Ben returned to his trench today. He had researched on line and the bottle was typical of a Ginger Beer bottle manufactured by Schweppes in the 1930s.
Some of the older finds from the soil over the wall in trench B. Fragments of ox and sheep bones and more slender bones perhaps hare, rabbit or birds. The meds ate all sorts of birds which we don’t bother eating today. Black medieval cooking pot fragment and a green glazed medieval jug fragment.
He pressed on with uncovering the wall and soon the silver paper and bottle tops disappeared and a new layer was reached containing fragments of coal and lengths of tobacco pipe stem. When this was removed both sides of the wall could be seen. The east face was exactly in line with the medieval wall in trench A but that wall is over a metre wide. The wall in B is only 0.68m and not so well made. A void in the middle might have been for a post.
Trench B the wall now clearly visible but it is narrower and less well built than the wall in A. There is part of another wall on the right hand side of the picture meeting the main wall at an angle from beyond the trench.
This wall is not shown on our only detailed plan of the castle.. pre Civil Ware demolition. It was surveyed in 1586 by Ralph Treswell. Perhaps this is evidence of a building constructed at some time in the 60 years after Treswell. Ben hit a orange brown soily layer mixed with a few fragments of stone. This looked like an earth floor layer and contained a small fragment of earthenware with a wet looking green glaze. This very shiny type of glaze is often found on 17th century pots so this might be a Civil War layer. We will see tomorrow.
This is the West Bailey part of Ralph Treswell’s map of 1586. The wall we are interested in is the central one pointing north, the one to the left of the South Tower. The wall in trench B is not there..
In trench A the wall is buried deeply below rubble we worked hard but it was a very hot day.
Trench A, footings of the wall discovered in 1952 seem deeply buried.
Archaeology National Trust SW 