Worcestershire

Archaeologynews from the County Archaeological Serviceno. 4 October 2001

This issue will bring you up to date with some of the major changes that have occurred and the ever-broadening scope of our work - in what is proving to be one of our busiest years ever.

We welcome Jez Bretherton as one of the first Countryside Archaeology Advisors in the country, Mike Glyde as our Planning Archaeologist and Neil Lockett in the new post of SMR Archaeologist.

The number of Field staff has increased dramatically and we have two new Field Officers, Tom Vaughan, originally from Malvern, who is returning to this area from Essex, and Chris Patrick who is currently supervising the excavation at Childswickham. We also have several new archaeologists and trainee archaeologists most of whom are working at Childswickham and on the Wyre Piddle bypass.

The increase in workload has also increased our reliance on the much-valued band of volunteers who work at our offices and has also given opportunities for volunteers to carry out more work in the field.

Our partnership with local amateur groups is essential and we welcome the birth of the new 'Four Parishes Archaeology Group' to develop work alongside the Archaeological Service in the Wyre Piddle, Pinvin, Throckmorton and Hill and Moor area.

One of the major challenges that we faced earlier in the year was the Foot and Mouth crisis and the Service took a national lead in developing an archaeological response. The sterling work undertaken, in sometimes unpleasant circumstances, justified the efforts of the County Council over the years to maintain an integrated archaeological service for the county.

Medieval fields around Naunton Beauchamp: photo by Mike Glyde

The Foot and Mouth crisis

Most of this year, the Archaeological Service has been heavily involved in Emergency Planning connected with the Foot and Mouth outbreak. We have been providing rapid consultations, seven days per week, to MAFF to avoid damage to known archaeological sites on burial/burn sites and during decontamination. We have also given advice on mitigation strategies, and undertaken fieldwork as required, which has been funded by MAFF.

In April it was decided to use part of the disused airfield at Throckmorton, near Pershore, to dispose of carcasses killed as part of the cull to prevent the spread of the disease. This sparked off a much larger programme of fieldwork. A search of the Sites and Monuments Record revealed considerable archaeological potential in the area, and it was agreed that an intensive watching brief would take place during the excavation of the burial pits.

The Archaeological Service quickly became an integral part of the team working on the site – co-operating with the contractors, MAFF, the Environment

Plot of the magnetometer survey showing the circular ditches of a series of Bronze Age barrows (burial mounds). The central burial is visible in one of the barrows.

New Countryside Archaeology Advisor

When faced with the startling statistic that agriculture is the largest single cause of piecemeal loss and damage to Monuments at Risk Survey (MARS) monuments in 1995, English Heritage agreed to fund Countryside Archaeology Advisors in seven Local Authorities. One such post is in Worcestershire, and the Archaeological Service’s new Countryside Archaeology Advisor, Jez Bretherton explains his role.

English Heritage is funding my post for three years, in partnership with Worcestershire County Council. Both organisations are looking for increased protection of the archaeology and historic environment of the countryside that makes up around seventy per cent of recorded sites in the County.

The challenge is to develop models of best practice for managing archaeological sites in the countryside at a local level and in the main, this relies on good relationships with landowners and farmers. This is an environment where few statutory controls exist. We are aiming to give better information on archaeological sites to landowners and tenants, and to work with them to improve the management of the sites in their care. By demonstrating the value of positive partnerships, we may avoid giving the impression of archaeology as a negative restraint.

Local Authority archaeologists are already consulted on agri-environment schemes, forestry proposals and hedge removal applications, so many of the opportunities that we are taking have existed for several years. Historically, however, only a reactive response has been possible, minimising rather than preventing damage to sites.

DEFRA schemes such as Countryside Stewardship and Environmentally Sensitive Areas give incentives to farmers to manage habitats, archaeological sites and historic landscapes in a positive way. Importantly, these criteria are given equal weighting when applications are considered, but until now the historic environment has often been overlooked. One of the biggest challenges facing curatorial archaeologists is how to maximise today’s opportunities.

