Newsletter of the Pontefract & District Archaeological Society,No 49, Spring 2012. Editor: E. Houlder.

The Dominican Order was founded in 1216 atToulouse S W France. The Dominican mission toBritain arrived in 1221, with the first Friaryfounded at Oxford, then York by 1227, andPontefract by 1256.St Richards Priory was founded on land donatedby Edmund de Lacy at the edge of the new town,or West Chepe, Pontefract. In contrast, St John’sPriory the older Cluniac house, was situated inthe original town area to the east.The Pontefract black friars were allocated aterritory in which to preach and beg,encompassed by Pontefract, Rotherham andWakefield. From 1330 onwards the Popeawarded the Friars the power to preach, hear

confessions and bury the dead. Many townsfolkin Pontefract left small legacies to the Friars andrequested burial in the priory lay cemetery.The house apparently comprised a large`preaching box` church with narrow chancel andlarge nave, cloister, dormitory, chapter house,refectory, kitchens, lavatories and guestaccommodation. All the priory buildings lay southof the church ranged around the cloister, todaylying beneath the demolished former hospital site.The priory was dissolved by King Henry VIII in1538 and surrendered to the crown. The two bellsand roof lead were stripped and sold as was theentire site; the buildings were demolished for theirstone, wood, glass and fittings. The site reverted

to agricultural use as pasture and later becameliquorice fields. The hospital eventually spreadover it after the foundation of the dispensary inthe late 1890’s.When the hospital was expanded in 1963, theSociety excavated a series of trenches to locatethe priory buildings (Wilson K in PontefractArchaeological Journal, 1964). Furtherexploratory work was done by West YorkshireArchaeological Service in 1989-91. When thepresent demolition and re-building was proposed,the Society, with the Pontefract Civic Society,contacted the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trustwith a view to locating the surviving priorybuildings. The Trust donated a sum of moneytogether with use of contractors’ facilities, all tobe overseen by The West Yorkshire ArchaeologyService. Society members and experiencedvolunteers from the whole region were recruited.The dig took place during August and September2011.RESULTS:The excavation found the north wall of the Friarychurch nave. The wall is 75cm wide and set on adeep rock-cut foundation. The wall was laterbuttressed to bear the weight of additions,possibly the construction of a nave clerestory.The east wall of the nave north aisle survived.This too was later buttressed (twice) re-using abroken grave cover slab. Part of an altar (therewould have been several) base survives withinthe church against the whitewashed east wall.Both walls show signs of robbing, presumablypost-Dissolution.Multiple fragments and whole pieces of stonewindow tracery from one of the north wall gothicwindows, the interior faces of which arewhitewashed, were discovered. Fragments ofpainted window glass and the lead canes intowhich it was set have been found too.

Outside the walls, graves of the lay cemeterylying north and east of the church were located.There is a particularly dense cluster of gravesoutside the east wall of the church while some onthe north side are almost touching the wall.Inside the church was a rare Purbeck marblesarcophagus, once set into a wall niche, laterpulled out, broken open and ransacked. Thebones of the occupant were left scattered aroundit. The tomb had once held a high status burial.Fragments of fine decorative stonework, probablyfrom the tomb niche décor, were also foundnearby.A single burial had been cut into the demolitiondebris from the church; it is possible that thisindividual may have been a Civil War casualty,1644-5 or 1648-9.A deep cultivation soil covered the site of theformer church, this soil was improved and manurewith waste from the town and used for thecultivation of liquorice from the 18th to the 20th

century. The deep harvesting trenches werevisible in the soil section on the northern edge ofthe excavation.Also found was a significant amount of medievalpottery, painted window glass, clay pipescovering 400 years of history, metal objects,animal bones oyster shells etc.Plans are already in hand for a season ofexcavation in 2012, and funding is being soughtfor this. The Society acknowledges with gratitudethe assistance of:Real Life Options (RLO); Balfour Beatty; ConsortHealthcare; Wilko Hardware; the late RogerMetcalf; the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust.The very many volunteers – over 200 in total –who took part in what became the second largestexcavation in Yorkshire.

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Frontispiece: Ron Wilson’s beautiful reconstruction picture of St Richard’s, as it may have appeared in about 1400 AD.

