— WILTSHIRE STUDIES The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine Volume: 24. 2007s 3 4 hen a a | Sau ja MLE” ot yen is wf The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine Volume 94 2001 Published by The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society 41 Long Street, Devizes, Wilts. SN10 1NS Telephone 01380 727369 Fax 01380 722150 e.mail wanhs@wiltshireheritage.org.uk Founded 1853 Company No. 3885649 Registered with Charity Commission No. 1080096 VAT No. 140 2791 91 Frontispiece. Stained glass medallion and trefoils formerly in Salisbury Cathedral Chapter House. See Fig. 15, p. | 28 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE VOLUME 94 (2001) ISSN 0262 6608 © Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society and authors 2001 Hon. Editors: Joshua Pollard, BA, PhD, and John Chandler BA, PhD. Hon. Local History Editor: James Thomas, BA, PhD, FRHistS. Hon. Natural History Editor: Michael Darby, PhD, FRES Hon. Reviews Editor: Michael Marshman, ALA. Editorial Assistant: Lorna Haycock, BA, Dip.ELH, Cert Ed. We acknowledge with thanks a publication grant from Berkeley Homes (Hampshire) Ltd., towards the cost of publishing “The Excavation of a Saxon Settlement at Cadley Road, Collingbourne Ducis, Wiltshire’, by Jo Pine. The journals issued to volume 69 as parts of The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine (Part A Natural History; Part B Archaeology and Local History) were from volumes 70 to 75 published under separate titles as The Wiltshire Natural History Magazine and The Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine. With volume 76 the magazine reverted to its combined form and title. The cover title “Wiltshire Heritage Studies’ (volume 93) and ‘Wiltshire Studies’ (this volume) should not be used in citations. The title of the journal, The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, remains unchanged. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Society and authors. Typeset in Plantin by John Chandler and produced for the Society by Avonset, 11 Kelso Place, Upper Bristol Road, Bath BA1 3AU Printed in Great Britain i THE NATURAL | HISTORY MUSEUM 15 FEB 2001 PURCHASED GENERAL LIBRARY | { Contents Excavating the Sanctuary: new investigations on Overton Hill, Avebury, by Mike Pitts, with 1 contributions by Joshua Pollard and analyses by Jacqueline I McKinley and Amanda Rouse Savernake Forest oaks, by Jack Oliver and Joan Davies 24 Murder at Brookside Cottage: a dark deed in North Wiltshire, by Kay Taylor 47 The Ruin of a great Wiltshire Estate: Wardour and the Eighth Lord Arundell, by 56 Barry Williamson The Excavation of medieval and post-medieval features at 3 Kingsbury Square, Wilton, 68 by Kate Taylor, with contributions by Sheila Hamilton-Dyer and Jane Timby Cotton wadding: Marlborough College and the path to war, by Brian Edwards 75 The Excavation of a Saxon settlement at Cadley Road, Collingbourne Ducis, Wiltshire, 88 by Jo Pine, with contributions by Mathew Gleave, Sheila Hamilton-Dyer, Steve Ford, John Letts, Nicola Powell, David Richards, Chris Salter, Jane Timby and David Williams The Thirteenth-century stained glass of the Salisbury Cathedral Chapter House, by Sarah Brown 118 The Urbanity of Marlborough: a Wiltshire town in the seventeenth century, by LL. Williams 139 Archaeological investigations at the Roman villa, Netheravon, 1996, by Mick Rawlings 148 The Coleoptera (beetles) of a Salisbury reedbed including twenty-two species new to Wiltshire, by 154 Michael Darby The Excavation of a cremation cemetery of the Bronze Age and a flint cairn at Easton Down, 161 Allington, Wiltshire, 1983-1995, by David J. Ride From tiny seeds ..., by Antoinnette Rawlings A James Bennett of Salisbury (1797-1859): jeweller and newspaper proprietor, by Robert Moody 182 The Marlborough Mount revisited, by David Field, Graham Brown and Andrew Crockett 195 An Antiquarian visit to the Rollright Stones, by Frances Peters 205 Sheldon Manor: medieval settlement and land-use in the clayland region of north-west Wiltshire, 209 by Graham Brown Notes and Shorter Contributions 218 The Glow-worm (Lampyris noctiluca, (Linnaeus, 1758)) in Wiltshire: records and questions, by Michael 218 Darby Neolithic activity in Ducks Meadow, Marlborough, by Emma Harrison, with contributions by Jane Timby 219 and Graeme Walker The Devizes Millennium Horse, by Mark E. P. Hows and Peter T: Greed 223 The Rev Edwin Meyrick and his family: a brief investigation of a forgotten Wiltshire clergyman, by Tony 226 Pratt Recently discovered Tegula Mammata from North Wiltshire, by Bob Clarke 228 Fonthill House, by Michael Darby 230 Ludgershall Castle: two addenda: The Ludgershall gem set seal reconsidered, by John Cherry; Iron prick 234 spur, no. 3, by Blanche Ellis Excavation on Roundway Down, by Sarah Semple and Howard Williams 236 Swanborough Tump, by Sarah Semple and Alex Langlands 239 Excavation and Fieldwork in Wiltshire 1999 243 Reviews 257 Peter Sherlock (ed.). Monumental Inscriptions of Wiltshire: an edition, in facsimile, of Monumental 257 Inscriptions in the County of Wilton by Sir Thomas Phillipps, 1822, by Steven Hobbs Martin Green. A Landscape Revealed: 10,000 Years on a Chalkland Farm, by Philip Aslett. 258 R. H. Thompson and M. J. Dickinson. Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles 49: The Norweb Collection 258 Tokens of the British Isles, 1575 - 1750, VI, Wiltshire to Yorkshire, Ireland to Wales, by Paul Robinson A Millennium Mixture, by Michael Marshman 260 Obituary 265 John Musty 2605 Index, by Philip Aslett 269 The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society The Society was founded in 1853. Its activities include the promotion of the study of archaeology (including industrial archaeology), history, natural history and architecture within the county; the issue of a Magazine, and other publications, and the maintenance of a Museum, Library, and Art Gallery. There is a programme of lectures and excursions to places of archaeological, historical and scientific interest. The Society’s Museum contains important collections relating to the history of man in Wiltshire from earliest times to the present day, as well as the geology and natural history of the county. It is particularly well known for its prehistoric collections. The Library houses a comprehensive collection of books, articles, pictures, prints, drawings and photographs relating to Wiltshire. The Society welcomes the gift of local objects, printed material, paintings and photographs to add to the collections. The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine is the annual journal of the Society and is issued free to its members. For information about the availability of back numbers and other publications of the Society, enquiry should be made to the Chief Executive. Publication by the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society does not imply that the Society endorses the views expressed; the factual content and the opinions presented herein remain the responsibility of the authors. Notes for Contributors Contributions for the Magazine should be on subjects related to the archaeology, history or natural history of Wiltshire. Whilst there is no fixed length, papers should ideally be under 7,000 words, though longer papers will be considered if of sufficient importance. Shorter, note length, contributions are also welcome. All contributions should be typed/ word processed, with text on one side of a page only, with good margins and double spacing. Language should be clear and comprehensible. Contributions of article length should be accompanied by a summary of about 100 words. Please submit two copies of the text (with computer disk if possible) and clear photocopies of any illustrations to the editors at the Museum, 41 Long Street, Devizes, Wiltshire, SN10 1NS.A further copy should be retained by the author. The editors will be pleased to advise and discuss with intending contributors at any stage during the preparation of their work. When submitting text on disk, Word or Rich Text Format files are preferred. Referencing: The Harvard System of referencing (author, date and page, in parentheses within the text) is preferred: e.g. ‘... one sheep and one dog lay close together (Clay 1925, 69)’. References in footnotes should be avoided if at all possible. Only give references which are directly applicable, repeating as little as possible. All references cited in the paper should be listed in the bibliography using the following style (with the journal name spelled in full, and the place and publisher of books/ monographs given): For a paper: PITTS, M. W. and WHITTLE, A. 1992. The development and date of Avebury. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 58, 203-12. (Note that in citations Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine is abbreviated to WANHM) For a book or monograph: SMITH, I.F., 1965, Windmill Hill and Avebury: Excavations by Alexander Keiller, 1925-39. Oxford: Clarendon Press For a paper in a book or monograph: FITZPATRICK, A., 1984, ‘The deposition of La Téne metalwork in watery contexts in Southern England’, in B. Cunliffe and D. Miles (eds), Aspects of the Iron Age in Central Southern Britain, 178-90. Oxford: University Committee for Archaeology Endnotes can be used for specific information that cannot otherwise be comfortably incorporated in the main body of the text. Illustrations need to be clear and easily reproducible, the format following that of the Magazine. If possible, all original artwork should not exceed A3 before reduction. Drawings should be produced on drafting film or high quality white paper using black ink. Detail and lettering should not be so small that it will become lost in reduction. Mechanical lettering (dry transfer or computer generated) is preferred over hand lettering. Photographs should be supplied as good quality black and white prints, and transparencies and colour prints avoided wherever possible. Original illustrations and photographs should only be sent once a contribution has been accepted. Offprints: Ten offprints of each article will be given free (to be shared between joint authors). Offprints are not given for notes and reviews. WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY COUNCIL (to 19 May 2000) VICE-PRESIDENTS R.G. Hurn N. Davey, OBE, PhD, DSc, FSA N.J.M. Anderson E.K. Annable, BA, MA, FSA H.F. Seymour, BA Elected Members D.N. Shelton, BA, BSc., Dip.Ed., FRGS (1993) Lt. Col. C. Chamberlain (1994) M. Darby, PhD, FRES (1995) B. Coupe, LDS, RCS, MSc. (Dent.) (1996) D. Lovibond, BA (1996) M.J. C. Smith, BA, FICE (1996) C. A. Shell, MA, MMet, PhD (1997) R. Sneyd (1997) Mrs G. Swanton, BA, Dip.Ad.Ed. (1997) D.J. Williams, MA (1997) D. Field (1998) T. Schadla-Hall (1998) Maj. Gen. G. M. G. Swindells CB (1998) E. Stanford ARBS (1998) Mrs P. Sneyd, PhD, BSc., CBiol, MIBiol (1999) FOUNDATION TRUSTEES R.G. Hurn H.F. Seymour, BA DrT.K. Maurice, OBE J.F. Phillips, BSc. Ex-officio Members M. Corney, BA (Hons) Chairman Col. D. Part, OBE (Military), TD, DL (London) (1997) Deputy Chairman P. Taverner, MA Chairman, Archaeology Committee D.N. Shelton, BA, BSc, Dip.Ed., FRGS Chairman, Buildings & Monuments Committee C.J. Perraton, MA, CBiol, MIBiol. D.J. Williams, MA A.G. Lansdown Nominated Members Mrs L. Bennett, Mrs P. Rugg T. Price I. R. P. Hopkins Mrs J. Brunt Chairman, Natural History Committee Chairman, Programme Committee Hon. Treasurer Members, Wiltshire County Council Member, Devizes Town Council Member, Kennet District Council Member, Swindon Borough Council P.R. Saunders, BA, FSA, FMA, FRSA Director, Salisbury & South Wiltshire Museum BOARD OFTRUSTEES (from 19 May 2000) Chairman Col. D. C. Part, OBE, TD, DL Deputy Chairman P. Taverner, MA Elected Trustees Lt. Col. C Chamberlain C J Perraton, MA, CBiol, MIBiol. Mrs D Robertson D Roseaman CA Shell, MA, MMet, PhD A Snow E Stanford, ARBS Mrs G. Swanton, BA, Dip.Ad.Ed. W E Verity D.J. Williams, MA OFFICERS Chief Executive Curator Deputy Curator Assistant Curator (Natural Sciences) Sandell Librarian Education Officer Nominated Trustees Mrs L Bennett Mrs P Rugg A Mills Mrs J Triggs P.R. Saunders, BA, FSA, FMA, FRSA In attendance: Ms A. Cutforth In attendance: Ms A. Cutforth County Museums Officer, Wiltshire County Council Member, Wiltshire County Council Member, Wiltshire County Council Member, Devizes Town Council Member, Kennet District Council Director, Salisbury & South Wiltshire Museum County Museums Officer, Wiltshire County Council G. Chancellor, BSc, PhD, AMA, MIMegt P.H. Robinson, PhD, FSA, AMA Mrs A.J. Rawlings, BA (Hons), MA, AMA A.S. Tucker, BSc, AMA Mrs L. Haycock, BA (Hons), Dip ELH, Cert.Ed. Ms J. Harvest, Cert.Ed, DipSpLD Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 94 (2001), pp. 1-23 Excavating the Sanctuary: New Investigations on Overton Hill, Avebury by Mike Pitts! with contributions by Joshua Pollard’ and analyses by Jacqueline I McKinley’and Amanda Rouse? The Sanctuary is an important but poorly understood part of the complex of ceremonial structures in the Avebury World Heritage Site. Located and excavated in 1930 by Maud Cunnington, it consists of seven concentric pit circles, one of which held small megaliths, a second megaliths and posts and the others just posts. The excavation was published promptly and many of the finds survive, but no archive was known until the realisation in 1999 that W. E. V. Young, excavation foreman, had kept a detailed record of the dig in his diary. A small re- excavation was conducted to reconcile apparent discrepancies between the diary and the published report. Although all features had been previously examined, the new dig resulted in both important new finds (a large group of lithics, including nine arrowheads, part of a copper alloy awl and in situ amphibian bones) and new insights into the nature of the Sanctuary’s construction. _ Further developments on this study will be posted at www.hengeworld.co.uk INTRODUCTION In 1930 Maud and Ben Cunnington located and substantially excavated the former stone circles first identified by John Aubrey in 1648, and named ‘the Sanctuary’ by William Stukeley in 1743. These rings stood on a low but locally prominent chalk brow, Overton Hill or Millfield, at the southern end of the two parallel rows of megaliths known as the West Kennet Avenue, which connects the Sanctuary to the stone circles at Avebury (SU 118680, Figure 1; Cunnington, M. E. 1931; Piggott 1985; Ucko et al 1991). The excavation found not only the two stone circles, but also six concentric rings of post holes (one in the same circuit as the inner stone circle). The post holes and the artefacts they contained allied the site to Woodhenge, discovered in 1925 and excavated by the same team in 1926 and 1927, and through Woodhenge to nearby Stonehenge (Cunnington, M. E. 1929). From the moment the Sanctuary was uncovered, archaeologists have debated what stood in the post holes. The focus of this discussion has been on whether or not the posts supported a roof, and to what extent different rings of posts (and stones) were standing at the same time. In 1999, at the suggestion of Ros Cleal, Curator of the Alexander Keiller Museum in Avebury, I consulted manuscript diaries written by William Young and now held in the library of the Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Society. Although not credited in the excavation report, Young, a skilled experienced digger, was foreman at the Sanctuary. His extensive diaries begin in 1930, a few months before the dig at the Sanctuary (and thus after Woodhenge, where he also worked). They contain an extremely detailed record of the excavation that has never been referred to before. As well as information on aspects not covered in the published report, the 1 125 High St, Marlborough, Wilts SN8 1LU; 2 Dept. of Humanities and Science (Archaeology), University of Wales College Newport, PO Box 179, Newport NP6 1YG; 3 Wessex Archaeology, Old Sarum Park, Salisbury SP4 6EB; 4 Cardiff School of Engineering, Cardiff University, PO Box 917, Cardiff CF2 1XH bo Windmill Hill ca Silbury Hill West Kennet — THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE West Kennet Enclosures XN Long Barrow Figure 1. The Sanctuary is located at the southern end of the West Kennet Avenue. Large dots are barrows, small ones natural sarsens (based on Smith 1965) diaries reveal several inconsistencies. Despite careful analysis, it proved impossible to match some of the post holes in the diaries with post holes in Cunnington’s report (different numbering schemes are used). In particular, Young and Cunnington appeared to be describing a different number of rings near the centre of the site. It was decided that only excavation would resolve these conflicts and thus allow full use to be made of both sources. Accordingly, in view of the great academic and public interest in the Sanctuary, permission was sought for a small excavation within the area excavated and described by both Cunnington and Young. This was granted by the Department for EXCAVATING THE SANCTUARY: NEW INVESTIGATIONS ON OVERTON HILL, AVEBURY 3 Culture, Media and Sport (the site is now a Guardianship monument within the Avebury World Heritage Site) in July 1999, and excavation took place between 23 August and 14 September. The site was restored to its former state of cylindrical concrete post- markers rising from grass turf. The aim of this article is to describe the new excavation, to summarise the previously unseen record of Young’s diaries, and essay a reconciliation of all sources. Lengthy tables combining all available information on excavated features can be found at www.hengeworld.co.uk; printed copies have been given to the museums at Devizes and Avebury. Coincidentally, in 1999 I found the skeleton of the adolescent buried against one of the megaliths, excavated in 1930 and believed destroyed in 1941, at the Natural History Museum. This is also described. Surviving artefacts from the 1930 dig are in the museum of the Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Society in Devizes. There appears to be no archive, apart from Young’s diaries and a few associated letters. Retained animal remains and the human skeleton are at the Natural History Museum. Antler, which was not sent to London in 1930, appears to have been discarded. There are some draft diary pages, previously unidentified, and some negatives of Young’s photos in Avebury museum, where all finds and records from the 1999 dig are held. THE 1930 EXCAVATION On 26 April 1930 Maud Cunnington wrote to Young to say that the owner and farmer of the land she and her husband had identified as the likely site of the Sanctuary (Jack Osmond), had granted them permission to excavate. She did not know how much work there would be — some stone holes, perhaps a ditch, perhaps nothing — but she hoped he would be able to help. On 21 May, Young received a card from Cunnington saying they had not yet found anything (they began on Tuesday 20 May; the field was planted with young sugar beet).On the Friday, the long 2m Figure 2. The Sanctuary stone and post ring (C) in 1930, with Robert Cunnington, holding notebook, standing in an excavated stone pit. Photo W. E. V. Young, © Alexander Keiller Museum 4 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE wide trench exposed two stone pits, and Cunnington wired Young in the evening asking him to start work Monday morning ‘for a week or a fortnight’. Young’s diaries (about which more will be said later) are our best source on how the project was managed. Daily entries describe features he excavated himself, but other pits receive scant mention. When he arrived to dig, several holes of the outer stone circle and of the post ring B (the ‘Fence ring’) had already been emptied. He left on 16 June, to meet a prior digging job at Ham Hill, Somerset, when one pit of ring F (the ‘7 Foot ring’) and much of ring G (the ‘6 Foot ring’) were still unexcavated. His photos of the dig (the same six prints are mounted in the two main diaries) are the only ones known (Figures 2, 3). The ‘excavation party’ consisted of Ben, Maud and Colonel Robert Cunnington (an army-trained surveyor), Maud’s brother (E. L. Pegge), Mr C. W. Pugh and four or five paid men, including Young, and E. Hambridge and F. White, who, like Young, had worked at Windmill Hill in 1928 and 1929. Even by today’s standards this was an experienced team. The diaries record a few archaeological visitors: J. P. Williams-Freeman (president Hampshire Field Club), R. C. C. Clay, Harold St. George Gray (curator Taunton Museum), Robert Newall, W. J. Hemp (Secretary Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments for Wales and Monmouthshire), Charles Drew (Curator Dorchester County Museum) and George Engleheart. The Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Society visited in force on the day of the discovery of the burial beside stone C12 (3 June). Hambridge had found some human skull fragments, but Maud Cunnington, recorded her nephew Robert, disliked ‘publicity’, and withheld the news from all but a ‘single lingerer’ — the sort of detail not present in Young’s journals (Cunnington, R. H. 1954). It is possible that notes or photos from some of these visits may yet be found. Cunnington chose the dig as the subject of her talk at the A. G. M. of the Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Society in Trowbridge (Times 1 August; Nature 2 August 1930). She described the six rings of post holes, and suggested these were succeeded by the two stone circles when the Avenue and Avebury rings were built. The Cunningtons had bought the site, and planned to mark pits by concrete pillars, as they had done at Woodhenge. Her full report was printed the next year, with contributions from J. W. Jackson (animal remains), Arthur Keith (the human skeleton) and A. S. Kennard and B. B. Woodward (non-marine molluscs), followed by a note based on T. Woodhead’s examination of the charcoals (Cunnington M. E. 1931; Cunnington and Woodhead 1931). Of the subsequent studies of this site, Smith (1965, 244-7) and Pollard (1992) looked at the finds in Devizes museum, but others refer only to the original published report. THE ADOLESCENT BURIAL BESIDE STONE C12 Maud Cunnington wrote to Arthur Keith at the Royal College of Surgeons, London on 18 August 1930, asking if he would look at the skeleton they had found buried beside stone hole C12. His analysis was written on 14 October and incorporated verbatim in the excavation report (mss. in R. C. S. library; Cunnington 1931, 330). Cunnington delivered several human remains from her excavations to the college, where she was held in some respect. M. L. Tildesley, Curator of the Figure 3. The adolescent burial beside stone hole C12, from a photo published as a postcard by W. E. V. Young (given to Pitts by I. Smith) EXCAVATING THE SANCTUARY: NEW INVESTIGATIONS ON OVERTON HILL, AVEBURY 5 Stone Hore Seace “in: To ter. Figure 4. Sketch of burial pit beside stone hole C12 from Young’s Diary, 4 June 1930. The black circle below the knees is the Beaker pot (not to original scale) Department of Human Osteology, wrote of her that her ‘archaeological accuracy and distinction need no words of praise from me’ (Annual Report of the Museum, R. C. S. 1932, 28). The skeleton was accessioned into the museum’s collection. The college was severely damaged in a bombing raid in 1941. It seems to have been assumed by archaeologists at the time that all their specimens were destroyed, a belief that became part of archaeological folklore. Many skeletons did survive, however, and unknown to archaeologists were removed to the country for the duration of the war, and ultimately transferred to the Natural History Museum. The Sanctuary adolescent’s post cranial remains arrived in 1951, and the head in 1955. They were listed as coming from a long barrow on Overton Hill, accession PA SK 48 (R. C. S. 4.0372). There is no doubt, however, that these bones are those from the Sanctuary. The background to this and other skeletal discoveries is described elsewhere (Pitts 1999; 2000b). Keith said the skeleton was a male of about 14 years. Burl suggested it was a girl, because the head was pointing south. ‘It was a Beaker custom in Wessex to bury women with their heads to the south, men with their heads to the north’ (Burl 1979, 198). While there may be a tendency for bodies to be laid out this way, it is not universal. McKinley, who kindly examined the skeleton at the Natural History Museum, is not prepared to identify the sex. The mandible is masculine, but the sciatic notch is wider than 90°, suggesting a female hip. The individual was still young, and McKinley feels that attribution of sex should be left open (Pitts 2000b, 130-1). Young describes ‘slight traces of charring on upper side of larger limb bones’ and McKinley confirms this impression but feels that it is dark coloured staining, not burning. Cunnington did not comment. THE 1999 EXCAVATION The main aim of the excavation was to expose post holes described in both Cunnington’s published report and in Young’s diaries, so that a reconciliation between the two might be achieved. There were other subsidiary goals: 1. It seemed likely that objects that would now be retained had been left in the ground; careful excavation, including the use of sieves where appropriate, would assess this factor. 2. It was thought possible that in situ fill could still exist in some postholes: the 1930 records make it clear that distinguishing artificial fill was often difficult. If found, there was the chance that such fill could contain material suitable for radiocarbon dating. When curator of Avebury museum, I had looked in vain at existing collections for appropriate material (Pitts and Whittle 1992; see Radiocarbon Dates below). 3. Excavation would allow study of the spatial relationship between the concrete markers and the actual post holes. A 5 x 5m square was sited to take in post holes E4 (thought before excavation to be the one described by Young 1n particular detail) and D5 (Figures 5, 6, 12). The latter is the only ‘single’ post hole in the ring of ‘double’ holes of the D or ‘Bank Holiday ring’. It is apparent from Young’s diary that this was the first pit in this ring to be excavated. It is possible that it too was a double pit, but not recognised at the time. Excavation conditions were difficult, and the team had no experience of double pits (there was none at Woodhenge). They worked by backfilling as they went, so may not have been able to re-examine the pit once it was realised that others were oval and not round. Thus there was a chance that a complete post pipe and associated remains lay undisturbed in this pit. 6 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE ie 50m Figure 5. The Sanctuary enclosure and concrete markers surveyed by Dave Field for National Monuments Record/English Heritage in 1999. Dashes are rectangular blocks (stone holes), crosses circular (post holes). The square is the 1999 excavation trench; the small shape 1n the north east corner a recumbent sarsen In the event, we found excavation as difficult as our predecessors, and sieving and the quantity of artefacts made progress slower than anticipated. It was decided to leave D6, and what soon became clear may be a uniquely valuable feature at D5, for future study. (Fence ring (B) may be worth re-investigation for a similar reason. 32 pits are described as 30cm diameter (Cunnington) or 60cm (Young), only two (B33 and B34) being larger (Cunnington: 60cm diameter; Young: 90cm) and with post cores. Much of this ring had been excavated before Young’s arrival on site on May 27. But B33 and B34 were completed on June 6. Young comments (Diary 6/6/30) of B33 that ‘previously the core only of this hole had been taken out, and the “packing” left in situ’.) Pollard assisted in direction and with provision of most of the tools and volunteer labour, which came from the University of Wales, Newport, assembled at Beckhampton for the larger concurrent project (Gillings et a1 1999). Jennifer Garofalini assisted with the excavation while she was preparing her thesis on the use of VRML in archaeology (Garofalini 2000). The modern soil was excavated in three spits over the whole trench to a depth of about 50cm, on to a firm loam or broken chalk surface assumed to be the base of the 1930 excavation. In the north west corner of the trench, chalk was reached at a slightly greater depth, matching Young’s description of how they deepened a 3 x 3m area in the centre in an unsuccessful search for small holes (Young 1930a, 12 June). No previously unrecognised pits or stake holes were identified (Figure 7). Soil was sieved through 5mm mesh. Several modern coins were found, particularly around concrete marker F3, and a collection of pieces of quartz and polished stone had been buried near marker F4. Most of the coins are from 1995 or more recently (10), all but two of the nine others dating from the previous ten years. Apart from one coin, these EXCAVATING THE SANCTUARY: NEW INVESTIGATIONS ON OVERTON HILL, AVEBURY i THE SANCTUARY 1930/1999 © Fencering © Stone-and-post ring ae © O ae Ce "ears Es e CD 10-foot ring () CQ 2 2 O Q O 7-foot ring O pee ole O : O @ O : \\ © € O © O © oO O (@) O 5 Oo 2) re) Oo fe) O re) © O OB O eo) 0 5 10 metres MEC/MWP. (SE eee ee eee eee Figure 6. The six inner rings of the Sanctuary, with the 1999 trench superimposed. Within the trench, the pits as excavated are drawn in thick lines, as plotted by Cunnington in dashed lines. The post positions are taken from Cunnington’s Plate I (where they are shown ‘as measured at the bottom’), in which the only stone pit marked is H3. Both post and stone pits appear in Cunnington’s smaller scale Plate I (with no reference to how the pits were planned). There are significant differences in the detail of post pit shapes in Cunnington’s two plans (compare particularly ring E: in Plate I they are all drawn as ‘double’ pits, but in Plate II several are small and circular). The registration of colours in Plate I (red stone pits, black post holes) in copies available to me is not perfect, so it seems unwise to place too much weight on the precise shapes and positions of stone pits in Plate I. They have been drawn schematically here. The trench was located by scaling it to Cunnington’s plan, and finding the best visual fit between the eight post holes we both excavated. 8 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE finds were in the top spit, and clearly constitute offerings by modern visitors. The range of coins is interesting: as well as low denomination change of UK currency, there were two Belgian coins, one Spanish and one Russian. The only coin found at greater depth was a US 1 cent piece, dated 1930 (near marker F5). Perhaps this was buried by someone on the 1930 team, in the same way that the Cunningtons’ ancestor William Cunnington left initialled and dated lead plaques in his excavations. Colt Hoare had suggested the plaques in 1804 as a cheaper alternative to ‘Mr Bolton’s new copper coinage’(Cunnington, R. H. 1975, 57, 63). Eight post pits were totally excavated. Significant quantities of prehistoric artefacts were recovered, including over 1000 of flint (of which 70% were in the soil) and a handful of small prehistoric sherds (all in soil). Also found were 301 pieces of sarsen (87% in soil), 41 bone (75%), 78 burnt flint (73%) a Roman sherd and a fragment of prehistoric copper alloy awl. The flints (described below by Pollard) include nine arrowheads (Cunnington reported three from the entire 1930 dig) and a further 68 retouched pieces. THE SANCTUARY i, As Pollard indicates, the assemblage is of considerable significance, not just locally, but as a rare example of systematically recovered material from a late Neolithic timber circle. Pollard also describes the sherds and the awl. Tabulated provenance data for all finds are in the archive. The locations of the post holes match well with Cunnington’s published survey, albeit this is sketchily drawn (see Figure 6). The concrete markers, however, can only be taken as approximate representations of post pipes (Figure 7). We do not know precisely where these pipes were in relation to pit sides, but it is apparent that G2 cannot be on the site of the pipe, and G3, F4 and F5 are probably not. Perhaps an error of + 20cm between the centres of post pipes and concrete pillars should be allowed. F3 is a special case. It had been broken off and recemented twice, each time moving to the west until it was about 50cm from its post hole. Comparison of ring diameters as mapped by the N. M. R. (concrete posts: Figure 5) and Cunnington (post holes) suggests typical divergences of no more than 30cm. While this is enough to discourage the Lil C y; | < ar Q E3 oy es £3 y I ae 3@ ( @ ! ap ald! ° \ ‘ @ \ | i4 | ae : re [a : 4 ~ (aN Ss EO | ‘A AS ane ( es =. ! = ke a : \ (e:- | We > . aS ~ eo) ee : 4 x % 7 3 (yee ve te ey | @ She PELL Ey ae | “@ Ea a aN QA “ Shaw \ A A G vs | J NY AS a + \\ \ | \ eS \?