Day 30: Friday 30th July

After 6 weeks of digging, trowelling, planning and blogging, the Manor Lodge exacavations have come to an end. It has been a brilliant 6 weeks. Lots has been learnt, many friendships have been made, and there has been a whole lot of fun had.

Weather: Grey

Word of the day: Goodbye

Find of the day: Fragments of what could be an early cup/drinking vessel. (Pictured below)

The drain pipe has been taken out of trench 16.

Philippa and Gregg on finds.

Eleanor and Kate spent some time today digging a sondage. They then planned it and photographed it. Eleanor's try before you buy course fees has gone really well. She is almost 87% certain she wants to study Archaeology at university.

Rachel and Caitlin were digging for bedrock today and kept finding loads of charcoal. You can see the colour difference in the soil sample buckets. These samples will be sent off for sampling.

If you look really closely, at the bottom of the wall where Lily and Cherubin are digging a much older part of the wall has been found.

Hutch with his mattock.

Charlie's Beard 1.

Charlie's Beard 2.

Team trench 16. Lily, Hutch, Buttery Jonathan, Kanani and Cherubin.

We also asked a few of the group who had been here for the full six weeks what they had enjoyed most:

Alvaro: When the sun was shining and lots of good working and conscientious people.

Buttery Jonathan: Seeing a squirrel fall out of tree, Learning loads, meeting everyone and working with them.

Hutch: Finding the hoard of saggars.

Cherubin: The amount I've learnt and the friends I've made.

Lily: Finding the drain pipe.

Lauren: Imparting my wisdom to training archaeologists.

Day 29: Thursday 29th July

Weather: Some sun.

Word of the day: Saggar

Find of the day: Around 7 buckets of pieces of saggars were removed from trench 16. (Pictured below are a number of pieces that fit together.)

Buttery Jonathan and Hutch were on saggar duty. Here they are with full circular bases found in the trench.

Shannon was collecting soil samples today to be send for floatation.

Lily and Cherubim spent the day clearing the area around the drain pipe. They had their work cut out for them because the soil was mainly all clay. To conquer this problem they used spades rather than shovels (spades are flat) so they could cut into the clay in order to remove it.

Our brilliant and dedicated tea lady, Charlotte was trowelling in trench 17 today to see if, where they are trowelling is actually a feature.

Blake was sieveing the soil taken from trench 17 to see if there were any finds in it.

Gregg and Charlotte (pictured) , as well as Philippa, Margret and Kanani were on Extreme Finds Processing today. We have one day left of the dig and more finds were coming out of trench 16 today then have been found in trench 18 over the whole dig! They were washing outside in the sun and moved inside later on when the cold winds came.

Kate and Eleanor were planning trench 18 today.

Yesterday, Trench 15 reached bedrock, so today Rachel and Caitlin were also planning.

Charlie's Beard is a digestive.

Day 28: Wednesday 28th July

Weather: Grey.

Word of the day: Drain pipe

Find of the day: The rest of the drain pipe and where it leads. ( Pictured below)

You can see the rest of the drain pipe pictured above. This is the Victorian drainage system from the houses here at the Manor during the 18th/19th century.



This is what we thought was a cellar, but it seems that the pipe is actually leading down into it. Could this actually be where waste was stored? This photograph was taken from the pipe side of the pit.

Lily and Cherubin chasing a pipe dream!

This is the makers mark discovered on friday and breifly written about yesterday. We were sent some brilliant information from Chris Cumberpatch about it. Thankyou Chris. The mark is infact that of the Don Pottery and is dated to the period of the Barker family (1839-1893). It shows 'a circular garter enclosing enclosing a demi-lion holding a plain pennon'. This mark is often accompanied by the initials S.B & S (Samuel Barker & Sons) and is usually found at the bottom of the mark. This pottery comes from Swinton and Mexborough and founded by John Green in 1801. Don Pottery is not uncommon on sites in Sheffield. A large quantity was found on a site in Upper Allen Street. As well as local markets, the pottery had an extensive trade via Hull. For more information, there is a book available at Doncaster Museum by John Griffin about this pottery.

Hutch doing some shovelling and general cleaning up of his section of trench 16 so it is ready for photographs.

Hutch, The King of the spoil heap.

A roof tile that was covering the drain pipe.

Today in trench 18 it was all girls. We renamed it Team G/Trench G. Here are the lovely ladies. Eleanor, Katie, Philppa, Kate and Charlotte.

Charlie has left site. There is no Charlie's Beard today (we forgot) so expect 2 tomorrow. Apologies.

Introducing...

Name: Carrie. Ba Classical and Historical Archaeology.
Likes: Foreign foods and the cinema.

Dislikes: Digging in the rain, spiders and being late.

Favourite Films: Inception, The Mummy films, and The Lady and the Tramp.

