Thursday 10 and Friday 11 August (days 20-21): tutor Tristan's view from the trench

Thursday 10 August
It was an exciting day for the trainees with a visit from the BBC! Fantastic new television personalities were born – Liz ‘the Pinz’ Clifton and ‘Sparky’ Paul. There were lovely words from both about the dig and their experience here at the Castle.
 
Thankfully, the rain stayed away and we basked in glorious sunshine! There was a big clean up of Area 4 today (the main part of the trench) after the rain damage, to reveal the features clearly once again. Others ploughed through the recording that since Monday they have been unable to do.

'Posh Lunch Thursday' went ahead despite the altered timetable due to filming and local VIP visitors. In fact, we surpassed ourselves the extent that it looks like there will also be a 'Posh Lunch Friday' too…
 
A big thanks to Rosie, Norma and volunteer Josh from Trent & Peak Archaeology, who came out to teach the trainees more about environmental samples and the EDM machine. Their time and efforts are very much appreciated.
 
It looks like the weather will be fine again tomorrow, so onwards with digging out more features! Sadly, however, today was the last day for stalwarts Liz and Michelle and we wish them a fond farewell and all the best for the future – hopefully we will see them again. Good luck Michelle with your archaeology degree course at the University of Leicester!

Friday 11 August
It was a lovely sunny day again, so excavating and recording continued apace. Work mainly focused on cleaning up the exposed bricks and taking down the remaining upper layers on the immediate south of the brick layers.
 
Rosie and volunteer Josh from Trent & Peak Archaeology came out again to work through the samples of soils taken from some of the features in Area 4 (the main part of the trench). They had a lot of input from trainee Steve, who seems to have taken a shine to that area of the archaeology, which is great to see.
 
The find of the week came from Nicola with a fine, large sherd of Anglo-Norman ‘shelley-ware’ pottery from one of the slots in Area 4 – huzzah!.
 
By the end of the day the site was looking dry and clean, allowing Richard to mark out new slots for digging during the final week of the dig. Fingers crossed that the dry weather will hold so that we can get the job done!
 
There was another emotional goodbye to ‘Sparky’ Paul, and one of the mainstays of WDC3, Sam, who were trainee students from the University of Nottingham. Both have been a pleasure to have on site and we wish them all the best for their studies and, hopefully, future careers in archaeology/heritage.