Our next meeting is on Tuesday, March 17th, at the West Midlands Bridge Club (WMBC), as usual, with refreshments from 7.00pm.
Our speaker will be Alex Jones, who will be speaking about excavations at Metchley Roman fort.
Metchely is Birmingham’s fort, located beneath the QE Hospital and part of the university campus.
Alex has over 24 years’ experience in professional archaeology. He has been actively involved in commercial archaeological practice in the West Midlands in a wide range of roles over the last 22 years, including 16 years in project management. Alex’s project management portfolio has included projects of all types and dates – from early prehistory to post-medieval archaeology – with a particular emphasis on projects within an urban environment, including complex, deeply-stratified fieldwork investigations in the West Midlands.
Alex has published several books detailing the excavations at Metchley, a Roman Fort of national significance situated in the environs of the University of Birmingham. The site was occupied more or less continuously for perhaps 150 years from around AD 48. Several phases of development have been recognised. It was first identified in the 18th century as above ground earthworks in antiquarian descriptions and map sources, although the early Roman date of the site was only confirmed in the 1930s, during the first archaeological excavations. Further excavations took place in the 1950s, 1960s, and from 1996 to 1999.
Also, details below of our April trip to Leicester.
Spring Trip to Leicester.
The SAG 2026 spring trip will be on Saturday 25th April 2026. We will travel by coach to Leicester, which has many places of archaeological and historic interest. The coach will drop us off in the middle of Leicester close to the Jewry museum, Richard 3rd Centre and the Guildhall. All of the sites are within close walking distance.
The cost will be £26 per person, which includes all coach travel but does not include entry costs to any of the sites. Currently, it is free to enter the Guildhall Museum, and senior discounts are available at the Jewry Museum and Richard 3rd Centre. The coach will leave central Solihull at 9.15 am and we hope to arrive in Leicester at about 10.30 am. We will depart Leicester at 4.30 pm and should be back in Solihull at about 5.45 – 6.00pm.
If you would like to go on this visit, please complete the form below and either hand it in at a meeting or post it to Mr R. Carmichael, 76 Ulverley Green Road, Olton, Solihull, B92 8AJ.
Payment can be made either by cheque payable to Solihull Archaeological Group and passed to Rob at the address above or by bank transfer. If you wish to pay by bank transfer, please send an email to
treasurer@solihull-archaeology.co.uk to receive details.