Forty Seventh Dig Day – Friday 11th October 2013

As planned, the dig moved round to south end of the cottage and a 3x2m area was opened. Unfortunately progress was stopped by rain shortly before lunch. The clearance of a thick mat of bramble and nettle was not helped by a preponderance of particularly prickly thistles! So, as yet, there is little to report on either the search for the return of the wall of the extension at the south end of the cottage, or of the possible well. We do know that the 1950 bulldozer cut has removed the floor inside the extension. As yet we don’t know where the original ground surface was outside this part of the cottage.

Finds were scarce;

• 

  a few shards of window glass of both the thin early 19thc type as well as the later thicker type;

• a shard of green bottle glass;
• the almost inevitable couple of shards of ‘blue & white’ ceramics;

• 

  part of a damaged unfired cartidge of a .303 mark II cordite tracer bullet made in the Kynoch factory, Birmingham, in 1941;

• just a couple of rusty nails, which was very welcome after the hundreds previously found & which slowed digging right down!
• and the find of the day –

  

  was a (cheap paste scratched and damaged) ‘sapphire’ in a copper alloy mount whose broken back was suggestive of a brooch.

This Tuesday, conservation volunteers will be helping clear vegetation from the site, ready for the guided tour of the site of Newmarket Farm on both Sat 2nd & Sun 3rd Nov. This Sunday – weather permitting – we continue digging, and we would love you to join us – no experience required! We meet at the car park near the junction of Bexhill Road and Falmer Road, just north of Woodingdean, at 10am, and if the weather is too bad to dig we are still happy to give a quick tour for anyone interested. Please don’t hesitate to email me for further info.