The 1963 dig, Lower Left: What was believed at the time to be the south wall of the monastic church. The recent work has disprovedthis theory. It may be the north wall of the cloister garth, but continuing excavation will eventually give us more idea.

Lower Right: The 1963 diggers, outside the garden shed which formed dig HQ.2

The ‘eighties digs. Left: Dig group on site as darkness falls.

Right: Looking south with Bluebell Steps on the right. The diverted monastic culvert visible bottom centre right shows how thefriars’ hydraulic engineering survived into the twentieth century.

THE 2011 DIG

Left: General view across the site towards the end of theseason..Right: The purbeck marble sarcophagus. Below left: 2011diggers receive their certificates at the end of dig party. On theextreme right may be seen Chairman David Wandless - front, anddeputy site director Matthew Webster, behind. Below right: FieldDirector Simon Tomson cuts the site cake, made by ProgrammeSecretary Janet Niepokojczycka.

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Sadly, we have recently lost a number ofmembers, friends and people connected with theSociety. The Editor is grateful to Sibyl Leach, JeanMcNaught, Liz Love, Margaret Lound and DavidWandless for supplying the details to enable usto pay tributes to Huw, Oriel Paul and Don. TheSociety offers its sympathy to their friends andrelatives.Huw Pickard. A well known figure at Society meetingsfor many years, Hugh will be remembered for hismany contributions to local history.Huw spent several years as Vice Chairman ofPontefract Local History Society, and was alsotreasurer for many years. However, he will be bestremembered in the future for his painstaking andthoroughly researched books on the Rev. ThomasHeron, and the Pontefract Advertiser, the newspaperwhich preceded the Pontefract and CastlefordExpress.Oriel Jessop. January 27th aged 80. Born inCornwall, she was immensely proud of her heritage,though she spent thirty years of her life in Yorkshire,and the last seventeen in Featherstone.Oriel had had a fulfilling life which included a spell inthe WRENS, and some years as a nurse.Her funeral service was a celebration of her life, andfittingly closed with a quartet playing The FloralDance.Afterwards at the King’s Croft, her friends had a realCornish tea, with Cornish pasties from Cornwall,scones, cream and jam and saffron cake. A lovelytouch was the gift of a snowdrop (her favourite flower)plant to all those who attended, which will give alasting memory of Oriel, renewed each spring.Her favourite Yorkshire location was the Dales, andfittingly her ashes are interred there in BrooklandsBurial Ground, where a tree will be planted in hername.Paul Wandless. Though Paul left the Society whenhe departed the area almost forty years ago, his twinbrother, David, is currently Chairman and joined withhim in 1968.Those were the formative years of the Society, so thatPaul was able to dig at Welbeck Street in Castleford- Castleford’s first ever dig, St John’s PrioryPontefract, Holywell Wood Glasshoughton,Glasshoughton Manor Farm, Fairburn Ings railway,and several other sites, mainly under the direction ofyour Editor.He maintained his interest in archaeology and visitedthe Hundhill site whilst in the area.Jean Le Patourel. Jean Le Patourel was an eminenthistorian, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, andpottery expert whose recent death at the age of 95severed yet another link with Pontarch’s origins. WhenVince Bellamy began the excavation of St John’s

