Day two Round-up
Upper Ward: Found it!
In the Upper Ward, the diggers continued to have to go deeper than anticipated in search of the archaeology, so for most of the day there was no sign of Edward III's Round Table Building. The extra depth – they're two metres down now – has meant that only the first trench has been opened so far, and this has required shoring up to avoid it collapsing.

Late on in the day, however, the smug expression on the face of Time Team's 'geophys' man Chris Gaffney tells its own story. The 'lovely circular anomaly' identified in his ground penetrating radar survey has been found by the diggers – and it turns out to be a large, curving 'robber trench' (from which the original stones have been removed or 'robbed out'), which was infilled with building rubble.

Better still, in terms of the search for the Round Table Building, the archaeologists have been able to date it by some pieces of 14th-century pottery found during the excavation. It's fairly crude 'bog-standard' pottery – so no high-quality royal crockery here yet – but it's enough for the experts to agree that 'geophys' has chalked up another success and that Edward III's building was located here.

We'll be bringing you more about Edward's Round Table, together with the progress of the dig, tomorrow, as well as talking to Chris Gaffney about how 'geophys' managed to turn up trumps again.

(Image shows the location of the trench in the Upper Ward over the circular anomaly identified by the geophysics survey.)

Lower Ward: Almost found it!
The search for Henry II's Great Hall in the Lower Ward is beginning to bear fruit. The day's excavations have not yet come up with evidence of the hall's walls, but they have uncovered structures from a variety of periods, including a medieval floor surface that it is thought probably belonged to the Great Hall. Thanks to the rain it stands out clearly as a clearly differentiated yellow-coloured surface in the main trench (see photos).

As well as the foot of the spiral staircase from Canon James Denton's 1519 building (see previous blog entries), other structures uncovered here today include an 18th-century chimney stack and a huge block of chalk and ragstone wall dating from around the 13th century. It is thought that this was part of the living quarters and sleeping chambers associated with Henry's Great Hall, though it isn't one of the walls of the hall itself.

The first finds of the dig have also been made here this afternoon. They are few and far between at the moment – a few scraps of Tudor pottery and a pistol ball – but perhaps an indication of things to come.

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