Voyages to the House of Diversion 
Seventeenth-Century Water Gardens and the Birth of Modern Science

 January to April 2017 - Picking up the Pieces
Back to Introduction and Contents


The new year saw a tentative return to Hanwell after a summer spent mainly amongst the burials in Cropredy Churchyard. Not surprisingly the winter had not been particularly kind to the exposed trenches to say nothing of all the trees that had been brought down. We decided to focus mainly on the water parterre revealed both by survey and emphasised by the LIDAR coverage and after a lot of shuffling about found an area which took inn a part of the central round mound and ditch and opened up an initial area 6m by 5m.
April     April

Not quite the apocalypse but some serious tree damage.



April     April

Work begins on deturfing the new area HANK ... really and Peter checks the area for metal work and marks them up with yellow flags




April     April

Work is well underway with Helen and Andries helping to plot levels for the metal finds - mainly iron nails plus the gazebo goes up offering all the comforts of home.
As part of getting a better understanding of the whole area a new trench was opened up close to the south east corner of the water parterre to examine the line of the wall here, unfortunately robbed out in the 1960s. We are quite keen to see how it related to any pathways as well as examining other strange structures which seem to be around including lots of stone.



April     April

The trench on the line of the wall opens up.