Day 9 - TV and drones

Juliet and I having been interviewed on Wey Valley Radio yesterday, it was our turn today to appear on That's TV:

David Graham, the well-known local archaeologist, disappeared pretty sharpish as soon as he saw reporter Laurencia with her camera!

We have now closed down the test pit in one of the Lenten Street gardens where we had been working and nothing significant was found. Likewise we are about to close down the second test pit at Barton End with the same result. As David Graham has suggested, it seems possible that the regular grid-like pattern of holes we had noted there on the geophysics results may have been caused by the placement of the large poles that used to hold up the vines in hop fields many years ago. This is an aerial view this afternoon of where we have been working in the eastern lawn of Barton End.

Drone view of the eastern lawn at Barton End where we have had two test pits, dug on features seen on the geophysics plots.

And this was the remaining test pit when I called over to look at it at the end of the afternoon.

Drone view of the test pit at Barton End.

Davy and team have been working on their new test pit in the Public Gardens.

Davy's latest test pit.

As can be seen below, during the day they have started to uncover a linear feature. No idea what it is as yet but should find out more over the next 24 hours hopefully. And I hope it is not the electricity cable!

The pale linear feature clearly visible across this test pit.

It was great having the help of David Pink, who heads up Liss Archaeology's finds team, on our site today. He got stuck in with the other helpers and by the end of the day they had managed to clear the backlog of finds cleaning, sorting and recording which is a great relief to have it all up to date.

For a weekday we had lots of children visiting today, some of whom were keen to join Liss Archaeology but are sadly not old enough. Seen here (with parents' permission to take photos) are two youngsters who were thoroughly enjoying digging in the children's test pit that we have 'seeded' with finds for them to dig up and sieve.

Sadly for me it was also the last day from my 2-year old grandson Ted on site; his parents returned from Singapore tonight and so he heads home tomorrow. I shall mis his help stacking all the orange cones and collecting all the trowels in the children's test pit!

Ted choosing his preferred trowel in the children's test pit.

In Carol's test pit (TP4) her team have continued to uncover a non-natural surface.

This is a virtual 3D model of TP4 that hopefully allows you to move it round and view from different directions:

and this is Test Pit 5:

Over in the children's play park where we found the large rims, the team have moved below the layer in question and such finds have dried up. I think the plan is to extend the test pit sideways.

Far fewer large pottery rims in the play park today.

While the test pits were all empty during afternoon tea break I took the opportunity to take vertical photos of each with the drone, and then one from higher up showing the whole of our dig area in the gardens as seen here.

Vertical view of the dig area in the Public Gardens.

It ended up with my drone taking pictures of Carl taking pictures of the drone!

Drone watching Carl watching drone.