Today we seem to be finally getting going and we are getting into the rhythm of the work. We had our surveyor working today, so now all of our trenches are located and are ready to be started tomorrow. We generally survey using what is called a Total-Station Theodolite (TST) and use it to locate our trenches relative to the existing buildings and the Ordnance Survey grid coordinates.
The well trench is coming along and we are excavated all of the modern and Victorian drains. This will hopefully expose the wellís structure and help us understand how it fell into disuse. Describing our work to members of the public who might not know all of the archaeological terms or the history of Ayscoughfee Hall is more difficult than I thought it would be.
I have spoken to a few people today, all of whom commented on the torrential rain that had fallen in Lincoln, Holbeach and King's Lynn. This rain either missed Spalding or occurred during our tea break, but fortunately we did not get soaked!
Today we had a meeting with the head gardener and grounds person to discuss where we are going to place our spoil, so as to cause minimal disturbance to the public. We seem to be taking quite a while to get into the full swing of things on site, possibly because we have to spend a lot of time working out the logistics of working in a public space. However, we are starting to understand what archaeology we have. The surveyor is coming tomorrow to locate our other trenches, so we will start to get going on the project.
The morning was spent cleaning the well trench and uncovering a series of drains running over the well. With both a later toilet block built there and the pumps still visible against the hall, these drains were not unexpected and do not seem to have caused too much damage to the well itself. At the edge of the trench we have partially exposed a brick floor. We are hoping it might be related to the well, perhaps some steps leading down to it. We then began our recording of the trench with photographs and hand-drawn plans.
The afternoon was taken up with computers. The photographs that we are taking use up a lot of memory and it takes a long time to load them. We also started to create the site database to house all our records produced on site.
We continued the work begun yesterday, excavating the trench over the top of the well and exposing its full dimensions. The well was exposed four years ago so we are going through very modern deposits. This allows us to dig quite quickly without too much recording.
After our morning tea break we had a walk around the house and gardens which gave us the chance to gain some first hand knowledge of the gardens. before I arrived I had only seen plans of the site. We also managed to find some good vantage points from the hall itself, which will be useful for photography.
The afternoon was spent buying planks and tarpaulin ready for the spoil we will be generating and then taking delivery of fencing to protect our trenches.
At 3pm we decided to lift the capping stone over the well. It wasnít quite what we were hoping for, as it still contains about 1.5m of water and a domed cap has been built over the top of the well. This means that we will have to rethink our sampling strategy for the sediments in the well.
Today is our first day on site. Normally the first day is spent setting up the site and discovering more about the site itself. For the majority of archaeologists the first day on a new site will be the first time that they have seen the area and, in my case, this is the first time that I have been to Spalding.
After an early start from our offices in Norwich, when we got to the site we set up our base and had a look round the gardens. Usually there is something that causes our plans to change, be it inconveniently placed telephone lines or trees, but so far at Ayscoughfee Hall we have had no problems.
The Ayscoughfee Hall Garden Project will be a little different from the sorts of sites that we are used to. The site is a public garden, and we will have volunteers and schools participating the project. We also have to take into account several other factors, such as the reinstatement of our trenches once the work is completed and attempting to keep disturbance to a minimum while we are working.
The task for today was to start excavating the well and uncover the top of the well to assess what condition it is in. First, we excavated a narrow strip across the supposed location of the well to try and pinpoint its exact location, then we extended the trench to fully expose the structure. So far, we have uncovered a protective mesh covering, possibly laid down when the well was last exposed four years ago. Once we have exposed the well we will record the structure and take borehole samples through the deposits inside it to look for environmental remains. We hope that these samples will tell us something about the planting history of the garden.