Good-Bye to Dunning

On the 23rd of August, in the morning, we had a little cemetery recording 'class' in the St Serf's churchyard. After that we spent the day recording, finishing context sheets, taking photos, etc. At one point, Adrian & I took the gravestone that had been our first find back into the churchyard, by a stone which had the same last name. At the end of the day, the Historic Scotland fellow (I seem to think his name was Gary?) was so kind as to actually offer to let us up in the old church tower! I'd been wanting to go up the whole time, but had assumed it was not allowed. Nor was it really today, either, but he was such a kind fellow, and felt that we deserved it.

A gravestone from the 1920s, imitating the earlier, Pictish style.

The other side of the stone.

This was below a bench stone, so was hard to get a good angle on it. Skull & crossbones!

Winged angel face above the skull & crossbones.

There was quite a story on this stone!

The side where a window used to be in the medieval times.

A last look at the trench.

A group shot (standing in the small 2nd trench we dug at Dunning). Left to right: Steve Driscoll, Hilary, Meggan Gondeck, Megan, myself,  Nicola, Lewis & Adrian.

Take two, with a photo board, which reads 100% Pictish!

Holding the key to get into the tower!

A view of Dunning.

Pigeons nesting in the tower.

Going back down the spiral staircase!

One of the rooms in the tower.

On the 24th, we came back to Dunning to work on the 3rd trench. I drew a section drawing and a plan drawing, then helped them backfill - as this one was down the road and in someone's back garden, we were backfilling this by hand. 

The foot-bridges that go across the stream (river?) that runs through Dunning.

A last look at St Serf's.

This is a bad photo - the gravestone in the foreground is sadly over-exposed. But I wanted to get a shot of where we put our gravestone when we returned it to the churchyard.