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AN OCCASIONAL PROGRESS REPORT Day 11 of 20: Monday 29 June Cor what a scorcher! Ways of keeping the sun off: 1. A gazebo ...
... to stop some wood drying out ...
... while its excavated.
2. An umbrella:
3. A shemagh...
... as modelled here by Barbara (Willen Hospice stall at Folk on the Green - £2). I was myself wearing a green shemagh as issued to Coalition forces in Irag and Afghanistan (bought on-line, about £10).
Bath House 2 continues to amaze and puzzle.
More pilae are turning up on the "wrong" side of the southern wall. They are not in any sort of alignment with the pilae on the "right" side of the wall. In the photo you can see the cut through the wall which just might be the link between another stokehouse and the hypocaust beyond the wall. Too soon for any even tentative conclusions - but that doesn't stop people trying, of course. Meanwhile...
The Trench is being painstakingly dug out. No great conclusions here either - yet! And finally, a find from last week...
Probably a brooch - lovely scalloped edge. Sorry there's no scale - it's about 3cm in diameter. I'm not going up the site tomorrow - more Tuesday meetings which I can't get out of. If we're lucky we may get another guest blogger. |
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| Day 12 of 20: Tuesday 30 June
No blog today - sorry! |
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Day 13 of 20: Wednesday 1 July Children from Harpole Primary School joined us for couple of hours in mid afternoon today for a tour of the site...
... and a look at the finds.
Harpole Heritage Group visited this evening. Several of the other villas CLASP (to which the Whitehall Villa project is affiliated) is looking at are in Harpole, and Harpole Parish Council makes regular grants to CLASP to support its work in the Parish. And we have a strong contingent of Harpole volunteers working at Whitehall.
Just West of the caravans they've dug a big hole and found (ta, ta) Round House Three. It's a farily subtle soil-colour change - the foundation runs left-right across the cente of the frame.
The two roundhouses we already know about on site were undoubtedly part of a larger group - and now we have some visible evidence for that. And while we're on the subject of extra attractions - this is the floor of a Georgian farm building just West of the copse (the one with the tool shed nestling in it). We've always known about the building, and believed that it was built using stones from the villa range (you can see it clearly on the old OS maps of the area). Apart from a few stones we haven't have much of it, until now!
This is a nice bit of samian ware found in The Trench. Now don't get too excited - the bit they found is the one on the right: the really gorgeous bit is a profile sample from Rick's collection: it has the same profile as the bit we found. (Rick is our Samian specialist). I got a ride with Steve and Tony in the cage of the Matbro tractor at the end of the afternoon, and here's what we saw. Click on the photo for a larger version - they are big files, so may take a minute or so to download depending on your internet connection. The south end of BH2:
All of BH2 and areas adjoining:
The area East of BH1:
I'll put up a perspective-rectified version of this as soon as I've prepared one. Famous last words?... No! Here at 22.52 (and I've done lots of other stuff imbetween) is a rough rectification:
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Day 14 of 20: Thursday 2 July
Lets talk about the drains. Two drain holes were found in BH2 in the vicinity of the South wall at the eastern edge of the excavated area: one of them had a wooden lining! This is how they looked yesterday...
And this is how they looked today...
Now, it didn't rain, and there are no visible links between these holes and the other water filled areas of BH2 at the same or a higher level. Presumably there is some sort of underground connection. Now let's talk about soil colours. I confess that I often can't the soil colour changes which send real archaeologists into raptures (even if I say I can, and even if I can enhance the photos to show the changes up better). But take a look at the spoil heap...
No enhancement needed to bring those colours out. Meanwhile...
...Laura continues her intimate relationship with the drain underneath the North wall of BH1 room 4. Having slid the huge capping stone back using, it appears, paeleolithic methods (wooden rollers), she's removing the mud to see how the drain is lined. Rick spent the some of the day meticulously lifting lumps of painted plaster in the mystery area beyond the South wall of BH2...
And here is some of it...
Must have been a room here! Even more so because Rick spent the rest of the day revealing more pilae as the digging moves southwards.
Tomorrow's site tour will be especially interesting! There may be some heavy showers overnight and tomorrow as the heat wave breaks. |
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Day 15 of 20: Friday 3 July It rained. While BH2 flooded a bit, in many areas of the site the rain brought out the colours in sections, and was a great help in that way. Here, for example, is the edge of the courtyard where it meets BH1.
Here's a hairpin which came up in BH2.
With its multi-facetted head it's possibly the finest hairpin we have so far. And here's a nice painted pot rim...
On the Friday tour Tony showed us the results of the ongoing search for the NE wing.
Basically ... it's still missing! But a big thanks to people who carefully looked for it.
On the other hand, The Trench is now confirmed to be an pre-Roman ditch probably related to the round house which was close to its top end. The pottery found here has been either iron-age or very early Roman - that bit of Samian ware is of a type manufactured in southern Gaul which ceased production in 60-80 AD - so it's very early Roman as far as the British Isles is concerned.
At the business end of BH2, they've been looking for the join between the west and south walls of room 2... They haven't found evidence of it yet, but it might be deeper down. Meanwhile the south end (trans muros) continues to intrigue. The painted plaster suggests a standard dado design on the wall. There's a new feature coming up in this area...
... not enough evidence yet to say what it might have been. Over in BH1 room 4...
... Laura's work on the drain under the north wall has shown that the "capping" stones had in fact been used to fill in the drain when the drainage pattern was changed. It now seems that the water flowing from the sump was diverted along a missing drain outside the north wall - Tony is going to check the old photos to see if there was any evidence of this a few years ago. The area east of BH1 still needs more work to establish what it was.
It might be a drain away for BH1. Fred showed us the hole with the Georgian/Victorian tile floor in it...
This was probably an ancilliary room to the farm building which stood somewhere around here. The point of digging here was to find out whether any roman stone had been used in the Georgian construction: certainly none was found, and the walls seem to have been of low quality bricks.
Fred also showed us the large hole which included the shadow of a round house wall, and...
... a Victorian or thereabouts drain which had shown up as a geophysical anomaly. And finally - during the rain this morning. it was decided at the highest level to wash the caravans so they look nice on Open Day.
Robin and Malcolm led the way. Robin was heard to mutter "After eight years' experience they've got me doing this!" But here is the magnificent result:
Last week next week, if you see what I mean. And still lots to do! |
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