DetectingWales.com

anyone ever dug  a test pit in their garden ?  ;D

If you have got a manicured lawn I expect erindoors woud'nt let you anywhere near it with a spade lol

I've always fancied giving it a try as we have a 16 century chapel in our garden and I've already found a pilgrim's badge and a Charles 1st Farthing just by doing a little weeding. :o

Well the time has come as they say.!  I need to remove the lilac trees and rebuild our bird feeding station and replant the area so I have a 3x2 metre plot I can dig up at last . I'm just waiting for the sun to make a show as I don't fancy digging up to me knees in water.

When I first came here 13 years ago there was loads of broken ceramics strewn around under the trees and the neighbour's kid used to come in and collect it all. I expect a lot of dateable evidence has already been removed but I'm sure to find more beneath the surface.

I have tried to detect here once or twice but there is simply too much iron and rubbish ...its impossible.

If anyone else fancies having a go, there is an excellent guide https://www.archeox.net/digging-test-pit (https://www.archeox.net/digging-test-pit) that will tell you how to go about it and how to record everything properly.

isn't there anyone interested in Archaeology ??? :-\  maybe you're all only interested in getting hammered  ;D ;D ;D

Is it your time of the month Nick? lol. I'm afraid if you post up links, people will read them and find them very interesting but most won't come back and tell you, if your posting info to help...do it for the love ;D

im intrested in test pits in me garden but i,d need at least 3 skips to take away all the iron id have to get through ;)

I'd be interested but its probably the way to a rapid divorce.

Hi Peanut I am up for digging a test pit where do you live can I keep what I find or will it be a 50/50 split ;D

When we first moved down here our place was standing in a piece of field with sheep wire round it. Not even a daffodil in 'the garden'.
Once again I had to set to and get it sorted. This is the last time, I thought, so everything had to be double dug and planted to last.
I've always had a thing about pottery so every bit of interesting stone had to be examined. I have several bits that could be very old. I've often said I'd take them to get an I.D /age but never have. A test pit is a great idea. Anyone interested, try a veggie plot. Runner beans are easy to grow. ::)

Val

p.s. Look what I did. All my own work.

You have created a lovely area in your garden to relax in Val.  I'm not green fingered so have a lawn with a border of flowers.

I ain't got no love for any human Geoff  ......I hate everyone equally  >:(  I'm just a grumpy old git and I blame it on my genes ;D

Win... haven't you got a little square of garden somewhere you could turn into a wildlife haven ?? ;) nod nod wink wink .or a small herb garden etc

Val thats a beautiful garden , well done. it looks very relaxing and tranquill , somewhere to relax after a stressful day

Val , that is a stunning garden any chance to detect  ;D joking .Again you have done a very good job.Nordine. ;)

Thanks for the praise Lucky, Peanut and Nordine. It was a long time in the planning and a lot of hard work but it payed dividends in the end.

Nordine, it's already been done to death, complete with holes in the lawn.  Good training area. Dig as you wish to be dug by. ::)
Now Peanuts garden, on the other hand, is the one to have a mini rally in. A 16th cent Chaple, that sounds promising. Any chance Peanut ?

Val

unfortunately the garden is full of 400+ years worth of rubbish and is almost impossible to detect.
I found a Charles ll farthing and a mediaeval cast bronze rider and horse, eyes only  ;D
Judging by my test pit it looks like the medieaval layer is over 12" deep  :o

I thought I'd update you on my progress with the test pit.

I took it down in two 4" layers and then finding the soil becoming more compacted with some signs of burning took it down a further 2-3" carfully with a trowel.
The final surface is very compacted and is clearly a working surface of the stables . Judging by the difference between the external ground level and internal floor levels of the chapel the mediaeval ground level is likely to be 12" -18" further down.

I will tidy up the edges and sides and  record all existing surfaces then I intend to take a small area down until I find 'natural' if I can .

