The overall pace of digging slowed down slightly today as we enter the closing stages of this year's summer dig on the site of Elsyng Palace in the woods of Forty Hall.

The Tudor archaeology has been concentrated mostly to a single trench this year but there's an awful lot going on in a very small area.

The most impressive feature this year has undoubtedly been the well chamber at the south end of Trench 2 and today it got even more impressive as we made one final small trench extension to fully uncover the circular chamber.

As we revealed the east edge of the well structure we found what at first looked like a single narrow channel created by an adjacent wall set againt it, and as we removed more of the very loose rubble around it we found a second channel beneath the first, connected by a vertical hole at their north end.

See here for an annotated version of the above

We think these two channels probably feed into the culvert that we think is beneath the nearby brick 'floor' surface. At the same time we also removed a little more rubble from inside the circular chamber, and found two more small square apertures through the brickwork - one to the side of the hole we found yesterday, and a counterpart directly opposite.

These suggest water supplies entering and/or leaving the chamber, which may point to the well in fact being a cistern or settling tank.

Outside the chamber, in the deep rubble fill of the adjacent cellar, we found two sizeable offcuts of lead sheet - archetypal material for water tanks.

Having done about as much digging here as is practical, the main remaining job at the south end of the trench for tomorrow is to clean up and meticulously record every detail of all of these various structures in order to better understand them.

Meanwhile at the opposite end of the trench, the extension that we opened to follow the wall/culvert partially succeeded, in as much as it has found more of the wall, but in typical Elsyng fasion the wall has arbitrarily changed course and vanishes off into the trench corner.

We will finish up excavating the extension but it looks like finding the ultimate destination of the wall/culvert will be a job for another year.

The focus from tomorrow will be to finish off digging jobs as quickly as possible and get everything recorded hopefully before Sunday.

Trenches 1, 3 and 4 have mostly been backfilled and we'd like not to have to spend too much of Sunday backfilling Trench 2, especially in light of the possible rain creeping up on the forecast.

Day 11 was an extremely rewarding day, as we begin to draw towards the end of our two-week dig on the site of Elsyng Palace in the woods of Forty Hall.

After more than a week of slogging through compacted gravel layers and sun-baked brickearth, the palace began to yield its secrets and we were rewarded with some really excellent if rather complicated Tudor architecture.

Having found a large unexpected brick-lined void at the south end of trench two, two days ago, we had spent most of yesterday carefully extending the trench and trying to reveal the surface of whatever was covering it, only to find that all that was preventing it from caving in was a precarious layer of crudely stuck together mortar and rubble.

Having confirmed that there was no in-situ structure over the top of it, we spent most of the morning and early afternoon equally carefully dismantling the rubble over the void, successfully avoiding a cave-in, to reveal an extremely well made square chamber with an immaculate circular interior, abutting the southerly wall of T2, set side by side with a small section of brick floor which contains a small chamfered recess with a base of dark-green glazed floor tiles.

We have found a considerable number of glazed floor tiles on the site of Elsyng over the last 20 years, but this is the first time we have ever seen any in-situ. The sides of the recess also appear to have been rendered, as does the adjacent wall in T2.

We've also noticed a slightly protruding mortar ridge around the brickwork which may be a tell-tale clue that the circular chamber did in fact once have a timber lid, which has long decayed away leaving only the precarious rubble cover which somehow survived without collapsing for more than 360 years.

Our next question was of course how deep is the chamber - and so we removed its loose rubble fill as far as was practicable. At a depth of about seven brick courses we found a hole through the chamber's southern face - caused by the absence of a single brick.

Having reached about as far down as was possible (or safe!) we then probed the remaining rubble with a 140cm fencing pin. We were able to insert the complete pin with very little resistance, so the chamber is at least two metres deep and likely a lot deeper - unfortunately far too deep to even consider excavating.

We now think this feature is almost certainly a well. The hole in the south face may once have admitted a lead pipe to keep it topped up. The recess with the floor tiles is where the well would have been accessed - the tiles and chamfered edges acting to catch spills and drips and guide them back into the well chamber.

