Ullenwood crowd

A group shot outside the mess hall at Ullenwood, belonging to Corky Gregory, taken during the 1981 season. L to R: Rowena Dutton, Terry Courtney, Julie Lancley, Jane Dineen, Julie Fissenden, Corky Gregory and Mike Taylor. "Is that Ros's mini in the background?", asks Corky.

A woman happy with her posthole

Here's a lovely picture of Julie Gale (Fissenden as she then was) looking very cheerful about her posthole, forged tang trowel to the fore, camera in the background. This is one of a group of pictures Corky Gregory entitled 'People in postholes' and, she thinks, is probably from the 1978 season, or thereabouts. Julie's proving that it is possible to work hard whilst prone on the ground.

Why were all the desks outside?

And here is an altogether mystifying tableau from Dr Phillpotts's album for 1983. The troops all seemed quite cheerful, left to right, ?, ?, Jane Fitt, Julie Fissenden, Ros Cleal, Dave Southwood and Nick Snashall. I'm inclined to think that this photograph was taken on a Thursday morning, based on the fact that nobody is wearing their digging clothes and considering the angle of the shadows. But I cannot account for the multitude of desks sitting outside behind them. Can anyone remember? I assume that the little bags attached to the line with clothes pegs contain Frank Green's soil samples.

Experimental Archaeology 4: but what is Julie doing?

I can't figure out what Julie Fissenden is doing in this photo: it looks as though a fair-sized log has been upended and then had a fire built around its base.  It seems to have been burned about half way through without falling over.  And what's the whiteish thing that Julie is adding to the fire? There are a couple of other similar items on the right side of the fire.  Magnified they look like bones or scrolls.  General mystification.

"Come come, Crickley Man, it is all very clear. Julie F is stoking the fires (by throwing on a billet) around a make-believe house post, to see whether the burning of a house would cause posts to char below the level of the ground surface. Postholes, you see, regularly have charcoal in their infill. The answer, however, is probably not. The charcoal must derive from other sources, rather than the burning of the post itself. Clear?  Phil."

Clear!

Possible wall, top of the bank, CH 1981 ...

Armed as I am with Dr Phillpotts's captions, I know to whom these fine legs belong: L to R Joe Stone, Gail Boyle, Julie Fissenden, John Boden and Ros Cleal. It would have been grossly unfair to set the identification of the legs as a blog competition, so I restrained myself...

CH 1983: this lot have been working rather hard ...

This picture from the Phillpotts 1983 archive shows virtuous exhaustion at its best: L to R Jane Fitt, Steve Vaughan, John Gale and Julie Fissenden. Come on , drag yourselves to your feet, pick up those buckets and get back to work ... Must have been pretty warm as well if it was necessary to have the finds hut window open.

From Bernard Dawson: line gang removing rocks from the ditch, cutting AXV, 1979

Another splendid shot, this time of the team removing large bits of rock from the bottom of the ditch on the outer side of the rampart in 1979. Bernie Dawson sent the photo and Dr Phillpotts identified far more people than Bernie and I did: L to R on the baulk: Malcolm White, ?, ?, Ken Collier, ?, Julie Fissenden, ?, ?, Paul Noakes, ?, ?, Julian Parker. In the ditch: Terry Courtney, ?, ?, Elsa Charlot, Gill Drury, ?, ?, Zoya Spivakovska, Mark Spivakovsky (in hat), ?, Dmitri, ?, Pete, ?, Penny Locke, ?, Training (blue top at right), Mike Taylor in the background.