 The general rule of thumb is for every cubic metre of earth dug it expands to 2.5 times the cubic capacity. As I have carefully sifted every square inch of it it has probably expanded fourfold .!  :o  I've got bags of gorgeous sieved loam all over the garden groan.

If you look carefully at the bottom of the image 'looking north east ' you might be able to see the various layers of activity and burning that have been cut through already. there are two pinkish layers sandwiching a burnt layer.

Unfortunately 2x posts holes had been dug right in the middle of the test pit some time in the past and you can see one with some pea gravel in it and the other still contains the remains of a wooden post which had rotted beneath ground level.

When i get a chance to wash the bits of tile and pottery and bone etc in the two terracotta pots I'll post a piccy.

Nice work Nick, it should be an eye opener to see what layers you come across ;)

dont need a test pit, the bloody moles are doing it for me.  quick, wheres the shotgun!!!

thanks Geoff. I'm looking forward  to running the detector over the pit tomorrow. I had to break tonight to cook dinner . When I'm done I'm intending to dig the whole area over so might find some more coins and relics hopefully.

The owners of the chapel are trying to date it which is very difficult. it has a nice period brick ribbed vaulted ceiling and very grand ecclesiastical trefoil windows with original leaded lights but the windows have clearly been purchased from a Medieval 'reclamation yard' !  they are far too large and grand  to have been designed for a small private chapel which has been constucted crudely from local field stone. But then there is no denying that the ribbed valted brick ceiling is original so perhaps it is of an earlier date.

funnily enough we too had moles a few years ago but they have now all disapeared from the garden ?  Wonder if they are in decline lol

Very interesting Peanut,look forward to see the progress on the dig.cheers.Nap

Well done there, Peanut.  I think it's an indication of  how deep you need to dig just looking at the window height in the Chaple.  I seem to remember someone telling me about Vaulted ceilings. They were usually high class buildings that had them so perhaps the original owners were fairly well off.
I think that window design could be earlier than 1600's but I might be wrong, I often am.
All very interesting, keep up the good work.

Val

I dug what turned into a test pit when I followed a load of metal signals downwards on a field in Wick.

Got a medievel hammer, then bits of melted bronze and roman pottery (Grayware and Samian) from the lower levels then stopped when I hit a post hole and paved area.

Check it out

yes the window design is indeed earlier Val , well spotted but they wern't contemporary with the construction of the chapel.
They were undoubtably salvaged from the demolition of an eclisieastical building probably at the time of the Dissolution .They are not in proportion with the scale of the chapel and are far too expensive to have been made for a small private chapel .

 The other clue is that most of the chapel walls have been constructed with the very cheapest of building materials ,  rough hewn uncut or faced  sandstone pieces ,basically either waste offcuts from the local Ham Hill quarry or literally taken from the fields from  ruins  

well a quick update on progress .
Yippee I've come down onto the original cobbled courtyard surface at 14"

Without other dating evidence I would hazard a guess that this surface probably dates from about 1840 or so just after the stable block and barns were built in 1831.

Little bit of background History.


The site consists of  a Grade ll listed Floor Mill (Court Mill )  late 18c ( there has been a mill recorded on the site since 1556)  with leat off the river Parrott  and  2x Grade ll listed cottages constructed in Ham hill stone dating to late 17th c . Millers cottage and Chapel cottage ,(formerly one building ).  Millers cottage is first recorded on the site in 1573.

The adjacent barn and stable block was constructed in 1831 and has a fine arch through the middle . Although currently converted into 3x cottages it would have originally housed the horses and accompanying horse feed , bedding and tack and carts for hauling the grain and flour for the mill.

There was probably earlier stables on the same site dating back to  the Medieval period serving the flour Mill  .   I am digging the test pit in the cottage garden at the end of the converted barn/stable block next to Millers Cottage which has been built abutting the earlier Medieval Chapel.

Anyway back to the dig !.  Imagine my surprise and excitment when my trowel hit a consolidated stone surface and the larger the area that  I scraped, the further the cobbled surface extended ! . The cobbled surface would have been vital for the everyday function of a busy  yard with a constant stream of horses and carts and people. being so close to the river our garden is almost constantly damp as the rain water runs down the lane to the river.

