This week’s dig in Paddington, saw us uncover even more of the bedrock and of course the timber that has been discovered over the last few weeks. Having dug a little further back into the chamber, we were very surprised to find that the bedrock floor rises steeply to a precisely angled ledge, this was a surprise. You may be aware of the square carved channels already discovered at the far end of this chamber. This new level of the bedrock also has these channels cut either side. As you can now see very clearly, we have uncovered a distinct and deliberately carved and shaped rise of floor level, all be it not very level. We can see that the water that we are having to pump out of this area is flowing into the space via the purpose made channels at the side of the carved floor…

We wanted to remove what we suspected could be a wooden floor for a few reasons. Firstly to see if anything could be hidden beneath it, also the very old and wet timber was very slippy and hazardous. We removed the timber whilst photographing it at each stage, documenting this procedure, before, during and after we had finished. An Animated gif has been created which clearly shows this process and the fact that the wooden floor was not hiding anything beneath, besides bedrock. Could the floor have been added later to Level off the floor between the two higher level sections?

The plot thickens…