Days 11 and 12: The Final Week...

As we’ve moved into our final field-school week, attention has turned to identifying key areas of interest or unresolved archaeology. Read on to find out more about which areas we have targeted for further investigation…

One area of crucial importance to us is understanding the suspected garderobe. At the beginning of this week, we had not reached the base of this feature, and therefore could not properly ascertain if it was a garderobe or another feature. Yesterday and today we have excavated our more than 5ft of rubble and later infill deposits. Although we are not yet at the base of this feature, we anticipate that at this rate we might be able to properly understand its depth soon. This will hopefully allow us to appropriately understand if this is a garderobe or another feature altogether. Understanding what this feature is, is important because it might be able to shed light on the uses and functions of the nearby spaces, such as the suspected parlour.

Garderobe area part-way through excavation

Excavation of the suspected parlour has been ensuing rapidly over the last few days. While we have discovered the two internal plaster walls, we believe that these walls cannot represent the full size of a medieval parlour. Instead, we think this plastered room may be an adapted pre-existing room at undercroft level. If this is the case, we may be looking at a halved space which has been plastered. Although we have not located any other walls which may give us an indication of the full size and extent of the parlour, the multitude of recent pipes and pipe-cuts might provide the answer to this question. Approximately equidistant to the east wall of the plastered room is a substantial pipe cut containing a relatively small pipe. We believe that this pipe cut may have been a pre-existing robber trench for the west-wall of the parlour in which the pipe was later inserted. If this is the case, this may provide us with full extent of the original medieval parlour. Currently, we have been excavated a rubble layer between the western plaster wall and the pipe/robber trench which is filled with fragments of broken roof tile and other building rubble. Today, Ed discovered a fragment of a stone spiral staircase. These discoveries support the idea that this building was demolished and the building fragments were used to level the ground. Nearby discoveries of brick and 17th century finds place its destruction in the 1600’s.

John and Ed with the fragment of spiral staircase

Another very exciting discovery was made today by Bethan and Lily in the south-west corner of the trench. Exciting discoveries of walls in this area have been tantalising us with the promise of more over the last few days. Appearing to form a kind of box-shape, these function of these walls have been alluding us. After digging through some sticky, brown clay-like deposit, Bethan and Lily discovered a large, round lead disc capping some stones. We currently believe that this might have been the capping to a cesspit or possibly medieval date. Tomorrow we will excavate this further and recover samples for scientific analysis.

Lead capped stones discovered by Bethan and Lily today. Updates tomorrow on how this feature progresses.

As we push for the finishing line we still have a few areas left for investigation. Keep checking back to follow our progress!