SPLASH! Rediscovering Studley’s Bathing House- That’s it, for now at least.

Main excavation, Day 5
MN 18th August 2013

The last, frenetic, day on site went really well. After a little morning rain, the sun came out and with it even more visitors than on previous days. Numbers were no doubt boosted by the very good press coverage we’ve been getting, and a growing band of loyal supporters who’ve been coming back to check on our progress, day after day.

Today’s agenda was pretty full with all the work to complete the site recording before backfilling on Monday. Then, this being the sort of site that’s been throughout the project, the archaeology had a few more surprise cards to play. It causes archaeologists a wry smile that so many excavations make their most interesting discoveries in their last few hours – it almost makes you wonder why we bother with the earlier days of the dig: we should just skip to the last day!

Tasks to complete in trench 3 included completing excavation of the large pit started yesterday, and carefully cleaning the south-eastern part of the trench, which has had relatively little attention so far. With the intervention of the morning rain this wasn’t completed until towards lunchtime when, under Richard and Nicky’s skilful trowelling, some significant, if ephemeral, new features emerged. These included a new stone-capped drain, set perpendicular to the back wall, and what appeared to be the bedding for a narrow brick wall, perpendicular to the new drain.

Cleaning these features and the rest of the trench, ready for recording, took much of the rest of the afternoon, and we three then worked on into the early evening. It wasn’t planned (and I felt a bit guilty about taking yet another slice of Nicky and Richard’s weekends) but it was a delightful way to draw the project to a close. Studley is wonderful at any time of day, any time of year, but it’s even more so than ever on a sunny summer evening as peace descends on it. What a special place to have the opportunity to dig.

One last task involved excavating some small investigative slots to explore some of the features a little further (a task that, relieved of duties talking to visitors, I actually got to take part in!). These confirmed that a secondary (damp-proofing?) drain ran along the full length of the inside of the remains of the north wall, though it didn’t turn south to join up with the newly discovered drain further to the south. That just came to a blind end part way across the site, its purpose unexplained. The brick wall bedding proved to be just that – a layer of bedding sad less than half a centimetre thick. We were very lucky to spot it, a testament to Richard’s troweling skills indeed.

So there we are. As on any archaeological project, the majority of the discoveries that the work will uncover will e emerge from the post-excavation work, the business of analysing what we found and what it means. So there’s plenty more excitement to come in the weeks ahead, which we’ll report here in due course. But it is sad to come to the end of this excavation, especially having anticipated it for over 20 years.