Morrison's Haven
Morrison's Haven today is partly visible but the bulk of the site remains buried under tons of industrial colliery waste.
Initial work concentrated on clearing the vegetation from the tops of the walls of the now in-filled Morrison’s Harbour to get a clearer idea of what was still visible and accessible in addition to allowing the visible remains to be mapped against historical surveys of the harbour. It was realised early on that it would not be possible to do any significant archaeological trenching work in and around the harbour, without major health and safety problems. An auger survey within the harbour and in the area immediately surrounding the harbour quickly identified that there is at least 4 metres of rubble and ash covering much of the harbour and the surrounding landscape. For the remainder of the project the majority of the archaeological fieldwork concentrated on establishing the location and survival of the pottery and glassworks.
Fully cleaned and ready for a photo! Remains of the harbour wall at Morrison's Haven.
Plan of Morrison's Haven produced after survey by volunteers. [Larger version of plan]
Test coring
Test coring (augering) was undertaken within Morrison’s Haven using a pneumatic piston corer. This proved to be difficult owing to the nature of the debris found to have been used to back-fill the site during its demise in the late 1960’s. However, the results established that at least 4m of overburden lay above the former lagoon area. Within the haven, itself, another 4m of sediment was identified below this overburden before it finally bottomed out onto sandstone bed-rock. The results are in accord with the photographic archive that shows that all manner of industrial material was dumped, including shattered ceramic pipe, bricks and boiler ash (bing material).
