Demolition of a fixed point.
The
Canadian Geese and their brood are now pretty mobile so I'm happy
to return to the island to recommence work, however, there is still
plenty to do in the vicinity of the 'sluice'. There's more rubble
to remove but the end does appear to be in sight and we do at last
seem to have left the twentieth century behind with the current crop of
finds dating from the eighteenth century or earlier.
The family out grazing Peter out examining a large chuck of iron, possibly a patten.
The family out grazing Peter out examining a large chuck of iron, possibly a patten.
As
you can see from the photo of the dig above one of our on-going issues
is keeping the site clean from the continuing showers of blossom that
rain down upon our heads - there are worse problems to confront it is
true so here on a more positive note is the pink carpet of blossom on
the car park from the nearby horse chestnuts.
Further
recording and removal of rubble has carried us deeper and deeper
downstream from the walling. These lower rubble deposits seem to
contain more in the way of finds from earlier centuries largely I
suspect from the eighteenth century. Finally we appear to have hit
bottom, at least as far a stone structures are concerned. An
expectation that the lower levels of the channel would consist of
deposits of thick black sticky mud have not been fulfilled. indeed, it
looks very much as if water flowed briskly into the channel, a supply
which was suddenly cut off before partially filling in the channel
without any intermediate period of stagnation.
Mike really does think he's reached the bottom...
and here's the view of the full height of the walling, the only question now is, "What is it?"
On the upstream side what originally appeared to be another dump of rubble now looks like a revetment for a bank considerably narrower than the existing dam, curious, and up on the level ground to the north of the channel the curious lesser ditch which runs parallel to the main channel is so far proving to be rather lacking in interest. Archaeologists tend to like ditches with their endless capacity for accommodating rubbish. So far this one is really quite clean with a few fragments of clay pipe stem and some seventeen or eighteenth century glass.
023 as we like to call it, revetting the bank to the south. This is a very dull ditch.
Mike really does think he's reached the bottom...
and here's the view of the full height of the walling, the only question now is, "What is it?"
On the upstream side what originally appeared to be another dump of rubble now looks like a revetment for a bank considerably narrower than the existing dam, curious, and up on the level ground to the north of the channel the curious lesser ditch which runs parallel to the main channel is so far proving to be rather lacking in interest. Archaeologists tend to like ditches with their endless capacity for accommodating rubbish. So far this one is really quite clean with a few fragments of clay pipe stem and some seventeen or eighteenth century glass.
023 as we like to call it, revetting the bank to the south. This is a very dull ditch.
June
18th. was the occasion of my first opportunity to address the Enstone
Historical Society during the course of their summer picnic on the site
of some seventeenth century pleasure gardens adjacent to the impressive
fourteenth century tithe barn. I was very pleased to be invited to give
a brief talk about water gardens in general and the Hanwell and Enstone investigations in particular. Despite
being something of a gallop, all over in half an hour, it was useful to
be able to discuss the topic and begin to outline suggestions for field
work around the village. The distinguished audience not only came up
with some killer questions but also some very useful suggestions so a
very productive night out.
Enstone, the members assemble for their picnic and the speaker struggles for inspiration (Thanks to Carol Geare for the photo)
Enstone, the members assemble for their picnic and the speaker struggles for inspiration (Thanks to Carol Geare for the photo)
Find of the Month |
| Well the ditch
and its fill - 024 if you are interested - turned out to be not
quite as dull as I suggested above as some 20 cm down into the fill we
discovered this rather fine clay pipe bowl with two contiguous sections
of stem which brought the total length to around 15 cm. The bowl is
nicely ornamented with a combination of vine and grapes motif and
judging by the size and angle of bowl it is most likely late eighteenth
or early nineteenth century. Peter Spackman has pointed out that such
pipes could be associated with local taverns but given that as well as
the Vine Inn, Banbury (demolished 1857*), there were also public houses
known as The Grapes in Oxford and Chipping Norton we are rather spoilt
for choice. The importance of clay pipes is that as they were rather
fragile the date at which they were broken and discarded tends to be
fairly close to the date they were manufactured and so they make
excellent markers for dating. Several people are looking in to
providing parallels and hence a more specific date for the piece, there
will be an update once we have the information. |
 |
As the month drew to a close the channel east of the wall had been pretty well emptied of rubble and we were beginning to see the appearance of what may have been the primary silting laid down during the final phase of use, whatever that use may have been and personally I'm beginning to suspect cascade. Amongst one of the last pieces of rubble to be lifted was this fine piece of moulding. It's rounded profile makes it quite different to any architectural fragments recorded to date. I really must take a long hard look at the surviving mouldings on the surviving bit of the castle. One issue that bedevils archaeologists across the world is the siting of spoil heaps and practically everyone will tell tales of discovering that the pile of dirt had been sited one the one spot it turned out really needed to be dug so the whole thing had to be shifted... by hand. Well at the moment much of our spoil is going down the valley and to keep it tidy as the heap has risen so has the retaining wall we've built with the loose rubble.
Walking
the plank has a whole new meaning.
Architectural fragment, looks
medieval, I mean really medieval.
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There
has been a bit of a build up of finds awaiting processing over the past
few weeks largely because I've been waiting for a day when it has been
warm enough to set up outside and splash water around with a hosepipe,
how many of those have we had? Well the last day of the month, Sunday
30th. proved ideal. And finally in response to the vandalism
reported earlier in the
month we have been forced to invest in some high-end security... honestly...
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