Day 15
What an interesting but frustrating day it has been today. Our wall in trench 7 that began life as ‘a nothing, then ‘a something, then ‘a wall’ has gone back to being ‘a something’ again!
Our problem is that the direction that our ‘something’ seems to go, has a very large tree right over the top of the area that we want to look at. We have extended the trench slightly around the tree hoping to pick up more stones, but we have not found anything further. Harthill volunteer, Andy along with WA archaeologist, Justina have uncovered some impressive tree roots that wouldn’t look out of place in a Contemporary Art Gallery. Thankfully, Andy has the patience of a saint, and he and Justina have delicately removed the soil around the roots to expose them and to reveal the surface below, where they sadly found nothing.
We had 4 visitors today. Our volunteer, Si, brought his father-in-law, George to have a look around. George is Harthill born and bred and used to work at Steetley quarry. He kindly told me about the local geology and broke a piece of pale looking stone in half to reveal a lovely pinkish red colour inside that is known as 'Rotherham Red.'
Our new site that was marked out on Friday was opened up today and almost immediately, the archaeologists were hitting the magnesian limestone ridge that runs under Packman Lane and stretches from Derby to Durham. It has been hard and slow work for the archaeologists today, but as usual it has been undertaken with a smile on their faces.
Our previous trenches have been backfilled and the archaeologists have been recording and drawing their plans and any features in them, (which are few), such as tree roots etc.
WA archaeologist, Amy along with Harthill volunteer Ted, have been measuring and drawing a plan of trench 8 today. It was opened alongside trench 4 last week to see if our bank and ditch feature continued. Unfortunately, it didn’t. However, trench 4 as an archaeological trench, it is a fabulous shape and the soil strata is very clearly defined in the Section and it is interesting to look at.
Our new site however may prove to be even more of a headache in our final week because of the limestone ridge.
The limestone and time is against us now and we don't want to bite off more than we can chew, especially as everything has to be opened, recorded, photographed and plans and sections drawn and then everything back-filled.
Anyone from Harthill who has ever walked around Loscar will have seen scatterings of the limestone ridge all over the fields. The plough hits the limestone through the shallow topsoil and it can be seen all across the landscape. I have been told by locals that the limestone is less than 18 inches below the surface at Loscar. It is probably the reason why Harthill was named ‘Hertil’ in the Domesday Book. ‘Hertil’ is Anglo-Saxon for ‘Hard’ and someone was obviously aware of this when they named the road from Kiveton to Harthill, ‘Hard Lane.’
