TWMBARLWM DIG 2022 – Day 6

Monday 15th August 2022

Don’t you just love the British weather – having called off the dig on the weekend due to soaring high temperatures, we arrive at the car park on Monday morning in pouring rain.

The gang of volunteers were already there when I arrived – obviously nobody had read the memo that on a Monday we start at 10am. There were 8 volunteers plus Will of Cadw ready for the day’s work and the CPAT team of Richard, Chris, Will and Sophie arrived shortly after 10.

With no 4×4 to help transport equipment to the top everyone had to choose their tools for the day to carry to the top – like the seven dwarves it’s off to work we go…

Again I didn’t go to the top so am unable to report on progress from first hand but at the end of the day I was told that all three trenches are more or less ready to start photogrammetry and recording tomorrow.

The trench in the SW corner has had all turf removed and top layer of top soil down to a stoney layer much the same as the nearby trench we excavated last year. Looks like it is possibly the incomplete tail of a rampart.

The trench of the stone circle in the SE corner I also giving similar results to the last year’s trench in the NE corner – in that we have another circular platform of rubble with no evidence of meaningful structure. Although there is still a great deal of fossils coming out. A small area of the base natural level has been reached and more will need to be uncovered tomorrow before we start recording it.

The excavation of the cairn is more interesting as we can now see a definite edge to the cairn showing a couple of courses of well ordered stones. We cannot yet see if the ridge and furrow marks continue under the cairn.

Ready for tomorrow Will and Chris have identified the area they want to do the augering of the motte.

Norman had reported a load of rubbish when he visited the top yesterday – so one of the volunteers offered to clear it up. There was the usual plastic bottles and tin cans, crisp packets and sandwich packaging – but disgustingly a couple of soiled baby nappies – on top of a mountain for goodness sake – what is wrong with people.

Two bags of rubbish from the top of the mountain