Day 13: Never Say Trench Closure Again!

In two very short days of excavation, there has been a substantial number of developments. This is directly linked to Hugh and Pete’s decision on Friday lunchtime to close down Trenches R, S and T by the middle of next week as they appeared to have little left to excavate within them. Within half an hour, two of those trenches produced results which proved how wrong they could be! Work on N and P has also carried on apace, with large amount of rubble being removed from both to reveal the structures beneath.

Trench N

The majority of rubble has now been removed at the eastern end of the trench, uncovering the east end of the church in all its glory, although the mystery of why this wall has survived whilst its two adjoining walls have been robbed entirely remains. Despite several theories being put forward to explain this, including sheer laziness on the part of the robbers or a post-Dissolution building reusing some walls rather than others, none have been particularly satisfactory. However, it is almost certain that the hospital was reused in the post-medieval period, as two substantial stones inside the building, one of which is surrounded by tiles, are above the medieval floor level and “float” on a context similar in appearance to topsoil which was probably laid during the period when the building fell out of use.             

Trench P

Trench P has also had a substantial amount of rubble removed, particularly from the western end of the trench where a brick building adjoined the stone structure of the hospital. This has revealed several courses of bricks as well as the doorway to the building. In the eastern end, excavation alongside the north wall of the hospital church has revealed extensive foundations which perfectly match those found in Trench N. This has also disproved the theory of the projecting staircase which we were speculating about a few days ago (see blog entry for 17^th July), although it has uncovered later medieval repairs to the limestone wall of the church. This was caused by the quality of the limestone itself, which in places below the repair has been heavily damaged by water action. Further investigations within the church itself will take place over the next few days.

Trench R has a building!

Trench R

Half an hour after lunchtime on Friday, the character of Trench R changed dramatically. Far from being empty, it instead contains a building of some form. Three stones which had been visible when we removed a spit of apparently barren soil have transformed themselves into the corner of a series of chalk blocks, on the inside of which are further fragments of chalk combined with broken tile. The fact that these blocks are on the same alignment as our robber trench suggests that we may not have completely excavated the robber cut for the walls, and as a result we are currently concentrating on achieving this. Although failing to fully excavate a feature may sound odd, the sandy nature of the soil within Trench R makes defining features extremely difficult, so our mistake is understandable. However, we are also considering that, far from being a chalk interior for a building, it is instead a platform on which a building was erected; therefore, there is no robber cut to find. Whilst this theory is indeed plausible, much more excavation is required before we can decide which hypothesis is correct. Despite this, one thing is for sure; Trench R is empty no more!

Yet more walls in Trench S

Trench S

Hard as it is to believe this, Trench S has yet more walls. In the western end of the trench, is another wall which appears to run under the east-west chalk wall within the trench. This is on a perfect alignment with the chalk wall in the east of the trench, suggesting that the two were once related. It may also be related with the east-west wall, although as there are no stones joining the two walls together this is still uncertain. Indeed, the relationship between almost all the walls is extremely uncertain and it may be that we can never fully resolve this. In the past few days, several postholes have been excavated which suggest further structures within the trench, perhaps they may have been posts to support the roofs on the various structures which were built here. However, we are increasingly living up the reality that, insanely complex as this small trench is, it may never be possible to fully understand the building sequence within it.

The brick kiln in all its glory

Trench T

At lunchtime on Friday, Trench T was facing imminent closure. Half an hour later, it was being extended. The reason for this is that we realised what the vaulted structure within it was. Far from being a bridge or a drain, it is instead the flue for a very large brick kiln. Examination of rubble to the north of the structure revealed large amounts of burnt material and, having consulted the magnetometry survey conducted several years ago, it was discovered that there was a large spike in the readings over this area, indicative of burning in the past. Having decided the structure was highly likely to be a kiln, the next question was what was being fired or processed in it. This required a little detective work and a realisation that any firing process involving ceramics produces large amounts of wasters; artefacts which have been destroyed or become distorted within the kiln. A likely dumping site was quickly located just to the west of the site in the form of several suspicious earthworks lying adjacent to the monastic precinct wall. A quick investigation of this area revealed that not only was it composed entirely of clay lumps but that many of these were overfired bricks, which were far lighter than those you would normally expect to see in a structure. As a result, Trench T has been extended to excavate more of the kiln’s interior. Given the scale of this task, it will be another day at least until we can start to investigate the final contents of the kiln but, nevertheless, this is an extremely exciting find which we hope will yield further results in the coming days.