Farm visits can help by working through the issues presented by the archaeology on a farm, then working with the farmer to create a whole farm management plan, finding ways of caring for archaeological sites as part of the day to day farming activity. Zero-cost options are proposed alongside more holistic opportunities such as Countryside Stewardship or County Council subsidised grants. Many of these funded initiatives are more likely to succeed if proposed alongside wildlife conservation measures and following the Rio Summit in 1992, farmers recognise the big push to meet biodiversity goals. Many large-scale habitat creation schemes are forging ahead, but some unrecorded historic sites are suffering from poor management or destruction as a result.

The challenge for the Countryside Archaeology Advisor is to demonstrate the benefits of well thought out conservation schemes that take account of archaeology. For instance, the potential exists to incorporate restored historic water meadow and water control features into wetland re-creation schemes, before modern hydrological controls are imposed on the landscape.

Although schemes to benefit the natural environment are popular at present, we have to develop our own targets and objectives for the continued conservation of historic sites and landscapes. The first stages of this process are underway and my job as Countryside Advisor is to help target e types of monuments at greatest risk from agriculture and develop action plans on a local, regional and national basis.

Romans at ChildswickhamEarly in August a watching brief on a pipeline being carried out for Severn Trent Water produced an exciting new discovery at Childswickham near Broadway. During the stripping of the topsoil stone walls appeared and it was soon realised that other remains were also present.

First indications were that the site was of Roman date. Severn Trent Water were alerted to the discovery as this had important implications on the construction programme for the pipeline. Discussions resulted in the construction programme being revised to take account of the discovery, and the Archaeology Service has now embarked

on a substantial excavation in order to rescue the remains by making a record.

The excavation is still going on, and the discoveries include structural remains from other periods, notably the Bronze and Iron Ages. The Roman site is very extensive and complex, and the finds are exceptional as they include, to date, pieces of painted wall plaster.

The evidence presently suggests that a building of high status occupied part of the site. Such a building would be virtually unprecedented in Worcestershire, the only known parallel being the Bays Meadow villa in Droitwich.

Buildings of this type are more normal in the Cotswolds, and this may suggest that the obvious wealth of the Cotswolds in the Roman period spilled over into Worcestershire.

Agency and the army. As well as recording archaeological discoveries, the Service helped to survey the site and provided specialist knowledge on soil conditions.

The archaeological strategy was to undertake a watching brief on the excavation of the burial pits prior to back filling with animal carcasses. Initial observations and finds suggested the presence of a Roman farmstead, the corner of which was clipped by the excavation of the burial pits. A geophysical survey was used to get an overview of the areas of high archaeological potential and this revealed the plan of the Roman farmstead, suggesting that most of it lies preserved beneath the runway and land to the north.

A completely unexpected result of the geophysical survey was the discovery of a Bronze Age barrow cemetery, dating back c.4000 years. This was in an area where burial pits were to be excavated and it would have been destroyed. Because of the significance of this discovery, MAFF took this part of the site out of the scheme and the cemetery has, therefore, been preserved.

The work at Throckmorton is carrying on and excavations are continuing on the site. As work continues, new archaeological discoveries are being made, and in October, part of the site will be visited by ‘Time Team’. The programme produced from their visit will be shown next year.

National Archaeology WeekendAvoncroft Museum of historic buildings kindly hosted workshops and activities for the CBA national Archaeology weekend. This took place in mid July and was an enjoyable day for all. Lectures and practical activities included making pottery and identifying archeological examples. There were demonstrations of site planning and surveying and the skills and techniques of environmental archaeology were explained. Steve Rigby, an illustrator from the Archaeological Service demonstrated the art of reconstruction illustration by producing an image of the merchants house in the past. The completed painting will be presented to

Avoncroft Museum who aim to auction it for charity. Over 400 people attended the events over the weekend and its hoped that something similar can be arranged for next year. Thanks to Paul Williams who did the majority of the organisation for the day.

