Day 14: Penultimate day and final features to be finished...

As ever, the last few days of an archaeological project are always the busiest. Today was no exception. We still have a few outstanding questions about the relationship between the ditches, large rectangular building and chapel. Today was all about trying to resolve those issues to understand the broad stratigraphic relationship between these features. Elsewhere we continued our rapid progress on our new trenches in order to answer those outstanding questions. Read on to find out more about our progress, and to find out more about some of our amazing new finds!

In Trench 1, everybody turned their attention to trying to figure out how all our ditch features which have picked up throughout the trench and running in different directions, link up. This meant that lots more little trenches had to be excavated throughout Trench 1 to identify the point at which these ditches link up. By doing this we hope to gain a full and complete understanding of the size and nature of these ditches/ditch and how it relates and interacts with the buildings we have identified either side of it. This task is of paramount priority because it might hold to answers to the age of the buildings in this trench. Today, lots of students have tirelessly spent the day mattocking and shovelling to try and identify the shift and change in these ditch features. Tomorrow, we hope to be able to answer these questions.

Elsewhere in Trench 1, we have now come down onto a surface beside the westernmost buttress. We believe that this buttress might be one that would have sat at the corner of Bek's Chapel, which means that surface might have sat within the chapel. Presently, this area needs to be tidied up and better understood, but this does have the potential to yield some interesting results.

In Trenches 4, 5, 6 which were inserted to pick up parts of the large rectangular building identified through GPR surveys (see earlier blog posts), we are now satisfied that we have identified the line of the walls and proved the results of the survey right. This has been a fantastic achievement, and we now have a clear idea of the scale and extent of this huge building. Remember to keep reading tomorrow for our most up-to-date interpretation of this feature.

In Trench 2, more exciting discoveries relating to the wooden feature have been found. The edges of the wooden feature have now been found and they appear to relate and respect the hole that it sits within, suggesting that it was intended to sit within it. We now believe that this probably isn't a well, but we have not yet decided on an alternative explanation.

Tomorrow, we have a very full and busy day ahead of us. Time will tell if we are able to answer all these questions before the students leave and the site is back-filled!