> ean \ NY | s ig = = x \ ES in WW?) ls a \ <) | | Sas aN ‘\ y | t — Ne \4 Woo ) ‘ a Z 3 : -_—— + 3 metres MWwP. Figure 7. Left: Plan of fully explored part of 1999 trench showing features and lines of profiles in Figure 9. Right: 1930 concrete markers EXCAVATING THE SANCTUARY: NEW INVESTIGATIONS ON OVERTON HILL, AVEBURY a 2 metr THE SANCTUARY 0 eves 010 TPN 62 63 G3 Se ee a a Sn ae in aa ees ieee (eT SE N section line eo FS E5 €3 SE SS £4 in plan chalk ndge at level B pit edge atlevelA 7 re 0 05s 1 metre MWP Figure 8. Top row: profiles of pits in D and G rings after Cunnington (1931). Below: pits excavated in 1999 10 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE search for ancient high precision units of measurement, it is not perhaps as bad as might have been expected from comments made at the time by Keiller. He wrote to A. D. Passmore 21 October 1936 of R. H. Cunnington’s equipment: ‘one 30 foot tape —muuch stretched, and never hitherto corrected since purchased a good many years ago — a broomstick “notched to feet”; and two slips of wood nailed to the top of the aforementioned broomstick to form some sort of sight vane. To this, of course, must be added Mrs Cunnington’s umbrella’ (Alexander Keiller Museum ref 78510174). Keiller’s love of his own surveying equipment had as much to do with technology as it did with relevant precision. The pits were excavated by layer (1930 backfill) without sectioning, except for E3 which lay under the trench edge. This profile showed the pit to have been refilled from the east (Figure 8). All post holes were wider near the base than higher up, as described by both Cunnington (M. E., 1931) and Young (1930). The profiles were quite irregular (Figure 8). It was not possible to say if any of this undercutting was caused by natural collapse. The major difference between the holes exposed in the 1999 excavation, and the impression given in the 1930 report was the way in which some of the pits clearly cut through each other. The original plans, which show post holes ‘measured at the bottom’, do not reveal this, and Cunnington makes no comment in the text. This important new observation will be considered further below. The practice of using the bases to map holes also had the effect of visually under-estimating pit size. The three ‘double’ post holes (E3-5) all had indications of having been dug slightly deeper at the outer, eastern end. In E3 and E5, the deepening was bordered by a slight curving step on the bottom (Figures 7-8). The evidence in E4 was more dramatic. When first re-excavated, this pit had a substantial step of firm, clean chalk on the western, inner side that had every appearance of being undisturbed rock (Figure 13). It was left to weather, and when carefully explored around the western edge of the pit the step was revealed to be hard packed chalk rubble and powder (034). This was removed down to another very firm surface. This also was later revealed to be the top of clean chalk fill, mixed with pale orange silt (035). The final pit base in convincing chalk rock clearly demonstrated the effect of two roughly circular pits being dug beside and partly intercepting each other (Figure 8). When it was realised that substantial in situ fill had been left in E4, the other pits were carefully re- examined. A small amount of chalk fill was found in the bottom of F5 (Figure 8) and F3. No objects were found in any of this chalk. During excavation, a few small pockets of apparently original fill were found in crevices in the edges of pits E3, E4 and G2, some of which contained amphibian bones (see below). LITHICS by Joshua Pollard A total of 1058 pieces of identifiable worked flint and 60 pieces of burnt flint were recovered during the 1999 excavation (Table 1). The bulk of the material derived from surface contexts [001], [002] and [003], although sizeable collections of flint also came from some of the feature fills (eg E4 and E5). None of this material was found within its original context; though the Cunnington practice of returning spoil to the feature from which it was dug, or an adjacent one, means that some spatial integrity in regard to the original distribution of artefacts might be retained. Mixing of material from topsoil and feature fill contexts has, however, taken place. It is evident from the variable condition of the material from surface contexts, which ranges from rolled to very fresh, that the flint here includes pieces from both post hole fills and the pre-excavation ploughsoil. Because of the derived context from which the material came, fully contextual analysis was considered inappropriate. Contextual difficulties aside, the assemblage is still of enormous significance, not just in regional terms, but as one of only a handful comprising systematically recovered material from a late Neolithic timber circle. Raw Materials The thin but fresh cortex on many pieces indicates a local chalk source for the flint. It is of variable quality, a number of pieces incorporating thermal fractures and internal flaws. Additionally, there are two flakes with a thin, worn and stained cortex that most likely derive from gravel deposits. There is no conclusive evidence of high quality mined flint being utilised, though it is not impossible that this was employed in the manufacture of some of the more elaborate artefacts such as arrowheads. Composition, Technology and Implement Forms (Figure 9) Several debitage forms and implement types are present. Given the relatively low percentage (8.1%) EXCAVATING THE SANCTUARY: NEW INVESTIGATIONS ON OVERTON HILL, AVEBURY 11 Table 1: Worked flint from the 1999 excavations Context Preparation Rejuvenation Unretouched Chips flakes flakes flakes [001] 16 13 65 36 [002] 42 27. 348 Wi [003] Z 1 2 [009] L 3 1 [037] 1 = 8 2 D7 1 1 3 1 ES - 1 8 2 E4 9 8 54 4 E5 9 12 87 11 E3/F3 1 2 8 1 F4 1 - 4 1 G2 ~ 2 11 1 G3 6 3 27 3 Total 86 69 625 173 Cores Flaked pieces Shatter frags. Retouched Total 2 - - 11 143 4 4 12 27 D0) - - 1 4 - - - 1 2 - ~ 3 12 - - - - 6 - - - 2 13 = 2 1 8 86 3 ) 3 9 137 1 - - 3 16 - - - - 6 1 - 2 7, - - 1 1 41 11 9 17 68 1058 of preparation flakes (defined as having 60% or more cortex on their dorsal surfaces), many of which are small anyway, it is probable that nodules were brought on to site in a partially prepared or tested state. Otherwise, all stages of core reduction are present. Chips (taken as pieces less than 15mm in maximum dimension) make up 16.4% of the total; a reasonably high figure that must in part reflect the extent of sieving. Amongst the material from surface levels [001] and [002], which was more systematically sieved than the feature fills, the percentage rises to 20.5. Their presence is important, insomuch as it indicates in situ knapping (Newcomer and Karlin 1987). Implements comprise 6.4% of the total, a not unduly high figure. The majority of flakes are broad, hard-hammer struck and without prepared platforms. Rejuvenation takes the form of trimming areas of step-fracturing, or removing ridged/keeled surfaces. Most of the cores are systematically worked down and consist exclusively of single or multi-platform examples from which flakes have been struck (there are no blade cores). In this respect the bulk of the debitage is typical of late Neolithic industries in the region, and across southern England (Smith 1965, Holgate 1988). Flakes with facetted platforms are present, though in very small numbers (in the order of 1% of the flake assemblage). They do however hint at another mode of working that was taking place during the later Neolithic. Levallois-style working was used in the production of pre-formed blanks for chisel and oblique arrowheads; and similar flakes were also used to manufacture a knife from E3/E4 and a denticulate from G3. This involved working discoidal cores with carefully prepared platforms, the flakes from which are broad (tending to oval), thin and exhibit dorsal flake scars intersecting from several directions. Apart from these few implements there are few signs of this kind of working taking place on the site. There is one unmodified Levallois flake from [002], but no characteristic cores. Chisel arrowheads and the few other implements worked on Levallois flakes were most likely being brought on to the site as finished implements. Additionally, there are a small number of soft- hammer struck blades/bladelets, mostly from surface contexts [001] and [002]. These make up around 5% or just under of the debitage assemblage. A percentage at least of these are likely to be of 4th millennium BC date, and relate to one or more short-lived episodes of pre-monument activity. Other diagnostic 4th millennium BC forms such as blade cores, leaf arrowheads and fragments of polished axe, are absent, though the narrow flakes with fine, regular “edge- trimming’ (Smith’s ‘Class A’ utilised flakes: 1965, 92) are likely to be earlier Neolithic. Blade/narrow flake production need not, however, be confined to the 4th millennium BC. Soft hammer struck narrow flakes characterised the broadly contemporary assemblage from the West Kennet palisaded enclosures (Whittle 1997, 92), and were utilised in the production of microdenticulates at the Sanctuary. The range of recovered implement forms is quite restricted (Table 2). Scrapers dominate, followed in numerical frequency by miscellaneous retouched 12 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE | a ° 5 ee eee CM Figure 9. Worked flint and copper alloy from the 1999 excavations. (1-6) chisel arrowheads; (7) oblique arrowhead; (8) triangular arrowhead; (9) barbed-and-tanged arrowhead; (10) denticulated flake; (11) microdenticulate; (12) edge-trimmed flake; (13) knife; (i4) notched flake; (15-16) scrapers; (17) copper alloy awl (drawn by J. Pollard) EXCAVATING THE SANCTUARY: NEW INVESTIGATIONS ON OVERTON HILL, AVEBURY 13 Table 2: Retouched and utilized pieces Context Scrapers Arrowheads [001] 6 2 [002] 6 4 1 3 [003] 1 : [009] 1 [037] 1 D7 f 2 E3 1 1 E4 3 : 2 E5 2 1 E3/F3 : 8 Z F4 z E x s G2 c 1 = - G3 5 = 2 = Total PDs 9 6 6 Notched Knives Micro- Den- Edge- Misc. Total denticulates ticulates trimmed retouched - - - D, LT 2 1 4 6 Bia - - - 1 - - - - 1 - - - 2 5) - - - - 2, 1 - - 1 8 - - - 3 9 1 - 1 - 8} - - - B - 1 - - 1 4 2 by 15 68 flakes, arrowheads, knives, and modified flakes (notched, edge-trimmed, denticulated and so forth). This might be characterised as a ‘light’ tool kit, with heavy-duty objects such as axes being conspicuous by their absence. In itself this is interesting given the scale of wood-working that most probably took place on the site. The proportion of arrowheads is unusually high. The scraper to arrowhead ratio is 2.3:1, compared with 5:1 from the later Neolithic West Kennet Avenue occupation site (Smith 1965), and 9:1 from the West Kennet enclosures (Whittle 1997). The situation is, however, reflected at other timber circles in Wessex, such as DurringtonWalls (Wainwright and Longworth 1971) and Woodhenge (Cunnington 1929), where oblique forms are far more prevalent. Of the nine arrowheads, six can be classified as chisel, one as oblique, one as barbed-and-tanged, and one as triangular. This replicates quite nicely the range of arrowhead types discovered during the Cunnington excavations. Three of the chisel arrowheads are intact, as 1s the triangular example, though hinge-terminating bending fractures on the tip and tang of the barbed- and-tanged suggest breakage through impact. With its square barbs this is probably of Green’s Conygar type (Green 1980). Worked through extensive bifacial retouch, the triangular point is more problematic. Whilst it may be an unfinished barbed-and-tanged, similar examples are known in some numbers from the upper fills of OD II on Windmill Hill, in association with Early Bronze Age lithics, and from the West Kennet Avenue occupation site (Smith 1965). The form is unusual and concentrations of these are known from Wessex, the Breckland and Yorkshire Wolds (Green 1980). Characteristic Beaker/Early Bronze Age implements are significantly well represented. In addition to the barbed-and-tanged arrowhead from E5, there is a knife with semi-invasive retouch from {002], and scrapers with similar working from [002], ([037], E4 and E5. Classic ‘thumbnail’ scrapers are, however, absent. The scrapers are quite heterogeneous, and include several examples with styles of working more typical of 2nd rather than 3rd millennium BC industries. In addition to ‘typical’ side and end scrapers, some quite worn, there are straight- end (3 examples), denticulate (2) and composite (1) forms. The latter include examples on thick and irregular flakes and thermally fractured pieces. Amongst the straight-end scrapers there is one with inverse retouch. Additionally, there is one concave scraper from [003]. The Lithic Assemblage from the 1930 Excavations The recovery of 1058 pieces of worked flint from the very limited re-excavation of the monument stands in sharp contrast to the 79 pieces of lithic material that survive from the 1930 excavations (Table 3). (This material is currently held in Devizes Museum, and further details are given in the original report and in Pollard 1992.) 14 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Table 3: The lithic assemblage from the 1930 excavations Flakes Cores Scrapers Arrowheads Misc. retouched Knife Sickle Total Surface - - 13 2) 1 1 1 18 Post and stone holes 44 1 9 4 3 - - 61 Total 44 1 22 6 4 1 1 79 It is clear that the recovery strategy adopted during the original excavation was selective, particularly with regard to the retention of debitage. Of the 44 flakes from the feature fills, 41 of these are from a knapping cluster around C15 (Cunnington 1931, 321). The excavators were a little more systematic in the recovery of implements, though they were either failing to recognise miscellaneous flake tools such as denticulates and edge-trimmed flakes, or were discarding them in favour of more elaborate retouched forms such as scrapers and arrowheads. Comments The 1930 assemblage is misleading in scale, and to some extent in representation. The 1999 re-excavation has therefore facilitated a more realistic characterisation of the Sanctuary lithic assemblage. Perhaps the most striking feature 1s the sheer quantity of lithic material from the site, especially given its recovery from such a limited area. The total lithic assemblage from the monument must be in the region of several thousand pieces.’To put this into perspective, the total from this one small area is almost identical to the assemblage from the more extensive work on the West Kennet palisaded enclosures (Whittle 1997, 90-93), and exceeds in terms of density per square metre concentrations within the lithic scatter on the southern slopes of Windmill Hill (Whittle et al. 2000). Of course such high densities need not be uniform across the monument, and if the spatial distribution of material from the Cunnington excavations can be taken as representative, the 1999 excavations were located in a part of the site particularly rich in artefactual material (Pollard 1992). The assemblage includes diagnostic pieces of 4th to early 2nd millennium BC date, spanning pre- monument episodes of activity and the construction and use of the post and stone circles. However, the bulk of the material can be assigned to the later Neolithic and earlier Bronze Age, and therefore relates specifically to the monument. In situ working may account for at least some of the lithic material, though other objects were perhaps being brought into the monument specifically for deposition (such as the chisel arrowheads). There may be complex processes of production, movement and discard taking place within the structure, and it could be misleading to read the range of material at face- value, as a record of functional activities focussed upon the site. The working, transformation and (quite formalised) deposition of lithic materials are attested, and within such a ‘charged’ arena as the monument may have taken on a greater significance than was normally afforded within the context of routine production and use. If we think of timber circles like the Sanctuary as places where the categorisation of people, things and relations was reaffirmed, lithic tools and the techniques of working stone could have been openly employed here as tokens of social roles and responsibilities (Edmonds 1995). POTTERY by Joshua Pollard There are 14 fragments of prehistoric pottery, in grog-, sand- and flint-tempered fabrics, both reduced and oxidised. All the pieces are small, most being crumbs, the absence of more or larger fragments indicating fairly systematic recovery of pottery by the original excavators. There is one feature sherd, a simple bevelled rim in a flint-tempered fabric from [002]; most probably Ebbsfleet ware. This has faint traces of diagonal cord? impressions on the bevel and a diagonal whipped cord ‘maggot’ on the interior? surface. COPPER ALLOY AWL by Joshua Pollard From E4 is a damaged and badly corroded copper alloy awl, 20mm in surviving length and 4mm in EXCAVATING THE SANCTUARY: NEW INVESTIGATIONS ON OVERTON HILL, AVEBURY 15 maximum thickness (Figure 9.17). The surviving end is pointed and squared in cross-section. The broken end has an oval cross-section and perhaps terminated in a squared end. Similar Early Bronze Age awls are common grave finds, though are also known from monumental contexts at Windmill Hill (Hamilton 1999) and Stonehenge (Lawson 1995). ANIMAL REMAINS analysis by Amanda Rouse Amanda Rouse very kindly examined the small bones found in pockets of compact chalky fill, thought to be Neolithic, about half way down the sides of pits E3, E4 and G2. The largest group, context 031, was from E3. About a dozen small bones or fragments are described by Rouse as ‘definitely a toad. The bones could well be from the same individual, on the basis of size and there being no repetition of a particular element’. Bones include a humerus, 9th vertebra, scapula, maxilla, frontoparietal, tibia-fibula and radio-ulna. About ten small pieces that ‘look amphibian’ were found together elsewhere in E3. ‘The only bones that were not too fragmented to be identifiable are certainly toad (femur and humerus). They are from a smaller animal than that represented by 031’. Also from E3 were individual finds of a frog humerus and a toad tibia-fibula or frog/toad radio-ulna. A single toad tibia-fibula was found in G2, and a possible frog (not toad) femur in E4. Several toad remains were found in post holes in 1930. Wilfrid Jackson identified the ‘remains of at least eight individuals ... represented by numerous bones’. Cunnington wrote that ‘quite a number of these bones were found in a very fragmentary state, only a selection of these being sent to Dr. Jackson’ (Cunnington, M. E. 1931, 331). Neither writer says which holes contained these toad bones. In his Diary, Young refers to ‘frog bones’ from pits C19, C23, C29 and E3. Where context detail is given, these bones were found in the chalk, not the _ post pipe (all pits had ‘distinct cores’): ‘in rubble filling’ (C23), ‘in rammed filling’ (C29) and ‘in packing’ (E3) (Young 1930a, 28-30/5/30; 13/6/30). The bones found in 1999 were also in chalk. This would seem to deny Cunnington’s suggestion that the presence of toad bones ‘may be due to the animals creeping into the decaying trunks for shelter’ (1930, 331). RADIOCARBON DATES Whether the animals were deliberately buried when posts were erected, or whether they tunnelled into the freshly dug or even partially filled pits, the amphibians represented by articulated skeletons would seem to be ideal candidates for radiocarbon dating. Mammal bones do survive from the 1930 dig (albeit mostly dipped in organic preservative), but there are no articulations: the wide date range of artefacts from the site means that scattered bones need not be contemporary with the timber or stone rings. Unfortunately, however, in 1999 not enough toad bones were recovered for dating purposes. Further excavation may eventually allow such a date to be obtained. At present, then, the only chance for absolute dating of the Sanctuary lies in the newly re-located human skeleton. At the time of writing, samples are being prepared for analysis by the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit. Results should be available to be reported in Notes of the next volume of Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine. RECONCILING THE ARCHIVES In 1930, Young’s Sanctuary journal was nearly not written, and 25 years later most of the diaries, an extraordinarily valuable resource on Wessex archaeology between the wars, were nearly lost. Towards the end of his life, when the diaries’ future was under discussion, Young wrote a statement about them and his relationship with Keiller and the Ministry of Works (document in Devizes Museum, probably typed by D. G. King). He refers to a letter to him of 19 November 1955. ‘Did you know’, wrote Stuart Piggott, ‘that your Diaries got put into the Sotheby’s sale by mistake? I wrote off in haste and got them withdrawn, but A. K[eiller] was then already on his deathbed’. At least three sets were created more or less concurrently. Two of these, Diary with Archaeological Notes (Young 1930a) and Leaves from my Journal (Young 1930b) are now in Devizes museum library. A third series, which I refer to here as the Draft Diary (Young 1930c), is represented by a handful of loose pages in Avebury museum. A variety of internal evidences suggest that Draft, written in pencil with 16 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE numerous crossings out, was the original on which the formal Diary was based, and this in turn was shortened to produce Leaves. Nonetheless, all versions contain unique details, occasionally contradictory. As well as the sequence proposed above, it may be that all three drew on the same daily notes that were only later turned into a narrative journal. Murray (1999, 58-9) suggests that the diaries were kept at Alexander Keiller’s instigation, but I have not found any definite evidence for this (contra Pitts 2000a). In 1930 Young lent Keiller ‘the second copy of this years diary’ (Diary 17.12.1930: perhaps a reference to a volume of Leaves?), but a year later he ‘sent him my original diary for the period April 23rd -July 10th 1930, for him to keep’ (Diary 13.10.1931: these dates do not match any known diary). By then Keiller was posting Young monthly ‘allowance’ cheques to help him through the winter, and it may be that some arrangement had been made over the diaries, which in the earlier years are substantially archaeological in content. In 1936, when Young began full-time work with Keiller, Keiller had the Diary series case-bound and boxed for retention by the Morven Institute of Archaeological Research in Avebury. Keiller was frustrated at being beaten to the Sanctuary by the Cunningtons, and put considerable pressure on Young to spy for him on proceedings. The detail of the Sanctuary journal may be the result of this. Both Diary and Leaves appear to begin in 1930, and the surviving pages of Draft also cover part of the Sanctuary excavation (26 May to 16 June 1930). The formality of the style, and the tardiness with which Keiller received copies (eg on 1.11.1933, Young wrote to Keiller enclosing his diary for 1933 up to June 30- ‘the other one will follow in due course’) suggest that they were written up some time after the events described, albeit with detailed notes (which would constitute a fourth ‘diary’). This is important in considering his description of the Sanctuary excavation. In spring 1930, Young was planning his season of archaeological fieldwork. He derived great pleasure from archaeology, but he also relied on the work for a significant part of his income. H. St. George Gray wrote to him on 17 April, inviting him to Ham Hill, Somerset, in June. On 26 April, Maud Cunnington told him she had permission to dig the Sanctuary, but did not know when they would start or how much work there would be. Keiller had been planning to employ him at Meon Hill, Hants, but cabled him on 7 May to say that the field was under thick crops and could not be dug (it had been discovered by O. G. S. Crawford from the air, and was excavated in 1932-3, with Young as foreman, by Dorothy Liddell). Young then wrote to Cunnington, pleading for information on whether or not there would be work for him at the Sanctuary, but received another non-committal reply. As we have seen, the dig eventually began on 20 May, Young was wired to join on the 23 and started work on the 26. It seems probable that had Meon Hill not been under a ‘thick crop’, he would instead have worked there with Keiller, and his record of the Sanctuary would not exist. The diaries contain considerably more detail about features excavated at the Sanctuary than hitherto available (to single out one item, he refers to a previously unknown ‘small round jet bead with very small perforation’ from C27).There can be little doubt that at least most of this information was recorded at the time of excavation. The relevant parts of Diary (Young 1930a) appear to have been written out before, and of Leaves (Young 1930b) after the publication of Cunnington’s report (M. E., 1931). For example, measurements for the lump of sarsen in hole C21 in the June 16 entry of Leaves, not given in Diary, match precisely those in the published report. But Leaves does not contain substantial alterations so much as abbreviations, and some apparently significant differences remain between these manuscripts and the ‘official’ record, particularly concerning rings E and F. The correct identification of post holes is important because of the amount of information in Young’s diary not present in Cunnington’s report. Pollard demonstrated (1992) that animal remains and artefacts are far from randomly distributed around the site, and proposed that this reflects what people were doing there. Unfortunately, matching all pits with complete confidence does not seem to be possible. Before re-excavation, all available information was tabulated. Pits in each of the sources were matched following the excavation sequence by ring. It appeared that Young described two post pipes in the ‘double’ E pits, contrasting with Cunnington’s insistence that they had only one (eg E3). Apart from a brief reference to them in Leaves on 16 June, the F pits seemed to be absent. The new excavation resolved this dilemma. The F and E pits were seen to intersect, showing what Young described as ‘recesses’ at the inner end of the E pits to be the separate post holes of the F ring. This interpretation leaves only the contradiction that Young described post pipes in the F holes, while Cunnington denied their presence. The tables were changed to reflect this, and these final versions appear at www.hengeworld.co.uk and in the prints at Avebury and Devizes museums. EXCAVATING THE SANCTUARY: NEW INVESTIGATIONS ON OVERTON HILL, AVEBURY 17 Secrion Traoucn Post Hove Scare Gin. To IFT. THE Two CORES ARE IN LINE WITH THE CENTRAL Post HOLE. rete ie fe e . VL’ ~~) io) > NN Hoole a OS 5S9Sa9s5. CiR CLES. Soss 5 g BaEGRe: Ramen CHALK CORE Figure 10. Young’s sketch of a post hole in ring E. The section is his drawing from Diary, June 13 1930. The plan is traced from Draft of the same date (not to original scale) Because they are inextricably linked, Young’s descriptions of E and F holes remain in the E list, while parts of these are also in the F list. Alone in all his surviving records, Young’s post hole 2, Circle 5 is treated to a schematic section drawing (Figure 10). In Draft there is a sketch of the profile and plan, and in Diary a more formal version of the profile only. Nothing appears in Leaves. With the hindsight of the 1999 dig, it is possible to interpret this as showing an E hole to the west (left), the larger F hole on the east and the circular top of a G hole to the south (in plan). The question is, which of these pits are they? Before the new excavation the large pit was thought to be E4, the others remaining unidentified. Excavation revealed that E4, as shown by Cunnington 18 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE in her plan (M. E., 1931, Plate ID, had a step, absent in Young’s description of his Hole 2 (Figure 13). E3 is the only other pit in that ring that has a configuration with the adjacent F and G pits similar to Young’s plan, and although in Cunnington’s plan it too has a step, no such step was revealed on excavation. Both Young (Hole 2) and Cunnington (E3) refer to a circular hollow on the base of the pit, which they interpreted as a cut in the chalk to take the post (Young gives dimensions of 25cm across and 5cm deep: Figure 10). Like the step (the hollow was not visible in 1999), this may have been formed in hard packed fill. It seems likely, then, that Young’s sketch represents E3, F3 and G2. The clearest correspondence is with ring C, where excavation occurred in unbroken sequence from pit to pit, and several specific indicators occur (for example, the presence in both sources of a human mandible in one pit or a large block of sarsen in another). The only certain identification in ring D is the first pit dug, D5. It seems likely that excavation progressed in an anti-clockwise manner, but several of the pits remain unmatched. The reference to half sectioning of Hole 10 inYoung’s diaries suggests D10 (cf Cunnington, M. E. 1931, Plate III.4); while the dates of excavation suggest D2. The distinctive decorated rim sherd illustrated by Cunnington as Plate VII.1 is drawn by Young in the diaries. This would indicate that Young’s Hole 2, Circle 6 was probably G3, supported by his comment that “There was only about six inches of wall on either side, separating [Hole 2] from the two oblong holes’. But he describes Hole 2, by this interpretation mistakenly, as lying between what other evidence suggests to be pits E2 and E3, while G3 is between E4 and E5. According to Robert Cunnington, describing work at Woodhenge and the Sanctuary, spoil from an excavation was shovelled immediately into the nearest space that had been previously dug out. ‘It meant’, he wrote, ‘that the site looked untidy, and indeed meaningless except to a trained eye’ (Cunnington, R. H. 1954, 229). It is easy to imagine how pits could be confused at the Sanctuary, which was dug at great speed, by either Cunnington or Young, without extremely careful record keeping. Young himself got in a muddle transcribing his own records of ring C. In Leaves he seems to have jumped text, confusing several post holes. The jet bead appears in Leaves in stone hole C30; Draft, however, agrees with Diary in placing it in C27 - albeit using yet another pit numbering system —which seems the safe attribution. On the other hand, Cunnington refers to pot sherds from pits D13 and D15 (Cunnington, M. E.1931, Plate VIII and table p 325): the D ring has only 12 pits. With only eight post holes to excavate in 1999, with nearly as much time as the Cunningtons had to dig the entire site, keeping them separate in the mind was nonetheless a demanding task. None of this totally invalidates the important and detailed record. But it does indicate that neither Cunnington nor Young should be treated as ‘the’ correct version, and that both sources need to be thought of as occasionally slightly out of focus. WHAT DID THE SANCTUARY LOOK LIKE? Cunnington’s report contains nothing on her impressions of the Sanctuary structure, other than her conclusion that it was probably not roofed (M. E., 1931, 309). She was more forthcoming in her public lecture. The stone circles had been put up to replace the earlier wooden rings, which were erected for ‘ceremonial purposes’. ‘It is not necessary to picture these timbers as merely bare posts’, she said. “They could have been coloured and adorned in many ways, perhaps even carved into various forms’ (“The Avebury “serpent”: another “Woodhenge” in Wiltshire’. Times 1 August 1930). Meanwhile Robert Cunnington placed a large roof over the whole site (Cunnington, R. H. 1931). It was Piggott, however, who swung opinion, and the majority of later reconstructions of all timber henges have been strongly influenced by his vision (Piggott 1940; cf Musson 1971; Burl 1976, 318-20, on the Sanctuary, which 1s different from Burl 1979, 124-5 and 193-6; Castleden 1993; English Heritage 1995; Lees 1999; and recent television films using virtual reality models). Piggott himself acknowledged the inspiration of working with Gerhard Bersu at Little Woodbury. The extent of this influence has recently been highlighted with the publication of some of Bersu’s sketches, not least of an iron age house on the Isle of Man (Evans 1998, Figure 4). Like most commentators, Piggott seems to have followed gut feeling as much as evidence. ‘Great dim rafted halls of magic and ritual’ appealed more to his imagination than the ‘forests of naked posts in which we have all so long and so dismally wandered’ (1940, 221-2). Three lines of evidence have been used to support Sanctuary reconstructions. The apparent replacement EXCAVATING THE SANCTUARY: NEW INVESTIGATIONS ON OVERTON HILL, AVEBURY 19 of posts in the ‘double’ post holes suggested an extended sequence of phases, supported by the wide range of Neolithic ceramics (detailed by Smith 1965, 244-7). On the other hand the logic of the plan as a unitary design pointed to a much shorter history, perhaps implying contemporaneity of all posts. Although little has yet appeared in print, it is probably fair to say that majority feeling amongst specialists now tends towards a one or two phase structure of unroofed posts and stones (Pollard 1992; Gibson 1998). Thanks to Young’s diaries and the 1999 excavation, we now have two important new contributions to this debate. Reconciling the apparent contradictions between these sources results in a very different understanding of what was happening on Overton Hill 4000 years ago. It is this that is perhaps the major contribution of the new discoveries. By extreme good fortune, Young was at Piggott’s lecture to the Royal Archaeological Institute on 7 February 1940 (Young 1940; Pitts 2000a; 2000b). After Piggott had impressed the audience with his drawings and speech, Young was asked by the chair to comment. He offered no more than a few pleasantries, but in his diary expressed his anger. ‘One point in particular’, he wrote, ‘I totally disagreed with. This was [Piggott’s] maintaining that the double post holes at the Sanctuary were the result of re-placements carried out during the gradual growth of the hut, thus flatly contradicting the evidence which came to light when those post holes were excavated’. They had thought of this at the time, he wrote, and cut long sections. These ‘proved that the two posts in each particular case had been erected at one and the same time’. The 1930 diaries make it clear they did indeed cut several sections, although few were apparently recorded, and the possibility that ‘double’ post holes were intercutting features was considered and rejected. Maud Cunnington thought all posts contemporary. Figure 11. Interpretation of E4 as a succession of backfilled and re-excavated pits 20 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Newall’s copy of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine in which her report appeared is in Avebury Museum. He wrote in the margin, quoting a letter she sent in 1931. Someone had suggested that each oval pit held two posts supporting lintels, like Stonehenge trilithons. ‘It seems quite a good idea’, she wrote. ‘I can’t think why none of us hit on it before?’ In light of earlier comments, I believe respect is due the original excavators’ opinions of what they dug up. The question then is what do we make of the apparent intersection of several post holes in the small 1999 trench, and what only very special pleading would dismiss as evidence for two pits in the ‘double pit’? E4, implying that posts were not all standing at the same time? A modern excavator would have no hesitation is describing the E4 hole recorded in 1999 as the result of one roughly circular pit cutting through another (Figure 8). If we consider the profile more closely, however, it is apparent that more than one recut is present (Figure 11). The compressed top of layer [034] looks like the base of a pit, as does the top of [035] and again the chalk rock below it. The vertical face of these layers to the east is clearly the effect of a pit being dug through them. This left a sharp angle at the edge of [034], as would be expected if that layer was buried under other fill, removed in the 1930 excavation. However, this is not the case with [035], which very clearly sloped gently towards the deeper end of the pit (Figure 11). This could indicate that the pit bottoming on [035] had a very uneven base, but it could also be a relict of yet another pit dug down through older refilled pits. It is impossible now to be dogmatic about this, but the suggestion is that E4 is the cumulative effect of five pits, dug, refilled and redug (Figure 11). In fact, if we accept the evidence of this, then we are recognising the possibility that many more pits than this were once excavated within this small, rectangular patch of ground. Pit F4, contrastingly described by Young as but a ‘recess’ within pit E4 and by Cunnington as a completely discrete post hole, was dug through the backfilled pits at the inner, western end of E4, or dug away by these excavations: unfortunately we cannot now tell which. Almost all multi-phase reconstructions, perhaps unconsciously following a law of progress that starts with a roofed hut and ends with a temple, place these F pits at the start of the sequence. It is interesting that there were only two post pipes in this three dimensional palimpsest (if we believe Young’s diaries), and significant that one of these Figure 12. At completion of excavation in 1999, the four deep holes are (left to right, N trench side top left): E3 (under baulk) and G2; F4 and E4; G3 (round pit); F5 and E5. Other shallower hollows are archaeological excavation (1930 and 1999) of ‘natural’. Concrete posts for D5 and D6 (double) behind. © Mike Pitts should be in what seems to be, even with the very limited evidence we have, the latest of all the holes dug (excepting the possibility of the pit with the other pipe, F4): the deep, eastern end of E4. All the evidence can be accommodated if we imagine a succession of pits being dug in the chalk, presumably for tall oak posts. The timbers were held in place by packing chalk hard around them. Excavating D5, Young wrote (1930a, 9 June): “The chalk packing round the core was so firmly rammed that until we reached a depth of 3 ft 6 in [1.1m] it was mistaken for the undisturbed side’. They made the same error excavating E4, leaving a step of packing that we, too, in 1999 initially believed to be chalk rock. That the Neolithic workers were repeatedly digging through redeposited chalk rather than rock would be one reason to pack filling particularly hard. The presence of only one post pipe in E4 means that previous posts had been removed. That experienced field archaeologists missed that they were digging through recut features could reflect both this very hard packing of clean chalk, and also that posts were not left long in the ground. There was no time for timber to rot, for soil to fall into the pit and contaminate the chalk, for packed chalk rubble to become cemented by percolating rain water. The purity of the fill might even suggest that the site had been completely stripped down to a chalk surface. So we have large posts being erected, taken down and replaced, perhaps over a brief period. This is hardly an activity to be envisaged beneath a heavy thatched roof, and supports Cunnington’s initial idea that the posts stood free or lintelled. Yet at the same EXCAVATING THE SANCTUARY: NEW INVESTIGATIONS ON OVERTON HILL, AVEBURY Zl time, this process is controlled. There remains the fact of the site plan, a regular, patterned arrangement with corridors, circles, posts of recurrent sizes in pits of recurrent depths, which shone through the transience of individual timbers and acts of construction, outlasting those last posts allowed to decay, undisturbed, in the ground, and, after four millennia, even the very megaliths (cf Pollard 1992). Piggott made a well known and telling comparison between the Sanctuary and a building of Christian worship. “To interpret the Sanctuary’, he said, ‘as a one-period plan may in fact be analogous to considering a parish church of to-day, embodying the alterations and enlargements of successive generations of the pious, as representing an original Norman structure on the site’(Piggott 1940, 196). With the evidence before us, we can see that this image may be strongly misleading. The Sanctuary no longer appears to us as a monument, a contrived pile that could be extended but not moved. We see rather a process, an intellectual, mythical construct whose existence and meaning lay in the repetition of ceremony, physical effort and pattern (Pitts 2000a). The appearance of the site may have varied significantly from one year to the next, as posts came and went, or stayed and weathered, so that there never were discrete ‘phases’ we could hold up in reconstructions. It appears on current evidence that only two of the seven rings at the Sanctuary may have consisted of repeatedly renewed posts, the E ring and the D ring. Perhaps we are looking at two categories of circle. On the one hand are the outer rings: the outer stone circle (Young’s photo of ring A under excavation suggests that if posts stood between the stones, the Figure 13. Post hole E4 after excavation of all fill replaced by Cunnington in 1930. The trowel sits on the step later removed as undisturbed neolithic packing. © Mike Pitts holes would not have been found; at that point they were looking only for two stone circles), the small and numerous posts of the Fence ring (B) and the serried ring of alternating posts and stones (C). These might be analogous to the immovable ditches and banks seen on some similar sites. On the other hand, enclosed by the first group, are the rings of moving posts, the D and E pits, the F pits which were dug into holes that had formerly held posts and the large G pits squeezed into the gaps (the lower belling of these pits might be accounted for if they had to be dug between already standing posts; as Young says in his diaries, if they had continued down with vertical sides, they would have been too narrow to accommodate a person and very difficult to excavate). With its emphasis on people and movement rather than memorial and structure, this interpretation is quite different from the normal antiquarian conception. But it resonates well with Gillings and Pollard’s recent description of an Avebury megalith as a living entity, and Avebury itself as ‘not a structure for the ancestors but .. . a carefully choreographed gathering of them’ (Gillings and Pollard 1999, 184; their italics). FINAL DISCUSSION What implications does this have for other later Neolithic timber circles? The evidence has been usefully summarised by Gibson (1994). The Sanctuary appears to be unique in its two rings of ‘double’ post holes, and the two stone circles are also distinctive. It could then be argued that the scene here described, of rapid post replacement at a location whose sanctity was of greater permanence than the structures it supported, is also peculiar. Perhaps, though, it is better to think of every location as unique in its own way. The range in size of timber henges is very great (diameters less than 5m, to c 100m at Stanton Drew); the number of rings varies from one to nine; some are circular, some oval, some irregular in plan (at North Mains, a circle and an oval both stood inside a ring ditch, but not, apparently, at the same time); some have standing stones, in a variety of arrangements, while most have none; some have enclosing ditch and bank, some do not; some are on hill tops, some in valleys. And the relationship of these rings to adjacent structures also varies considerably (the Sanctuary, for instance, is at the end of a stone avenue; Sarn-y-bryn-caled is close to a cursus; Durrington Walls rings are inside a ‘superhenge’ earthwork but otherwise unenclosed; and so on). 22 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE The influence of Woodhenge, the first such site to be described, should not be under-estimated. The plan gives an air of unitary substance, and combined with Piggott’s interpretation of a roofed building, has spurred archaeologists to look for permanent and covered constructions. At Durrington Walls, Wainwright consciously sought another Woodhenge (Pitts 2000b, 57-8). Unconsciously, many of us have done the same with what is actually a highly varied tradition held together more by the presence of Grooved Ware than any precise architectural pattern. This is exemplified particularly well at Balfarg, Scotland. Gibson reproduces the post holes of Mercer’s six concentric ‘rings’, omitting the many other excavated features (1994, figure 37). Yet a statistical study commissioned by Mercer himself allowed for only one clear ring (circle A, of large post holes) in a mass of other pits that could equally result from the sort of activity proposed here for the Sanctuary (cf Pitts 2000b, footnote 121). Perhaps the message is that nothing should be taken for granted. Further excavations of these sites should be scrutinised for indications of post replacements (bearing in mind that rapid post turnover could leave little trace) and duration of activity. The way in which even Woodhenge was excavated might caution us against over-confidence in the conventional interpretation of this site (cf Pitts 2000b, 44-5). There are also many pits at the Sanctuary, and many opportunities for further re- excavation. The dance continues. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Amongst the 20 who assisted at the 1999 dig, I should particularly like to thank Jennifer Garofalini and Dave Wheatley (Southampton University), John Joyce and Chris Parfitt (University of Wales, Newport), Melanie Pomeroy (English Heritage), and Gill Swanton, and of course Josh Pollard, whose advice, help and encouragement have been invaluable. The skeleton would not have been located without the assistance of Claire Jackson (Royal College of Surgeons), Rob Kruszynski (Natural History Museum) and Karen Walker (Wessex Archaeology). Others whose help is much appreciated include Alex Bayliss and Amanda Chadburn (English Heritage), Ros Cleal (National Trust), Pamela Colman (Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Society), Dave Field (NMR, English Heritage), Chris Gingell (National Trust), Jackie McKinley (Wessex Archaeology), Mike Parker Pearson (Sheffield University), Amanda Rouse (Cardiff University), Colin Shell (Cambridge University) and Isobel Smith. References BURL, H. A. W. 1976. The Stone Circles of the British Isles. London: Yale University Press. BURL, H. A. W. 1979. Prehistoric Avebury. London: Yale University Press. CASTLEDEN, R. 1993. The Making of Stonehenge. London: Routledge. CUNNINGTON, M. E. 1929. Woodhenge. Devizes: George Simpson. CUNNINGTON, M. E. 1931.The ‘Sanctuary’ on Overton Hill, near Avebury. WANHM 45, 300-35. CUNNINGTON, R. H. 1931.The ‘Sanctuary’ on Overton Hill. Was it roofed? WANHM 45, 486-8. CUNNINGTON, R. H. 1954. The Cunningtons of Wiltshire. WANHM 55, 211-36. CUNNINGTON, R. H. 1975. From Antiquary to Archaeologist: a Biography of William Cunnington 1754-1810. Aylesbury: Shire. CUNNINGTON, M. E. and WOODHEAD, T. W. 1931. Report on charcoals from “The Sanctuary” on Overton Hill. WANHM 45, 484-5. EDMONDS, M. 1995. Stone Tools and Society: Working Stone in Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain. London: Batsford. ENGLISH HERITAGE 1995. Stonehenge and Neighbouring Monuments. London: English Heritage. EVANS, C. 1998. Constructing houses and building context: Bersu’s Manx round-house campaign. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 64, 183-201. GAROFALINIL, J. L. 2000. The Construction and Analysis of Three Dimensional Models ... [using VRML and data from the Sanctuary]. University of Southampton Department of Archaeology M. Sc. Thesis. GIBSON, A. 1994. Excavations at the Sarn-y-bryn-caled cursus complex, Welshpool, Powys, and the timber circles of Great Britain and Ireland. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 60, 143-223. GILLINGS, M. and POLLARD, J. 1999. Non-portable stone artefacts and contexts of meaning: the tale of Grey Wether (www.museum.ncl.ac.uk/Avebury/stone4.htm). World Archaeology 31, 179-93. GILLINGS, M., POLLARD, J. and WHEATLEY, D. 1999. Longstones Field, Beckhampton: An Interim Report On The 1999 Excavations. Privately printed report. GREEN, H. S. 1980. The Flint Arrowheads of the British Isles. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports 75. HAMILTON, M. 1999. Bronze? In Whittle, A., Pollard, J. and Grigson, C. The Harmony of Symbols: The Windmill Hill Causewayed Enclosure, Wiltshire (Oxford: Oxbow Books), 343. HOLGATE, R. 1988. Neolithic Settlement of the Thames Basin. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports 194. LAWSON, A. 1995.The copper alloy bead and awl. In Cleal, R. M. J., Walker, K. E. and Montague, R. (eds), Stonehenge in its Landscape: Twentieth-century Excavations (London: English Heritage), 430. EXCAVATING THE SANCTUARY: NEW INVESTIGATIONS ON OVERTON HILL, AVEBURY 23 LEES, D. 1999. The ‘Sanctuary’, Avebury. An architectural re-assessment. WANHM 92, 1-6. MURRAY, L. J. 1999. A Zest for Life: the Story of Alexander Keiller. Swindon: Morven Books. MUSSON, C. R. 1971. A study of possible building forms at Durrington Walls, Woodhenge and the Sanctuary. In Wainwright, G. J. and Longworth, I. H. Durrington Walls: Excavations 1966-1968 (London: Society of Antiquaries),363-77. NEWCOMER, M. H. and KARLIN, C. 1987. Flint chips from Pincevent. Jn Sieveking, G de G and Newcomer, M. H. (eds), The Human Uses Of Flint And Chert: Papers From The Fourth International Flint Symposium (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press), 33-6. PIGGOTT, S. 1940. Timber circles: a re-examination. Archaeological Journal 96, 193-222. PIGGOTT, S. 1985. William Stukeley: An Eighteenth-Century Antiquary (2nd ed). London: Thames and Hudson. PITTS, M.W. 1999. The stuff of archaeology. Past 32, 1-2. PITTS, M. W. 2000a. Return to the Sanctuary. British Archaeology 51, 15-19. PITTS, M.W. 2000b. Hengeworld. London: Century. PITTS, M.W. and WHITTLE, A. 1992. The development and date of Avebury. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 58, 203-12. POLLARD, J. 1992. The Sanctuary, Overton Hill, Wiltshire: .are-examination. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 58, 213-226. SMITH, I. F. 1965. Windmill Hill and Avebury: Excavations by Alexander Keiller, 1925-1939. Oxford: Clarendon Press. UCKO, P. J.. HUNTER, M., CLARK, A. J. and DAVID, A. 1991. Avebury Reconsidered; from the 1660s to the 1990s. London: Unwin Hyman. ; WAINWRIGHT, G. J. and LONGWORTH, I. H. 1971. Durrington Walls: Excavations 1966-68. London: Society of Antiquaries of London. WHITTLE, A. 1997. Sacred Mound, Holy Rings: Silbury Hill and the West Kennet Palisaded Enclosures: A Later Neolithic Complex in North Wiltshire. Oxford:Oxbow Books. WHITTLE, A., DAVIES, J., DENNIS, I., FAIRBAIRN, A. and HAMILTON, M. 2000. Neolithic activity and occupation outside Windmill Hill causewayed enclosure, Wiltshire: survey and excavation 1992-93. WANHM 93, 131-180. YOUNG, W. E. V. 1930a. Diary with Archaeological Notes 1. Manuscript Diary, Library of the Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Society (Devizes). YOUNG, W. E. V. 1930b. Leaves from my Journal I. Manuscript Diary, Library of the Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Society (Devizes). YOUNG, W. E. V. 1930c. Loose pencilled diary notes 26 May - 16 June 1930. Alexander Keiller Museum ref 20000590 (Avebury). YOUNG, W. E. V. 1931. Diary with Archaeological Notes 3. Manuscript Diary, Library of the Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Society (Devizes). YOUNG, W. E. V. 1940. Diary with Archaeological Notes, January-July 1940. Manuscript Diary, Library of the Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Society (Devizes). 24 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Big Bellied Oak, October 1999 Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 94 (2001), pp. 24-46 Savernake Forest Oaks by Jack Oliver' and Joan Davies? Climate and soil conditions affect the current distribution of the two native oaks common in England. The Sessile oak prefers a humid site with high rainfall and fairly good drainage. It is the dominant species in the oak woods on the high ground 1n the north and west of the country. The Pedunculate (English) oak requires a more fertile soil and 1s very common in southern and eastern parts. In Savernake Forest we expected to find all or most of the oak trees to be the Pedunculate oak. Instead, following detailed examination of the leaves, leaf and acorn stalks, our survey of the oaks in Savernake Forest found that the two native oak species were both common and regenerating naturally. The Pedunculate and Sessile oaks occurred in roughly equal quantities, whether as veterans or as the much more numerous saplings. Neither species was as common as the hybrid between them Quercus x rosacea. Commonest of all were intermediate trees of all ages which appeared to be introgressed, hybrids back-crossed with either parent. These sometimes produced as many or more acorns as the ancestral parent species, although 1999 was not a very good acorn year for Savernake oaks in general. These three (or five depending on definition) native oak taxa were widespread, making Savernake a mixed oak forest. ‘The original endemic mutant Savernake cluster oak (Q. robur var cristata) still survives. Five of its progeny are in the arboretum area but none of these small trees produced acorns in 1998 or 1999. Of the three non- native oak species noted, we found more than 20 specimens of only one, the American red oak (Q. rubra). The named and unnamed ancient oaks of great girth and age had been managed at times by coppicing, pollarding or both, or left as maidens or specimen trees, such diversity being a fine attribute of this great forest. In the 1999 survey, over 170 large oaks were measured. The oak with the largest girth found in the forest was the Big Belly Oak. This is a hybrid, Quercus x rosacea, with a girth of nearly 1 Imetres and a coppiced-ring circumference of 14metres; it is very probably the oldest oak in the Forest. Parts of the coppiced base could be a thousand years old. Of the 13 great oaks with girths above 7metres, only the True Braydon Oak retains its full height and spread. The tallest oak in the forest is probably a Turkey oak (Q. cerris) with a girth of 5.3metres. The forest 1s huge and the work 1s continuing. In 2000 a further 260 oaks have been measured and labelled. INTRODUCTION British people have always liked oaks. The oak is a tree of imposing stature and great longevity. It is regarded as an emblem of hospitality and strength. The tree, its leaves and fruit, the acorn, are featured in many ancient myths and folk traditions. Ancient tribes worshipped in sacred oak groves and traditionally couples were married under an oak tree. In the legends of many countries the acorn was said to be man’s first food. The products from the oak tree have been very useful to man. For centuries the hard durable timber of the oak has been used in buildings; it was renowned for building our naval Men-of-War fighting ships, with the ‘crooks and knees’ from the English oak being especially prized. The smaller wood provided firewood and charcoal, extracts from the bark were used for tanning and in the autumn acorns in the woods and forests provided pannage for pigs. Today the oak is the paragon of the modern emphasis on the values of biodiversity. More species of insect are associated with oak than any other tree or indeed any other plant, in Britain. 1. High View, Rhyls Lane, Lockeridge, Marlborough SN8 4ED 2. Ballard’s Piece, Forest Hill, Marlborough SN8 3HN 26 ‘THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE The oak has featured strongly in the history of Britain and there are many tales about notable old oak trees, their size and how long they are thought to have lived. Dryden portrayed the life of the oak tree as follows: The monarch oak, the patriarch of trees, Shoots rising up, and spreads by slow degree; Three centuries he grows, and three he stays Supreme in state, and three more in decay. The typical growth of an oak includes a period of quite rapid early growth for around 80-150 years, followed by a gradual slowing down. After about 250 — 350 years decline sets in, branches die and diameter growth slows right down. Trees surviving beyond 400 years are often hollow. Old trees gradually replace most of their heavy branches with a shorter head and are described as being ‘stag headed.’ However, it is known that if the tree is coppiced and/or pollarded it can live for 900 years or more. When a tree is coppiced its life cycle starts again and when it is pollarded the rate of growth slows down until a full head is redeveloped. The largest oak with the greatest girth in the British Isles is the English Oak tree growing at Bowthorpe, Lincolnshire. In 1997 it had a girth of 12.75metres. Savernake Forest is considered to be one of the top five European Forests for veteran trees. Ancient oaks with large girths are to be found there, and although there have been articles and books on the history of Savernake Forest, we have not unearthed much detail on the natural history of the Savernake oaks themselves. This article is intended to give some detail of these forest oaks at the end of the millennium so that comparisons can be made again in 100 or 1000 years hence. SHORT OUTLINE HISTORY OF THE FOREST TREES The name Savernake is of Saxon origin. There are references to Safernoc in 934, Savernac in 1156 and Savernak in 1275. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Place Names says the name is probably derived from a river name identical with Severn. Other people have suggested ‘sweet fern’ or ‘gravel’ and even a ‘hare’, but if the end of the word is considered, all the three old forms oc, ac and ak, are old names for an oak. The place where the oak trees grow? The Old English ac meaning oak has come down to us in ‘acorn, the fruit of the oak tree. The 934 reference is to the Saxon King Athelstan who, in a Charter, refers to certain crofts lying ‘alongside the woodland which is called Safernoc’. Although Savernake Forest does not appear in the Domesday Book, it is known that the area became a Royal Forest soon after the Norman Conquest and Richard Esturmy, who owned land at Burbage, was appointed the first warden. He is the ancestor of the present Marquess of Ailesbury, whose son the Earl of Cardigan, is the owner and the 31st hereditary Warden of Savernake Forest. In medieval times a forest was an area of land, usually belonging to the king, set apart for hunting wild beasts and game and having special laws and officers of its own: it was a district subject to Forest Law. As a Royal Forest, Savernake consisted of small woodlands and coppices dotted about with areas of rough grass, heath, fern and scrub. There was sufficient woodland to protect the fallow deer during the winter months and records tell us that timber from the Forest was used to repair Marlborough Castle and to build and maintain two new mills on the river Kennet. The Forest fluctuated in size reaching a maximum in the twelfth century, when it consisted of five bailiwicks. The one known as La Verme, (home farm), was always the bailiwick of the Warden himself. This was in the triangle between Marlborough, Hungerford and Burbage. Disafforestation occurred in 1330; the Forest reverted back to its original size and the surrounding area was no longer subject to Forest Law. The post of hereditary warden stayed in the Esturmy family until 1427 when it passed through the female line to the Seymours. In 1547, Edward Seymour became Duke of Somerset, Protector of the Realm and the absolute owner of the Forest. Savernake is unique in retaining the name ‘Forest’ and not being called a ‘Chase’ when it ceased to be a Royal Forest. Before this time the wardens had managed the woodland that happened to exist. The Protector’s account books show that he planted some trees; one plantation was at ‘the Great Dych’ which was probably near Tottenham. Deer Parks were made in 1598, by fencing 2,000 acres of land north of Martinsell, between the Pewsey and Burbage roads to form the Great Park, with a further 1,300 acres, separately paled at Brimslade. The residue, the area known today as Savernake Forest remained un-paled. An early sketch map, drawn in about 1600 shows the residue of Savernake Forest as an open area in the centre, with Isbury Copse, Bullstoke, Burch Wood, The King’s Wood and Morlee Wood drawn as small separate woods around the edge. The deer parks had a very short life; by 1675 the fences SAVERNAKE FOREST OAKS had fallen into disrepair. In 1718 the Great Park was developed on modern farming lines with compact, 200 acre individual farms and the deer were encouraged back to the residual forest. In the early 18th century the Forest was in a bad and unprofitable state: it was described as being lightly wooded with few trees, deer were destroying the coppices and the old oaks were becoming more picturesque and worthless. Improvements started about 1745, when Charles Bruce, Earl of Ailesbury, planted a clump of beech trees on Three Oaken Hill, (this name appears in medieval records) near to where the column now stands, and beech along the southern part of Grand Avenue. It was the next Warden, Thomas Brudenell Bruce, who, during the second half of the 18th century, laid down the foundation of the Forest as we know it, with tree-lined rides meeting at Eight Walks. In addition to the beech avenues, oaks with some sweet chestnuts, ash, elm and occasional firs were planted in areas of open ground. He also undertook the destruction of heath and furze. There were five nurseries at Crabtree, Bagden, Braden Hook, Park and Birch Copse supplying a succession of young trees. Many trees were not planted out until they were seven or even fifteen years old. To give these young trees protection against deer, a number of enclosures in the form of banks topped with fencing were constructed. In addition Tottenham Park was reconstituted as a deer park to help to reduce the number of deer roaming wild in the forest. It was also about this time that ‘borderers’ lost their grazing rights in the forest. This period of tree planting continued until 1814. The next warden did not plant trees, he built Tottenham House. His son turned Tottenham Park and the Forest into ‘one great whole’ by constructing, in 1870, a 16 mile deer fence of wood paling on top of a bank around almost the whole of the central block of woodland; only Birch Coppice and Savernake Wood were excluded. Systematic forestry with trees being cut and trees being planted in rotation had never been practised at Savernake. Thus in the mid-nineteenth century, an agent reported that most of the oaks were nearly a hundred years old, with the old oaks in Savernake being four hundred years of age and useless for timber. The deer kept the undergrowth down, the trees were well spaced out, and although amongst trees, one would not have felt hemmed in. Richard Jefferies described the beeches along Grand Avenue as looking like a continuous Gothic arch, as in an aisle of a forest abbey. The Forest was beautiful, but within a forest deer park it is difficult for young trees to survive. There was a further planting period from 1894 to 1911, 27 mainly in the outlying woods. In the Forest ‘flowering chestnut’ (presumably horse chestnut trees), copper beeches and groups of rowan were planted and protected from deer with wire netting. In the twentieth century there was a change in the national attitude. Hereditary titles and honours were allowed to continue but the free inheritance of wealth was not. In 1939, the 28th Hereditary Warden leased the sylviculture rights of the Forest to the Forestry Commission. One clause in the lease said that reasonable endeavour should be made to regenerate the old Forest by natural means. To aid natural regeneration and to allow trees in new plantations to develop, the deer were driven into Tottenham Park. During the Second World War the Forest became a giant ammunition dump, guarded by American soldiers. The Forestry Commission continued its work with Land Army girls being employed in Thornhill Nursery to sow local acorns and tend the young trees. After the war plantations of oaks from this nursery were planted in the western part of the forest and conifers in the eastern part. Most of the present extent of Savernake Forest, 905 hectares, was notified as an S.S.S.I. in 1971 and 1988, largely on the grounds of exceptional biological diversity. The outline description and reason for notification included the following summary of the geology and dominant trees: The forest lies on a plateau of Upper Chalk, covered by Clay-with-Flints and dissected by dry valleys. The Chalk is exposed along the valley sides; however small deposits of Valley Gravel, Reading Beds and Bagshot Sands, together with the clay, give rise to particularly acid conditions in places. Relicts of the ancient wood pasture remain, represented by the distinctive open-crowned specimens of sessile and pedunculate oak, which are scattered about the site. Eighteenth and early nineteenth century plantations of beech and oak have now assumed a semi- natural structure but the Forest consists mainly of twentieth century beech or oak plantation. These stands are supplemented by naturally regenerated silver birch, ash, downy birch, rowan and willows. Wych elm, field maple, holly and midland hawthorn aiso occur and hazel is locally frequent in the former coppice areas. Hawthorn is abundant and, like blackthorn, forms stands of scrub in the open spaces where it is a valuable nectar resource for deadwood insects. The preceding description implies natural regeneration of about 15 tree species, but this count should now be raised to 20 or more, with perhaps a further 5 or more fertile tree hybrids back-crossing and reproducing naturally. Savernake Forest is known for its tall beautiful beeches, many (or even most) of 28 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE which are characterized by very narrow-angling of the main branches. This seems to be a genetic propensity, as these beeches grow like this even when not crowded; furthermore the Forest has some normally spreading beeches, even though many of these are densely shaded and surrounded. Both types of beech grow taller than the two native oak species in the Forest (and elsewhere), and cast a deeper shade. This also applies to some of the rapidly heightening recently planted conifers, especially the Douglas firs. This sketch of the history of Savernake Forest trees is simplified, but illustrates our contention that systematic destruction of the native trees has never been absolute over contiguous wide areas or continuously sustained over centuries. Patchy survival and recovery of deciduous summer forests in general and the persistence of occasional ancient oaks in particular has been the general pattern. GENETIC ASPECTS Even for specialists, oaks are known to be particularly difficult subjects for genetics and cytology. Tannin concentrations interfere with cell preparations, and the oak chromosomes are very small and homogeneous. Nearly all species of oak are diploid with 24 chromosomes. High degrees of sterility are reported when crosses are attempted between different species of oak, including the two native species. However the botanical literature contains references to the abundance of hybrids in natural oak populations. Hybrids of the indigenous British oaks (Q. robur x Q. petraea) have been described for oak populations in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, NW, SW, SE and central England. Natural populations of Q. roburx Q. petraea hybrids have been reported also from France to Yugoslavia (Wigston in Morris & Perring 1974, see also Minihan & Rushton 1984).The most recent New Flora of the British Isles (Stace 1997) states that the hybrid Q. petraea x Q. robur ( = Q. x rosacea)‘. .. occurs throughout the British Isles in areas where one or both parents occur, occasionally being commoner than either ... and is fertile’ The other main flora of the British Isles (Clapham et al 1989) comments on the frequency of Q.x rosacea where the parents grow together. Wigston (1974) explains the paradox as follows: ... the interspecific fertility barrier (between pure Q. petraea and Q. robur) may be relatively unimportant if the hybrids are fully fertile with either parent. It is also possible that reduced fertility will ‘ be little barrier to introgression if hybrids and backcrosses have any competitive advantage over parental genotypes.’ He then discussed the different statistical analyses based on multiple samples relating mainly to 7 or so leaf characters to classify oak woods as 4 types: dominated by Q. robur, by Q. petraea, by intermediates, or mixed woods with intermediates. The discriminatory characters separating Q. robur from Q. petraea can be independently variable and most probably under polygenic influences, although the presence or absence of pubescence on leaf undersides could be mainly under the control of a single allele. Even so, when present the quantity and distribution of pubescence may be polygenically governed. In short a pure Q. petraea and a pure Q. robur might be able to produce an FI hybrid only occasionally, and the hybrid might not be a good acorn producer by selfing or crossing with another F1 hybrid - few or no F2 progeny. However repeated back crossing (perhaps with first one and then another parent over the generations) may produce trees with intermediate balanced characters, or trees inclined towards one or the other ancestral parent species (introgression). These recombinant types by natural selection might become more successful acorn producers, during some years or in certain localities, than either of the pure ancestral parent species. AIMS AND METHOD OF STUDY The initial idea was simply to measure the girths of the largest trees in Savernake Forest as part of the Wiltshire Botanical Society (W.B.S.) project of recording the largest and veteran trees in the county around the start of the new millennium, in order to provide records for the future. Girths unless stated otherwise were measured at 1 /% metres (5ft) above ground level, as closely as possible following the rules suggested by the Tree Register of the British Isles (TROBI founded in 1988). Subsequently it seemed appropriate to look into the histories of any named and/or large oaks, and to record interesting features such as past coppicing or pollarding, shape, size, hollowness and botanical variation. For these largest oaks details were collected per tree on girths, descriptions, 6-figure grid references, description of sites, data for precise botanical designations, and where possible any historical records and associated stories. SAVERNAKE FOREST OAKS 29 Savernake Forest Picnic site 1 Amity Oak 2 Duke's Vaunt 3 King of Limbs 4 Slingsby Oak 5 Original Queen Oak 6 Big Belly Oak 7 New Spiral Oak 8 True Braydon Oak 9 Cathedral Oak 10 Surveyed Oak Eight Walks is near the centre of Savernake Forest. In order to make the project manageable, the survey was carried out in eight sectors (octants) of the Forest, demarcated by each of the 8 straight roads, drives or walks radiating from the centre. Twelve O’clock Drive (12-OD) runs due north to south. Octants I — IV are east of 12-OD and octants V — VIII west of 12-OD. IDENTIFICATION There are two native oak species and numerous intermediates between them, as well as some introduced oak species. Twenty eight samples were sent to the expert referee for the Botanical Society of the British Isles to authenticate such oak taxa not previously recorded for Savernake Forest, and to provide the authoritative guidelines for the correct taxonomic designations of the 150 largest oaks in the Forest and saplings around them (see Acknowledgements). Birch Copse The main features scrutinized for each of the big oaks were those that discriminate best (Stace 1997, Rich & Jermy 1998) between the two native oak species: petiole (leaf-stalk) lengths, peduncle (acorn stalk) lengths and pubescence (where available), leaf bases (two features) and pubescence or not on the underside of the leaves (examined by binocular microscope at x30 magnification for reasons given subsequently). Some attention was also given to the number of leaf lobes and the depth and regularity of the leaf-lobing. Five or more measurements of petiole length were taken from the leaves of each tree to give the extremes and median per tree. Based on the preceding, the taxonomic designation was decided for each tree. The BSBI referee had emphasized that in looking at the oak hybrids and intermediates, one should take into account as many of the preceding features as possible rather than leaning too heavily on microscopy alone or petiole length alone, although these two components tend to be the most satisfyingly definite to measure, being less susceptible to judgment than the others. On any one tree, for instance, 30 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE pubescence and petiole length were much more constant than leaf shapes, leaf bases and peduncle lengths for Savernake Forest native oaks. Finally note was made of other unusual variations not mentioned in the floras, or not defined as characters known to discriminate between the two native oak species. MICROSCOPY Examination of the underside of the leaves using a x8 or x15 magnification standard botanical lens was not adequate for Q. x rosacea. All leaves were checked, and where there was pubescence, hair lengths measured, using a binocular microscope with a x30 magnification and an eyepiece graticule. Tiny webs from minute Arachnida could mimic leaf pubescence. Pure Q. robur leaves and the acorn stalks were almost hairless, apart from a few simple appressed hairs apparent on the leaf under surfaces of a few trees. Pure Q. petraea leaves had numerous small stellate hairs (type A below), widespread and consistently spaced on the under surface of the leaf laminas, but not overlapping; also concentrations of larger stellate and other hair types (type B-E below) alongside leaf veins, but especially in the vein angles, on the under surfaces. A Stellate hairs with approximately 4-6 slender rays neatly appressed to the laminar surface with a spread of just under 0.2mm. B Bottlebrush or brush hairs, initially projecting vertically but spreading out to a greater or lesser extent away from the surface. C Simple hairs, vertical, appressed or angled alongside the veins, uncommon in vein angles. D Intermediate between B and C, two or more vertical branches from a single base. E Untidy stellate hairs, not neatly appressed as in type A preceding, and obviously longer. The longest of the hairs of type B, C, D, and E were 0.4mm, (exceptionally 0.8 mm). Types B, D and E could be dense and tangled in vein angles and alongside larger veins, commoner than type C and always bigger than type A. Where the short acorn peduncles of Q. petraea were available, any of types B, D and E were common and sometimes closely massed and tangled, and types A and C were occasional. Q. x rosacea trees with general features evenly balanced between the two ancestral parents, and intermediate trees inclined either towards Q. robur or Q. petraea all had widely varied leaf pubescence. Many of these trees had much smaller sublaminar stellate hairs than type A above. These could have fewer rays than the 4-6, with a spread of less than 0.1mm, making them hard to see with a standard botanical lens especially as such rays were very slender and closely appressed, and often irregularly and inconsistently scattered, dependent on the leaves chosen. Likewise the hairs alongside veins and in the vein angles might be as large and as densely tangled as types B to E above or smaller, sparser and more erratically organized. Types C and D could be more common than B and E on the leaves of some hybrid trees. Hairs of types B, D, and E might only be found in leaf vein angles, or be fairly common on some leaves, but far less so on others from the very same tree. Acorn peduncles varied in length and pubescence even on the same tree, but usually with some or many B, C and D type hairs. In summary, intermediacy in the hybrid native oaks could be indicated on acorn peduncles or under the leaf surface by smaller or fewer hairs of rather less complex types, or in different relative proportions, often with erratic or inconsistent scatter; or they could be similar to the Q. petraea pubescence, but with other features (see next section) typical of Q. robur (see also Oliver 2000). PETIOLES, PEDUNCLES, LEAVES AND ACORNS OF NATIVE OAKS Specimens were taken from 159 of the largest oaks in Savernake Forest, usually one or more branchlets of average size and appearance for the tree in question, carrying between 5 and 40 leaves. The petioles (leaf stalks) were measured to find the minimum and maximum lengths for that tree, giving the spread (or range) from which the median value was calculated. There was found to be variation in both the petiole lengths and spread for different oaks. Some oaks (all Q. robur) had most leaves with no petioles, and at the other extreme there was a Q. petraea whose petioles reached 30mm. On 103 trees the spread was 5mm or less and for 2 trees as great as 20mm. The graph shows the variation in median lengths and the large number of trees that are above the 2- 3mm range for Q. robur but below the 13-25mm range for Q. petraea (Stace 1997). In the case of Savernake Forest oaks this was as high as 107 out of SAVERNAKE FOREST OAKS Petiole Lengths Number of Trees We S85 SAAS S17 A921. 23:.25 | Median Length the 159 trees sampled. Stace gives the exceptional range of the Q. robur petioles as 0 — 7mm. Even taking these extremes, 64 trees still had petiole lengths which fell between but belonged to neither ancestral parent. In other respects than pubescence and petiole lengths, characteristics of the pure species were also less common than characteristics of trees with hybrid features. Q. robur has cordate and auriculate leaf bases, with usually 8, 6 or fewer deep irregular lobes to the leaf outline. Q. petraea has cuneate (sloping) leaf bases without auricles, and usually 10, 12 or more lobes to the leaf outlines, regularly but shallowly incised. Q. robur has glabrous (hairless) peduncles (acorn stalks) 2-9cms long, whereas Q. petraea has peduncles 0-2(4)cms long with clustered hairs. There were 3 main types of intermediacy for the majority of native oaks in Savernake Forest:- 1 Intermediate, indeterminate features: petiole lengths fitting neither parent species, leaf bases semi- auriculate, subcordate or cuneate, leaf outlines between the 2 parent species; peduncles 2cms long with a few hairs. 2 Discrepant features: e.g. leaf lobing and pubescence like Q. petraea, but leaf base typical of Q. robur. There were 2 trees with short petioles and short peduncles, and 2 with long petioles and long peduncles, which combinations are quite wrong for the ancestral species. 3 Variable features: many trees had leaves which varied so much in lobing and in their leaf bases or range of petiole length that some leaves could be found on a single tree which could fit Q. robur, others fitting Q. petraea whilst still others matched neither satisfactorily. In particular, a large proportion of the trees on which acorns were found had peduncles which on any one tree could be as short as 1mm or as long as 6cms. Many of these infructescences in 1999 had some or most acorns aborted or semi-aborted; = 31 such trees contained bunched, intermediate and semi-elongated infructescence stalks, with only a few bearing healthy mature acorns (at best usually only one per infructescence) by September. This paper mainly concerns the oaks of greatest girth, but all concomitant observations would indicate that the saplings and younger trees were just as variable and intermediate as the ancient oaks — if anything more so in respect of their leaves. The preceding paragraphs concentrate on features known to discriminate between Q. robur and Q. petraea, but some other variations were noted. Some of these might have been environmentally induced, but more probably indicate genetic propensities. 2 trees noted had leaves of only 4-6cm long over the entire tree, and 6 were noted for huge leaves, 16-20cms on most of the boughs, whether in light or shade. Acorn sizes and shapes for both native species are given in a standard Flora as ‘1.5-4cm, ellipsoid or oblong...... cups 1.5-2cm diameter’ (CTM1989), but several trees were found in the angle between the A4 road and Grand Avenue with sub-spherical acorns. 2 trees were found with very slender, cylindrical (but mature and healthy) acorns, with acorn-cups consistently less than lcm in diameter. Savernake Forest native oaks therefore are immensely variable in their fruits and foliage. The majority fall between Q. robur and Q. petraea in accepted characters which discriminate between these two species. THE OAK TAXA IN SAVERNAKE FOREST The ensuing proportions are reasonably closely in line with the specifications made by the BSBI Oak Referee on the initial 28 specimens submitted to him. The submission of those might have been influenced by some inadvertent selection bias, whereas the percentages below relate to all the 159 native oaks of greatest girth that had been found and identified in 1999 in Savernake Forest. The two ‘probable’ categories are simply a recognition that different botanists have different opinions as to the boundaries between Q. x rosacea and the two parent species (Rich & Jermy 1998). Quercus robur L. Pedunculate or English oak (QR) 21% of the total. There were also sprinklings of pure QR saplings, but 32 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE not necessarily to 21%. The impression was that QR was perhaps less common in the deeper parts of the forest and more common in fringe and picnic areas, but it was fairly common in all 8 octants. Q. robur (pedunculate) var cristata (Henry, 1917). The Savernake cluster oak. Leaves densely clustered, asymmetric, oblique and twisted; acorns only one per peduncle, with flattened apex and a depression containing the styles. Acorns fertile, a proportion (or most?) of which come true, possibly by parthenogenesis (see also Grose 1957). There are 6 small trees to be seen in the Arboretum area (in Octant VII). No acorns, seedlings or saplings seen in 1998 or 1999 on these, or on the ancestral mutant tree (tag no. 08866) at SU 216653 (near the south edge of Column Ride in Octant V). (Probable) Q. x rosacea Bechst. Semi-intermediate or introgressed native oak, robur features dominant (QSR). 13% of the total, but possibly commoner in young trees. Throughout the Forest, all 8 octants. Q. x rosacea. Hybrid native oak, fully intermediate (QS). At 27% the commonest of any taxon in Savernake Forest. 38% of the largest oaks of all (the 39 oaks greater than 595cms in girth) were QS. Young QS trees were common. (Probable) Q. x rosacea. Semi-intermediate or introgressed native oak, Q. petraea features dominant (QSP). 17.5% of the total, with young QSP trees fairly common in all octants. Q. petraea (Matt.)Liebl. Sessile or Durmast oak (QP). Also 17.5% of the total, with young trees fairly common in all octants. Combining some of these percentages, it can be seen that approximately 1/3 of the Savernake Forest oak trees incline towards or are Q. robur; approx. 1/3 incline towards or are pure Q. petraea; and nearly 1/3 are pure Q.x rosacea with balanced characters. Alternatively all intermediate and probably introgressed types of Q.x rosacea, including the back-crossed trees which incline towards one or other ancestral species account for more trees than both the pure species together, approaching 2/3 of all Savernake native oaks. There were no markedly exclusive concentrations of any one of these taxa 1n certain parts of the Forest. They were well spread around, generally ‘all mixed in together’. Q. rubra L.(Q. borealis F.Michx.) American red oak. The 4th most common oak taxon in the Forest, nearly all (or all?) from previous plantings. None were over 200cm circumference, but some were much smaller, only 30cm in girth or less. One seedling was noted near the A346, where some large red oaks had been cut back to their stumps and were sending up new shoots; but no acorns were found in 1999. Noted in the following octants:- IV &V East and west of Twelve O’clock Drive, VI South of Great Lodge Drive, VII Around & between White Road intersects with Long Harry and Grey Road, and in greater numbers flanking parts of Grey Road. Also a grove of about 6 trees near the main camping and picnic site: one tree was seen well north of Cadley Church, 5yds east of the A346 road, but more can be seen every late autumn when they are conspicuous either side of the A346. Q. coccinea Minchh. American scarlet oak. Labelled as such, a small grove in the arboretum (Octant VID), but very similar to the Q.rubra preceding. No acorns in 1999. Q. ilex L. Holm or evergreen Oak. Three low branching trees on the grassy triangle at the road junction near to Sicily Cottages (Octant III). One over 2 metres in girth but no acorns in 1999, Q. cerris L. Turkey oak. A majestic tree towering above the forest canopy, with a girth of 5.30 metres, grows 15 metres west of Twelve O’clock Drive in Octant V at SU 225 665. This is probably the tallest oak, and possibly the tallest tree in Savernake Forest. A naturally seeded sapling was also found in the cluster oak grove in the arboretum area in Octant VII, but much broken and damaged either by deer, or in order to clear the area around the cluster oaks. No acorns were found in 1999. SAVERNAKE FOREST OAKS NATIVE OAKS IN SAVERNAKE FOREST Some of the ancient oaks appear, from the appearance of the basal stool, to have been coppiced in the distant past. A few of these have a basal circumference of 8 metres or more, comparable with the ancient Savernake chestnut coppice rings, and probably dating from the same eras. A greater proportion of the oaks had once been pollarded, from 5—12 feet. Rackham (1974) states that pollards are characteristic of non- woodland sites and wood boundaries, but occasionally pollarded oaks had been so closely spaced that the illusion of woodland is now given. Systematic pollarding was practised from the 15th century or earlier. It prolongs the life of the oak so managed and most of the famous ancient oaks have started as non- woodland specimens, often pollards. Savernake Forest was much more open in the past, and chestnuts, beeches and oaks seem to have been coppiced or pollarded at times in previous centuries. However the majority of the ancient oaks in Savernake Forest are gnarled and nodular hulks, hollowed, mis- shapen and stag-horned, and show evidence of phases of management followed by long periods of neglect. Some oaks appear to have been coppiced, allowed to grow, then subject to pollarding cycles, then left for major branching to develop from the pollarded head. Others, probably boundary, hedgerow or embankment oaks have been once cut or broken at intermediate levels, 4 or 5 feet, or had once been hacked around on one side, but not on the other. Other factors have shaped the Savernake oaks and influenced longevity. Some have been naturally ‘pollarded’ by gales, or just lost large limbs, or been shifted to 45° slant but have survived. Glazed frost and snow have snapped horizontal branches. Crown die back and decay of the standing tree following sudden isolation and exposure has made some oaks vulnerable to other invading pathogenic and saprophytic fungi (see Murray 1974). The very numerous and lofty great beeches in Savernake Forest cast deep shade that overshadows and kills many of the oak branches. Beeches, growing to 46m (Stace 1997) are taller trees than the oaks and although oaks have a longer life than beeches, some Savernake pollard and standard oaks have died in the deep shade before the beeches become senescent. In Savernake Forest a number of ancient oaks in the Postwives Walk and the Birch Copse areas appear to have been heavily shaded in the past, especially in the Duke’s Vaunt locality. There are some huge black ancient oak trunks, often split with broken 33 segments pointing up within the enveloping conifer canopy, with dead regenerated branches which might have survived had they not been shaded out. It is not certain how many of the massive dead hulks were wholly or partly the consequence of the living oaks having been overtopped by beeches, chestnuts or tall conifers. Douglas firs, for instance can grow to 65m high in Britain. The policy now is to thin conifers around veteran oaks, but not too suddenly because of the danger of light and exposure shock to a previously enveloped tree. After 2 or 3 years an open glade is created around the veteran oak. Despite the preceding factors there are in addition to oak plantations abundant oak saplings of all sizes springing up in many parts of Savernake Forest. No systematic counts were made of the types of naturally regenerating young oaks, but the taxa QR, QSR, QS, QSP and QP all were common, with the strong impression that hybrids and introgressed trees accounted for 2/3 or more of these young oaks. In 1999 there were 46 oaks found with girths greater than 600cms (at or near 150cms above ground level). 5 of these (11%) were pure Q. robur, 7 (15%) were pure Q. petraea. The remaining 34 (74%) are ancient hybrids or partial intermediates, probably introgressed, (See Table 1). A wrong impression can be given if excessive emphasis is placed on the gnarled, contorted, often stunted ancient pollards of great girth alone. Savernake oaks vary immensely. Some have smooth trunks, others are heavily burred. There are many huge open grown spreading oaks (as in Holt Pound Avenue), but even more semi-open grown lofty trees (as in the main picnic and barbecue areas). In the dark depths and around Postwives Walk (Octant V) there are a few splendid tall oaks with tall straight trunks, with beautiful green mossy fluting ascending from up to 2.5 metres from the ground level. Many of the fine tall oaks have girths of between 350 and 550cms. The most impressive and the tallest oaks do not necessarily, or even usually, have the greatest girths. SOME GREAT AND NAMED SAVERNAKE NATIVE OAKS FOUND IN 1999 Big Belly Oak Grid reference SU213 657 in OctantVI, attached plate code 06924. Q. x rosacea. Bechst. (i.e. a hybrid). Girth 10.8metres. 34 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Van on the A346 road passing behind the Big Belly Oak Besides being marked on Ordnance Survey Maps as the Big Belly Oak it has been called, according to W.Maurice Adams in his Sylvan Savernake of 1900 ‘Decanter’ or ‘Big-bellied Oak’ because of its shape. It is the very conspicuous oak on the eastern side of the main A346 road from Marlborough to Burbage, south of Cadley. It actually bulges into the A346 road and lorries have knocked bits off its side. It is nodular, burred and well named, seemingly the result of ancient coppicing as well as pollarding. At a girth of 10.8m it probably has the greatest circumference of any Wiltshire oak. There is another oak comparable for size in Spye Park. Looked at from the road the Big Belly Oak does not give the impression of immense size, but viewed from inside the forest it is broad enough to hide a passing lorry. The combinations of different levels of the A346, undulant ground on the east side, the old pyramidal base, bulges, burrs and large nodules, all conspire together to make measurements unreliable. It is possible to make the girth (at 150cms from the ground) anything from 10.7 to 11.3m. The basal measurement is at least a remarkable 14m around the original coppice stool, itself irregular in shape and height, even with a substantial segment removed on the west, the side of the A346. Taking all this together the Big-belly may be the oldest oak in Savernake Forest, parts of its base being older than the Forest yews and ancient sweet chestnuts. Legend records that if you dance naked twelve times anticlockwise around the tree at midnight, the devil then appears. We have noi validated this. Brambles to the east and dangerously close semi- continuous heavy traffic to the west of the trunk together seem to have discouraged any test dancing in recent years. In Elizabethan times and earlier, the road going south from Marlborough was not along the line of the A346 road, but further to the west. Just to the east of the big Belly Oak there are the remains of the old Roman road from Old Sarum to Mildenhall, (Cunetio). With religious houses at Easton, Lilbourne and Ramsbury, this track could have remained in use during the middle ages with the Big-Bellied, pollarded oak tree used as a landmark. On the sketch map of 1600 showing the perambulation of 1301, the Braden Way is probably along the same line as this Roman road. It was the boundary between the Forest and a narrow tongue of land coming northwards into this part of the Forest owned by William of Lilbon and the Prior of Easton. In this case the Big Belly Oak could be an old boundary marker. Just to the west of the oak, on the other side of the road, there is a very narrow band of woodland, which is part of Savernake Forest. The forest pale of 1870 ran along the western side of this narrow strip and according to the Andrews’ and Dury’s map of 1773, and-on Greenwood’s map of 1820 this was the line of the boundary between the hundreds of Selkley and Kinwardstone. King of Limbs Grid reference SU242 660 in Octant III, attached plate code 09246. Q. x rosacea. (QS). Girth 10.30 metres Another well-named oak tree, with huge spreading limbs. It has a hollow trunk that was once burnt out inside but it has made a subsequent recovery. From its size this must be a very old oak. It is in an area marked as Birch Copse on modern maps. As this tree has such wide spreading branches it must have been growing in an open area and in the past it could have been used as a marker. It is just inside the Savernake King of Limbs SAVERNAKE FOREST OAKS parish boundary, in a small jutting out triangle. At the apex of this triangle lies the boundary between Burbage and Little Bedwyn Parishes. At one time the old track along the column ridge, known as Three Oaken Hill, continued north-eastwards to meet the A4 road at Knowle farmhouse. This track would have passed close by the King of Limbs. The undergrowth in the Forest is variable and in summer this oak can be difficult to access. In 1875 Richard Jefferies in this description of Marlborough (Savernake) Forest said ‘More bracken. What a strong, tall fern! It is like a miniature tree. So thick the cover, a thousand archers might be hid in it easily.’ In August 1999 the bracken canopy surrounding this tree varied from 1.5 to 2.4m high. A giant bracken frond (Pteridium aquilinum (L.) Kuhn) of 4.78m (15ft 10ins) was found nearby, growing up through young Douglas firs. This is a record frond or leaf size for Wiltshire, probably for England and possibly for Europe. Cathedral Oak or Monarch Grid ref. SU205 680 in Octant VII, attached plate code 09500. Quercus robur L. (QR). Girth of 9.95 metres This ancient pollard is on the boundary of Furze Coppice, next to a well-used path. The 1999 notice claimed this to be the oldest Savernake Oak, from 996AD. We believe that both Cathedral and Monarch are new names, but the notice has given rise to an even newer name -the ‘Millennial Oak’. It is very difficult to estimate the age of an old tree and in fact this tree may not be the oldest Savernake oak as there is no evidence of a basal coppice ring. It has a very big head (it has not become stag headed) and only the third greatest girth of the Savernake oaks. As the tree is in good health and only slightly hollow, its girth should continue to expand at a reasonable rate, so it has the potential to become a champion in the future. The Cathedral Oak is not on a parish boundary but on a boundary associated with the management of the Forest. Furze Coppice Lodge was the home of a ‘quarter keeper’, whose main occupation was to protect the deer. They had allowances of firewood, a few acres of land for their own sheep, cows and horses, fees from deer skins and selling fern. Yearly they had to mark the horses and domestic animals belonging to the inhabitants of Marlborough who had signed an Agistment Deed with the Forest Warden. In 1705 it cost eighteen pence for each mare and gelding to be marked. 35 Cathedral Oak Duke’s Vaunt Grid reference SU238 665 in Octant III, attached plate code 08990. Intermediate or introgressed Native Oak with Q. robur features dominant (QSR) Girth 8.9metres (but previously the girth was probably more; note the separate halves below). Sketches of this tree were made in 1802 and 1893. The sketch of 1802 shows a majestic old tree in an open position with wide spreading branches and a tall hollow trunk, with openings down one side. On the top left-hand side of the base opening there is a large bulge in the trunk. In 1893 the tree is without its top part, with the same opening in the base and bulge on the side. There is a report, in the Gentleman’s Magazine of 1802, when its girth was given as 30ft (9m), of twenty boys having been shut up inside the hollow in about 1762. At that time the tree had a door hung on it and the oldest men said that the oak had been in the same decayed state for as long as they could remember. Thus in 1700, three hundred years ago, it was in a state of decay. Maybe the Duke’s Vaunt could be 900 or more years old and started life during the reign of a Saxon King. It is situated just within Savernake parish, a few yards from the 36 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE boundary with Little Bedwyn, which is also the boundary between Selkley and Kinwardstone hundreds. Four great oaks are recorded on the Forest Estate Map of 1786, with the Duke’s Vaunt named as the Duke’s Font. It is known from the perambulation made in 1301 that, the then Warden, Henry Sturmy, owned land at South Lease and Knoll on the eastern side of this part of the Forest. If it is assumed that this land passed down to the Warden, the Protector, the Duke of Somerset, what is more natural than, when he became the owner of the Forest in 1547, the magnificent old oak, still in its prime and within the Forest, just on the western side of his own land, should be named the Duke’s Vaunt (or Font). In 1900 it was claimed still to have the largest trunk of any tree in the forest, although owing to an accident in 1880 it narrowly escaped destruction by fire and its sides had somewhat fallen in. In about 1950, some of the branches were supported by chains tied to a near- by beech. The beech has gone, the oak remains: it is in two halves with hanging loops of chain. Because of surrounding conifers, planted in 1979, the oak tree is now in heavy shade. A start has been made to let in more light by felling a few of the close conifers. In time more of the surrounding Douglas firs will be felled. Bill Ayers, the Forester, says that it is important to let the light in gradually so the ancient tree is not suddenly subjected to bright sunlight or strong winds. Yin Duke’s Vaunt Unnamed Grid ref. SU212 667 in Octant VII, 70 m. N. of Great Lodge Drive, tag No 08977. Quercus x rosacea. (QS). Girth 7.6 metres at 120cms, measured at this level on account of the low divergence level (200cms) of the two massive limbs. Coppice girth of 9.5metres. Possibly this was once an ancient coppiced oak as well as a likely old pollard. This oak is situated close to the highest point on Great Lodge Drive at 559ft above sea level. This Drive, which goes from Great Lodge Farm to Eight Walks, first appeared on Greenwood’s map of 1820. From the Andrews and Dury map (1773) a track from St Michael’s Farm going northwards, into the forest, passed this tree. This track descended into the valley to join the one to Braydon Hook which came from Great Lodge Farmhouse. Part of this farmhouse dates back to Elizabethan times. Old pollarded oak trees are often found on or very close to an ancient boundary. This does not appear to be so in this case. Unnamed Grid reference SU224 659 in Octant V. Quercus x rosacea. (QS). Girth 7.4metres. The trunk is more flattened than cylindrical, and like the previous one it has two huge divergent limbs at 220cms. It is probably an ancient pollard. This unnamed ancient oak is very near to the site where the King Oak once stood. The Earl of Cardigan in his very interesting book “The Wardens of Savernake Forest, published in 1949, describes a visit he made, as a boy, with his grandfather see the King Oak — “The King Oak was standing with other giants (includes this unnamed tree) in a curious glade in the Forest — a glade where the bracken, so profuse elsewhere, would never grow. At this time the King Oak was a very decayed veteran that would not last much longer. A picture post card of 1920 shows the dead trunk surrounded by a low wooden fence. During the war, the remains of this famous tree were taken away as souvenirs by American soldiers. The unnamed tree lives on. ‘Roman Road Oak’ Grid reference SU 217 677 in Octant VIII, attached plate code 09209. Quercus robur (QR). Girth of only 5.7metres at 150cms, but the coppice base at 30cms is 8.8metres in circumference. This oak is situated at the intersection of the Roman Road with Red Vein Bottom. It is the southern one of a pair of oaks. The size of the coppiced base probably SAVERNAKE FOREST OAKS indicates great antiquity. This is one of a number of ancient coppiced or/and pollarded oaks situated on this old Roman road to Old Sarum. None have been found on the other Roman road through the forest. Surveyed Oak Marked on Ordnance Survey maps, SU 217 676 in Octant VIII, tag No 08947. Q. x rosacea (QS). Girth of 7.4metres This oak is situated a few metres east of the Roman Road, in a dense thicket of wych elm, beech, hawthorn and blackthorn. It is another probable ancient pollard, again with two huge limbs diverging at 220cms. The Ordnance Survey has surveyed this oak as it defines the boundary between Savernake and Mildenhall parishes. It is in an area without any forest banks. ‘Slingsby Oak’ Grid ref. SU 224 654. in OctantV, 120m W. of Twelve O’Clock Drive, tag 08830. Intermediate or intro- gressed Native Oak, Q. petraea features dominant (QSP).Girth 7.1metres. In the summer this oak is in deep shade, but it is conspicuous because of the large green metal deer- watch. It is possibly an old pollard, with two huge boughs from 300cms that are very narrowly angled. In September 1999 there were spherical galls, as large as 0.5cm diameter, on all the leaf buds and all the (aborted) flower buds, and no acorns forming. True Braydon Oak SU 216 670 in OctantVII, attached plate code 08958. Intermediate or introgressed Native Oak, Q. robur features dominant (QSR) Girth 7.1metres. A magnificent oak, of great height as well as considerable girth. It is bigger, better and more beautiful than the other contender as the ‘Braydon Oak’. A massive fractured-off fallen bough itself has a girth of 370cms. The Braydon Oak is marked at this grid reference on a pre-war large-scale map. It is close to the Roman road to Old Sarum and to Braydon Hook Lodge. There were two keepers of importance in the Forest, one at Bagden (now Savernake Lodge) the other at Braydon Hook Lodge. Braydon Hook is named in the perambulation of 1301. In a 17th-century sketch map there is a track called the Braden Way. 3H Unnamed SU 212 657 in OctantVI, attached plate code 06920. Intermediate or introgressed Native Oak, Q. petraea features dominant (QSP). Girth 7metres This unnamed oak is in the narrow band of the forest on the west of the A346 road. The main trunk is slanting at 40°, with many big fallen boughs, but the tree still is generally healthy. This oak probably existed before the main planting period of 1750. It is at the edge of the forest close to the boundary between the Selkley and Kinwardstone hundreds. It is strange that today both the eastern and western boundaries of Savernake Forest coincide with the old hundred boundary, the forest filling the southern bulge in the Selkley hundred. The Original Queen Oak Grid ref. SU 224 657 in Octant V, attached plate code 08809.Q. petraea (QP), on the west side of Postwives Walk. Girth of 6.5 metres. This oak tree is in the position marked as the Queen Oak on present Ordnance Survey maps and the 1887, 6 inch to 1 mile, County Series Map. Lucy’s Marlborough Official Guide of 1922 states ‘The Original Queen Oak 38 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Queen Oak, is still a handsome tree and fenced like her consort.’ The King (now gone) and Queen Oaks were at opposite ends of a glade. There are no remains of the fence and this old tree can no longer be called handsome. It is hollow, with no visible signs of pollarding and at about 450cms from the ground a fractured jagged stump is directed obliquely skywards like a pointing hand. A large part of the bole is dead and there is missing section (of about 280cms) consequent upon an avulsed bough now on the ground. This fallen bough is itself 400cms in girth. The irregular shape of the hollow trunk, with its avulsed edges makes itis hard to make an accurate measurement of the girth, which is about 6.5 metres. A local Forestry Authority report of 1998 says that the Queen Oak with a girth, in 1997, of 6.3m, (probably the girth was calculated from a measurement of the diameter) may have been planted to celebrate the marriage of Jane Seymour to Henry VIII in 1536. Jane Seymour was the daughter of the Warden, Sir John Seymour. This planting date was made using a formula of John White’s that has since been found to overestimate the age of oak trees. On the other hand if an allowance is made for the missing section of the trunk the girth would probably be more than 9 metres and as such the Queen Oak could date back to Tudor times. The Queen Oak is not marked with the King Oak on the Estate Map of 1786 and it is probable that a graceful tree was thus named ‘Queen Oak’ in Victorian times. ‘Spider’ and Unnamed Oak Grid reference SU 224 657 in Octant V, plate codes 08808 & 08810. Q. petraea (QP) & QSP. East of Postwives Walk in the region of the Queen Oak. Girths 6.45 & 6.6 metres These are just two of the many large ancient oaks in this wild part of the forest with disappearing paths. Probably both are ancient pollards. The Spider Oak has a squat, black, hollow, broken trunk with central ascending boughs, and eight spreading low branches arching up slightly before descending towards the ground. The second divides at about 250cm into two huge boughs spiralling up to the canopy. The winding paths in this part of the forest point towards an ancient origin. This could be the location of the medieval ‘King’s Wood’ False Braydon Oak Grid reference SU217 668 in Octant VII, attached plate code 08968.Quercus robur (QR). Girth of 6.2metres. This oak tree, north of Great Lodge Drive, has a zig- zag trunk with many dead branches. Recently (and almost certainly wrongly) known as the ‘Braydon Oak’, possibly because the True Braydon Oak is much less easily accessible, surrounded as it is by hollies, brambles and hawthorns. By July 2000 this tree seemed to be succumbing to oak die-back disease. ‘New’ & ‘Old’ Spiral Oak Grid references SU215 665 & 213 664, Octant VI, tag 08870 & 08871. QS and QR. Girth 5.95 and 6.15metres Both Spiral Oaks have spiralled trunks, very similar to the trunks of sweet chestnuts. The New Spiral Oak is very well named. It is a hybrid oak just NE. of the SE. corner of the western Thornhill Nursery enclosure, with very strongly and strikingly spiralled attached boughs and similarly strongly spiralled fallen branches. The Old Spiral Oak, the one shown on an old map, is a pedunculate oak SW. of the preceding, a squat old pollard with 2 huge spreading low limbs from 10ft. These limbs are still somewhat spiralled, but with jagged and stag-horn diebacks. The tree has an irregular coppice base measuring 830cms at Ift. One of these trees is adjacent to the line of the Roman road to Old Sarum. The New Queen Oak Grid reference SU223 655 in OctantV, attached plate code 08814. QSP. Girth 4.7metres A ‘Queen Oak’ should be a handsome tree. The current staff at the Forest Enterprise Office, Postern Hill, asked Valentine Cope, a retired forest foreman who had worked in the forest for very many years, to confirm which tree is the Queen Oak. He identified the tree that he knew as the Queen Oak as the tall tree above with the long straight trunk. This oak has a very long straight fissure (caused by lightning?) on the eastern aspect, with markedly raised healing lips on either side. It is in a cleared area 30 or so metres west of Post Wives Walk and south of the position of the Queen Oak marked on O/S maps. We have called this handsome tree the ‘New Queen Oak.’ With a girth of 4.7 metres it is not large enough to date from 1536. Maybe this ‘New Queen Oak’ will continue to flourish and be the oak tree used to commemorate Jane Seymour and Savernake in Tudor Times. Jane Seymour, daughter of a Hereditary Warden, was the mother of Edward VI, and the Queen who was buried next to Henry VIII. The remains of the King Oak were SAVERNAKE FOREST OAKS The New Queen Oak removed 55 years ago and the Duke’s Vaunt, the pride of the Duke of Somerset who was the Protector of the Realm and the brother of Jane Seymour, will not survive much longer. See ‘Subsequent Additions’ heading for another tree associated with the Tudors. Amity Oak Grid reference SU232 676 in Octant I, attached plate code 01920. Quercus petraea. Girth of 4.35metres. This oak is drawn as a large tree and named ‘Emity Oak’ on a map of 1608 dealing with a Preshute tithe dispute in the north Savernake area. It is marked on a boundary line in the same position as the Amity Oak on modern Ordnance Survey maps. On the Savernake Forest Estate Map of 1786 this tree is labelled as the ‘Emety Oak’. The difference in names of this tree and Duke’s Vaunt (Font) could have been due to the draughtsmen not being able to understand the local dialect. Another local name of ‘Ashlade’ has remained. In 1603 the oak was on the eastern edge of Ashlade Coppice, in 1786 in Ashlade and now it is on the eastern side of Ashlade Firs. At some time in the past the old oak has been replaced with a new one. Despite the small girth in comparison with many other Savernake oaks it is 39 marked on the old Ordnance Survey map of 1880 and new maps alike because of its position and it retains the name ‘Amity Oak.’ It is the most slender of the named oaks, and one of the tallest with a long straight unbranched trunk then two very narrowly angled vertically ascending boughs, one of which now appears to be dead. It is situated at the junction of Sawpit and Amity Drive on the side of the old forest pale bank of 1870. It marks the intersection of the boundaries of the three civil parishes of Little Bedwyn, Mildenhall and Savernake. Before 1935, when the parishes of North and South Savernake were combined to form Savernake parish, it was at the junction of the parishes of Little Bedwyn, Mildenhall and South Savernake with Brimslade and Cadley. Normally civil parishes are based on the older church boundaries. Savernake parish is unusual in that it does not have an ancient parish church. It was not until 1854 that Christ Church, Cadley, was built by the Marchioness of Ailesbury. From the size and shape of the tree, the Amity Oak is about 250 years old. Maybe there was a ceremonial planting by the hereditary Warden of Savernake Forest, with representatives from Mildenhall, Little Bedwyn and possibly Preshute parish churches to define the edge of the forest and to encourage goodwill between all parties. 40 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE FUTURE GIANTS AND EXISTING GREAT GIRTH VETERANS Many of the impressive oaks with vertical straight trunks, minimal or no die-back, few broken branches, and good height or symmetrical spreads had girths only in the 3-5 m bands. Good spreading oaks were noted in some of the open fields around Eight Walks, and Crabtree Common, and the great grassy avenue at Holt Pound (Octant IIT) where there is now also the greatest-girth beech in the Forest (nearly 7m) at the Warren Farm end. The biggest concentration of fine semi-open grown oaks is to be found in the public amenity areas at the periphery of Octant VI, around the grassy car parks, barbecue and picnic sites. West of the Braydon Oaks there is a quiet and less accessible semi-open oak grove with big spreading trees. Around the site of the long dead King Oak and around Postwives Walk (Octant V) amongst ancient veterans in this wild part of the forest, there are a few huge younger naturally regenerated oaks of good height, often with mossy fluted bases which are heading for great girths 300 years hence. No great-girth oaks were found in Octants I & II, but gnarled veterans, often pollarded or sometimes coppiced in the distant past (occasionally both) were scattered in a variety of habitats over the rest of the Forest. Table 1 shows that all the native oak taxa occur in all three important bands. There are both species, their hybrid, and apparently introgressed intermediates all found in appropriate proportions in the 4-5, 5-6 or 6-7m girth ranges. Some oaks of varied girths at 150cm had obviously enlarged bases, even if these were very irregular, or partly concealed by burrs, fallen branches, brambles or hollies. Some of these seemed to be ancient coppice stools, although others could have been stumps cut back to keep paths clear in past years, especially when lopsided. These ancient coppice bases were less common on oaks than on sweet chestnut trees, but the oaks of any size could have such enlarged bases. ‘Table 2 shows that 7 of the 33 great-girth or named oaks had probably been used for decades or centuries before the currently measured main trunk was allowed to develop. Table 2 also illustrates the taxonomic variety and scatter in the Forest of the named and greatest- girth oaks. They include broken and hollow, pollarded and squat, nodular and burred, stag-horn, as well as solid and lofty trees. EPIPHYTES There are 4 main categories of vascular plant epiphyte on the Savernake oaks, not altogether typical (even allowing for occasionals) of the lists reported from other oakwoods (compare Morris & Perring 1974, Rose 1974): 1 Ferns Five species were noted. Polypody, intermediate polypody, broad buckler-fern, bracken and the male- fern. The first three produced spores in situ, and intermediate polypody was probably the commonest vascular epiphyte to colonize old oaks in Savernake Forest, and certainly the plant with the most dense Table 1. Girths of the Largest Savernake Oaks at 150cms above ground, according to Taxonomic Designations, (1999) GIRTH cms OR QSR Qs QSP 350-499 19 10 15 10 500-599 10 7 17 12 600-699 5 2 8 5 700-799 1 3 2 800-899 1 900-999 1 1000-1099 2 TOTAL 35 21 45 29 % of Total 21% 13% 27% 17.5% QP Q TOTAL unclassified 17 5 715 5 2 54 7 27 6 1 1 2 29 7 166 17.5% 4% SAVERNAKE FOREST OAKS 4] Table 2. List of 33 of the largest girth and/or named Savernake Oaks found in 1999. Girth in cms measured at 150cms from the ground. Bracketed numbers show basal or ancient coppice-ring circumference in cms measured at lft. Petiole lengths shown in mm. Name or Situation Tag No. Oct Map ref. Taxa Petiole Girth Coppice SU lengths,mm cms _ girth min max Amity Oak 01920 I 232 676 QP 10 20 435 S of Birch Copse 08982 Ill 237 659 QP 20 30 685 Duke’s Vaunt 08990 Il 238 665 @SR- 5 10 890 King of Limbs 09246 III 242 660 Qs i 14 1030 E of 12 O’clock Drive 08769 IV 225 659 OSE 10 20 615 Ayers Oak 08772 IV 226 659 QP 5 20 610 New Queen Oak 08814 Vv 223 655 QSP 7 15 470 Spider Oak 08808 Vv 224 657 QP 10 16 645 Turkey Oak 08828 Vv 225 655 QC 530 Original Queen Oak 08809 Vv 224 657 QP 10 25 650 N.E. of Queen Oak 08810 Vv 225 657 QSP 4 12 660 Slingsby Oak 08830 Vv 224 654 @SPS 25 25 710 W of 12 O’clock Drive Vv 224 659 QS 5 20 740 Field boundary near 8 walks 08758 Vv 223 663 Qs 9 12 645 W of 12 O’clock Drive 08777 Vv 224 659 QS 10 30 670 (900) New Spiral Oak 08870 VI 215 665 Qs 8 16 595 Old Spiral Oak 08871 VI 213 664 QR 3 5 615 Big Belly Oak 06924 VI 213 657 QS 5 15 1080 (1400) W of A346 Rd 06920 VI 212 657 @SP, 3 115 700 S of Gt Lodge Drive 08043 VI 215 667 QS 5 10 610 (1200) Cathedral Oak 09500 VII 205 680 QR 2 3 995 NW edge of White Rd 08191 VII 206 678 Qs 4 9 615 N of White Rd, E of A346 08565 VII 202 674 QR 4 if 620 (800) White Rd\Grey Rd intersect 08168 VII 203 675 @SP 6 18 675 (770) False Braydon Oak 08968 VII 217 668 QR 1 2 620 True Braydon Oak 08958 VII 216 670 QSR_ 2 5 710 Near Braydon Oaks 08965 VII 217 670 QSR 4 6 605 (840) S.W. of Grey Rd 08724 VII 204 674 @SP 2 fl 655 (810) N of Gt Lodge Drive 08977 VII 212 667 QS 5 7 760 (950) N of Gt Lodge Drive 08883 VII 214 670 QP 10 25 655 A4\Grand Av angle 08941 VIII =. 211 682 Qs 6 11 670 Roman Rd Oak 09209 VIII = =217 677 QR 0 2 570 (880) Surveyed Oak 08947 VIII 217 676 Qs 9 13 740 and extensive coverage on a number of individual trees. Polypody also spreads by rhizomes along the branches of oaks, and can tolerate deep shading in the summer months. 2. Trees, Woody plants, Scramblers and Climbers The following tree seedlings and saplings were noted as epiphytes, in order of commonness: elder, ash, sycamore, rowan, hawthorn, beech, Norway maple, hazel, oak and holly. One elder had flowered and fruited as an epiphyte. Bramble was the most common flowering plant epiphyte, and 3 bramble plants had in 1999 produced blackberries from their perches in the crotches or fractured parts of old oaks, usually ancient pollards. Raspberry plants, sometimes with raspberries, were seen on 11 oaks, seedlings and young plants of honeysuckle on 4, and young epiphytic plants of dog- rose, redcurrant, gooseberry and ivy (seedling) on at least one oak each. 3. Herbaceous Plants The special case of the Big-Belly Oak aside, there were few weedy species noted. The commonest herbaceous epiphyte was wood-sorrel, which (unlike bramble and raspberry preceding) was almost entirely confined to lower parts of the trunk, most obvious in 42 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE A Fern Epiphyte on an Oak Tree May. Next, found even in the dark parts of the forest, followed (surprisingly) bifid hemp-nettle, then common hemp-nettle, the hemp-nettles often seen in May as seedlings at various heights. The stinging- nettle was the next most common epiphyte, but seldom seen in flower. Cleavers, herb-robert and short-fruited willowherb were each noted on 4 or more oaks. Finally there were at least 10 other herbaceous species found as occasional on oak trunks or (rarely) higher up. 4. Grasses Cocksfoot and rough meadow-grass were occasional as epiphytes; annual meadow-grass and wood false brome also occurred. Of the total of 43 vascular plant species recorded on oak trunks and branches by May 2000, only 11 were seen to have produced spores, fruits or seeds in situ. Most individuals were young plants doomed to die without reproducing. In January 2000 the Big-belly Oak at the side of the A346 road, carried 2 fern species (polypody and broad buckler-fern), 10 herbaceous species (wood avens, 5 plants; wood dock, 1 plant: herb-robert, 11 plants; stinging nettle, 4; short-fruited willowherb, 5; garlic mustard, 2; ground-ivy, 2; ivy-leaved speedwell, 3; cleavers, 24 mainly seedlings; dandelion, 8 and bramble, 6 plants). Only the 2 fern species, one herb- robert, 2 willowherbs and one dandelion and one bramble had produced spores or seeds as epiphytes. There were also 3 grass species growing on the Big- belly Oak (cocksfoot, 3 plants; rough meadow-grass, 4; annual meadow-grass, 1;). This veteran oak has a bizarrely shaped conical, almost pyramidal, trunk and it protrudes into a busy main road, is not in shade and is subject to much air turbulence which carries road-verge seeds into its trunk crevices. Most of the other old oaks were much more sheltered, shaded, out of range of roadside weed seeds, and in much quieter less turbulent situations, and vascular epiphytes were only seen on a few of these. However there nearly always were non-vascular epiphytes on their trunks and branches, bryophytes (the mosses and liverworts), lichens and algae. Savernake Forest has a list of at least 156 lichen taxa, including a number of rare species, with most epiphytic lichens largely confined to old oaks. Algal and moss species are largely responsible for the green trunks of most beeches and oaks in Savernake Forest, several moss species in particular giving beautiful rich green effects when the bases of the oaks are fluted. 104 bryophyte taxa are recorded for the Savernake Forest SSSI, a number of which are epiphytic: 2 mosses and 2 liverwort species found are known to be associated almost exclusively with old trees in ancient woodlands (for detail, see Stern 1996 and SSSI 1981). OAK DIE-BACK DISEASE This condition has been known since the 1920s (Gibbs & Greig, 1997). There has, however been recent concern that a more serious form of oak die- back has been progressing in parts of Britain and Continental Europe over the past few years. Complex interactions are almost certainly involved (Gibbs, 1999). Oaks stressed by a great variety of adversities, for instance drought, can lose the use of one or more branches which are ‘sealed off’ and die. The tree subsequently puts out newer shoots and recovers, even by forming a new and more contracted canopy than hitherto. The dead branches are then left protruding, the staghorn oak condition. In the recent more fulminant outbreaks, single or small irregular groups of oaks develop yellowing of the foliage for no good observable reason (e.g. no drought, mildew, no insect defoliations or aphid invasions in the previous year). Next year if the tree has only a 15% coverage of the foliage, some of it yellowing, death will probably ensue even if some new shoots have been put out. SAVERNAKE FOREST OAKS The condition could be in three stages: general debilitating factors, secondary specific pathogenic attacks, and thirdly root pathogens. The usually non- lethal root pathogens (e.g. Phytophthora) seem to increase in virulence (Gibbs, 1999). There have always been staghorn oaks in Savernake Forest. Some - or most - recover to renew their health and vigour. The Old Spiral Oak (QR) in 1999 looked in such a poor state that we hardly thought it worth measuring. However by June 2000 it had renewed its foliage in a good recovery. By contrast, the False Braydon Oak (QR) had only a 10% coverage of (mostly) yellowing foliage in July 2000, and looks to be on its way out owing to the onset of the new wave of oak die-back disease. Until recently, Savernake Forest had few trees affected, but earlier this year, we were shown, by the Earl of Cardigan, some newly diseased large oaks in the Deer Park behind Tottenham House and in the Savernake Lodge areas. In July 2000, as well as the involvement of the False Braydon Oak, there were individual trees and small irregular groups showing signs of the Oak Die-back Disease noted along-side Grey Road and by Twelve O’clock Drive south of Eight Walks. Some young plantation oaks, all pure Q. robur, were affected; a rather ominous sign. So far nearly all affected oaks were noted to be Q. robur; or the hybrid with the Q. robur features predominant. Q. petraea seems so far to be much more resistant, and this also applies to the hybrid where the Q. petraea features predominate. If this observation is sustained as generally accurate, this becomes an additional reason for planting Savernake acorns in any new plantations, rather than bringing in Q. robur acorns or seedlings from elsewhere, as seems to have happened in the past. The naturally regenerating young oaks, with substantial proportions of Q. petraea and Q. rosacea (Q. petraea features very much in evidence), are so far not affected by oak die-back disease. SUBSEQUENT ADDITIONS NOTED IN 2000 One of us ((EO) combed the Forest again in the spring, summer and autumn of 2000. At least 175 more oaks were found in the 350 - 499cm girth band (Table 1), and 65 more in the 500-599 band. There are 18 more to add to the 600 — 699 range, and 3 more to the 700-799cm range. Coppice girths at lft ranged from 610 — 1100cms for fourteen of these additional oaks. For the heartland of the forest the 43 taxonomic proportions are comparable to those shown on Table 1. On Long Harry Drive, near to the intersection with Church Walk at (SU208 675) was re-found the oak marked on the 1786 Estate map, once designated “Long Harry’ and best now called ‘Big Harry’ (or ‘Old Harry’). This extraordinary tree has a girth of 700cm at 5ft, but springs from the side of a gigantic hemispheroid coppice base 5-6ft high, indicating a pre-Tudor origin (at least). This make plausible the supposed link with hunting or courting forays by King Henry VII. The oak is probably a hybrid, but inclines towards Q. robur. A second veteran, nicknamed ‘the Hornet Oak’ was occupied by a hornets’ nest with its main exit at face level and the dead heartwood being hollowed by these insects. One of the fine named oaks on the periphery of the forest is in the grounds of St Katharine’s School. It is the majestic ‘St Katharine Oak, with a girth of 650cm and is pure Q. robur. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS Grose in ‘The Flora of Wiltshire, 1957’ stated that no woodlands in Wiltshire are dominated by the Durmast Oak, Quercus petraea. The tree does occur in Savernake Forest but is scarce. The dominant oak is Quercus robur. In the same book there is a report from John Wildash that earlier notices of Quercus petraea for the Forest were found to be Quercus petraea x robur. Thus nearly 50 years ago there was a query about the taxa of Savernake Forest oaks. Although Grose listed a group of old trees near Thornhill Pond in the Forest as Q. x rosacea, this like other possible hybrid records of oaks was forgotten. The name Q. x rosacea was resurrected officially by botanical taxonomists in the last 11 years. The recent British Floras (Rich & Jermy 1998, Stace 1997) consider that Q. x rosacea, in parts of Britain at least could be common. Stace refers to Q. x rosacea being ‘.....occasionally commoner than either parent’. The slightly older flora (CTM 1989) suggests Q. x rosacea to be “.....rather frequent where the parents occur together ..... most common in Scotland & N. England; and in N. Ireland (Antrim). Variably fertile due to introgressive hybridization.’ Rushton, writing in Rich & Jermy (1998) encapsulates the problems thus ‘Not only are Q. petraea & Q. robur variable in themselves, but have also widely introgressed producing variable, fertile hybrids. This results in inconsistent identification of both parents 44 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE and their hybrid Q. x rosacea by different botanists, as the limits of the species are a matter of opinion.’ Note the five words from ‘introgressed’ to the end of the first sentence, implying sustained hybridization between Q. x rosacea itself and its parents (back- crossing), and the same process continuing with successive generations. At the other end of the scale, Aas (1991) in Germany and Boratynski et al (1997) in Poland give amore restricted picture, with only 3% of intermediate oaks in the Gdansk State Forests being identified as Q.x rosacea. In between Belous (1997) in the Ukraine, Brookes & Wigston (1997) in England, French & Murphy (1994) in Cornwall, Minihan & Rushton (1984) in N. Ireland, Mihailescu & Ciobanu (1990) and Stanescu & Sofletea (1992) in Romania, and Wigston (1974) on British oaks all tend to leave the question of commonness of Q. x rosacea open. The results from our survey carried out in 1999 give Q. x rosacea as the dominant natural tree for Savernake Forest. It is certainly not Q. robur, unless one’s attention is confined to the plantation oaks derived from imported acorns. Rich & Jermy (1998) illustrate in full detail the ranges of leaf variation between Q. petraea, Q. x rosacea and Q. robur; and Stanescu & Sofletea (1992) have eight drawings of Q. x rosacea leaves from the Bejan Forest in Romania. These illustrations of Q. x rosacea leaves are remarkably similar to the leaves from the majority of naturally regenerated oaks in the Savernake Forest. The most important of the nine characters made for identification were those using microscopy. Leaf pubescence features of the three oak taxa are detailed by Rich & Jermy. These again match our findings, but we have also added more types of hair, and drawn attention in particular to the barely visible half-size sublaminar stellate hairs with a spread of less than 0.1mm found on many Q. x rosacea Savernake oaks, compared with the 0.2mm spread of Q. petraea sublaminar hairs. Hairs on the undersides of the leaves which are found alongside the veins and in the vein angles are more diverse in type and larger than the sublaminar stellate hairs for both Q. petraea and Q. x rosacea Savernake oaks (see microscopy section and Oliver 2000). A crude guide for identification is petiole lengths. All Q. robur Savernake oaks had most petiole lengths of less than 7mm, and 86% had all of their petioles between 0 —7mm. For Q. petraea 70% of the trees had their median petiole lengths in the 13 — 25mm range, but the spread was very variable. As for Q. x rosacea there was 84% with median petiole lengths between 7-13mm. From the preceding discussion, it is clear that Savernake trees here designated QS are unequivocally Q. x rosacea. Those semi-intermediates QSP and QSR are probably introgressed back-crossed hybrids, although some botanists say this could only be proved with DNA analyses, and they could simply represent variability within the three taxa. Whatever the taxonomic boundaries, all three main native Savernake Oak taxa show large ranges of different genetic variations, not necessarily only related to hybridization and back-crossing. The endemic Savernake Cluster Oak (Henry 1917) is an extreme variant of Q. robur, for instance. Although fertile, it is hard to see how the Cluster Oak could be favoured by natural selection; but it is very probable that many of the other native oak variants in the Forest, especially introgressed hybrids, represent a rich stock of oak genetic diversity well adapted to cope with the different geological, climatic and edaphic conditions found over the thousands of years in the Savernake area. There could be strains useful for trials elsewhere — for instance, Q. x rosacea is one of the hardwood taxa suggested for farm timber resources in New Zealand ( Ledgard & Giller 1998) and is starting to be tried in regeneration experiments in the Scottish uplands (Humphrey & Swaine 1997). Q. x rosacea 1s being considered in the Zlatna forest- decline trials in those parts of Romania suffering pollution by sulphur dioxide and heavy metals, including zinc and cadmium, (Mihailescu & Ciobanu 1990). Genetically, Savernake Forest could be classified as one of the great mixed forests as categorized by Wigston(1974). Whatever the octant or underlying geology, whatever the conditions in Savernake Forest, wherever the native oaks are regenerating naturally they are producing this great range of phenotypes, seen in the youngest saplings to the most ancient veterans. Of the four non-native oak species, Q. rubra, the American red oak would seem to have the potential for spread by seed (Stace 1997) in future years, but few acorns have been produced to date. Savernake Forest remains a patchwork quilt of varied habitats with old and new mixed plantations, plantations of conifer or oak, and mixed deciduous forest with remote undisturbed areas deeply shaded in summer by either beeches, oaks, sweet chestnuts or common (suckering) limes. There are naturally regenerated oak thickets, groves and glades, numerous ancient banks and boundaries, and open fields with small clumps of old oaks or beeches. Fine trees surround the amenity areas. In addition to the well- known beeches along Grand Avenue there are other SAVERNAKE FOREST OAKS grassy trackside or roadside great limes, horse chestnuts, sweet chestnuts, beeches or oaks. Ancient oaks, uncommon or rare in most of the rest of Europe, have been preserved successfully in all the preceding habitats, but some others have not survived beech shading and a few have succumbed to Douglas firs or other conifers, especially in the Birch Copse area. It would seem that some of the histories and ages attached to certain veteran oaks have been exaggerated, embroidered or perhaps even fabricated by the Victorians or others. Although girths increase with age, measurements are subject to wide margins of error on irregular, burred, nodular, partly rotted or split trunks, and age estimates simply based on girths are full of pitfalls. None of the ancient oaks are likely to go back as far as the early Saxon Kings. Giant, veteran oaks are normally found in parkland, and Savernake Forest is very unusual in having large old oaks in a forest. It will be interesting to see what happens to girth records for the biggest oak trees, as existing records list Q. robur or Q. petraea, and many of our giants are clearly the hybrid between these two species. Frequently veteran oaks are found on old boundaries. Amity Oak and the Duke’s Vaunt are on parish and hundred boundaries, and a few of the large oaks are on the line of the Roman road to Old Sarum, which might have been a boundary line. The others are scattered about, mainly in the western part of the Forest and not on any known boundary. Some of the great existing veteran oaks need protection from shading, but possibly even more important is the marking of significant trees. The essential practical measure is metal labelling, or notices in situ. Repeatedly we found that historic trees such as the Great Beech of Savernake, the Braydon Oak, the Spiral Oak and others have been lost, or their names misapplied to the wrong trees. With overgrown or lost paths and erratic and inconsistent and vague map records, even the well known veterans such as Duke’s Vaunt, King of Limbs, Queen Oak and Amity Oak could be hard to find, or (as in the case of the last two) hard to name the correct tree with certainty. The Cathedral Oak had a helpful and interesting notice, and many of the big trees flanking the roads, avenues, picnic, camping and barbecue areas already have galvanized iron, zinc or lead plates with number codes, presumably so that any safety-precaution tree surgery can be quickly and efficiently implemented. In 2000, thanks to help and permission from Bill Ayers of Forest Enterprise, we have extended this 45 system to the important trees in the deeper parts of the forest. The tagging has included the oaks from Tables 1 & 2 and those enumerated under the ‘Subsequent Additions noted in 2000’ subheading. Coded tags have also been attached to 22 other tree species of exceptional size, significance or longevity. A detailed tree-by-tree report is in preparation for the Wiltshire Botanical Society, which will relate the plate codes to map references, site or other details, special features, and girths measured in 1999 or 2000. We would encourage preservation of the rich genetic diversity of the native Savernake Oaks by the use of Savernake acorns in all future plantations. The recent, patchy outbreak of Oak Die-back Disease in Q. robur emphasises the importance of genetic diversity. There should not be a puritanical absolutist conservationist policy with fanatical elimination of the limes, hollies, yews, Norway maples, sycamores, red oaks or non-native conifers. The patchwork quilt variety in this forest 1s one of its main glories. However the collected acorns should be labelled as Q. x rosacea, Q. robur, Q. petraea, or as semi-intermediates, or as from named trees, so that progress of the progeny could be studied more specifically in future decades and centuries. A relatively uncomplicated research project would be to record acorn production by Q. x rosacea oaks in comparison with acorn production by pure Q. robur and Q. petraea, and acorn production by veteran trees. Oaks, like yews, marry biology to history and myth. The Savernake oaks can be linked with English social and landscape history. The genetic mixing of the two oak species native to our islands and Europe may be as great or greater than in any other of the European oak forests and with many more great girth veteran trees. We hope this paper provides a firmer baseline for future botanical and historical studies than has been possible in the past. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Our thanks are due to Allen Coombes (the BSBI Oak Referee) for authentication of specimens, to Brian Rushton of the University of Ulster (Coleraine) for answering queries on some genetic aspects and to David Rose of the Disease & Diagnostic Advisory Service for information and a guided explanation on oak die-back disease. Locally we appreciate help from the Earl of Cardigan, Hereditary Warden of Savernake Forest, from Patrick Cashman of English Nature, and Bill Ayers and Andy Glover of Forest Enterprise. 46 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE References AAS, G., 1991, ‘Crossing experiments with Pedunculate & Sessile Oak’, Allgemeine Forst und Jagdzeitung 162(8) 141-145. In German, Eng. summary. ADAMS, W. M., 1904, Sylvan Savernake & its Story. AILESBURY, Marquess of, 1962, A History of Savernake Forest. Woodward, Devizes. BELOUS, V.I., 1972, ‘Hybrid populations of Quercus robur & Q. petraea in the Ukraine’, Lesovedenie, 6 37-46. In Russian, Eng. summary. BORATYNSKI, A., et al, 1997, ‘Pedunculate, Sessile and Hybrid (Quercus x rosacea) Oaks in selected seed stands in the R.D.S.F. Gdansk area’, Sylwan. 141(5), 41-49. In Polish, Eng. summary. BRENTNALL, H. C., 1941, ‘The Metes & Bounds of Savernake Forest’. WA&NHM, 49, 391-434. BROOKES, P. C. & WIGSTON, D. L., 1979, ‘Variation in the morphological & chemical characteristics of acorns from populations of Quercus petraea, Q. robur and their hybrids’, Watsonia, 12(4), 315-324. CARDIGAN, Earl of, 1949, The Wardens of Savernake Forest. Routledge. London. CLAPHAM, A. R., TUTIN, T. G. and MOORE, D. M., 1989, Flora of the British Isles. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. FOREST ENTERPRISE, 1998, Named Trees of Savernake Forest. (local) FRENCH, C. N., & MURPHY,R. J., 1994, Checklist of the Flowering Plants & Ferns of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. Cornish Biological Records Unit, Univ. of Exeter. GIBBS, J. N., and GREIG, B. J. W., 1997, Biotic and Abiotic Factors affecting the Dying Back of Pedunculate Oak, Quercus robur L. GIBBS, J. N., 1999, Information Note, Forest Research, “Dieback of Pendunculate Oak’, Forestry Commission. GROSE, D., 1957 (reprinted 1979), The Flora of Wiltshire, Wilts Archaeological & Natural History Society. E.P. Publishing Ltd. Wakefield. HADFIELD, M., 1974, ‘The Oak and its Legends’, 123- 129 from Morris & Perring (below). HENRY, A., “The Cluster Oak of Savernake Forest’, The Gardeners’ Chronicle, 27.1.1917. HUMPHREY, J. W. & SWAINE, M. D., 1997, ‘Factors affecting the natural regeneration of Quercus in Scottish oakwoods’, Journal of Applied Ecology, 34(3), 577- 584. JEFFERIES, R., The Hills & the Vale — Marlborough Forest. Oxford University Press. LEDGARD, N., & GILLER, M., 1998, ‘Deciduous hardwood species: early silvicultural options for growing timber on farms’, New Zealand Forestry 42(4), 16-21. L.U.B.G.M., 1922, Lucy’s Official Borough Guide to Marlborough. MIHAILESCU, A. & CIOBANU, C., 1990, ‘Industrial pollution of forests and forest soils in the Zlatna region’, Revista Padurilor, 105, 3-4. In Romanian, Eng. summary. MINIHAN, V. B. & RUSHTON, B. S., 1984, ‘The taxonomic status of oaks (Quercus spp) in Breen Wood, Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland’, Watsonia, 15, 27-32. MORRIS, M. G., & PERRING, F. H., (eds.), 1974, The Briush Oak. Published for the BSBI by E.W. Classey Ltd, Faringdon. MURRAY, J. S., 1974, ‘The Fungal Pathogens of Oak’, 235- 249, from Morris & Perring (above). OLIVER, J. E., 2000, Quercus x rosacea in Savernake Forest. BSBI News, 84, 31 — 34. RACKHAM, O., 1974, ‘The Oak in Historic Times’, 62- 79 from Morris & Perring (above). RICH, T. C. G., & JERMY, A. C., 1998, 1998 plant Crib, BSBI London. ROSE, F., 1974, ‘The Epiphytes of Oak’, 250-273 from Morris & Perring (above). S.S.S.1., 1981, Notification of Savernake Forest under Sec. 28 of the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981. STACE,C., 1997, New Flora of the British Isles, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. STANESCU, V., & SOFLETEA, N., 1992, ‘Oak Hybrids in the Forest Bejan (Deva)’, Revista Padurilor, 107(2), 2-3. In Romanian, Eng. summary. STERN, R. C., 1996, Savernake Forest S.S.S.I. Management Plan, Second Revision. TROBI, (Tree Register of the British Isles) Founded 1988. Database of over 125,000 notable trees in Britain and Ireland. Wootton, Beds WIGSTON, D. L., 1974, ‘Cytology & Genetics of Oaks’, 27-43 from Morris & Perring (above). WILKINSON, M., 1982, Compilation of Field Surveys and Reports on Savernake Forest, 22.11.1982. W.R.O.S.F.E.M., 1786, Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office, Savernake Forest Estate Map of 1786. Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 94 (2001), pp. 4 7-55 Murder at Brookside Cottage: a Dark Deed in North Wiltshire by Kay Taylor This paper is a study of the oral and written accounts relating to the trial and conviction of gypsy Edward Buckland for the brutal murder of widow Judith Pearce on the Seagry—Sutton Benger border in 1820. It also questions the quality of the judicial system in late Georgian England. A gruesome murder that occurred on the border of the small north Wiltshire village of Sutton Benger on 13 November 1820 had such an impact on the lives of the villagers that it was still a topic of conversation among their descendants more than one hundred and fifty years later. On moving to the village in 1978 the author gained the impression that the killing had happened within living memory of those recalling the event. It was only on being shown the victim’s grave in the parish churchyard that it became apparent that the accounts were not those of eyewitnesses, but had been handed down through the generations. This telescoping of time-scales has been observed, by historians and anthropologists, both in the informal tales and folklore of early modern England, and in the African system by which village ‘remembrancers’ transmitted a stable ‘official’ local tradition to succeeding generations.' It was, therefore, interesting to find the same process occurring in the twentieth century, in the heart of rural England, with the local population keen to initiate interested incomers into the secrets of an exceptional episode from their collective past. An ‘eye-witness’ account of the murder was preserved, until recently, by the late Dennis Selwood of Seagry. It transpired that the tale he told had been handed down to him when he was a boy, by his great-grandfather, who had, in turn, been given the details by his father. This ancestor had been a boy in Sutton Benger at the time of the murder, and apparently retained a vivid memory of the events of that fateful night and the subsequent trial.’ Recollections of some of the events are also to be found in the pages of the nineteenth-century diarist and incumbent of Langley Burrell, Francis Kilvert but, as with Dennis Selwood’s version, these rely on the memories of elderly people many years after the event.’ The Selwood family tradition preserved the memory of the murder from the days of those that experienced the drama through five generations, with this and other oral versions outlasting a locally held written account. A newspaper cutting, reporting on the trial at the 1821 Salisbury Lent Assizes, had been circulated around Sutton Benger in the earlier part of the twentieth century. This cutting, which has long since disappeared, played a vital part in keeping alive memories of the murder, albeit in a distorted form, as the readers then recounted what they had read to others, the story changing slightly with each retelling. Sutton farmer John Lea used to hire out the cutting to interested villagers for one penny. The money raised contributed towards the upkeep of the memorial stone to the victim, which had been erected by public subscription in 1821.’ In his classic work on English local history W. G. Hoskins warned that, while oral evidence should not be dismissed altogether as a source of local history, it had to be subjected to rigorous checks.’ In this case the oral accounts of the murder given by the villagers differed from the contemporary written reports in some key areas. The main inaccuracies occurred, not so much in the details of the murder itself, as in the addition of an extra crime (burglary) and in the ultimate punishment of the alleged offender. The most common, but 5 Lee Crescent, Sutton Benger, Chippenham SN15 4SE, and University of the West of England 48 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE erroneous, version of the story was that a gypsy had brutally murdered an elderly widow and was apprehended the morning after, still in possession of goods stolen from her cottage. A group of villagers marched him off to the Bell Inn where he was tried by a local ‘court. Having been found guilty he was hanged on a hastily erected gallows on the neighbouring Bell Piece, which at that time was a vacant plot of land. Bell Piece retained a reputation for being haunted until a housing estate was built there in 1981.° Another popular misconception was that the gypsy was the last person to be publicly hanged ini Devizes market place. This myth can be discounted for two reasons: public executions at Devizes continued into the 1860s, and the gypsy was actually hanged at the county gaol at Fisherton Anger, near Salisbury.’ The murder obviously caused a great stir in Sutton Benger and the surrounding villages as the most exciting occurrence in living memory. It also caused considerable friction with the neighbouring village of Seagry, whose inhabitants claimed that the murder ‘belonged’ to them. Brookside Cottage, where the murder was committed, was situated on the Seagry side of the parish boundary. However, the victim’s relatives lived in Sutton Benger, and the Sutton folk were directly involved in the apprehension and conviction of the alleged perpetrator, so the villagers there felt that their claim was the greater. Although the victim was buried in the Sutton churchyard, the Rev Anketell still considered the murder to be a valid part of Seagry’s past, more than sixty years later, including it in his 1886 Collections for a History of Seagry.* Tronically, the boundary between the two parishes was moved with the coming of the M4 motorway in the early 1970s, and Brookside Cottage is now in Sutton Benger. D. R. Woolf observed that almost every rural community contained or abutted on a field, hill, river or ruin which it associated with a saint or local hero or with a memorable event’ and Brookside Cottage fulfilled this role for both villages. Kalvert noted, in 1875, that this lone house between Sutton and Seagry was known as Murder Cottage.!” The nickname continued to be used by local schoolchildren from both villages up to World War II, and one childhood pastime was to dare those brave enough to go up to the cottage, which they believed to be haunted.'' In fact the attractive stone cottage currently occupying the site was not the scene of the murder, having been built c.1850.The original cottage was a simple thatched wattle and daub building with a downstairs kitchen and buttery, and an upstairs sleeping area reached via a ladder. The cottage’s thin lath wall construction had enabled the intruder to gain access and the occupants to effect their escape. After the murder this cottage lay derelict for nearly thirty years, as no-one wanted to live there, and it was eventually demolished. The gypsy, Ted Buckland, was arrested the morning after the murder and taken before the local magistrate, Mr Coleman, at Langley Fitzurze (Kington Langley). From there he was taken to the county gaol at Fisherton Anger to await trial at the following Lent assizes. However his trial by the media started much sooner. Less than three weeks after his arrest, and some three months before the trial proper, the following poem appeared in the Bath Herald.'” The anonymous poet introduced the work thus: Lines (in imitation of Crabbe) on Judith Pearce, who was most inhumanly murdered by a gipsey, at Seagry, in this neighbourhood, 1n the month of November last. A lonely cottage stands beside the way, A white thatched cot, with honey-suckles gay; There JUDITH PEARCE, a widow lived alone, By a rough quarry of blue-coloured stone; Where lurked a wretch, of Egypt’s wandering race, A wretch forlorn, without a mark of grace, Whom ruffians left, for such a rogue was he, That even the vilest shunned his company; Dark was his face but darker still his mind To pity, and to every tender feeling blind. He had no friends, nor knew the joys of home, But muttering, through the dews of night would roam, Brooding on fancied wrongs, with secret pride, On words, or looks, or benefits denied. Round his gaunt side a rope for girdle swung, From which a light, short-handled hatchet hung; A tattered garment did the village fright, A coat by day, a blanket all the night, Which round his neck a butcher’s skewer confin’d, Fit fastening such a filthy dress to bind. JUDITH had often a kind warning given, How far his ways were from the ways of Heaven; And once too, JUDITH (which would kindle strife In greater persons) asked him — ‘Where’s your wife?’ Once fire denied — a common courtesy; Yet there seemed danger in his quick black eye; And so there was, for as she lay in bed, At night the thatch was blazing o’er her head, And EDWARD BUCKLAND, so the villain call, Was met in haste, close to the village wall; And if as on some villainy he mused, The evening salutation he refused; Suspected, taken, he escapes at last, And all supposed the danger now was past — When JUDITH’S brother, in the dead of night, Heard his grand-niece who shook with cold and fright, Tell how she ‘scaped the murderer’s hand by flight; “Wake! Wake! She’s murdered!’ was the frightful cry; MURDER AT BROOKSIDE COTTAGE High Street To Chippenham To Langley Burrell Map of Sutton Benger showing position of Brookside Cottage ‘I heard the blow! I almost saw her die.’ They found her lying on the garden mould, Mangled with dreadful wounds, quite dead and cold, A sight to shock the weak, and almost scare the bold. It would have been difficult to prevent potential jury members from reading such a blatantly biased account of Buckland’s character and assumption of his guilt, the poet’s verdict pre-empting the eventual outcome of the court case. Whether or not Buckland actually 49 Brookside Cottage All Saints Church To Christian Malford Sutton Lane committed either the earlier arson or the murder is now, however, a matter of historical speculation. Nevertheless, the publication of such a defamatory account in a local newspaper, prior to the trial, must raise questions over the fairness of his trial and subsequent conviction. The judicial records for the Easter 1821 Quarter Sessions are unfortunately missing from the court rolls held at the Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office, so 50 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE much of the following account has been taken from contemporary newspaper reports and a pamphlet issued in the wake of the execution.'* Journalists from the Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette and the Salisbury and Winchester Journal were present in court throughout the trial, on 15 March, and reported the proceedings at great length. The Salisbury journalist recorded that the presiding Justice, Mr Holroyd, had been ‘sorry to observe that the calendar was uncommonly heavy, both in regard to the number of prisoners and the nature of the crimes laid to their charge’. Of the ninety prisoners presented at the Lent Assizes four were indicted on murder charges, and there were sixteen others to be tried for capital offences, such as highway robbery, forgery and horse and sheep stealing. As indicated in the above poem, the gypsy at the centre of the Pearce murder, Ted Buckland, alias Buckley, was a well-known, although not particularly well-liked, local character, who had lived in the area around Sutton Benger, Seagry and Christian Malford for over twenty years. At the end of the eighteenth century he had been one of the band of gypsies that regularly camped in tents opposite the gate to Sand Furlong in Sutton Lane,'? which was then a green lane and not a metalled road. He had apparently acquired such an evil reputation that his own tribe ‘kicked him out.’? After leaving the gypsies he lived a solitary existence, sleeping rough, doing odd jobs, and begging from house to house, mainly for salt, tinder and needles. He seldom travelled far, and occasionally earned money by selling matches. His distinctive appearance enhanced his reputation as an evil little man, with his swarthy complexion, black hair, bushy grey whiskers and long beard. In 1820 he was 66 years old, only five feet three inches tall, and described as being darker than normal for a gypsy. He was a common sight wandering around the area wrapped in a dirty old blanket which, as the anonymous poet observed, he tied round his waist with string and pinned across his chest with a meat skewer.'° In summer he would go about barefoot and sleep, wrapped in his blanket, in the quarries to the north of the village,'’ off the Seagry Road. In winter he sometimes managed to persuade Mr R. Hull to let him sleep in his barn, and Sutton farmer John Russ, who had known him for more than twenty years, occasionally took pity on him and gave him straw to lie on. Old Ted was the obvious suspect when the murder was discovered as his relationship with the pious victim had been tempestuous in the past. Judith (Judy) Pearce was a God-fearing 58-year-old widow, who lived in an isolated cottage by the brook at the foot of Seagry Hill. She worked at Church Farm in Seagry, and out of Christian charity was known to share a crust with Ted Buckland when he came begging. This was, however, usually at the cost of a lecture on mending his evil ways. In the spring of 1820 Ted had demanded more than food, wanting to warm himself by Mrs Pearce’s fire, but his menacing manner alarmed her so much that she slammed the door in his face. She barred and bolted herself in until he went away. That same night the thatched roof of her cottage was set on fire, but was quickly brought under control by some passers-by, with the help of a heavy rainstorm. Buckland was apprehended for the crime but he somehow got away and was not seen in the area for about six months. On his return many believed (as they asserted with the benefit of hindsight during the trial) that he would want his revenge on Judy Pearce for having accused him of the arson attack.'* By mid-November Buckland was back in North Wiltshire, and begging for clothes from a Mrs Ann Flower. As he had called on that charitable lady on a Sunday 12 November she agreed to let him have some of her husband’s old clothes if he returned the following day. On the Monday she let him have an old great-coat and breeches, and these clothes were to play an important part in Buckland’s trial and conviction. At 8 o’clock on the morning of Tuesday 14 November Buckland was found at the side of Sutton Lane, cooking his breakfast over a fire. He was promptly arrested by the Sutton constable Richard Ellery, with the help of a group of villagers. These people had been roused about three o’clock in the morning by the excitement of the night’s events and were keen to see the culprit quickly brought to book. Ignoring the oddity of anyone who had just committed a particularly brutal murder staying in the vicinity and calmly cooking breakfast, they marched Buckland off to see Mr Coleman, the magistrate, at Langley Fitzurze.'!° There are a number of ways in which Buckland’s behaviour that morning could be interpreted. It is conceivable that he was as evil as everyone believed, that he did not care about what he had done, and his presence was a bluff in the hope that the murderer would be assumed to have been long gone. However, it is equally possible that he really was not very bright and did not have the wit to leave the area after committing his heinous crime. The third possibility is that he was actually innocent of the murder. Constable Ellery took possession of the great- coat, the state of which was crucial to the prosecution case. Mrs Flower told the magistrate that there had MURDER AT BROOKSIDE COTTAGE been no blood or dirt on the clothes when she had given them to him the day before. Buckland countered that the blood on his breeches was from a horse and his coat had got muddy when he knelt down to get a drink of water. The only witness in the case was young Elizabeth Cottle who had been persuaded to move in with her grandmother after the cottage fire in the spring. The twelve-year-old girl and Mrs Pearce were asleep in the room above the buttery when they were woken by a noise. Having dressed and lit a candle they went down to the buttery. There were sounds of an intruder in the kitchen so they barred the door, but the intruder managed to force it ajar, by chopping at it with an axe. Mrs Pearce was injured in the struggle to force the door shut and block it with furniture. Once it had gone quiet she managed to make a hole in the thin lath wall of the buttery so that she and Elizabeth could escape to the village for help. As they were crossing the garden their assailant struck Mrs Pearce, knocking her to the ground, and then grabbed the child. She struggled free and as she fled she heard the man strike her grandmother for a third time. Elizabeth testified in court that she had to run about half a mile to her great-uncle’s house in Sutton Benger, and while she was telling her sorry tale the clock struck three. In answer to the prosecutor Mr Merewether, Elizabeth identified Buckland as the man who had struck her grandmother and grabbed her, although she admitted that she had not been able to see him clearly. Many villagers contrived to take part in the trial, as witnesses for the prosecution, while Buckland conducted his own defence. Elizabeth’s uncles William and Thomas, her aunt, and neighbours Daniel Powell and John Price had all returned to the cottage where they found Judy Pearce dead in the garden. When they checked the cottage they found that nothing was missing. Rev Christopher Lipscomb, the vicar of Sutton, was praised for his ‘great pains to bring this - villain to justice.’*° He had had a model of the cottage and grounds made by the village carpenter, which he used to re-enact the crime for the benefit of the jury. Daniel Powell produced the door-post from the buttery and Thomas Ferris, landlord of the Bell Inn, had found a hatchet that had been discarded in the brook, more than three months after the murder, the blade of which it was demonstrated fitted exactly the cuts in the door post. William Greenwood of Christian Malford claimed that it was the same hatchet Buckland had tried to exchange with him for a hatful of potatoes. A modern observer would probably doubt the certainty of his assertion as his identification was based mainly on the lettering on the handle of the 51 hatchet, although he admitted he was unable to read. Greenwood reinforced the public perception of the gypsy as the despicable rogue portrayed in the anonymous poem published in the Bath Herald, by saying that he did not go ahead with the exchange as he was not convinced that Buckland had come by the hatchet honestly. The medical evidence supplied by Dr Joseph Hayward confirmed that Judy Pearce had died as a result of four wounds to the head, made with a blunt instrument. He conceded, under the prosecutor’s examination, that it was possible that the corner of a hatchet could have made the wounds. Finally Constable Ellery gave evidence that the dirt found on Buckland’s great-coat was deemed to match that from the wattle and daub cottage walls. Buckland’s conduct of his defence appears to have been consistent with his reputation of being an illiterate and simple person. Throughout the trial he had been prone to outbursts, such as calling Elizabeth Cottle ‘a damned liar, and William Greenwood a ‘lying rascally whelp, but he repeatedly refused to cross-examine the prosecution witnesses. At one point during the proceedings he began to behave so wildly that he almost convinced the judge he was insane. However, as the trial wore on the judge came to the conclusion that this was a ruse on the part of the defendant to gain the jury’s sympathy. When invited to present his case for the defence Buckland merely gave a low bow and said: ‘It is my wish to oblige your lordships as far as I can. I'll swear upon ten thousand books that I never killed the woman. May I be damned to ever-lasting if I had anything to do with the hatchet.’ In his summing up the judge reviewed the evidence presented and admitted that there was not much of a case without the hatchet. As had already been demonstrated the doctor had only admitted, after careful questioning by Mr Merewether, that it was possible that the corner of a hatchet could have produced the wounds that caused Judy Pearce’s death. It had not been conclusively proved that the hatchet found in the brook months after the murder had ever actually belonged to Buckland. Evidence of his alleged ownership had been provided by William Greenwood, based on the lettering on the handle of the hatchet — which he was unable to read, ‘not being a scholar.’ The anonymous poem, published the previous December, had already informed the public that Buckland’s normal mode of dress included a hatchet hanging from his rope girdle. This is difficult to square with the notion that the gypsy had come by the tool dishonestly and then tried to exchange it for food. Despite these flaws in the evidence it only took the jury one minute to return a guilty verdict, after which THE WILTSHIRE PRC MAE Ore Cee AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Account of ihe TRIALS, Sic 0b ane : AN ASHER and EDWARD BUCKLAND, “were executed in the Court of the County Gaol of Wile) in Fisherton-Anger, Satutday, March 17, 1821;, - | °°" 4 2 ER Oe Ba ge” Sag I a , NTA eyed = Tike Assuaes Cr the Coonty cf Wilts, holden et 5 Py city of New Sarura, Seturceyv, March 30, 1821, JOHN ASHEN, eged 74 yesre, as indicted for the wilful Murder of Patrick ATKcy at the Bull Ina, Warminster, on Suaday, Augast #7, 1820. Ut appeared in evidence that Asher travelled the Country _esa@ vender of quack medicines, and that the cgpsc of the horrid deed for which be ra justly suffered, was ijereusy. Asher, bad for some time, cohebited with eo worten Cwil- ton, nemed Sarzh Lewis; eth this woman, the Deceared, who also travelled the country with ele cloths, bedaine’ sequainted, and frequently met her at diferent huuses of svsort for people of their ea.ployrwent. > oN. . On Sunday afternaon the old man wa: erinkn. &ith cthess at the Bull inn, Warmiinter, end went out into the back yard, aod sut one beach there, between two other men; soon efter which the young Womgn ceme out 0 the game place, ard eat down upnae heap of siraw, oppusite vo wich goon afer came out Patrick MKey, wa placed Liseoctf by ber side, and dcpan to pluy pith her, tating her -sgoved by the neck, upon which the wld gaan je 8 sege mse ‘from between the two men, ard pulling 6d © haife,\yavw Bis theec stays with such feree, thas eccording & ihe * Surgeon's report, euck of them wus mortal. : ., M'Key languished till between eleven aud twelve clock > fhe.‘next dav, and teen expire’, leaving atife and teo children at Newry in the North ef Irevand. - an ' 1 ~ ° FOR MURDER. .° 4s pihers, €0 tbey- must*xct b> Be j Rt EDWARD BUCKLAND aged 66 scan, ~~ was also indicted for the- wilfal Murder’ of Sudith Peicce, at Seagry. >. < 2 hytirg Bocktand was-a-mad of snost notorinas character, guian by several names, and living inno house. We cumedn the night & the residence of Judith Peirce, with u reseturiya as it anpears, of taking ewer ber bile In revenge for ber bucing accased bim some time beture uf ectting the thatch of the house on bre. Thre villain Grst beat th one side pf the house, near a small window, andeniered. Peirce ted only @ youns woman ah ber. Oo beuring the wrmse Aboy got ep, sod«inking a hicht, came down, and reticed te @ eourD where they fastened down the wooden catch to keep (mm from them. He heaving e hatchet, cut th: door so far gme:. &s to make @ cutat the womun wn the keed. They Bec “{ from the house to e garden gate,trying ty escaze, but be foliowing, gave We poor :nao-anutler ue on the beac, ‘Jend afecr thats ghird.cut ~whicu breegb: her wievdung tc the ready = .” Great préise is Cue tc the Her. C Uicscomb, vcaege -q Sutton Benger,. who took great: peins to beng this site “{ to justice, and by prodscimg « nest mode! ofebe howe-and getden, by which the Jury hed @ vciy cleat idea of che business. Also by proceniy the very Latchet wh w dict: be bad killed the woman, 23 welj rs nea tle (rage cf this being the very fostrument with wrich ile macde? wos eficcted. ch ea (lias . The Jadge,”.an: passing che awful sentenor tf Peata,- which he did in the most cficering meurer, gaye ithe! Pri- soncrs to anderstand, Che arybey shewed my merey To yet 16 be ahem -cav drone. m ~~ a” “nm? i ‘ bet ie him. ayes The unfortonate Malelse ‘as, after theirenpJetezsticn, bebaved very penitent,. Jricing va fer edyer-wib the, Chaplain, ombing every ctoucment in Y power tie the freat and heincuus sias they bad committed, end Creting mercy Geum: tact Judge before-whom ibey were sborily :o. appew ne ee ae eae . Abost non, after frevioce- peoyer, the Maklectors at-- cended the Drop prepered for their executiciy and on} which ‘appeared to public wiew but a short: tine ke- fore the Executioner discharged, bis ‘duty py lausching them fate eternity. © Jbey metibeir ignominturs end with aech fortitude and comprure; beieg perfectly resigned to Asher was poro at Narket Laviygton, and bes left.2 wile and threfchildres, iw 3 Buckland was torn at Crea: Bedwin, 00d dss alto Icfte wife and-theee children. eee 2 : Anonymous pamphlet describing the trials and double execution, 1821 MURDER AT BROOKSIDE COTTAGE the judge donned his black cap and pronounced the death sentence. Buckland was led away, still protesting his innocence. The newspaper reported that his last words to the court were, ‘ I hope gentlemen you won’t take away my life; upon my soul, I did not kill the old woman.’ Edward Buckland was hanged in the courtyard of the county gaol of Wiltshire in Fisherton Anger on Saturday 17 March 1821 in a double execution with another convicted murderer. John Asher, a 74 year old itinerant vendor of quack medicines, was also tried at the Salisbury Lent Assizes and convicted of murdering Patrick McKey in a jealous rage, at the Bull Inn, inWarminster. A double scaffold was erected at the prison and the pair were dispatched simultaneously. The journalist covering the event reported that Buckland looked around for members of his gypsy tribe and asked, from the scaffold, if any of his people were there. Just before the drop fell he announced to the crowd, “They are going to murder me’, and then asked the hangman if he could, ‘hang me up alittle then let me down again’. The journalist’s view of the execution was very different from that of the anonymous author of the trial pamphlet. He was at pains to stress the remorse and repentance of the convicted men as a moral lesson for his readers, rather than admit the possibility that one of the men might have been unjustly convicted, and was still protesting his innocence to the bitter end. The pamphlet contained the following account of the hanging: The unfortunate Malefactors, after their condemnation, behaved very penitent, joining in fervent prayer with the Chaplain, making every atonement in their power for the heinous sins they had committed, and craving mercy from that Judge before whom they were shortly to appear. About noon, after previous prayer, the Malefactors ascended the Drop prepared for their execution, and on which they appeared to public view but a short time before the Executioner discharged his duty by launching them into eternity. They met their ignominious end with much fortitude and composure being perfectly resigned to their fate.*! The pamphleteer concluded his account with the information that each man had left a wife and three children. The day after the execution the Sutton vicar, the Rev Christopher Lipscomb, preached in the parish church of All Saints a lengthy sermon on the evil murder. The sermon was published in pamphlet form, and copies sold for a shilling.