Archaeology and Heritage Studies at UCWThe Archaeological Service has been teaching archaeology modules at University College Worcester since 1999. These modules have formed part of the field of ‘Heritage Studies’, which this year has been expanded into ‘Archaeology and Heritage Studies’, with many new archaeology modules due to come on stream shortly. This multi-disciplinary course draws on the experience of Archaeological Service staff in the investigation, interpretation and protection the archaeological heritage.

The modules range widely in content, and provide the opportunity to gain

knowledge of different types of archaeological sites and landscapes, to develop an appreciation of methods and theories, and to understand how archaeology inter-relates with the changing modern world. Students learn how to use archaeological data in the context of a local authority archaeological service, especially the information in the Sites and Monuments Record and its specialist library.

For detailed information, contact UCW Marketing Dept on 01905 855141. Information on the college and courses is also available at www.worc.ac.uk.

Excavations underway on the Roman remains.

Deansway in printResidents of Worcester with long memories may recall the 1988-89 excavations on Deansway and Bank Street in the city centre where the Crowngate Shopping centre now stands. Since the end of the project in 1990, the excavation results have been gradually organised and analysed; the pottery has been processed and identified and the results have at last been pulled together into a report.The excavations yielded evidence of human occupation in the centre of Worcester from the Iron age onwards. As well as evidence of the buildings both small and large which people

lived in, there were remains from the industries that went on around them. Evidence for iron smelting and metal working was found, and in the medieval period, a foundry took up much of the area to the north of the Countess of Huntingdon’s Hall. Even individual events can be seen from the remains, such as a group of pottery discovered in a pit which must have been debris from a house fire.The report consists of 973 pages and 235 figures and will be published next year. Meanwhile, a copy has been placed in the archaeology library at Woodbury Hall.

Fieldwork highlightsSince the last Newsletter was published the Field Section has carried out around 90 projects, and completed 100 reports. Some of these are covered in other articles, and some were limited watching briefs where little was found. Selecting a few projects to highlight has been difficult as space is limited.Every year at Wellington, in Herefordshire, we have been undertaking a long term watching brief on the gravel quarry. In summer 2000 this produced huge waterlogged timbers associated with fragments of millstone. These proved to be part of a Saxon watermill, of late 7th or early 8th century date. You may have seen the article and pictures in British Archaeology. Over 14 years of investigation we have now recovered evidence for activity at Wellington from every period from the Neolithic to the medieval.

An excavation in Evesham seems to have produced the first Roman features from the town. We have been finding sherds of Roman pottery and tile for many years, but now it seems that activity may have concentrated at Vine Street. The report on this site is now being written, so the results at the moment are provisional.In Worcester we carried out an extensive evaluation at Pheasant Street and Tallow Hill. Dumps of porcelain from Grainger’s factory were found close to Pheasant Street. We failed to locate any structural remains of the Vulcan Ironworks, but excavated three trenches revealing the foundations of 19th century housing, only demolished in the 1970s. Further excavation of some sample areas

of housing will be carried out later in the year. The porcelain dumps will be preserved in situ under the proposed development.Investigation of another 19th century building took place at the Chartist settlement of Dodford. The National Trust has renovated and restored the Chartist cottage of Rosedene, and our building recording work contributed significantly to the restoration. The cottage is unfortunately not open to the public on a regular basis, although there is access for educational visits.

The Saxon watermill under excavation

Bumper Year for flyingThe dry(ish) summer has provided excellent conditions for the productionof cropmarks, although large areas of farmland remained uncultivated due to last winter’s flooding. In total over 20 new archaeological sites were identified including a number of significant discoveries.

A Neolithic cursus monument in Fladbury, possibly the first confirmed monument of this type in the county. At Elmley Castle a pre-conquest hall was recorded, while in Upton on Severn two new large enclosures have been found. Cropmarks suggestive of a cemetery have been recorded at Bricklehampton.

Other discoveries include a large Roman settlement north of Bretforton and single and double pit alignments at Kempsey. Aerial survey undertaken earlier in the year has identified previously unrecorded earthworks on Bredon Hill including a substantial boundary bank and pillow mounds.

Wyre Piddle bypassExcavations have started on the route of the long awaited Wyre Piddle Bypass and are set to continue until Christmas. The excavations are focussing on two sites identified through evaluation back in 1996.

