Shoot four navigation
By the time the crew is ready to film, Phil Harding has already been in his trench for an hour. ‘This brick rubble isn’t too hard to dig. There’s a lot of it, but it’s quite loose and comes away alright,’ says Phil. ‘One of the good things with it is you can get a machine in to dig it. That always makes a good show. Every time I look at this trench I see something new has appeared. It’s almost as if the further we go the more goals we have to set ourselves. This is lovely stuff.’
By 10.00am the mechanical digger is in place and Grant (with Casper the dog) is working away full steam ahead.
‘Whoa whoa whoa!’ shouts Phil from the side of the trench. Jumping in, trowel in hand, he digs away some of the edge next to where the digger bucket was scraping. ‘Look at that!’ enthuses Phil. ‘We’ve got a lovely bit of worked stone curving around the left-hand side. Looks like we've found a bit of the casting arch.’ After some more clearing back a floor level is found. ‘I don’t think that’s the casting floor because it’s a bit high in the stratigraphy for my liking, but it’s a good sign.’
Production runner Blake McGrow races up to the trench in a four by four looking rather stressed. ‘Can’t stop, I’ve got to get these tapes back to the incident room!’
Meanwhile, Onsite catch up with Tim Taylor for his views on things so far: ‘We’re getting near the end. The casting arch should be about four feet wide. We’ve got about a foot of it so we’re going to try and get in the trench and widen it some more. We also have some load bearing lintels that run across the top of the arch. We’ve poked a camera between the rubble and it looks like we could have a void behind the actual arch itself.’
So what are your plans for the rest of the shoot?
‘So far we’ve focused on the industrial manufacturing side of things. It looks like we could have some evidence for houses or buildings over in the field with the terraces, so if it all works out, we could get a look at the social side of the people who worked in these places.’
You have the arch and some evidence from the terraced field, how about the casting floor?
‘We’ve got some floor material, but it doesn’t look like it’s the actual working surface of a casting floor. The search continues.’
Time Team researcher, George Pagliero, has found this site quite interesting: ‘I have to say that industrial archaeology isn’t my favourite thing, but this site has been fascinating. This place was obviously such a focus for the thriving new manufacturing processes of the time. The whole area is just buzzing with archaeology.’
To sign off from Onsite for this shoot we caught up with Mick Aston for his overall view: ‘I’ve got to say that I like this early industrial stuff. However, I’ve thought for many years that the traditional theory of the Industrial Revolution starting in the 18th century was a bit dodgy.’
Why?
‘There were just so many inventions and innovations going on in the 1600s! People were willing to try anything. It’s true that they didn’t get into mass production, urbanisation and slums, but they did start the wheels turning. I’m also a bit suspicious about the fact that every important industrial centre in 19th century Britain has a Cistercian Abbey in the middle of it. Maybe the roots for this whole movement into industry originates as early as the 15th century.’
So you think that monks could have got the industrial ball rolling?
‘Monasteries were already working away on various projects like metal-working, driven by influential bailiffs and the like. I think the whole idea of industrial scale manufacture could have been fermenting in those early times. When the dissolution of the monasteries happened people started buying up the monastic sites with established workshops, kilns and even furnaces in rare cases. I’ve just got this sneaking suspicion that the whole thing could have started developing that early. However, having said that, I’m sure that the big push really does happen in the 17th century. That’s the catalyst!’
Have you enjoyed this programme?
‘I think it’s been great. I like my industrial archaeology clean and rural. I’ve done a lot of work on both parts of the reconstruction cameo and learnt a few new things. I think I can safely say that it’s going to be a good programme. I certainly enjoyed it.
And after many requests the final picture is of the Onsite team.
