Digging for Britain to Feature TVAS Reading site, Stanton Harcourt

Season 10 of Digging for Britain will feature Stanton Harcourt in episode 4. The episode is already available on iPlayer but will be broadcast live on 29th January 2023 on BBC 2 at 8pm.

To summarise, the excavations revealed a rich past to the village of Stanton Harcourt. The activity on site ranged from the Neolithic through to post-Medieval periods. The segment on Digging for Britain focuses on the Iron age phase of the site, which featured at least 1000 pits. This pit alignment produced a number of amazing finds including, but not limited to, crouched human burials, animal burials and pottery. The Saxon period on site was also of great interest as it was represented by at least 23 post built buildings which can be seen in the drone photos.

The post excavation process is well under way with a report to follow soon.

Below are the links to the posters from our open day:

Previous news post- Open Day and Ongoing Excavations at Butts Piece, Stanton Harcourt

Stanton Harcourt, Site Plan (2.7MB)

Stanton Harcourt Background and Planning (8.9MB)

Stanton Harcourt, Neolithic (7.0MB)

Stanton Harcourt, Iron Age (10.4MB)

Stanton Harcourt, Roman (25.1MB)

Stanton Harcourt, Saxon (13.8MB)

Our previous evaluation report prior to the excavation can also be found here. This reports provides some background to the site and a small window into what was later found in the excavations.

Below is a selection of photos from the excavation: