Voyages to the House of Diversion
Seventeenth-Century Water Gardens and the Birth of Modern Science


February 2015 - So much to do, so little time...

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After an explosive burst of action through the chilly weeks of January, February saw a partial retreat to the study to get to grips with 'The Strengths and Weaknesses of the Early Stuart Monarchy'. A slightly frustrating task as we were now in a position to further explore the cistern down at Enstone which had been revealed by the trench to lay on power to the site. Just a day a week was allocated to the task so after clearing the turf and topsoil and starting to clean up what was underneath a very curious structure indeed started to emerge. What we had seemed to be, at first viewing, a small water proof tank enclosed by massive stone walling. This was really quite puzzling and at an early stage everything was very speculative. Such heavy duty construction speaks of either a very substantial superstructure, could this have been the foundations of a stair turret attached to the great house with a basement cess-pit? Didn't really make sense. The other context in which I've seen such such walling has been as seating for machinery, water wheels or steam engines... in this location? Then again could it have been a base for a water tower? We were going to visit one from the seventeenth century at the Chateau de Modave in Belgium in March so anything was possible. The simple fact was that at that stage we had no idea what this really represented but I suspected it was going to become much clearer quite quickly, but then it didn't.



     February
On the main building site work had begun to cut out the terrace on which the house was to stand. We worked in temperatures below freezing and had to pick away the top 5 cm. as it was frozen solid.




February     February
Starting to clean up nicely: the actuality and an interpretation.




Another week went by before we were able to return to Enstone and work was concentrated on removing the fill from the late 20th. century power cable trench, that was me, while Robin started on excavating the rubble fill to the cistern and Peter worked on defining the northern edge of the wall to the north. Robin's efforts uncovered some curious structural elements including a squared socket like feature against the retaining wall to the west and an odd offset paralleling a similar narrowing of the feature on the other side. The material packed into the cistern became much more rubbly and mortary and dense to the point where we were struggling to establish the southern limit of the walling. Peter found the question of the edge of the north wall equally challenging but in the course of carefully lifting assorted spreads of rubble came across a curious little cache consisting of a well made but hefty bone awl, some animal bone and pottery, probably of the 17th. century and a very nice clay pipe bowl which again be ascribed to the opening decades of the 17th. century. What it was all doing there precariously balanced on a piece of tile above a series of voids is difficult to say but it resembles the material (plus clay pipe bowl) that we identified the rubble back fill behind the terrace wall up by the barn (See December's entry ). Unfortunately there was then another long wait (more essay time needed) before we could return to the spot.



+     February
Peter and Robin set about their appointed tasks.                                                                                                         Peter's curious collection.




February     February
The scene by the end of the day, lots of work done but still lots to clarify.                                               Meanwhile the hole for the house gets deeper as they scrape through a band of blue clay.



Of course one of highlights of February had to be the 'Stars and Snowdrops' day at Hanwell, organised by the community observatory, we had several hundred visitors, many coming as a family, to walk round the gardens, peer into archaeological excavations, admire the snowdrops and learn more about astronomy before ending up with tea and cake by a log fire.



     February
The display marquee with plant stand and spoon carver.                                                                                     A smithing display gets underway.




February     February
About to hit the trail, visitors pause at the first information panel.                                                                      The crowds cluster round the telescopes and astronomers.




February     February
Following the visitors around, coming towards the Great East Terrace and, of course, snowdrops.                                                                                          The quest is over, heading off for tea and cake.




Taking a break from the seventeenth century the weekend of the 21st. / 22nd. saw us supporting the Chacombe Archaeology Weekend. A small group of local enthusiasts have been  encouraging their community to take a more informed interest in Berry Close, a suggestively named field next to the church. In all we spent five days on site and came up with some exciting results. You can read all about it HERE.

February
Work begins at Chacombe.




Amidst all the excitement at Chacombe a very wet morning at Enstone proved equally interesting. it was raining from the outset but  a couple of hours were done before everything got just too slippy and sloppy. However, during the course of this a couple of things became clear. First up the fill of our cistern was actually sorted in such a way so that we had fallen stone roof tiles to the north with rubble and mortar and then slabs of fallen whitewashed plaster to the south. Could this be the remains of a structure above the tank rather than demolition material from the great house? The structure continues to be a puzzling one, a situation made worse by the discovery that the south side of the tank instead of having a vertical face actually sloped up to the south at an angle of around 45 degrees. This is very curious, could be be looking at the remains  of some kind of ornamental structure or is it something like an elaborate silt trap?




February     February
The cistern looking west, to the right piles of roof tiles to the left plaster and the beginnings of the sloping ramp.                  Close up of the damp ramp and adjacent stonework and rendering, looking south.




February
What a way to spend your birthday!