Saturday 5^th October

A good turn out today – was it the promise of fine weather or the fact that we had finished de-turfing?

However it was good to see everybody and to welcome two newcomers, Eileen and Pam (sadly without Teddy). We were soon set to work; Alan and Ruth to finish de-turfing the lowest trench and Alison and Pauline to make a start on recording the wall profile, soon to be assisted by Pam. 

Wall profiling is such fun!  (c) photo by Ruth Spencer

Meanwhile the job of removing the top soil on both sides of the bank in order to expose the stones in the wall trench was begun by Hugh and Peter, soon joined by Alan and Ruth. Lynne and Roger began to excavate the lower two trenches, Lynne being joined by Pam when she could no longer assist with the wall profile.

The sun came out so Alan was 'banished' to climb the hillside on the other side of the river, in order to photograph the site from above. Unfortunately the sun did not stay out very long, but I understand he still managed to get some good photos of the fields. We watched his progress up the hillside during our coffee break, and then forgot about him until lunch time, when we were quite certain we could see him fairly near the top of the hill. We were all waving furiously, when to our surprise he walked into the field!

Look! Where? Is that Alan?   (c) photo by Ruth Spencer 

The afternoon progressed as in the morning, with finds of lots of bits of animal bone and teeth and the odd piece of willow pattern pottery. We were visited by two passing cyclists, one of whom had previously called in when we were surveying, and had come to see progress and also by Rich. followed by Sarah from the farm, who also showed great interest in our doings.

Working hard on our "Doings"  (c) photo by Ruth Spencer  

A day off tomorrow, to rest these aching knees and to catch up with the washing! Back to it on Monday............

Ruth Spencer UWHG