For me anyway as the very last dig booked is when we're on holiday. Back to Shillington, this time to a very early 17th century house, unfortunately extended in the 1960/70's with nothing in keeping.
Our 1m test pit was put in just behind the house in line with the original building, & off we went!
A very mixed bag we got! It's always good to find things, anything quite honestly as it keeps you going but the archaeology we got was all mixed up. The top few contexts were full of all sorts, it was probably all mixed up when the house was built, so we were finding the ever popular Victorian blue & white pottery, clay pipe stems and part of a bowl along with some medieval grey wares, dating to around the 13th century and loads and loads of peg tile. Roofing tiles infact ( one for Alec there!)
Probably the nicest find was a small glass bottle after a little research I found it to be a Victorian ink bottle. Got down to 0.50m and the notorious clay started to appear which is a real bugger to dig. It won't sieve either so you have to break it up by hand.
Called it a day there & retired for post dig analysis at the Musgrove Arms, the guest beer today was a very light and citrusy brew called St Edmunds, a Greene King beer at 4.2% in strength. It was indeed another refreshing golden ale.
Day two saw us dig another context but finds had pretty well dried up, so under glorious sunshine a half section was dug to take us down to 0.7m where we called it a day and after lunch began the tedious bit of the back fill. It was a very good dig but I found it frustrating that our finds were so mixed up. It didn't really tell us anything we didn't already know but was still great fun!
All finished we repaired for a final post dig analysis. It's been a great years digging & I look forward to next year where I know Derek has already got us some gigs lined up!
Our 1m test pit was put in just behind the house in line with the original building, & off we went!
A very mixed bag we got! It's always good to find things, anything quite honestly as it keeps you going but the archaeology we got was all mixed up. The top few contexts were full of all sorts, it was probably all mixed up when the house was built, so we were finding the ever popular Victorian blue & white pottery, clay pipe stems and part of a bowl along with some medieval grey wares, dating to around the 13th century and loads and loads of peg tile. Roofing tiles infact ( one for Alec there!)
Probably the nicest find was a small glass bottle after a little research I found it to be a Victorian ink bottle. Got down to 0.50m and the notorious clay started to appear which is a real bugger to dig. It won't sieve either so you have to break it up by hand.
Called it a day there & retired for post dig analysis at the Musgrove Arms, the guest beer today was a very light and citrusy brew called St Edmunds, a Greene King beer at 4.2% in strength. It was indeed another refreshing golden ale.
Day two saw us dig another context but finds had pretty well dried up, so under glorious sunshine a half section was dug to take us down to 0.7m where we called it a day and after lunch began the tedious bit of the back fill. It was a very good dig but I found it frustrating that our finds were so mixed up. It didn't really tell us anything we didn't already know but was still great fun!
All finished we repaired for a final post dig analysis. It's been a great years digging & I look forward to next year where I know Derek has already got us some gigs lined up!
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