Burpham Big Dig: Secrets of West Sussex villages uncovered

Burpham Camp is a scheduled monument, an Iron Age promontory fort that became a Saxon Burh, using the natural defensive qualities of the land to build a fortification with ramparts and ditches.

Project leader James Sainsbury, Worthing Museum's archaeology curator, was keen to find out more about the villages around the camp, having done a lot of archaeological work in the area in the past.

He was intrigued by the obvious boundary of the Saxon Burh and the question of why the village of Burpham had grown up outside this fortified settlement.

James said: "It is an historical parish but there has been very little done here before. We knew there must be a ditch but no one had ever found it. We have been very lucky that the villagers have been so welcoming, allowing us to dig test pits in their gardens."

Right at the end of the project, on Day 12, Thursday, August 22, the mighty external defensive ditch of the Burh was finally revealed. The discovery gave a good idea of at least part of its form, which has now been recorded and drawn.

James said: "The legacy is that we are now looking at returning, with a ten-year plan building on all the work we have done in the past two weeks."

Digging out soil for a rampart meant a ditch formed around it, James explained, thereby creating a double line of defence for the fortification. The fort was in use in the Iron Age and 2,000 years later, it was a training camp during World War Two.

James added: "This is such a unique geographical site as far as Sussex is concerned. You just don't get them here. This type of promontory fort is much more common in Dorset and Wales."

What has intrigued him is the lack of Iron Age finds. He thinks it likely that the ditch was re-cut around 900AD and any Iron Age evidence was cleared, from this small area at least.

James said: "We found a Roman coin from 4AD but what was interesting was there was pretty much nothing else, and nothing from the Iron Age. I have never been on a dig where they haven't found Roman pottery. What you have to remember, though, is this was a sample survey."

He was excited by the Saxo Medieval finds from either side of the Norman Conquest and some very rare early Saxon pottery. One of his favourite finds was a piece of writing slate and slate pencil, especially as it was found in the garden of an author.

The oldest finds were fossils, like Shepherd's Crown sea urchins, dating back 80 million years and there were many more modern finds from the 18th and 19th centuries, boxes and boxes of them, including a Victorian Frozen Charlotte doll and a clay pipe bowl from around 1850.

James said: "The villagers have been so welcoming. We have had homemade cake every day. The response has been wonderful, totally beyond expectations."

Everything taken out of gardens remains the property of the owners and all the ground has been made good.

James said: "The overall takeaway is that Wepham was the more important settlement at the time of the Conquest and we think Burpham grew up around the church from 1200. I think what we are proving is that people were living in Wepham and Peppering, not Burpham."

By The George at Burpham, you can clearly see the Buhr's earthen ramparts still standing and visualise the ditch at the entrance to the car park, where there would have been a wooden bridge.

From Burpham Village Hall, you can see Arundel Castle standing imposing on the horizon. This took over as the main line of defence when it was built at the end of the 11th century by Roger de Montgomery, Earl of Arundel.