South Oxfordshire Archaeological Group

2025-26 SOAG Lectures

The final lecture in our 2025-26 series is on the 28th May 2026 – NT Archaeologist Adrian Cox will give a lecture on the excavations undertaken at Greys Court.

SOAG Fieldwork 2026 – Greys Court

We now have confirmed dates for this year’s planned excavations at Greys Court – the 18th – 27th July as part of the CBA Festival Of Archaeology, and a smaller excavation on the 12th – 16th September as part of the National Trust’s Heritage Weekend. Notices will be sent out to members nearer the time to compile rotas for excavation places.

SOAG Fieldwork 2026 – Smokedown

As expected, the field where this site is located has been returned to an arable crop this year which is planned to be harvested in mid to late September. SOAG will be welcome to do some limited fieldwork post-harvest, but what may be possibe at that time of year will be dependent on the weather and ground conditions. Any work will have to be planned and arranged at fairly short notice. Hopefully we will be able to inform members nearer the time as to the scope of the possible fieldwork.

SOAG Visit

A group of SOAG members visited Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire on Tuesday 12th May. This included a private tour which introduced the five main time periods – Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman, and Anglo-Saxon – illustrated by buildings. The archaeology behind the experimental buildings and the evidence that informs each reconstruction was clearly explained. Members were free to explore the site at their leisure after the tour.

SOAG COMMITTEE FOR 2026-2027

At the SOAG AGM in April 2026 most of the current members of the committee agreed to stand for a further year and were re-elected. The exception was Nigel Peters who stood down as Secretary and Messenger editor as he is moving out of the area. On behalf of SOAG, the committee expresses its grateful thanks to Nigel for his years of work supporting the group. Nigel is replaced by Neil Killoran. To see who we all are and what we do in SOAG, see About SOAG – People.

SOAG Fieldwork 2025

In July, SOAG members were able to participate in a dig at a site at Park Corner, near Nettlebed in a project organised in partnership with Dr Wendy Morrison of the Chilterns Heritage and Archaeology Partnership. Wendy gave a lecture on the preliminary findings of the excavation on Friday 27^th February 2026 to the Watlington Environmental Group.

Smokedown Romano-British site is SOAG’s long running field project.  2025’s  fieldwork season ran from July 31st to September 8th. We understand the field is likely to be returned to arable crop in the new year, so this was probably our last extended season on the site. Nevertheless, it was an exciting year with unusual finds and features. A summary report on this year’s excavations has been published and is available available through the Smokedown project page.

We were very pleased to partner with the National Trust again for a second excavation at Greys Court in late July, as part of the CBA’s Festival of Archaeology. Part of the remains of the inter-court range across the oval lawn was uncovered, to the excited interest of visitors and NT staff. The NT archaeologist Adrian Cox again expressed his heartfelt thanks to SOAG for the quality of the excacvation, and the extent of public engagement.

SOAG members undertook geophysical surveys at a number of locations during the year, some of which may provide opportunities for fieldwork and excavation in the future. We also participated in the ongoing test-pitting programme at Chinnor Community Orchard.

Each of these projects is referenced on our Fieldwork Projects page, and a summary of this years field work was presented at SOAG’s Christmas lecture and meeting.