Trench I was the focus of work during 1998 and 1999, after the excavation of Trench II in 1997 failed to reveal any in situ Mesolithic archaeology. In 1996, we laid out a trench 10 m by 2 m running from the mouth of the cave down the slope, but the following year it was decided to open a wider area, but only reaching west to the break of slope, some 5 m from the cave. This gave us a square area.
It quickly became clear that the rubble generated when the cave was enlarged and shaped had been laid down in front of it to create an artificial platform. At first, we connected this with the construction of the Landscape Park c 1800, but it quickly became clear that it lay beneath a deposit of mid eighteenth-century date. This led us to the conclusion that it was John Harris, the hermit, who had modified the cave (or, more likely, given his alleged wealth, that he had paid someone else to do the work for him). This interpretation was reinforced by a number of quite unexpected features. Towards the edge of the platform, we found several circular depressions about 0.25 m in diameter and 0.1 m deep. They strongly resembled postholes. In line with them, and separated by a similar distance, was a large flat stone that resembled a post pad. These features seem to belong to a timber-framed structure added to the front of the cave immediately after its enlargement. This does not really fit in with the idea of the late eighteenth-century pleasure garden or the park. It seems more likely that John Harris had a comfortable, timber fronted home. The fragments of eighteenth-century slipwares and clay tobacco pipes found in association with this structure indicate that he did not live as a wild man, whose only material possession was a Bible, which the early account of him would have us believe. He seems to have lived, at least while at Carden, as an eccentric recluse, but in reasonable comfort.
To the west of the platform, we found a rough right-angled alignment of stones, so in 1998 we extended the trench to see if this really was part of a rectangular structure. It turned out that this was the case. The larger stones had been laid with their flat sides uppermost and in between them lay smaller rubble and soil. In the northwest corner, we found a posthole that still contained the rotting stump of a post and packing (including two eighteenth-century bricks). Presumably this structure had formed the base for yet another of John Harris’s modifications to the cave. The whole thing was no bigger than a garden shed; perhaps it formed a store or privy.
As we began to dismantle the structure, we were surprised to find Bronze Age pottery incorporated into it. This was the first material of this date to be recovered from the site. As excavation progressed, we also found one of two lithics (including a core) that looked more like Early Bronze Age pieces than Mesolithic. We wondered if the structure had been build from materials removed from the floor of the cave before it was enlarged. Bronze Age material is sometimes found in cave sites, so this seemed a reasonable hypothesis. Closer inspection of the pottery then revealed that some of it is of Beaker type. This sort of vessel is found in Britain between about 2500 and 1800 BC. However, it is usually associated with ritual sites (either henge enclosures or burials) and when a few scraps of human bone were found immediately east of the structure, we began to wonder if there had been a burial here. This raises a number of possibilities that we will not be able to choose between without further excavation on the site. One is that a Beaker period burial was deposited in the cave, to be disturbed and thrown out among the other rubbish when John Harris cleared it. Another is that the structure was not built by Harris (or his men) but merely adapted by him. The size and shape is comparable with that of a burial cist and although none are known from Cheshire, there are examples from northeast Wales, such as at Brymbo (near Wrexham).
Beneath Harris’s rubble platform we found only Mesolithic artefacts (and one or two pieces of more modern material that were obviously intrusive - rabbits were responsible for the original discovery of flints and unfortunately continue to mix material across the site). This was concentrated especially towards the southwestern corner of the trench. We found that some of the rocks that were otherwise spread across the site appeared to have been cleared and in the centre of the area was a patch of burnt sandstone. This looks like an in situ hearth. Another was found to the east, immediately in front of the rock floor of the cave. Between the two, there are some thin slabs of bedrock, laid vertically, apparently forming a box-like construction.
In one place, where we had completely removed the Mesolithic layer, we found a point formed on a prismatic blade of finer quality flint than much of the Mesolithic material. Prismatic blades are more characteristic of the Upper Palaeolithic than of the Mesolithic, so this raised the possibility that the history of the cave’s use stretched back further than we had thought. This was confirmed in 1999, when we found a Creswell Point, a very diagnostic Late Upper Palaeolitic artefact.