Thursday 17 April 2014

17 April 2014, Barnsley Pals Project, Day 4

Day four brought a cold and bitter wind with it, also an ill Christine, who was soon packed off home to bed. With Christine off site there was no geophysics carried out, so the volunteers continued cleaning the ablution block bases. Here Sue, Andy and Russell work on getting the remaining grass off the concrete.


The second block base was also cleaned back by Duncan, Lauren and Alex, the steps you can see on the right hand side are modern insertions created by the Scouts. This base is a different build as it appears not to have the same amount of post holes as the one higher up.


It also has an intriguing feature at the end, found by Duncan. We initially thought it was a communal bath, but as more was revealed it became more enigmatic.


Unfortunately, a large part of the structure has broken away, so we may never know what it was or what its function was.


Then in the afternoon Anne and Philip joined us for more cleaning and this speeded the process up somewhat!


With most of the grass off the top base certain structures and features can now be clearly seen, the post holes for a possible frame are more obvious, as is the guttering system.


The gutter runs around the entire block, emptying out on the bottom left of the picture. We have yet to examine this area, but there may be a soak-away in this area to stop the ground getting swampy with all the excess water. The post holes on both sides of the structure can clearly be seen, as can the line of them down the centre of the base. There is still a little more cleaning to do on this feature, but it is almost finished!


There is still quite a lot more to do, but we will be back tomorrow morning to continue the work, if you want to join us or are just interested in popping along for a chat, please do!

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