The Big Dig – 02/08/2021

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TWMBARLWM ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIG 2021

The Big Dig continues from Monday 2nd August

Hello again folks

I’m excited to get started on the Dig after so many delays over the past couple of years. Please note that I’m writing this blog from a keen amateur’s standpoint and the society’s involvement – all the technical stuff and information about any findings will come from the professional archaeologists at a later date. Their final report will be made publicly available on this website and other archaeological archive sites.

Monday 2nd August 📷

A dry warm but overcast day.

DAY 1 : TRENCH 1

Early start for me up Twmbarlwm to receive a 4×4 vehicle from our friendly farmer Howard in which we can transport all our equipment to the top. While I wait for others to arrive I put up a few signs on the routes to the top to inform people of the archaeology in progress.

Our volunteers start to arrive shortly after 9:00 – there’s Mike W, Bob R, Rod H, Martin H and my fellow Trustee Bill FW. The CPAT archaeologists Richard H and Harri T arrive and set about loading all their equipment into the 4×4 while the volunteers signed the Risk Assessment documents – it’s got to be done. Everyone sets off up the slope to the top while I have the “luxury” of driving the “Kit-Car” – only Bill accepts my offer of a lift.

We meet up at the eastern end of the monument and everyone loads up with shovels, picks, mattock, trowels, buckets etc. and continue the trek to the top. I put up a few more signs around the site before meeting everyone at the trench location.

It had already been decided that the first trench was to be at the SW corner of the bailey and Richard used his expert eye, adjusted the planned position and marked out the area. The location was chosen because:

To provide a typical section across the rampart
This area was unaffected by the wild fires and will be a good control area for comparison to the other trenches we intend to dig.
The ditch appears to come to an end at this point and we want to establish if it is the end of the ditch or whether was filled in at a later date.
To ascertain if there is datable material in the ditch and below the bank for possible future investigation
By the time I got there the team had made a good start in clearing the top layer of undergrowth and were already down through the roots of the heather and whim to clean soil.

The bottom end of the trench started to reveal flat rocks haphazardly positioned on the surface – so that area was cleaned off a bit more cautiously with trowels. The top end of the trench followed the visible shape of the rampart through the shallow peat layer of the root system until a layer of small rubble was revealed in the red soil. All trowel work now.

A bit of an aside:

Towards the end of the morning two mountain bikers came towards us from the Pegwn y Bwlch direction. As they approached I shouted “No riding bikes on a scheduled monument” – they rode on up to us saying “you’re kidding” – I said “no seriously – riding is not allowed on a scheduled monument and this is one such thing” – I learned that they were visiting from Abergavenny so I went on to explain to them what Twmbarlwm is, it’s history, what we’re trying to discover etc. etc. and they seemed quite interested and it was all very friendly. They then carried their bikes through our trench – immediately re-mounted and rode off down the illegal bike trail I now know they call Ronderro.

After lunch Will and Amelia of Cadw arrived along with CTS Trustee Norman L, and we all had a general discussion on progress

Then the two same bikers came back toward our group from the Twmp direction, in the bottom of the bailey’s ditch – at that Amelia saw them and went racing up to them and in her official capacity told them they should not be riding there (at this point she was not aware that these were the same two bikers I had been telling her about) however the discussion got pretty heated and Bill had to step in to pacify things (I was quite some distance away from the confrontation). Eventually the bikers carried their bikes again across our trench – remounted and rode off down the wild trail again.

Richard didn’t want to break through the flat rocks at the lower end of the trench or the layer of rubble at the top until he had recorded them – so as far as we had got in the trench was trowelled and cleaned off ready to record it tomorrow – and we wrapped up the day’s work at 16:30.

I can’t thank our hard working volunteers enough – it’s tough going digging through dense undergrowth and extremely rocky soil but everyone rose to the challenge – thank you so much.