| Exhibition at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology closes |
| 23/1/2018 |
| Our successful exhibition of what CAFG does at the Museum closes this Thursday evening (25th Jan). For those who have not visited it yet, your final opportunity is before close of the Museum on Thursday afternoon. Apparently it's success means that the Museum is going to carry on with a new display by Access Archaeology to demonstrate what test pitting in villages can tell people about where they live. We look forward to seeing this story. | |  |
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| 2018 AGM |
The AGM on 4th April 2018 resolved to retain subscriptions for 2018/19 at £12 for individual membership and £18 for families. Officers and committee remain unchanged, with the addition of co-opted members, Bill and June Woodfield.
We are 40 this year! We are planning celebratory events. |
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| Our summer excavation at Wimpole |
| 13/6/2018 |
For our annual excavation at Wimpole we will be returning to Johnston's Pond up near the Folly. Last year we excavated part of a substantial brick-built structure which we hoped was associated with the water supply to the 18th C fountain. Although we went down over a metre in depth we did not find any sign of an outlet from this structure.
Therefore this year we will tackle the northern end of the structure. This can be seen as the broken line of bricks right at the bottom of the photograph near the ranging rod. We hope to explore whether this is another substantial brick wall and what its relationship is to the pond that lies just north of it. The dates of the scheduled excavation period are 2nd July - 11th July, although we may extend this as we know more about the result. | |  |
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| Hidden conduit at the front of the House |
| 29/5/2018 |
Over the years of digging at Wimpole we have uncovered a number of brick-built conduits (notably by the fountain). This photograph shows another conduit exposed when the trench for the heat pump pipes running across the front of the House was dug. A camera showed that it was not in use as a roof fall about 20m under the grass blocked the exit.
Several more brick-built features have also been exposed and this heat pump work is adding lots of information to the knowledge of what lies beneath the ground close to the house.
Our monitoring of the drilling pits continues with a total of 10 now examined. So far no exciting finds to report. | |  |
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| Work begins on the Borehole testing at Wimpole |
| 22/5/2018 |
The group has started working at the Wimpole site observing the drilling of some 30 boreholes to be used for their new heat pump system. The first holes in the carpark road area produced nothing of significance, just one piece of very abraded medieval pottery. The photo shows the cross-section where the surface layer of road scrapings sits above a hardcore layer of sand and limestone chippings. Under this is a layer of mesh laying directly on the underlying clay.
Obviously the top soil had been scraped off when the surface was laid so no finds could be recovered. | |  |
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A picture of the drilling rig used for the boreholes can be seen on our Facebook page. An important part of the system is the Mud Puppy shown in the next photo. This separates the drilled material from the water used by the drilling head so that the water can be recycled. The mud will be used elsewhere as make-up.
More holes will be drilled on the grass areas so it will be interesting to see what that produces. | |  |
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| More on Westerwald pottery found at Comberton |
| 24/4/2018 |
| During our last session in Comberton, one of the finds was a nice piece of a Westerwald stoneware tankard base, shown in the photograph. What is interesting about this piece is the fact that it uses both the normal cobalt blue band around the base but also a manganese purple filled area containing a stylised leaf in relief. This helps date the item more closely as this combination of colours was only used for a short period during the years 1650 - 1680AD and again in the last quarter of the 19th C. | |  |
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| More information on the Heat Pump activity at Wimpole |
| 24/4/2018 |
For those who would like to know more about Heat Pumps and how they work, Historic England have a free publication on their website explaining how they work and their advantages. It can be accessed via www.historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/eehb-heat-pumps.
Wimpole will use both Ground Source heat Pumps (for the main house) and an Air Source Heat Pump (for the new visitor reception in the new car park at Lamp Hill). |
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