Thursday 25 July 2013

25 July 2013, Hickleton Hall POW Project Day 4

We were treated to another glorious day of sunshine today, this is certainly making up for all those days in the office getting this project ready!

We also had a good turn out from: Chris, Alex, Kate, Phil, Sue, Russell, Helen, Margaret, Lee, Sue, Anne, Vince, Gareth and later on Dane.

Despite our best efforts, we didn't manage to get the first base (Base 4) properly finished and recorded from yesterday, there was still some work needed on clearing out the post holes, so this took up a large part of the morning:


Everybody was given a trowel and hole and told to clear it! There were the usual nails and wood coming out of the posts, which was good to see.


And the floor of the hut was then swept clean, this is the cleanest it has probably ever been! Here it is facing towards the west:


And facing towards the east:


A couple of the post holes showed wood in situ, like this one. These will all be recorded on our context sheets, so when we cover the site up again everything will be in the site archive.


You may have noticed on the pictures above that Phil and Russell excavated two sondages at each end the base, these were to tell us how deep the concrete was and to see if there were any associated features under the floor surface, like this piece of wood:


The eastern end sondage showed detail of how the base was levelled on the uneven ground; a row of bricks had been placed below the concrete to keep the surface flat. You can see the bricks have been laid on the natural yellowish geology:


Meanwhile back at the other base, work continued to expose the edges and reveal the building methods here as well:


The cleaning revealed an internal wall structure, which can be seen running across the centre of the photo. This was probably made of wood and has long since disappeared:


Also some debate raged about whether this was a sink or the base of a fireplace and if it was in situ or had been thrown away to where it lay:


Archaeologists like nothing more than a good debate...


Other internal features included these five small post holes, possibly for a wooden structure, maybe a cupboard or something similar:


Are these associated with the 'sink'? At this stage, it is difficult to tell, but excavation can help to interpret such features and this is why excavation is important:


So, we are close to finishing the first week and time has flown, we only have a limited time to achieve our goals but we will keep forging forward with the work! So far the excavation has been very rewarding and revealed some brilliant archaeological features! Everybody has had fun on site, this has been helped by the good weather, but also by the great archaeology!

If you are interested in joining us, please feel free to come along, just let us know you are coming, or you can follow us here on Facebook and Twitter.

No comments:

Post a Comment