After a considerable effort by students, volunteers and supervisors we finally reached the main aim of 2024 to excavated and record the timber-framed well. This involved shuttering a retained section and excavating a large area with 0.5m stepping to get down to a sufficient level to excavate the well safely. Constant pumping disposed of the ever flowing ground water but still left a gloopy dark grey mud to be bucketed out for floating in order to revealed the waterlogged timber frame. The team worked for most of the 6-week dig and finally got to a hard grey clay base. Selected upper timber were removed and stored for conservation and further research with most of the frame left in situ. The waterlogged conditions provided other timbers and strips of leather footwear but a lot of floatation of the gathered mud samples has still to take place as has the correlation of the records made.
In the meantime we do have a stack of photographs including a 3D image to keep us enthralled
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