Monday 21 July 2014

21 July 2014, Hickleton Hall POW Project Day 1

It is almost a year to the day that we began the Hickleton Hall POW camp project in 2013, so expectations were high for this new season of works! 

The background on the project can be found by CLICKING HERE.

We had a lot of volunteers ready and willing to lend a hand this year, so immediately the team began work on uncovering one of the many hut bases that cover the site.


It wasn't long before we saw our first glimpse of concrete, which looked very similar to the hut base that was uncovered last year.


Meanwhile, we decided to continue searching for any underground features that may have been connected to secret wartime operations on the site. We intend on doing this through the use of geophysical surveys across parts of the site.


The volunteers worked hard all morning and got large parts of the topsoil off the hut base, as you can see it looks quite plain, with very little in the surface of the concrete.


Early afternoon saw the start of the geophysical survey and two grids finished! A great start!


The morning will see us removing the remaining turf from the top of the concrete. Then we will have to clean up the surface and the edges of the structure to see if there are any post holes or other clues to the construction of the hut.


The find of the day was this embossed clay pipe bowl. Obviously, it is not from the Second World War, but shows that the site has been used since the post-medieval times and these kind of finds are to be expected mixed in with the soil!


The first day saw a great deal of work being done and a lot of turf moved by the volunteers. We even had two lads, Jack and Harry, our youngest participants at ten and six and a half years old. Unfortunately the lads won't be joining us again, but they were really good workers and really enjoyed themselves!

There is more to come from this exciting project and we will be updating this blog daily, also check out our Twitter and Facebook for more updates on Elmet and what we are up to!

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