Day 14

On site today from GGAT were myself, Richard and Sven; we were joined by a handful of volunteers keen to get some digging done! The weather was lovely, if a little too hot for our intended activity, nevertheless the team moved massive amounts of material to continue the investigation of the proposed castle ditch feature. Richard worked with, John, Phil and Brian in the southern part of Trench 1, excavating deeper into the ditch section that Faye had been working on yesterday and starting on digging an additional section through the ditch adjacent to this. In the northern part of Trench 1 Sven worked with Mai to continue the work to find a construction cut for the tower base ….and that was all before lunch! I was working with Fran sieving some of the material that was coming out of the ditch, we didn’t find much so changed tasks to trowelling up an area in the east of Trench 1 to see if we could find any edge to the ditch or other features here. Fran found a number of pieces of pot, glass and clinker but no features I’m afraid! Later in the day a few more volunteers, Ellie and her brother Ruben and their dad William, who had come all the way from England, joined us. William joined Richard in the southern end of Trench 1 and Ellie and Ruben got going on some finds washing, I gather Ruben wants to be an archaeologist. Everyone worked really hard and came up with some interesting suggestions as to the origin of this sand that appears to be filling up our ditch. I’m convinced we are well into the ditch and that this sand is part of its final infilling…well maybe!

Thank you all for your hard work!

Claudine Gerrard GGAT Archaeological Planning Officer