Industrial archeology question

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

In the NE, there is a wood, through the middle of which was an ironstone mine, workings and various remnants of associated buildings scattered along the site. Mostly brick built, but with some stone buildings - All of which they are working on to preserve.

There was no one around on the days I was walking the dog up there to ask, but I was curious about one particular item.....

The curious thing was close to where various building foundations had been excavated and exposed, bricks had been collected and put in neat piles. The curious thing was a tall carn of rough stones, with a timber stake vertical up through its centre, rather like a tall thin behive shape. Why might they do that?

[Andy Burns]

Some sort of memorial to an accident there?

[Alex]

It's a survey trig point.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

It was obviously fairly freshly built.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Alex submitted this idea :

Possible, but it seemed to be a lot of trouble to go to for that, forming irregular pieces of stone into a pile and it wouldn't have been too difficult for someone to push it over in their absence. The timber around which it was built, did have a plastic label nailed to it with a number permanent marked on it - so yes, possibly a trig point.

[Bob Eager]

If it was in a wood, I doubt it - no sight lines.

And trig points are MUCH more complicated than that - inside and underground as well. You (well, many people anyway) would be surprised.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Bob Eager submitted this idea :

It was in a quite dense wood, with a track running close to the site. The 'trig point' along with salvaged bricks, piled on one side of the track and the site of the excavation on the other side of the track. It seemed an awful lot of effort had been expended on carefully building the 'trig point', from loose stone blocks upto around 6 feet.

[Bob Eager]

That also sounds too tall for a trig point, so sounds like a one off effort for an unknown purpose.

Worth reading my link about trig points, though - I thought it was fascinating.

[PeterC]

It was a stone-age beefburger.

[John Armstrong]

Yes indeed, thanks. I had no idea there was so much undergound. A quick search of the database showed me there is an "intersected station" (a church spire) two minutes' walk from my house.

[nightjar]

Archaeologists need fixed points to work from when recording what they found and where. They do not, however, need to last longer than the dig, so can be improvised.

[Vir Campestris]

"The location of the station is actually defined by a Lower Centre Mark, fixed into the bedrock"

Hmm. We're on clay, at least 20ft thick. I wonder what they used for bedrock on the one up the road?

Andy