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

 October 2018 -The Rising Tide
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With the major diversions of other summer digging out of the way, almost, it was good to be able to set aside the whole month to focus exclusively, almost, on Hanwell. However, Monday October saw a lightening return to Packwood house and a remarkable discovery not irrelevant to our Hanwell studies.  This was a set of timbers pulled out of the lake silts by the contractor and deposited in the shallow end of the lake for me to examine. I suspect that these are the remains of a timber pipe and sluice mechanism that once ran under the dam presumably on the location where a later sluice was inserted, recorded by us back in August. I am slightly familiar with this form of construction as I helped excavate a similar example at Bordesley Abbey back in the 1980s... phew.

Now that's what I call a trench, the timbers were recovered from close to where the digger is parked.




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The timber collection with a detail of the top end with drain hole, the paired hollows are interesting could they be stops for a propping mechanism to open the sluice or can they have something to do with the flow of water?




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All wrapped up to be kept damp until further notice.




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The example excavated under the mill pond bank at Bordesley Abbey (c) Reading University







Once settled back in at Hanwell we were confronted with a severely soggy trench slowly filling up with percolating ground water, we must be nearly half a metre below the level of the nearby stream.To overcome this on the first afternoon I dug a deep sump through largely undifferentiated silts in the north west corner of the trench and found a rope to attach a bucket to for bailing out. It takes about 20 minutes at the start of each day since you asked. We hope to have a mechanical solution to this problem shortly. the main task once things had been sponged dry was to plan and then lift the various pieces of fairly fragile glassware we had identified as well as excavate and list the slightly scattered bones of the cat. These removed we were free to concentrate on cleaning the remaining big pots ready for planning and eventually lifting. hand in hand with this was the continuing campaign to remove turf and topsoil from the new eastern section of moat where we anticipated keenly the discovery, amongst other things of the remains of the access bridge.
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At the start of the week it was all slightly submerged so in went the sump and here is the water draining away, temporarily.




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Once drained the surface was still very damp to much of it had to be accessed by balancing on planks.




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Out come the first piece of fine glassware, an extraordinarily thin walled case bottle, Peter sets to on the trench side to wash and then box it up.




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The neck and upper part of a fine flask possibly once containing a spirit such as genever, the early form of gin plus the foot of a goblet... for drinking it out of?



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Here it is partially cleaned with a small  medallion possibly impressed with a monogram.




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.. and the slightly disarticulated bones of our cat.




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Everyone hard at work with Chris displaying an unexpected halo.  Ian was cleaning pot 10 with suitably impressive results...




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.. before moving on to pot 11, Chris is extracting the remains of another small badly broken but fine case bottle.




After a slightly damp weekend it was time to bail out again but after half an hour hauling on a wet rope with a heavy bucket my back began to protest so the sensible course was forced upon us, look for a mechanical solution. Christopher and I started to explore options for the repair/hire/loan/purchase of a suitable pump (more to follow). What this meant was that in order to keep our heads above water we had to transfer our attention to the higher ground of the octagonal island itself. This involved a rather tedious scraping of all the exposed surfaces to remove months of moss and algae. Slightly more rewarding was the opportunity to finish stripping the turf and topsoil from the new area to the east and giving the top of the north west wall a good clean so it was ready for photographing and planning. The other focus was the very centre of the island where logic and precedent suggests there was a large fountain presumably carried on a massive foundation. No trace yet but still looking. One bright spot was the discovery of a George III silver sixpence of 1817 at the interface between the topsoil and the subsoil. Nice but not hugely informative. And meanwhile the waters keep on rising.




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The waters rising.                                                                                                                                     Work starts up top.




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Peter and Chris ( not that Peter, not that Chris ) start cleaning the wall and Helen finished it off followed by me and the leaf blower.




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All looking very tidy until the next shower of autumn leaves.     A coin and the find spot as the search for the central fountain continues.




The start of week three saw the arrival, via the back of my jeep, of a large two inch pump on hire from Gem Tools - £25 a day should anyone be interested. Monday afternoon was spent getting it in position, it was very heavy, and starting to pump out. This meant that by Tuesday morning it was fairly easy to complete the job so we could get into the trench and do a little tidying up. The day also saw a visitation from my D. Phil. supervisory panel to see the sites and discuss the future progress on the thesis so a productive but intense few hours were spent thrashing that out. Unfortunately the pump had to go back on Wednesday morning, fortunately we have the offer of unlimited access to a smaller pump for the foreseeable future. Anyway this meant that much of Wednesday and Thursday had us back on top of the island shifting topsoil... it has to be done ... and the job continues to throw up intriguing finds - see below. Other work writing up the summer's investigations at Croft Castle lead me to stumble across an illustration of something I'd been looking for for ages, one of the garden pots excavated at Basing House, again, nothing like the Hanwell pots.
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The pump in action and Peter battles bravely with the liquid left behind.




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After the pump has gone back Helen and Hamish help in removing topsoil/exposing sub-soil to discover...




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... this curious copper alloy spout. Thanks to Helen with her contacts at the PAS for coming up with this parallel described as a post-medieval spout for a ewer ( Unique ID: BUC-D4C871). Of course  if it were that it could equally be a spout from a small ornamental tap or even from a fountain.




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An illustration from a catalogue for an exhibition held in 1987 by Southampton City Art Gallery on garden history, one of the Basing House urns. Read more about pots in gardens here.
Once the hire pump had been returned it was stand by for the new pump - a Draper 87680 Petrol Water Pump (£132 plus free delivery) should anyone be interested - which performed admirably by draining the swamp - to coin a phrase - in just under an hour. Whilst that was underway each morning we took the opportunity to work out up top by continuing to shift topsoil from the western extension. Once dryish ground was restored we got on with cleaning and lifting the remaining pots. Pot 11 was particularly interesting not only because of its slightly baffling form but also because of the fine collection of glassware nestling beneath it. We also took the opportunity (thanks Peter for the muscle) to lift the coping stones - nothing of interest below them unfortunately - and place them above the waters on top of the wall, anastylosis strikes again. The plan from now until next summer when the water table falls again, hopefully, will be to concentrate on the upper levels and  find  one bridge and one fountain. Just to round the week off I donned my new chest waders (no photographs available fortunately) and supervised the lifting of some very heavy, wet, muddy seventeenth-century timbers from the lake at Packwood and escorting them to their new holding tank where I spent a slightly chilly afternoon teasing the sediments away leaving them sparkling clean - sort of.
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The brand new pump.. the pipes were extra, it will never look this clean again.




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Peter works up top whilst the pump works down below... sort of...




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Just to prove I am actually there (Thanks to Chris M. for the photos) planning assorted pot and glass fragments and helping Charlie and Hannah clean pots.




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Peter at work on lifting the penultimate pot with the glassware below.




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... and here they ate a top, a bottom and our first complete bottle and an early one at that plus anastylosis done.




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Back at Packwood, everything you need to wash heavy baulks of oak with added interesting engineering.