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

September/October 2019 - A Roman Holiday and other Interludes


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Because of other commitments. not least to taking a holiday work at Hanwell was quite limited although still producing exciting results. A couple of new volunteers, Adam from Bournemouth University and Elaine, an archaeologist with the US parks service helped out as we disentangled rubble from a veritable sea of pottery and glass.


September     September
Elaine and Helen trying to work out which pot is which whilst Adam gets on and draws rubble in preparation for...




September     September
... lifting it to reveal another amazing assemblage of pots and bottles.




September
The complete picture, the wine bottle, the remains of a goblet and a plate... for serving nibbles?




Unfortunately a number of commercial projects rather interfered with the Hanwell timetable, some more relevant than others. Particularly challenging was the week spent down at Crowcombe in Somerset where, ably assisted by Elaine, we undertook a massive amount of clearance in order to record an impressive and long lost collection of cascades and a beautify ul bridge all dating from the eighteenth century.



September     September
The bridge. this was almost completely buried under rampant vegetation until we took a bill hook to it. Our other discovery, further down stream, a small wheel pit and seating, probably for a water pump.



September
A former cascade left dry by a re-working of the water supply.




Another project under development has been next to the church of St. Lawrence in Eynsham where we had a watching brief on a trench cut through the pub car park for a new drain. Not terribly watery but a fine selection of late seventeenth-century material excavated from a rubbish pit next to the back wall of a major stone building again probably of the same period incorporating as it did fragments from the demolished abbey.



    September     September     September
The newly discovered building plus bits of abbey.                                     Some of the debris, probably from the seventeenth-century tavern.                                   Adam squeezes in to excavated afore mentioned wall




However, the highlight of the month was a two week trip to Rome, part holiday part work, so I would take a look at some key gardens plus water features but also examine some of their Roman antecedents said to have been such an important influence of later garden design. The highlight was probably the Villa d'Este, arguably the greatest Renaissance water garden of them all but as everyone knows, Rome is a city of fountains.



September     September
The Nymphaeum at the Villa Giulia.                                                                                               A charming little fountain at the Baths of Diocletian




September     September
Palazzo Altemps, wall fountains, in the courtyard and the in the loggia




September     September
Villa d'Este: The massive Oval Fountain and the famed alleyway of a hundred fountains




September     September
Villa d'Este: Recording garden pots now wherever I go.                                                                                                   The rather peculiar Rometta




September     September
Villa d'Este: the water organ and the view out along the chain of fishponds




 September     September
Still in Tivoli, on to Hadrian's Villa: a large pool called the Pelice looking towards the Hall of the Philosophers and Hadrian's get away from it all 'Maritime Theatre', not maritime and not a theatre but there you are.




September
Hadrian's Villa: Another famous image, the Canopus




September     September
Back in Rome one of the four Quattro Fontane next to Bernini's famous wavy front to San Carlo. The Nymphaeum in the Farnese Gardens on the Palatine Hill





September     September
Couldn't resist this early piece of plant care in the Palazzo Massimo.                   The Cortile delle Pigna, a Roman fountain head based on a giant pine cone.




September
A beautiful little street fountain in Ostia Antica




September     September
The Palazzo Nuovo on the Capitoline, the fountain of Marforio with detail of spouting dolphin




September
Cascade within the octagonal chamber in Nero's long buried palace, the Domus Aurea


... and then it was back to the UK and back to work.


But not to Hanwell, first of all was a call to Stowe where the campaign to replace the statues of Apollo and the Nine Muses is well underway with the digging of ten pits, 1.2m square and 0.5m deep had to be done and not surprisingly we uncovered archaeology including a new statue base on a different alignment suggesting a tighter arc closer in to the Doric Arch than previously thought and a massive  stone wall presumably a left over of the medieval/pre-garden settlement. It all had to be done in a bit of a rush however as the truck coming to pour concrete trundled ever closer.



Oct     sep    sep
The digging for a foundation for a statue begins.                                               Old statue base (foreground) even older statue base beyond                                        Underneath a tree root a totally new old wall




Once work resumed at Hanwell we thought we were in for smooth sailing in fine weather with several new volunteers signed up to make their first visit. As it happened the week went pretty well until around 11.00 a.m. on a Thursday morning and then it just rained. Unfortunately we were already dealing with the aftermath of what had apparently been a very wet couple of weeks whilst we had been away enjoying the Roman sunshine so we had to have the pump going pretty well full time. Despite all this we were able to carry on clearing rubble some of which turned out to be extraordinarily interesting from an 'are these bits of a fountain?' viewpoint and lifting a number of pots, we were still not sure how many as we had yet to work out which pieces went together...



October     October
New hands George and Nathan help old hands Ian and Andries to shift rubble... and once it's cleared to clean up after themselves, well up to a point.



October     October
One of the first pots to come out, this photo illustrates rather dramatically how Pot 18 broke across a large block of stone in the moat, the following day Nathan and Mika excavate a couple of pot bases...



October     October0
... whilst Peter and Ian begin to lift Pot 25, it it one or three pots? Only time will tell and here are some of the pots safely gathered in whilst the rain starts to fall in earnest.




The last week in October saw a big change as Peter, who had been helping with the finds, decided to move on and so we shifted things round and moved some of the finds processing facilities ( a gazebo, table and washing up bowls!) down to the main site. An event which produced an unexpected bonus...




     October
Wet at the start of the week, I expect this will now be the picture until next summer. Even so we pump out and carry on with Ian cleaning the section and Nathan cleaning the wall.



October
Up at the Coach house photographer Chris kindly came over and continued building our photographic record of the reconstructed pots.




October     October
Down in the mud the other Chris and Nathan continued lifting pots so by the end of the week George and Jack could certify the area free of finds... well almost.




October     October
So the new finds department in action and bingo! or perhaps beano! a most remarkable find. Pot 18 was dated to 1664. This is such a crucial piece of evidence that I have barely begun to think through the implications but they are huge.