Aerial Acrobatics at Bodkin Hall

We did a lot of digging at Bodkin Hall on Sunday the 21st of September. Well, when I say ‘WE’, I’m using the royal ‘WE’ here, of course. I just ate a lot pies and issued a lot of orders and stuff myself, but everyone else did a lot of digging and that’s what counts.
In fact, here’s the finished, rather complicated, result:


Now you might be wondering how we attained such a detailed overhead shot as that. Even Frank’s plane has to fly at a certain altitude by law and couldn’t achieve such close up aerial photography.
Well, the truth is, it turned out that (following a brief discussion concerning insurance policies and such) Mr. Bradshaw (the hall’s owner) was a bit of an acrobat. Full of eager enthusiasm to record the results of the day, he scrambled up the drainpipe at the back of his house and inched himself along the apex of the garage roof.
Don’t believe us? Well here’s the proof:


Kids, don’t try this at home!
In fact don’t try this sort of thing anywhere.
Such acts of bravado/stupidity should be left in the hands of untrained but highly insured Pilling councillors. And if you still want to try it, don’t forget that we’d already dug the trench/shallow grave, so if he’d taken a tumble we’d simply have back-filled the whole lot and walked away quietly whistling. (“Mr. Bradshaw? No, officer, haven’t seen him all day. He said something about back-packing round North Korea and left with a rucksack.”)
It’s a good photograph regardless, but because it’s so complicated we’ve decided to simplify it as the following diagram:


Now, we’re sure that everyone who’s been following this excavation over the past few weeks would like a proper explanation (even if everybody else doesn’t). So, here’s the key:

1. Cobbled area lying just below the drive surface. (Just check back through the previous postings if you haven’t got a clue what we’re talking about. I’m sure we’ve recorded that bit before somewhere.)
2. Area removed from cobbled surface on 7th September 2008 in order to check the stratigraphy beneath. (Again, if this is confusing you then either check back through the previous postings or hold onto your seats, because it’s going to get a lot worse.)
3. Straight line of very crumbly bricks, level with upper cobbles. (Told you…)
4. Holes in the cobbled area. These contained well-defined layers of clay beneath which lies another cobbled surface. (Had enough yet?)
5. More holes in the cobbled area. These contained the same well-defined layers of clay as found in area 4 but no apparent lower layer of cobbles. (Getting this, are you?)
6. Disturbed ground where a modern drain has been laid. (It’s easy after you’ve read it about seventy times.)
7. Concrete slab jutting out from beneath garage. (We haven’t figured that bit out ourselves yet.)
8. Drive surface unexcavated. (At least that bit’s self-explanatory.)
9. Area of drive excavated down to the first level. This appears to be an earlier drive surface. (Unfortunately that bit’s where it starts to get confusing again.)
10. Layer beneath second drive surface consisting of grey silt containing cockleshells. (Don’t jump to conclusions.)
11. Layer beneath silt level consisting of dark clay. (Yes…that’s got us puzzled as well.)
12. Area of burnt, crunchy substance lying alongside the disturbed ditch for the drain at the same level as the upper cobblestones. (Even more puzzled and with the onset of a mild headache.)
13. Area of dark clay beyond the north edge of the upper layer of cobbles. (As the Americans would say: “Go figure!”)

So, that’s cleared that lot up then. (Bet you’re glad you tuned in to read this now, aren’t you?)
And our conclusions?
Well, we’ll leave them until the next episode I reckon. (Let’s put it this way…we’re still digging the drive up so we obviously haven’t had any profound revelations just yet.)
In the meantime, here’s one last photograph. That new bloke in white is Wyre Archaeology’s latest recruit Carlo. At the time of writing we haven’t returned to Bodkin Hall yet, so we’re not entirely sure whether our overwhelming presence has put him off archaeology forever or not.
Hopefully not.