Just catching up on a post I meant to write a while back – the day after I surveyed the site in the snow.
Whilst the site itself was only covered in a shallow few inches of snow, the snow on the Juggs Road (Drove Avenue) just on the northern side of the ridge leading towards the top of Newmarket Hill had drifted considerably. Also, working on-site in slippery conditions whilst using sharp slashing tools is not sensible from a Health & Safety point of view so, after a quick look around and history lesson, we all went home!
It slices through the mat of bramble and nettle roots which cover my archaeological dig site with relative ease. So it is perfect for dealing with the regrowth that will inevitably happen following the initial clearnace work. Cutting back the top growth will result in everything bouncing straight back again – unless I make good use of my Chillington Hoe.
I had never used them before – though I have often seen them on television used by subsistence farmers/ gardeners in Africa. I can now thoroughly recommend them. They were probably second only to the digging stick in the historical development of agricultural tools (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoe). They have variously been called Azadas, Badzas, Grape Hoe, Eye Hoe, Jembe, Mamooty, Mattock or Adze (https://www.quickcrop.co.uk/blog/garden-tools-chillington-hoes-or-azadas). The Chillington Tool Company has a history of over a hundred years of being the biggest manufacturer of such tools in the UK – hence their name in English.
Further research on the Internet produced Millet’s picture of “The Man With the Hoe”.
Millet, Jean-Francois ‘Man with a Hoe’ c.1861; Wikimedia Commons.
This inspired the American poet, Edwin Markham, to write his most famous poem:
The Man with a Hoe
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back, the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?
Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave
To have dominion over sea and land;
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
To feel the passion of Eternity?
Is this the dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And marked their ways upon the ancient deep?
Down all the caverns of Hell to their last gulf
There is no shape more terrible than this–
More tongued with cries against the world’s blind greed–
More filled with signs and portents for the soul–
More packed with danger to the universe.
What gulfs between him and the seraphim!
Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him
Are Plato and the swing of the Pleiades?
What the long reaches of the peaks of song,
The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?
Through this dread shape the suffering ages look;
Time’s tragedy is in that aching stoop;
Through this dread shape humanity betrayed,
Plundered, profaned and disinherited,
Cries protest to the Powers that made the world,
A protest that is also prophecy.
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
Is this the handiwork you give to God,
This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?
How will you ever straighten up this shape;
Touch it again with immortality;
Give back the upward looking and the light;
Rebuild in it the music and the dream;
Make right the immemorial infamies,
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
How will the future reckon with this Man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings–
With those who shaped him to the thing he is–
When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world,
After the silence of the centuries?
I wasn’t sure until recently the best way to mark out the Archaeological site boundary.
I know from experience that light weight string gets caught up in brambles and that it easily gets tangled, it can trip people up and can easily get accidentally cut.
Heavier duty rope would be better, but would be expensive, and heavy to carry.
Hazard warning tape is another possibility, but it draws too much attention to itself – I would only want to use it when there is a real need to keep people out of an area – which in this case I do not.
I knew that surveyors on Time Team used a spray paint but I wasn’t sure how permanent it was, or toxic – I would be using it on a nature reserve. However, a little Googling on the Internet and I found a spray paint called SylvaMark. This has been approved for use by English Nature (Natural England‘s predecessor) on their own reserves, and after reading the blurb, it looks exactly what I want. I chose a blue colour since it was less fluorescent than the others and a type that only lasts a couple of weeks or more. It should arrive by the end of the week. I just hope the weather stays dry enough for me to be able use it before the next site clearance day.
My (nearly) 13 year old niece and my mother, braved the cold to help me find out whether a plan of Newmarket Farm which we had was an accurate representation of the archaeology on the ground. The plan was a copy of the one that was found in documents held in East Sussex Record Office, and was probably drawn in 1921 when Oscar Selbach bought Newmarket Farm.
1921 Selbach plan of Newmarket Farm. From ESRO
The overall aim of the day’s work was to perform (some of) the tasks required to be done before being able to mark the area of the archaeological dig site, approximately 3m beyond the boundaries of the Newmarket Farm site. The extra 3m is to provide public access as well room to place the spoil from the trenches.
The area of the site needs to be marked out before the next date which has been planned for the clearance of the rest of the site.
Based on the dimensions given for the water tank, the scale of the plan has been estimated, and has therefore enabled the lengths of the wall lines to be meassured. My measurements were independently confirmed by my niece.
