Chapel of St.Oswald, Bamburgh Castle, Archaeological Trial Trenching Report (original) (raw)
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Excavation of a pre-Conquest Cemetery at Addingham, West Yorkshire
Medieval Archaeology, 1996
EXCAVATIONS at Addingkam in Whaifed11k uncovered part of a cemetery which, on the tlJidmce ofradwcarbon ana{ysis, can be daud to the 8th to 10th centuries A.D. At that ptriod Addingham was an estAle oflht archbishops oIYor!, and it was to here tluJtArchbishop Wuiflure jied in 867 to escape the Da11lS. A wlQl i.if55 grlllN!S were investigated, yielding the rtmains of perhaps 80 indWiduals. OfJhese, about 40 wert undisturbed primary inlmnents; the rut had hun reburUd in whole or part, !Laving some graDeS empty and olhus containing several individuals. lAter flatuns in.clutkd a ditdl and a drying kiln whit:h belonged to a post-Conquest manorial complex. Further delaiis on the 16yout and com/xmenls ofthe seukmmt Juwe bun gkanedflom earthwork survey, gtojJhysical prospection and documentary research, as well as from earlier excavations which until now remained unpuhlishLd. ADDINGHAl\I 155 Addingham written by Henry johnston, brother of the antiquarian Nathaniel johnston, who visited the place in july 166g. He recorded that 'the maner house stood neer the church, upon Wharfe Brow, and the land being warne away by the River, the Hall fell, so that there is nothing now remaining ofit'.l9 The old 'parsonage house', which formerly adjoined the W. end of the present rectory barn, seems also to have suffered from erosion of the river bank; it is sketched (with prominent cracks in its walling) on a plan of 1808 showing its proposed replacement on a site to the SE.20 Johnston's observations in the church and churchyard are also ofinrerest. In both places were 'severall stones with crosses upon them, but wore of, though they be on very hard stone'. He noted and illustrated the Norman chevron-decorated voussoirs, then built into the church porch, and finally, he described and sketched two stones in the churchyard, 'placed about 2 yards asonder. one of them to the eastard, a flat stone and rough. and the other allmost halfe round with a hole in the midst ... a quater of a yard deepe'.2l The socket stone, probably a cross base, remains in situ; it has one well-dressed flat face with spirals carved in it, possibly the result of re-use. The socket itself is very worn and rounded, as if used for a water trough, but in its unworn state it would have been an appropriate size to house the extant cross shaft. It was investigated in Ig74 by Mrs May Pickles, and was found to be set o.6lm into the ground; some sherds of Igth-century pottery were recovered from close to the base of the stone, but these must be the result of soil disturbance, in view of johnston's testimony. The other stone described by Johnston, the flat stone c. 2.8m to the E., measuring 1.16m by o.95ill by o.15m 'with some signs of rough dressing' was removed before I974;22 its present location is unknown. Finally, there are some valuable records relating to the westward extension of the churchyard in the Igth century. The plan for the purchase of part of Church Orchard shows the pre-existing W. wall of the burial ground. 23 The wall ran approximately on the course of the earthwork bank (Fig. 2). Allowing for probable riverbank erosion on the N. side of the church, and for the conversion of a curvilinear bank to a largely polygonal wall line, the pre-1869 burial ground was oval in shape. Churchyards of this shape have been considered to be candidates for early ecclesiastical sites. It is, therefore, even more interesting to read a report that many human bones were discovered when the churchyard was extended in 1869: that is, the remains were, presumably, discovered outside the western end of the oval churchyard. 24 Such a report might seem questionable were it not for the discovery, in Ig8g, of pre-Conquest burials even further to the W. A former sexton has reported finding skeletons aligned N.-S. rather than E.-W., though whether these were within the oval or in the extension remains unknown. 2 !' > THE 1971-75 EXCAVATIONS: A SUMMARY REPORT By STUART WRATHl\IELL The gravel ridge occupied by the medieval manor, church and parsonage house ends in a steep slope c. 35m E. of the present Rectory (Fig. 2; PI. V,A). In '9'
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High House Chapel (Weardale Museum), Ireshopeburn: Archaeological Evaluation, 2023
This document reports on a process of archaeological evaluation conducted between November 2022 and February 2023 in association with the redevelopment of High House chapel, located on the north side of the A 689 a little to the east of the village of Ireshopeburn in upper Weardale. The excavations took place alongside structural consolidation works to the outer walls and windows, following the removal of flooring and the majority of ground floor fixtures and fittings from the chapel interior, but prior to major reconstruction works. The evaluation, carried out after the removal of flooring revealed traces of internal walls, was intended to expose the footings of structures at the east end of the main hall sufficient to produce a ground plan for further interpretation. Accordingly, a trench was cut north-south across the east end of the chapel interior with branches eastwards to a partition wall demarcating the main hall from an eastern entrance foyer. Additional areas between the south side of the trench and partition wall to the east were swept, rather than excavated, in order to reveal features partially visible on the surface.
