Not a great deal to report on day three of our 14-day dig on the site of Elsyng Palace.

Not much has changed from yesterday - in Trench 1 we continued to remove the browner deposit at the east end of the trench, that continued to yield a large amount of late 19th and early 20th century rubbish, and it continues to look as if this is overlying the compact layer of mortar and rubble we found at the west end of the trench.

The rubble layer is still very clean of finds and increasingly looks to be an in-situ post-palace demolition deposit and not a backfilled archaeological trench, which we had been looking for.

As the day wore on we cut a preview slot in the rubble and found it to extend to a depth of at least a metre - the last time we encountered a context like this it turned out to be the fill of a palace cellar. We have decided to extend this metre-deep preview slot to the entire length of the trench to confirm that the rubble layer extends that far. We won't be able to safely dig any deeper, but might possibly find an intact palace wall or two lurking in the rubble.

As far as locating the 1960s trenches goes, we may try one more throw of the dice later in the dig, by opening another trench a few metres further west, but that will depend on other factors such as weather and available manpower, and whether or not we do encounter any structures in Trench 1.

Meanwhile in Trench 2, we finished removing the pebble deposit and have begun to dig the brickearth and rubble layer that lies above the wall and possible floor surface that we found a corner of last year.

Hopefully it won't be long before we see our first Tudor wall of the dig - fortunately we know for certain there is one waiting for us in Trench 2!