Thirty Second Dig Day – Sunday 11th August

Sunday started with some very heavy showers, but these soon grew lighter and wider apart – until even the sun came out!

We have now cleaned up the western most 3m of the front of the house, including the front doorway. The old scullery floor of 5cm thick terracotta floor tiles were cut by the 1950 bulldozer which revealed that they were laid on a levelling layer of relatively thin mortared tiles which sat on a layer of chalk rubble. The front wall had been cut away, such that at the end of our current trench the old ground level almost meets the shattered remains of the house wall.

We then moved north-east to track down the illusive front gate – and we think we have found it – or at least some of the edging stones on the outside edge of the path to gate.

Not so many finds though. The best were some very thick glass shards of what was probably a large mirror – although it had lost most of its silvering; an entire small glass jar such as may have contained cold cream; and 2 adjoining chunky shards of a commonly found green bottle glass which formed most of a base of which the sides bore the words ‘Limited’ and ‘Portsmouth’.