All this week, students from the Archaeological Department of the University of Southampton will be putting the skills they have learnt into practice and working in teams to survey the house and grounds here at Chawton House Library.
With records of a manor house on the site dating back to the Domesday Book, we can’t wait to find out what secrets of the historic estate they uncover! The students will be keeping us updated on their discoveries with regular blog posts. Here, Isaac Zebedee Bave and Natalie Hearn tell us all about Day One:
Figure 1: Natalie Hearn operating a Leica FlexLine total station, supervised by Dominic Barker.
So day one is over and our project has already been very productive. With one group working inside the house itself and another out on the grounds looking at the dramatically named ‘wilderness’ of Chawton House Library. We have a specific set of project aims that we want to fulfil. These are to produce a new topographic interpretation of the grounds, by integrating LiDAR data (a remote sensing technique that uses a clever combination of lasers and radar to give a three dimensional surface image) with an on-site topographic survey of the physical features on the site. This was the main aim that we, as part of the outdoor group worked on throughout the day. What was particularly noticeable is that the Ordnance Survey (OS) map we were working with, was a very simplified version of the grounds and buildings at Chawton House Library. There was no record of certain topographic features on the OS map that were clearly present on the ground. A prime example of this is the Lime Avenue, leading away from the house towards the south going all the way through the ‘wilderness’ to the fields beyond. Although, this was clear from surveying the grounds, there was no indication of this, or any of the pathways coming off the avenue into the ‘wilderness’, on the OS map. This leads to questions, such as when and where the OS got their data from. Furthermore, if they missed such a significant feature, what else might they have missed? Therefore, it would seem to be prudent to continue surveying the grounds for other topographic features that could be of significance to the understanding of the history and archaeology at Chawton House Library.
Figure 2: Isaac Bave stares intently at the spirit bubble, to make sure that detail pole remains level and straight
Although we were busy working, there was still time to look at the adorable spring lambs, and shire horses, in the adjacent fields. One of the joys of this type of project is the freedom to be outside in the fresh air, as opposed to being locked in a lab all day, with nothing but a computer for company (that comes later…).
So where to go next? For us, it is deeper into the ‘wilderness’, whilst the team indoors will start exploring the cellars…
By Isaac Zebedee Bave and Natalie Hearn