Woking Palace Archaeological Project 2012

Week Three - A busy week

Uncovering walls near the moat Other interesting features - a tile on edge hearth

After a period of heavy rain during the two “days off” everyone arrived back on site on Wednesday pleased to see that digging would be possible, even though some of the deeper areas in the trench by the vaulted building were flooded. The first task was the excavation of some of the key areas in this trench in order to resolve unanswered questions from the previous week. Meanwhile the bulk of the effort was focussed on the trench close to the moat where a concerted effort by volunteers uncovered more detail of walls, other features and some interesting sherds of pottery.

Once again a number of schoolchildren, including groups from Sythwood and Maybury Primary Schools, joined the project to gain their first experience of field archaeology. Like the previous groups they enjoyed the variety of activities organised for them including a tour of the site.

The archaeological scientists from QUEST (University of Reading) visited the site to drill a further series of bore holes, partly as a continuation of their researches in previous years into the underlying geology of the site and partly to try to answer questions about the medieval and Tudor moats arising from the excavations.

17th Century plate Director's tour

The final day of excavation saw a flurry of activity in the trenches so that recording of all the features found could take place the following day. A number of interested groups, including the Friends of Cowdray Park on an exchange visit, were conducted on specially organised tours of the site. We had a mix of all kinds of weather including a wonderful rainbow at the end of the day. Right at the end of the day, part of a lovely 17th century pottery plate was uncovered and the final act at the end of the Director’s tour of the site for the volunteer diggers and finds team was the lifting of this plate.

Saturday was a day without digging but there was still a lot going on. The recording of the trenches was carried out by the archaeologists from Surrey County Archaeological Unit while back at the HQ area volunteers from Surrey Archaeological Society cleaned and prepared the tools for storage while Andrew and his hard working finds team worked until late in the day to complete the processing of the artefacts.

View the photographs on the Digging Surrey's Past facebook page (you do not need to be registered with Facebook to view the photographs).

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