Day 2: Walls, walls, walls...

You can’t walk across or around the trench without bumping into a wall somewhere. Today was mostly about continuing the cleaning effort that was started yesterday, but with greater focus around the features that had already been identified. However, in cleaning away the loose spoil and dirt, we have uncovered even more interesting features which are beginning to shape our understandings of them. Keep reading to find out more!

With more cleaning and some excavation, the full extent and composition of the curtain wall is beginning to reveal itself. All day, students have been working on it at different points across the trench. Some have been cleaning back the surface of it and exposing its full shape and dimension, while in other places more aggressive digging has uncovered traces of the wall buried beneath substantial amounts of topsoil and later deposits. Of particular interest is the west-end of the trench, where a large cut in the curtain wall was identified at the end of today after many tiring hours of mattocking and soil clearing by some of our students. With more excavation tomorrow, we will have a better idea about this break in the wall and what might have caused it. Keep posted to find out more.

The west end of the wall emerging from the rubble.

On the far east side of the trench, more traces of walls and surfaces have began to reveal themselves. One area of in situ chamfered wall really stands out in the trench, both because of its fine finish and high quality, but also because of the wall that immediately abuts it. We still aren’t sure exactly what this feature might be, but it could possibly form part of a platform. Slight enlargement of the trench has allowed us to follow this feature further, and we are hoping that in the next few days this might all become clearer. These features exist near to where we expect that we might find kitchens. Last year we found medieval kitchens on the opposite side of the Great Hall, and these might therefore be a continuation or accompanying set of kitchens on this side of the hall. Nearby, animal bones and charcoal-rich deposits appear to support the idea that there were kitchens near this site.

Area of chamfered stone abutted by another wall.

Across the trenches, there have been more discoveries that link to the bishop’s table, but not necessarily in the ways that we expected! Many post-medieval bottles and jars were found at the west-end, including an exciting one for ‘Eiffel Tower Fruit Juice’ found by Emily. Although these don’t tell us about medieval consumption at the site, these are a really interesting window into the more recent past at the site. If anyone knows anything about Eiffel Tower Fruit Juice then please let us know, we’d love to know more!

Other great finds include an amazing cow scapula found by Brianna, and this base of a medieval pot found by Charlotte near the kitchens. As we dig deeper, we expect to find more amazing discoveries like these.