Friday 8th September 1989  - (Week One)                        Royston Maybery

The dig is drawing nigh and preparations are now underway for the trip to Lindisfarne. The ride from Newport to Leicester went without undue trouble. The climate was mild and dry. The motorcycle 'an East German MZ 250'  finished the journey in good mechanical order. I arrived at 2:00 p.m. yesterday, tired and irritable after a long ride. It is due to this that I have decided to make tomorrow’s journey in two parts, stopping off in Ripon for the night. It only remains now to do my washing. I have no clean clothes save those I am wearing now.

The weather today is miserable. I awoke this morning to a dull overcast view from my bedroom window, and rain running down the glass pane. Not the weather for motorcycling to the far north of England. However, after having performed some chores during the day; shopping, washing and such like, the weather cleared up a little during the afternoon, giving me encouragement for tomorrow’s ride.

Tonight I will pack my bag , thermos flask for coffee (instant), trowel for the dig and cameras for photographs. "So there we are then" all set with the adventure about to begin.

I awoke this morning after an evening’s preparation and a sound sleep to find a day overcast but mild.

I was off on the road by 10 o’clock, calling first at the cash-point to get some money for the day and then at the garage to get some two stroke oil, petrol and some gear oil. The journey was well under way by 11 o’clock, heading for the M1 north which would, apart from the stretches of the A1, take me all the way to Lindisfarne.

There were lots of motorbikes on the road today ‘no doubt going to various rallies.’ Leaving Leicester there was a BMW K100 wrecked on the side of Regents Road ‘a very expensive accident!’

It was my initial intention to make the journey northwards in two stages. However, by the time I reached my half way stopping off point I was still fresh enough to continue the ride. I decided to push on northward and kill the journey in one day.

Apart from getting a little lost in Leeds the journey was uneventful, in fact a little uninteresting. I was, in the event, helped on my way by another biker and was soon back on the A1 northwards. A few spots of rain fell just before and after Newcastle, though, this was only enough to wet my spectacles.

A few stops were made on the way for the bike and refreshments and one stop in Alnwick for some more money from the cash-point.

I was struck by the beauty of the area when I came in sight of the sea. It was not long after that I gained my first sight of Lindisfarne Island. It was squatter than I had imagined but nonetheless beautiful. Several miles later I crossed to the Island using the causeway, which was above water due to low tide. I knew it would be, since I was now arriving at about he time when the other students were due to be picked up from Berwick on Tweed Railway/Bus station.

My arrival at the island was well timed for the first person I met in the village was Dr Young from the archaeology department.

I was soon settled into ‘Marygate House’ a hostel run by Christians (so it was grace before every meal.) The archaeology department has used this hostel since this dig started, "this is at least as far as I know."

Many of the other students have been here for a week, or more, already. Some are going home at the end of this week, the times are staggered.

After tea we retired to the pub and spent a pleasant evening in congenial chat and playing pool. Here we were on this island, which entered the pages of history, heralding the beginning of the Viking era, on the 8th of June 793 AD when there was ‘great slaughter and rapine.’

Sunday, whilst on digs, is a working day for us archaeologists, despite being in temporary residence at a Christian hostel. The site is at Green Shiel on the north of the island. We are excavating a late Saxon set of buildings, possibly a farmstead or small village, "more likely the former."

There are several buildings of which one, the southernmost, has already been excavated. It was probably a cattle shed. This being on the grounds that a dead cow was found in it, two dead cows in fact, if one includes a calf.

To the east of the buildings is a field system. This is on the other side of a ridge of sand dunes. However, as yet no connection has been made between the fields and the buildings, this remains for future research.

Three Saxon coins have turned up on the site over all, and a fourth turned up on our dig today. It was a Saxon styca of intermediate date possibly 9th century.

The dig is still in its early stages, at least our part of it is. Every bucket of rubble and stone is counted, every bucket of sand sieved and every 50th bucket is bagged, labeled and sent to the lab in Leicester for wet sieving.

Today after lugging large buckets of sand and stone about I was moved onto drawing the site at the exposed levels. I spent about six hours on this and will do some more tomorrow. My technical drawing skill was quickly recognized, having done some draughting in the past.

The site is twenty minutes walk from the hostel (Marygate House) most of which is across grass. The hours of digging are; 9:30 until 6 o’clock, 10:30 until 6 o’clock on Sunday.

