Oystermouth Castle final days

The work at Oystermouth Castle has now been concluded and all our hard work is now done, on site at least. Trenches were backfilled at the end of last week, with only a small amount of work slipping into Monday.

The team of volunteers, students and GGAT staff battled against the elements and the clock on Thursday and Friday to try and get all three Trenches excavated, recorded and backfilled by hand.

Trench 2 was the first to be completed and ticked off the list by early Thursday evening.

Trench 3 followed suit on Friday afternoon – at times it was touch and go as the team in Trench 3 struggled to complete their task.

Meanwhile the remainder of Friday’s volunteers and students set about the task of trying to backfill Trench 1 in a single day, despite everyone’s best efforts and overtime from volunteers and students alike the task was not completed until Monday when a few generous volunteers lent a hand to finish work on site an make the remaining site staff’s lives a lot easier.

All the staff working on the project both on site and from the office would like to thank all our wonderful volunteers for giving up their time to help us out and make this community dig a big success, also thanks are due to students and staff from Swansea University who made up a part of the digging team.

It remains to be seen what the report on the work will conclude and if further investigations will be undertaken next year, the best thing for us all to do now is to wait and see so watch this space!

Day Eighteen - now with added rain!

Last but one day of the excavation at Oystermouth Castle.
Bright and clear start of the day, which helped with the last minute recording in Trench 1 and 3. However, rain started to set in during the late morning, and turned heavy during the afternoon.
The work in Trench 3 comprised the recording of the section in its west end, and the recording and removal of the possible midden in its east end. The central area of Trench 3 was also backfilled with soil. Trench 2 was backfilled today, which took the best part of the day. The volunteers and students were very enthusiastic despite the weather and the backfilling by hand in the pouring rain, we hope they all know just how grateful we are, though whoever buried our rake in Trench 3 is less than popular!!
In Trench 1, the day was spent drawing the drum tower foundation wall in plan and elevation, and the southern sondage trench. No backfilling took place in Trench 1 yet.
Jenni and Ken finished off the majority of the finds washing that remained and we’re glad they did as it leaves us with only the last half days digging finds to process.
Sven celebrated his birthday yesterday with a plethora of cakes and rejoicing, and tonight, the bravest of the team are out on the town celebrating with our Heritage Manager, Dr Evans, on her birthday. Happy Birthday, Edith!

Day Seventeen

Today in Trench 1 Sven had several aims, the first to find the bedrock in the base of the central sondage, and the second to give a date to the fills of the possible castle ditch in the northern half of Trench 1. His team were unable to find the bedrock in the central sondage as work reached the limit of safe working depths, but did find some manmade objects, which help us to show that this is probably part of the castle ditch, in the north section of the castle ditch Sven’s second aim was achieved when a piece of pottery of possibly medieval origin. The focus for tomorrows work in Trench 1 will be to record the foundations of the drum tower.

In Trench 2 work has largely been completed today and the team are eager to begin backfilling of the Trench tomorrow morning!

In Trench 3 the remaining rubble in the east of the Trench was removed at the end of the day to reveal a possible midden! Work tomorrow will focus on recording and sampling this newly discovered deposit, and at some point backfilling!

C Gerrard
GGAT

Day Sixteen

Unfortunately today the weather has been “changeable”, meaning we have had to endure all four seasons every few hours. Due to this, work is going slowly as we all have to keep stopping to take shelter as the rain is occasionally so heavy we have to wait until it stops in order to continue.

Despite all this, a lot has been done today. The top part of trench one has been cleaned and will be photographed (when the rain has stopped) and plans will be drawn up (again, when the rain has stopped as the sogginess of the paper is an issue). A sub trench is currently being opened up against the wall in trench one to see if it is buttressed which will give us a clue as to what sort of structure it belonged to: it’s difficult to say if this is easier or harder in the wet as while the earth comes up in fairly large chunks, it is increasingly difficult to stay upright because of all the mud. The volunteers in the sub trench in the middle of trench one are making detailed drawings of the inside of the trench walls.

Trench 3 have been taking out the wall they found to see if there was any further structure under what was there.

In trench 2 today they found an old padlock as well as half a ceramic bowl but we have been unable to date it yet. They also found a coin from 1928. They have mostly been digging in order to see if there is any correlation between the levels of bedrock in trenches 2 and 3.

By Nicola Main-Reade, student volunteer.

