Bring in the Bobcat! It feels as if we have just made a huge leap forward with the dig. We knew that we had a large quantity of overburden to shift so we could get down to the interesting stuff. For more than 100 years, the old quarry has become overgrown, soil and chalk has…

In a few days’ time, on Sunday 19th April, we will be clearing overburden from the interior of the pumphouse. To prepare for this a few hours’ of effort were needed to find out how deep we can go without disturbing any features connected to the well. One square metre of the area was carefully…

At the end of our previous session, we had to leave the bank behind the newly-exposed brickwork with a slight overhang. This has now been tidied back which should prevent the weather washing the ground back over the excavation at this point. Although this was not a big step forward for the investigation, it has…

Our plan for the day was to uncover the wall foundations on the north-eastern side of the pumphouse and, time permitting, to start a two metres-wide trench to reveal the floor of the building parallel to the newly-exposed wall. This was a little ambitious, however, a great deal was accomplished and we finished the day…

We took advantage of a mostly dry day to extend the trench exposing the NW wall of the pumphouse and have now found the north corner, complete with several courses of brickwork making up a buttress or roof support column at the corner.

To start the whole project off National Trust volunteers had recently cleared away a few dying or unhealthy trees that would have prevented us conducting the excavation easily. Once the ground was clear three of us visited the site on 9th March to remove the remaining vegetation and to locate one of the side walls…