As you can see, there is an ever increasing amount of work for our archaeologists to do. However, we have definitely learnt at least one thing from the past few days; never threaten to close a trench, the archaeology doesn’t like it!

Day 12: The View from the Trenches – Supervisor Edition!

Yesterday was a great day in the trenches, with all sorts of exciting things coming to light in the afternoon. We'll give you more information after we get a closer look tomorrow, but for now, here is a view from the trenches with our supervisory team.

Chez – Trench T

This is my first year as a supervisor, and so far, I’m enjoying it. It’s been interesting having to work out all the different contexts, which I haven’t had experience doing before. I’ve really enjoyed teaching new students, and getting to meet everybody, and it has been insightful listening to what everybody thinks my trench is. The current consensus is that we have a brick kiln, which Sarah, who is studying bricks, is very excited about. We also have located a wastage pile of bricks 20 metres away from the trench. I think it’s going to take a few more days until we’re finished, but I’m enjoying the experience so far.

Chris – Trench R

This is also my first year supervising my own trench and it has been a great experience. The most different thing to being a volunteer is having to work out the phasing and order in which things need to be excavated. I enjoy teaching the volunteers and students but my trench has been essentially empty for most of the two weeks so I haven’t been able to work with that many people. Yesterday, however, the first non-negative feature in the whole trench was found. It appears to be a floor that goes with the robber cut that we had previously excavated. This is an exciting development because there may be evidence in this layer that could show us the purpose of the building. The next things to do are to clean off the floor layer and excavate the natural build-up in the robber cut that was missed during its initial excavation. The floor surface seems contained by at least one face of a wall that is at least two courses deep so it is likely that there is a lot more to excavate!

Courtenay – Trench S

This is my first year working at Thornton, having previously supervised at other training digs in the country. It was great to be thrown into my own trench, but I was very grateful to have my overlord Rachel, who is looking after Trenches S, T and R, to help put some context and time scale to the pottery that was being excavated from my area, as I had not previously come into contact with the styles of pottery found on this site. Having been secluded across the road from the other trenches on the site (possibly due to the secret wish of the other supervisors to lock me up behind an electric fence), it turned out that my little lonely trench has provided some very interesting and head-scratching moments as to the stratigraphical arrangement of the architecture being uncovered. It seems that my trench holds some similarities to the film Inception with its series of floors under floors, and walls coming out of my ears. In the 5x5m space I have so far had 3 phases of flooring (one on top of the other) and 5 walls, two potential pathways or corridors, and even a potential external bricked courtyard. This is all made incredibly more confusing since the corners to this architectural conundrum have been robbed out from the building, obscuring the relationships that the walls share with each other. All in all it’s been a thoroughly interesting experience both archaeologically and socially, as I have met some really lovely people during this excavation.

Martin – Trench N

This year is my fourth year as a supervisor on this project, and once again it has been rubble all the way down. After a lot of effort from the volunteers and students in the past few days, much of this rubble has been removed in the north of the trench, revealing potential medieval ground surfaces. Also revealed in the past few days is a 1 metre thick wall, constructed from some large and shaped stones that match the walls in Trench P, despite the level of stone robbing that had occurred sometime in the post-medieval period. This building seems to have been high status due to the amount of painted plaster fragments that have been recovered by the eagle-eyed diggers. Hopefully in the next week we will be getting into the medieval floor layers inside the building, to work out what the building was used for. With much more rubble to be removed from the south of the trench, the new students arriving this weekend will certainly be in for some hard graft!