Day Fifteen

Whilst many of our usual students were forced to endure the hardship of a graduation ceremony and formal dinner, those of us who remained were able to enjoy a traditional Swansea summer’s day, with a mix of sunshine and torrential rain. Three work experience students came down to site today to help out with the finds washing on site and do some site surveying work with Rowena.

In Trench 1 work continued following on from the weekend the team today were planning the stone surface in the northern end of the Trench, which may or may not turn out to be a part of the drum tower base, meanwhile in the central section of the Trench a second group of volunteers and students carried on cleaning up and defining the various deposits whose relationships we are yet to resolve.

In Trench 2 more of the rubble was removed, revealing a few small metal objects. In Trenches 1 and 3, much of the morning was spent recording levels, drawing stones and otherwise recording the work, which had been done over the weekend. Once this was complete we were able to clear some of the rubble from the top of Trench 1 and expose more of the possible floor level.

Slightly further down the trench a find was made which radically changed the interpretation of at least six of the context layers: A power cable!
Someone had run a second power line across the trench, through the middle of the ditch, and had left no record of leaving it there.

How much will the power line disrupt the excavation? Will we find a tower? Join us after the break to find out.

By Colin Hough (student volunteer)

Day Fourteen

Paul and I were a part of a team of 7 volunteers who carried out various excavation tasks on site today. We started the day’s work by finishing off the sondage in Trench 1. In this sondage, we made 3 finds which were a unidentified metal object which resembles a key, an oyster shell and a small animal bone, possibly from a bird.

I moved on to the middle section of Trench 1 where I assisted John and John in cleaning up the area, which contained patches of burned material such as charcoal and clay. We photographed our finished work and left the area for tomorrow’s team.

Trench 2: Paul and Cloe began removing layers of soil and rubble to expose the bedrock underneath. They found a mixture of obviously modern plastics, a bath chain and also some ambiguous pottery.

The remaining 3 volunteers (John, Lynne and Pauline) were working in the northern area of Trench 1 around the base of what we think may be the drum tower, continuing work that was begun yesterday. More pottery was found here, as well as a substantial amount of glass and a few more metal objects. The work this group did paid dividends as we are beginning to see what may be more of a structure appearing underneath the rubble.

Michael Summers (Volunteer)

Day Thirteen

A rainy and windy Saturday at Oystermouth Castle today is day 13 of our dig and one of the most challenging yet. Our volunteers for the day ranged in age from 10 to retired, all were eager and willing to lend a hand on one of the less commodious days we have experienced so far in this community led dig.

Our finds specialist Andy Sherman took charge of a group of three youngsters Alice, Luke and Adam and their dads Andrew and David who had come to Oystermouth to spend their day washing and sorting finds. Andy and his team washed and sorted throughout the morning and after lunch working through the rainy conditions to carry out this important task that helps us date the archaeological features we have been excavating and allowing us a glimpse into the past.

Rob Dunning our Project Director guided our volunteers around the site this morning filling them in on all that had been done so far and what he hoped we would achieve today and explaining the archaeology that has already been uncovered in Trenches 1, 2 and 3. The volunteers were divided into two groups and assigned tasks for the morning, Rob decided that we would focus our energies today on resolving some issues in Trenches 1 and 2, that had been left over from the preceding days. Ian and Lynne were working in northern end of Trench 1, attempting to clean up the stone rubble which we suspect is overlying the square base of the west drum tower (similar to that at Chepstow Castle), whilst John and Michael we doing hard labour, finishing off digging out and cleaning up the sondage which had been begun earlier in the week to provide a slice through the archaeology in the middle of the trench.

Julie, Elise and Charles were working in Trench 2 and under Rob’s supervision they cleaned back and dug off the remaining rubble and subsoil spread, which was overlying the natural bedrock. Unfortunately, Rob had to leave us in the afternoon and was unable to see the good work that was achieved despite the downpour that eventually ended our days work an hour early.

Cloe Gerrard, Archaeological Planning Officer GGAT and supervisor for the day.

Day Twelve

The weather today started out well but sadly has descended into the usual rain and grey skies. However, despite this we have managed to get quite a lot done.

In the sub trench of trench one, we have managed to get even further down so that now we have to wear hard hats for safety reasons. We are considering forming a village people tribute band. But in all seriousness, we have managed to find some medieval pottery (the so called ‘green glaze’ ware), some animal bones, the usual fragments of glass, and what we think is an iron door stud.
We started traditionally, with mattocks, this morning but since finding the pottery we have been using trowels in case we were to break any finds that may be there. As a result, our pace has slowed down considerably. While we have not found any evidence of a medieval structure, we still remain hopeful; but due to health and safety we are not able to dig beyond a certain depth and so we may not find what we are looking for.

