Our archaeology excavations got off to a great start – cutting through the path at the front of the church and opening up some trenches.
Have a read of our Daily Dig Diary by Dr Sheila Newton:
Day 1 : Wednesday 29th May 2024
We gathered this morning to await the arrival of Michael and Dan Herdman who had offered to cut the the holes in the path for us. They were brilliant and had the job done in no time, giving us a good start to the work.
Our volunteers also worked hard and were soon removing rubble and soil, searching for anything interesting and hoping to find out what will be encountered when the path is lowered. Mostly they found stones – which isn’t unusual! Among the other things found were some pieces of glass and pieces of metal. One of the star finds was a shroud pin. It’s possible that the rubble is the result of the demolition of the chapel that once stood beside the path.
The test pits also need to be recorded at different times during the excavation, so they were photographed, planned and levelled (to get the depths).
While this was going on I opted to clean the flagstones covering the faulty drain. The flags were to be lifted but they were covered with moss and weeds – the latter worse for it being spring and everything growing apace. I had hoped to save my back by doing this job with a hoe, but it soon became obvious that a trowel, brush and shovel were essential. They are now pristine and we’ll be able to see where the edges are to prise them up. What we’ll find underneath remains to be seen.
If you’re in the village, have a look over the church wall/gate, but please note there’s no public access to the excavations or along the main path at the moment, so please follow signs to church entrance at the rear of the Abbey through the churchyard.
Day 2 : Thursday 30th May 2024
Another day at the dig. At least I wasn’t “gardening” today. Instead I had to plan all the flagstones I cleaned yesterday. That involves using a planning frame, a metre square grid that you put over what you want to draw, and then draw in what you can see in each of the small squares onto squared paper. It’s an easy way to get something fairly accurate. It was made even easier because I was drawing large slabs and not lots of little stones.
The volunteers continued investigating the trenches along the path this morning. A couple of the paving slabs at the north side of the tower were lifted, for two reasons. The first reason – the one why they were lifted today – was that an electrician is coming to fix the lightning conductor which goes into the ground at this point. The second reason was to see if the drain that runs along the front of the Abbey continues around the side. It seems that it doesn’t.
I thought I might have to draw some sections of the path trenches later but all the drawing boards were in use, so I sorted out the finds and made sure they were bagged and labelled according to which trench they came from. We didn’t find anything particularly exciting today – essentially more of the same we found yesterday.
The Architect and the Diocesan Archaeologist both called in to answer questions about the depth of trenches and the extent of the work.
Later, architect Rob, decided that the flagstones I’d cleaned and drawn should be lifted, so Andy and, especially, volunteer Allen started to shift them aside. Underneath they found a layer of soil that will have to be removed to see what the stones that cover the drain are like (big and heavy, we think). Meanwhile Tara and Pauline were doing a grand job drawing the sections that I was pleased to avoid!
The weather wasn’t as nice today. It was OK at first, but it turned chilly and tried to rain.
Day 3: Friday 30th May 2024
The day began chilly and damp, ideal conditions for the midges but rather less pleasant for us. Fortunately the weather improved, the midges made themselves scarce and we enjoyed some afternoon sunshine.
The holes in the path are finished, in the sense that they’re not going any deeper, have been photographed, planned and levelled (depths recorded). We will be putting back most of what came out of them and making the path usable again over the next few days.
Further investigation of the hole for the lightning conductor suggested that the drain might continue around the end of the tower, so more flagstones will have to come up round there to check.
The volunteers started to clean the soil off the drain along the front of the Abbey. Joan, Philippa, Tara and Mark managed to get enough soil off to start to expose the large stones over the drain – it looks very similar to the big culvert we found inside the Abbey in early 2023. Andy and I lent a hand some of the time to speed the task. Quite a lot of small pieces of thin glass were found, a few bits of clay pipe, some rusty nails and a fair bit of mortar and render.
Day 4: Saturday 1st June 2024
It was a glorious sunny day, although it took a while for the sun to get round to the front of the Abbey. It made a change to go inside to get cool rather than having to go outside to get warm as we had to in Jan/Feb 2023 when we were digging inside.
We started the day by back-filling three of the holes in the path. Philippa, Andy and I put the permeable membrane in the bottom, some of the bigger stones on top and then shovelled in more soil and rubble, tamping it all down to make sure it was firm and level. Mark and Andy did the other four pits in the afternoon. You can see them in the photograph, working hard! Concrete will go on top of the back-fill and the tarmac will go back on the top of that. Then the path can be used again.
Tara came to help for both morning and afternoon sessions and we were joined by Vince and Michelle after lunch. They did a brilliant job of clearing the soil off the top of the drain along the front of the building. It isn’t quite finished but tomorrow afternoon should see it clean and ready for planning and photographing properly. We were entertained during the afternoon by the music from the Crewe garden. It’s not every day that you get to enjoy a concert while you dig!
Andy took up some of the flagstones at the north side of the tower, close to where the lightning rod is, and began excavating there.
The finds were more of the same sort of thing that we found yesterday.
Day 5: Sunday 2nd June 2024
Only a half day digging today as there was a service in the Abbey this morning, it being Sunday. It was cloudy for the first part of the afternoon and there was a chilly wind around, but the sun came out and warmed us up.
We had the same volunteers as yesterday and progress on the drain trench soon reached the stage where there wasn’t room for three to work. So Michelle volunteered to start doing the planning on the stretch which had been cleaned. She actually managed to get three grids done, which will save time tomorrow. Tara and Vince continued trowelling and soon found the place where the drain had collapsed. You can see it on the photo – it’s just where the nice parallel capstones stop and there’s one at an angle, near the top of the picture. Vince managed to clean round the hole caused by the collapse without falling down it. When you’re digging at a level below where you’re kneeling you have to be careful not to go in head first! Fortunately our trench isn’t too deep. We’ll have to clean out the drain, I think, and make sure its repaired before backfilling.
Meanwhile I was sorting finds and Andy was working on the north side of the tower. He seems to have found the stones that should be covering the drain. More work to do there tomorrow.
Rob had the weekend off but I hope we’ve worked hard enough to show that while the cat (Rob the boss) was away, the mice weren’t just playing!