Favourite 3 course meal: Nachos for starters, Lamb Rogan Josh for main with all the trimmings and for desert some Ben and Jerry's ice cream.
If I could be involved in any archaeological dig, I'd like to excavate: Mesoamerica.

http://www.theancientweb.com/explore/content.aspx?content_id=19

Day 27: Tuesday 27th July

Weather: Grey, chilly but luckily the rain held off.

Word of the day: Soil heap.

Find of the day: A clay pipe bowl with a skull on it. (Pictured below)

On friday's blog we posted a picture of this, a makers mark. We have since found the other half. It is not actually a dog and flag but a lion. We will give you some more information on this tomorrow.

In trench 16 they have discovered a large number of Saggars. You can spot them in the photograph above poping out of the soil. (They are a sort of red/brown colour).

Margret was one of the community volunteers from last week and she enjoyed herself so much that she came back for the day to really get stuck in with the digging. She spent her day working with Carrie, Charlie, and Rachel in Trench 15, mattocking and shovelling down to bedrock.

Cherubin has been busy trying to find the rest of the victorian pipe discovered in trench 16 two weeks ago. He has had his work cut out. There is lots of clay in the soil in this particular part of trench 16.

This is the waste pot found in trench 15 that the school children from yesterday were very interested in. It is like a ceramic bin. Lots of pieces of glass were found in the ruins of the pot. Maybe this is an early version of recycling?

Rachel and Charlie matttocking in trench 15.

Like clay pipe, we have found loads of animal teeth. Today we found part of a cow's jaw in trench 18 with teeth still attached.

Charlie's Beard. Still looks patchy. Charlie has now left site for greener pastures (aka a holiday). So to say goodbye we threw him in the soil heap. Charlie's Beard will still be a feature here though.

Introducing...

Name: Eleanor. Has just finished her AS-levels and is planning to apply to study Archaeology at University. She is here to see if she actually likes it.

Likes: Chocolate, romcoms and swimming.

Dislikes: Spiders, snakes and too much exercise.

Favourite films: The Notebook, There's Something About Mary, and The Hangover.

I can't live without: My Mobile Phone

Weird Fact: Eleanor can touch her nose wirh her tongue.

If I could be involved in any Archaeological excavation, I'd like to excavate: The Necropolis underneath the Vatican.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_Necropolis

Day 26: Monday 26th July

Weather: Grim and Grey.

Word of the day: Sure

Find of the day: 3 pieces of a pottery, 2 of which fit together. (Pictured Below)

These three fragments of pottery boast the names of two characters from the novel 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' by Harriet Beecher Stowe. This anti-slavery novel was written in 1852 and was so popular that a series of ceramics were created to capture the story. The two characters featured on this particular ceramic are Miss Ophelia, Augustine St.Clare's pious cousin who argues against the institution of slavery but is repulsed by the slaves themselves, and Topsy who is a young slave girl.

So what is the context and significance of finding this? Well, firstly it shows that there was literacy in the the 19th century houses at the Manor Lodge. Also, Hull is near by and Hull was a focal point in the anti-slavery movement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Tom's_Cabin

http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/interpret/exhibits/stevenson/stevenson.html

Lily has been removing dirt from the stone wall in trench 16. When the dirt is removed we will be able to see the stones to record them and also we will know when they come from. This wall could be post medieval but with repatching and fixing there are a number of other bricks from other times.


Cherubin taking a quick break from shovelling.

We had a number of school children at Manor Lodge today on a school trip. They were quite interested by this rubbish disposal pot in trench 15.

Philippa and Hutch mattocking back the next layer in trench 18.

Blake and Shannon were busy trowelling back in trench 17 today.

Lily spent the first two weeks of the excavation on site then was involved in a number of field schools. She looks happy to be back.

Lauren spent some time this afternoon checking context sheets.

Charlie's Beard. To the untrained eye this will look no different to any other Charlie's Beard but it is. Charlie has had a slight trim and has left himself with a number of beard bald patches.

Day 25: Friday 23rd July

Weather: Sunny and chilly.

Word of the day: MATTOCK

Find of the day: The stone from a ring. (pictured below)

Above is a fragment of pottery. On the front is an elaborate pattern and on the backside (pictured) is the makers mark. If you look carefully you will be able to spot a dog and flag.


Students taking part in the material cultures field school spent the afternoon learning about lithics and deciding how to arrange the artefacts found in the display cabinet. Above is the top shelf which has been used to display the large number of interesting and diverse game pieces we have found.

The lithics talk this afternoon for material culture students was held outside. Above are arrowheads and below are blades.

Alvaro teaching the students.

In trench 17 there was a real sense of teamwork. It was incredibly busy. Mattocking, shovelling, wheel barrowing. Everyone was busy.

Charlie's Beard and the Charlie's Beard shovel. Can you spot the difference?

The blogger took to the trench to do some serious mattocking. It proved to be the best stress relief.