Hagg Farm June-July Dig 2014

The Swaledale Project: Hagg Farm Site 103
Dig Image Diary June 24th - July 4th 2014. You can see more images here
SWAAG wishes to thank Brenda and David Clark for allowing us to continue our work at Hagg Farm.

This Blog is going to be kept in chronological order, so click these links to go to a particular day..
June: 24th 25th 26th 27th 28th 29th 30th July: 1st 2nd 3rd 4th
This page will be updated each evening during the excavation usually between 6pm - 7pm UK.

24th June Images: Two trenches (13 & 14) are in the process of being opened up. A shower interrupted work for about 15minutes but otherwise not a bad day although we were pestered by midges in the afternoon when the breeze dropped.

Trenches 13 and 14 opened to link the two trenches opened up last autumn. (See report)

Opening up Trench 13 first thing in the morning. Deturfing has always been slow on this site due to the amount of stone just under the grass.

T13

T13

T13

T13

T13 at the end of the day

Part of T13 at the end of the day. So far we have found small amount of Romano-British pottery present in the top soil and possibly an earlier sherd.

Mike Cooke clearing the thistles ready for T14 to be opened.

T14 deturfing not an easy job on top of those stones.

T13 nearly deturfed about a metre to do. This trench almost certainly will get enlarged.

T14 - 15 minutes before the end of the day just when we thought we would get T14 deturfed before we left, we came across 2 greyware pots buried under some of the stones.
This is the largest fragment and has a cross-hatched scratched decoration on it. The numerous fragment of rim are of 2 distinct forms. More images follow...

T14

T14 2 pots - more might be found in the morning.

Mike Cooke and Nicki Oliver are producing a video of the excavation

Rob and John

Home time. T14 on left and T13 on the right. You can see the bank running in front of the tent, which is a settlement enclosure wall which we believe will be found in T13.
At T14 the wall should turn 90 degrees to the right across towards the smaller (middle) hedgerow bush. We are also hoping to find something else in that area that shows up on the Gradiometry data.

25th June Images: Day 2 Images

Flora washing the greyware finds from the previous day.

Flora washing the greyware finds from the previous day.

Two of the sherds freshly washed.

Lunchtime

T13

T13 looking south

Foreground T13 looking south towards T14. The 2 poles in the background mark the position of the enclosure wall T10 excavated last year.

Full view of T13 with T10 wall indicated with the 2 poles

T13 with 2 yellow lines (foreground left) indicate the wall excavated late year that is under the grass. The other 2 yellow lines indicate a new alignment of stones that has appeared -- see next image.

New alignment of stones running across the foreground at an angle.

26th June Images: Today was devoted to carefully lifting off what appears to be a random stone bank forming part of the settlement enclosure to ascertain if there is any underlying structure.

T13

T13

T13

T13

T13 and many buckets - I had to leave early so couldn't photograph the trench at the end of the day

T14 Lesley with Joe Ogden and his father David.

T14 Joe inspecting one of his micro-finds

T14 - this trench will be enlarged tomorrow

27th June Images: Good working weather for most of the day i.e. not too hot, but late increasingly heavy drizzle made it too slippery to work on the sloping ground. The early wet finish means no end of day images.

T13 showing paved entrance in the hollow mid image

Sectioning the lower (southern) end of T13

Gill and Adrian joining us for the first time helping Graham in T13

T13 section top of subsoil.

T13 section

From memory this is a new type of pot for this site revealed by Adrian in T13 section (see next 2 image)

Hand kindly supplied by Dustin.

T14 at the beginning of the day

T14 at the beginning of the day

T14

T14

5x3 extension to T14

At the end of day about 80% of the soil seen here had been removed.

28th June Images: Today nothing was done in T13 but we ought to complete it tomorrow. T14 is nearly clean of topsoil then it will be another round of selective stone removal.
A new Trench T15 started. This trench is initially 3m x 2m to drop onto a section of enclosure wall found last autumn, but will be enlarged in 3 directions and will probably join up with T13.

Mike sieving soil from T14. A high percentage of the soil removed has been sieved.

David and Graham completing a small extension to T14

Southern end of T14 showing the top surface of a stone revetted bank shoring up the corner of the enclosure wall.

Southern end of T14 showing the top surface of a stone revetted bank shoring up the corner of the enclosure wall.

Emma joined us for the first time today, here she is helping Philip in T15

T15

T15 showing T13 beyond and T14 beyond T13. We are looking for a branch in the enclosure wall to the east (left) where the grass is between the two trenches.

29th June Images:

8am sheep on guard

View from the tent

2 x 1m extension to T13

T13 backfilling

T13 Possible paved path through enclosure wall

T14 Remnants of enclosure wall turning 90 degrees to the west

T15

T15

T16 deturfed ready for tomorrow

30th June Images: Good weather but unfortunately the number of diggers was down today, so not so many images tonight.

Two substantial river cobbles. It must have taken some effort to get them up the dale-side from the river Swale.

The morning was spent backfilling 2 trenches T13 and T15.

T13

T13

Recording T14

The short lived trench T15 backfilled.

T16 was deturfed last night and the topsoil cleaned this afternoon. Old rabbit burrow on the right. A lot more to do tomorrow. The far southern end ought reveal the shape and how wide the sandstone flagged platform was in T1 (excavated in 2012).

1st July Images: One of the warmest days of the year in Swaledale and quite an interesting day in trenches 14 and 16.

First some general images... above working in T16

Trench 14 is on one of the steepest slopes.

Sieving T16 soil

SWAAG's Honorary President Tim Laurie (L) with Alan Mills (R).

Swaledale at its best with Grinton Bridge on the left and Reeth in the distance.

T14 A warm welcome to Shelagh (in pink) who has travelled the furthest to join us for this dig.

T14 Philip recording the trench

T14

T14

T16 as it was this morning - the next image shows what it looked like at the end of the day.

T16 has been extended in different directions for a variety of reasons, hence its odd shape. The sandstone flagged floor continues under the grass at the top of this image. This was excavated in 2012 see planof T1 below...

T1 - the top northern edge should join with the southern edge in T16

T16 work in progress

T16 work in progress

Some nice Romano-British pottery came out of both of these trenches together with a nice piece of Samian rim (albeit a small piece) and a Roman glass strap type handle.

2nd July Images: Another good day at Hagg Farm 2 more days to go...