30 CONTEXT 183 : MARCH 2025 level of medical cover, and all those engaged on site are fully briefed on the possibility of such discoveries, avoiding any nasty surprises. Perhaps counter-intuitively, it is often the discovery and careful excavation of such things that provide the best outcomes. We began in 2011 at an iron-age site on Salisbury Plain, Chisenbury Midden, recovering pottery and other material that had been unearthed by badgers. The big excavation work started the following year when we began what turned out to be around 20 weeks of fieldwork over several years at Barrow Clump, again on Salisbury Plain: Exercise Beowulf. This scheduled monument was deemed to be heritage at risk following burrowing animal damage. All methods to prevent the tunnelling had failed. We gained permission from Historic England and Natural England to excavate the affected area, uncovering a phenomenal sixth-century cemetery with associated grave goods. Several of the participants now work as archaeologists, having left the military, and a couple also have archaeology degrees from the University of Winchester. Some of the finds are on display in the Wiltshire Museum in Devizes and the fieldwork is published in a monograph (Andrews et al, 2019). All of this is crucial for the archaeological work to be seen to have been accomplished correctly and to make access to the results available to all. In addition to the work on sites at risk, often with human remains, another focus which seems to be particularly effective appears to be, perhaps unsurprisingly, military sites. We have worked on first world war practice trenches in Dundee and on Salisbury Plain, frontline positions at Mametz Wood in the Somme region, a tank battlefield in Bullecourt, France, and a number of crashed military aircraft, including B17 bombers, Spitfires and a Hurricane from the Battle of Britain. These have given us the opportunity to help the MOD’s Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre on the guidance documents for the excavation of such sites, and to help the American teams to recover their war dead. The veterans see this as an important task and are incredibly helpful as they recognise many of the equipment parts being excavated – perhaps more than most archaeologists would. The same can be said for the work accomplished on the site of the hut camps at Aldbourne, used by the famous American unit of Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, the socalled Band of Brothers. The archaeology does not have to be ancient – just about people and with good stories, and the potential for artefacts. Given the buildings focus of Context, it is worth highlighting the structures looked at over the years – admittedly some little more than a floor plan. In gaining data to inform where military training would be permitted within the old village of Imber on Salisbury Plain, the team excavated the site of Browns Farm, leading towards the Grade I-listed Church of St Giles on Church Row. The flint-and-brick foundations of several phases of building were located, all of which overlay older postholes of a medieval structure of the 13th or 14th century. This data was used to inform digging requests made by the military training teams. Not too far away at Tidworth, the very grand The team’s work showed where military training could be carried out in the lost village of Imber on Salisbury Plain.
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