Day 12

It was submission today for pottery reports, the students had to write 500 words on a chosen piece of pottery found at Brynkir. As it was their first assignment, you can expect there was a little bit of a panic to get it done! However as it turned out, they were all very good. So panic over, the students went on to do their trenches. Trench E, which is just outside the Archery Range was extended following the discovery of what appears to be a wall, which is very exciting. Mark left us however for various meetings in North Wales, leaving myself and Sarah holding the fort for a few days Will we cope? I should hope so!

We opened up a new trench (H) to find the foundations of the gate house which we are looking for, while Jay continued drawing out her stone survey.

Day 11 at Brynkir!

Warren came back this morning and we all went to Dolbenmaen Castle where Llewelyn the Great, one of the Princes of Gwynedd held his court in the 1220s until his move to Criccieth Castle in 1230. The students also learnt of the different mortar styles through the centuries, looking at a 19th century church which was a rebuild from a much earlier church opposite the castle. We moved on to Penarth Fawr, a 13th-14th century manor house, identical to our Upper House. It is Very similar stylistically and in very good condition following its rebuild in 1656 following a fire which was ignited on Cromwell's orders. I loved how white and pristine the lime-wash was and knowing how the Upper House would have looked in the late medieval period brought a whole new dimension to the project in my opinion.

So the students came back and worked on their trenches. The Geophysics results have really influenced this dig and made it very exciting! Jess stopped drawing her plans and got in her amazing trench to dig away at Trench E and Jay went on to do the stone survey. We were also greeted by a local archaeologist called Bitt Jones who took a tour of the site.

Day 10- Moving to the Upper House!

Today the Students have moved to the Upper House, just outside what the hostel used to use as an archery range and opened three test pits Trenches E-G in order to find the possible gatehouse and doorway which would have been parallel to the house. Meanwhile on the research side of things, Mark took two of the students with him to meet the Reverend Dylan Parry in order to try and get access to the church where the Brynkers were buried. The church has been abandoned for forty years and the key has been lost since.

Trench F found a Basal Stone, one of the foundation stones of the building. Trench E has also found part of a wall. However, Trench G has yet to find anything of interest.

Day 9- when they studied stones!

In the morning, the students carried on their normal routine. They finished their drawings and opened another trench, Trench D. In the afternoon Andrew, a geologist from Cardiff Museum came to show us about the different building materials both the upper and lower house were made out of. I took some documentation photos and learnt about different mason marks and how to tell the difference between different stones. It was interesting to learn the technique of quarrying known as 'Plug and Feather', where the stone was chiselled deep and moved around until the rock split into two.
 

An example of a mark caused by Plug and Feather

The rest of the day, the students continued in their trenches. We are thinking of moving to the Upper House soon to open new trenches!

Day 8 at Plas Brynkir!

Today was an awful day for the weather! it started raining and was very murky. The students were greeted by a special visitor, Spencer Gavin Smith, a specialist in Deer Parks. Spencer took the students round the site and had a good look around to find features typical of Deer Parks that he knew of. He was here for most of the day and left at about 4:00, there was a lot to see! He pointed out various features such as terraces and ditches that were relative to controlling how the deer ran and at what speed and sought to identify the killing field. He also gave a lecture on various different sites to help the students understand the different features relevant.

After Spencer left, the students carried on in their trenches despite the weather.

Day 7 at the site!

Today's been fairly quiet. We found a possible wall in Jess, Chloe and James's trench! its not been exposed much yet although its an amazing discovery, maybe its part of another wing on the building. We still need to confirm it but it seems likely because its an arrangement to stones mortared together. It amazes me that modern science can find buried stone structures and produce an image similar to an x-ray almost. Most of the students simply carried on digging for all of today with not to much to report, Harriet though stayed indoors to transcribe some of the Huddart's accounts from 1813.

I fear the weather is on the turn this afternoon, but I hope it isn't because it would mean the students would have to be stuck indoors drawing plans! has to be done though I suppose.

