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.