How the well relates to the possible culvert beneath the adjacent brick surface is still not entirely clear, but a fresh water supply at one end may have been used to keep water running through any nearby conduit system.

At the north end of trench 2, where the brick surface narrows down, we've exposed about 8 or 9 courses of brickwork on the exterior of the wall but still no definite evidence of a conduit.

Later in the afternoon we extended the trench one last time to see a little more of the structure.

Meanwhile the wall in trench 3 was cleaned off and fully recorded. It is really a whopper - more than 90cm wide - although this may be a foundation and the upper wall maybe was narrower - it is still evidently intended to bear an enormous weight - such as a four storey gatehouse.

As for where the wall runs to - this is a question for another year!

Trench one was backfilled today and trench 4 will probably follow suit soon.

Day 10 of the dig saw us soldier on in the extensions to Trench 2. The circular brick void at the south end of the trench is continuing to cause much head-scratching, not least when it became apparent that there is in fact no properly constructed lid to it - it is covered only by an extremely haphazard collection of mortar and brick and tile rubble.

How on Earth this has survived intact without collapsing for the better part of four centuries is anybody's guess, and how it got there as it is now, is also more than a little puzzling.

Our only plausible interpretation at the moment is that the feature maybe once had a wooden lid which was buried in rubble, and has since decayed away.

We spent much of the morning and afternoon carefully clearing away rubble from the top of the feature, hoping to find a properly constructed roof, but once holes began to open up in the rubble we stopped and recorded the surface of the mortar rich deposit, about the thickness of one brick, which defines the top of the void. (Click here for an annotated version of the above image).

We then dug down on the outside of the feature, on its east side, hoping to be able to expose its external face but the rubble here was so loose that another gap opened up, and so we again paused work to reconsider our strategy.

It's pretty clear now that the covering of the void is not an in-situ structural feature, and so tomorrow we will begin to carefully remove it and finally get a good look at the circle of brickwork inside, and hopefully get a better idea of what it is - it could be a well, or a garderobe chute, a cistern or something else again.

Its function is likely closely related to the adjacent brick 'floor' surface - which today we dug an ever-growing sondage down one face.

To our surprise it has now revealed at least seven courses of brickwork, which means that this is something more than just a floor. Together with the appearance of the well-like void we're now suspecting that the brick surface is perhaps a culverted drain - maybe taking water from the south end of the trench and channeling it north, maybe into a moat.

If this is the case, we can expect the brickwork down the side of the 'floor' to continue down to a considerable depth.

It is also possible, if this is a culvert, that the nearby circular 'well' feature is connected to it, though there's no evidence for that yet.

Meanwhile in Trench 4, the wall that we've been working hard to reveal all week finally appeared. This trench was placed on the location of a wall junction we only saw part of late on in last year's dig, and was intended to confirm whether the wall was a corner or a junction.

We can now confirm it is a junction, and a spur of the wall continues south-west, which means our gatehouse is larger than we previously thought. It is a very substantial wall, as you might expect for the foundations of a four-storey building.

We also continued to excavate Trench 4, in which we have abandoned hope of finding signs of the 1960s trenches, but in recompense it is producing one or two nice finds including another large chunk of the brilliant blue Westerwald jug we found part of on day 8.

We returned from a hard-earned day off, back to the woods of Forty Hall today, and our diggers' hard work has begun to reveal some increasingly interesting, and typical for for the site of Elsyng Palace, enigmatic features.

We ended day 8 in Trench 2 having revealed an asymmetric brick surface, partially laid obliquely over a wall at its north end, and perpendicular to the foundations of another at its south end (the two walls likely meeting to form a corner in a trench we dug last year). This was further complicated by a deliberately filled slot at the floor's north end, and possibly another at its south end. See day 7 for pictures.

We started the day today by removing non-structural rubble from around the southern wall, and it now looks like the southern of the two slots through the floor was an illusion, and the floor in fact abuts the south wall.