Due to the speed at which we have managed to dig this sub trench, we may be able to open up another one soon which may reveal more positive results.

In trench 2 they currently have the thrilling job of drawing the detailed plans of the rubble spreads, but they seem happier than most as they are out of the rain. However, these plans are not as simple as you would think. There was some ‘diametric opposition’ in one of the drawings earlier as one person put down the drawing and another person picked it up and some how turned it upside down and continued the drawing. As a result, the drawing had to be scrapped and started again.

Trench 3 have been levelling and drawing plans of the trench and hope to find something interesting tomorrow.

This week we’ve had a lot of interesting finds, including a silver ring and a variety of medieval pottery ranging from the 15th century back to the 13th century. This hopefully means we’re getting closer to the relevant context level in conjunction with the era of the castle. All in all, a very productive week.

By Nicola Main-Reade and Rebecca Kelly, student volunteers.

Day Eleven

Another day digging in the trenches and recording finds, with some particularly interesting ones found in both Trench 1 and Trench 3; a finger ring and a brooch. There was also another coin found in Trench one which has caused much excitement, is so far one of the earliest coin finds of the dig dated between the 1830’s and 1840’s with a depiction of the young Queen Victoria.

Work has continued in the sondage (trial slot) in trench one and another couple of feet has been dug out with various sherds of china and glass (some with writing on – if anyone has any information on ‘Castleford’ it would be greatly appreciated!) to continue our collection. The volunteers who have started today in the trench were no doubt beginning to feel less Lara Croft and more Ground Force through the amount of digging, until one of them uncovered a handmade brick which has been dated to the18th century. Other finds have included a claw hammer and what seems to be an early 20th century metal tool, no doubt we shall we reveal more information on this later. The sondage shall continue to be worked on until the next context level. So far it has been cleaned and photographed and at one point the digging caused a mini avalanche due to the loose rocks. This resulted into various ‘digging ourselves into a hole’ jokes.

One of the most ‘controversial’ finds has also been uncovered…the top of a Smarties tube! One of our many interested visitors confessed to burying a Smarties tube many moons ago…if that person is reading this, we have found the evidence and it has been recorded!

Trench three is continuing to reveal what seems to be the curve of a wall which has intrigued the ‘Friends of Oystermouth Castle’ Volunteers and hopefully they will soon uncover more information.

All in all, another great day!

By Rebecca Kelly

Day Ten

The weather has held off on what has been one of the most interesting days for finds for Trench one.

In an attempt to discover what might be under the rubble spread at the lower half of the trench, a slot one metre wide running the width of the trench was opened up this morning. While we are only 50 cm below the turf level (and still finding 20th century finds mostly) we have had around 24 recorded ‘small finds’. Small being used loosely, as some are not only large but also heavy.

It really is surprising how deep we got in this slot, while 50 cm does not sound like much we had to stop every minute and a half to record a new find. It reached the point where we left the level out as it was in more or less constant use.

Aside from the sherds of pottery we’ve found, we also uncovered a glass bottle from the 18th century, and a very large selection on varied metal objects including some large metal objects (possibly from a door) and several ‘nails’ so large they really deserve the term ‘spike’ or ‘murder weapon’.

Whilst the team of trench one were uncovering finds faster than they could physically record them, some of the volunteers were attempting to keep up by washing them. Some fragments of glass in a variety of pretty colours were cleaned as well as numerous nails and pottery. A particular favourite of the day was a small bottle, which may be a ‘smelling salts’ jar, or perhaps a medicine bottle. Hopefully we will find out more information soon.

Trench 1 was not the only one to reveal interesting finds today, as trench 2 uncovered some 12th century Saintonge pottery (called “frog skin ware” because of its shiny appearance) from western France.

By Nicola Main- Reade and Rebecca Kelly, student volunteers.

Day Nine

Thankfully the rain held off this morning, so we were able to start straight away. Work in trench 1 was focussed mostly on the top section of the trench to try and get more details about how the path was constructed. We have also been excavating an area that we believed to be a ditch that was part of the castle’s fortifications.

