Today was the last day of the Pan Neighbourhood Partnership / Wessex Archaeology summer holiday excavation on land behind Garden Way. It was another hot day and we only had a few hours left to further develop our insight into the history of Pan before the end of the dig. We were joined this morning by familiar faces keen to get straight back into it… so off they went.

Almost immediately some great finds were revealed, including a tiny French perfume bottle, two intact medicine bottles and a tin whistle. We also recovered fragments of poison bottles with the warning ‘not to be taken’ printed on the side. Don’t worry folks, there’s no poison left. The top find of the day was an even smaller Bovril jar than the one found yesterday! That makes three ranging in size from 8oz to just 1/2oz.

Meanwhile, up in the Isobel centre, the finds from the week were being sorted and made ready for this afternoon’s exhibition.

The most interesting finds were displayed with information labels. At the end of the exhibition these will be donated to Downside School. Our other finds were sorted into boxes of metal, glass, ceramic and bone. During the course of the dig a few items have been found that have had us scratching our heads. These have been displayed on an ‘oddities and miscellaneous’ table and hopefully visitors to the centre can suggest what they are.

As for that mystery date for the Milk of Magnesia bottle, those of you who came to the exhibition will already know that its sell-by date was ‘August 21st 1906.’ AMAZING STUFF!!

We’d like to thank all of our volunteers for their help and enthusiasm this week. We’d also like to thank the staff of Pan Neighbourhood Partnership for inviting us and supporting us throughout the dig.

We’ve had an excellent week and hope to return in the future, but for now we have a ferry to catch so this is goodbye from Gemma, Paul and Anne, your Wessex Archaeology team.