Day 2 - Things starting to progress nicely

Day 2 was another drizzly day to begin with, but with the second trench opened up, the volunteers were keen to get started. We split off into two groups to work on the separate trenches, and by mid morning, the sun had joined us and people braved the trenches without coats for the first time.

The trench we'd started work on the previous day (Trench 1) was boggy from rain overnight, but needed only a bit of cleaning before it was ready to be photographed. Some of the features are showing up well in this trench now, we have the two ditches which seem to curve round into the circular feature we could see on the geophysics. After the photographs, Martyn (one of the archaeologists leading the dig) then taught some of the volunteers how to start the pre-excavation plans, which involved drawing out where the features (hopefully) are, and what we'll be doing next!

Meanwhile, in Trench 2, there was a lot of work to be done. We started work tidying up the sections and cleaning the surface of one leg of this L-shaped trench. This was done by mid-afternoon, and Al (the other archaeologist working on the site) taught a few of us how to set up for the photographs. This leg of the trench has a dramatic slope at one end, as well as a few other features showing up as dark patches in the otherwise orange-clay soil. These are yet to be investigated, although Al suggested that one of the dark patches may be ridge and furrow. By then, a few of the volunteers from the Trench 1 strolled up to help us out, and we started cleaning the other end, where some paving slabs and a possible medieval road surface are already visible.

In terms of finds, a fair amount of medieval pottery has come out of both trenches already, just in the cleaning phases. Both trenches also have charcoal patches, which will be interesting to investigate further. There is a huge amount of stone in Trench 2, in the areas surrounding the paving slabs.

The volunteer turnout was brilliant. It seems that none were deterred by having to have their cars pushed (by the other volunteers and some muddy archaeologists) from the muddy field after Day 1. They all worked hard to clean up the trenches before the torrential rain predicted for Day 3 (I'm writing from the office on Day 3, which gives a clue as to whether the forecast was accurate). It's a friendly and enthusiastic group, very willing to learn and help each other out - anyone thinking of coming along later this week, or next, is more than welcome.