We began the morning with mattocks in hand; with no idea how thick the layer of soil went (we are still trying to dig through it!). We were expecting to find a layer of rubble to match that in the lower trench, however, we soon found something more interesting. We found a shilling from the 1960s, and three ha’pennies from 1906, 1887 and 1861. In a moment of excitement we unearthed a piece of silver with a crest on it and while it was being cleaned we thought of how it might be some exotic treasure…..sadly the penny (or judging by today’s finds, the ha’penny) dropped and we realised we were mistaken, as it was a small pendant of a crest with ‘Torquay’ written in the banner. Still, unfazed, we went back to digging and it wasn’t long before we found another unusual object. It consists of a metal handle with a disk on top. Until this object is cleaned we cannot be certain what it is but the current theories are a small hand mirror or a magnifying glass. We still unearthed a large amount of pottery and glass, as well as a large metal rod.

By Rebecca Kelly and Nicola Main-Reade, student volunteers.

Day Eight - Week 2

The morning did not start well, as our arrival at the dig site was shortly followed by an impromptu monsoon. We were all stuck waiting for the rain to stop for about an hour, and boy did it rain! There was even a worry that the excavation would be cancelled that day due to the severity of the weather. Thankfully, however, it stopped raining eventually and we were all able to make our way out of the hut and back into the trenches – which were now filled with puddles.

The excavators at the weekend had uncovered most of a large rubble spread in trench 1 as well as extending the trench a little closer to the castle wall, which revealed the remains of a path. As a result of these discoveries, what was left of the post-rain morning was spent doing more drawings of the trench and taking more levels.

At the bottom of the trench the top of a large rubble spread can be seen, so now we have the task of uncovering the rest of the spread and then moving the ton or so of rocks to uncover the next layer.

We started this arduous task with much singing and vigorous use of mattocks. However, the chain gang soon tired and our rippling biceps became mere twitches of cramp. Under this rather thick layer of rock we have discovered various little hollows, this led to some people worrying that the ground would open beneath them and swallow them whole.

We have found various odd objects including several ends of possibly Victorian pipes, more glass and china, three or four lengths of thin metal which could be very long nails and an object that we first thought was a skull; while the thickness is the same as a human skull it is covered in lots of grooves which are not found on bones. Thus the current theory is…it’s a coconut.

By Nicola Main-Reade and Rebecca Kelly, student volunteers.

Day Seven

I arrived on Saturday morning feeling quite excited but a little nervous as I had never done anything like this before and was worried about saying or doing the wrong thing and worried that I might not be physically up to it!!

Straight away I was welcomed by friendly staff and put at my ease. Slowly, the other volunteers began to arrive and we had a very comprehensive induction session. Myself, Solinda Jonathan and Kirin (I think that's how you spell it!!???) were put to work in trench three at the bottom of the knoll with the lovely Ellie as our supervisor.

Although we had never met before, and on the surface had not a lot in common, we all got on like a house on fire and had great fun. Jonathan and I even had matching hats from Tesco - spooky!

We set to work cleaning up and trowelling, and almost immediately, Jonathan found a tooth!! It set the scene for the day. Every five minutes he was finding glass, pottery, metalwork, a hinge etc. whereas we found - stones!!! Lots of them.

By the end of the day we had all found something interesting. Possibly the most interesting was a coprolite found by clean freak Solinda!! Typical!!

A memory of this day was the screams which punctuated our time in the trench from Solinda and her daughter who are frightened of - you guessed it - worms. Yes - I asked myself that question too! Joining a dig when you are frightened of worms is like joining a tennis club when you are afraid of balls!!!!

We were surprised how quickly the time passed and I really didn't want to go home. We had recieved so much encouragement and teaching from the staff, and such cameraderie from the other volunteers.

However, home we did go. Next morning I couldn't wait to get back so turned up an hour early and took some photos. Ellie was not around, so the equally lovely Chloe supervised us, although, to our chagrin, Solinda was put on another team. Myself and Jonathan scraped away with trowels and mattocks, all the time learning nuggets of fabulous information from Chloe.

In the afternoon, Chloe went home and we were then supervised by the wonderful Edith - who was a fount of knowledge on all things Roman and again, very supportive and a natural teacher.

I found stones and Jonathan found, you guessed it, a probable musket ball. Typical. Not that I'm bitter.

To sum up - it was the most interesting weekend that I have spent for a long time and I felt that I learned a lot and made real friends.

