Uncovering and Recovering History
So our 3 weekends of archeological clearance have finished. Turn out was good and everyone worked really hard through rain and the ‘Indian Summer’ even our Manager Leigh!-who got down on his hands and knees for the cause.
So we dug some test trenches to try to find the historic floor level; found broken tiles and signs of burning. We also dug out lots and lots of brick and stones (which looked like enough to rebuild the site again.) and even found sections of wall that had been completely buried.
Once these discoveries had be made a mini digger was brought in to create levels within the buildings. Many boulders and soil was removed and the test trenches refilled with a layer of terram to distinguish the archeological levels.
But it wasn’t all plain sailing there were some tense moments with some walls so weak we had to record and dismantle them for reconstruction and moist conditions combined with digger leaving tracks in our central lawn.
I’m sure if you come to visit us this autumn you will see how these works have opened up the site BUT there is still a long way to go! Whilst the cleared areas now look great we have to keep them behind barriers until building works to make them safer. We will then be able to lay new surfaces which by next season may allow our visitors to get closer to history. Combined with our new Tin Detective packs for families which we will be trialing during this October half term this will really help bring the Tin Works to life in 2012.
aberdulaisloneranger 