In Trench 1, excavation inside the flanker continued to
further reveal the inner circular wall.
The wall appears to be continuous but is in disrepair to the south,
adjacent to the entrance through the flanker wall. Interestingly, the inner “circle” of stones
no longer seems to be perfectly circular and is distinctly straighter along its
eastern section. Between the inner wall
and the flanker wall an intriguing deposit has been uncovered which contains
charred wood and nails, this has been photographed and planned and will be
investigated tomorrow. Outside of the
flanker, excavation continued to establish whether the flanker wall was built
directly on top of the natural subsoil or built in a foundation cut made into
the subsoil. No evidence of a cut was
found and the wall appears to be built on a layer of probable natural subsoil.
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| Sapphire and volunteers Li and Claire in trench 1. The straight edge on the inner masonry is very clear from this angle |
In Trench 2, we extended by a metre to investigate the other
side of the wall and to see what exactly the relationship between the wall and
drain is. Upon removal of the sods and topsoil, we came down onto a rubble
layer which was found in the rest of the trench, and this was planned. Tomorrow
this layer will be excavated and we will hopefully find that our wall is continuing
(fingers crossed!).
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| Trench 2 and extension, showing the continuation of the rubble layer |
As for Trench 3, the plot appears to be thickening!
Yesterday, we were beginning to get the impression that the geophysical anomaly
that this trench was opened to investigate was the rubble. This was ringing
true in the early part of today, as some of our volunteers removed the rubble
revealed natural subsoil directly underneath. However, this afternoon, upon
further excavation, it appears that some of the rubble was sitting above what
looks like an L-shaped cut feature. Cormac made the tentative suggestion that
this could be a sort of gutter feature for draining the water away from around
a building. Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day in this trench too.
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| Trench 3. The possible cut is visible as the darker patch to the right and top of the photograph. |
Many thanks again to all our great volunteers today, Li,
Damien, René, Conall, Claire and Pearl.
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A sherd of porcelain found in trench 1
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| Two fragments of late 17th Century clay pipe, found in trench 3 |
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