The dream team ( me, Jonathan Solinda and Kirin) would really like to come back next year so I really hope you manage to find the money to run another dig as it has awakened a love for, and respect for, the past in so many people.

Thanks to all at GGAT for your patience, help and support. Hope to see you all soon!!!
Sian Charlton, Volunteer

Day Six - with archaeology!

At the end of the first week of digging at Oystermouth Castle, we’re very pleased with how much we’ve achieved, and we’ve made a lot of progress. All three trenches have been opened up and the turf removed, revealing the uppermost archaeological deposits. Following the de-turfing, the trenches were cleaned, using trowels to clearly define the various different features.

In Trench 1 (on the west side of the main entrance to the castle, supervised by Sven), this cleaning revealed a substantial wall running east-west and constructed of large dressed stone blocks, which lines up with a similar length of walling which is visible on the opposite side of the entrance. In front of this walling (to the south, on the downhill side) is what appears to be the fill of the defensive ditch which originally enclosed the castle, and which was detected by a geophysical survey carried out on the site in 2006. The south end of this trench appears to be mainly occupied by a large spread of rubble and debris, consisting mainly of large stones, which may have been cleared from the interior of the castle during the works carried out during the mid-nineteenth century.

To the south, in Trench 2, which runs from east to west and is being supervised by Dr Eddie Owens of Swansea University, this rubble spread continues, forming two separate areas of debris. In patches of this trench, the limestone bedrock has been exposed, immediately underneath the turf.

This is also the case in Trench 3, (which is being supervised by me) which runs parallel with Trench 2, just to the southeast, where a large area of the bedrock sat immediately underneath the turf and topsoil. There are also archaeological features in this trench, however, including the possible foundations of a wall running from north-south in the east end of the trench, which showed up on the earlier geophysical survey, and which is also visible on some early photographs of the top of the knoll on which the castle sits. It is thought that this may have been a continuation of a wall on the same alignment, which still stands but is currently obscured by an area of shrubbery in front of the castle entrance. This wall may also be related to an area of masonry in a patch of shrubbery further down the hill. There is potentially a second wall running north-south through the west end of the trench, but this needs further investigation.

After all of these features had been revealed, they were then recorded, through photography, scaled plan drawings, and detailed written descriptions of the deposits and features, including interpretations of what they may have been. Features drawn in the plans of the trenches were given heights above sea-level by transferring the altitude from a known height (a benchmark located on the edge of a local church) to the trenches, which took up most of the day for the different groups learning how to use the equipment.

Today we have had 5 volunteers excavating in Trench 1 under the supervision of Edith, while Sven takes a well earned break to do a little wind-surfing, and 5 volunteers in Trench 3 under my supervision. Both sets of volunteers have been working hard through the blustery showers to remove the rubble deposits obscuring the deeper archaeology.
Next week, the archaeological features will be further investigated; keep checking the blog to keep up to date with all the new developments!

Ellie, Project Archaeologist, GGAT

Day Five

Thankfully the weather has improved greatly since yesterday, sadly our maths skills have not, as once again we were calculating the exact positions of the various finds. It would seem maths is not our forte, much to the disappointment of our leader. Once again we were taking measurement of how far above sea level the trench was, however, one person (who shall remain nameless [Becky]) underestimated the weight of the measuring stick and nearly knocked over the fence.

This is similar to what we were doing yesterday. However, we hope we’re better at in now as yesterday we underestimated our calculations by 41cm and as a result our team had to go without the biscuity rewards awarded to the others who overestimated theirs by a mere 2cm. Thankfully we are not in as much trouble as someone got into yesterday where they threw a recently uncovered plastic spider at someone else, not knowing he has arachnophobia.

All the drawings of the trench and the calculations involving the sea level were finished by the morning and so we set about clearing the gravel layer from the trench with much glee and rejoicing as it was a task that didn’t involve maths. The work isn’t too hard but does take a long time as the trench is so long so we have been mostly philosophising about the meaning of life and people asking me [Nicky] what it means to be Cornish.

Once again, we have gone another day without finding a horde of gold florins. However, today we have found many pieces of glass in a variety of colours; a button; a thimble; and yet more crockery to add to the growing tea set.

On the whole, the week has been very productive. We cleared the trenches in record time and have already found a lot of finds that have been fairly recently deposited. Work on several ‘rubble spreads’ will continue next week and we shall have to see if we find the walls of the castle that we are looking for.

By Rebecca Kelly and Nicola Main-Reade, Student volunteers.

