Bower's Mill: Finds in the First Room

The picture below shows the type of layers in the first room. The top layer was ivy and topsoil, next there was rougher soil and smaller stones; this layer contained most of the finds, then there was a layer of very sandy, yellowy grit. In all layers there were BIG stones which clearly had collapsed from the walls. Finally, mainly in the East side there was a layer of compacted coal dust which we have pretty much left in full. There was some on the West side (not as much) but we wanted to get down to the floor level so we removed it.

We were quite surprised at the lack of roofing material that we found; we can only assume it had been robbed for use elsewhere.

So, finds in the first room were:

1. A chamber pot.
2. A casserole pot.
3. A jug. (diameters: base 110mm, widest point 150mm, top 110mm. Height 195mm)
4. A plate. (230mm diameter)
5. Roof tile. (330mm long rounded on the end that has the lug on the rough side)
6. General bits of pottery.
7. Assorted glass.
8. Bones.
9. Pottery - not sure what this is.
10. Part of a big bowl used to make dough. (this was in the lowest layer)
11. Lead slag.
12. Metal.
13. A big chunk of metal taken from the gap in the middle of the floor.
14. Bricks (one of which came from the very bottom).
15. Pink stones.
16. Stone roof slates.
17. Stone ridge tiles?
18. Shaped stones.
19. A button back. (17mm dia)
20. A strip of lead.
21. A Key.
22. Stuff that didn't feel like it was natural to the area - possibly ore/flux/some waste product from the process.

Picture 1. A chamber pot.

Picture 2. A casserole pot.

Picture 3. A jug. (diameters: base 110mm, widest point 150mm, top 110mm. Height 195mm)

Picture 4. A plate. (230mm diameter)

Picture 5. Roof tile. (330mm long rounded on the end that has the lug on the rough side)

Picture 6. General bits of pottery.

Picture 7. Assorted glass.

Picture 8. Bones.

Picture 9. Pottery - not sure what this is.

Picture 10. Part of a big bowl used to make dough. (this was in the lowest layer)

Picture 11. Lead slag.

Picture 12. Metal.

Picture 13. A big chunk of metal taken from the gap in the middle of the floor. (Image of cleaned up find to follow.) And here it is.

Picture 14. Bricks (one of which came from the very bottom). The dimension of the full brick is 235mm x 60mm x 115mm. The others look to be similar although it's difficult to tell with the darker bricks in the top picture as they are quite distorted, presumably by intense heat, I assume they were used in the cupola.

Picture 15. Pink stones. There are considerably more than shown here, I just couldn't be bothered to wash them all! I read somewhere that the pinkness is due to exposure to extreme heat.