BUDDING archaeologists had a go at metal detecting and learned about their village’s heritage at a dig open day.

Throughout September, archaeology students from the University of Southampton have been exploring Kingsclere and excavating the site of a tithe barn in a corner of Kingsclere Primary School’s playing field.

Pupils from the school, in Ash Grove, have been helping diggers by excavating their own trench and washing any items they find.

Janet Bond, dig co-ordinator in Kingsclere, said: “The open day went very well and we had about 100 visitors who were all very interested.

“There was metal detecting for children and groups of people were taken around the village and shown various historic houses in Kingsclere.”

She added: “It’s been fascinating listening to the discussions between the scientists and older residents who remember the barn when it was still there.”

In previous years, the dig – which is a collaboration between the Kingsclere Heritage Association and the University of Southampton Department of Archae-ology – has been held at Tidgrove Warren Farm, between Kingsclere and Overton, where Henry II had a residence in the 1170s.

Kristian Strutt, dig director and experimental officer at the university, said: “We have been doing three different things. Firstly, a geophysical survey of the school, a building survey of 20 Swan Street, which is a late 14th century timber-framed hall and an excavation in the supposed location of an old tithe barn, which we located using geophysics and old photography. We think we have found it’s foundations in the rubble.”

He said the building was used to store crop collected by the vicar as tax for the church and later as the garage for a coach. He added: “It was demolished some time in the 1950s or 1960s but we think it goes back to the 1700s and probably further back than that.

“We are hoping to dig down and get to older deposits. It could go back to the 15 th century or further because the Canons of Rouen, a French religious order, were given land in the Kingsclere area in the 12th century.”