36. Tuesday 12 April 2011

For our last session surveying Bull Pasture, we had two teams. Pauline, Helen and Vera set up their drawing table twice to finish off the tape offsets and triangulations surveying, while Jane and Peter completed their alidade survey. After lunch, Peter and Jane then used "Bob", the total station, to plot in a larger area.

Roger drawing © Jane Lunnon

And so the survey of the three fields was finally wrapped up and we said goodbye to Bank Fields for the spring. Now we wait for Roger to collate and interpret the results, and decide if further investigations are needed in the future.

Vera and Pauline surveying © Jane Lunnon

UWHG members can now focus on a summer of the farm buildings survey, excavations at Chapel House Wood, the Wilderness Beck Grotto project in Skipton, and the production of our report on the Whitfield project in Embsay. Jane Lunnon

33. Tuesday 15 March 2011

For various reasons there were only 4 of us to accompany Roger today – a miserable damp, misty day with a cold breeze.

Mist © Jane Lunnon

Pauline and Jane set to with the alidade – 2 vague figures in the mist on the far side of the field, while Ruth and Paul, assisted by ‘Bob’ attacked the banks in the top corner.

Having sorted us all out, Roger proceeded to plot a digital terrain map with the dGPS.

The tricky business of setting up the alidade © Jane Lunnon

After an early lunch, having struggled all morning with the visibility, and with both the lens and the prism repeatedly misting up, ‘Bob’ decided he had had enough and refused to focus on the prism.
Jane and Pauline were also struggling with the visibility, so we decided to call it a day and retired to that nice tea-shop in Cracoe, leaving Roger alone on the hill-side to finish his map.

Ruth Spencer

32. Tuesday 8 March 2011

The day was cold but fine, and we had another good turnout to work with Roger on the continuing survey of Grassington's facinating earthworks.

We began by looking at the results of last week's work, with Total Station results now plotted and the geophysical survey available. Ruth and Paul then set out careful "hachuring" of last week's work with the Total Station, before extending their topographical survey. Jane and Peter continued their work with alidade and drawing table. Helen, Pauline and Vera did more geophys.

Vera and Pauline wrapped on warm on a very chilly "spring" day ;

© Jane Lunnon

Their work last week had identified part of what might be a circular stony bank so grids were laid out to re-survey the area, hoping to capture the whole.

It often seems to be the case that getting the equipment set up is the most difficult (and longest-lasting) part of the day. Getting the grid properly measured for geophys. on hilly terrain, getting the alidade perfectly level on the drawing table and in exactly the right position....it's not as easy as it looks, and they never show it on Time Team! Roger's expertise was heavily in demand.

Paul on the total station, with Ruth in a sea of flags ;

© Jane Lunnon

But eventually we were working again and by the end of the afternoon we'd covered just about all we'd hoped to do at the morning's planning session. Another good week.

Vera Brearey

30. Wednesday 24 November 2010

Because it was so cold this morning, and snow was forecast as a possibility, the plane tables and alidade were abandoned in favour of geophysics which would keep us all moving around and relatively warm.

Today’s challenge was to survey a series of 20metre squares – but these squares were intersected by an old drystone wall – and not a straight one. While earthworks are clearly visible in one field, three of us were on the other side of the wall, in a field which is virtually featureless, apart from the remains of an old wall adjacent to the existing one – this field has recently been ploughed to be re-sown with grass, so that only geophysics can now reveal if anything interesting once lay here.

We worked on both sides of the wall, holding conferences while peering over the top, and holding tapes up high over the wall to measure off the 20m squares

– not easy for the little ‘uns amongst us! The transfer of equipment back and forth over the wall was also an interesting exercise.

Admittedly we went wrong a couple of times, miscalculating the number of “dummy” readings we had to build in to take account of the meanderings of the wall across the middle of our survey area, and then in the afternoon finding the plug has come out of the cable drum, so that the readings were being taken from a circuit that was completed by the plug lying in wet grass. We had to re-take a large chunk of the geophysics survey. Still, it’s all good fun! In the end we did remarkably well, covering a good deal of ground, and it didn’t snow after all. But we were beginning to get very cold, and our fingers were getting numb.

We felt we thoroughly deserved our late afternoon tea, hot chocolate and cream scones at the Cracoe café.

Jane Lunnon

28. Wednesday 10 November 2010

Peter Gallagher writes:

Whilst most of the team were measuring in the other field, Jane and I were selected, cajoled, threatened, to use the Alidade in the farthest field. There was only one small snag, neither of us knew how to work the thing! Anyway we set it up on the plane table and tried to look busy for a while until Roger could come and sort us out.

He soon showed us where we were going wrong. Basically everything! So we had lunch and were able to use it in the afternoon.

I say we, I held the staff and Jane did all the hard work in between whimpering softly.

But the weather was great, we had a good walk over the field to start with, and it appears we may be looking at some housing platforms of Iron or even Bronze age.

Peter Gallagher

20. Bank Lane Wednesday 22nd September 2010

Despite ominous weather forecasts, we enjoyed a beautiful day today for our second session in the fields off Bank Lane. The task was to draw up the preliminary Gazetteer of features in which we compiled a rough plan of the site, and gave each visible feature an ID number and GPS reference.

We split into 3 teams, and as ever, found that the aim to complete our mission by the end of the day was, in the event, far too ambitious. Still, we made excellent progress, and as we became more familiar with the site, were getting faster at the recording process. Our new volunteers, Jennifer, Margaret and Paul, appeared to enjoy themselves and cottoned on quickly to the surveying.

Far too much hilarity at lunch-time © Jane Lunnon

It is becoming very clear that this has a very different feel to High Close, yet some features seem familiar in character. There are some very substantial earthworks, some of which appear to continue under the walls into neighbouring fields, which is very intriguing.

Alan and Paul ponder over the intricacies of the earthworks © Jane Lunnon

There is still some more work to do on the Gazetteer next week and we hope for continuation of good weather.

Jane Lunnon.

Wednesday 2 September 2009

And so, with a summer of archaeological excavations and holidays behind us, we're back at High Close for the autumn session of field surveys. With the weather suitably autumnal, 11 of us set to work picking up the threads of where we left off, way back in May. A team of three finished the drawings for the corner they had begun in the spring, while two others marched off with the GPS to take a series of readings over the west side of the field. Alison re-acquainted herself with the drystone walls, following up on her interesting investigations of orthostats and possibly mediaeval boundaries. David considered where to start with the alidade and helped Roger set up the fixed reference points, while Ruth, Jane and Pat investigated a new patch for detailed topographical survey. Having selected our area and decided on the logistics of the survey in this new area, we established the base lines. Eventually, the herd of bullocks who had expressed great curiosity throughout the morning in our work, and had followed us around like faithful dogs, had become bored with us, and decided to wander off. By early afternoon it was getting very gloomy overhead and a downpour threatened. So we packed up and headed back for Grassington, just managing to get into our cars as the heavens opened and heavy rain came down. Still, we had made a good start and felt we were certainly back in the swing of things again.