Morning brief in the sun.
After the rain we had yesterday, today was incredibly sunny. Luckily, the tents provide some shade, but Cornelius’ “don’t forget to wear sunscreen and drink enough water” is still the slogan of this dig. We also had some interesting guests who were very interested in one of our new trenches, namely some bovine archaeologists (Thank you for all of the great responses to the tweet!).
Our bovine archaeologists exploring the new trench.
The trenches have continuously yielding finds. In the courtyard, both Emily’ and Sats’ team have found a musket ball, which are French and British, and have been fired in the courtyard. Sats’ trench has revealed a large deposit of stones, which may be anything from a part of a wall of the east side of the stable block or a dumpsite for some stones. Emily’s team have also found the wall they have been looking for. It does not, however, line up with the wall that Phil found last year, which can mean that this is an inner wall of the building. Phil’s trench has revealed more of what was thought to be the foundation of the buttresses. However, as more of the possible foundation was exposed, it was found that it is a part of an old road.
The road near the north gate.
The digging in the potato field has been continuing, and Sam’s team have now cleared the ploughing ground level. The team have been alternating between digging in the potato field and the killing zone. The killing zone has also been a flurry of activity. The main finds have been musket balls, and some iron pieces. A track of stones has been found running through the centre of the trenches, which may be a road that would have run behind the hedge. This path leads to the large stone deposit that was found in another one of the trenches.
The path running through the centre of the trench.
Some other great finds from the killing zone include a musket tool, found by Sam. This is the first time we have found such an object! More grape shots have been found, and the musket balls that have been found are heavily impacted from hitting the wall.
Sam says about this:
“As far as we know, there was a hedge along the edge of the wood as well, which would have been relatively thick, so you could easily hide behind it to fire out, or fire through it. You’d have thought that there was some kind of organisation where you’d have blokes giving covering fire, trying to get all of their heads down, and then another team of blokes would try and charge across. You’d think.”
The Musket tool discovered in the Killing Zone (photo by Sam Wilson).
Another exciting find has been a shot embedded in clay, found by Gary. The trajectory of the ball is visible, which means that we know the direction and the angle of the shootings. In the words of Tony, “some proper CSI”.
