SPLASH! Rediscovering Studley’s Bathing House Anticipation or trepidation? Main excavation, Day 1

MN 14th August 2013 

Lunchtime:

Exciting and intriguing though they undoubtedly were, the results of July’s excavation couldn’t help undermining our confidence that we knew what to expect from this site. In practical terms, that’s made it a little harder to decide how exactly to take the investigation forward – and that in turn lead to a good long head scratching session on site with the plans this morning!

In the end we decided not to follow the angled drain seen in July (yet), as that would involve a lot of earth moving and then backfilling. We’ll just assume that it might connect with the plunge pool. That in turn suggests that the pool was located in the west wing of the bathing house. We hope to find that by excavating a new trench 4m to the west of the last one, measuring 3m by 4m (with the option to expand it). Going back to transcriptions of the 1838 map (still the best lead we have), that should be over the southern end of the west range. We hope to get to grips with the east wing by means of a separate trench to be opened up later in the week.

It’s now lunchtime, and all one can say in reply to the often asked “What have you found yet?” is half a brick. Fortunately that happens to be stuck in the section (the side of the trench), clearly showing that what in other regards looks awfully like natural subsoil really is archaeological! The equivalent early digging in July really was unsettling, producing nothing man-made for the first couple of hours. Provided that the archaeology behaves itself and does what it did in July we should get down to the more interesting archaeological stuff just beneath the Victorian landscaping layer after lunch.

Close of play

Well we did find some more interesting archaeology, but we’re not down to the Georgian yet. At about 2:40pm we found a masonry structure that proved to be a stone capped drain. There’s no clear sign of an insertion cut for this feature, which suggests that it was built as a freestanding feature during/as the landscaping layers were being laid down. You’d need a firm base for that – perhaps the floor of a bathing house? We’ll explore that tomorrow.


At the end of day three, the Bathing House remains elusive, but we are learning more. Perhaps the most important finding of the day is the proof that the deep deposits we found in July are not isolated, sitting – for example – in a hole left behind by removing the plunge pool. They reiterate that this whole area was hugely remodelled after the building was demolished – and important chapter in Studley Royal’s history that we knew nothing of before.

Its also interesting that, as yet, we’re not finding anywhere near as much building rubble as in July. This might be because the landscaping is even deeper here – a puzzle for the morrow.