Day Four

Contrary to the heat of the last two days, in particular yesterday, the heavens decided to display a glimpse of what was expected later as torrential downpour halted excavations at many points throughout the day, and many discovered that their waterproof clothes were not as waterproof as they would have hoped.
Most of the day was spent surveying, to enable us to accurately record our findings on the site. A simple task you might think, however the rain and the difficulty of getting the right height on the tripod ensured our volunteer Colin was stuck for over 25 minutes holding the measuring stick on a public path as the tripod was moved to at least five different locations, where it would then have to be made level, only to find out it was too high or leaves from a tree were in the way. You could almost see him calculating his revenge in an elaborate way. We used a nearby church as a benchmark and then as a means to steady the tripod we attempted to find marks on the ground, the most interesting one was chewing gum.
Later our maths skills were put to the test as we had to calculate the measurements from our findings, which resulted in many blank faces and a desperate wish that we had paid more attention in school. These measurements were to determine how far above sea level the site was and would help give a 3D reference number to the small finds indicating their exact position within the trench.
As well as our maths and logic skills our creative and artistic abilities are now in demand as the trenches are being drawn - a task people are fighting over (as you can imagine). Each layer has to be drawn as accurately as possible to be digitised at a later date.
All in all a very productive day. J
By Rebecca Kelly and Hannah Brown. Student volunteers.

Day Three

The heat of the day was joined by a certain amount of uneventful quiet accompanied by the obligatory tumbleweed or two. Now that the trenches were clear we had to go about cleaning them, sadly without the help of a dyson. Having scraped the trenches clean of topsoil we were able to set about recording the contexts of the various objects of significance that had been found. Each context layer had to be recorded on forms and photographs which were taken both in black and white as well as colour. The cameras were duly passed around so we could all participate and we were all on our best behaviour and resisted the urge to take funny photos with admirable restraint. The recording of the context of our finds was very in depth including identifying what sort of soil type the earth was out of several different options (we personally can’t tell the difference between sandy loam and loamy sand, most likely a failing on our part).

The wall that was uncovered yesterday in the trench nearest to the castle itself cannot belong to a drum tower, as it does not reflect the curve of the existing wall. However, it may belong to part of a walkway or it may not be late enough but we could still find the tower base if we dig deep enough.

Lunch was mostly eaten in the shade today, due to the borderline unbearable heat. Most people stayed in the shade where they could safely complete their context sheets without the risk of overheating. Following this, our gloves are now acting as oven mitts, as both the shovels and the finds we are unearthing are a little too hot to pick up without them.

Despite the lobster shade of some of the volunteers’ necks, we are showing amazing resilience to the hostile environment (the Mumbles is now the new Sahara). At least we haven’t been rained on like yesterday.

By Rebecca Kelly and Nicola Main-Reade, Student volunteers.

Day Two

Despite the depressingly grey sky, the weather has been fairly decent and everyone has been working hard even in the heat. After all of yesterday’s heavy lifting today was finally everyone’s chance to have some fun in the dirt and everyone went forth with wild expectations of buried treasure: sadly, so far we have only found 26p, and a shilling, and a Georgian ha’penny. Other “booty” obtained includes enough fragments of china to make up a tea service and more bits of coloured glass then you can shake a proverbial stick at. We have also found several rusty nails and a length of old wire. However, we are still not deep enough into the trench to have found anything contemporary with the castle, but we’re hopeful about what appears to be a wall from a tower, but we have not uncovered enough yet to be sure of this.

Today we finally got all the turf off the excavation areas and have been able to fully entrench ourselves. During the excavation, many worms (in a desperate attempt to avoid the sharp side of the trowel) have been flung from the trench and into a nearby pile of soil. Their evolution to winged creatures is imminent.

Some of the students are learning the background of the castle to give tours of the excavation site to the public. Even though we have only finished getting the turf off the trenches and so have not found much to show people, we are still getting a lot of public interest in our work, which can only be described as a good thing. It will be good as soon we may have something to show to the people who come round.

The team spirits are high and despite the heat and how grubby we’re all getting, we are all still having a good time.

By Nicky Main-Reade and Rebecca Kelly, Student volunteers.

First day of excavations at Oystermouth Castle!

