The South Cadbury Environs Project grew out of ad hoc fieldwalking intended to identify pre Medieval activity around Cadbury Castle, an Iron Age hillfort re-occupied in the 5th and 6th centuries AD. Originally intended to provide contextual information for the publication  of English Heritage’s report on a major programme of excavations by Leslie Alcock, it became clear that a complete re-assessment of landscape survey strategy would be necessary if the work was to generate meanful information.

At the end of 1992 Paul Johnson, one of the two co-founders of the project with Richard Tabor, introduced the use of geophysical survey. Most of the work was done by members of the South East Somerset Archaeological and Historical Society (SESAS), led by their chairman, Jim Eastaugh. By 1994 the results were sufficiently interesting to attract Birmingham University training excavations, led by Peter Leach. In 1996 Tabor devised a strategy  sampling within an 8 by 8 km block, centred on the hillfort. He revised his plans in 1998, following a pilot study at Sigwells, employing a three-pronged programme of geophysical survey, test pitting and shovel pitting. With some adaptation this provided the model  until 2007.

A successful application to the Leverhulme Trust headed by Mark Corney and Dr. Michael Costen of the University of Bristol made it possible to employ Tabor as a research fellow from 2001 to 2004. Fortunately  a successful joint application from the Universities of Bristol and Oxford to the Arts and Humanities Research Board by Dr. Gary Lock and Michael Costen allowed Tabor to continue his work, supported by a research assistant, Clare Randall, and a technician, Liz Caldwell.

Tabor decided to leave the project in March 2008 and currently is preparing the final report of the fieldwork up to 2007. Clare Randall has assumed the role of fieldwork director but has decided to eschew SCEP’s formal sampling strategy in favour of a generalised target area and ad hoc approach as the South Somerset
Archaeological Research Group. Currently she is working on a PhD in archaeology at the University of Bournemouth.

For more information about the project’s remarkable results, strategy  and history read some of the publications listed on the SCEP Publications page.

Last updated: 1st July 2009