fairfield dig 2009/10

2009-11-15T07:57:00.000-08:00

The final site photo of our tower trench.

2009-11-08T04:15:00.000-08:00

Friday 6th November

The last day of our dig and we needed to clean up Trench 12 ready for photos, finish up any last other details, and do some more work on the finds. Today was a time to reflect on the week and be proud of what we had achieved in 1 short week on our last trench.

Alan up the scaffolding getting a photo of the site from above. Adele and Rose quantifying, marking and bagging the finds as the evening draws in. It was slightly less cold working in the garage!
Adele

2009-11-08T03:52:00.000-08:00

Thursday 5th November

With hardly any rain today saw more work on our newest trench and a better understanding of what had happened on the site, as we discovered a culvert running through the trench and through the tower, that was obviously built after the tower and wall had collapsed.

We also had a visit from all the children from Stogursey Primary School. They were digging in one of our other trenches. They all seemed to have a brilliant, muddy time and gained a new experience of excavation, working with finds and how to look at buildings.

Adele

2009-11-04T12:55:00.000-08:00

Wednesday 4th November
With yet more rain today we were working very muddy trenches but still managed to get quite a bit done. We finished work in the Trench 1 from last week,

and continued to uncover more of the wall and tower in Trench 12.

We also managed to work out what was happening in our trench 6, from the first week. We now know there were 3 phases of trackway and a small ditch before the small wall forming a little terrace.

Two of our volunteers continued with the photo survey of the walls around the estate.

adele

2009-11-03T12:15:00.001-08:00

Tuesday 3rd November
With our volunteers we continued to clean back in our new trench (Trench 12) in the rain until it became to heavy to continue. We found what we first believed to be an earlier medieval building, but by the end of the day we now believe it to be part of the wall, and the tower is smaller than first imagined.

When it was too wet to dig we had a look at the types of finds we have found over the last 5 years, and did some pot washing, quantifying and marking.

Adele

2009-11-02T11:32:00.000-08:00

Monday 2nd November

Today was our first day of the adult volunteers week.

We opened up a new trench (12) over the assumed site of the tower, and began to clean back to reveal what we hope will be the wall and tower.

2009-11-01T23:19:00.000-08:00

Friday 30th October

What a day! We had a visitation from Mick Aston, Bob roft, Suise Simmons, Dick Broomhead and the photographer from the West Somerset Free Press. Here they are with Lady Gass and Polly.

They joined us for tea break and Mick told us about the lateset Time Team plans.
The feature that we thought was the base of a large wall turned out to be a line of capping stones over a very substantial stone drain (culvert). This was proved when Alan finally managed to remove one of the stones. We now have to find out whether the drain was created along the line of an earlier feature, maybe even a ditch.

We decided to have a final go at finding the 'turret', and will be hiring the digger again to open up a further trench within the area surrounded by the metalled road surface.

We took a final group photo of the fantastic Kilve Team before they went their separate ways. I is very quiet at Fairfield now they're gone, but it has been the best week of the entire project (so far!).

From Rachel.

2009-10-29T18:04:00.000-07:00

Today four of us were given a tour around Fairfield house by Lady Gass. She told us about the history of her family and the house in which she lives. Lady Gass also showed us maps from different times of the house's history. In trench 1 we discovered lots of large slabs set in mortar thought to be the foundations of the later wall.

Peter and Louisa continued to survey the garden walls while Matt and Becky continued the "Strictly Come Digging" challenge in trench 10. Sean started to look at the field walking finds found in 2007. Callum strted making a map to show the diffrent ages of the parts of the house.

the kilve team

2009-10-28T15:00:00.001-07:00

Today we went straight on to the digging, to start with no one found much but then we got some. There wasn’t many finds today but we made some good progress. Our robber trench that Naomi has specialised in is very deep and starting to reveal a lot and also there has been a wall found and Callum and Matt kept working on that and it’s looking really good and clear.

Poor defenceless little Pete and Sophie have been working on the new trench and did a very good job on that, and Alan is amazing as ever.

We also went on the tour of the Fairfield estate we only found two floor tiles but it was better than nothing. We saw the private road from Fairfield to the sea, this was made because one of the owner’s daughter had tuberculosis and needed fresh sea air.

Matt and Sean learnt how to draw sections, and drew trench two.

The Kilve team.

