Sunday, 8 June 2014

The end of cobbing party - or is it the end .... ?

Saturday 7 June - After working in the Sedgwick Museum during the morning I had a wander around Strawberry Fair, which was looking sparsely populated due to dire forecasts of rain. Then I made my way over to Northwest Cambridge to see how the cobbing had progressed and meet up with other cobbers for an "end of cobbing" party.

Walking onto the site for the first time in weeks I could see Kirsten at work with Karen and some cobbers from previous weeks, folding up tarpaulins and tidying up the site for the party. A huge amount of cobbing has been done. The rounded space-age torus of the primary school had been built, so had the community centre, there were many more houses and flats and the ground plans for many more buildings had been laid out.

We drank cava among the new cob buildings, sitting on the roof of the primary school (very naughty!) and Kirsten made a small ball of champagne cob to fix a small hole in the primary school roof. Karen and Nina thanked everyone for their work, Cindy and Al for the wonderful food, and Kirsten for her relelntless efforts. Kirsten herself was adorned with her order of the Marigold regal gloves and sceptre. The sun shone upon the new cob landscape, defining sharp-edged cob shadows across the gravel plain, and we all toasted the success of the project.

Later in the barn we ate a selection of delicious cakes with a cup of tea and it was explained that the cobbing might possibly continue to complete the models of the research buildings. It's not clear yet exactly how this would be funded or carried out, but the possibility seems to be there - hurrah!

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Friday, 6 June 2014

Gravel Hill particle size analysis

Gravel Hill subsoil particle size analysis

A preliminary analysis of the particle sizes at the Gravel Hill site shows why it is a good site for cobbing - both now and in the Iron Age. The glaciofluvial debris (probably from MIS 13, just over 400 kyr ago) includes a good mixture of coarse clasts, sand and fine clays.



Of the material finer than 70 microns (.07 of a mm), a relatively high proportion is very fine, including the clays <2 micons, .002 of a mm.

Don't forget to visit the main TT cobbers facebook page:
https://m2.facebook.com/ttcobbers/
search for: Tomorrow, Today Cobbers