However, removing rubble in the south-east corner of the trench revealed a surprise - a hole has opened up into a sizeable void beyond the south end of the trench.

It's just about big enough to get a camera into, and as far as we can see it is lined with a curved brick face to a depth of at least 9 or maybe 10 courses - a depth of about 60cm.

The roof of the chamber is either loose rubble or very haphazardly mortared brick fragments - it is possible that there's a better-built roof to it above.

We have therefore opened a 2x1m extension over the top of it and have removed topsoil and most of the ubiquitous pebble context that covers the whole area. We've just begun to reveal the rubble layer that likely lays on top of whatever this feature is, and will have to devise a careful excavation strategy tomorrow to avoid loosing one of our diggers into the chamber headfirst!

Meanwhile at the other end of the trench we opened a similar extension, aiming to reveal more of the other wall and hopefully the north end of the brick floor - due to their oblique angles relative to one another the edge of the floor and wall should come together somehow somewhere not far away.

We again got as far as the beginning of the rubble deposit, although some of it looks as if it is in-situ, possibly meaning that the structures are not demolished as deep at the north end of the trench.

The most interesting find of the day was a chunk of yellow-glazed floor tile from Trench 3 which is still being dug down to the level of the expected wall junction.

We have seen plenty of glazed floor tiles before but never one with graffiti scratched onto it. This one has a series of overlapping circles scratched onto its reverse side.

Circle-based geometric designs are a common form of graffiti, and are often found in buildings (especially churches) in England, from the early medieval period up until the 19th century.

Sometimes known as "witches marks", their meaning or purpose, if any, is disputed - see https://historicengland.org.uk/whats-new/features/discovering-witches-marks/what-are-witches-marks/ for more information.

Whether a secret symbol deliberately placed beneath a floor to ward off evil, or a bored apprentice with a pair of dividers, it's a nice human touch we very rarely see on ordinary building materials.

No significant developments to report on day 8 of our two week dig on the site of Elsyng Palace.

We spent most of the day making detailed plans, surveying and photographing the brickwork in Trench 2.

We're still not sure what the purpose of the brick floor is in T2, nor the two apparent channels at either end of it. We don't think it's likely that they are drains, since they don't seem to lead to or from anywhere, so the balance of evidence at the moment points to slots for timber beams.

Having studied the mortar of the walls at either end of the trench (see the diagram from yesterday) we think they date to the early 16th century phase of the palace, when it was remodelled by Sir Thomas Lovell.

Since the floor is laid on top, it must post-date that phase and so may be part of the work done in the early 17th century, when the palace was again remodelled and reduced in size by James I, before it was given as a grace-and-favour home to his friend the Earl of Pembroke.

This is all still very speculative, and in order to understand it better we want to see more of the structure, particularly at the north end of the trench.

As often happens we've unfortunately placed a spoil heap slightly too close to the trench to extend in that direction so we bit the bullet and spent part of the afternoon moving it out of the way.

We still have two other trenches open - T3 which will eventually come down onto the wall junction we saw last year (see Day 1), and T4 over at the western end of the site, in search of the 1960s trenches.

Work in both these trenches has become hard-going as they've had a long time to bake in the hot and dry conditions.

Trench 4 has almost certainly not hit any 1960s backfill, but there is a deposit of very compacted brick rubble in one corner and it has begun to produce some small finds, including a few very striking fragments of "Westerwald" stoneware - probably a jug - decorated with a brilliant cobalt blue glaze.

Westerwald pottery comes very late in the chronology of Elsyng - in this case most likely dating to the mid-17th century - and so this vessel would have been amongst the last high quality tablewares imported onto the site before its final demolition circa 1660.

This and a few other finds in Trench 4 further point to its never having been dug before. We will fully excavate this trench but it looks probable now that we won't have time this year to open any more trenches targeting the 60s work.

Monday is our day off, but we'll be back on Tuesday to wrestle the remaining secrets from our open trenches.