Old Dive's History of Norwich Castle - Part the Eleventh - 1121 Revisited - Chapter II

Being some photographs of holes in the ground and assorted gallimaufry at the castle to date …

Don't say I didn't warn you. Yup, it's a hole in the ground. A new drainage run carefully excavated by the archæologists under the crappy old 1960s café.

This one's inside the keep basement and is one of Boardman's old Victorian drains that needed replacing. The new drain is in and they're surrounding it with peashingle in preparation for the archæologists to backfill the trench.

Don't fret; we're not putting plastic pipes in; those are the temporary diverted drains on the surface. 

And yes, that blackish stratum on the left is part of the porpoise party of Christmas 1121.

Bet you never thought working on a Norman castle could be so glamorous and exciting, did you?

This is up at what will be the Great Hall floor level where we've taken out Boardman's "pitiful walkway" (see posts passim) and are surveying the holes he dug into the keep wall as we have to re-use those for our own structure so as not to cause any more damage to the mediæval fabric.

Another view of the same area. Yes, we still use pencils and duct tape. The chalk (and chalk …) mark shows where the Structural Engineer had planned to put steel prior to this area being exposed, but due to the Boardman hole locations we're having to faff and fudge it to suit what's there.

Socially distanced faffing and fudging. Much masked mumbling and hard-hatted head-scratching.

Meanwhile, outside the keep, some lucky sod gets to play with the mini-piling rig, now that the archæologists have determined where is safe to pile so as not to disturb anything interesting. Boardman's Victorian vandal builders destroyed much of Edward Longshanks' royal palace remains so we have plenty of room to plan our foundations.

The steel post and beams are part of the old café roof and will soon be removed.

I'll finish this month with a view of the whacking great crane having just lowered some steelwork into the now happily-demolished crappy 1960s shop area. This will be the new reception atrium and have my whizzy glass roof on it so you'll be able to see the Bigod Tower (on the left) for the first time since the eighteenth century.

More faff and blather to come when there's something interesting to photograph.