Excavations at the Royal Bull’s Head Inn – Day 3 – October 15, 2014

What a great day! Harristown High School sent their grade 11 ancient history class out to us, with their teacher Jenny Ryan.
With their help, we finalized Square B, the square with the large cobbled feature. By the end of the day it looked fantastic. We think we can say with some certainty that it constituted a driveway for horse drawn carriages and drays. What the excavation uncovered were long furrows and ruts through the cobbles, created by the cart wheels. These actually continue beneath the surface and beyond the excavation. They travel up the slope, visible on the contemporary surface in the form of more shallow depressions. When I can capture this feature with better lighting, I’ll add a few more photos to demonstrate what I mean.

A number of other interesting artefacts were uncovered today, such as a piece of a slate pencil, the bottom of a shot gun casing and an as-yet unidentified, articulated and sprung metal object.

 Work continued in the second pit, with the smaller cobbled feature becoming clearer as we excavatedthrough the deposit, and towards the end of the afternoon we strung up a third pit, also a 2×4, beyond the back fence. The purpose of this third excavation is to pick up the feature identified in Kelsey and Aaron’s geophys work, which we think may be the foundations of the inn keeper’s cottage.

In all, it was another great day’s work. I can’t speak highly enough of the students we’ve worked with so far. They are a constant source of fun, cheer, and of course labour! And as always, thanks to our steadfast USQ volunteers Eddie Thangavelu, Alyssa Madden, Mark Meara, Leanne Bateman, Peter Stainton, Daniel Derouet and and Grant Mottram. Also Jillian Smith, Chloe Delaney and Wendy Van Der Spoel.