Claire - Trench P

I’ve had a great time returning to Thornton for the fourth year, and supervising Trench P, which has been described by one student as being like Disneyland but with more walls! A completely accurate description, I can assure you. We are investigating the medieval hospital and church on the top of the mound; Trench N and Trench P are both working on opposite ends of the same earthworks, so it is fascinating to compare how different features are presented in each. This week we have uncovered a substantial early stone building, which once contained a floor of glazed white and black tiles, as well as a brick building and several areas of collapsed wall, two walls with areas of repair, and at least three areas where the stones from walls have been robbed out. This is the largest trench I have supervised, and I’m really enjoying the challenge of identifying all the different periods of activity in this area. Thank you to all of our students and volunteers who have helped us get this far; hopefully our old hands and new arrivals over the next two weeks will aid us in finding some answers to all the questions we have. Watch this space for our next update tomorrow night!

Day 11: A Series of Small Walls

Just a quick update today, as most of the trenches are removing lots of rubble or earth so there is not much progress to report. However, there have still been several developments that are noteworthy.

Pete and Martin discussing the Trench N wall

Trench N

We are continuing to reveal the east end of the hospital church in Trench N. As stated in previous blogs this is very substantial, and it is somewhat surprising that this has remained whilst its adjoining walls have apparently been robbed entirely. One possible theory is that the church has either been extended at some point, so this wall was not visible at the Dissolution, or it is constructed of poorer quality masonry which was of comparatively interest to the stone robbers. We are currently hypothesising that the quality of the stonework indicates the church may be Saxon, although this is far from proven!

Trench P

Removal of the interior rubble in Trench P has revealed yet more floor tiles, with additional evidence of burning that is probably linked to the dismantlement phase of the hospital. However, it also appears that the building continued to be used during the post-medieval period, potentially as a barn. This is due to an area of cobbles at the eastern end of the trench that have been laid deliberately both outside and inside the building. As a result, it is extremely plausible that these were laid during the post-Dissolution period to provide a slightly more level surface for agricultural purposes. This could mean that the several large stones within the trench are in fact pads for roof supports. In addition, there is a hemispherical spread of rubble on the outside of the building which may indicate a projecting staircase for the church tower; this is supported by the large amount of chamfered masonry which we have found in its vicinity.

Flying the quadcopter over Trench R

Trench R

Trench R is still open! Having ascertained the external edge of the robber trench yesterday, we assumed this meant the trench was now devoid of archaeology. However, the silver half penny we found yesterday (see yesterday’s blog) indicated the building had been erected on made-up ground and this has been proven today. A large spit has now been removed to reveal more features, all filled with medieval pottery. As the trench has now been thoroughly cleaned, these will be excavated tomorrow.

Three of the walls in Trench S

Trench S

The walls in Trench S continue to tantalise and confuse in equal measure. Removal of the bricks in the northern portion of the trench revealed another floor layer, this time of crushed and tightly packed limestone, and yet another possible wall in the west of the trench. This supports our theory of a later insertion of a doorway, as unlike the previous brick layer the limestone runs under the later “corridor” to the exterior wall. However, excavation of the robber trench has proved it to be extremely shallow, only removing several blocks at the very eastern end of the wall. Unfortunately this is also the junction between the two north-south running walls; the chalk one to the north and the limestone one to the south which is on a slightly different alignment. As a result, we are unable to tell the stratigraphic relationship between the three walls and thus cannot tell which wall was constructed first. We suspect it is the limestone wall, as it is of a higher quality and this usually indicates a medieval as opposed to post-medieval date. Therefore, like Trench P, the building within Trench S may have both a medieval and post-medieval story to tell.

Cleaning the vaulted structure, Trench T

Trench T

We have decided that Trench T contains a bridge. This is suggested by two linear areas with an absence of stone, which may indicate beam slots to support a wooden bridge over a brick arch. The size of the bricks in the vaulted structure may indicate the bridge is post-medieval rather than medieval in date, and thus is either related to the dismantlement or revised use of the hospital after the Dissolution. 

Tomorrow we will be live tweeting our end-of-week trench talks, so tune in to Twitter or Facebook from 5pm to hear the very latest developments. In addition, whilst we are extremely grateful for the lack of thunderstorms this week, the heat today has meant excavating has been very hard and sweaty work. Therefore, we are all hoping for a repeat of last night’s events, when an ice cream van turned up at the campsite. Keep your fingers crossed everyone!