Newsletter 270

Aspull Ring Ditch Progress

Despite the seemingly constant wet weather, our Bronze Age site at Aspull is developing quite nicely. Last month I reported that we had joined up the Trenches 1b and 3a in order to chase the large flat stones we had discovered in Trench 1b. They seemed to be heading towards the sandy clay mound feature in Trench 3a, which contains our second urn. However, opening up this area revealed no more large flat stones. Lying under the general scatter of small stones though, a jumble of medium sized stones began to emerge. They seemed to be bordering the northwest flank of the mound and appear to be going quite deep. On the west side a pocket devoid of stones emerged, seemingly defining the edge of these stones. After removing more of the overlying layer of stones, the pocket extended both north and south and seemed to connect with the other area devoid of stones on the southwest side of the mound. So it seems our sandy clay mound is developing into quite a feature, and could well be representing the earliest phase of the monument.

The octagonal feature, reported on in last month's edition, is also being to reveal its secrets. Careful excavation of the interior has shown it to contain large pieces of burnt wood, a couple of pieces of worked flint and amongst the charcoal, small fragments of cremated bone. This is our first indication that the feature could be in fact another cremation urn, albeit large and poorly fired.

Close examination of one of the fragments suggests it could be a section of rib from a new-born child. As excavations continue, the base of the feature is being to emerge revealing it to be bowl shaped. This would suggest that the vessel is in the upright position.

Work continues in our other trenches as we try to establish the full extent of the stony layer. Extending Trench 3b towards the northeast is still revealing stones beneath the layer of mottled clay. The burnt layer however seems to have disappeared.

We have also been having a fresh look at the ditch in Trench 1. This trench last year suffered a partial collapse and cleaning out the material has given us the opportunity to expand the trench to expose more of the side walls cut into the natural rock. Strangely the ditch does not seem to be heading in the expected direction, (i.e. veering northwest to match up with the ditch exposed on the north side of the ring in Trench 8). We have therefore started some test pits on the northwest side of Trench 1 to see if we can understand what's going on here.

As always, you can follow our progress on our website blog here.

Next Meeting

Wednesday 5th June - at the Real Crafty on Upper Dicconson Street starting at 7.30pm as usual. Our speaker this month was going to be Dot Hawkes, secretary of the Lathom Park Trust on the History of Lathom House. However she is unable to attend but thankfully, Jim Meehan has been able to step in at the last moment to give his talk on Standish Hall. During lockdown Jim was able to finalise a lot of research that had gone on over the years trying to find out what had happened to the internal fittings of the Hall when it was demolished in the mid 20th century. His results were published in an article in the Past Forward magazine and Jim will be able to expand on this fascinating tale at the meeting. Hope to see you there - BA.