Ralph Mills

Archaeology on my doorstep

Garden archaeology has recently become TV-fodder, with programmes like The Big Dig and others, encouraging people to dig trenches in their properties. I’ve been at it a lot longer!

Wherever I’ve lived, even if only for a few months, I have done at lerst a little gardening. The results of much labour have ranged from a container or two of succulents, some herbs and a few potted plants, to an entire vegetable plot, culminating size-wise in an allotment at Whitemoor, Nottingham. I am now busily digging our garden in Saanich, Victoria, British Columbia.

Cultivating flower and vegetable beds would often turn up evidence of previous occupation. The most productive “dig” was that of my allotment, and I used the material I uncovered in my MA studies. More usually the garden would produce some clay pipe stems, or some transfer printed pottery. One home led to the discovery of a rubbish pit crammed with glass bottles, some of which I still have.

This page introduces the results of my garden archaeology of an 1885 house in Nottingham, a 1905 house in Leeds and now a 1955 house in Saanich.