The 257 page 2005-2006 Research Report (with 219 illustrations) was published on May 13th - price £35 plus postage - and the first few weeks of the 2007 excavations have already answered some of the uncertainties detailed in that report!

The brilliant weather of April was succeeded by a very wet May, but progress has been excellent. Justin's 'western' team have already located more of the massive posts of the huge timber structure, although the later stone buildings have been severely damaged by stone robbing and by nineteenth century draining operations. Andrew's team have been working below the floors of the civilians buildings to the east of the military bath house, and have discovered that on one site there had been three successive stone buildings in the third century. In the earliest of those buildings they found a fine piece of the gladiator-scene glass bowl, which joined the much admired piece found in 1991 in the fort ditch sixty metres to the south! There was also a silver ring with gold bezel, inscribed AVE, or 'Hail!', and it must have been the residence of a wealthy family.

But the most important discovery has been that Stone Fort 1 did indeed extend well to the north of Stone Fort2 - and it may well be that the present route of the Stanegate road actually runs in that fort's ditch. A trench at the NW corner of SF2 found the earlier fort wall running north, well below the later wall's foundations. Now we have to discover where its NW corner lies (and probably below our spoil heap!).