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DIG DIARY 2003 - Week Three

Wednesday 25th June:

Typical finds.

Jenny on the geotex.

Buster, Jenny and Ray inspecting progress.

The big rock.

Thursday 26th June:

Click on "thumbnails" to see bigger photographs

Medicinal plants which were grown in Abbeys etc.

This Sunflower-like plant is "Elecampane" (Inula helenium). Known in some parts of the UK as "Wild Sunflower", it was a notable horse-medicine. In The Englishman's Doctor, 1608, (Sir John Harington's translation of the medieval Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum) it is also a useful medicine for man, being "very good in Difficulty of Breath'ng, an Asthma, and an old Cough". "It is also commended as an excellent preservative against the Plague". The roots boiled "in wine or the fresh Juice infus'd in it, and drunk, kills and expels Worms." The root was also regarded as somewhat magical by the Anglo-Saxons, and one complex prescription involves the root being "laid under the altar for the night, and eventually mixed with Betony and with lichen from a crucifix". This cured "elf-sickness". [Information from The Englishman's Flora by Geoffrey Grigson, 1958]       

A view over the artificial stream to our polytunnel frame and main spoil heap.

Friday 27th June: A very wet morning...

After the rain comes mud.

Sunday 29th June:

Ray springs into action. The geotex has been removed and the students can get trowelling.

Jenny advises the students on how best to scratch away a thin layer of sun-baked earth.

More finds.

The cage.

On to Week Four.... CLICK HERE