A look at our excavations for the Gloucestershire M5 Junction 10 Improvements Scheme – Part 2

If you tuned in last week, you saw how work got underway in 2025 for our client Galliford Try on excavations near Cheltenham in Gloucestershire for Gloucestershire County Council’s M5 Junction 10 Improvements Scheme.

Over the winter period, work continued through the frosty conditions, and more fabulous artefacts were revealed—including a retouched flint of likely Mesolithic date, and a fragments of blown glass likely to be Roman.

The site was producing a very large, though typical, assemblage of Roman pottery. This was dominated by wares common to this region, as well as imported ceramics from elsewhere in the Roman empire. The pottery included day to day table wares, as well as storage vessels and potentially some high-status pottery as well.

Elsewhere, some fascinating fired clay objects were recovered, including a complete and very typical Roman spindle whorl made from the local soft fabric—similar spindle whorls were produced across the country from locally available materials.

That’s it from the M5 for this week. We look forward to bringing you more updates soon, so make sure you don’t miss an update by following us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Bluesky!