The Gravesham Heritage Forum have just pressented Shorne Woods Archaeology Group with an award to recognise our contribution to the heritage of the Gravesham area.
We are very chuffed.
Thank-you to all our incredible volunteers who helped us achieve this recognition.
This week we were very fortunate to have a site visit from David Cufley, an expert on brick production in the south-east. He has confirmed that the site is probably Victorian in date. This ties in nicely with a Victorian clay pipe bowl with a Masonic design found earlier.
He explained the method of production from the digging of the clay to it’s weathering for a year or more followed by ‘pugging’ (mixing the clay with water to allow the pebbles and other heavier inclusions to sink) in a ‘washback’ (a small pond clay or brick lined) after which the clay was removed and put into formers (moulds) then stacked in ‘hacks’ to air dry before finally being put into a kiln or clamp for firing.
As this operation could take a year or more so you certainly needed to plan ahead!
One of the attached photos is of the pipe bowl, the other three are of trench 2 which at this stage we believe is a ‘washback’. The search now begins for the locations of the ‘hack’ and kiln/clamp.
A big thank you to David for giving us his time.
Another successful SWAG public engagement day.
Almost three hundred children and adults joined us for a Halloween themed excavation at Shorne Woods Country Park. The children enthusiastically excavated the notorious ‘bone pit’ and made up over a hundred Witch Bottles to ward off evil on Halloween night!
A massive thank you to all the SWAG volunteers that helped make it such a fun day.
Early in October we began to excavate the tile dump at the north eastern corner of Shorne Park. The mound was noted as an anomaly on the parks LiDAR chart and we ground-truthed it earlier in the year.
We found two pits about 2.5 – 3.0 metres across and about 1.25 metres deep adjacent to each other and alongside a mound with tile and brick on the top. Photographs of the tile and brick were sent away to be identified and the initial reaction was they could be 16/17th century.
The decision was taken to cut a one metre wide continuos trench through the mound and one of the pits, to assess 1) if the mound is spoil from the pit with a covering of tile/brick or entirely made up of tile/brick wasters and 2) if there is any archaeology at the bottom of the pit.
We will continue the excavation and give updates as we have them.
The video of our Gravesend dig last summer is now out on YouTube.
Click here: https://youtu.be/fMZnYAqp-iM?si=mvw-Rx4H3vVNphVp
