Pottery Lottery

This interesting pottery fragment came up in the ditch last week. If I had found that in London I would say it was Roman, but could be a Med import to the house. Hopefully a pot expert can ID this. 

[and so it happened - imported from Spain in the 17th c.]

 

Wall Walk

On a visit to Montecute House I took these photographs to show what our balusters would have looked like in situ. As can be seen, the half sections would have been fixed to the square columns at the end of a section of wall. Montecute is about ten years older than Stalbridge. 

 

Balust-raid

The last of the balusters from the ditch. some of these will make a good exhibit.

Some good on-site cleaning.

 

Bedrock, but no Flintstones!

 

Having taken out the charcoal fill of a large pit cut onto the greeny-grey clay we have now hit bedrock.

This strange and fascinating fossilised seabed is the Forest Marble that covers this part of Dorset/Somerset. so this 5m square is coming to a close and we hope to open up a second soon.  

Baluster Bonus

More balusters have been found in the 'mega-ditch. 

The 'mega-ditch' is quite deep and even in this small 1m wide section it is full of worked stone. 

The balusters in situ.

At least we had the gazebo to shelter us from the hot sun.

 

If you can't fight ...

'Careful' Colin wearing a big hat in this hot spell. Stay hydrated and have a break in the shade if you are on site at the moment, as the finds are hot but so is the weather!  

 

Coining it in.

 These nice examples of Charles I farthings were found by metal detector. 

Egg & Cup for Breakfast

A very hot day today, so we had the pot washing crew under cover.

The base of a 'Bellarmine' jug.

The body of a Bellarmine jug.

The ditch produced a fine collection of stone balusters.  

This fine carved stone is of the 'cup & egg' design. It would have been in a prominent postion. 

The large stone is a particularly fine example.

At the moment it cannot be said that we have the cellar or the corner of the house definitively. We plan to open another trench soon to answer this question. This photo is of a wall (bottom right) and a limestone slab with a petrified wave pattern. is this a floor?

 

De-cellar-ration

We are gradually reducing the area that we think is the cellar, but as with most features in the excavation that is provisional. 

This feature is a large ditch that cuts east west and is in front of the house. Not sure yet of its function.

This area is made up of burnt material inside this fragment of wall. 

We have now reduced this area of burning and have found that it is a fill of a shallow pit.

 

The reducing of the the fills of the cellar continue.  

Early clay pipe: In broad terms there were always two different styles of pipe in contemporary use; those with heels and those with spurs. Heel forms were the earliest style to be introduced in the late sixteenth century and remained the dominant form in most areas for at least the next century.

This mark will allow us to do some research into where this very early clay pipe was made.

 

As expected the cellar area is coming up with a rich vein of finds from the top rubble layer. Hopefully that vein will continue into the lower dumps. The layer below the rubble is a nice mix of silt and burnt material, so fingers crossed that we will have more finds to show soon. 

These finds are 18th-19th c.  

Possible furniture stud; copper pin; metal button.

Rim, body and handle from the same vessel.