8th April 2013:

OA East’s test-pitting at Wimpole Hall, Cambridgeshire, brought in the cameras from the BBC’s Look East programme, and ITV’s Anglia news. In addition to the television coverage, the project featured in the local newspaper, the Royston Crow. The project in the parkland associated with the hall began with digging some 160 test pits where trees will be planted. Up to one thousand test pits are planned.

The trees are being planted to restore the 17th-century parkland on the site (set out by Capability Brown), but will impact on the remains of earlier medieval and post-medieval settlements, which were on the site before the parkland was designed.

Although the test-pits were small, being only 0.5m x 0.5m x 0.5m deep, evidence of a house platform or trackway and a 17th-century bowling green in the form of a levelling layer was found in different parts of the estate. Surfaces of the Jacobean stable, which stood close to the house and was demolished when the present Victorian stable was built, was also noted within the test pits.