Hottest day of the year today so they reckon, and I wouldn't disagree with that!
Will's abandoned us (for 3 weeks) to the joy of report writing. Rather him than me, mind you air-conditioned office on a day like this....move over Will, I coming round. Well the report writing is part of the archaeological process isn't it!
Liz walked us round the site and pointed out an interesting metal bowl that's appeared. It hasn't been removed because the section would collapse if it did! The ground is so friable is some places, but in others it has set like concrete.
There's also a void, that someone found by putting their foot in it!
It appears to follow the line of another of Halliwell's brick-topped walls which has just appeared. A photograph into the void shows the top of a slab which sort of proves the point.
Moving into the knot garden, my favourite place, we see evidence of the gardener's hard work. The 3 remaining sections are beautifully laid out with some stupendous colours. My favourites are the daisy-type flowers....
Because "I've done a bit" of digging, Liz put me into the knot garden to try and help identify what's going on in the bottom of the pit, that Heather, who joined me, affectionately started calling the Grave, Well it's 1m down and grave width and she fits perfectly into it......
It was interesting if only for it's charcoal "seam" which was being extracted into an environmental bucket for later analysis (sieving through different meshes using water and then each sieved residue will be looked at in detail, with seeds and small bones being picked out using tweezers, and a whole host of tests carried out on the remainder...fascinating and a shame we can't be involved in that side of things).
Finds amounted to 1 long tooth, a small knuckle ended bone, 2 bits of fine black pot and a piece of Medieval green glaze pot which was good. Proves we're in the right area.
After lunch it got even more quieter than the morning if that was possible! Something to do with the footie methinks! Well the pub down the road sounded in fine form as they went through a repertoire of songs and chants, and we didn't have to be told when the National Anthemn was being played, nor the actual kick-off. A lot of booing for the first 2 German goals and the places errupted with the 2 English goals (ref should've been shot!), and then it went really quiet. That's 2 german goals later!!!! Enough of the footie....
In the sievng tent this afternoon for a barrowfull and then Liz asked if I would trowel back down the front in trench A. Can I just add that volunteer numbers were down to 3 this afternoon!!!!!
So I was in context 1035 trowelling back the foot high bank of earth back towards the "Bay windows". Needed a jack-hammer to get through the top soil. It was so hard. Liz suggested mattocking. We took one look at each other and went "no", so trowelling it was. It's what I like to do. A selection of Victorian finds and some glass slag is all I have to show for an hours hard labour and 2 barrows of muck.
Can I just mention that we had 2 new volunteers today in the shape of Anna (Clayre's daughter) and Anna's friend Saffron.
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