*? The whole episode of the murder, trial, execution and sermon had such an effect on the villagers that a collection was made for a memorial stone to be placed on Judy’s grave in Sutton 53 @ Sermon, PREACHED IN THE PARISH CHURCH oP SUTTON-BENGER, On SUNDAY, March the 18th, 1821, BEING THE DAY: AFTER THE EXECUTION oF EDWARD BUCKLAND, FOR THE MURDER or JUDITH PEARCE. BY THE Rev. CHRISTOPHER LIPSCOMB, FELLOW OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD, AND VICAR OF SUTTON- BENGER, WILTs. a CHIPPENHAM: PRINTED AND SOLD BY J. Mo COOMBS, High-Dtreet, DOREY DO PRICE ONE SHILLING. Cover of Rev Christopher Liscomb’s 1821 published sermon relating to the murder. Benger churchyard. The Salisbury and Winchester Journal reported that £7 had already been received, and that, ‘the overplus [is] to be given to the family of the deceased.’ The memorial has unfortunately suffered the ravages of time, despite being recut many years ago, and the lower portion of the inscription is no longer readable. It was fully transcribed in the early 1980s, reading as follows: This stone was erected by public subscription in memory of Judith Pearce of the Parish of Seagry Widow Aged 58 years. Her blameless life of Diligence and Honesty was terminated by an Act of the most malicious Barbarity. On the night of the 13 of November 1820 She was cruelly murdered by Edward Buckland a Gipsey whose crime was providentially brought to light and he was executed 17 March 1821 54 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE The area around Brookside Cottage has attracted many ghostly sightings since the execution, the restless spirit being that of Edward Buckland, wrapped in his distinctive blanket. Those claiming to have met the ghost include long-standing residents, such as Dennis Selwood’s mother Ada in 1901, and newcomers to the area, as recently as the 1970s.”’ The apparition is of a small man wrapped in a dirty old cloazk, and has been described by people who had apparently never heard of the gypsy or how he used to dress. He appears at the point where the footpath from Christian Malford meets the Seagry Road, not far from Brookside Cottage. For those that believe in the restlessness of the spirits of those wronged in life, the wandering of Ted’s ghost raises the question: was he really innocent as he always claimed? Was he hanged for a murder he did not commit? Or is his restlessness because he has been, ‘damned to everlasting torment,’ by his own words, for using the hatchet? However, there are more down to earth reasons for challenging the outcome of this case. It certainly seems that Buckland was a victim of the prevailing prejudices of his time, suffering from Tombstone of Judith Pearce, Sutton Benger churchyard the widely-held assumption that all gypsies were untrustworthy, despicable rogues. The ‘respectable’ majority all relished their parts in bringing to book this evil little man. It is not hard to feel some sympathy for the gypsy over the way his case was handled, even though the circumstantial evidence would seem to indicate that Buckland was correctly convicted of the crime for which he paid the ultimate price. At best uneducated and at worst mentally deficient, he was left to conduct his own defence with no help or advice from learned counsel. Newspaper reporting in the run-up to the trial was highly prejudicial to the defendant. The medical evidence, and that relating to ownership of the possible murder weapon, was highly suspect, and the only witness was a frightened twelve-year-old girl, startled from her sleep and stumbling around in the dark. It is still possible, today, to appreciate the impenetrable quality of the blackness of a November night as the village street lights, which do not yet extend as far as Brookside Cottage at the foot of Seagry Hill, are turned off around midnight. The truth will never be known, but the question remains: was Edward Buckland the victim of a gross miscarriage of justice, or was he justly convicted despite the short-comings of his trial? References Primary Sources WSRO 2859/1: ‘Account of the Trial &c of John Asher and Edward Buckland who were executed in the Court of the County Gaol of Wilts in Fisherton-Anger, Saturday March 17, 1821, (Easton, Printer, Sarum, 1821). Newspapers and Sermon Bath Herald, 2 December 1820. Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette, 22 March 1821. Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 26 March 1821. Rev Christopher Lipscomb, ‘A Sermon Preached in the Parish Church of Sutton Benger, 18th March 1821, Wiltshire Sermons, vol 2, (Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society Library, Devizes). Books H K Anketell, Collections for a History of Seagry, (Devizes, 1886). W G Hoskins, Local History in England (Longman, 1972). Kilvert’s Diary 1870-1879 (Bracken Books, London, 1992). Journals and Articles W K Griffiths, ‘Edward Buckland,’ Kilvert Society Newsletter. Alessandro Portelli, “The Peculiarities of Oral History,’ History Workshop, no. 12, Autumn 1981, pp 96-107. MURDERAT BROOKSIDE COTTAGE Raphael Samuel, ‘Local History and Oral History,’ History Workshop, no.1, Spring 1976, pp 191-208. Elizabeth Tonkin, ‘Investigating Oral Tradition, Journal of African History, 27 (1986), pp 203-213. D R Woolf, ‘The ‘Common Voice’: History Folklore and Oral Tradition in Early Modern England,’ Past & Present, no. 120, 1988, pp 26-52. Interviews William Mills (1911-1991), a former Sutton Benger churchwarden and member of the P.C.C. The late Dennis Selwood of Seagry. Members of the Sutton Benger WRVS Over 60s Club, c.1990. Notes 1 D R Woolf, ‘The ‘Common Voice’: History Folklore and Oral Tradition in Early Modern England,’ Past & Present, no. 120, 1988, p 30. See also Elizabeth Tonkin, ‘Investigating Oral Tradition, Journal of African History, 27 (1986) pp 203-213, and Alessandro Portelli, “The Peculiarities of Oral History, History Workshop, no. 12, Autumn 1981, pp 96-107. 2 The late Dennis Selwood of Seagry was 76 when he recounted the story, as preserved by his family, to the author in 1989. 3. Kilvert’s Diary 1870-1879, (Bracken Books, London, 1992), entry for 12 Jan 1875, p 221. 4 Information provided by the late William Mills (1911- 1991), a former Sutton Benger churchwarden. 5 W G Hoskins, Local History in England, (Longman, 1972). See also Raphael Samuel, ‘Local History and Oral History, History Workshop, no.1, Spring 1976, pp 191-208. 6 The alleged hanging was only one of the local explanations for the reputation Bell Piece had acquired as a haunted area. Another explanation was that the field had been used, at one time, as a mass burial pit for plague victims. 55 Unsubstantiated reports that human remains were found at the time the housing was built may lend some support to this notion. 7 ‘Account of the Trials &c of John Asher and Edward Buckland who were executed in the Court of the County Gaol of Wilts in Fisherton-Anger, Saturday March 17, 1821, FOR MURDER, (Easton, Printer, Sarum, 1821), WSRO 2859/1. 8 H K Anketell, Collections for a History of Seagry, (Devizes, 1886), pp 49-50. 9 Woolf, “The Common Voice, p 30. 10 Kilvert’s Diary, p 221, and W K Griffiths, ‘Edward Buckland, Kilvert Society Newsletter. 11 Information from the recollections of members of the Sutton Benger WRVS Over 60s Club, c.1990. 12 Bath Herald, 2 December 1820. 13 Devizes & Wiltshire Gazette, 22 March 1821, Salisbury & Winchester Journal, 26 March 1821, and ‘Account of the Trials &c.’ 14 Kilvert’s Diary, p 221. 15 Griffiths, ‘Edward Buckland,’ 16 Bath Herald, 2 Dec 1820. See also Kilvert’s Diary, the Salisbury & Winchester Journal, 26 March 1821, and the Devizes & Wilts Gazette 22 March 1821. 17 The quarries have long gone and the M4 motorway now cuts across this area. 18 ‘Account of the Trials &c.’ 19 Kilvert recorded in his diary, 12 Jan 1875, that Hannah Hatherell remembered Old Ted Buckland. Hannah’s mother was the daughter of magistrate Coleman and, as a child, saw him arrive at their house in Langley Fitzurse wrapped in his blanket fastened with a skewer, p 221. 20 ‘Account of the Trial &c, 21 Ibid. 22 Rev C Lipscomb, ‘A Sermon Preached in the Parish Church of Sutton Benger, 18th March 1821, Wiltshire Sermons, vol 2, (Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, Devizes). 23 Information provided by Dennis Selwood. 56 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Circle of Giovanni Battista Lampi (1751-1830), Portrait of Henry 8th Lord Arundell of Wardour (1740-1808) (by permission of Christie’s Images Ltd, London) Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 94 (2001), pp. 56-67 The Ruin of a Great Wiltshire Estate: Wardour and the Eighth Lord Arundell by Barry Williamson The eighth Lord Arundell is famous as the builder of Wardour Castle, the largest Georgian mansion in Wiltshire with a spectacular Catholic chapel in its west wing. He 1s less well known as the man who inflicted permanent damage on the Arundell estates by amassing one of the largest recorded debts of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. By the time he died in 1808 the family had declined from the ranks of great landowners to those of Wiltshire gentry. Their estates were reduced to one seventh of the size when he inherited in 1756. The new mansion at Wardour was a white elephant, a burden too great for a small estate to bear. The Arundells had owned land at Wardour since 1539 when Thomas Arundell was granted the Wiltshire and Dorset estates of the Benedictine nunnery of Shaftesbury as a reward for his work in the Court of Augmentations, supervising the royal takeover of monastic land.! He bought the Greville’s hexagonal castle at Wardour in 1547 and this remained the family seat until it was blown up in the Civil War in 1644.” The Arundells then became peripatetic, based mainly in London, using an enlarged farmhouse for visits to Wardour and renting mansions in Shropshire and Hampshire at various times.’ By a series of advantageous marriages they built up their wealth and estates until by the time Henry the eighth Lord succeeded to the title in 1756, they were indisputably great landowners. There was still no family seat at ~ Wardour and it fell to Henry to build a great mansion there and, supposedly, in the process to bankrupt the family so seriously that they never recovered. Henry was born in 1740 and educated at St Omer in Belgium because the Penal Laws forbade the provision of Catholic education in England. All Catholics who could afford it were educated abroad. The Arundells belonged to two small élites. They were members of the peerage in which there were only 173 families in 1700. Within that group they belonged to an even more exclusive band, the Catholic peers. There were nineteen in 1700, reduced to six by 1800." It is not easy to assess the wealth of the Arundells in the mid-18th century. There was no central account for estate income, or at least none survives, and even when a full-time accountant was employed in 1778 and he compiled annual ledgers in calf-bound books, the exercise appears to have been as much aesthetic as financial.’ More than with most aristocratic families, the Arundells relied on marriage to augment their wealth. There was no possibility that public office would bring them riches because the Penal Laws excluded all Catholics from such positions. The Arundells must have looked with envy on fellow aristocrats such as the first Marquess of Buckingham who was given, at the age of ten, a Tellership of the Exchequer which involved no work but produced an annual income of over £15,000.° The first significant marriage was that of the fifth lord, Henry’s great grandfather who married in 1691 Elizabeth Panton, daughter of Colonel Panton, the most successful gambler at Charles II’s court.’ He made a fortune playing hazard and basset with the King’s mistresses and possessed the remarkable foresight to invest his winnings in fields at Piccadilly on the edge of London.* Elizabeth Panton became co-heir to this London estate with her brother Thomas. It was an inheritance of only two acres, small Bristol Grammar School, University Road, Bristol BS8 1SR 58 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE me in comparison with the benefits to the Grosvenor family from the marriage of Sir Thomas Grosvenor to Mary Davies a few years previously, but it must have been a useful source of additional income. Unfortunately, there are no records in the family papers of this London estate except for a map that shows its location and extent when half was sold to pay debts in 1810.° Professor Habakkuk confidently asserts, without citing any evidence, that it came into the family’s ownership on the death of Elizabeth’s brother Thomas in 1751.'° If that is correct, it may have prompted the family to consider improvements at Wardour, for they made a contract in 1754 with Capability Brown to survey the park and make plans. He charged £77 9s.1l1d. for ‘five whole days at Wardour, a general Plan and 620 Acres of Land adjoining to the Castle measured and clean Plann’d at 8d an acre.”!! However, nothing was started before the seventh Lord died in 1756. He had made the best marriage of all in 1739 to his distant Cornish cousin Mary Bellings-Arundell. She was co-heiress with her sister Frances of the vast Arundell estates in Cornwall and Attributed to James Maubert (1666-1746), Group Portrait of Henry 5th Lord Arundell (d 1726), his wife Elizabeth Panton and Children (by permission of Christie’s Images Ltd, London) Dorset. In 1752 her sister, Lady Gifford, died childless and Mary became the sole owner of 26 Cornish manors, valuable tin and copper mines and an estate at Chideock in South Dorset. In 1771 the Steward in Cornwall compiled ‘An Account of the Produce of the Cornwall and Chideock estates from Lady Day 1761 to Do 1771’.”” The total income was £55,230 16s. 9d. and out of all the manors Tresithney produced the staggering total of £27,885 2s. 82d. This was the site of the largest of the Cornish copper mines and the Arundells were paid one fifth of the value of all production from the mines. The last important marriage was that of Henry himself. In 1763 he married Mary Conquest, ‘the only sister and heir at law of Benedict Conquest the Younger deceased’.'? She brought to the family about 2,000 acres at Irnham in Lincolnshire and capital of £15,000, ‘much depleted by an uncle who died greatly indebted and in bad circumstances’. When Henry succeeded to the title in 1756 he was only 16 and still at school. He held the title for 52 years and inflicted permanent damage on the economic foundations of the family. It is worth trying to make an assessment THE RUIN OF A GREAT WILTSHIRE ESTATE of the size and value of his estates although there is no evidence in the family papers that he ever attempted to do so:'* Place Size (acres) Income Piccadilly 2 unknown Wiltshire 22,052 £12,546 (1797) N. Dorset 6,599 £ 4, 922 (1797) S. Dorset (Chideock) 3,000 £ 1,190 (1769) Cornwall unknown £ 7,888 (1769) Dues on mines - £ 1,668 (1788) Somerset unknown £ 475 (1785) Lincolnshire 2,000 £ 3,508 (1799) Hampshire 1,684 £ 2,403 (1774) TOTAL 35,337 £34,600 This rough calculation should be viewed with caution but it shows that the total acreage and income were sufficient to put Lord Arundell in the top section of the ‘great landowners’ category. In 1760 Joseph Massie prepared a set of figures showing the ‘Incomes or Expenses’ of all ranks in society.'* At the top were the temporal Lords with an annual income of £20,000 or more and at the bottom the ale-sellers and cottagers with £40 a year. G. E. Mingay, with undoubtedly more accuracy, has calculated that ‘at the end of the eighteenth century there were some 400 families who could be described as great landlords’.'!° They had estates of over 20,000 acres and an income of at least £10,000 a year, enabling them to support a country seat and residence in London for the Season. At this point it is worth mentioning that any attempt to convert 18th-century money into 21st century values is fraught with problems. The Bank of England Index suggests a multiplication of 59 for 1780.'’ Thus Henry’s annual income may have approached £2 million by current values. The scale of his opportunity and of his failure thus become more apparent. What of the man? It is unfortunate that the family - papers appear to have been ‘weeded’ at some stage and most personal letters removed. Henry kept a journal, but only a few transcribed pages for 1787 remain in the archives. He was extremely tall, at least 6ft 6ins according to the sacristan at Wardour, and when he was 18 he set out with his tutor, Father Charles Booth, on the Grand Tour. They were away for over two years, spent time at the courts of Berlin, Vienna and Versailles and Henry had his portrait painted in Rome.'* A simple account book exists for this tour but it is mostly blank pages, a foretaste perhaps of Henry’s problems with money in later life.'? When he arrived home in 1761 his mother wrote to the factotum at Wardour, ‘Old Haylock’: 59 Portman Square London, May 23 1761 Dear Sir I have the pleasure to acquaint you of my son’s arrival last Saturday about four o’clock; he had a very good passage, only about 4 hours, he’s very tall and lofty, but T think I should have known him anywhere; next week he designes going to Salisbury to pay a visit to his Uncles and to go to Wardour for two or three days Just to see the place but not to stay ... for he seems to like not to begin House Keeping at Wardour yet ...”° Five days later she wrote again to Haylock telling him that she had sent by the waggon: ...a dozen Knives and forks, Green handled as also 11 Silver Spoons, for you have one Spoon at Wardour which make up a dozen; as there is not any Knives and forks at Wardour. He was told the box would be at Salisbury that night. On June 3rd Haylock replied: Wardour Madam I had the Honour of your Ladyship’s Letter by Saturday’s Post and have Ever since Honoured with waiting on his Lordship and company or otherways should have answered it before, his Lordship and two Mr Arundells came here Saturday to dine and the Mr Arundells have been here till this Morning, his Lordship set off for Bath in Good Health which pray God continue, he is the finest man I ever saw and is admired by all that saw him, his sweet temper and regular life is such as is justly the admiration of every body and are virtues rare to be found. His Lordship & company never drank more than one Bottle of Wine after Supper and went up every Nights at eleven, rise early in the morning ...*! This brief exchange raises the question of how well the Arundells knew their Wiltshire estates. Unlike most aristocratic families they had no country seat but used an enlarged farmhouse under the south bailey wall of the ruined castle when they visited Wardour. It appears that it was not even fully equipped for visitors. Henry’s mother spent most of her time at their home in Portman Square in London or visiting friends in the country. There is no record that Henry ever visited his Cornish estates although his wife returned to hers at Irnham on several occasions. Henry himself spent his childhood abroad and cannot have been very knowledgeable about English rural life. It all suggests an aristocratic family out of touch with their estates. When Henry came to start his housekeeping at Wardour he was perhaps less aware of the basics of estate management than his contemporaries. He did not employ a trained agent or the professional men called ‘guardians’ who looked after the Holkham estate during Thomas Coke’s minority in the early years of the century.” 60 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Soon after Henry’s marriage in 1763, Reynolds was commissioned to paint full-length portraits of Henry and his wife in peer’s robes with coronets clearly visible. Henry’s looks as if it was difficult for the artist to fit his great height into the canvas and he is leaning on a pillar for support.*> Lady Arundell was a careful and methodical housekeeper. Her account books are detailed and regularly checked and signed.” Both were renowned for their open-hearted hospitality” and it was said of Lady Arundell that she welcomed both Protestants and Catholics to her table. The Catholic community at Wardour was the largest outside London. One of Henry’s weaknesses was procrastination for he found it difficult to be decisive. Richard Woods spent nearly ten years working on the new park at Wardour and refers to Henry as his friend but there are signs of frustration in many of his letters: ‘... nothing more is required to inable Rd. Woods to act with a Proper Athautuity but only Lord A to sign this paper.’”° One other member of the family should be mentioned — Thomas Arundell, Henry’s younger brother, who has all but disappeared from the reference books.*’ He appears to have led a life of debauchery and debt. A bundle of letters survives between Henry and his Uncle Everard who lived in The Close in Salisbury and at Ashcombe across the Downs from Wardour, all concerning the problems of this wayward brother. He was frequently ‘sodden and in jail’ or about to be seized by bailiffs or making promises to reform. In almost all cases Henry took the lenient view and was anxious to help while Uncle Everard was resigned to the tragedy. On one occasion in May 1770 the uncle wrote to the High Sheriff in Winchester where Thomas was living: Sir, As my nephew broke thro’ all his Engagements and Promises you may do as you Please with your execution for casting him in Jail and Tam Sir, Your Humble Servant James Everard Arundell** It is tempting to speculate whether this generation of the Arundells suffered from some sort of compulsive disorder whereby control of personal expenditure became impossible. In 1763 the new Lord and Lady Arundell were determined to live mainly at Wardour and that meant building a country seat as befitted the status of a great landowner. Where did all the money go and what caused the bankruptcy? It has been customary to blame the building of the new mansion at Wardour for all Henry’s financial misfortunes. Unfortunately there are no comprehensive building account books, only miscellaneous cash books, bailiffs’ and household Old Wardour castle as a romantic ruin by P Crocker, early 19th century (Wiltshire & Swindon Record Office). accounts and loose pages headed ‘Accts for Plummer, Locksmith, Glasiers etc.’*? The purpose of the multitude of loans raised in London is never stated in any of the over 250 surviving letters from Henry to his lawyer, John Purser.*® The Arundells were not unusual at this time in the poor quality of their accounts. B. English comments: “The costs of building the country houses of the landowners can rarely be assessed from the surviving estate papers because of the crudity of their accounting systems.”*! Henry’s first major project was the landscaping of the 600-acre Wardour Park with lakes, bridges, grottoes, obelisks, a cold bath and temples. Richard Woods was employed on this work in 1764 and inexplicably dismissed ten years later. The total expenditure was only about £5,000, a small sum compared with income, but the letters from Woods to his ‘very good Imployer and friend’ reveal his exasperation with the payment procedures: 22 March 1770: ‘Cash has all gone and the men cannot be paid... 9 February 1771: ‘... begs his Lordship to transfer £400 at Mr Wright’s shop in Town so bills can be paid.’ 13 July 1771: ‘. . . have given Draughts to each person for thine Bills payable some days after date... but needs the Cash.” After Woods’ dismissal, very little more work was done on the park during Henry’s lifetime. Capability Brown was again engaged in 1773 to draw up a plan and was paid £84 although no work followed.*’ A major expense was undoubtedly the new mansion. Professor Beckett writes: ‘. . . building was regarded as a major cause of financial difficulties for those unwise enough to indulge their fancy.’** In 1769 Henry chose James Paine as the architect and he was paid the customary 5% of the total building costs for making plans and supervising the work.*? His account at Coutts Bank shows he was paid £2,091 5s. 2d. THE RUIN OF A GREAT WILTSHIRE ESTATE between 1771 and 1787* and thus the cost of the carcase of the new castle was only about £41,825, an easily sustainable sum in the context of Henry’s income. What then caused the debt? The answer may lie in the commissions undertaken for Henry in Rome by Father John Thorpe.*’ He acted as agent for the purchase of pictures and other works of art between 1768 and 1792 and played a major role in the design and furnishing of the magnificent Catholic chapel in the west wing. This was the largest and grandest Catholic church erected in England since the Reformation. Thorpe sent back dozens of cases of prints, pictures and inlaid marbles, always ‘having a strict regard to decency’ and interspersed his letters with gossip and flattery such as ‘the Pope never forgets his favourite English peer’. A typical consignment was that of August 1771: 27 parcels of Prints A Madonna from Coreggio Pope Clement XIII by Mengs Jacob’s Journey into Egypt by Poussin A Cardinal holding a crucifix. The result of all these purchases was a house filled with’ great works of art. When the 10th Lord collaborated with Colt Hoare on the history of fh inl ay mem) om ‘@ ia 61 modern Wiltshire in 1829 he listed for visitors to Wardour Castle thirteen rooms filled with paintings by Vernet, Salvator Rosa, Poussin, Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens and Van Dyck.** Unfortunately Henry’s account at Hoare’s Bank shows only irregular payments to Thorpe and they cease in 1781 except for two annual payments of £20 each.*® The total paid to Thorpe through the Bank was only £7,027 and this cannot explain the bankruptcy. The cost of furnishing the chapel is known to have been colossal but the evidence is too fragmentary to be conclusive."” Household expenses were kept well within bounds by the careful Lady Arundell. They totalled £4,000 a year on average between 1774 and 1799,"' by no means an extravagant sum. Mingay comments: “...a total expenditure of £5 or £6,000 a year seems to have been the usual outlay for a great landlord.” Other possibilities can be quickly dismissed: “fast women and slow horses’ have been the downfall of many an aristocrat. Henry was not interested in either. Politics was a closed book, for Henry played no part in national affairs and never even took his seat in the House of Lords, despite the 1791 Catholic Relief Act which made provision for Catholic peers to take an acceptable oath of allegiance. It is perhaps worth S. ee, Sa 2s pact eee ae The new mansion at Wardour drawn by J. P. Neale and published by Jones & Co, Finsbury Square, London, 1830 (WRO) 62 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE listening to the opinion of contemporaries. William Bankes of Kingston Lacy visited the Castle in December 1811, three years after Henry’s death, and wrote to his grandmother: His [the ninth Lord’s] income is still greatly straitened by the enormous debts contracted by his predecessor, principally in building a House quite disproportioned to his fortune and feeding a train of thankless Emigrants.*’ William Bankes was only 25 when he wrote this and his own days of reckless extravagance lay ahead but he must have been aware of the gossip of the day. The ‘Emigrants’ were French Catholic priests who fled to England in the early 1790s rather than take the oath that accompanied the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. There was a mass exodus and about three thousand sought refuge in England." As the leading Catholic peer, Lord Arundell would have been expected to provide assistance and hospitality. This undoubtedly explains why household expenditure doubled in the 1790s. Groups of monks and nuns were settled on the Arundell estates in Cornwall and Dorset? and help was probably given to the setting up of schools such as Downside, Ampleforth and Stonyhurst as priests and nuns returned from the continent. The total cost is not recorded but it may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back." It was hoped that the Arundell account ledgers at Hoare’s Bank would illuminate Henry’s spending. They show a very busy account from 1768 when it was opened until 1800 when the Trustees closed it and Henry was given a small monthly allowance. During those years a total of £240,262 passed through the account, but that is not a colossal sum over more than thirty years and cannot explain the bankruptcy. There was nothing unusual about an aristocrat falling into serious debt. The two were almost synonymous. What was rare was for the debt to cause permanent and irreparable damage to the estate. Henry’s debt was one of the largest recorded in the 18th and early 19th centuries but that in itself does not explain why a misfortune turned into a disaster for the family. The following table shows all the main examples of indebted estates at this period: Date Owner Debt ‘Trustees Sales 1738 Duke of Newcastle £158,000 Yes No” 1740 Viscount Weymouth £130,000 Yes No* 1759 Lord Leicester £90,973 No No” 1780 Duke of Leeds £130,716 Yes No” 1785 Earl Grosvenor £150,000 Yes No?! 1800 Lord Arundell £330,000 = Yes Yes 1809 Duke of Portland £512,000 Yes es? 1822 Thomas Coke £230,000 Yes No” Many of the letters from Henry to John Purser, his lawyer in London, give a clue to the vulnerability of his position. In one letter dated 23 April 1767 he wrote: Dear Sir, I was favour’d with yr letter & am sorry the person does not care to accept of Lives security for his Money, but here sent you an Acct. with wh. [hope he will be satisfied for I find Kingsdon & South Petherton Manors are entirely in my own power & not comprised in my Settlement . . . so hope you will be able to procure me the £2000. The reference to settlement is the heart of the issue. Many aristocrats amassed huge debts but the system of strict settlement was devised to protect their estates from one generation’s profligacy. It was the legal method by which the owner became only guardian of the family property in order to pass it on intact to the next generation.” It was claimed in 1829 that so complex was settlement law that not more than six people in the whole of England could understand it fully.°° Settlements were usually made at the time of the eldest son’s marriage and could encompass only three generations: the father, the son who was marrying and his unborn son. It was assumed that when the heir came of age or married, he would make a new settlement limiting his power to dispose of the estate. The law on settlement was very strict and could be broken only by private Act of Parliament. This arrangement would have worked well if births and deaths had operated mechanically and sons had always married before their fathers died. If they did not, the estate was at risk until another settlement was devised by the heir, because he became the owner in fee simple and the estate was at his disposal. Another major problem was the failure of male issue. In that case the estate reverted to the deviser of the settlement in fee simple and it was his decision whether it should be preserved or not. It was the particular misfortune of the Arundells that within three generations in the 18th century the father died before his elder son came of age and married and the son then failed to produce any male issue. Thus the legal mechanisms which would have protected the estate from one incumbent’s folly or extravagance failed to operate and the estate lay ripe for plunder. Every London money-lender must have rubbed his hands in anticipation. This process of settlement failure can be traced in the genealogy of the mid-18th century Arundells. In 1739 a settlement was made on the marriage of Henry, later to become seventh Lord, and Mary Arundell, the heiress from Lanherne. All the family estates were to go to the first and thereafter the other THE RUIN OF A GREAT WILTSHIRE ESTATE 63 The new mansion at Wardour drawn by J. P. Neale and published by Jones & Co, Finsbury Square, London, 1830 (WRO) sons of the intended marriage ‘in tail male’.*’ The father, the sixth Lord, was alive and signed the settlement. The marriage produced two sons and the bridegroom lived to succeed to the title and estates in 1746. This was a settlement at its most classically simple. By the time Henry came to make his own marriage settlement in February 1763 the situation was very different. He had inherited the estates as ‘tenant in tail’ at the age of 16 on the early death of his father but he had ‘barred such estate tail and gained to himself a good present estate of freehold in fee simple’.** His marriage settlement simply stated that the estates should pass to the ... first and other sons of the marriage successively according to seniority in Tail Male on the Body of the same Mary Conquest and to the Heirs Male of the Body of such son or sons .. . and for default of such Issue to the Use and Behest of such person and persons as the said Lord Arundell shall specify by any deed or deeds, writing or writings under his Hand and Seal duly executed. In other words, the estates were only protected if Henry’s marriage produced a son. There was no mention of his mother’s vast Cornish estates because she was still alive. When she died in 1769 she left them to Henry ‘in fee simple’ and they never thereafter formed part of his settlement.* They were free for him to dispose of as he wished. By 1783 three daughters had been born but no son. In January 1783 before setting out on a prolonged European tour, Henry made his will®’ and recognised the failure of his settlement provisions. He made use of the freedom to dispose of his estates and decided to leave ‘all manors, Lands, Tenements and Hereditaments to my dear wife’ — in other words the estates were separated from the title which would go to a cousin. Little could Henry have known that when he died twenty-five years later all his estates would be in the hands of Trustees and even his monetary legacies to servants could not be paid. There is no comprehensive record of Henry’s debts, but there are indications that he was borrowing on a scale beyond normal from the 1760s. In the bundle of papers labelled ‘Mortgages’ there are ten for the period 1673 to 1756 but thirty-nine for the years when Henry was head of the family.