The first of these is already well under way and is revealing the remains of a Romano-British farmstead occupied from the 1st through to the 4th century AD. Numerous boundary ditches and a yard surface have been identified and many finds recovered. Work at the second site is due to commence any day now. This promises to be particularly exciting with topsoil stripping already revealing many features including a well defined enclosure containing roundhouses.

Aerial view of the Wyre Piddle bypasstaken by Mike Glyde during one of this year’s flights.

Sherds from the finds shedThe King’s Head, Worcester

One of this year’s big projects has been the post-excavation analysis and writing of the report for the excavation at City Arcade, Worcester which took place in May 1999. The site, which had caused much excitement during excavation, has lived up to expectations. The site was long-lived with well-preserved structural and material remains dating from the early Roman period onwards. In addition to the physical remains, there was a wealth of documentary evidence, all of which was painstakingly compiled by Mrs Pat Hughes. By using these documents alongside the site plans and records, it emerged that not only individual buildings could be identified and closely dated, but that the functions of these buildings were clearly supported by the finds assemblages from within them.

Perhaps the most interesting group of artefacts, which could be associated with a specific structure, consisted of a large number of drinking vessels and clay pipes dating to the 17th and early 18th centuries. The combination of these objects and the documentary evidence associated with the site would indicate that these vessels were probably used in the King’s Head Inn, which once stood on the site.

The vessels dated from the 17th century and consisted primarily of black-glazed cups, some with multiple handles - more commonly known as ‘tygs’. In contrast to this, the early 18th century sherds identified as pieces of drinking vessels were more varied and included a significant number of tankards. The most striking of these were four Rhenish stoneware tankards of the Westerwald type. All were decorated with a bright blue relief pattern on a white salt glaze and the most complete example was embossed with a medallion bearing the crest ‘GR’, which at this date would have been in commemoration of either George I or II.

In addition to the ceramic vessels, a number of onion bottles, including three complete examples were also retrieved. These were commonly used as wine containers during the 17th and 18th centuries. There were also numerous fragments of clear wine glasses, including two stems, which

once more can be related to the King’s Head.

Many of the clay pipe fragments were stamped. Their dates and association with other objects also pointed towards their being used by patrons of the inn.

Tile kiln dump discovery

One of the more exciting discoveries of this year, was what appeared to be a medieval ceramic tile kiln dump in Hanley Castle. The site was discovered during a watching brief at Brickwalls Farm. At the centre of the site, the house dates to the 13th century although it was extensively extended and modernised during the 17th century when a new frontage was built. During the excavation of foundations for new houses, large quantities of tile were found within the excavated spoil. Upon closer examination, a number of intercutting ditches surrounding the house were identified, all containing large volumes of tile and small amounts of pottery. The majority of this material was warped or showed evidence of exposure to high temperatures and burning and it was concluded that the fragments were wasters from a kiln site, which presumably lay close by. The small quantities of pottery found amongst the tile indicated a date range of between the 13th and 16th centuries and it is hoped that on closer analysis, these dates can be narrowed down for each ditch.The parish of Hanley Castle is known to have been a major centre for ceramic production throughout the medieval period. The discovery of this site has therefore added another piece to the jigsaw.

A tale of two halves

In February, an evaluation at Thorn Farm, Inkberrow produced a small quantity of Roman material, including pottery and metalwork, which was thought to have been waste from a nearby domestic settlement.A month after the completion of the evaluation, Mr Roy Harris, the director of Perryfields Holdings Ltd, sent a sherd of pottery to the Archaeological Service for identification. The sherd was found in the field adjacent to that previously investigated, and was identified as a well preserved rim of a Roman jar dating to the 2nd century AD and boxed with the other finds from the site.

In May, another package arrived from Mr Harris containing another well preserved rim sherd. The vessel was identified as the same type as the previous sherd and the two sherds fitted together perfectly! Intriguingly, the breaks on both sherds were not fresh. They appeared to have been broken in antiquity, to be recovered nearly two months apart on the field surface in the 21st century in good enough condition to be joined together as if they had been broken the day before.

