Voyages to the House of Diversion 
Seventeenth-Century Water Gardens and the Birth of Modern Science
June 2015 - Playing Catch-up

Back to Introduction and Contents


Having completed the third of this year's excursions to France a return to digging was long overdue. Peter had been working on the foundations and stone paving uncovered next to the barn at Enstone but everything else had gone to rack and ruin... or at least had become rather overgrown. There was still a little more recording and analysis to be done on the curious sunken feature then we had the suggestion from a local farmer Peter Hughes that it might be a hound bath! I know I hadn't come across such a thing either, I shall have to steel myself and approach a local hunt for information.



June
 Yes there really is a trench out there... somewhere




June     June
More trenches in urgent need of weeding.




June     June
And here's one I did earlier, could this be a hound's bath? Actually the areas up by the barn were not so problematic and Peter had been working along by the foundations fairly recently




Back at Hanwell, after a quick tidy up before showing the Cropredy Historical Society round the garden, we turned our attentions to preparations for the Big Dig in the Sunken Garden. The issue here is that we know this large hollow dug out of the side of the valley was in existence since at least the first large scale edition Ordnance Survey map from the 1880s. Much of what can be seen today is twentieth century additions and repairs but it would be entirely consistent with the layout of a Jacobean garden to have a sunken garden, possibly quite ornamental in nature, or even a grotto of some sort. This needed examining so following consultations with Christopher we had two areas marked out. One section, a metre wide cut through the sloping bank on the west side of the area in the hope of picking up details of the construction of the retaining wall free from later improvements. The other trench was set out on the east side to explore various walls running down the slope and the possibility of an earlier stone structure which Christopher reported seeing on a postcard from the opening decades of the twentieth century. We were very conscious last year that some of the most significant discoveries were made after our student volunteers had left so this year we were determined to get the work underway rather more in advance so Peter and I selflessly started stripping weeds and lifting topsoil.




June     June
the new areas in the Sunken garden marked out and ready to go: HANI (W) and HANI (E)




June     June
As Peter clears the overburden the dimensions of the wall become clearer  and on top of the bank and packed stone revetment, no walling yet.

 



June
And here's the first bunch of finds from HANI (W) 001: medieval pot, seventeenth century glass and a matchbox toy, typical.




One of the great benefits of the Internet is it gives a platform to a whole world full of collectors who document, often in meticulous detail their particular passions. So here we have the specifications for the toy illustrated above and a date range: 1967 - 1970 as near as you could wish, pity this doesn't work for all our finds.
 Trailer
Trailer
Trailer





June     June    June
And then one evening Rowena and Christopher were moved to make the crossing to the island by walking the plank(s) and why not?  




Back at Enstone I had been looking at Peter's excellent notes then examining the site first hand and came to a strategic decision that this exposure of wall and associated foundations really did merit further study and publication. We were left with the surface pretty well as the digger had left it so a thorough clean up of exposed deposits was started prior to a massive programme of wall elevation and plan drawing. I finished the cleaning the following week and photographed general views from a multitude of angles and heights.




     June
The eastern face of the northern half of the barn, general views looking south west and north west




June
The work is done, the recording remains.




 Back at Hanwell I was keen to walk the plank and re-establish contact with the island. Once there I continued on the programme of clearance that was already underway by weeding the area in and around Sir Anthony's Bath. Then after further clearing and rolling the odd tree trunk out of the way I was able to mark out the trench for the fourth of this year's big dig areas. In this instance we are planning to examine the perimeter of the island for evidence of erosion and to try and determine where the original edge was. Could be quite challenging!



June     June
Yes another before and after, Sir Anthony's Bath looking north east.




June
... and a brand new area HANJ on the southern edge of the island, the test pit in the corner was to investigate how far we could go before striking water and to start to create a kind of sump for bailing out.