2009-10-28T02:01:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 27th October 2009

Today was our first full day at Fairfield, and we began by excavating Trench 1. One team was levelling out one end of the trench, another troweled along the line of the wall, whilst the other picaxed the layers in the robber trench. We only succeeded in finding a few bits of bone and pot. After lunch, we went round to the side of Fairfield House, into one of the orchards, and examined the walls. We were looking for any noticeable features and changes in the walls history, such as archways or collapses. Most of the team went back to the trench whilst some washed finds and two finished surveying the wall. Whilst digging in the afternoon, we found a strip of bent metal. We then returned to Kilve and had a talk by Vanessa Fells on scientific techniques used in archaeology.
The Kilve team

2009-10-27T03:06:00.001-07:00

Monday 26th of October
Today we were shown around the site by Alan and we did some troweling. Alan told us about using layers on a site, which help us to interpret it. We didn’t find much today but we are hoping to by the end of the week. We met and we all think we will make a good team.

The kilve residential group

2009-10-25T14:57:00.000-07:00

Friday 23rd October
Attentive students from Bridgwater College looking at the re-excavated and extended Trench 1.

More of the new trench has been cleared back and the 'corner' of the wall can be seen clearly. The soil outside this feature is completely clean while inside is full of stone. The baulk in the middle is protecting a later pipeline, which is still in use.

Students continued with the Garden Wall survey. This photo shows the join between an older and a newer stretch of wall, and an arched gateway.

2009-10-22T13:52:00.000-07:00

Thursday 22nd October

Yesterday only Adele and Alan were on site: no students, and I was giving a talk about the Fairfield Project in Minehead. But they'd been extraordinarily busy (with the aid of a JCB digger). When I arrived this morning two new trenches had been opened ....
Alan has reopened and extended Trench 1, which we began in 2005 with our first Kilve Court group. It was carefully positioned to cut across the line of the wall shown on the earliest map of Fairfield, and over a later garden wall shown on one of the paintings. In 2005, we found evidence of a robbed wall, and another 'in situ' wall. There was also some redeposited clay suggesting that a feature had been dug deep into the subsoil, and some of the earliest pottery so far found on the site. This is quite different from the section of wall we are uncovering in Trench 6, so it is time to investigate it further, this time opening up a larger area.

This is the second new trench, placed over the curving corner of the boundary feature as shown on the geophysical survey. Already you can see the curved line of the wall appearing. We now think that the wall was used to hold back the higher level of soil you can see on the right.

Today's Archaeology Degree Course students from Strode College also faced challenging weather, but eventually the rain stopped. Look hard, you can just see a rainbow!

By the afternoon the sun was out. These students are making an accurate stone-by-stone drawing of a blocked opening in one of the garden walls.

Posted by Rachel

2009-10-20T12:12:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 20th October

Today we had a group from Strode College out on site, despite the weather being awful we managed to get a whole days work in, and took off the rest of our rubble area down to the dark brown soil below.

Although the students were cold and wet they all worked very well and we cleared the whole area down to reveal the soil below the rubble and mortar layer.

Today they were also fortunate to be on site with Barry Lane who showed them how to carry out geophysics and let them carry out the process to look at part of the land where we have done no previous work to see if there was any evidence of the village of Fairfield.

By Adele

2009-10-19T11:39:00.000-07:00

Monday 19th October

Today we had a group of A level archaeology students from Bridgewater College on site to help.

The first part of the day was spent planning half of the rubble layer and putting levels on it so we could begin to remove the rubble layer and expose the surface underneath. Allowing us to get the students to plan the rest of the rubble so that they got an experience of planning and then we put some more levels on in the afternoon.

By Adele

While half the group were excavating trench 6 with Alan and Adele, the otherhalf started sorting the fieldwalking finds from Saturday.

There is a great deal of pottery, concentrated in a few grid square, as well as glass, brick, some animal bone and one or two more unusual finds like a lead disc (we don't know what this is) and a piece of bottle glass stamped with (presumably) the maker's initials. Then we set up a horizontal string line, using a spirit level, to begin on ameasured elevation drawing of a blocked doorway in one of the garden walls. The Bridgwater team quickly got the hang of this skill, despite the fact it was definitely getting colder!

For just one day we had some high tech GPS (global positioning systems) equipment on site. The surveyors were recording the roof of Fairfield house,to clarify the changes in the building and discover the oldest part of the house. They also took readings for some of the points on our site grid. They took the time to explain to the students how the specialist kit works.

By Rachel

2009-10-19T11:33:00.000-07:00

Saturday 17th October
Today we had a youth group from Carhampton out to help with another part of our project. We were working in a field just outside Burton where we were carrying out some field walking; continuing from the section a small group of staff on the Fairfield project had covered on September 19th.

We got the children to help set up the grid from the two baselines I had set up before their arrival.

After we had part of our grid set up we got the children to walk each grid in pairs putting any finds into a bag. They were very good at spotting finds on the ground.

