So I have reached my fourth and probably final site in this project. It is an entirely concrete place, I guess swaying to the more urban of my rural/urban band but in its own way as mysterious as the rest of them. The concealment comes in the form of an underpass beneath the A1 (M) and this concealment is enough to attract a number of visitors, as the evidence suggests. So on a rather chilly day I make my way along the footpath beside the playing fields, running parallel to the motorway and wonder what might be waiting for me this time. Earlier on in the project when I came on my initial field walking expedition, I was quite surprisingly confronted with an abandoned, burnt out Escort van, sat right in the centre. It had caught me off guard. Blackened and charred, with blown out windows, disintegrated tyres and smashed headlights it sat discarded, yet acknowledged baring the ‘POLICE AWARE’ sticker on the bonnet. I had stumbled into a real crime scene of sorts and on this deserted footpath, with the noise of overhead traffic reverberating around the tunnel I felt an eerie shiver from this strangely sinister view. A short time on a man came along and clearly as taken aback as I had been on first view, exclaimed a profanity, had a quick inspection and hurried on by.
So I knew this vehicle would have since been removed and indeed on return last week I see it has certainly long gone. All visible trace eliminated. I got on with the task of marking, collecting, logging and photographing. This site requires a slightly different method of excavation and an important part of evidence I want to examine is the graffiti. Therefore I had to map each part of the walls and record a photo of each section. There are a mass of marks upon the two walls, a past layer has been washed over, possibly when The Green Way was set up, but much more has appeared since. A general overview tells me that pretty much all this graffiti work is not exactly a labour of love. I guess to my untrained eye this would mostly be described as your usual amateur stuff but to look more closely may reveal a few surprises maybe. What conclusions can I come to beyond, who loves who and what their mum did last night?! Who knows…?
I’ve nearly now washed all the finds collected so far. I’m up to number 310 and still rising. It was very interesting to get involved with the Norton Community Archaeological Group’s find processing last Wednesday and in many ways quite similar to my own processing (as of course I am trying to make it so). It is fascinating to consider the physical and metaphorical journey that the object is taking as it travels along this process from dirt in the field, to treasured artefact. As my husband tentatively questioned the other week… what might I do with my finds once this project is over? I reacted quite defensively – insisting that they would not be binned. I think he was disappointed by this and is slightly concerned that they might become a resident in our home at some point in the future. Hopefully it won’t come to the ‘it’s them or me’ scenario!
