Day 4 - Tuesday 13th July 2010

The most interesting developments have continued to be in the rectangular pond. We have now more or less removed the modern silt. We have found a vertical break in the brick wall along the east side of the pond. To the north of the break the wall rests on chalk which may be an extension of the chalk floor in the pond. To the south the wall is all brick but it looks older then the section above the chalk. The dating is very uncertain but the chalk blocks on the pond floor and some of the lower parts of the pond walls may be 18^th century.

We have emptied the fill from the little ‘pool’ in the northwest corner of the rectangular pond. When we discovered this I thought it was Victorian but more detailed investigation has show that it is likely to date from about 1990 when there was a plan to turn the pond into a bog garden.

There is no chalk block floor where the stream enters the rectangular pond. There is no obvious reason for this so we have begun to investigate.

We have slightly enlarged trench A to allow us to examine the brick wall along the west edge of the trench. At first I thought the wall was the edge of a plant bed or garden path. Today we found that it sloped considerably and for a while we thought it might be the roof of a culvert. However, further work has shown that it is a leaning wall.

We also continued work in trench C were a short section of brick wall has been found. The significance of this is at present unclear.

Work will continue tomorrow. If you want to see what is going on the site is open to the public for the rest of this week. (Wednesday – Friday 11 – 5; Saturday and Sunday 10 – 5).

John Phillips