Dig Day Sunday 5th September 2010

This post could be a little lacklustre as I can't get the sd card out of my camera! Mind you there is only 1 photo and I'll discuss that later.

Well the dig is officially over and we've been relegated to 5 volunteers per session by Chloe. Not that many people knew that! Clayre and myself have been relegated to Sunday pm, so it was very strange getting up and then having nothing to do (so to speak) until I went to pick her up at 12.30. It was very strange arriving at 1pm 'cos all our normal crew were already there. They had wondered where we were.

Bob was on his own this week, and by the sounds of it there will be no-one in from B'ham Arch unit Monday or Tuesday! but we are only sieving and recording. Actually Jade and Adrian and Peter got to do some digging in the front on a 1m square trench, and the amount of stuff that was coming out from that small area was pretty phenominal. Mainly bone with a lovely bit of green pot.

Adrian and Clayre in the most exciting hole of the day.....

Started in the sieving tent. This week we had a lot of interested adults, as well as children, who wanted to have a go at sieving. It's very rewarding.

The Mulberry tree behind the kitchen has now become dangerous and only a member of BAU can go and get spoil, so that means that Bob has been very busy over the last couple of days and now he's on his own today.........so I suggested that if he fills the barrows and wheels them to past the Mulberry tree, myself and someone else can wheel them to the temporary spoil heap from where people can then take it to the tent. It was was going swimmingly, then I decided to speed up the process, donned hard hat, grabbed spade and ran under the tree to the spoil heap, where I stayed and helped fill up barrows. I let Bob wheel them past the tree. Speeded up the process somewhat.

After a much need coffee, I returned to the sieving tent once more, and that was it until 5pm. Not even any scones today as the tourists had eat them all! We just had to make do with our ice-cream.

So not a very exciting day really, but that's not what archaeology is all about. It's the taking part, meeting lots of new people, learning new skills and generally having a great time.

Dig Day Sunday 29th August 2010

We're at Burford for the Bank holiday weekend so although I didn't have to pick Clayre up, it was still an early start for the 1hr journey to Stratford.
Day started dull and windy and remained so for the rest of the morning.

Will took us on a site tour as usual. Because of the rain, some nice features have appeared in trench A.


Will put me in the greenhouse to sort out the 50+ finds trays! All had been washed, but they needed sorting and bagging. Firstly I removed all the trays which were labeled U/S (Unstratified) sieving, and then sorted them into find type, e.g. glass, pot, clay pipe, bone, metal etc), then bagged them. This done I started on the rest by sorting them into 1000, 2000 and 3000 contexts. Then I took the 1000's and amalgamated trays where I could, i.e. there were 5 trays labelled 1011. Then I took each tray, sorted it into find types and bagged them.

Some nice pot.

It was really interesting work in the fact that I actually haven't found a great deal over the last 19 weeks so it was nice to see what had been found. What stood out for me where 4 shards of pot (couldn't tell you what date!) with nice bits of decoration on. Then there was the metal "sequin", a 3 x 0.4cm piece of lead which had been decorated and a piece of handle from an enourmous storage jar.

At 12.45 the heavens opened as they had been promising all morning!. I chuckled to myself as I busied aroung the dry greenhouse, that is until I found it leaked!
Pottered round tidying the rest of the green house up before having my lunch.

Finished lunch and the sky was blue and the sun shining. Lovely-jubbley!

Will put me in the knot garden, in the kiln trench. Aim was to clean the sides and make them straight, and remove the "bridge" from between the clay lump and the side of the excavation. That done, he asked me to remove the clay lump (which ir wasn't. Just compact soil), and trowel down to the sandy layer of the kiln flue floor. I didn't finish this last bit but left it clean and tidy for tomorrow.


Big excitement in the sieving tent as news of a star find reached us. A little girl had found a silver coin whilst sieving! Excitement didn't last long as it was identified as being a toy coin the children are given as they walk through the house.
Got us all going....for 2 secs!

Dig Day Sunday 22nd August

Can you believe it. 6 days of rain and yet it's another glorious Sunday! I wonder who the Patron Saint of Archaeology is? Anyone out there know?

A bit thin on the ground today due to holidays, but a new lady did start.

Just to show the enormity of the spoil heap! That's David on top....

As promised in last weeks blog, if asked I would draw and I did. Me and Clayre, assigned to dran the South facing elevation of the long brick built thing that Halliwell put up to protect the foundations. So bloomin' long was the wall that instead of a nice clear 1:10 scale, we had to use 1:20 in order to fit it onto the permatrace. Boo-hiss!


