Twmbarlwm Dig 2022
– Day 8

Wednesday 17th August 2022

A day off for me – so Norman signed the volunteers in and prepared a few notes on the day as follows:

Just a short report on the dig up to 1.00pm: The weather was different to say the least compared to what we’ve experienced recently. We had mist and light drizzle, so much so that you couldn’t see off the top more than about 100 metres.

Despite that, the CPAT team, myself and 6 volunteers were up there. More work on the circle of stones and the uncompleted section of the rampart and ditch.

We did a test augur in the ditch below the circle of stones but results were inconclusive and at this moment the CPAT team are unsure if the section we tested is worthy of further investigation. Original ground level is about a metre below present level and the augur kept hitting a lot of stones, making it difficult to extract a meaningful core.

Will has recorded all the excavations using the photogrammetry technique and Chris has recorded precise locations of each trench using GPS. I had a chat with them about leaving excavations open for the councillors’ visit next week and we’ve agreed that the cairn will definitely be left open but given the amount of material taken out of the other trenches they may well have to be backfilled for safety reasons. Of course there is also the possibility of having a trench open at the motte which will likely be started next Monday.

Will is minus his Land Rover as he has had to do repairs on it which aren’t finished. He did however take some of the heavy tools up in his Nissan Qashqai!!

Today was Richard’s last day on the dig leaving Will as overall lead on the dig. We thank Richard for all his hard work in the project so far, at last year’s dig and this, and hopefully he will be back if we are able to continue our research next year.

Here’s a few of Norman’s Photos:

And here’s some photos from Katy of the auguring – insert your own captions: