Shoot three navigation
Back to the trenches. Onsite caught up with series producer, Tim Taylor for an update on how things are going and a round-up of his plans for the rest of the day. ‘Trench One is quite shallow and we’ve already hit the bedrock. It looks like all we have is some very nice topsoil and that’s about it. We’ve had a couple of pieces of late pottery out of it, and that’s our lot,’ says Tim.
Trench One is closed down, but by this time the geophysics team has gathered a lot of information about the area around the monastery. Stewart Ainsworth has also identified plenty of interesting features from aerial photographs. Tim continues, ‘There’s been a big rethink in the middle of the day between Mick Aston, English Heritage inspector John Ette, and our standing buildings expert, Richard Morriss. We’re going to open a lot more trenches today and we have a couple of plans in mind regarding how we can dig this type of monastery.’
So what type of monastery is it? ‘I’m happy to let you guys release the fact that we’re actually working on a Gilbertine site,’ says Tim.
By mid-afternoon the original medieval parts of the standing building have been established and the Team can really see what it needs to do. Trench Two is opened by Phil Harding to investigate a geophysics anomaly and soon after that Trench Three is opened by site supervisor and veteran Time Team regular Mick 'the Dig' Worthington, to investigate a feature picked up by Stewart Ainsworth on aerial photographs. Stewart is suffering with a bad case of hay fever. Luckily his maps are laminated.
Some time ago, when a water pipeline was being installed across the base, a group of burials were discovered. This area is also planned for investigation. Time Team digger Barney Sloane opens Trench Four by 4.00pm. Meanwhile another area at the back of the monastery is being prepared by geophysics. Trench Five, opened by Katie Hirst, is started at 5.00pm.
With five trenches open on Day One there’s a lot of activity. Onsite cornered site supervisor Mick the Dig for the low-down.
‘We’ve dug Trench One and found very little. Phil over on Trench Two is looking at the geophysics anomaly trying to locate what could be a building. I’m here on Trench Three investigating Stewart’s aerial photograph anomaly and hopefully we’ll get some evidence of building here too. Barney on Trench Four is hoping to find some human remains and Katie has opened Trench Five in an attempt to discover some more of the monastery plan,’ says Mick.
With this fast pace what is the digging like? ‘This is lovely soil and unlike an urban site, with all the services in the way, we can dig pretty much wherever we like,’ says Mick.
What about tomorrow?
‘Hopefully with all this activity we can pin down some more evidence for the monastery and have a better idea of its plan. Then we can try and put together the story of its past.’ says Mick with an eager grin. Roll on tomorrow. At this pace we will dig up the whole base!
