Eton Mess?

DDCAG members and local Yenston researchers are visiting Eton College on the 21st to look for clues as to the location of the priory in their archive, as they bought the land after the Reformation. If we can find evidence of the rough location we can use our geophiz survey better and save a lot of time and money when we open our next trench. Report to follow, so keep looking in.

[update: we are now looking to go later after the Waterloo works have been completed]

Not so lucky Three Leaf Clover

Some unstrat. finds included this metal object, too light to be lead.

Also this very nice, high quality, thumb print decorated pottery rim with glaze on the inside. 

This must be medieval.

Field of broken dreams.

Trench 1, Field 1 has now been dug and recorded and also back filled. Initial interpretation is that the features are prehistoric, but the finds will be looked at soon. The priory remains lost, but we are carrying on.

A small Trench 2 was dug to see what might come up in another corner of Field 1, but only hit bedrock, so this field is now being abandoned and all efforts are to be concentrated in Field 2. 

Geophysics is now being carried out in Field 2 and the results will be published soon. Fingers crossed that the priory will be found!

Trench 1

Day 1 found us digging the features brought up by the machine stripping last weekend. None of the features had any depth to them and very little in the way of finds. So we will record them and then do some more geophiz in the adjoining fields hoping to find the priory and some more features. This field has been impacted by modern intrusions and dumping of materials, but we had to check the first geophiz results (which did look promising) and record any features, which we are doing. Thanks to all who came this week and David will be on hand this coming Saturday to help people record what we have dug.

Durotriges Big Dig 2017

10 members took the Durotriges Big Dig 2017 tour last Thursday at Winterbourne Kingston with BU. Lookout for more pics in the Newsletter.

Swash & Buckle

Here are the first finds which came from the spoil during stripping. Well done Caroline for having a sharp eye. I'm not a pot expert, but I suggest that one piece is probably Bronze Age, one or two Iron Age and one or two Roman. The buckle was found by Colin in the natural silty clay, which is very rocky. How that got there is anyone's guess. [update: the buckle was there because it was in a fill created by quarrying! Mystery solved.]

This buckle has diamond decoration all around with fleur de lyse in the corners.

Yenston - machine stripping

Adam the digger driver, despite a bad back - what a hero.

The large pit - may be Iron Age

Linear features

Visiting locals

We opened up the trench yesterday looking for the priory,  but found prehistoric! Several linear features, a couple of postholes and a large pit. That's just how it goes sometimes. Hopefully we can find some dating evidence next week. Photos and films to follow, so keep looking in.