The weather has held me back from the next trial of the pit, too hot, too wet or too windy ! so a little bit of reflection and dialogue on the digging of the pit is the post today.
Snakeshole is a small holding consisting of one cottage a few outbuildings and land of approximately 4.5 acres. The historic deeds record that there were originally 4 x Snakeshole Cottages ( 2 Detached and a pair of Semi-detached houses). The other 3 cottages fell into disrepair and only their foundations remain beneath the grass in the field.
The spot that I picked for the Firing Pit was approximately 50 m away from the cottage in part of the chickens paddock, ground that we have not disturbed in the 23 years that we lived here, so i was not expecting to find anything other than soil and stones as i dug my hole of 50 x 50 x 50 cm.
The image below shows the collation of the materials, fragments and shards that were to emerge from that small excavation. I was shocked by the finding of the small white plastic top to a medicine bottle at the bottom of the dig but on reflection 95% of the findings were made by human hands. They give an insight to how discarded and broken objects were disposed 30 - 150 years ago and the physical trace that remains when the humans have long since disappeared. What will my contribution to that trace be?
