Remember this? That lovely, well preserved turf line, where sheep may safely graze??? ….. Sorry, It was a huge piece of our own re-deposited turf! This happens. We were SO excited. Now all is explained. It is not a grassy bank. That is not to say that the ‘Moat’ sides were not grassed. They probably were.

Here is Sue gently removing it and coming down to where we finished off last year in a flood of rain and welling up ground water.

For what we have now revealed, we are eternally grateful. This is the infill of the ‘Moat’ which is a mix of cartloads of midden and cartloads of glacial til from somewhere. Tomorrow we remove the stony layer in front of the steps. This should show more infill. We will then have to establish the relationship of the step feature with the original width of the ‘Moat’

Going deeper by the drain wall will tell us much more of the bottom of the ‘Moat’ What will we find there? Anybody’s guess, though I do have my own theory.

Fingers crossed over the next couple of days.

Andrew.

Photos by Sue and me.

#ScotlandDigs2021

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