After taking a few hours to knock back the invasive Himalayan Balsam near the Blue Beck outlet and in one of the areas we have identified for possible tansy beetle habitat  I wandered around to the New Meadow, where we had recently spread the hay bales. When the meadow and the adjacent field were being prepared they were ploughed then power-harrowed revealing a lot of pot fragments in the previously unprepared area. From this I suspect a great deal of night soil has been emptied here indicating to me that this was arable in the recent past. One clue is the bowl of a 19th Century clay pipe (?). As well as the pottery I also caught a Woodland Brown butterfly as it settled nearby.

Woodland Brown butterfly

Clay pipe bowl