The day began with a dull overcast weather situation, but many people still turned out to attend to the work on site. The geophysical survey continued and there were ten grids finished off today; a new site record! We are now well over thirty grids finished and once the data is downloaded there should be some interesting results, that will hopefully allow us to understand the layout of the original camp.
The final base was also cleaned today, the volunteers scraped off the moss and the last remains of any overgrowth, ready to take photographs.
This took the better part of the day but the concrete certainly looked better for it! This base will be photographed tomorrow, then we can begin the task of drawing the bases to scale.
David also brought his leaf blower just to clear off the bases, this is probably the first time in archaeology that a leaf blower has been used on site!
There are many other features on the site that are connected to the Barnsley Pals and their use of the land, for example, there is the concrete remains of the camp magazine, used for storing explosives and ammunition. This is overgrown and it may be useful in the future to have a look at this feature from an archaeological perspective as well.
There is also this ravine in the woods, over which a wooden bridge was constructed, which allowed access to the camp from the Dodworth Road and saved the soldiers from walking a long route around the ravine. Again, there may still be remains of this bridge in the ground.
We are now over half way through the project, we are on time with the work that needs to be done and tomorrow we will start the planning of the bases whilst the geophysics continues. If you are interested in joining in or even just popping down to have a chat, please feel free!
No comments:
Post a Comment