There are clear layers of burnt material topped by part burned material most giving a pink/black/pink layer which I've tried to show in the image. My garden probably has over 400 years worth of rubbish dumped on it some burnt some just dumped. At the bottom of the garden there is a raised area of about 10mts x 4mts which is approx 500mm high and it is all accumulated rubbish and bottles from the Victorian period onwards . We have dug dozens of nice bottles from the area
.

My next step is to clean the finds that I have from the 3x layers excavated and record them. See if there is anything datable. Then I will probably expose more of the cobbled yard surface if I can find somewhere to store all the bloomin finely seived earth thats arising.

amazing !  what happened after that ?  did you report it to the local Archaeologist ?  or fill it back in ? ;D

Hi Peanut

Looking at your lastest picis I'm struck by the shape of the cobbles. It could be an easy assumtion that they are part of the stable yard but it's a very small, very square section. What part of the yard could that be ?? or is it something else ?? It looks like a section that was worked into a corner. Any sign of walls or similar.?

Val

Hi Val, That is what "cobbled" surfaces look like, the cobbles that you and I would recognise don't really exist until the 17th century (after Rome) save for some important roads.

I knew that Geoff. (well maybe) what I was pointing out was the small square of cobble with apparent soil around it.
Just looked like a corner piece.

Val

No you've lost me ??? all I can see is lots of cobbles.............................. :-\

yes but they don't cover the entire bottom of the test pit. Pici 3 shows clearly where Peanut hase cleared the sides of the cobbles.

Val

LOL ;D No those are all cobbles, the big, medium, small and tiny bits all make up a cobbled surface.

Never was one for having the last word. ::)

Just mutter to myself when you can't hear. ;D

sorry Val I've been out a while and I see that Geoff has been holding the fort ,thank yee kindly sire . ;)

I think perhaps either my description or the images are not really clear enough. profound apologies.
The bit of cobbled surface of the original yard is just a small part of the bottom of the test pit that I have taken down to 14"  The rest of the 'floor' of the test pit has been left at 12" or so .. see ?  The cobbled surface that you see is at a deeper level than the rest of the floor of the test pit.

I didn't want to  excavate all of the floor of the  test pit because even 100mm x1000mm x1000mm would leave me with another half a cubic metre of earth and I am up to my neck in excavated earth at the moment . ::)

If you dig a bucket of earth out of the ground it will roughly fit 2.5 buckets. If you then seive that earth it will expand again to about 4x buckets so you end up with 4xtimes what you started with . Earth in the ground is compacted over the centuries and expands when it is dug up..... I knew I shouldn't have started this groan.... ;D


Anyway ..........now that I have found the original stableyard surface I might excavate the rest of the pit to the same level.
To answer your question about how extensive it is likely to be well imagine a modern day stable yard with about 5-6 horses and stables and a few carts etc and you'll get the picture. The floor is probably quite extensive probably about 30 metres by 10 metres or so

Only trouble is that if you don't tamp the soil back in, in time you will have a dip ;D
Now the big question is what date is it.....the only good way of answering that one from a sondage is to see if there is any pottery under it. Yep keep digging...........................ever thought of having a pond in the garden? lol

yes date is an interesting question but i think we can be pretty certain that the surface dates back to just after 1831 when the current barn and stable block was built.
It would very unlikely that they would have constructed a cobbled surface outside  the chapel window back in the Medieval times .

I suspect that there might have been stables and possibly a barn on the present site beneath the current one to serve the Mill but there are no maps going back far enough that I have found. Its possible that it might show on the earliest enclosure maps 1830's but I've not yet checked.

I think I will try to post a location plan which should help everyone to visualise where the test pit is in relation to the Medieval chapel and the adjacent stable block (my cottage) Its kind of in the corner created by the two buildings.

