Last week was the first week in awhile that I spent on a site. I went to an old mansion. It was in Bray and I went with a coworker. It was an amazing experience. The land was gated off using an iron gate that needed a password to open. It has always been a fascination of mine to be able to use one of those kinds of gates. The land was huge! There was two sections of farmland, an area for a storage unit of some sort, a garage, a huge backyard, stables, and the mansion itself. A dirt driveway ran along the entire estate and led to the mansions chariot entrance to the stables. In the back, there were four sets of stables, one which had a living space for the chariot driver. There was also a small shed and an old-timey water pump. The mansion was beautiful with large windows, several floors, each room with a fire place, and some bedrooms even had sinks in them. I found out that having a sink in your bedroom was posh, so many fancy homes had them. The top floor had three different rooms for sinks, tubs, and showers. One was just a bath tub and sink, another was a stand up shower and sink, the final room was a toilet. It was an awkward but interesting layout, but standard for its time.
My favorite part of the dig was exploring the wooded area in the back yard. We hiked the whole area and found hidden sheds that still had items in them. There were three secret garden areas, both with beautiful crops, trees,and bushes. Bushes lined a path from one garden to the next. There were also beautiful archways made of iron that had flowers surrounding them. Though I got stung by nettles on this journey, I have never enjoyed being on site as much as I did this time. It was a great adventure. I am hoping to be apart of the digging process here when it starts.