Priory in 1957, medieval archaeology was somethingof a Cinderella subject, not quite accepted in somequarters. In particular, though Romano Britisharchaeology was seen as respectable and had potterycorpuses, the pottery of medieval sites was hardlystudied, making dating extremely difficult.Jean was a pioneer in this field, assisted in no smallway by the fact that her husband, Professor LePatourel who died in 1981, was an acknowledgedexpert on the period. This is not to detract in any wayfrom the work that Jean did to establish medievalarchaeology at Leeds University. She was founderChairman of the Medieval Group of the YorkshireArchaeological Society, and prominent in the IlkleyArchaeological Society.Name any important medieval dig from the ‘fiftiesonwards, and Jean’s name is prominent amongst theacknowledgements. Wharram Percy, the iconic DMV(deserted medieval village) dig was one of the first,and certainly not the last.In a Pontefract context, her name appears in theacknowledgements of Vince Bellamy’s first report onthe St John’s Priory Excavations, in a much moreprominent position than those of your Editor and VicePresident - and deservedly so.When Jean dug Newstead Moat near Saxton, ourmembers were invited to participate, and a numberincluding your Editor did so. To many of us, this wasour first experience of Open Area Excavation, butJean made everything clear, and in fact gave us thevaluable background to move on to other Open Areasites with complete confidence.Dr Richard Hall. Richard was Deputy Director of theYork Archaeological Trust, and Director ofArchaeology. Aged 62, he was a friend of severalmembers, and a valued speaker when he visited theSociety. He will be best remembered for directing theCoppergate site in York, which brought him worldacclaim. Nevertheless, he was always friendly andapproachable. He will be missed.Don Prince. As we go to print, the news of Don’sdeath has just reached us. Don was a foundermember of Castleford and District Historical Society,together with your Editor, member Margaret Lound,(who is Secretary of C&DHS) and several others. Thiswas 1967, when there was a great interest in foundinglocal societies. As an expert on ancient coins, Don’sknowledge was invaluable during the first ever dig inCastleford, on Welbeck Street, beginning in 1968. Herose to be President of the Castleford society, and inspite of his illness continued to attend meetingswhenever he could. Your Editor was touched when,at great personal effort, Don attended a lecture whichhe gave there in February 2011. Our sympathies goout to Mavis, his wife and their family.

IN MEMORIAM

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On 20th February we received the sad news thatHu Pickard had died.Hu was a long-time member of Pontefract &District Local History Society, and of this Society.Indeed, for many years he was Treasurer of theformer, a job which he carried out very efficiently.He was a staunch supporter of St Giles’ Church,and at one time was Churchwarden there. Huknew everything there was to know about thebuilding and its history - he knew every stone andpane of glass.His interest in the history of Pontefract resultedin a book he wrote in 1989 about the Rev.

Thomas Heron - vicar of St Giles’ in theEighteenth Century. Very little had been writtenabout C18th Pontefract, so Hu’s research for hisbook was a very useful addition to the history ofnot only St Giles’, but of Pontefract.Hu very much enjoyed day trips and weekendsaway to places of interest organised by thisSociety.He will also be remembered for his lovely senseof humour and his dry wit. Hu is already sadlymissed.E. Love.

HU PICKARD - AN APPRECIATION

My wife and I are members of the MilestoneSociety (www.milestonesociety.co.uk; for itsvigorous Yorkshire Branch go to www.yorkshire-milestones.co.uk.) It is a registered charitydevoted to the recording and care of milestonesand a range of other waymarkers, fingerposts,and toll houses. A friend who knew of this interestput me in touch with his friend, who owned amilestone, a general view of which is fig 1. Ishould add that most milestones are owned bythe Highways Authority, but this one is inlegitimate private ownership. Its history, I wastold, is that it was by the side of the A1 at RobinHood's Well, near Skelbrooke; when the road wasmade into a dual carriageway in the early 1960sit was rescued by a local inhabitant, from whomthe present family acquired it some years ago. Itis now in the possession of my informant's son"somewhere in the West Riding". The Well usedto be on the west side of the road. After it hadbeen made into a dual carriageway the Well wasre-erected on the east side. It is accessible froma service road a little south of the turn-off toCampsall and Askern; Google has both picturesand details of it. It was and is a fraction over 7miles from the centre of Doncaster.What was the upper destination on the stone?Fig 2 shows the mark on it next to the "6", and itis so much like the "7" below that it is hard to treatit as a scratch or weathering. (6 miles would takeone to Darrington, but I do not think that the topdestination can be reconstructed as Darrington.)We are therefore looking at somewhere 67 milesnorth of the Well, 74 miles from Doncaster –common sense tells us that we can rule out

