Seven-Year Excavation Among 'Most Important' Projects On Salisbury Plain

An archaeological project to excavate vast parts of Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, has been called "one of the most important projects" to have ever taken place in the area.

Building work over the past seven years, part of the British Army Basing Programme, allowed archaeologists to access vast areas of Salisbury Plain, located just a few miles from the famous Stonehenge site.

The project has resulted in some remarkable discoveries and the new Army houses in Bulford, located close to Salisbury Plain, come complete with two henges deliberately left to preserve 5,000 years of history.

Phil Harding, from Wessex Archaeology, points to the number of Neolithic axes found during the digs and said if a pit was excavated and "it didn't have an axe in it, you felt hard done by”.

Additionally, scores of arrowheads were found alongside more unusual pieces, such as pieces of pottery.

"Every now and again we get these little snippets of material like this, but what we’ve got at Bulford is we’ve got it in quantity," he said.

"We’ve got boxes and boxes of this stuff. That’s what makes Bulford so special in relation to Stonehenge, but that’s my personal opinion.

"I know there are other people who say that other parts of the project are more important than this.

"They’re wrong, of course!"

It is not only Neolithic finds which have been discovered - a fascinating series of First World War training tunnels, dug through the chalk, were found in Larkhill, Wiltshire. 

Ricard Osgood, senior archaeologist, Defence Infrastructure Organisation, said Salisbury Plain is "just about the best archaeological landscape in Western Europe".

"It’s just got every period and the fieldwork that's gone [on] as part of the Army Basing Programme has uncovered elements from each of these layers," he said.

"It just emphasises what an important landscape it is."

The construction work at Salisbury, undertaken as part of the Army Basing Programme, has been called an "all-round package" for both Armed Forces personnel and local communities.

It comes after thousands of troops and their families have returned from Germany or relocated from around the UK during recent years.