Hi my name is Sven and I’m supervising in Trench 1. The first morning of the excavation was spent setting up the working area. We unloaded 92 security fences, which did not quite take as long as we thought it would, thanks to the diligence of the teams of students and volunteers present that day. They put up with unloading the security fences, the fence footings, and the bags of clips, carrying all of this equipment up the steep hill leading to the castle, setting the fencing up - and all this without complaining (at least not audibly).

The fencing was unloaded by ten, at which point we decided to have a welcome tea break, with tea and kettle arriving just on time accompanied by Rob (who’s in charge of work on site), the tools and the paperwork…

Despite having to cope with uncertainties involved in the start of a dig (or perhaps because of these unexpected challenges), the mood of the whole team was steadily upbeat, and the fencing was all up well before our official lunchtime. As we had to wait for the sheeting anyway, we had an early lunch, eating our sandwiches inside the castle walls.

The afternoon was then spent removing the turf layer over the three trenches that we plan to excavate during this project. Everyone participated eagerly, fighting for the six spades available. However, the spading lot was soon reduced to a handful of enthusiasts, who resiliently provided their teammates with fresh turf at a remarkable pace.

The team from Swansea Metal Detector Club managed to discover a few coins (unfortunately all modern thus far) . We needed special permission from Cadw to use metal detectors on our spoilheaps - without it we would have been liable for fines and having the metal detectors confiscated! We also found the floodlight cable that went through trench 1, while removing turf.

I am sure everyone will sleep well tonight.

Sven Egloff, Assistant Project Officer with GGAT

The Launch of the Dig!

After a week of hectic organisation everything is ready to start preparations for our excavation on Monday. We hope to be able to start opening our first trench by Tuesday morning, so keep your fingers crossed for some good weather. The Projects team of Rob, Andy, Sven and Ellie are looking forward to an exciting three weeks, hopefully full of interesting archaeology and glorious sunshine. See you all soon, lets dig!

Some Photos from the Evaluation..

Excavating Trench A Within the Chapel Block

Recording Trench B

A Summary of the Archaeological Evaluation Inside the Castle

Over a period of two weeks in mid-May a team from GGAT Projects excavated three trenches inside the walls of Oystermouth Castle, one in centre of the chapel block (Trench A) and two in the castle’s inner bailey (Trenches B and C). These exploratory trenches were dug in preparation for proposed visitor facility works to proceed in 2010.


The only structural remains found during the excavation were a well-laid cobbled surface, discovered in Trench A, 9cm below the gravel chippings that forms the buildings current ground surface. This surface was built from angular limestone cobbles varying in size between 19cm and 4cm. We think that the lime mortar bonding the cobbles together dates to the medieval period and that this surface may be the original floor of the chapel block.


Once the turf and underlying sub-soil in Trench B was removed a layer of loose demolition material was revealed, made up of fragments of limestone, broken slate and stone roof tiles, lime mortar and damaged masonry. This layer contained five sherds of medieval pottery; however these may have come from two earlier pockets of light brown sandy clay contained within the demolition material. As this layer was so loose and unstable we think that it may not be of any great age. If there were any medieval structures or signs of occupation in this area of the castle then they have been destroyed.


Below the turf and sub-soil of Trench C was a loosely compacted collection of shells contained within a light brown sandy-clay soil. An environmental sample from this layer was taken in order to identify the species that it contained. These were blue mussel (shown in grey on the plan), cockle, limpet (shown in light-green on the plan), whelk, oyster (shown in light-blue on the plan), periwinkle, pod razor and charcoal fragments (shown as black hatching on the plan). Underneath this collection of shells was a deposit of stone and slate building rubble; this deposit contained the base of a glazed jug made in Bristol dating to the 13th or 14th centuries. Scattered amongst the building rubble were numerous periwinkles, and a sample of these were taken for comparative analysis. The variety of shell species present in the first sample compared with the single species (periwinkle) in the later sample perhaps suggests that the local periwinkle population had been over-fished during the medieval period between the times when the two layers were formed. This theory is supported by a comparison of the size of periwinkle recovered from both samples, with those from the later sample being of a more similar size.

In preparation for the Oystermouth Castle community archaeology project GGAT staff have been carrying out a topograhic survey of the grounds around the castle. This type of surveying technique measures the elevation of points on a particular area of land and plots the results as contour lines on a map. From this survey we can get a good picture of the varied topography around the castle which will also help us plan for future projects and possible excavations.

Helping us with the survey is a school student from Modena, Italy who is with us for two weeks on a work experience placement. This is an excellent training opportunity for Nina who hopes to study archaeology at degree level.