It's June 2008 and this is the west corner of Block H.
There's a lot of question marks about this part of the trench.
We're not sure how deep
the archaeological deposits are in this area.
If there are waterlogged deposits here
because the depth of the deposits is very deep,
then we're liable to have a lot of organic material onsite as well.
So what we're going to do is to excavate a deep trench in this corner
to give us some idea
about the character of the deposits and the site.
As part of the operation we need to do an initial plan of the trench.
As well as Haver Lane to record,
we've also got remains of the 19th century buildings
which are on one side of Haver Lane
that will be affected by the excavation here.
So we're going to do a composite plan of the entire trench.
So everything that's going to be excavated initially by the machine,
down to the bottom of the 19th century levels,
is being recorded now.
23rd June, 2008, and we're beginning the excavation of the deep trench
at the western corner of Block H.
First of all we've got to take off
the 19th and 20th century structural remains.
So we're doing that by machine
and eventually we'll get down to the archaeological deposits
that have to be dug by hand and that's when the machining will stop.
The machine has changed buckets.
It's now got a toothless ditching bucket on.
That's so that it can excavate material
but it's not going to leave grooves in the ground that teeth buckets do.
So if there are any archaeological deposits there,
it's easier to spot because you've got a nice, even surface.
That's great. Stay at that level and just clean back on that bit as well.
Strictly speaking a metre in, because we'll need everything we can get,
is actually there.
Just about where my foot is.
This is where it gets tricky because we don't want to undermine that.
This deep trench isn't going to have any shoring.
So we're going to step the trench in as we go down
to prevent the trench from collapsing in on us.
You can see on this side, that's the edge of the trench.
It goes down a metre and then it steps in a metre
and we're beginning to excavate the next metre down.
When we get down a metre in here we'll step in again
and go down another metre until we get to the bottom.
You've joined us at an interesting part of the excavation process.
We've found some quite interesting things.
We've been taking out this big, old 19/20th century wall
which comes around here
and we've found there's been an absolutely huge construction cut.
It's very wide at the base, it's very, very substantial.
But in the section revealed by the construction cut
we're getting a lovely sequence of deposits.
So you've got Haver Lane situated up here
which has been disturbed by 20th century activity,
the make-up for Haver Lane just showing.
And below here a kind of clay, silty layer.
A lot of green glazed medieval pottery out of that.
Further down it's looking much more like occupation deposits.
A very dark burn layer here.
We've had lots of animal bone, refuse, and even just down the way
a small silver coin, so it bodes quite well.
Over here we have several different layers of demolition
and we have noticed that they have distinctly different types
and dates of brick within them.
So clearly we've got a sequence of building and demolition
which, as we clean up the site
we'll have to pick apart and work out a nice timeline for.