MFN Dig – Week 1 May 2024
Barbara wrote:
Fortunately the weather has been kind to us so far and we’ve been able to get in two full days of preparation and excavations.
Twelve members joined in on Day One and did sterling work on deturfing two trenches and removing the topsoil in Trench One.
Nine members attended on Day 2 including a new member who has previous dig experience and joined SPAG to take part in our dig. The weather was sunny but very windy which was a challenge when trying to hold up the 3 metre telescopic staff to take height measurements!
Most of the topsoil was removed in Trench 2 where an interesting small tapered wooden peg was found and placed carefully in a finds bag. Meanwhile in Trench 1 the Find of the Day was a tiny red glass bead, probably Victorian in age. Neil showed us how to position the Planning Frame over the excavation in order to make an accurate drawing of the stones lying in the bottom of the trench.
Feeling very windswept we packed up our equipment at the end of the day and are now looking forward to another great day next Tuesday, our last dig day before Easter.
Neil’s report follows:
The project started on Tuesday the 19th of March with the marking out of trench 1 across the southern area of the enclosure “ditch”. This is a 4m x 2m trench and its aim was to relocate the features discovered by Catherine in 2019. Once the turf had been removed, work started on removing the topsoil using spades to remove the bulk of the soil then switching to trowels nearer the subsoil. There were very few artefacts recovered from the topsoil which was a bit surprising given the depth of the topsoil.
Whilst trench 1 was being started, several of the group moved over to do some surveying. The aim here was to bring the OS Datum mark from lower down the lane to a temporary datum point on the field. The level was transferred to the field over a series of intermediate readings and a temporary benchmark created and a large post set in its position. A reverse survey was then done to transfer the temporary benchmark back to the OS Datum to check the survey accuracy. We had a very small error of only 1cm between the two surveys which we deemed to be satisfactory!!
A second trench, also 4m x 2m, was then laid out, over a small geophysical anomaly showing towards the north part of the field on the geophysics survey results. This trench was then de-turfed.
We returned to the site on Friday 22nd of March in very cold and extremely windy conditions, to continue our project. Work removing the topsoil in trench 1 was completed and revealed what appeared to be a linear negative feature running through the trench on the alignment of the ditch and then turning through 90o and heading north for a meter or so. Removing the fill of this feature revealed a collection of stones which may be a continuation of the stones found in 2019. It is possible the rest of the stones from this feature turned north and have since been robbed away, although it is very early days into the project and theories can, and most probably will, change on a day-to-day basis!!
The topsoil was removed in trench 2 and revealed a stony sub soil. Again, very few finds were found in this trench, as in trench 1.
We look forward to what next week will uncover. Stay tuned!
