Great to see the excavation at the Slimbridge site on ‘Digging for Britain’ today. Great work by Slimbridge Local History Society, Ernest Cook Trust, @RareTelevision and all the diggers. #DiggingforBritain
Today marks the official 75th Anniversary of Air Operations training being delivered at RAF Shawbury. Congratulations to all personnel of the Defence College of Air & Space Operations who will be parading at the National Memorial Arboretum to mark the occasion.
Wishing a very Happy 40th Birthday to the Mount Pleasant Complex on the Falklands! 🎉
Opened on 12th May 1985, MPC is central to the safety and security of our Islands and we're hugely grateful to all who have served there. 🇫🇰🇬🇧
Well done to all involved in the excavation over the past 2 weeks. With this kiln it looks like we have established the production site of the Glos TF 5 pottery. If confirmed, hopefully it will assume a more localised identity. post-ex should be exciting!
@Boyle123G Bravo Gail. A wonderful career at Bristol Museum which I sense is not ended yet - just a new chapter. Wishing you all the best on the next step.
Great aerial images by @nickturnercam capture well the significant size of the walls of the medieval manor at Guiting Power. Next season we need to extend the trench and see where the walls are taking us. Parch marks and geophys indicate a much larger building complex.
Now we have finished the summer! session on the medieval manor it is time to return to the large enigmatic Roman enclosure at Slimbridge where we appear to have a large warehouse built over an earlier 1-3rd century bathhouse. Places still available. Will we find the main villa?
Two good visits by the Upper Windrush local history society to the medieval manor dig this week. Todays group were amongst the first people for a few centuries to see the full circuit of walls of the earliest part of the manor.
For the first time we can now see the entire length of the Eastern wall of the original part of the manor. Also gives a good view of how wide it actually is!!
Final week of this session on the medieval manor dig. Certainly was a substantial, possibly fortified, manor with pottery dating from the Norman period. Walls well preserved and more shooting off in all directions suggesting a larger complex. More to explore next time
A substantial fragment of moulded stonework, probably from a window, indicates how grand our Norman/ medieval manor must have been! It probably came from a window on the Southern side of the fortified tower with its very thick walls of almost castle like proportions
The sun finally coming out as we reach the end of the digging week on the medieval manor. Been too wet to access the mortar floors in the centre but 3 new walls and trackway added to the plan this week is not a bad tally !
Two mortar floors both with burning above. Separated by 30cm and probably a few hundred years they seem to confirm a suspected reuse of the central range of our building complex at Guiting Power
For walls Wednesday-did not expect that wall in the foreground of the first image shooting off to the right!! Heading under the excavation tent towards the southern wing of the manor (parch marks, Geo fizz, and evaluation trench did hint was there). Site just got a lot bigger!!
The Southern wall of the tower of our medieval manor looking resplendent under the summer clouds!!! At least it is not too hot to dig!! Last years bulks being removed to explore the big hole in the centre of the tower. Full of rubble - should be interesting!!
The owners (any of the Gozenboided’s, the Le Poer family or Pancio de Controne, physician to Kings) must have felt snug and secure inside the significant walls of their fortified Manor House. Still plenty more to uncover in this large complex of buildings dating from the Normans.