It took us ages to set things up: the line level, the tape and then trying to decide how to tackle it. It didn't help that when we did get started, we hadn't realised that the wall was over 3m long, so I had started with 1:10 scale! Aaaargh

I think we managed 1 row of bricks before lunch!

After lunch, well no prizes for guessing what we were up to!. Back to the wall.
I have to say we did get progressively faster as the afternoon went on, but it was very uncomfortable for both of us. I was drawing so therefore sitting for most of the afternoon, so got bum ache and Clayre was measuring therefore her knees got the brunt of this activity.

Simon did pop over and made some such noise on the lines of "haven't you finished it yet?" We still don't know if he was joking or not!. I'll tell you something for nowt, it was bloomin' hard brain work and we were both wrecked at the end of the day.

Did we finish the wall? Of the 7 layers we did 3 and a half, and the 2 most important things we learnt that day was that we work well together....and we don't want to be drawing any more brick walls!!!!

It was a very beautiful and detailed drawing in our eyes.......
Ice-cream couldn't have been more welcome, and we were serenaded by a great violinist.

Dig Day Sunday 15th August 2010

After a week in the sun (Norfolk) whilst Coventry basked in rain, and then returning to rain I fully expected to be swimming in the Knot Garden. I packed waterproofs for the inevitable soaking...which never came. It has to have been one of the hottest Sundays we've had!!!

It's also one of the most multi-cultural days we've had with Kendra and Michelle from America and Annie from France.

Started in the sieving tent this morning. Quite quiet so after a barrow or 2, I took sieved stuff to dump on the mountain. Took a spade as well because the path has been obliterated by people dumping barrows half way up. Got path clear and then started on clearing the space at the top so there's a turning bit before the final path to the top. I'm certainly going to feel the extra spade work in a couple of days!! Fortunately I was taken pity on by Adrian, who came and finished off. Thanks Ade.

So, what next? Will gave me a choice...digging or drawing. Not much choice really...digging! Later, I did feel a little guilty though so I offered to draw in the afternoon, but there's nothing pressing at the moment. I WILL DRAW NEXT WEEK FOR HIM IF ASKED. You are all my witnesses to that!

So I ended up in the Knot Garden, in a trench by the walkway and gate. I can't believe how much has changed in 2 weeks. The big pit has been excavated and it looks even bigger. It is massive. David and Clayre were taking it in turns to excavate the sandy layer. Dave was also trying to have a sandcastle competition!





My little trench was sandy and gravely. My task was to trowel back the dry soil and try to identify the different features in it. There was a circular dark feature with orange patches, a square biscuit colour feature and something else in the bottom RH of trench. But all that would have to wait until after lunch.


It's Annie's last day and she treated us to trifle and cheesecake with mulberries from the garden. She's back off to France now until next year's season. See you then Annie.

After lunch I was back in my hole. Having cleared back the main trench, it has defined the circular feature which appears to extend towards the next pit. Will asked me to start clearing back the top of the un-excavated area to see if this feature will show in the upper layers.

It was so hot that I had to keep having shade breaks....

...and then got somewhat side-tracked by the arrival of scones and biscuits, but after Anny's goodies at lunch I just couldn't do them justice. Still got my ice-cream to look forward to! I can just see what Will's thinking in this picture "Not another break! We'll never get anything finished at this rate. It's not a holiday camp" and other such thoughts. Either that or he's just looked at my last drawing and is clasping his head in despair as a result!

Dig Day Sunday 1st August 2010

Day started cloudy and remained like that for most of the day.
Jonathan and myself volunteered to tidy-up the greenhouse. Reason: there is a shortage of find's trays!

It was a bit of a mess, with finds trays and bags all over the place and in the wrong place. So we got all the unwashed finds together at one end of the bench and then sorted washed finds, putting same named trays together and therefore freeing up a host of trays for the sievers.

Before.....(soz...Jonathan does make it look worse...te-he)


Once we'd done that, we started looking at the un-washed finds. We sorted the 2 larger context numbers together (1010 and 1011) and started to wash them. I got bored half way through and decided to tidy the bench behind us. That done I returned to pot washing.

After lunch, Jon went out front, with Clayre, to dig by the steps of the house and I stayed in the greenhouse to finish washing my context. After that, I sorted out the rest of the bags and trays, amalgamating contexts where I could, and also removing all the metal and bagging them up separately. (you don't wash metal).

