TWMBARLWM DIG 2022

DAY 1 – Monday 8th August 2022

After a hectic few weeks of form filling and desk-bound admin it was a relief to get out for the start of the Dig proper. It was a beautiful morning, clear blue skies and already very warm.

When I got to the meeting point at the car park at 10 o’clock  – half a dozen volunteers were already there waiting and I thought “These are keen”. There were four of us Society Trustees as well as oUr friendly Cadw inspector Will, so we had a good compliment for the day’s work ahead. We distributed the compulsory hi-vis vests and signed the obligatory Risk Assessment details and waited for the experts to arrive.

I must mention the volunteers up front, without them this project would not be possible. The society sent out an appeal for volunteers just over a week ago via our email list and Facebook and we had a great response. We had over 90 people enquiring if they could take part and out of them over 40 committed to specific days – giving us cover of 10 – 15 volunteers per day. We are very grateful to those who take the trouble to contact us  and it goes to show the depth of interest that this mountain instils in the local community.

The CPAT team of Richard and Sophie arrived soon after with Will following on in his Land Rover despite his sat-nav trying to send him the wrong way. We all helped to transfer all the digging equipment into the Land Rover and eventually everyone started their trek to the top of the hill.

Yours truly blagged a lift off Will to show him the way up the ORPA and across the ridgeway to the dry stone wall that marks the boundary of the scheduled monument. I must mention the Land Rover at this point as it’s a classic Series II and I wonder if it will last the course of this dig but it proved its pedigree by negotiating the rough track to the top with ease.

Again everyone lent a hand to carry the equipment the last remaining 150 yards to the top of the hill. Richard and his team wasted no time in marking out the areas we had targeted for the trenches.

I set about putting up notices to inform visitors about the dig while everyone else started to clear away the surface undergrowth of the first trench – I believe the underlying growth of grass, heather and whim is not yet fully recovered since the fires of 2018. The location decided upon for the first trench is across the stone circle on the south east side of the bailey – this was chosen because we want to compare it with Trench 2 of last year which was across a similar stone circle on the north-east sector of the bailey.

By the end of the day all the undergrowth had been cleared and we had quite a definite area exposed to take the investigation deeper.

I had to leave the dig early but the rest of the team had started to clear away the undergrowth for the second trench in the south west corner of the bailey. This location was chosen as it is a few metres away from the first trench of last year which revealed to us that the gap in the earthworks was an unfinished end, as opposed to a gap created at a later date, this was regarded by the archaeologists as a significant discovery, in that it points to the possibility of the structure being a “causewayed enclosure”. It is hoped the location of this year’s trench will add further evidence to last year’s discovery.

Later in the day we had a briefing meeting of registered volunteers in Risca Museum – 20 people attended to hear Richard give a Powerpoint Presentaion to explain in greater depth what we had achieved last year and how those results affected the decisions for what the intentions are for this year’s dig. Will Davies of Cadw also talked about their role in this very rare opportunity to investigate a Scheduled Monument in this way.

So there we have it – Big Dig 2022 has got off to a very hot start and the forecast is for a bit of a heatwave – but let’s hope I can tell you more about archaeological discoveries rather than the weather.

If you happen to pop along and see us up there you’re always welcome to stop by and chat – please send us your photos – or even some words about your experience.

<< CLICK HERE to go see a gallery of photos from today’s activity>>