The Hole in the North Wall

In the bank on the North West side of the ruins is visible a wall with a hole in. Clearly this is not just some random hole caused by stones falling out as it is quite regular and has a lintel above it. Our plan was to dig into the hole and also chase the wall left as far as we could. The success was limited; we had to abandon digging out the hole as we feared it may become unstable and there's a massive ash tree in the way. Also the wall pretty much stopped after a few feet. In fact it probably did go further and has collapsed.

 

So, what we did next was to move about 3 metres left and started a trench into the bank hoping to pick up the wall further round (to the South).

Unfortunately this proved to be a waste of time. What we did discover (we think) is that on top of the natural clay there is a grey layer of "stuff" which we think will be some sort of spoil from the industrial process. It contains brick fragments, coal and bits of pink sandstone. On top of this layer is more clay and broken sandstone which we think was probably tipped there when the big pond was excavated. (on the East side of the ruins)

About another 3 metres left (South) of this trench Sarah started scratching about around some stones that looked like they could be a wall. Before long she had found that it was indeed a wall and she started chasing it right (North)

It soon became clear that her wall was heading for my trench and so I started digging down to where it would intercept. This next picture shows what we found....

These 4 stones were perfectly in line and were all pink, showing that they had all been heated to high temperature. The following picture gives a better idea of where they sit in the overall context of the wall.

We have now stopped excavating this area and are awaiting the visit of Lynn Willies who will hopefully be able to make some sense of what is happening here.