Day 6 at Plas Brynkir

The day began with the students going down to the Lower House to continue on their test pits. From results found yesterday, it was time for the well positioned pits to be extended into the student's first trenches! The students dug until 11:00, when they enjoyed a small break and went back down until 13:00 when they came back for their lunch. While they were eating, Bettina Harden came up to see the site and give a lecture on historic Welsh gardens. The lecture started at 14:00 (after some complications with the projector!) and went on until 15:30, when everyone left the Training Room and settled for tea and cakes, leaving Mark, Sarah and Bettina to tour the grounds.

The day resumed as normal and the students went down to the site and continued digging. Some interesting results cropped up towards the end of the day, Alex found a flowerbed and pathway in his trench, which is an exciting discovery! In the mean time, we were greeted by David Will, who came to do 3D renders of the site and trenches for the open day! He will be with us on and off for the duration of the dig. Of course, the students were able to meet their new house-mate at 5:30 when they came back from the trenches.

The flowerbed trench!

Day 5: The day they dug!

The students were really excited to go down to the Lower House to work on their test pits, so much so they all rushed out of bed and ran down to the site! ... well it played that way in my mind! I mean, they are students after all! In all seriousness, they were quite excited to crack on and do some "real Archaeology". The day went very quickly, but unfortunately they didn’t reveal anything amazing and new. All pits revealed lots of pottery fragments and bits of glass dating back to the Victorian and late Georgian eras, we were not disappointed as today we were mostly aiming at breaking the surface and getting stuck into it. It's early days! Tomorrow we are expecting to extend the successful test pits and create trenches which the students are looking forward to.

Today also saw the arrival of Nigel Bowen-Morris, Love My Wales’s newest Trustee! He's an absolutely charming man and will be staying with us in the Hostel for a few days. He's visiting to catch up with the work that Love My Wales has been up to. We also welcomed Sarah Doherty, the co-director of the dig. It’s always nice to have new people come to stay.

Tim greeted the students with a talk explaining his initial results from the Geophysical survey. The talk was extremely interesting and suggested that there might be a hidden wing of the Upper House in the old Archery Range and also a walled structure or pathway might be under the back of the Lower House. The students then had a lecture by Margaret Dunn, who came to talk about Dendrochronology- the study of dating locations with trees. While this was happening, Tim spoke to me and Mark about the discoveries from his survey and suggested interesting locations to place test pits. After this, Tim and Emrys left... I'm sure they'd be happy to hear that everyone misses their company, especially Emrys! By this time, the students had left their lecture. Margaret's talk gave an interesting insight to the dating of sites by simply surveying their surroundings and left after their morning tea break at 11:20. The students were fascinated with what Margaret had to say and found her very pleasant company.

Some of the finds so far!

After tea, Margaret took a personal tour of the site with Mark, and left shortly afterwards. Mark then planned from this where we should start digging our test pits and the students categorised their findings to date in chronological order until the later afternoon and eventually followed him down to the back yard of the Lower House and plotted their three test pits all 1 metre squared and scratched away at the surface. Not much was excavated however as the students ended up going down at 4:00 with their day ending at 5:30. I’m really excited to see what comes up!!

Day 3 at Plas Brynkir

The day began early at 9:00 again, beginning with a talk and Mark's departure from the site. I was in charge and had to split the group into half, one to carry on clearing the ground in the morning, and the other to help Tim with the geophysics. The two groups of four were then split into twos, the pairs clearing worked from both ends of the bottom terrace and cleared  up until they met in the middle. The groups then swapped over following lunch. They did a very good job and you can now see a lot of the terraces and how they were arranged.

Yesterday saw the beginning of the Geophysical survey with Tim. I really enjoyed taking part and learnt a lot about the process of archaeology. As a keen photographer, I also took a  interest in the idea of electric signals creating something similar to a black and white photograph or an x-ray image of the ground. Tim took the students around the terraces and surveyed the area to find any lost structures and managed quite impressively to do the whole thing! The results are in the process of being composed, I'm very excited to see what the earth is hiding from us. The students worked until 7:00 PM, they were that eager!

