Day 1 & a 7.30 start.....

Finally we got to dig up the car park in Bishop Street! We actually started late last night when Tommy & son secured-off the northern corner with cones and hazard tape [and a shopping trolley] so that no cars parked in the area which would have stalled any start we could make today. But at 7.30 all was well - (apart from 1 errant Donegal saloon, still there when we headed home this evening....

The site hut and tool lockup arrived, along with portaloos and barriers and fencing and Tommy got started.



Emily & Tommy taking a break when Mark Patterson, BBC, dropped by.

Mark Patterson dropped by at 10 and did an onsite interview - and was a bit disparaging of our 'salubrious' site hut. The interview went out at 2 o'clock and Mark will be following us on air and on his Facebook page for the run of the excavation.

Brian and Dermot rolled in from Belfast just before 11 with the tools and rest of the kit

Dermot & Brian

Today's Irish News and Derry News both featured articles on the dig and a photographer from the Derry Journal called by and took our picture.

Below the tarmac was loose gravel, hardcore and demolition rubble. The rubble probably represents the outbuildings and garden buildings that were levelled in the 1960s. The spoil was removed by a sequence of lorries including one really funky one.

 

 

The site still looks like a building site but all being well we will have the bulk of the overburden excavated by the end of the day tomorrow and we can make a start on the real archaeology.