2023 Excavations

  1. Site Location
  2. Geophysics Survey
  3. Excavations
  4. Unit 1
  5. Unit 2

Site Location

The Seccombe House Music Hall was originally built just north of 1st Street, in what today is Skinner Chapel’s southwest lawn. It’s approximate historic location was determined using old campus maps and photographs from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The approximate location of Seccombe House, in the bottom left corner. Blue buildings are historic buildings that are no longer present on Carleton’s Campus.
The class’s survey grid. Each box is 5 meters by 5 meters. The total grid is roughly 30m by 30m, although we are missing the northeast corner of the grid because it was too close to flower beds and greenery around Skinner Chapel.

Geophysics Survey

The students in our class collaborated with archaeologist Geoff Jones of Archaeo-Physics LLC, a geophysics survey company out of the Twin Cities that specializes in archaeological prospection using non-destructive, below-surface mapping.

We set up a grid and conducted a variety of geophysical surveys to identify the location of the Seccombe House, as well as any other below-ground anomalies. This included 1) electrical resistance 2) electromagnetic conductivity and 3) magnetic susceptibility. We also tried ground penetrating radar (GPR) but that did not work well with the soils of the Chapel lawn.

This images shows the results of the electrical resistance survey. The darker areas indicate areas of higher resistance to electrical current, such as buried building foundation stones and rubble. The white areas indicate areas with low resistance, such as areas that used to be a sewer line.

Following the results of the geophysics survey, we tested the dark areas with a probe, and located a general outline of the old Seccombe House’s stone foundation. This helped us choose locations to put our excavation units, hoping to reveal the building foundations and understand more about the anomalies we saw in the below-ground mapping.

This map shows the location of positive probes (blue x’s) and the red dotted-line gave us a rough idea of the original location of the Seccombe House’s stone foundations.

Excavations

Following the results of the geophysics survey, we laid out two 1x2m excavation units. We ended up excavating three distinct levels below the surface in each of the two units.

This map shows the location of Unit 1 and Unit 2, relative to the electrical resistance results, and the proposed outline of the Seccombe House foundations. We hoped to uncover foundations in both units, as well as explore the dark area near Unit 2.

Unit 1

3D Model

Seccombe House Music Hall_Unit 1 by skenned11 on Sketchfab

Unit 1 was aligned north/south toward the western edge of the Seccombe House. In the final level, Level 3, you can see a modern modern white pvc sprinkler pipe exposed at the north of the unit (running east to west). This sprinkler system is modern and for the Skinner Chapel Lawn.

Roughly 1.5 meters south of the sprinkler system, at the bottom of Unit 1, you can see the Seccombe House stone foundations. These are from 1866.

There are also bits of clay, rubble, and a round hole in the unit.

Unit 2

3D Model

Seccombe House Music Hall_Unit 2 by skenned11 on Sketchfab

Unit 2 was also aligned north/south, but with its long edge running east/west. It was placed along the eastern edge of Seccombe House, to identify the southeastern corner of the house. In the final level, Level 3, you can see a modern white pvc sprinkler pipe exposed in the north of the unit (running east to west). This sprinkler system is modern and for the Skinner Chapel Lawn.

Right below the sprinkler system you can see two of the walls. They make up the southeast corner. These are from 1866. There are also bits of clay, rubble, and a round hole in the unit.