Day 16 of 20: Monday 4 July Hot and muggy today - just as forecast except that it didn't rain at all. No great advances, but some nice detail.
To begin, Sandra and Ken pretty well completed work on the stoke-hole in room 7...
Now they're going to plan it.
In Tony's charcoaly area the search for new life forms continues...
X marks the spot to the East of room 7 - a convergence of Victorian drains...
And this is the plough damage Barbara mentioned in her report on Friday...
When Adams delved.
Barbara spent the day working on the Field Mouse drain, until it sent her round the bend...
... quite literally! It makes a 90 degree turn to the North and looks as though it emptied into the big E-W drain coming in under the not-to-be-walked-on Fairy Bridge.
STOP PRESS: On cutting a section across the North facing "end" of the bendy drain (after I left, of course), Barbara discovered a lot more of the deep void already tantalisingly espied between the stones along the South side of the Fairy Bridge drain: B said something about Sandra inserting a Spaniard into the hole and establishing that it is about three-quarters of a Spaniard's handle deep. Mm.
Anyway, it's probably a dragon's lair.
I really must read some more grown up books.
And finally...
Tony rehearses his upcoming iPhone perf as Hamlet. You know the bit -
HAMLET: To be or not to be?
DAVE: No its BH2 1473
Day 17 of 20: Tuesday 5 July
A bit hot today, but it got cooler, windier and wetter just before 3pm.
We'll start and end with visitors. In 2008 the site became the subject of a Higher Level Environmental Stewardship agreement with Natural Engand, and today a team from N.E. visited to view progress...
There were lots of smiles and the visit went down well.
Sandra's team investigated the floor around the upper, earlier-found hypocaust...
... and uncovered the true floor level. Note the charcoal layer just on top of the floor surface (it's not just a shadow!)...
Here's how Barbara's drain ended the day...
The junction between the bendy drain and Fairy Bridge drain is still not clear. Note the holes leading down into the void - they're just alongside the finds tray.
As promised, I investigated the 'spaniard' mentioned in yesterday's blog as having been used to guage the depths of that void: I discovered that he is not called Manuel (he's from Barcelona) but is in fact a rather mundane if colourful tool, modelled here tastefully by Fred...
... who "imports" them from - you've guessed it - Spain! Now, I'm fairly sure I'm the only person on site who did not know about this - possibly the only person in West Northants. I like to learn a little every day. The void is about three-quarters of the spaniard handle deep.
As mentioned, just before 3pm the wind and rain suddenly got up, and a Wimbledon style operation ensued to cover the tesellated pavement....
A bit more like Cowes Week really.
Quite a lot of work in the finds area...
Just as the rain started our second group of visitors arrived. They are mostly members of The Friends of Raymond - so am I. Raymond is the last wooden-hulled commercial narrow boat (a butty - no engine) ever built in the UK (in 1958): the Friends maintain and operate Raymond and it's motor-boat Nutfield by running them up and down the canals from show to show during the season. In that context and on their own boats, these people have passed the Whitehall site on the canal many, many times during the last 10 years, and often wondered what the heck was going on up the hill. This was their chance to find out. They were very impressed!
Day 18 of 20: Wednesday 6 July
No blog today - been chairing a conference call with 8 people for two hours since 7pm and desperately need wine...
End-of-dig site record photography tomorrow - if the rain stops for long enough!
Day 19 of 20: Thursday 7 July
Phew. It poured - it stoppped - we took the high-level photos - it poured again. Phew. The soil was nicely wetted to bring out the colours, and the sky was just overcast enough to prevent shadows messing up the detail. Phew.
Pip and Iain joined us today for their annual visit...
And, as is also now traditional, everyone got a chance to look down on their efforts of the last four weeks...
Last day tomorrow!
Day 20 of 20: Friday 8 July
Oh good grief. As you may have noticed, this was a day of heavy showers. More like mini hurricanes really - they came close to blowing away the encampment, and filled the drains with water...
Between the showers, some work got done, including the ground level site photos.
Here's Sandra demonstrating the real function of the Mystery Stone...
People planned - levelling North to South being the main focus...
Finds were moved en masse by Matbro...
And while it was raining, not much got done...
At about 4.30, Steve lead the site tour for the remaining diggers...
It started not very wet, but by the middle it became a magnificently surreal seminar in the wind and rain...
Steve's main message - apart from thanking everyone involved this year - was that his aims for the month had been pretty well met:
- he's satisfied that the full range of the bath house has now been established: there are 11 rooms, with the entrance and changing rooms at the South end, and a suite of hypocaust rooms beyond them to the North. (The archaeology, revealed by the geophys, under the crop just to the East is most likely an entranceway for the bath house - there is no "second villa");
- the date is confirmed as being late 3rd to early 4th century: but Steve now thinks that there may well have been two phases of construction within that period. Establishing just what the phases were is the main question to be addressed in next year's dig;
- everything found this year confirms the thesis that this bath house was the main building on the whole site and had a role to play in the wider Roman landscape: it wasn't just related to Whitehall villa nearby. Just what that role was itis still impossible to say for sure. But there's no evidence for it being a military way station. The hunting ground hypothesis is still a runner, but it is only a hypothesis!
Here's the annual end of dig group photo, taken in the pouring rain! There had been other diggers on site during the day, but by 5pm the numbers were very understandably reduced.
Click on the photo for a bigger version.
Barbara and I are too warm and weary to venture up the A5 for the barbeque this evening. If anyone sends me photos of it, I'll post some here, so keep an eye on the blog for a day or two yet.
Tent striking on Monday, and a couple of final photos.
Thanks for reading the blog - I've enjoyed putting it together. I'm grateful to everyone who supplied photos and words.
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