somewhere south of Doncaster. On that basis,it is almost certainly a pre-turnpike milestone, andso older than 1741, the year in which Parliamentgave authority to turnpike the Great North Roadfrom Doncaster to Boroughbridge (14 Geo2 c28).In general, turnpike trusts did not show distanceson their milestones to places outside the limits oftheir own trust. One exception is theoretical: thistrust would show the distance to the centre ofDoncaster, even though the first toll gate wouldbe at the outskirts of the town. Also, trusts oftenshowed distances to London on roads leadingthere; and, especially in the south, to placesbeyond the limits of their own trust. As anexample, on the Bath Road, the Reading toMaidenhead trust showed distances to Newburyand Colnbrook. But a turnpike stone at the Wellwould not show the distance to the north beyondits limit, Boroughbridge, about 46 miles, thoughit would show the distance to, say, Wentbridge orWetherby. An interesting sidelight on theparochialism of trusts is shed by the stone in fig3, found on the left hand side of the A61 goinginto Harrogate from Leeds, opposite the Cometstore. It is inscribed: "Boundary of the Leeds toRipon Turnpike Trusts". Each trust wasinterested only in its own bailiwick.But the 67/74 miles to somewhere is problematic.A map shows only three large places around 74miles from Doncaster. By modern roads,Catterick is 68 miles from Doncaster; Richmond75; and Darlington 82. There is, however, oneother factor: on what basis was 67/74 miles"known"? Was it from a survey, reasonablyaccurate by modern standards, or by general

A PRE-TURNPIKE MILESTONEDr Lionel Scott

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repute; or even by adding up various reputeddistances (e.g. we "know" that Wetherby is xmiles away, and Boroughbridge is said to be ymiles further on, and so forth)? If the latter, wasthe reputation one of statute miles, or localcustomary miles, which lingered in many parts ofthe country right into the turnpike era?Customary miles varied from area to area butwere usually longer than the statute mile of 1760yards established by Parliament in 1593.Fig 4 shows the top in high definition, and at theend of the day, we have three choices for theoriginal. One possibility is Richmond. Thedistance is a close fit in statute miles, but theletters of the name do not really fit what is on thestone. The second is Darlington. The stonesuggests that the name ended in -ton, and theword can perhaps be reconstructed with a littleimagination; though we would have to assumethat the stone cutter did not extend the tail of the"g" below the line. We could explain the distanceas based on hearsay and reputation, perhapsbased on customary miles, rather than anaccurate survey. In the early 18th century, atraveller had two basic routes there fromDoncaster. In modern terms, one was up the A1to a few miles south of Darlington, where the oldA1 into the town is now a minor road throughBarton, joining the A167 about 1½ miles south ofthe town centre. The other is harder to follownowadays, but one could fork right atBoroughbridge, go by RAF Dishforth, and fromAsenby reach the A167 and thence intoDarlington. Either route was about the same

distance. The third is to concede that we cannotrecover the distant place; what remains of theletters is too little for epigraphical reconstruction.The fluting on the back, fig 5, is unusual. If notoriginal decoration, it is possible that the stonewas a reject from a local stonemason, who hadmade an error in cutting a series of fluted stonesfor the columns of the portico of somegentleman's house. It could be bought cheaplyand used as a milestone by whoever put thestone up; possibly the same gentleman as agesture of public service. The top of the Well issaid to have been designed by Sir JohnVanburgh, and it could have been the sameperson who offered to pay his fee. If the flutingwas put on later, after the turnpike trust erectedtheir own stone, it would originally have been anunusually thick milestone from back to front. Thetop, fig 6, is also a mystery. Without the triangle,one could guess that the top was broken off whena cart or carriage came off the road and collidedwith it; a fate that still continues to happen tostreet furniture. We can only speculate that atsome time after such an accident, someonewanted to use the resulting flat surface for apurpose that involved incising the triangle. Orperhaps the top was deliberately removed tocreate a surface for the triangle. Perhaps one ofthe readers of this Newsletter has an inspirationas to the use of such a triangle. It has baffled themembers of the Milestone Society, whose inputI gratefully acknowledge in putting this articletogether.

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Figure 1. Figure 2. Figure 3.

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Above: Figure 4.

Below Left: Figure 5. Below Right: Figure 6.

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EDITORIALHopefully, this newsletter will reach youearly in 2012. The 2011 AGM has longgone, and much has happened since,particularly the Society’s first dig forseveral years. At the AGM, Irelinquished the Chair, and DavidWandless was elected in my place.

