On the 18th of September 2005 I met with Dr Jonathan Lageard (left) and Dr Ian Drew at Greenheyes.

Along with my son James who was with me when originally found the structure we made our way down to the site.

One problem with any river is they have an unfortunate habit of changing their water level, and the Dane is no exception. On the day of this visit, while still low by the Dane's standards it was 4 inches to 6 inches (10cm to 15cm) above the level when I took the photographs on the previous page.

It may not seem like a great deal, however the River Dane carries a large amount of sediment suspended in its waters and small increase in depth can make a great deal of difference when viewing submerged objects.

However, although there was reduced visibility some of the larger pieces of timber were visible.

The purpose of the visit was not to specifically identify what the structure might be, but to obtain a sample or samples of the timbers in order to date the age of the structure by using dendrochronology, which is one of Dr Lageard's specialist subjects.

The photograph on the left shows one of the timbers that was selected as it was in situ. On the right Dr Lageard ponders over what it could be part of.

Here is a closer view of the surface of the plank. It appeared to be quite crudely worked and did not have the smooth surface you would expect to find on a modern plank.

At the bottom of the picture you can see a second timber, this time a post protruding from the bank of the river.

On the left Dr Drew and James look for evidence of the extent of the structure and further timbers.

The recovered timber is taken back up to the farm where samples are taken for further study and analysis.

While down by the river this very large timber was spotted protruding from a sand bar that had formed due to the change in the water flow.

I do not think that it is part of the same structure as we were investigating. However it is of interest and as we shall see later it was recovered for further investigation.

 

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