Wayne Jarvis turned up late in the afternoon. Dr Young pointed out to him that he should have been here yesterday. Everyone in earshot sniggered at this. It wasn’t serious at all, Wayne is something of a star in the archaeology department. He is headed for a first class degree, is truly interested in the subject, shares his work, and has dragged himself to where he is by his own effort. He is from a working class, north of England background. Wayne did about three hours on the dig, then we all knocked off for the evening.

We all went back to the hostel, got washed and changed then most of the students went to the pub. Wayne and myself went down ,on the motorbike, to have a look at Lindisfarne castle. An interesting site just adjacent to the castle is the ‘Lime Kilns.’ We walked about their ruins for a while. We took the bike back to the hostel. Then we walked to the pub to join our peers in an evening of drinking and conversation. We stayed there until about 12 o’clock.

Today was another day of drawing. It took nearly all day, only one hour, from 5 until 6 o’clock was I excavating. I planned out and drew up 15 square metres today, on the eastern end of the building.

Another Saxon styca was found today. Though most of the finds consist of bone, snail shells, and sea shells. A horse shoe turned up on the site (probably modern) and apparently some lead crops up from time to time.

On my bit of the dig it was mostly bone, sea shells and some teeth. The dig is in sand and the site nestles in the dunes in sight of the North Sea. The site is gridded off into square metres using ropes and pegs. From each square metre finds are bagged and listed with reference to the grid and vertical strata from which they came.

Great lengths are pursued in recording information from the site. In the planning, for example, each stone is individually drawn in relation to the others until a picture of the entire site is built up.

After the days work on the site Wayne and Myself went down to the Priory. It was after dark and the Priory was just a ghostly silhouette set against the evening sky. To gain entry we crossed through the church yard and climbed the wall, nearly falling foul of two dark holes that looked like wells in the night.

Before going down to the pub we wandered around the ruins. Wayne much to his annoyance lost a screw from his spectacles and finished up wiring them as a temporary repair. We left by the entrance which we found was left open. This of course had made our more hazardous entry unnecessary.

It was a late night and I had had a mild stomach upset during the afternoon. In the pub I partook of a double brandy and a pint of Guinness.

There will be no water today after 8 o’clock since work is being done on the mains. I arose a 7, made some coffee for my flask and had a cup to wake me up.

Either I was already recovered when I went to the pub last night or the brandy and the Guinness did the trick. My stomach upset had abated.

A short stroll was taken this morning before breakfast, down past the Priory to the sea shore. The morning was fresh and bright. We were looking for Jenny Bell’s Well Midden but we turned the wrong way on the beach and did not find it. After making reference to the map we will go the right way next time. Wayne and I will also take our cameras along since the light is so good.

Breakfast is at quarter to 8 and we were at work by 10 o’clock. Despite an early morning where the sun shone through promising a day of UV exposure; the dig was beset by drizzle. This lasted most of the day.

The day as a whole went well. In the morning as we walked across the dunes towards the site we saw a fox, a rather fat fox. Deirdre O’Sullivan, one of the directors of the dig and a lecturer at Leicester, pointed out that it was fat due to living in a larder. There are lots of rabbits living in the dunes. I see two or three rabbits a day, not only do they chew through our marking ropes but their burrowing throughout the years has not helped the archaeological stratigraphy.

Two more stycas turned up today along with lots of bone and shell. I say lots of bone and shell, that is in relation to the coins. The amount of bone and shell is no more than would be expected on this or any other similar site.

Today’s excavating was of benefit to me. It gave me practice in distinguishing contexts and understanding the illustrative recording method used for contexts.

Archaeology like most other subjects has its buzz words. These words are designed not only to describe things specific to the discipline but in my view are often used to exclude others not familiar with the jargon from participating. In short, use a few buzz words and it will enhance your reputation for intelligence, knowledge and sophistication.

Some of the buzz words in archaeology are; finds, artifacts, features and contexts. Finds are the loose objects that turn up in excavation. Such snail shells bones etc. Artifacts are finds that are made by people such as coins, tools, Jewelry, furniture, etc. Features are human made things that are part of the site, such as; walls, floors, entrances, and so on. Basically they are things that have at some time been built or cultivated. Contexts are the natural framework into which finds, artifacts and features fit. They can be the surrounding terrain or more importantly a particular chronologically self contained spot that an individual archaeologist is excavating at a given moment.