In the afternoon we went back to Fairfield house and the children washed their finds and we got a good look at the types of finds the field has on its surface. From these results we can work out where to place some test pits when the youth group next come out.

Adele

2009-10-19T11:27:00.000-07:00

Friday 16th October
Today we had a group of individual students on site to help us with our excavation.

We cleaned up the rubble layer and exposed the rubble ready of photos at the end of the day and planning on Monday. We also continued to clean back on the other side of the wall down onto patches of gravel so that the area we are excavating had been taken back to its full extent.

Today, with fewer students visiting the site, we had a chance to get out all the finds from field walking in 2007. Here is Naomi checking the records, to make sure that the bag numbers tally with the field notes

Adele

2009-10-15T09:14:00.000-07:00

Thursday 15th October

Today we had a group form Rednock School in Gloucestershire

Like yesterday we continued to clean back in Trench 6 onto the cobbaled surface. In the afternoon the surface became more uneven and damaged until it disapeared and we found a very uneven rubble layer which we will continue to clean up tomorrow.

A level History students from Rednock School eating lunch in the site hq. Despite the lack of sunshine today they kept up a good pace of work in trench 6.

Adele

2009-10-15T08:39:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 14th October

Today we had a group from Sexeys School in Bruton. They helped us to continue cleaning back on the cobbles and away from the wall.

We raised up the area onto a layer of cobbles that was situated above the layer we originally discovered.

Today was also an ideal day for washing the finds from Trench 6 in the sun. Our visitors from Bruton are staying focussed on the task.

At the end of the day we have made a good impression on the cleaning back on the very compact surface of Trench 6.

Adele

2009-10-13T11:02:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 13th October

Today we had another group form Wellsway School in Keynsham.

We continued to clean back to reveal the cobbled surface first with mattocks and then with trowels. Over by the wall we stepped in the trench and began to investigate the area. We found a compact surface that could be a natural deposit but we will need to continue to investigate tomorrow to see how far it extends.

With each group we are teaching them how to record a site through context sheets and taking levels, to give them a basic understanding of how archaeology is carried out.

Adele

2009-10-12T12:15:00.000-07:00

Monday 12th October

Today was our first day on site with our voulenteers from Wellsway School in Keynsham.

We focused on cleaning in trench 6 today and begin to reveal a hard compact possible yard surface.

We also exposed the edge of our wall allowing us to see its direction across the trench and beyond. This will allow us to investigate the other side of the wall and establish what was happening there.

adele

2009-10-11T10:24:00.000-07:00

Thursday 8th October. - A sunny day and here is the staff team out enjoying themselves (sorry, working very hard!) at Fairfield, getting ready for the start of the digging season and our first group of students, due this Monday.

Staff meeting: Rachel Shaw (project admin and education..lots of files!); Adele Mitchell (recent archaeology graduate from Lampeter University, Fairfield old hand, assistant site supervisor, and blogmeister); Alan Graham (black beret - Site Director weeks 2 and 3)and Richard Broomhead (red ring - Site Director weeks 1 and 4), who between them have accumulated masses of archaeological experience on all sorts of sites here and abroad.

Another task was to collect together all our equipment and start to transform the Fairfield garage into our site hq. The height of luxury - we have running water and elecricity!!Bob Croft (Somerset County Archaeologist) is stacking up wheelbarrows, lent to us by Somerset Heritage.

This is trench 6, which we will be excavating first. It has been open to the elements all year, so it needed a good tidy-up to be ready for Monday.
We began working on it last year and have doubled its size for this season.

Trench 6 is very important and here is Adele's moment of triumph when, on the last day of last season (it always happens like this in archaeology) she first uncovered the footings of the wall we have been searching for since the dig began in 2005. You can just see it along the line of the ranging pole.

This map from the 1750s shows the mystery boundary feature we have been searching for. It is the only map on which it appears.

Fairfield House, enjoying its last days of peace and quiet before the diggers arrive.

By Rachel Shaw

2009-10-06T07:08:00.001-07:00

The Fairfield Project has been running for the last 5 years. It's funded by the Big Lottery Fund, Somerset Heritage Services, Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society (Gray Fund) and the Council for British Archaeology (Challenge Fund). The site is on the Somerset coast and we are studying the Fairfield estate. This year we are focusing on the immediate surounding of the house and looking at the evidence of a wall that once stood around the house. We are also looking at another site where we are carrying out a program of fieldwalking and test pitting to investigate some interesting features in one of the fields that have been identified by aerial photography and earth banks that are visible on the ground. We plan on keeping you all informed of the work as it progresses throughout our main season and beyond with the test pit program.adele