Day 13, Week 3 begins

With the end of machining on site, we now have more volunteers available and can begin exploring what we hope are the remaining archaeological layers.  We don’t know what Canon Jenkins left, but we are hoping that he concentrated on the walls and left undisturbed archaeology for us to investigate.  The coming weeks will reveal if this is the case.

 So we have been looking at the collection of walls to the west of the porch, and this is being revealed as more complicated that we initially thought.

Behind the digger standing in the trench is a low wall, at right angles to the nave to the left, that appears to be part of the Norman structure.  It is possible this is the foundation of an entrance into the Norman church.

Running parallel to the Norman nave is the wall of the Anglo-Saxon nave with its distinctive pink mortar.  This seems to have been undercut and propped up with stone and mortar of a later date, perhaps as late as Canon Jenkins.  In the picture above, you can also see the retaining wall of brick that Canon Jenkins inserted to hold back the path and allow the archaeology to be put on display in the 19th century.

Under the porch, there is quite a void.  The Anglo-Saxon wall is to the right of this picture, but it is difficult to see because so far we have been unable to clean very far inside this space.

To the east of the porch, the porticus wall has been revealed more clearly, to the right of this picture.  This seems to have been cut by the Norman wall of the nave.  The Anglo-Saxon walls in the foreground are much paler than the Norman wall behind.  Up against the porch you can see where the chancel meets the nave and the wall steps out.  Canon Jenkins thought that this step was the other wall of the porticus, parallel to the one to the right of the picture.  In fact, if this still survives, it is likely to be under the porch.