(Click on photos to enlarge)
The venerable oak trees were hundreds of years old. There was one 900 years old and another 1200 years old in a different part of the park. There were also Maiden Oaks - trees which had never been pollarded or trimmed and had been allowed to grow as nature intended. Apparently this is rare in such aged trees and there are only a few examples countrywide - Sherwood Forest has a few such trees I believe.
As you can see, we were privileged to work in beautiful surroundings. This part of the Deer Park was a Medieval meadow. The three trees forming a line in here were part of a Medieval hedgerow planting.
You can see the line of the original hedgerows in this picture too.
And again along here. Oaks are the trees which survived (obviously), but there was an incredibly old Chestnut tree, half collapsed, not far from our trench. Sadly the photos I took of it were rather blurred.
Rowan and Hubert measuring the trench next door with the TST (a something or other fancy Theodolite that spoke to you!)
One of the splendid old oak trees near our trench.
This stag-headed oak tree dominated the parkland on our walk to and from the car.
This ancient tree had suffered in a past storm, which had almost torn it in half.
"Our" ditch after we had totally excavated it. Next morning it had several inches of water in it!
A profile of the trench we were working in. "Our" ditch is nearest the camera. A shallower V-shaped rock-cut ditch was the other side of the possible Roman road, and a much smaller V-shaped rock-cut ditch where my daughter is standing, probably not relating to the same period.
Me looking gormless, with my eldest daughter, T.