St Mary's Church, Beverley: Archaeological Test Pit Evaluation
This report outlines the results of a below-ground archaeological evaluation at St Mary’s Church, Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire. A new internal porch is to be constructed at the west-facing doorway of the Nave. To inform the design process and mitigate against excessive below-ground intrusion, two test pits were excavated to determine the character and depths of deposits.
Northamptonshire Archaeology, 2021
Northampton Castle was a major royal castle through the 12th and 13th centuries but thereafter it declined in importance. Through the 15th and 16th centuries it was the site of the county gaol and sessions house, but became fully derelict once these functions transferred to the town following the destructive town fire of 1675. The castle then stood as a scenic ruin, but encroachment of housing onto the Inner Bailey defences began in the early 19th century. In the mid-19th century the building of a new rectory, followed by the first railway and a straightened approach to the new West Bridge affected parts of the Outer Bailey. By this time there was antiquarian interest, particularly from Sir Henry Dryden and local architect E F Law and family, who together provided plans and photographs of the castle as it then survived. Further recording was carried out in 1879-80 when much of the Inner Bailey was swept away in the construction of a new railway. Eighty years later, the small portion of the northeast corner of the Inner Bailey that had survived and the nearby Castle Hill mound were subject to excavation in the early 1960s. This included examination of the castle bank and ditch, as well as royal apartments and a kitchen range. It was demonstrated that the Castle Hill mound had been constructed in the mid-17th century during the Civil War, and was not an early motte. It is also suggested that a medieval building beneath Castle Hill, previously interpreted as a church with an apsidal end, may have been part of a gatehouse at the eastern end of an elongated and otherwise lost barbican protecting the north gate. These previously unpublished excavations are the main focus of this report, although the earlier records are used to provide the broader picture of the whole castle. In Part 1, a broad overview of the context of the 1960s excavations is followed by an account of the pre-castle archaeology seen through the antiquarian records and the 1960s excavations. A concise history of the castle is followed by an account of the various works from the 19th century onward that have recorded elements of the castle archaeology enabling an overall, although incomplete, plan of the castle to be produced. Part 1 ends with a consideration of the topography of the castle and its relationship to the medieval town. Part 2 will deal with the detailed archaeological record for the castle defences, the buildings of the Inner Bailey, and the Castle Hill mound. Excavations within the Outer Bailey of the castle in 2013 in advance of building the present station are published separately in the same volume.
Work over two seasons at Bincknoll Cottage, North Wiltshire, has recorded a previously unknown two-phase structure of religious status. A small rectangular structure of Saxo-Norman origin was replaced in the thirteenth century by a more substantial two-celled building. It is proposed that the early structure is probably the private chapel of Gilbert de Breteuil, a knight first mentioned in the Domesday survey of 1086. The discovery has implications for the study of religious activities immediately after the Norman Conquest, especially as the chapel has ties with the stronghold known as Bincknoll Castle. This paper describes the second and final season of fieldwork at Bincknoll Cottage. Journal Forthcoming July 2016.
BAMBURGH VILLAGE GEOPHYSICAL SURVEY, FIELDWALKING AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL TRIAL TRENCHING
This survey report contains the results of a substantial body of geophysics, predominately gradiometry, which has revealed a landscape, in and around the village, densely populated with anomalies. One of the most interesting of these anomalies, nicknamed the 'Bamburgh Egg' was subject to field walking and a single trial trench was excavated over a further anomaly identified as a good candidate for part of the medieval hospital, the exact site of which is not certainly known.