The excavation concentrated:

A. between the main entrance and the “First Gallery”, the “Lapidario Room” and the area between these rooms, showing that the castle can still produce new features of interest.

B. the lower floor of the Donjon, garrisoned in 1147 by a knight called “Wid der [all] hart the younge”, the founder of the Vialardis.

The excavation examined the earlier phase of those rooms, showing that the hearth had been set upon an area of previous intense burning.

In the “First Gallery” and in the “Lapidario Room” a trench was cut to investigate the make-up levels below the cobbling and hearth area. This revealed a layer of natural red clay into which had been inserted a substantial wall running perpendicularly between the Donjon and the “Lapidario Room” with a flight of six steps leading to the west doorway into the Donjon. The steps were abandoned when the ground was made up to take the paved and cobbled floor of the main entrance.

The Lapidario room was trowelled at the latest medieval occupation level and more of the bench against the north curtain wall was exposed.
No additional work was undertaken on the east curtain wall and two other dwarf walls were found butted against the north curtain wall and, further west, an internal cross wall with a sandstone block as its doorway base was examined.
Excavation has continued along the northern edge of the east courtyard between the reverting wall and the “First Gallery”.

The Donjon and the area between it and the north ditch provided the greatest interest. The south wall of the Donjon was exposed and was still standing to at least 3 m. high.
The survival of pitched stones in both the west and east walls provided firm evidence for the arched head of the west doorway but more work needs to be done on the possible east doorway.

The major discovery is that between the south wall of the Donjon and the northern end of the north ditch is a stone-built vaulted room, standing at least 3 meters high from the rock base to the crown of the the vault.
The rock floor has not yet been reached, but the side walls show the quarried rock face topped by retaining walls. This room occupies most of the quarry cut across the northern part of the castle.
Where as the adjacent rooms (north-east and north-west) were filled with dumped material to provide floors at a higher level, the space at the back of the Donjon was utilised for a cellar and its walled forecourt. The external limits of this vaulted room have now been established.
However its relationship to the adjacent rooms and the means of access to it will need to be ascertained, the purpose of the room was not satisfactorily established.
Excavation so far indicates that the room was filled with soil and mortared stone late in the medieval occupation but that at least some structures were visible in the eighteenth century.

Apart from animal, there were interesting medieval finds: coarse and fine glazed pottery (XIII - middle XV) including a French tin-glazed ware; lead used for roofing sheets, iron studs, a bell, a buckle, a tripod flagon leg, an arrow of copper alloy and a gold bead or pendant. There were two catapult balls found in the Donjon along with an iron armored bell (early XIV).
White plaster painted with red-white lines was discarded in a small area south-east of the hall and near the doorways of the north-east room.

Filippo Gambari undertook a geochemical survey of the area and a micro- topographic analysis. One possible house platform was identified, but a small-scale excavation failed to provide any precise occupation layers.

Torrione Castle, 30.11. 1989