Time Team types and Metal Detectives are all ...

[Mark_h]

My house is built in what used to be the grounds of a large house owned by major general someone or other.

Anyway one day a 3-4" diameter hole appeared in the garden. "That's odd" I thought to myself, maybe an over-zealous squirrel had retrieved a sizeable nut or something. I got on the ground to investigate. "Blimey, that's one committed squirrel" I thought to myself as I stuck a finger in the hole and could not reach the bottom. Found a bamboo cane shoved it down and it also did not reach the bottom. Mind you it was only a 2 foot cane.

Went and got Mrs.H who also looked at it and dismissed any thoughts of it being squirrel related activity and proceeded to set up a cordon around it in case it was a well or something from the old house.

So do I dig and risk dislodging an old well cap and ending up in a soggy well or do a bit of investigating first. Those that know me will have guessed I took the more sensible option of checking it out while Mrs.H increased the cordon.

My immediate neighbours have not been there long enough to know what was there before the houses were built and the old dear down the road who is top-dog in the local historical society was on holiday so off to the Library to look at some old plans of the house.

Libraries are great; got taken to the reference section with proper old cabinets with hardwood draws full of old plans, maps and the like. Problem is the old house was built in 1700's then rebuilt in 1800's so nothing too accurate. Then found stuff from the 1950s when they built the bungalows alongside and Bingo! plan showing bits of the old house. Our house is marked as Vegetable patch and a few trees. No sign of a well anywhere but then we found no wells in any of the bigger plans we'd checked either so perhaps they are not marked. Mrs.H now convinced that actually it could be a cold-store for the veggies instead of a well. So we just widened the cordon and waited for old-dear to get back from her holidays.

Doris (can't remember her name but she looks like a Doris) came home so we invited her over for a cup of tea and to see what she knows. Turns out that there are no known photos of the house and grounds of the former property and when she moved in in 1950 something the grounds were in a right old state so anything that would have been there would have been obscured by brambles, bracken and Rhodiden, Roadiden, Rhodide,.... bushes. Apparently with good water table many houses dug their own wells around here so that was a possibility. Then on her 4th custard cream she suddenly remembers..."Of course you do know about the Spitfire that crashed here don't you" !!!!!

Turns out that just before the battle of Britain a Spitifre was being delivered to the south-coast, got into trouble and crashed pretty much at the end of our garden! Off to her house to look at the box marked "Spitfire that crashed in Mark's Garden" turns out that Spitfires were delivered by ladies in those days, and unfortunately this one didn't make it. Plane failed and crashed and there was some scandal as she was not of an appropriate rank so there was some sort of posthumous promotion and it all got a bit complicated.

So now Mrs.H is convinced our hole is definitely a cavity left by a rotting corpse and will be surrounded by unstable WWII munitions. More tea drunk, thanks given, cordon extended and augmented by an upside down wheelbarrow over the hole.

Few chats with neighbours... dire warnings of someone who knew someone who fell down a well as the builders only planked over it. Further chats about incomplete wreckage clearance in those days so could well be a bit of Spitfire down there but unlikely to be a pilot's corpse. A dig is organised but seems everyone's too busy to help.

The weekend comes. It's not raining. I get the tools. Spade, trowel, plank and set to work.

I set the scaffold plank in front of the hole and kneel on it working on the assumption that if it is a well or an early attempt at a transatlantic tunnel then hopefully should it give way I've got a chance of grabbing onto something.

Carefully probe the hole with a trowel but soon realise it's not getting anywhere so get to work with the spade. Open it up to couple of feet across and couple of feet deep and the hole itself still goes down.

Then I get to some different coloured black clay like stuff then "Thunk" I hit something woody and hollow. Put down spade and switch to trowel (all those years of watching timeteam) Bits of wood. Call Mrs.H who is convinced it's a well head and goes off to check my insurance cover.

Excavate a bit more and more wood but still sounds alarmingly hollow. Start to make a hole in the wood. Scrape, Scrape, Scrape Then a hand thrusts itself up from the hole and grabs me by the throat!! Oh no, hang on a minute, that was the dream from the night before.

So dig and scrape at the wood eventually breaking through into a cavity which is only a few inches deep before more wood. Anyway to cut a possibly interesting but far too long story short turns out it was a massive tree root which had rotted away from the inside leaving a cavity. As I exposed more of it it became clear that the beetles or what-ever it is lives in roots had hollowed it out over the years and it was now beginning to give way. Still doesn't explain the hole unless perhaps it is a well-worn lava escape route or something. Hole filled in, turf relaid and garden now lumpy and bumpy in many places as clearly there are more roots of a similar age giving way or perhaps the root decay has dislodged well heads, spitfire munitions or the corpse of the pilot is digging tunnels under our house. It was however proper exciting for a while.

[Fallout]

Bloody hell Mark, what a let down! A well told tale, especially with the supernatural dream sequence, but let down by a poor ending. Hang on .... you should be a Hollywood film writer!!

[Geodude]

Cool stories guys thanks for my morning entertainment xGx

[Mark_h]

Originally Posted by Fallout

Bloody hell Mark, what a let down! A well told tale, especially with the supernatural dream sequence, but let down by a poor ending. Hang on .... you should be a Hollywood film writer!!

I must admit it was tempting to have an alternate ending whereby I uncovered a zombie bunker where they worshiped AndrewSmith and I managed to napalm them thereby saving the Empire but unfortunately I am a fundamentally honest individual

About the most interesting thing I've found when digging my self has been earth...

A few sites I've been on with work have uncovered a variety of stuff but nothing of note (excluding the unmarked water main my boss found that very note worthy). Skeletal remains are not uncommon but its nearly always animal, human remains have a habit of getting a site closed down...