The sun is shining, the weather is sweet again….

The sun is shining, the weather is sweet again….and we are full throttle and taking advantage of this glorious sunshine until the next set of storms attack!

So what’s happened in the last 2 days?

Well Trench U is having all the excitement currently, with some fabulous finds from their trench and equally exciting structures coming to light.

Structures wise they are working on what seems to be the external ends of a house, with a possible medieval mortar layer on one side of the wall which may present a medieval courtyard.

Outside of this potential house there has been some fantastic finds including the beautiful little squirrel seal. Our 3D modelling team were quick to model this find in order in invert the seal to see what it represented. The results were great with a small squirrel sitting in the centre and surrounded by a Latin inscription which read I Crake Notis which in translation means I Crack Nuts, which made some of the team chuckle more than others (See below for photos).

The seal

The seal's underneath

Inverted seal 

At the west end of their trench they have also had some lovely glazed curved tile out next to what appears to be a base/beam slot for a window fitting. Their next task is to start taking down the material on the internal of the walls to see what contexts lay beneath!

Elsewhere in the field, Trench N are removing the clay floor layer which was found underneath the base of an altar which was removed last year and giving a full clean to the external quadrants.

Trench P are being driven nutty with an explosion of post holes in their trench, these are getting recorded currently along with the planning of the entire north half of the trench. They are also starting to take down the top contexts inside the brick walls to work out what phasing is occurring beneath, so stay tuned for more on that!

Trench W has now finished de-turfing their trench and are investigating an orange spread that was under the top soil. Finds from their trench so far consist of half a horse shoe and a musket ball. Claire has found a very efficient way to keep her helpers under control, thank you Jurassic World (see photo below).

Taming the helpers in Trench W

Trench W

Our finds team are having a lovely time in the sunshine processing our finds in their fancy finds palace.

Finds processing

Finally here is a nice image from the aerial photography that is taking place on site which shows Skinner’s second home (well the earth work remains of it). This photo is part of a larger project which involves 3D modelling the entire abbey and its precinct and geo-tagging the whole lot as well!

(Aerial shot of earthworks)

And with that I am off for jambalaya and camp quiz!