All of these things are mapped and recorded in detail. Finds are bagged and labeled with reference to the square metre and context in which they are found. The positions of conspicuous finds such as coins are marked up on the site itself using a label attached to a nail poked into the ground.

Features and contexts are mapped, in the case of our site to a scale of one over twenty. As each layer of context is removed a new drawing is made. Eventually this is built up into a three dimensional record of the site. This gives not only an overall picture of the site but a chronological sequence of construction and occupation.

I spent all day today working in the north west corner of the building. I worked on three square metres on context 309. At this stage intensive excavation is underway. Now one in ten buckets of sand are being bagged for wet sieving in the lab, rather than one in fifty.

The context that I was excavating went out eastward from the west end wall about a metre more than had been shown on our drawn plans. I had to draw up the appropriate correction.

Amongst my finds today was a very small piece of lead, just a small curl of it, no bigger than a small ring from a jewelry shop.

In the evening after tea and after I had done my turn helping with the washing of the dishes, Wayne and myself went down to Berwick on Tweed on the motorbike. I ate some haggis which I bought from the fish and chip shop, it was not unpleasant. The trip made a welcome break from the island. We returned at 10:30 well in time to miss the high tide and use the causeway. After going down to the pub to socialize with the other archaeologists for half an hour, we went back to Marygate to write up our journals and go to sleep.

There was only two of us in the room last night. Deirdre O’Sullivan and Dr Young were in conference all night. They both take their work very seriously!

I slept in until 8:30 this morning rather than being awoken by Dr Young’s 7 o’clock alarm or indeed being kept awake by his snoring.

No coins turned up on the dig today, just bone, sea shells and the jaw bone of a horse. The site is a’ceramic, meaning that there is no pottery, For some reason no pottery was produced in the north of England in the late Saxon period.

I asked Dr Young what size mesh we are using to sieve the finds. He told me that it is about 5mm. "About" seemed a little to approximate to me. I may get around to measuring it before the three weeks are up.

Deirdre O’Sullivan suggested today that the west wall ‘the wall I am working against’ may be a partition wall. This idea is due to the wall’s resemblance to the partition walls previously excavated in the southernmost building. If this is the case, it would make our building rather long, for it will now include what we thought or think to be an adjacent building.

Today I spent all day excavating. The site is very sandy which makes stratigraphy difficult but not impossible.

I went for a long walk in the evening. I am missing Kathy ‘my fiancée.’ Lindisfarne Island can be a grim and bleak place, and made all the more grim for my solitude. No drinking tonight, I rather decided on an early night.

The day started with an early morning pre-breakfast stroll down to the Priory. The sun was bright in the sky, just above the horizon. The air was crisp and bracing. Photographs of the Priory were difficult. In one direction the camera was pointing directly into the sun. In other directions I had to contend with long shadows, especially my own shadow intruding into the picture.

After the Priory it was on to St Cuthbert’s Island. The tide was out so it was possible to walk across. This time the photography was easier. the shots were more panoramic with neither the sun nor shadows intrusive.

Breakfast was at quarter to eight, a bowl of muesli and a slice of toast. After this it was the frantic filling of flasks and onward to the dig.

My day at the dig was spent largely in planning level (context) 316. There were no coins found today, though there have been four excavated since I have been here. This is an exceptional amount for a site of this type. Nothing even as exciting as yesterday’s horse jaw bone has come up today.

Tea this evening was of a bit better standard than usual, tonight it was acceptable, even pleasant, rather than abysmal.

An evening’s jaunt was taken, by Wayne and myself, on the motorbike down to Bambourgh and Sea Houses. The night was moon lit. It was bright enough to see the colour of the sky, though there was an autumn chill in the air. Bambourgh castle is an imposing site, floodlit in the night. It is no medieval ruin. Bambourgh itself is a trap for tourists. Every house seems to be a bed and breakfast. The other amenities seem to consist of pubs and hotels.

Sea houses was a little down market from Bambourgh. Sea Houses was larger with what looked like its own residents. It had no castle either.

The ride was pleasant as was last nights moonlit walk across the sand dunes of the wind swept island. I am very glad that I have the motorcycle and I am not marooned for three weeks.

Saturday tomorrow and a day off our labours. Once again I was up before eight A.M. awoken by Dr Young’s alarm clock. He has returned to this room after an apparently busy  night.

