Brightwater
Discover the archaeology that’s helping to restore, reveal and celebrate life around the River Skerne
Discover the archaeology that’s helping to restore, reveal and celebrate life around the River Skerne
Catch up on all the action from site, as it happens
The team arrived on site this morning to a surprise guest having a rest in the spoil heap.
No, it wasn’t a sleepy archaeologist! Even better, it was a gorgeous little lamb.
What a lovely way to kick off a day’s digging!
Jen has found a lovely piece of worked stone in Trench 3. See how nicely shaped it is? This is probably a fragment of decoration from some sort of architectural feature.
In addition to the beautiful fragment of window tracery we found here in 2019, this adds to the idea that this building might be a very high status one, perhaps even a hall!
It’s Easter weekend and the team are having a well-deserved break. Our Virtual Tours have kicked off on site and we’ve been so happy to see so many of you, even if it’s only through Zoom!
One question we’ve been seeing a lot is about what our bishop’s palace might have once looked like. We can’t be certain at the moment, but there have been some reconstructions drawn up in the past. Check out the one below!
We do want to point out though, that this is just one idea – in fact, everything we’re looking into this year is partly in order to understand more about how this site might have looked like in the medieval times. With everything we’re finding, we’re hoping to have a clearer picture soon!
Come on in! David seems to have found something pretty cool in Trench 4: an entrance! It’s not very wide, which could possibly be intentional for defensive reasons. He’s going to continue investigating it though to see if we can puzzle out anymore clues.
Now Trench 3 is cleaned up and looking lovely, Jodie, Jen and Nat are doing a bit of recording. Through drawing and GPS the team will make a record of all the features for us to look back at later before they continue investigating.
The guys in Trench 3 are ready to kick off a day of recording. But what’s been going on in this part of the site?
Well, we have that possible chapel we mentioned before tucked away in the corner of this trench. Why do we think it’s chapel? Well, in 2019 we found probable ecclesiastical rooftiles and some pretty sophisticated architecture (including a column). Plus, the layout of the walls is pretty similar to what we see at other comparative sites where there are chapels.
As we investigate further, time will tell if we’re right!
We also have a huge circular feature, which Nat is very excited to see. What is it? Well, it could be an area of possible burning.. We’ve collected environmental samples for analysis, so hopefully that will tell us a bit more about the nature of this mysterious burning.
Watch this space!