Day 6
Today was more of an Open Day for people from the village to come along and look at the trenches and to try their hand at digging and scraping if they wanted to. We had 7 volunteers turn up and our youngest volunteer so far, Maeve, aged 12.
Two of our regular volunteers, Alison and Andy came along today to have another day in a trench and to chat to any locals from the village who might turn up. Another regular, Si also turned up this morning and brought his wife, Dawn to give her a tour of the trenches.
Andy, kindly showed Maeve how to dig, shovel and scrape away the subsoil in a trench down to the natural, and it must be said that Mave, herself was a natural. She cut the crispest edge through the subsoil that I have seen this week. She then tossed it on to the spoil heap. Next she tried her hand at scraping the ‘natural’ surface to remove any dirt and residue subsoil to clean it.
Another visitor to the site this morning was surveyor and commercial drone pilot, John Cusack who lives in Harthill. John, is the Technical Operations Director of a company called Qubic Aerial Systems. John had come to the meeting in the Old School Room on 1st June and kindly offered to do a 3D scan of our trenches to produce a virtual reality walkaround, similar to the Google Street Maps.
John walked around the site with his camera on a tripod and scanned the area in different locations and within a few minutes he showed me the results on his iPad. His camera was only the size of a iPad itself and it is remarkable what he has produced. He will do some technical stuff but is going to produce a 3D walkaround of the site that anyone will be able to view and experience for themselves on a computer.
However, John’s help did not end there. He also brought his commercial drone with him that looks like a giant black mosquito. It fitted into a box the size of a small suitcase. I watched in awe from a safe distance as he placed the drone on a flat surface on the ground with no tree canopy about it. He then stood next to me, flicked a switch on a small hand-held device that looked similar to the gadget that people who fly radio controlled aeroplanes use and the drone rose into the air.
The drone rose slowly in the air and hovered directly opposite me, looking at me like an angry mosquito. John then passed me an iPad and all of a sudden it rose faster into the sky and I was looking down on myself and John standing in the wood! John rotated the camera 360 degrees above the wood. I could see Harthill, and the surrounding fields. What an amazing piece of technology.
It was a shame that only Andy, Maeve and myself got to witness the drone in action. However, John has said that he will come back with some more kit to help us map the terrain and to see if we can spot more archaeology.
Our Sunday dig has been cancelled due to the rain we had a couple of days ago in a bid to allow the paths to dry out.
Roll on Monday! :-)