Rather than go for a walk, I instead took the opportunity to fill my flask with coffee and avoid the morning rush in the kitchen.

After breakfast we were soon off to the site. Walking to the site Deirdre O’ Sullivan seemed to be in a bad mood, a little dour. She was walking at the rear of the cortège. Wayne and I who were a little ahead of her tried to engage her in conversation, to little affect.

Work started amidst the dunes and Deirdre perked up. I was straight in at the job and on with what I was doing when we finished yesterday. This was shoveling the spoil heaps so that the sieves had room to swing on their framework. I was doing this for about 40 minutes yesterday and for about half an hour this morning. It was soon decided to extend the spoil heap and move the sieves. It was given to me to build a dry stone wall to contain the spoil adjacent to and as an extension to the present heaps.

This I did, Dr young showed me how to build a dry stone wall, using large flat stones from the rubble heap. Not only is every bucket of sand counted but so too is every bucket of stone from each context. It was already counted stones that I used for my dry stone wall. We lined the newly extended area with a plastic sheet, and a few of us moved the sieves and framework and the job was done.

Next it was decided to remove all the ropes on the site to take photographs. So all the students were kept busy removing all the ropes that mark the site into square metres. They wound them up around their arms like skipping ropes and them deposited them on the ground beside their pegs at the edge of the site. This done the site was swept down and loose stones were removed from the grass border.

Photographs commenced, Dr Young ascended the rather rickety platform some twenty feet high erected by Paul Beavitt some weeks before. Cameras were passed up to Dr Young in a bucket attached to a piece of rope. He was up there forty minutes or more. Nearly everyone on the site had a camera and everyone who had a camera had a photograph taken.

We had a short break for dinner, which consisted of a packed lunch; two filled bread rolls and a cup of instant coffee. Once lunch was over Deirdre O’Sullivan and Dr Young gave us all a talk on the progress of the excavation.

They started with the original magnetometer survey. They explained that this originally suggested the presence of a hearth, and thus evidence of human occupation. However, when the initial test dig took place two Anglo Saxon spear heads came up. These being of wrought iron accounted for the high magnetometer reading. Whilst being dateable finds in themselves, they came from a disturbed context and were not as useful as a hearth would have been. A hearth could have been dated using carbon 14 and would have been an indicator of the age of the context.

The excavation of the site had followed the normal progress of such digs. Starting with surveying and gridding out into metre squares, the turf was then removed and the site planned. When this was done the removal of the top layers began.  It was in these top layers of largely wind borne sand that the Stycas turned up. This context (301) of wind borne sand was disturbed. The presence of broken beer bottle glass was strong evidence of this.  Whilst it is true that much of the sand was borne by the wind it was mixed with other sand deposits on the site.  Of course neither the beer bottle glass or Anglo Saxon coins were put there by the wind.

Walls were coming up on the site as expected.  A resistivity survey of the site had already indicated their presence, as had a cursory glance of the ground.  The west wall was showing, as were the two long parallel north and south walls.  The east wall at the end of the building was as yet elusive.

It was at the south east end of the building that the doorway was expected.  The south wall at this end 'the east end' was showing what might be an elaborate affair of a doorway designed to stop draughts.  However, it was increasingly looking like tumble and rubble.

A new candidate was emerging on the east end of the north wall.  As yet however, this was only suggested by two parallel facing stones, set at an angle slightly east-west facing inwards.

Other questions were emerging, such as; roof material and the shortage of wood on the island, the presence of flat stones in the centre of the building?  Possibly these were stones situated beneath the ridge of the roof and once supported wooden columns.

A further and perhaps more crucial problem concerned the wall at the west end.  Due to the absence as of yet of corners at this end to this wall it is difficult to place its relationship to the rest of the building.  For without corners it stands separate, its masonry not being keyed into the north and south walls.  This wall therefore, could be the end wall of our building or it could be the end wall of the next. It could also be a dividing wall between the two and thus make our building part of a range.

Anyway, our site is the largest excavation of an Anglo Saxon rural settlement currently underway in Britain. It is also unique in that it is stone built.

Guided tour over, we knocked off early and went back to Marygate House. The evening was spent down the pub, which due to the tides, lack of police and the island's isolation, stayed open until 2.AM, well past closing time.

Go to Week Two

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© R.V. Maybery 1989 All rights reserved.