The sherds were from a Black-burnished ware 1 jar. This type of pottery was produced in large quantities on kiln sites in the Wareham-Poole Harbour area of Dorset and exported throughout Roman Britain from the 2nd century onwards. The pottery has highly distinctive decoration, including burnishing around the neck and shoulder and the base. This type of decoration has a high shine, which was achieved by rubbing the clay with an object such as a smooth stone before firing. This type of pottery was one of the most widespread in western Britain during the Roman period, and is likely to have been brought into Worcestershire along the River Severn.

The odds of finding two sherds, which join over a month apart in time, are very small and suggests that they had only recently been disturbed. This is further supported by the very good condition of the sherds, which would indicate that they had only recently been brought to the surface.

Onion bottles from the King’s Head

The timber enclosure reconstructed

Depicting the PastThe new Park and Ride area at Perdiswell in north Worcester gave the Service the opportunity to produce reconstruction illustrations for an information panel about the site. The area has a chequered history - as well as being a historic park, it was used as an airfield in the second world war and the archaeological discoveries included the remains of a huge neolithic timber enclosure. This was fully excavated before the car park construction and Steve Rigby’s illustration shows how it may have looked when it was in use. The picture is based on the evidence discovered during our excavation.

The information panel has been installed in the waiting room by the bus stop. Although we have a good idea of what the enclosure looked like, we cannot really suggest what it was used for or whether it was a place for rituals or gatherings. The location of the enclosure is marked out within the car parking area by a set of circular footpaths.

Other interpretation and information panels recently produced by the Service include two at the Mount in Solihull, and one in Vines Park, Droitwich, on the site of the brine well, which was discovered during excavations in 1983.

Volunteer OpprtunitiesThe Archaeological Service is always ready to welcome members of the public who would like to become involved with our work in the County. Volunteers regularly help with processing finds and washing and marking pottery from excavations, but there are also research projects which are organised and run by volunteers from our offices.

The Ridge and Furrow survey is recording the remains of the medieval open field system. It involves fieldwork in combination with the study of aerial photographs and maps.

The Worcestershire Tithe Map Project aims to trace and transcribe all the tithe maps of Worcestershire so that the information on them can be compared with modern mapping to be used by local people, archaeologists and historians.

The Defence of Britain Project is part of a national project to create a database of information on the sites and buildings used for both civil and military defence during the 20th century.

The Worcestershire Settlement Survey is capturing an image of settlements in Worcestershire as they exist at the beginning of the 21st century.

All of these projects would welcome new volunteers and for more information about any of these, please phone our general enquiries number which you can find on the back page, or e mail v.bryant@worc.ac.uk.

Diary DatesThe Territory of the CornoviiResearch and re-evaluation of the iron age in the north west midlands. Saturday 3rd November 2001, The Gateway education and Arts Centre, Shrewsbury. Further details from Mrs. L Chugg, 01743 355137.

SWAG talk - Recording Historic Buildingsby Shona Robson, Wednesday November 14th at 7.30 in the Graduate School seminar room, Woodbury Hall, University College Worcester. There is a £2 charge for non members.

Time TeamLook out for the programme about the excavation at Throckmorton, near Pershore in the new series next year.

WWW.archaeologyThe Service now has a web site which you can visit for news and information about the archaeology of the County. As well as general information and advice about archaeology, there are also articles on recent work and events going on in and around Worcestershire. Look it up at www.worcestershire.gov.uk/archaeology

How to find usFor more information about any of the items mentioned in the newsletter, or for general enquiries about archaeology in Worcestershire, please contact:Worcestershire Archaeological Service, Woodbury Hall, University College Worcester, Henwick Grove, Worcester, WR2 6AJGeneral enquiries: Deborah Overton, (01905) 855455Field Service: Simon Woodiwiss, (01905) 855499Information and Records: Victoria Bryant, (01905) 855494

Planning and countryside: Mike Glyde and Jez Bretherton, (01905) 855454Fax for all sections: (01905) 855035e-mail: archaeology@worcestershire.gov.uk