Looking towards the west and the main
road into Bures. |
Initial site excavation |
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Photographs taken July 2010
Trench in hillside showing a large
amount of tiles and broken bricks.
Side view of trench >>>>>>>>>>>
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Update July 2011
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With the Lodge excavation coming
to an end, the archaeological team, has now been concentrated
on exposing this Kiln.
The bricks (right) are currently
waiting to be forensically examined, to see if they are the same
type that were used to build the Hunting Lodge or Smallbridge.
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Bricks buried in
the subsoil.
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Excavation trenches
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The fire tunnels were below ground
mainly to preserve the heat, with the surrounding soil acting
as insulation.
The image to the left clearly shows the tunnels and the blackened
earth where the fire was located.
The bricks too be fired, would have been stacked above ground,
directly above the end of the fire tunnel.
This would allow the heat rising
from below ground, to permeate the stack of bricks as the intense
heat flowed upwards.
( photo taken at
Winston, Nr Stowmarket)
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Typical Suffolk Brick Kiln.
Reproduced from CAG Bulletin 27
The Kiln itself would have been
on the uphill (East) end, a squarish firing floor of firebars,
on which the bricks to be fired would have been laid.
It may or may not have had a permanent walled chamber above.
Most likely it would have been an open structure which was clamped
with clay and turf at each firing.
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This image clearly shows one of the
fire tunnels.
The fire would have been located
where a member of the archaeological team is currently digging. |
Photograph taken further back, where
we can now see
the presence of the two fire tunnels below ground level. |
This is not the beginning of the tunnel, as there are no facing
bricks.
(Curved bricks in the shape of
an archway)
These can clearly be seen on the
photograph above taken
at Winston
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Facing bricks that would form the Fire Tunnel entrance
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The two fire tunnels
clearly showing them below ground level.
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During the earlier excavation, the
former archaeology team buried a time capsule.
The time capsule held a copy of The
Daily Sketch (1961) and a note from John Jackson and Jim Brackenbrough
who had stumbled across the brick-making oven in September 1961.
This was unearthed during the present
dig. The consisted of a glass jar sealed with tape and then sealed
once again in a 5 gallon drum (see left)
Unfortunately over the years water
had penetrated the jar and saturated the contents.
However with some delicate work, the contents were recovered and
completely readable.
Jim Brackenbrough also mentioned
that he had left his coatin one of the 1961 trenches.
Not surprisingly during the 2011 dig,
the coat has never been discovered
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August 2011.
This pit shows the distant end of the Fire Tunnels.
The bricks may well have been the
side walls with a suspended floor on which to stack the bricks
(see diagram above)
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October 2011
Since August there has been tremendous
progress in uncovering the Kiln.
This photograph is an update of the image above taken in August.
Dick Marriot the CAG member, is actually
standing on the position of the fire which is fed by the incoming
flue.
( see diagram above)
Above the fire would have been some sort of flooring on which the
bricks would be placed and fired.
The excavation also uncovered very small pieces of coal.
We can only summise
that this was delivered by "Lighters" along the River
Stour only a few hundred metres away.
Now the river navigation, opened for traffic in 1713, so we can
date this coal after that date.
Considering coal would have been exorbitantly expensive, it is difficult
to see the reason for this fuel, considering other fossil fuels
(wood, straw etc) would have been in abundant supply.
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