The approach to Godoplphin
No, I said Godolphin! That’s where I have been for two days, working through a collection of ‘things’ found around the estate. Just the kind of job I like, lots of boxes with bags, ice-cream cartons, and objects wrapped in newspaper and tissue paper, we could find anything in this lot. It’s like an excavation only without all the hard work digging tons of soil :-)Volunteers and property staff are being trained by working with me so I can leave them to continue the work, when I am unable to work with them. Roger, a volunteer photographer will be taking record shots of each find or group of finds. These photographs will be used on a database so we know what we have, what stories we have and what we can use for events and in handling collections.
Siobhan, visitor services manager working on re- packing late medieval floor tiles
The long table in the Kings Room was ideal for laying out what was in each box. We then could sort finds out into types, like glass, tile, iron and pottery, clean and pack into archival bags and boxes. Once this job is done we can take each find type in turn and fill out our record forms, including detailed information on present condition, dimensions, and any information we found that says where on the property they came from.
Worked bone yum!
In one bag we came across this lovely very fine tooth bone comb, it is clogged with soil and will need careful cleaning. I got my magnifying loop out just in case there were a few head lice stuck in the prongs! 🙂 There were also complete bottles, thankfully the one with the brown gloop in it still had an intact stopper! It’s always a health and safety problem when we find intact bottles with strange brews inside, even when they still have labels, as you can never be sure what the contents are. I will tell you the story of a very special bottle found in Purbeck later in this blog so keep looking 🙂
Bone comb
Archaeology National Trust SW 