Day 3 & a wet start

We did the last bit of machining on site this morning - sloping back the eastern side of the trench. Tommy & Co. then built some fine shoring on the two steepest sides. When Stuart and Grace arrived from Belfast we gave them the task of cutting steps to access the trench. So all is ship shape for our volunteers, starting tomorrow, and visitors from next week.

Today we sub-sectioned the trench and excavated down through the northern third through another garden soil layer (No. 3 below the modern gravel/demolition build up).

Brian and Stuart trowelling down through the lower garden/urban soil

We also sieved a lot of this material which turned up several fragments of window glass, a 'musket' ball, lots of animal bone (including fish bone), occasional bits of shell and clinker, and 3 small copper-alloy pins each about an inch in length. We also found our first bit of unglazed coarseware pottery and a few more clay pipe stems fragments, although they are a lot less common than was the case in the overlying deposits. We reckon we are still in post-Plantation, 17th-18th century deposits.

Grace sieving