Live Updates
What did we find?
The team is wrapping up for the final day on site – but what have we uncovered?
✅️ In Trench 1 we’ve got clear structural remains from the lost North Wing of the house, including solid foundations with a charcoal layer at the bottom. Plus, a lovely collection of architectural features including plaster fragments, pieces of window tracery/carved stone, and drains.
✅️ In Trench 2 we can see a fantastic neat garden surface. This looks to be a little later than the Tudor phase of the house, but it still helps to tell the story of the grounds of Petworth and how they changed with time.
✅️ Finally, in Trench 3 we’ve found an mysterious rubble pile! We’ve excavated as much of the rubble as we can and come away armed with finds and dig records to study. A bit more analysis of our findings will be required to say more about what this is and when it might date to. Watch this space for the dig report…
We've hit a wall
But it’s a good thing! Our team our out in the sunshine today as we continue the dig, and they’re working hard to uncover the external wall from the lost North Wing of the house.
They’ve carefully exposed the stonework of the wall, and cleaned up the surrounding area so we can really get a good luck into the remains of the structure.
A suprise find in the North Wing
Forget losing your marbles, here at Petworth we’re finding our marbles. More specifically, we’ve found two marbles from within the lost North Wing of the house!
A sunny Sunday
We welcomed back more junior archaeologists to site to help us with our investigation.
We also welcomed the glorious weather – we can’t think of a better way to celebrate a summer’s day than with a good helping of archaeological fun!
Rosie finds a clay pipe
The sun is shining and the finds keep coming. Rosie uncovered this fantastic example of a clay pipe.
Clay pipes are super handy to archaeologists for dating. Because clay pipes were so common, so short lived, and ever evolving with the times we can estimate when they might date to fairly easily. Which means everything in the same archaeological context (or layer) must be of a similar date. Very useful!
Something's fishy about these roof tiles...
And it’s all in the name! Trench 3 on the main lawn has produced eleven fragments of an unusual roof tile type…
These are known as glazed ‘fish scale’ tiles, which were moulded with a semicircular end and were glazed dark green on the top surface, edges and on the perimeter of the underside.
Lead's guess what this could this could be!
Can you help us figure out what this is?
Stephen found this little lead fitting in Trench 1. It looks like it has three cuts at the stem and on the outer corners of the triangles.
Send your guesses to hello@digventures.com!
Henry and Petworth
When Henry arrived to take part in DigCamp, he proudly reminded us that he shares a name with a very famous king who may have once walked through the lost North Wing of Petworth House that we’re looking for.
He joined other junior archaeologists to help us search for the foundations and any remaining walls that might still exist below the ground from the North Wing.
While no in tact architectural features have shown up yet, DigCamp did discover green glazed pottery, lots of nails, and dozens of tile and brick fragments. All good clues that we’re in the right place!
We're at Petworth!
Team DV have arrived at Petworth House today! Our aim over the next two weeks is to uncover evidence of the lost North Wing and the Tudor Banqueting House that would have stood during the time of King Henry VIII.
In Trench 1 and 2, we’ll be focusing on searching for any remnants of the North Wing, and in Trench 3, we’re investigating the location of a Tudor Banqueting House.
Thanks to Historic Royal Palaces, the National Trust and the South Downs National Park, we’ve recruited a small army of National Trust volunteers, local residents and Young Archaeologists to help us unearth Petworth’s secrets – we can’t wait to see what they find!
Henry VIII on Tour is coming!
DigVentures is partnering with Historic Royal Palaces to get the public involved in exploring six historic sites connected to Henry VIII’s royal progresses.
We’ll be officially announcing our plans at the project launch with Historic Royal Palaces on Friday!
