19. Wednesday 19 May 2010

It was a dull sky but warm and still today, with hardly any breeze. A perfect day for Alan’s flower photography and for the swirling flies which were attracted by our hi-vis jackets and bright white drawing boards. It’s quite distracting trying to work when flies are mating on your survey plans!

The botanical survey is taking up most of Alan’s time at the moment.

Alan preparing wild flowers for photography © Jane Lunnon

While Ruth tackled some particularly difficult hachuring, Jane and Vera spent some time plotting flower distribution patterns. We are surprised at the lack of a profusion of spring flowers compared to other places in the Dales, which leads us to wonder what this will tell us about the history of land use and management on the site.

We are now beginning to see the end of the survey almost in sight, at least for the reservoir side.

Jane recalls when her great grand uncle was in the 17th Lancers © Alan Williams

However, we do probably need one more session to tidy up some loose ends. Then we just need to wait for the water levels of the reservoir to go down so that we can survey any foundations of the mill which are currently under water. A small part of the old mill is already exposed although the water levels are still high. Pat, Phil and Peter gave this a priority to survey as we noticed some vandalism to the site has taken place very recently, certainly within the last few days. We shall be fervently wishing for a dry summer this year, so that the rest of the old mill’s foundations are exposed – and hopefully we can get there before the vandals.

In the meantime, Peter did his best to carry out some underwater archaeology.

Peter's version of underwater archaeology © Jane Lunnon

And there are still some bits to do on the moorside when the vegetation dies down in winter.

Jane Lunnon, UWHG Archvist