A Brief Respite from the Rain

The dry spring we have enjoyed so far is now behind us and it was touch and go whether we would go ahead or cancel Sunday’s session. Throughout the week the predicted weather for Sunday looked poor, but by Friday things started to look brighter both metaphorically and literally. On Sunday morning one or two puddles had appeared after overnight rain, but the area we chose to excavate was only slightly damp and once we got below the surface a short way the ground was easy to handle. If you like the photos in this article, you can find a few more photos of the day’s work in our photo blog galleries.

We continued to investigate the area along the south eastern side of the pumphouse, widening the trench opened there towards the centre of the building. We wanted to determine whether the firm chalky layer exposed previously continued in that direction. We hoped we might extend the trench width as far as a deeper trench formerly opened in 2015 which had revealed the south eastern side of the deep pit containing the well mouth and where the steam engine had once been installed. Although we ran out of time on this session, we are not too far from reaching this point and expect to prove soon whether the chalky level we are following is related to the top profile of the side of the pit.

At the western corner of the building, where we discovered a length of cast iron pipe earlier, we carefully removed some more soil and quickly exposed a very nice layer of roof tile fragments a few centimetres below the surface, representing the former ground level at the time of demolition.

We made a few interesting finds on this session. Two small broken fragments of cast iron are likely a piece of the guttering that ran along the north western side of the roof and a section of the rainwater downpipe. A small cylinder of wax with a fine hole running through the centre had us a little puzzled, although it may just be a much degraded wax candle. Several lumps of unburnt coal came to light today to go with the various pieces of coke that keep turning up.

Today there was a smaller team working, but we achieved quite a bit and enjoyed the day. There is a little more work to do before we will be able to bring in a machine to dig out the central pit. We must find out as much as we can about the ground level remains before we dig deeper. Clues we discover now will help determine what to look for later and where to focus our efforts next.