Ashley Tuck of Wessex Archaeology describes some of the latest finds of the excavations at Sheffield Castle, including the gatehouse and part of the drawbridge. Video: Julia Armstrong. Local Democracy Reporter Service
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 So I'm talking to Ashley Tuck who's the project manager at the Sheffield Castle
00:05 excavation. Ashley where are we standing now please if we've been in the castle?
00:10 We're up on top of the Norman Mott so this is an artificial hill that was created 900 years ago and it's an integral part of the castle that's here.
00:20 And we've discovered, nobody knew about this, we've discovered a castle wall here which is an absolutely spectacular find.
00:27 We had no hint that this existed until we came and dug here.
00:31 So it's the yellowy clay area isn't it in front of the brick wall?
00:35 Yeah the yellowy clay there, that's the Mott and then these stones down here, that's the wall of the castle, the fabric of the castle.
00:42 Wow. So completely amazing discovery.
00:49 Absolutely, we had no hint this would be here, obviously you expect a castle on the site of a castle but we didn't know it was here in this location.
00:57 We've got several phases of activity, there's different parts of the castle wall, we've got all kinds of things going on in the back and it continues that way, we don't know how far it goes.
01:07 So incredible to find this and what a privilege to excavate it.
01:12 Absolutely, that's we're looking forward to where the old castle market was.
01:17 This is the drawbridge pier, so this is where the drawbridge would have come down and landed on some masonry and people would have travelled in and out of the castle.
01:26 The front corner of this was revealed in the 1920s but nobody's ever seen this back part before.
01:32 That's so cool and behind this is what? Behind me is what? In front of you?
01:37 Behind me is the remains of the castle gatehouse, so down in a concrete bunker under the ground is the round foundation of a large bastion and then another bit where the drawbridge would have come down from to land on this pier.
01:51 Brilliant, I'll just turn around and show people where that is.
01:54 So that's the concrete bit that you can see in front of me behind the orange fence and then over here is where the gatehouse will be.
02:03 Is rather, it's been here a long time.
02:08 So this is the bit, the gatehouse ash is going to be on show to the public isn't it?
02:16 It is, this will all be revealed, we're going to excavate all this material out into the moat that's beneath us here and the gatehouse remains of the drawbridge pier will be preserved and visible in the park for the public to visit.