Draining work

After cleaning the site last week we explored the drain and the wall next to it to find their extent. 

We found the base of the drain and followed that to see how much survived.

Quite a few finds came up (a lot more than this) and will need processing, so more pix later. 

Yet another nice find.

Colin continues to pick up metal finds that have been missed by the stripping process. 

Trench G1 stripping

Expectations were high when we started stripping the northern end of Trench G1 today and at first we were not disappointed.

In situ stone started to come up and it looked like we were in the right place and finding the foundations of the manor house, still in good condition.

We even found some nice stone work that could lead to a possible basement, or perhaps an internal wall. However, it is probably a drain, all-be-it a very well made one.

  Then - nothing. Stripping to the south uncovered rubble. Taking off the rubble - nothing. No house. No foundations.

However, we did find this nice decorated stone. We will now clean and record what we have and then open another trench, hoping to find that the whole of the manor house has not been totally destroyed and that at least a part of it remains.   

Doing the donkey work

We arrived on site after a meeting with Stalbridge History members to set out the first trench in our work on the manor house. New member Doris the Donkey was there to say Nay or Bray.

Our first trench is numbered 1G, the first of many, we hope. 

The trenches will be sited between the bank on the left and the cows on the right.

The trench is situated on the top right corner just to the right of the blue line (trough), so we hope to find evidence of the structure there. 

Stripping will be done on 2nd June. 

Crash Bang! What a picture...

The geophysics results (blue line is a water trough)

Well done to the Stalbridge geophysics team for getting such clear result on the manor house, especially as the weather was not too good on the exposed site. Internal features look clear too, so we hope to establish the internal layout as well. Hopefully we will have some nice finds. A bonus would be to find an earlier house on the site, or record any rebuilding, for the record.   

No stalling at Stalbridge

The geophysics at Stalbridge turned up some very good results, which will be shown here very soon, despite the bad weather last weekend. Well done to all the volunteers for this sterling work. Putting the manor house back on the map will soon be commencing and who knows what else may be found. 

Milton Abbas

Chris went to give a talk to the Milton Abbas history soc. last night telling members about the projects we have done and projects coming up. The society are very keen to work with DDCAG to unearth their village's past. One exciting idea is already being researched, so we will let you know.

BBC in the southwest are doing a series of programmes on village history and Milton Abbas is one of them. They were there last night to film the meeting and they are going to film throughout the summer as the society does its work, which will include DDCAG if we can get a project up and running! The programmes will go out in the autumn with the Flying Archaeologist guy presenting.

The producer also stated that they would be interested in our work too, in relation to filming our projects at Stalbridge and Symondsbury, with permissions from landowners.    

Building (Stal) bridges

The committee had a meeting with the Stalbridge History Society to co-ordinate the project at the 17th c. manor house in Stalbridge Park, demolished in the 1820s. We are going to begin geophysics surveys very soon to locate the exact position of the foundations and then dig some test pits to see what survives. It is possible that an older house may have left its mark on the same site.

On a cold and windy day, but with bright sunshine, we visited the site with its wide views. Good access and parking will make life easier.

SHS are a group of local people looking to find and record as much of their village history as possible and we have been asked to help them with the archaeology aspect.