David joined PontArch in the late ‘60s as a schoolboy,with his twin brother Paul. Sadly, Paul died earlier thisyear. The brothers participated in all the local digswhich were taking place at that time, like St John’sPriory, Welbeck Street, Glasshoughton Manor, theFairburn cut railway, etc. More recently, David andAnn his wife, dug on the Roman road at Hundhill. Inmy opinion, it is good that we maintain continuity inour society.We are grateful to Dr Scott for giving us theopportunity to publish the newly discovered milestone,which may be not exactly local, but certainly withinour sphere of influence. Since the last issue of thisnewsletter, both the Wakefield ArchaeologicalSociety, and the Doncaster Archaeological Societyhave been unable to continue. We welcome thosemembers of both groups who have joined us, whilstdeploring the circumstances in which they havejoined. Welcome to you all!Please note this change to our published programme:March 16th 2012. In place of the advertised talk,Field Director Simon Tomson will report to

members on the first season’s digging on theinfirmary site – St Richard’s Friary.ADDITION TO THE PROGRAMME:February 21st. A public meeting will be held in ourusual venue in which Simon will report on theresults of the excavation. Though the subject isthe same, members will note differences in thepresentations as the public has different prioritiesand levels of background knowledge.If you have not visited our website yet, please do. Itis constantly being updated by our Webmaster, JaneHawkins, and will shortly have a collection of groupphotographs of every dig in which the Society hasparticipated in more than a minor or voluntarycapacity. You do not need a complicated web address– the Society’s full name will get you there.I was thrilled to be contacted by the National TrustExhibition Organiser at Sutton Hoo a couple ofmonths since. The winter Exhibition there is on the‘60s dig, and will be based around the photographstaken by then Society Photographer Derek Thorpe,and myself. Fame at last!Last winter, the exhibition was on the superb imagesshot by Mercie Lack ARPS, and Barbara WagstaffeARPS in 1939, and received publicity in the nationalpress, and many plaudits. Derek and I are in goodcompany.

Almost a year ago, there was some correspondencein the local paper about Roman stone coffins andsecret tunnels. The controversy was compounded

when a picture,supplied by the thenC h a i r m a nmysteriously had thecoffin edited out of theimage when itappeared in the paper.This brief noteattempts to givemembers the facts. A reader of thePontefract &Castleford Express, MrCartwright, asked forinformation about astone coffindiscovered by RonJeffries of Airedale.Your then Chairman

responded with pictures of the coffin being excavatedby Geoff Radley and Dr R Butler, with details of theRCHM report on the coffin’s contents.Another reader then contacted the then Chairman,and it immediately became clear that there were twocoffins. Our Field Director then added to the saga!Apparently, the ‘official’ coffin was the one observedby Society members in 1965, and the pictures andreport referred to this one.However, Ron Jeffries, unknown to the authoritiesand experts had illicitly ‘excavated’ another stonecoffin in Holywell Wood, and had it transported to hishome. Mr Cartwright’s letter referred to this one.When Ron Jeffries died, his sister contacted the WestYorkshire Unit, and our Field Director who thenworked for the unit, arranged for the coffin to be takeninto storage. Though Ron had opened ‘his’ coffin, heneither recorded nor reported the discovery, and to

compound the confusion spread stories of itcontaining the bones of ‘a maiden.’The ‘official’ coffin, investigated on behalf of theSociety by the then Secretary - now Editor - andCharles Baines, was a gypsum burial containing abone comb of Anglian design and the bones of anelderly female. The two experts from RCHMexcavated the coffin in the presence of our twomembers, and forwarded their report to us and toCastleford library.Gypsum burials are now believed to be late RomanChristian in origin, and usually can be dated to thefinal decade of the Fourth Century, or even thefollowing decade.Another letter in the same newspaper asked about a‘secret tunnel’ discovered at North Featherstonecrossroads during roadworks there.

Again, this was investigated and reported on by ourthen Secretary. At the time he came to the conclusionthat the tunnel was the remains of an adit mine.

The Pictures:Top Left: The original gypsum burial being excavatedby Geoff Radley (L) & Dr R Butler. P&C Express.

Above: The original coffin ready for removal. YourEditor can be seen extreme left! This is the imagewhich was cropped to show just the machine on theright in the newspaper! Picture by the late C Baines.

Left: Ron Jeffries (right) and the illicitly dug Gypsumburial, in his garden. Picture by Eric Papworth.

COFFINS AND SECRET TUNNELS

PontArc is published by the Pontefract & District Archaeological Society.All contributions are copyright the contributor. Requests to reproducemust be addressed to the Editor, erichoulder(at)yahoo.com .Members’change of address and/or email should be notified to the Secretary, c/opeggyevison(at)yahoo.co.uk