut for the well were undertaken in Trench 5.

5/6/25: much of today was lost to the rain, but some progress was made in the last couple of hours. The most significant find today was a fragment of a bone comb – yet again from Trench 5, which despite its small area has also produced some other remarkable medieval small finds: a buckle, two bone flute fragments and two iron knives.

4/6/25: rapid progress in Trench 5 has allowed some interpretation of the succession there: the E part of the trench shows a medieval sequence straight onto bedrock, which together with the overlying stony deposits hints that this is the margin of a quarried area. The well was largely backfilled with quarry waste, but contained some lovely Vale Ware pottery (late 13th-14th century), with both cooking pots and perforated incurved dishes present. It seem likely that the well itself dates to the same period as the other drystone features on the site and is probably early 12th century – so it had a fairly short period of use.

Trench 4 also progressed well, with the various small areas of remaining medieval deposits now almost all removed. The deeper early medieval cut features in the S are starting to be investigated, the large extent in the W is being trowel-cleaned below the medieval cultivation soils and some of the medieval stonework in the NE has now been removed.

Catching up on finds from the last couple of days, here are the two probable fragments of a musical instrument from medieval deposits adjacent to the well:

A recent article suggests that over a hundred such bird bone flutes (mainly fashioned from the ulna of a goose, but the use of bones from swans and cranes is also known) are recorded from England, but they don’t seem to be a common find in Wales.

3/6/25: a damp start to the day meant we could get a little water into the whole site, before covering-up again later. Once again Trench 5 provided the major finds of the day – a tiny iron knife and, amazingly, a second fragment of the musical instrument found yesterday.

2/6/25: today, Trench 5 progressed rapidly, with bedrock reached at the N end and 0.7m of fill cleared from the well at the S. The medieval deposits in this trench also produced an iron knife and what appears to be a fragment of a musical instrument with a circular hole bored through a bird (?) bone. In Trench 4 considerable progress in the four areas currently being examined – particularly in the S where one side of the cut for the ditch (?) has now been defined.

31/5/25: the open-day saw around 180 visitors to the site, so it was very busy day. In particular, it was a pleasure to welcome the Mayor, Councillor John Deakin, with Mrs Deakin, to the site.

As well as showing visitors around, the team also managed a little excavation, particularly in Trench 5, where the circular feature is now showing several courses of dry stonework and seems increasingly likely to prove to be a well. All the finds from the fill continue to be 13th century.

30/5/25: another good day’s progress across the site, but perhaps most interest today focused on Trench 5. Here the trench extension revealed the full extent of the circular feature – with speculation amongst those digging it that it might be a well. The fill of the feature produced a small copper-alloy buckle of uncertain date (probably medieval, but possibly older).

Tomorrow, Saturday, a slightly reduced team will be on site during the day for the Llantwit Major History Day to present the 2025 excavations.

29/5/25: Today had ideal weather for digging – overcast and with the soil keeping moist when exposed for longer than recent days.

All areas progressed well, including the lifting of most of remaining geotextile across the centre of the site. The sieving teams found two copper alloy tacks/rivets from pre-Norman contexts. Work started on investigating the first of the cut-features in the probable 7th/8th century smithy area – and several nice finds emerged, including a fragment of a carefully-made stone spindle-whorl and a hone stone in a micaceous lithology.

28/5/25: It was good to be back on site after the storm yesterday. Within Trench 4, one group cleared the geotextile membrane from the central part of the trench, while others exposed the stone features in the N corner. Another group cleaned back the surface covered by the membrane on the E side, work continued on the grave to the E and a sondage was started across the deep feature in the S. In Trench 5, an extension was dug to test whether the arc of large stones was part of a circular feature and a surface of small stones was found in the centre of the trench.

26/5/25: It was a slightly wet day, but good progress was made all round. One of the rain shelters had been destroyed by the winds yesterday. With much stronger winds and heavy rain forecast, there will be no digging tomorrow and the other shelters have been dismantled to protect them.

Today’s star find was a rather lovely medieval ring brooch (again from the sieves). It has eight raised circular collets, two now missing their ‘stones’. The pin is also missing. The 12th-13th century cultivation soils in this part of the site have also now produced two coins, two strap-ends, and two arrowheads from a very small area – a surprisingly rich assemblage compared with other parts of the site.

23/5/25: … and the end of the first week. some great progress has been made, with deposits/structures of stone dominating the day’s work. In the W of Trench 4 the natural appears to dip steeply towards the stream, but is covered in a thin deposit of stone. To the N of the trench, the new wall in the NE extension appears to delimit a tiny chamber, perhaps 1.0m by 1.2m. In the S of trench 4, the extension over burial SK9 shows blocks of stone approximately continuing the line of last year’s ‘uphill’ wall and the SE extension is just reaching the stone fill in the large gully/ditch. Not to be out-done, Trench 5 has its own curious arcuate stone feature…

This has been a very good first week, with all areas of the excavation poised to move towards the early medieval next week.

22/5/25: back to the warm weather… The NE part of the main trench has started producing evidence for the walls of the probable medieval building, the W part is finally getting through the post-medieval deposits that become very thick towards the stream and both the SE extensions are getting close to early medieval levels. The southern trench is producing evidence for a possible wall at a high stratigraphic level.

21/5/25: despite the first rain for what seems a very long time, good progress was made in all the active areas. The first small find of the season was silver penny of Edward I, minted 1280/1 in London, recovered from the sieves by Sue Pattinson (regular volunteer and Secretary of the Llantwit Major History Society).

20/5/25: day 2 saw steady progress on the five initial areas, including the removal of a small part of the geotextile membrane. It seems that preservation of the surface below the membrane is good in that area – which bodes well for the rest.

19/5/25: the first day of the full team – with over 40 people on site today. The set-up was completed (including some improvisation with the fencing), trench edges straightened and even some fresh excavation in a few areas.

16/05/25: set-up of the site is almost complete…

13/05/25: today saw the removal of the topsoil/backfill from the two trenches for 2025. Setup will continue this week, with the excavation season starting properly on Monday 19th.

21/01/25: the new pop-up display panels have been installed in the Galilee Chapel, next to the inscribed stones. The panels provide an updated timeline for the development of Llantwit Major during the early medieval period and are intended to provide a link between stones, church and excavation. The panels include versions in both Welsh and English.

15/01/25: the ‘Digging for Britain’ episode (S12 E5) with the segment on the Globe field excavations aired tonight. The episode is also available on iPlayer here.

The Globe Field site backfilled at the end of the 2024 season. We hope to start the 2025 season on the 19th May 2025.