Fieldwalking at Alcaston

“If I was to choose one place in Acton Scott to survey it would be here” said Dr Andy Wigley pointing at an indistinct crop mark in an aerial photograph of a field in Alcaston. As Andy is the county’s Historic Environment Countryside Advisor, Phil Scoggins thought he would have a good nose for an interesting site, and decided to put it to the test.

So, on a glorious, if cold, October day Heritage Project volunteers turned out in force to look at a large Alcaston field which on the ground betrayed no indication of any historic significance. Undeterred we set to work field walking, led by Peter Reavill, Finds Liaison Officer for the Portable Antiquities Scheme.

Field walking is such a basic archaeological technique that it may be thought surprising that we’ve not used it before on the project. The explanation lies in the fact that so much of the parish is pasture land where field walking is not possible. On the Roman villa site trial excavation was preceded by shovel pit testing, but the Alcaston field was arable land, freshly ploughed and planted.

During field walking a line of people walk up and down a grid marked out with bamboo canes, (in this instance by Hugh Hannaford, community archaeologist), looking for man-made objects thrown up by the plough to “bag”. An analysis of the finds from each grid square might indicate “hotspots” perhaps a concentration of finds of a particular age. There is a strong similarity in the latter respect to shovel pit testing.

It wasn’t long before readily identifiable Roman Severn Valley Ware was found and morale was further raised by Phil Cawood spotting a prehistoric flint blade – Phil’s third of the season!
By the end of the session two transects had been “walked” and the bagged finds were hauled off to Ludlow by Peter.

A week later more volunteers were to be found washing the finds in the Ludlow Museum Resource Centre. Complaints were heard that the Conservation Laboratory was colder inside than Alcaston was outside - a point not entirely without foundation as an overheated lab is bad for conserving objects! With the dirt washed up the number of identifiable Roman objects rose, and medieval green glazed ware made an appearance.

The confident conclusion of Peter Reavill is that the volunteers have probably discovered the whereabouts of a previously unknown Roman era farmhouse. This also means that the ditch appearing on aerial photographs is almost certainly of Iron Age origin and would have surrounded the Roman structure’s predecessor. An interesting, because unusual, feature of both the Alcaston ditched enclosure and that on the Roman villa site at Laundry Meadow is the funneled entrance to both, no doubt to ease the channeling of animals in and out of the enclosure.

Field walking has a disadvantage not suffered by shovel pit testing; it can only be done during a short “window of opportunity” between ploughing and planting and the growth of the crop to a few inches high – a few weeks a year in other words. Hopefully we shall be able to follow up this year’s success with more field walking in future years to get a more accurate and widespread pattern of results.

Our particular thanks go to Mr and Mrs Orme for permission to field walk on their land.