Day 2 at the Plas Brynkir Site

The nerve centre of the project itself, the Training Room at the Cwm Pennant Hostel 

Today, the students got up for a 9:00 start in Training Room where they were briefed on their day's work. It was a day of clearance, beating nature back to reveal Brynkir's medieval garden. Eight students split
up into groups of four to tackle the overgrowth. I must say, they did a very good job indeed! Led by Emrys, our very own conservation expert, we revealed some top part of the neglected terraced garden. We also discovered a 19th century stone wall standing between the Upper House and the driveway from the terraces. There was also the remains of the small iron fence which would have been drilled into the wall.

Before I write any further, I think a brief summary of Brynkir's history is in order! The Estate is made of two main ruins, The Upper House and Lower House. On the top of the hill, we have The Upper House which is an early mansion on the site and was built in the mid 15th Century to house an Aristocratic Welsh family which later became the Brynker family following the adoption of the name in the 1600s (they named themselves after the Estate). The Upper House is on top of a terraced garden, aligned with the lake under it and the valley beyond. The mansion stayed in use until the death of Jane Brynker in 1760. The Estate passed hands to the Huddart family in around 1800 who soon built a much larger Regency Villa known as the Lower House, which became the main residence until the 1860s when the site was abandoned. The Estate was visited sporadically until its final abandonment in the first decade of the 20th Century.

The above images show the Upper House (left image by Emrys Ruck, 2013) and the much later Lower House (right image by Antonia Dewhurst, 2012). A fascinating difference in style documenting the eras in which they were built.

After clearance, Tim from Cardiff University came to do a geophysical survey of the back of the Lower House, which I personally helped in! Very interesting device which sends electric signal into the ground through the moisture. Because stone and brick has hardly any moisture in, the signal bounces back and when used with specific software on a computer, draws a map of any lost walls or pathways that are present underground. The results came back with an irregular arrangement of stones under us, could it be another building? Very exciting stuff! Tomorrow we will be doing a geophisical survey of the terraces to see what lost relics there are there!

Day 1 at the Plas Brynkir Site

Brynkir Lower House from the back. Photographed by Antonia Dewhurst, 2012

Here we are on the first day of twenty-eight in total at the archaeological site of Plas Brynkir! It was a long journey from Cardiff and with an added perk of visiting Cornelia, the owner of Plas Teg who was good enough to give us a cup of tea and a tour of her home. We arrived last night and were eventually greeted by our lovely volunteers and also finds of pottery right away from the old Midden including bits of Pottery from the Huddart family!

Finds from day 1!

Plas Brynkir is an important site which Love My Wales is working on, it is an abandoned medieval Welsh Estate in Dolbenmaen, Gwynedd and shows strong evidence that it was once a Deer Park for the native Welsh Princes. With the help of eight students from Cardiff University and various volunteers who will pop up this month, we will be undergoing a geophysical survey as well as an archaeological excavation which we are hoping will prove this theory. Today the students had their inductions to the Cwm Pennant Hostel, where we are staying including a health and safety brief from Luke, the manager as well as project brief from Mark, who is leading the event. The students also had their first glimpse of the site during their walk. They were also fortunate enough to have our volunteer, Emrys, who specialises in natural conservation. He spoke to them of various species which live on the site including Badgers, Wren, Blackbirds and different Amphibians. He also spoke of the consequences of various types of conservation on the environment and the importance to maintain the natural habitat as well as the conservation of the ruins themselves. Later on in the day, we were visited by a lovely artist called Liz Bolloten who has produced some beautiful paintings of Brynkir which I will upload on another blog post when they are updated (www.lizbolloten.co.uk) and also the amazing Ceri Leeder who is painting artist reconstructions of the ruins at Brynkir.

One of Ceri Leeder's reconstruction pieces of the Lower House