Since we started a couple of weeks ago, many familiar faces as well as new local volunteers and students have joined the dig. Two trenches have been opened up. It has been a bit of a slog and the weather has not been kind but we are now beginning to see the results of their hard work.

Trench 1 is located in the middle section of the medieval drain at a point where the medieval pointed arch of the drain meets a late nineteenth century concrete repair. There are newspaper stories from  the nineteenth century that describe part of the drain collapsing and we want to see what the impact of this collapse and repair has had on the drain and any adjacent medieval buildings and later private buildings. Now that the initial recent landscaping and demolition material has been removed evidence for nineteenth century buildings are beginning to appear.

Trench 2 is an extension to an evaluation trench that was excavated in 2009 to investigate the point where the medieval drain joins the River Cart. We know from inside the drain that the drain has been blocked just beyond the modern access manhole. So far, we have been removing some of the backfill material from 2009 and are  defining the edges of the old trench and extending towards the river. We are now at the point where we can start the new dig into the area beyond the blocking.