We are fully booked for the 2024 season.If you'd like to visit the excavations you can find out more about when they are on at 2024 Vindolanda Excavations.

2025 Excavations

Booking for the 2025 Vindolanda Excavation season will open on 5th November 2024. 

The Vindolanda Trust believes that archaeology and history are for everyone and to give as many people the opportunity to participate on our excavations this year we are limiting the number of excavation periods a person can attend to one per person. This applies across both Vindolanda Trust excavations, those taking places at Vindolanda fort and those taking place at Magna fort. 

Here you can find out more about the current Magna excavations.

At Vindolanda in 2024 we have started a new Scheduled Monument Consent (SMC) find out more about the next phase of our research and where we'll be excavating over the next five years in Castrum: 2024-2028 Excavations.

There are different ways to excavate with us: 

Joining the team with an Excavate Only Place will give you 2 weeks on the excavations and includes an Excavation T-shirt. This would suit locals or those who wanted to find their own accommodation and can travel to site on a daily basis.

An Excavate & Stay Place includes 2 weeks on the excavations and an Excavation T-shirt plus accommodation in our on-site facility the Hedley Centre which is self-catered. You will have access to the kitchen area for your meals or you can visit a local eatery. This would suit overseas travellers or excavators who may not have access to a car.

Each year we have 3 Residential Bursary Excavation places for young people aged 18 - 25 who might not otherwise have the opportunity. Our bursary placements have closed for the 2024 season. If this is something that would interest you, sign up to our Newsletter at the bottom of the page to hear when they go live for 2025 and hear all of our news from this season.

What is Involved in Excavating?

Find out more about what's involved in volunteering on our excavations. What to bring, how fit you need to be and what a typical week is like for an excavator at Vindolanda Roman Fort.

What's Involved in Excavating?

Cost of Excavation(2024 prices):

Excavate Only Place: £220

Excavate & Stay - Single Room: £1200

Excavate & Stay - Twin Room: £1800

Extra Nights: Single Room £60  Double/Twin: £100

A deposit for Hedley Centre bookings will take place on the day. You will receive a confirmation email with a link to final payments.

We ask that all our volunteer excavators become Friends of Vindolanda before they arrive to excavate. This means they will be able to visit our sites outside of the excavations and will be invited to our annual Friends Day which rounds up the year and the excavations.

2025 Dates:

Each period is two weeks long and you may book a maximum of one period on any Vindolanda Trust Excavations. 

Period	Dates
Period 1	7th April - 19th April 2025
Period 2	21st April - 2nd May 2025
Period 3	5th May - 16th May 2025
Period 4	19th May - 30th May 2025
Period 5	2nd June - 13th June 2025
Period 6	16th June - 27th June 2025
Excavation Break	Excavation Break
Period 7	25th August - 5th September 2025
Period 8	8th September - 19th September 2025

Veteran Draw 2025

The Veteran Draw offers people who have excavated with us before, at either Vindolanda or Magna, a chance at priority booking for the excavations. If you dug with us in 2024 for the first time – congrats, you are now a veteran. Each year, at both of our excavations, we set aside a limited number of places per period. These are reserved so veteran volunteers get a chance to sign up to before the main launch of places.

The Veteran Draw is a ballot-like system: veterans’ names are randomly extracted, and those whose names are pulled out are contacted with a link for priority booking. This gives the veterans, an extra opportunity get a space on the digs. It also ensures the archaeological team can get the benefit of their experience, throughout the excavation season and no period is composed entirely by new excavators.

This year we are changing the way we do the Veteran Draw: if you would like to be considered for it, please sign up below. We have split the draw for Vindolanda and Magna: as a veteran of the Vindolanda Trust excavations, you can sign up to both or just one of the two. Remember you will only be allowed one period overall, at one site. For example: you will not be able to use your veteran space at Vindolanda and then book a regular spot at Magna. The Magna Draw will be called first and if you are successful in getting a place through that, your name will be withdrawn from the Vindolanda Draw. We hope this new system will make the ballot process easier and fairer, ensuring that only those who want to be considered are involved.

If, for whatever reason, you are not able to dig next year, or do not want to be in the draw, you do not need to do anything.

Veteran Draw Sign Up - Vindolanda 2025       Veteran Draw Sign Up - Magna 2025