Isle Heritage CIC

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Isle Heritage CIC

Community focused archaeological company

https://sketchfab.com/IsleHeritage

28/10/2026

After the weekends storms left features on site flooded, we turned our attention to some post-excavation work, with volunteers helping to clean the skeletal remains from our recently excavated grave.

We were also joined by a family spending a day of their half-term holiday with us. We introduced them to working with human skeletal remains and explained the journey from field to lab: how a burial is excavated and recorded, how the remains are carefully lifted, and then cleaned, recorded and made ready for specialist study. This was also a chance to discuss why we study human remains and what they can tell us about people’s lives.

The family’s two young budding archaeologists began by scanning the skull and then how learning how to complete a photogrammetric record, taking overlapping photographs to create a detailed 3D digital model ( https://skfb.ly/pPFBB ). They then helped carefully clean the skull and other parts of the skeleton, learning to identify different bones and look for possible signs of disease or damage.

The whole family also spent time with Philip Warren, who gave them a talk and mini-demonstration about his work on recreating encaustic floor tiles from designs discovered onsite.

Days sharing the archaeology we excavate and educating new and enthusiastic young archaeologist is an important part of our work at Isle Heritage CIC, and some of the most enjoyable parts of the job. Overall a great day and productive day!

23/10/2026

We had a great couple of days at Lossenham this week.
On Wednesday, site work was hampered by heavy rain so we setup in the finds shed and carefully sorted and started to clean the skeleton lifted last week. We were also lucky to be joined by former director and volunteer favourite Annie Partridge.
On Thursday we were back onsite for a gorgeous day, and emptied the grave of water and sampled and completed excavation of the burial deposits below the skeletal remains. The grave was then completed cleaned for recording, the rain had assisted this process as we were able to fully define where Gr47 cut other features (previously masked by the baked clay deposits).

19/10/2026

Warning Human Remains shown.
Last week was a busy week onsite.
We had a team, lead by Kevin Cornwell, conduct a magnetometry survey on the fields to the south of Castle Toll and another team of volunteers excavating two graves at the Priory.
We reached the burial horizon in one of the graves, which was fairly deep. To overcome the depth and facilitate access to the burial by our volunteers, Michael Hide created an amazing, bespoke hanging cradle. This excellent frame allowed us to carefully clean, photograph, survey and record the skeletal remains before lifting them for further study along with c14 dating and potentially aDNA testing.

08/10/2026

After a day digging what appears to be a drainage ditch parallel to the south-wall and recording multiple fragments of glazed floor tile from tbe top of grave backfill, the late afternoon was spent surveying a grid for further geophysical surveys.
Warm, sunny, birds, sheep and silence.....wonderful

07/10/2026

Tuesday was a quieter day on-site. Following a misty morning, we worked on defining another of the south-wall buttresses. We had thought this buttress cut a grave however the feature has turned out to be a drainage ditch running parallel to the south-wall

30/09/2026

We beat the rain today and continued until the sun finally came out at 1530!
Today we focused on making progress on ongoing work.
We reached the burial horizon in one of our graves, the base of the south-wall cut in one of the sections and completed the section against the buttress. Great work completed by all, pushing the site on.

25/09/2026

Yesterday we were delighted to welcome metal detectorist Laura The-Explorer of Cinque Ports Detecting Public Page and LEGISE (https://www.legise.org/) member to site.

Isle Heritage CIC is a strong supporter of responsible metal detecting and detectorists and encourages close collaboration with archaeologists and the heritage sector. We have been fortunate to work alongside many detectorists at Lossenham and our other sites over the years, sharing skills, knowledge and discoveries.

For half of the day, Laura joined in with excavation and gained practical experience whilst developing a greater understanding of archaeological context. In the afternoon, the roles reversed and Laura took one of our volunteers that had never been involved with metal detecting before and gave them an introductory crash course... with 3x nails (probably associated with the priory roof) and a fragment of lead being discovered.

23/09/2026

We are looking for help conducting a GPR-Survey over our Priory. The area is approximately 0.55ha. or the whole Field 1.4ha.
A GPR-Survey would assist in understanding the layout and where wall may survive compared to backfilled robber trenches. It may also help us understand drainage on the site, we previously identified a medieval drain and it would be great to understand how this relates to the rest of the site.

If anyone knows where we could look or who we could ask please reach out, commercial surveys are masssively cost prohibitive.

22/09/2026

It was a quieter day onsite today. We focussed on cleaning our empty Gr48 for photogrammetry and then exposing the full depth of the buttress that we have been working on. The buttress is one of the best surviving masonry structures onsite.

20/09/2026

Back onsite this week.
We finished a grave, which unfortunately only had a small fragment of Humerus remaining. In the base, however, we identified the edge of one, possibly two truncated graves. With a bit of work and removing a mortar and clay layer we identified the upper edge of the cut grave (possibly two given its width).
We also sunk an intervention through the south-wall and exposed the depth of one of our buttresses, also showing it was not keyed into the south-wall, therefore a later addition.

On Thursday we continued in Gr-47 and as we identified the burial horizon the heavens opened and even a gazebo couldn't stop us getting too wet to continue!

Another successful few days onsite and again thanks to our wonderful, hardworking volunteers.

Address

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Dover
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Website

https://isleheritagecic.org/

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