The next objective was to identify two fixed points of archaeology on the ground to check the accuracy of Selbach’s plan. Previous to the site clearance work of the 9th January, only the SE corner (bottom right on the plan) was visible and some isolated portions of the south and east boundary walls. During site clearance a small portion of the wall which divided the garden from the farm-yard was revealed. Therefore our next task was to uncover enough of this wall to be able to estimate where it met the southern boundary wall, somewhere near a small elder bush.
Looking E at my niece & myself finding the wall-line between garden and farm-yard; 13th January 2013.
Did I say that it was cold! Also, almost all of the existing line of the wall was buried under a thick mat of bramble and stinging nettle roots. No wonder Time Team makes it look so easy – they have a mechanical digger to do this part!
Looking SE at my niece & myself finding the wall-line between garden and farm-yard; 13th January 2013.
But with hard work and perseverance we managed to expose enough of the wall to estimate that it met the southern boundary wall immediately to the east (left) of the elder bush.
Next, Selbach’s plan indicated that the distance from this point to the SE corner of the garden boundary wall was about 52.5 feet. When we meassured this on the ground it was found to be about 52 feet. Therefore we felt able to (provisionally) conclude that Selbach’s plan could be used as a guide to estimating the lengths of the other walls.
Just before we left I quickly measured the distance between the elder and the SW corner of the house, and marked it with a peg. There was no sign of any change in ground level in the vicinity of this point. Selbach’s plan will therefore be very importantant for any future attempts to locate archaeological targets on the ground.
Thanks to Malcolm Emery and a couple of colleagues from Natural England, as well as a group from the South Downs Volunteer Ranger Service, at least half the site was cleared yesterday (Weds 10th January 2013), and a second day has been planned to complete the job.
View WSW from demolition rubble mound E side of the house site looking SW across back garden towards S farmyard boundary between the trees left and centre; 10th January 2013.Looking slightly W of S from bulldozed mound of rubble to E of house site looking towards SE corner of the garden just under the Prunus scrub; 10th January 2013.Looking S along bulldozed mound of demolition rubble partially hidden by brambles. The side of the house would have been on the right of the picture. The small elder bush to the right of the fire marks the junction of the wall dividing the garden to its left from the farmyard to its right, and the wall which bounded both to the south; 10th January 2013.Clearing NW corner of the site, the site of a barn. Looking towards what has become an a major landmark – a television aerial marking the top of Newmarket Hill; 10th January 2013.The chap on the right is raking the mowings, which were burnt. Removing the debris reduces the fertility of the soil, which reduces the vitality of the rank vegetation; 10th January 2013.Looking W at Newmarket Farm site being cleared of brambles; 10th January 2013.Photo taken from within the house site looking to the SW at elder bush marking site of S end of wall dividing house and garden. The chap on the right is Malcolm Emery, taking a welcome break from his desk; 10th January 2013.Taken from under the spreading hawthorn near the NE corner of the house site, looking slightly west of south, with the elder (centre back near the fire) marking the site of the back wall between garden and farmyard; 10th January 2013.A view of the site looking to the NW with a piece of demolished masonry revealed from under the brambles; 10th January 2013.View from location of barn on NW side of site looking SE across the farmyard towards distant Prunus scrub marking SE corner of the garden; 10th January 2013Volunteer clearing back some of the vegetation from the mound of demolition rubble, just inside the east boundary wall of the garden, looking E – upright piece of masonry is not in situ – 10th January 2013.Looking N towards the NE corner of the site, just outside the garden wall, clearing the vegetation about 3m wide of the site boundary to allow for public access as well as room for spoil from any trenches; 10th January 2013Looking S towards SE corner of the garden boundary wall just under the Prunus scrub; 10th January 2013View beyond the site, towards Castle Hill to the NE, from on top of the mound of demolition rubble; 10th January 2013Looking approx WSW from SE corner of house towards distant hawthorn near SW corner of farmyard showing surface contours of site being revealed; 10th January 2013
The farmyard, in the centre of the photo, was discovered to be on a terrace, with the farm buildings – stables and cow barn – at a higher level (to the right), and the garden at a lower level (to the left).
Photo taken approx SE corner of house site looking SW towards tree stump marking junction of dividing wall separating the garden on left, from the farmyard on right where it met the S property boundary; 10th January 2013.Looking NW at site clearance by burning of the cut vegetation; 10th January 2013Looking NW at burning of wet vegetation; 10th January 2013
It would have been nice if the cleared vegetation had been removed from site and composted. Better for the environment. But it would have involved a lot of work, a lot more transport, and a lot less of the site would have been cleared.
