Day 3: Extensions and Inundations

Today, whilst being rather shorter than intended, has also been very much a day of two halves. This is largely due to the weather, which quickly deteriorated from glorious sunshine to thunder, lightning and torrential rain. This forced an early close to the day’s activities but despite this, there are many reasons to be optimistic at the halfway point of Week 1. In particular, this is due to the large number of trench extensions that are planned over the next few days which will provide our excavators with plenty of interesting features to investigate.

Trench N

All topsoil has been removed from Trench N, revealing large areas of rubble which have now been carefully planned. Tomorrow we will start to extend the trench in a wide variety of directions so we can excavate the entirety of the eastern end of the building.  

Trench P

Trench P has also been cleaned and planned and is receiving a substantial extension to its north and west. This is largely to understand the relationship between two very different structures within the trench: a limestone building with substantial walls within the eastern half of the trench and a less substantial brick built structure to the west. Unfortunately this has also meant we have had to move our carefully constructed wall of turf; no fun at the best of times, but even worse when the rain is pouring down!

Levelling Trench N

In this aerial shot of Trench P,  you can clearly see a limestone building

Trench R

A rather soggy Trench R

There does not appear to be any walls in Trench R yet, although the rubble in the trench is looking quite linear. It has now been photographed, although rain meant planning will have to wait until tomorrow. After this, we will start to remove the layer which lies in the south and east of the trench to hopefully reveal more rubble and perhaps start to explain why it is there.

Despite the weather, spirits are high whilst planning Trench S

Trench S

Like many of the other trenches, Trench S has had all its topsoil removed and has now been planned. There is at least one wall within the trench which is constructed from eroded chalk blocks. This is of particular interest as chalk is usually used at Thornton to construct the earliest monastic buildings, suggesting just such a structure may be nearby. There is also tantalising evidence of further structures and rubble hiding beneath the current layers, more of which we will hopefully reveal tomorrow.

Trench T

Cleaning up the subsoil deposited in the base of Trench T has revealed more rubble. As there appears to be a wall emerging from the south-facing section, we extended the trench (twice!) to uncover more of this structure. Although we have only just removed the turf, already there is a possible brick wall already emerging from the surrounding soil. Further cleaning tomorrow will hopefully uncover more and start to explain why the wall is not, as you would expect, on the top of the slope, but is instead halfway down.

Hopefully tomorrow will be relatively dry but our excavators have already proved they are more than capable of coping with extremes in weather. However, a special mention should go to the Black Bull in East Halton who played host this afternoon to a company of extremely wet and cold archaeologists and plied them with extremely welcome cups of tea, coffee and hot chocolate. Thank you very much, your efforts were much appreciated!