Anyone want some nice loamy seived topsoil lol  ;D ;D ;D

A big, big gap between 1500 and 1831 though. I can't see a reason why there wouldn't of been a yard outside a private chapel (nice bits of grass and flowers is a Victorian invention) as many were in fact stuck in the corner of a courtyard. The medieval and early post-medieval mind was far more practical, and the Chapel would of been a house of God, not a house and garden ;D Plus as you say, the windows aren't original ???

ok here is a location plan showing the relative position of the test pit to the surrounding buildings.

Brown is the Mill
Blue represents my garden
red is the Stable block /barn the lower part of which is my cottage
green is the medieval chapel
purple is my test pit in my garden.
Hope that helps with visualizing everything  ;)

the stables and barns would have been needed by the flour mills .  There has been a mill recorded on site since the early 1500's and it only went out of use in the 1950's I believe.
The Millers house and the chapel would have presumably been built by the Mill owner .
It is probable that the existing stable/ barn was constructed over any previous structures given the access lane and the position of the mill etc  therefore I am as certain as one can be that the cobbled surface relates to the stable block and has nothing to do with the medieval chapel other than its accidental proximity on the site.

Hopefully this weekend I will take the pit down some more and see if I can find some datable pottery sherds beneath . ;)

AHHHHHH.   It's all down to perspective.  Now I see.

Don't you think it's a little odd for a Miller to build a Chaple.? Have you thought about Ecclesiastical records for that area. Presumably the Chaple would have been consecrated and would have been under the jurisdiction of the nearest Bishop, so some record would exist.

There's even a mention of Thomas Chaple (the name of the village I live in) even though no body thought to mention exactly where is was. ;D
It could be under my bungalow, now there's a thought.

Val

I agree Val, a mill with a Chapel doesn't quite add up :-\ I would of thought that it could either have been a chantry chapel or ..................there is a big house missing that owned the both. Intriguing ??? And I'm not sure I see the connection of the mill and stables? The way a mill worked was you took him your grain and he milled it for a price, He didn't actually need transport.

Ahhh! just looked at the pic, so it was Court mill, so where was the court?

My thoughts exactly Geoff.  Come on Peanut, get the Time Team in.  They'll solve it in 3 days. ;D

Val

The next mill along is called Tail Mill so I guess we are looking for a tail ! ;D  By the way Tail Mill was where they made the sails for the tall ships and bleached them in the fields . i have found many Russian linen lead seals there .

Water was the key to all industry agriculture and living before the industrial revolution. I suspect that there might have been mills on  the same site rightback  through history to the Romano brit period.
As for the chapel its a complete Mystery. Some bods from English Heritage visited last year with cameras tape measures etc and are carrying out an investigation currently.

Whoever owned the Mill would have needed somewhere to live . They  quite possibly may have built a house on site somewhere. I might try a bit of detecting on my neighbours fields and see what turns up .Watch this space as they say

i detect on a farm which the farmhouse is dated 1500s and after a few visits to the farm  the farmer says that the farmhouse was granted  licence to prayer in the late 1400s ,,which tells me there was a much earlier farm/building on the site and the people either prayed in the home or maybe built a small chapel in the grounds ,,anybody back in the day could if they did the paper work and had the money could practice worship on any site and it looks like a similar occurance in peanuts garden.

Don't you just love this hobby. ;D

I hated History when I was at school, didn't think much of the Teacher either. Since getting interested in this hobby I've learned more in 2+ years than I ever did at school.

Val

I reckon people back then were just the same as we are now .Social climbers  Always striving to go one better than the neighbours whether the clergy, royalty, aristocracy , tenant farmer or peasants . To have your own private chapel would have been quite a status symbol I guess .

From reading about the village history it seems there were 4x mills in the village and the mill owners  were the primary land owners so very rich by standards back then.

 Plus folk were deeply religious back then and religion was going through turmoil . People were locked up and killed for their beliefs. It may have been a secret Catholic chapel perhaps ? it just looks like any other medieval building from the outside .