Big Dig project in Worcestershire village hopes to turn up finds

At the cinema The Dig, released earlier this year, starring Ralph Fiennes as Basil Brown, is set in 1939 and recounts the story of the famous find of the seventh-century Anglo-Saxon burial ship and its treasures at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk.

Meanwhile, another film, Ammonite, starring Kate Winslet, studies the life of the famous fossil hunter extraordinaire Mary Anning.

FLASHBACK: Archaeological treasurers were unveiled during the work to redesign the roundabout by Worcester Cathedral in 2015-16

These are not the only links with past as in 2021 there have been major finds.

In January, a well-preserved dinosaur footprint was discovered by the four-year-old girl, Lily Wilder, who spotted it at Bendricks Bay, Barry, in the Vale of Glamorgan and scientists believe it is 220 million years old.

In March, a six-year-old boy from Walsall found a 488-million-year-old fossil in his garden using a Christmas gift fossil hunting kit and in April, Marie Woods, an archaeologist, unearthed a dinosaur footprint belonging to a “real Jurassic giant” on the Yorkshire coast.

Even the sites of Stonehenge and Pompeii have got in on the act. At Pompeii, a four-wheeled processional chariot was discovered in February and at Stonehenge the mystery of the origin of the circle’s stones was solved when their quarry in the Presili Hills of Wales was discovered in March.

The latest  scientific discovery, found this October, was the oldest carnivorous dinosaur found in the UK – a chicken-sized relative of Tyrannosaurus Rex called Pendraig Milnerae. The two-legged carnivore creature roamed this country over 200 million years ago.

Not to be outdone by such discoveries, the village of White Ladies Aston is welcoming back its own archaeological dig project this autumn organised by Nina O’ Hare and the Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service, who plan to unearth more information about the history of the area and to try to discover the “Lost Village of White Ladies Aston”.

This is the latest stage in the community archaeology project, Small Pits, Big Ideas, which last visited this area in 2017-18.

The project involves digging eight test pits (measuring 1m x 1m) at various locations across the village.

Villagers of all ages are invited to take part in the event and they can be involved in a number of ways, by hosting a pit, cleaning the finds and of course, digging the pits.

SMALL PITS, BIG IDEAS: INVESTIGATING WHITE LADIES ASTON (WORCESTERSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGY DEPT.) 9/7/18.

For individuals who have ever dreamed of being a member of Time Team or The Great British Dig: History in Your Back Garden, their dream can now come true. The previous village dig of 2017 did achieve some considerable successes. The eight pits in people’s gardens produced a total of 2,447 finds which dated from 11th century pottery, to items from the English Civil War in the 17th century, to dumps of refuse from the 18th century and 19th century.

It is surprising how many finds can be found in such small squares. The remains of farm buildings no longer in existence were revealed and clues to the site of the medieval village were discovered.

SMALL PITS, BIG IDEAS: INVESTIGATING WHITE LADIES ASTON (WORCESTERSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGY DEPT.) 9/7/18.

In October the archaeological team will return to new dig sites in the hope of adding more detail to the rich history of White Ladies Aston.

The Big Dig project in the village is just one of six settlements in the county to experience their own archaeological time team event and who knows what history they will discover beneath our feet.