#ThrowbackThursday St Mary’s hospital

For this week’s #ThrowbackThursday we thought we’d take a hint from the chillier temperatures this week and talk about the effects of different weather on site.

These pictures are from our large scale excavation at the former St Mary’s hospital in Colchester, which took place over several years in the early 2000’s. Because of this we have a range of photos from the site showing all seasons and all working conditions that the CAT team had to deal with, including several instances of thick snow!

Junior Project Officer Emma remembers the site fondly: “It was so cold the winter of 2002-3 that the planners used to have to tape our pencils to our gloves as we couldn’t bend our hands through so many layers to grip them! On many occasions after planning a feature I went back to my board to find I’d drawn onto a thin layer of ice and when it warmed up during the day the ice melted taking my plan with it!”

Every season and weather type has it’s own challenges to deal with, from frozen ground and ice in the winter to skyrocketing temperatures and harsh sunlight in the summer. Thankfully we’re normally prepared with appropriate clothes, tools and knowledge to deal with whatever the weather throws at us (hot cups of tea, anyone?) but we can still get a curveball come our way!

Which weather would you think is ideal to work in?