The first week of the excavation has already passed . Eight persons have been very busy with preparations for the dig, removing the topsoil and exposing the remains of the great hall.
We are very fortunate with this building as there are few later buildings on top of it and not many damages except for a major gravel pit that has damaged the northern gable. But there was one major that we knew about in the shape of a concrete water cistern, built before the 1920s and abandoned around 1960. We were not sure about how much it had damaged the hall and essential features.
Exposing the house features went pretty well in most parts, but the area around the cistern was filled up with with pretty hard layers with lots of brick and and other rubbish. We also got a major surprise when we cleaned up around the cistern. It was surrounded by an an even harder layer of smashed up pieces of brick and some sill stones with a least one recognizable corner. This is evidently a previously unknown building which seems to date to the 17th century. The reason for this is that we found a piece of the mechanism for a wheel lock pistol! It might be a building related to the Scottish nobleman William Nesbitt. He received kungsgården in 1647 for his services in the 30 years war and probably invested in estate that in 1640 is described as being in poor shape. The family loses the estate during the reign of Karl XI which also means that the less money is spent on maintaining the buildings of the estate. The house might have been abandoned pretty soon, which might explain why its not depicted in the very detailed map from 1709.
Our next blog post will cover some pictures of finds and features from the excavation so far.
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