Tuesday 29 July 2014

29 July 2014, Hickleton Hall POW Project Day 7

With the weather still holding up well, the team got a lot done today again. It all began with the clearing off of the topsoil from hut base 8. There wasn't much left to do here, so the job didn't take very long with everyone helping.


Then came the task of cleaning the top of the concrete with trowels, this job was done by Ellie, Emily and Judy as they had not had the chance to do this before.


Soon enough the concrete was cleaned and photographs were taken of the feature.


Meanwhile, over at hut base 6 we began the unenviable job of backfilling the topsoil on the concrete. This is to avoid any accidents with the cows that normally populate the field!


It is a thankless task, but was soon completed. The grass will grow back very quickly over the top of the base and no one will ever know we were there!


Then attention was turned back to hut base 7 and the two sondages on the edges of the base. Rob and Jonathan cleaned out the remaining material of sondage 4.


And it was then photographed and levelled.


Sondage 5, on the other hand, is about half way through to completion. There are only patches of brick rubble in this area, they may be the remains of a step, but that is impossible to tell as the bricks are so fragmentary. However, this still needs to be recorded and that is a task for tomorrow.


Back at hut base 8, Judy and Ellie began opening sondage 6, this was placed at the eastern end of the hut base to see if there was a brick step here or not. The initial cleaning has only shown us these sandstone blocks. However, these are very similar to the 'rockery' on hut base 7, so it is still interesting to see.


What was very surprising was sondage 7, opened by Phil, Emily and Jean. This very quickly revealed a brick step.


This was very unexpected as it was on the opposite side of the hut compared to the other huts we have already excavated this season. Tomorrow, we will open the sondage a bit more and see how far this feature extends.


We had no buttons today, but Ellie did recover this very nice pot base from one of the post holes in hut base 8, unfortunately, it has no markings on it, but is still a very nice find!


Another day with a lot of activity and happy archaeologists! Tomorrow should bring some interesting results in the two new sondages, so drop in tomorrow and see what comes from them!

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