It was a really interesting job, because being a person who hasn't found an awful lot over the last 15 weeks, it was nice to handle what other people had found. There were a couple of marbles made from stone. Very round and smooth and tactile. There was a lot of glass and bone, lots of metal nails, different types of pot, and tiny pins which together with the thimble and bone button template will make a lovely social story.

... and after.


I then spent a couple of hours in the seiving tent and it was manic!!! Children and adults everywhere wanting to have a go at sieving. How good is that! However, a lot of them went away a trifle disappointed at only finding the ubiquitous stones!!

Then I swapped with Jon and Clayre and moved out front to work with Colin, doing my favourite thing......digging.

End of day: cream scone, ice-cream......Oh happy days.

And here's one for Sue just to remind her what she's been missing all these weeks.
Hoper you're feeling better matey.

Dig Day Tuesday 27th July 2010

Wasn't late this morning. Got the early bus and had breakfast at McDonalds with a good book. However, thought the day was going to be a washout when I left 'cos it was chucking it down.

Got to site, signed in and wandered up to the gardener's shed. Emily and I volunteered to weigh the CBM of which there was quite a lot. Seemed a sensible thing to do to get out of the rain, except that 2 minutes after starting, the rain stopped! Oh well, it only took us to t-break to do the lot, leaving the place looking a bit bare which was goog (except for the bits to be kept).

After tea and a chat, Emily went back to her wall and I went back to the brew house. Can I just say that as far as finds go, I've never found so many in the 14 days I've been coming! First bit out was a nice but of green Tudor ware glazed on both sides, with a decoration. Probably part of the top of a jug.




Then came a very small bone from a digit of a small animal. How I spotted that I don't know. This was followed by a selection of bones.

The aim of today was to trowel back the right hand side of the area to see if the orange layer went under the still very brown/grey layer. As it was I found a second patch and this was separated by the original patch by clay. In the corner the soil continued to be grey/brown.



After lunch I re-visited the brew house and found another bit of Tudor green. This time a rim sherd, glazed on one side only. Then I spotted a 1.5cm hollow cylinder. Again, don't know how I saw that. Just after that, Liz asked me to work at the other end of the trench with another lady, but 10 mins later i was pulled out to complete the planning I'd started yesterday. Boo-hiss!!!!

Actually, Mark had distinguished the area more which actually made it easier to plan. He'd added the context numbers and "drawn" around several features to be put on the plan. Once I got started it was fairly easy. One good thing was that I didn't have to draw the oven just the outline. That little task has been allocated to Emily who was completing her wall plan. I apologise now if my measurements are out!!!!!!



Completed the plan and was crowing about it, with the help of a cream scone (well actually a biscuit today 'cos there weren't many scones. Tuesday is also a good day to volunteer!), when I realised I hadn't actually added the crude brick path by the brick pit!!! Shucks!! Did half but unfortunately didn't have the time to complete the other half.

Ended a perfect day with a large bottle of well chilled Cobra sat outside the van, wishing I could be an archaeologist everyday!

Dig Day Monday 26th July 2010

Buses... a question of necessity when you're stuck a mile from town. Two conflicting timetables didn't help either! Anyway got there late. I hate that, so it's the really early bus tomorrow and a McDonalds breakfast.

Bless, Kevin was there picking up his trowel which he'd left here yesterday.

Then I ran into Will! 'Twas a shock 'cos I didn't think I'd see him again until after his hols. He was shocked to. I think he thought he'd got the wrong day!

So not good really 'cos when I went to see what he wanted me to do, his one word was "planning". Urgh!! He knows I love it....not!

So, what's to do? Well trace of from the original permatrace to show main features and extent of trench in Knot Garden. Then trace from the next plan done of the knot garden, and then add everything that's current. Not a lot to it really !!!
Started tracing under the mulberry tree at the front on the picnic table, when a maniacal blackbird decided to deposit on me! He'd obviously been eating mulberries and I was covered....loverrrrly! Liz wandered over to see what I was chuckling about and she just cracked up when she saw the evidence. It took us a long time to calm down before we were able to move the picnic table to a blackbird free zone!

So basic plan done, it was time to meet my fellow volunteers in the knot garden. Mark, one of the supervisors, was busy scratching his head over the burnt/ash feature in the corner, and then there was Emily and Mat busy planning the brick work in the brick built pit.



We had everything..rain, sun and humidity. How nice. Drawing isn't fun in the rain I can tell you, but against all odds and a certain reluctance on my part, I did what I could and hope that the results are upto Will's high standards.

All that and no cream scones today. Roll on tomorrow.