°! There were no annuities taken out before 1775 but fifteen between 1775 and 1806.” Angier’s account books 64 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE for the Wardour estate record the growing burden of interest payments. In 1778-9 interest payments on loans were 6% of income. In 1786-7 they were 11% and in 1794-5,51%.°* This still does not amount to a crisis. That point is reached only when the interest and other debt payments exceed income and sales have to take place. The Marquess of Ailesbury piled up massive debts in the building of Tottenham Park in the 1820s, and his estate was placed in the hands of Trustees in 1832 when debt interest payments exceeded income.” Henry’s ledger entries at Hoare’s Bank show that a crisis was approaching. There were about fifteen interest payments a year in the 1770s but in the 1790s over seventy. It is perhaps worth considering at this stage how the estates were administered and how they reacted to the debt problem. It might be thought that a heavily indebted estate would drive the landlord to make improvements in order to produce higher profits. The Wardour records do not show any evidence of this. The amount of rent in arrears remained high and reached a peak of £4,334 in 1792 compared with an average annual income of £5,417.” An energetic Jandlord would have worked to reduce the arrears as did the agent on the Leveson-Gower estates in the 1740s and 1750s.°° Secondly, as agricultural prices began to rise after 1750, efficient landlords changed their leasing policy so that they could benefit as much as tenant farmers. The old system was to grant leases for three lives, collect entry fines from each new life and charge very low rent. A better system was to convert to tenancies ‘at will’ whereby tenants paid a full economic rent called a rack rent. Thus rents could keep pace with profits and improvements could be encouraged by husbandry covenants. This system was used on the Holkham estate in the later 18th century and thus the estate became strong enough to survive the massive debts of Coke of Norfolk.°’ In contrast, the Wardour account books show fines in the 1790s to be higher than during the two previous decades and rack or economic rents were only levied on 2,452 of the 22,052 acres of the estate.°* Nevertheless this 11% of the acreage brought in 37% of the total income. It seems extraordinary that Lord Arundell had not realised the necessity of a more energetic conversion to rack rents. Perhaps a childhood spent in London and abroad made him detached from mundane agricultural improvements? In a third respect the Arundell estates were backward. A great estate scattered through several counties was a complex business organisation. Efficiency in administration was essential but rare at this time. Lord Arundell appears to have acted as his Map to show the location of all the Arundell estates, c1770. own chief steward at Wardour using Haylock, Cresswell and Brent as agents. Thomas Catton was the agent in Cornwall but there is no evidence as to how he was supervised from Wardour, if at all. Annual accounts from Cornwall were presented on a large quarto page and simply signed ‘Arundell’.°’ James Knight was the agent in South Dorset and Somerset. Thirty-seven letters survive from him to Lord Arundell, written between April 1798 and December 1801.” The contents are almost exclusively concerned with Henry’s pleas to Knight to provide loans and ward off creditors. There is never any mention of agricultural improvement or commercial efficiency. It is clear that Henry used Knight more as a credit broker than an estate agent, begging him to delay repayment of loans, to take out new loans whenever possible and to pay the ‘Quarterly Annuitants’ out of his own pocket. Knight’s letters are increasingly desperate, such as this on 15 June 1801. What can I do my Lord? I have not the money and have assured you I will not Borrow it. I have lost my Credit nearly by borrowing and applying to my Friends for Money for your Use and if you are determined my Lord to go on contracting of Debts without thinking of payment you must think me worse than a Brute to ruin my own children to pay your Debts. I therefore shall stedfastly fulfill what I promised in my last and Nothing shall make me deviate from it. THE RUIN OFA GREAT WILTSHIRE ESTATE Careless estate management was not inevitable. Two studies of 18th-century estates throw light on the possibilities that were open to Lord Arundell. R.A.C. Parker has studied the Coke estate centred on Holkham in Norfolk. In 1707 the Trustees introduced an Audit Account which became an annual feature for two centuries. Charge and Discharge columns showed the exact financial position each year and 15% of gross income was invested each year in repairs and improvements. ‘Efficient management was axiomatic. No financial stringency ever led to skimping on the estate.” The result was that rents rose steadily (by 44% between 1720 and 1759) and the estate was on such a firm basis that it could survive almost any strain, even the building of anew mansion costing nearly £100,000 in the 1740s, and even Coke of Norfolk’s debts of £230,000 in the early 19th century. A crucial role was played latterly by the steward Francis Blaikie who was an efficient administrator and passionate improver. He wrote in December 1816 to the estate solicitor: ‘... nothing gives me much greater pleasure than when I hear the word Finished pronounced as applied to legal and official business’.’” There was no Blaikie equivalent at Wardour. In another study J.R. Wordie examined the 18th-century Leveson-Gower estates. Thomas Gibet was Chief Agent from 1758 to 1788. He raised rental income by 95% on the Trentham estate and changed from a permissive to an entrepreneurial role in relation to industrial development. Earl Gower’s savings were invested in canals, turnpikes, coal mines and blast furnaces. The result was that the contribution of industrial sources to estate income rose from 8% in 1730 to 27% in 1813.” There is no evidence that the Arundell tin and copper mines in Cornwall were fully exploited. A succession of competent land agents in Wiltshire and Cornwall might have produced an estate strong enough to weather the storm when it finally ~ erupted in 1802. In 1801 the Wardour accounts show interest payments on debts were £10,000 more than annual income.” There is a bundle of letters from angry creditors, for example in August 1802 from J. Hall: As I took the Liberty of writeing some time back uppon a Subject that whe both well no in the Behalf of an Injured Old Man, where all growing old you no my Lord and I think you ought to be Made Asshamed in some public Court of Justice... I wish that time was to come again where I would make you more asshamed than ever you was...” Within three years Henry had lost control of all his estates. 65 On 27 May 1802 a Trust Deed was signed and sealed at Ugbrooke, Lord Clifford’s mansion.’° The Cornish and Dorset estates were handed over to Henry’s sons-in-law James Everard Arundell and Lord Clifford. A similar Trust Deed a year later conveyed the Wiltshire and North Dorset estates to the same people.’ The plan was that the Trustees should have the power to sell or mortgage the estates to pay Lord Arundell’s debts which amounted to a total of £327,623, the highest recorded aristocratic debt to date. Piecemeal sales had started in the 1780s but now all the Cornish estates were sold and all the Wardour estates except six manors, which comprised the land Henry had settled on his elder daughter at her marriage to her cousin in 1785. The total estate was reduced to about 15% of its former size, Henry’s personal account at Hoare’s Bank was closed and a new account opened. There are very few entries in this account during the next eight years and it is perhaps a measure of Henry’s desperation that several payments were for lottery tickets. A drowning man clutches at any straw. Most Trusts succeeded in saving aristocratic estates from ruin. For example the Ailesbury Trust bailed out the first Marquess, deeply in debt in the 1820s from expenditure on Tottenham Park and the Trustees handed on the estates intact. The problem at Wardour was that the debts were massive before the Trustees took over and most of the land was out of settlement. In addition, Wardour failed to throw up a parsimonious heir such as was the salvation of the estates of the dukes of Bedford, Portland and Devonshire. There was no equivalent at Wardour of the seventh Duke of Bedford who restored the family fortunes by meticulous attention to financial details — he even checked the number of half-used candles wasted at Woburn.’* When Henry died in 1808 all his remaining estates were left to his widow. She in turn left her Lincolnshire estate to Lord Clifford and the Wardour estate to her grandson who eventually became the tenth Lord in 1817.” Sales continued — in 1810 half the London estate and in 1814 the whole of the Ashcombe estate which the ninth Lord inherited from his mother, the heiress Anne Wyndham. Family legend blames the ninth Lord’s second marriage (to a Protestant) as the rock on which the Arundell ship finally foundered. He made generous allowances for his nine children and his widow, but no accounts survive for this expenditure.*° The tenth Lord was an even greater liability. He was neither parsimonious nor careful. Several bundles of his letters have been opened recently for the first time and a simple phrase occurs again and again: 66 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE ‘trying to pay grandfather’s bills’.*' He did not succeed because he could not curb his own spending on such things as Gothic cottages and the Terrace ride in the park. He was foolish enough to take financial advice from his brother-in-law, the first Duke of Buckingham, who dragged his own estates into the most spectacular bankruptcy of the mid-19th century.** A second Arundell bankruptcy was inevitable. James Everard, 10th Lord Arundell (1785-1834) (WRO) In June 1825 the tenth Lord’s creditors met in London and agreed to accept 13s. 4d. in the pound as settlement for his debts.*’ More land was sold including Place Farm at Tisbury with its famous tithe barn.™! Everard decided to quit Wardour for good, demolish the whole mansion except for the chapel and live abroad. He and his wife spent five years in France and Italy between 1826 and 1834, avoiding creditors and living cheaply. The mansion was not demolished and in 1826 they heard that Earl Grosvenor might take a lease on it, but the agent in Shaftesbury wrote to say that a Mr Mortimer had shown more interest. Lord Arundell replied: ‘I cannot accede to it. lam humbled but not so low as to put a Scotch weaver in my House. Sooner shall it fall piecemeal to ruin.’*’? Even in times of crisis and despair, aristocratic pride came before commercial sense. Lord Arundell died in Rome in June 1834. Thereafter the Arundells were more akin to Wiltshire squires than great landowners. The mansion became increasingly difficult to maintain from the meagre resources of the estate. John Bateman’s survey of 1876 shows how far the Arundells had fallen in comparison with other great Wiltshire landowners.*° Landowner Acres Annual value Earl of Pembroke 44,806 £ 77,720 Marquess of Bath 55,574 £ 68,015 Marquess of Lansdowne 142,916 £, 62,025 Marquess of Ailesbury 55,051 £ 59,716 Lord Arundell 6,219 £9,174 The tenth Lord Arundell’s brother-in-law Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, first Duke of Buckingham, amassed larger debts than Henry’s. When he died in 1839 his widow was asked how he had fallen so badly in debt. She replied: ‘He was hospitable and charitable and was very expensive in his usual habits’. She could think of no other explanation. The Economist commented a few years later that the Duke was ‘neither a gambler, a drunkard nor a profligate’.*’ So it was with Henry. His debts just grew and the absence of strict settlement protection left his estates extremely vulnerable to plunder and ruin. It was a fatal combination. Notes 1 David Lunn, The Catholic Elizabethans (Downside Abbey, 1997), 11. 2 R. B. Pugh and A.D. Saunders, Old Wardour Castle (English Heritage, 1988). 3 Sutton Park in Worcestershire and Breamore in Hampshire. 4 J. Cannon, Aristocratic Century (Cambridge University Press, 1984), 10. 5 Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office (hereafter WRO) 2667/12/151, 154, 155: Angier’s Wardour estate account books 1778-1796. 6 J. V. Beckett, The Rise and Fall of the Grenvilles (Manchester University Press, 1994), 84-8. 7 Her portrait was acquired recently by the Tate Gallery, London. Theophilus Lucas, Memoirs of the Lives, Intrigues and Comical Adventures of the most Famous Gamesters (London, 1714). 9 WRO 2667/24/6, map of London estate. 10 J. Habakkuk, Marriage, Debt and the Estates System (Oxford University Press, 1994), 690. 11 WRO 2667/20/Box 2, Capability Brown’s account. 12 Cornwall Record Office (hereafter CRO) AR/8/146: receipts from manors. 13 WRO 2667/4/81, marriage settlement. (oe) THE RUIN OF A GREAT WILTSHIRE ESTATE 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Collated from CRO AR/8/152 and 209, WRO 2667/11/ 169, 178 and 157. Joseph Massie, A Computation of the Money .. ., analysed in P. Mathias, The Transformation of England (Methuen, 1979). G. E. Mingay, English Landed Society in the 18th Century (Routledge, 1963), 116. Equivalent Contemporary Values of the Pound: A Historical Series 1270 to 2000 (Bank of England, October 2000). Sold at Christie’s, London on Thursday 8 June 1995. WRO 2667/12/211, Charles Booth’s journal. WRO 2667/20/Box 1, family letters. Ibid. R. A. C. Parker, Coke of Norfolk: a financial and agricultural study 1707-1842 (Oxford University Press, 1975), 12. His portrait is now in the Dayton Art Institute, Ohio and hers is in the San Antonio Museum of Art, Texas. 24 WRO 2667/12/148 and 150, household account books. 25 26 ith 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 S. Oliver, Collections Illustrating the History of the Catholic Religion (London, 1857), 88. WRO 2667/20/Box 2, Richard Woods’ letters. He is not mentioned in Burke’s Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage (105th edition, 1970). WRO 2667/20/Box 6, letters. WRO 2667/12/151, 154 and 155, accounts. WRO 2667/20/Files 18 to 25, Purser’s letters. B. English, The Great Landowners of East Yorkshire 1530-1910 (Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990), 228. WRO 2667/20/Box 2, Richard Wood’s letters. WRO 2667/21/12, Brown’s plan. J. V. Beckett, The Aristocracy in England 1660-1914 (Basil Blackwell, 1986), 333. I am grateful to Dr Peter Leach, author of James Paine (A Zwemmer, 1988) for explaining to me how architects calculate their fees. Coutts’ Bank, 440 Strand, London, ledgers 57 to 85. WRO 2667/20/Box 3, Thorpe’s letters. James Everard, Baron Arundell and Sir Richard Colt Hoare, The History of Modern Wiltshire (London, 1829). Hoare’s Bank, 37 Fleet Street, London, ledgers 77 to 114. I am grateful to Lord Talbot of Malahide for allowing me to see the eighth Lord’s accounts at the bank. Alistair Rowan, Wardour Castle Chapel, Country Life, 10 October 1968. WRO 2667/12/152, household accounts. Mingay, Landed Society, 161. Dorset Record Office D/BKL:HG, William Bankes’ letters. D.A. Bellenger, The French Exiled Clergy in the British Isles after 1789 (Downside Abbey, 1986). 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 D3, 54 55 56 ii 58 67 Lanherne was made over to Carmelite nuns from Antwerp and Coombe House in Donhead to Carthusians from Normandy. Iam very grateful to J. A. Williams, author of Catholic Recusancy in Wiltshire 1660-1791 for this explanation. Habakkuk, Marriage, 323. Ibid. 325. R. A. C. Parker, Coke of Norfolk, 26. Habakkuk, Marriage, 312. Beckett, Aristocracy, 304. Ibid. 304. Parker, Coke of Norfolk, 130. WRO 2667/20/Files 18 to 25, Purser’s letters. Habakkuk, Marriage, 29-59. English, The Great Landowners, 101. WRO 2667/4/75, 1739 marriage settlement. WRO 2667/4/81, 1763 marriage settlement. 59 WRO 2667/8/43, will of Dowager Lady Arundell, 1769. 60 61 62 63 64 WRO 26067/8/46, will of Henry eighth Lord. WRO 2667/6, mortgage papers. WRO 2667/7, annuities papers. WRO 2667/12/151-155, estate account books. F. M. L. Thompson, ‘English Landownership: the Ailesbury Trust 1832-1856’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, vol.11 (1), 1958, 121-32. 65 WRO 2667/12/151, 154, 155 and 179, Angier’s account 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 id 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 books. J. R. Wordie, Estate Management in 18th century England (Royal Historical Society, 1982), 29-32. Parker, Coke of Norfolk, 53. WRO 2667/12/155, account books. For example CRO AR/8/209, steward’s accounts. WRO 2667/20/Box 6, Knight’s letters. Parker, Coke of Norfolk, 22. Ibid. 136. Wordie, Estate Management, 274. WRO 2667/12/36, bailiff’s accounts. WRO 2667/20/Box 8, letters. CRO AR/1/901/4, trust deed, 1802. WRO 2667/5/23, trust deed, 1803. D. Spring, The English Landed Estate in the 19th Century: its administration (Baltimore, 1963), 29. WRO 2667/8/57, Lady Arundell’s will, 1812. Evidence conveyed to me by the Hon Mrs Isabel Fagan, sister of the sixteenth and last Lord Arundell. WRO 2667/20, letters (unsorted). J. V. Beckett, The Rise and Fall of the Grenvilles (Manchester University Press, 1994), passim. WRO 2667/20/Box 1, creditors’ meeting. WRO 2667/22/Box 8, sale details. WRO 2667/20, letters. John Bateman, The Great Landowners of Great Britain and Ireland (1876). Beckett, The Rise, 200. 68 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Ss — Church & a Swindon Chippenham R ; Marlborough Trowbridge @ Devizes Salisbury $U09700 Post-Medieval features $U09720 09730 0 10m Fig. 1. Location of site within (A) Wiltshire and (B) Wilton, and plan of excavation (C) Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 94 (2001), pp. 68-74 The Excavation of Medieval and Post-Medieval Features at 3 Kingsbury Square, Wilton by Kate Taylor! with contributions by Sheila Hamilton-Dyer and Jane Timby An excavation at Kingsbury Square, Wilton, located a number of intercutting pits and a wall. Of these, seven could be dated to the 12th century but were heavily truncated by later features. A large assembly of 12th—13th century pottery was mostly redeposited 1n the later contexts but, interestingly, no Saxon material was recovered despite the position of the site in Kingsbury Square, reputedly the location of the Saxon royal palace — hence ‘King’s burh’. INTRODUCTION An archaeological excavation was carried out in advance of the construction of a swimming pool in the grounds of 3 Kingsbury Square, Wilton, Wiltshire (SU 0971 3117) (Figure 1).The site lies on the valley floor close to the confluence of the rivers Wylye and Nadder, at a height of 54m OD. The underlying geology is valley gravel. An earlier 2m by 2m hand dug evaluation trench on the site (ASI 1999) identified relatively deep stratified deposits of 18th—19th century and late Medieval date. It was, therefore, proposed that the late Medieval deposits be investigated to at least the depth of the base of the pool prior to construction work. The excavation was carried out in April and May 1999 to a specification approved -by Helena Cave-Penny, Assistant County Archaeologist for Wiltshire. The site code is KSQ99/ 26 and the archive will be deposited with Salisbury Museum. Wilton was an important Saxon town, the capital of the shire and the home of the royal mint. The name ‘Kingsbury’ is thought to have developed from the King’s burh, a Saxon defended settlement (Haslam 1976, 90), and it has been postulated that this may be the location of the heart of royal Saxon Wilton. The town continued to thrive in the Medieval period although its importance declined following the building of a new bridge at Salisbury in 1244. Little archaeological work has taken place within the town although recent excavations (Andrews et al. 2000) have examined a section of the Saxon defences at the north-west of the town as well as late Saxon and Medieval deposits in the south. THE EXCAVATION The 4.0m by 8.5m swimming pool was excavated using a 360° machine fitted with a toothless bucket. Modern topsoil and garden features were removed to a depth of c. 0.9m to reveal the top of the archaeological deposits, which only consisted of features cutting the natural gravel. These features comprised a large number of intercutting pits, two postholes, a wall and a possible floor surface. The presence of relatively modern material such as slate, combined with the pottery and stratigraphic evidence, allowed 14 pits to be dated to the 18th century or later, although they contained a considerable amount of residual Medieval pottery (Figure 1). No further work was done on these later features except to allow access to earlier deposits. The seven pits and two postholes containing exclusively Medieval material were for the most part "Thames Valley Archaeological Services, 47-9 De Beauvoir Road, Reading, RG1 5NR 70 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE heavily truncated by later activity (Figure 1). Some of the pits were intercutting, demonstrating that they were not all contemporary. The plan of the pits was mostly obscured but they were generally large, steep- sided and cut at least 0.60m deep into the gravel. Immediately to the north and east of the remains of a wall (see below), a large feature was revealed to be considerably deeper. However, as this was to be preserved in-situ below the formation level of the swimming pool, little further investigation took place. The pottery assemblage from these features suggests a date in the 12th century. The only structural element on the site was a wall 0.70m wide. It did not survive above the top of the natural gravel but was 0.80m deep within the construction cut. The east face was of dressed limestone blocks with flint rubble packing behind; there was no evidence of a west face at this level. No datable material was recovered from the construction cut fill but the wall is stratigraphically later than three of the pits and cut by late post-Medieval features at the northern end. A small patch of the natural silty gravel, truncated on three sides by both Medieval and post-Medieval features, appeared to have worn chalk pressed into its surface. It also contained charcoal flecks as well as two pieces of bone and a piece of worked limestone, but no datable material. This may have been a deliberately laid surface. THE FINDS Pottery by Jane Timby Some 852 sherds (19.8kg) of pottery dating to the Medieval and post-Medieval periods were recovered. An additional 72 sherds (1.6kg) from the preceding evaluation have been reported separately (Mepham 1999). There were no wares of Saxon currency present in the group. Pottery from the post-Medieval/modern period was selectively retained so this note focuses on the Medieval wares which comprise some 95% of the material. Full details of the assemblage can be found in the pottery archive. METHODOLOGY The sherds were sorted into fabric classes and where appropriate were coded according to the regional fabric series established at Salisbury (Trust for Wessex Archaeology) (cf. Mepham 2000a, b). Vessel forms follow the recommended nomenclature for Medieval pottery (MPRG 1998) and the Salisbury vessel type series (cf. Mepham 2000a; Underwood and Mepham nd.). A sherd count and weight were made for each recorded context and a number of vessels selected for illustration (Figures 2—3). The material was recovered from a total of 23 features and six separate contexts, most of which date to the post-Medieval period with a small number of underlying Medieval cuts (see Table 1). MEDIEVAL WARES Much of the Medieval pottery was residual in later features but, despite this, it is noteworthy for its relatively tight chronology and good preservation, reflected in an overall average sherd size of 23gm.The group is dominated by the vessels of a single production source. Most of the wares can be described as Laverstock- types (Salisbury fabric code E420-E422), comparable to the products of the 13th century Laverstock kilns excavated on the edge of Clarendon Forest, east of Salisbury (Musty et al. 1969). In total these wares account for 70% by count of the Medieval material. The coarsewares, E422 (subdivided in the basis of inclusion size into a) coarse, b) medium and c) fine), include jars, bowls, including West Country-types, jugs/pitchers, a possible crucible, a possible curfew handle and a single sherd from a moneybox. The jars include some cooking pots evidenced by sooting. Several examples have scratch-marked surfaces and occasional thumbing on the rims. At least one tripod pitcher foot is present and several other probable examples are represented by rim and handle fragments. The fine wares (E420 for iron-free fabrics, E421 for iron-rich fabrics) mainly feature as decorated glazed jugs, and a single lamp. The remaining 30% of the Medieval material (see Table 1) comprises a coarse angular flint-tempered ware, probably Kennet Valley ware (fabric E441); a micaceous coarseware containing variable amounts of flint, rounded quartz and occasional calcareous inclusions generally referred to as West Wiltshire micaceous ware (fabric E428); Naish Hill glazed ware; and a few miscellaneous sandy and other wares. At least 59 sherds are present from a single bowl, the glaze and fabric of which suggest that it is Tudor Green ware (15th—16th century) from the Surrey industries. EXCAVATION OF MEDIEVAL AND POST-MEDIEVAL FEATURES AT 3 KINGSBURY SQUARE, WILTON 71 Table 1: Summary of Medieval wares Medieval Contexts Post-Medieval Contexts Fabric Description No. Wt. No. Wt. E420 Laverstock-type fineware: iron free 0 0 12 796 E421 Laverstock-type fineware: iron rich 1 3 87 2783 E422a Laverstock-type coarseware: coarse 26 416 26 1902 E422a/b Laverstock-type coarseware: med-coarse 34 323 133 2797 E422b Laverstock-type coarseware: medium 42 641 183 5752 E422b/c Laverstock coarseware: medium-fine 4 88 1 7 E422c Laverstock coarseware: fine 0 0) 8 81 E428 West Wiltshire micaceous, flint/quartz/calc 109 710 42 571 ?E441 Kennet Valley ware 0 0 34 MEDSY Medieval miscellaneous sandy 5 45 il 5 NASH Nash Hill ware 0 0 6 81 TUDGR Tudor Green ware 0 0 59 529 MISC Medieval miscellaneous 4 274 12 314 TOTAL 225) 2500 DIZ, 15652 DATE 3. Large handmade jar, fabric E428. Finely micaceous The material from the exclusively Medieval contexts shows almost equal proportions of West Wiltshire micaceous plain wares and Laverstock-type coarsewares. Glazed finewares are scarce. Evidence from Warminster suggests that West Wiltshire wares date back to the 11th century overlapping with Laverstock-types in the 12th—13th centuries. Other sequences from Wilton have also demonstrated the presence of Laverstock-type wares prior to the known date range of the excavated kilns, suggesting an earlier phase to the industry. On balance a date in the 12th century may be appropriate for these Medieval features. The material from the post-Medieval features includes wares of more typical 13th century date. The continued accumulation of material beyond this date is illustrated by the presence of the 15th/1 6th century Tudor Green bow] and into the post-Medieval period with wares such as Verwood, Horton, English and imported stonewares, and industrial white _earthenwares. CATALOGUE OF ILLUSTRATED VESSELS (Figures 2 and 3) Note: Type numbers refer to the Salisbury vessel type series (cf Mepham 2000a). 1. Handmade jar, fabric [428] with sparse flint. Light- brownish grey in colour with a grey core. [224] (289). 2. Everted rim pitcher, ?partly wheelmade. The body is decorated with a single tooled wavy-line and has a green glaze below the rim. Finely micaceous red-brown fine sandy fabric of West Wiltshire type. Source unknown. [223] (287). 10. 12. 13. 14. 15. with sparse flint, quartz and calcareous inclusions. Grey to light brown in colour. [215] (271). Jar with a beaded rim. The grey fabric has a dark green external glaze. Fabric E422b. [215] (271). Handmade cooking pot, Salisbury type 3 with a thumb- pressed rim. Sooted on the exterior rim zone. Fabric E428. Dark brown surfaces with a grey core. [204] (255). Handmade cooking pot, type 1, sooted on the exterior body below the rim. Scratch-marked surface. Fabric E422a/b. Brown-black surfaces with a dark grey core. [204] (263). Handmade jar, type 3 with a thumb-pressed rim. Scratch-marked. Fabric E422a. Pinkish-brown surfaces with a mid-grey inner core with dark orange-pink margins. [204] (263). Handmade jar, type 2 with scratch-marked exterior. Fabric E422a. Light grey exterior and core with pinkish- grey interior. [204] (263). Handmade bowl/dish, type 4. Fabric E422b. Red-brown to black exterior, black interior and core. [204] (255). Handmade bowl/dish, type 3. Fabric E422a/b. Brown surfaces with a mid-grey core. [204] (262). . Carinated bowl with an interior mid-green glaze. From the Surrey border industries and probably within the Tudor Green range. Sooted exterior. [204] (255). Jug, type 3, decorated around the rim with applied, stamped pads. Fabric E421. The surfaces are covered in a dark green glaze over a grey fabric with pinkish surfaces. [206] (257). Jug, type 2. The rod handle has incised herring-bone decoration. Patchy yellow-green glaze. Fabric E421. [209] (264). Jug, type 2, with a rod handle. External motiled dark green glaze. Fabric E421. [209] (264). Handmade jar, type 3, with an intermittently thumbed rim. Scratch-marked surfaces. Fabric E422b. Dark orange exterior, pink-brown interior, grey core. [209] (264). THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE ill) Ly 100 Fig. 2. Pottery, 1-14 (see text for detail) EXCAVATION OF MEDIEVAL AND POST-MEDIEVAL FEATURES AT 3 KINGSBURY SQUARE, WILTON 23 to) 100 Fig. 3. Pottery 15-23 (see text for detail) 73 74 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 16. Handmade, unglazed jug with a simple pulled spout and strap handle. Fabric E422a. Black interior with a red-brown exterior. [214] (269). 17. Large, handmade handle jug/pitcher. Fabric E422a. Light grey interior, darker grey exterior. [211] (268). 18. Handmade jar, type 3. Fabric E422a/b. Red-brown with a light grey core. [219] (276). 19. Handmade jar, type 3. Fabric E422b. Dark grey with a red-brown core. [219] (276). 20. Handmade jar, type 1 with scratch-marked surfaces. Fabric E422a. Orange-brown surfaces with a mid-grey core. [219] (286). 21. Rod handle from a jug decorated with impressed ring- and-dot and partially glazed. Fabric E421. (122). 22. Rim fragment from a lamp with an internal mottled yellow-green glaze. E420. (122). 23. Wheelmade bow] with a green glaze on the upper exterior surface and ridge. Orange-brown sandy ware with a light grey inner core. Local late Medieval earthenware. (122). Animal Bone by Sheila Hamilton-Dyer A total of 149 bones from Medieval contexts was recorded. The condition of the material is generally good. The majority of the bones identified to taxon are of the expected main domestic ungulates; cattle, sheep and pig. Horse is also present and dog is indicated by gnawing. Birds are represented by a few bones of domestic fowl and goose. Remains of wild resources are absent, at least in this small sample. Of the 37 bones that showed butchery marks, three had marks made with knives, the remainder had been chopped by heavy bladed implements. Many fragments are of meat bones, although the animals are mainly mature and, therefore, not animals killed at prime meat age but after contributing secondary products such as milk and wool. A full report and catalogue is available in the site archive. Other Finds The other, mostly residual, finds from the site include: three undiagnostic prehistoric struck flints (adentified by Steve Ford); 79 pieces of Medieval and post- Medieval brick and tile (identified by Nicola Powell); a late Saxon or Medieval honestone of Norwegian Ragstone and two pieces of worked lmestone (identified by David Williams); and a heavily corroded copper alloy dish of Medieval or later date (identified by David Sim). CONCLUSION This small excavation has provided evidence of considerable Medieval activity on this site and in the vicinity. Whilst the excavated Medieval features date to the 12th century the large quantity of residual 13th century pottery in the later features suggests continued development nearby. The total absence of Saxon material in what was thought to be the heart of the town at this time may indicate that this area remained an open space until the 12th century. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author would like to thank Peter and Sandy Borchert, Architectural Design Consultants, who commissioned the project; Alan Ford for assistance with the fieldwork; Melanie Hall for editing the publication report and Leigh Torrance for preparing the CAD illustrations; and Phil Andrews for providing information prior to publication. Jane Timby would like to thank Lorraine Mepham for looking at some of the wares and also providing her with information prior to publication. Bibliography ANDREWS, P., MEPHAM, L. and SEAGER-SMITH, R., 2000, ‘Excavations in Wilton, 1995-6: St John’s Hospital and South Street’, WANHM 93, 181-204 ASI, 1999, No. 3 Kingsbury Square, Wilton, Wiltshire (ASI 3105), archaeological evaluation. Unpublished report HASLAM, J., 1976, Wiltshire Towns: The Archaeological Potential, Devizes. Devizes: WANHS MEPHAM, L., 1997, ‘Medieval pottery’, in R W Smith, Excavations at Emwell Street, Warminster: The Early Economy and Environment of a Wiltshire Market Town, 20-32. Salisbury: Wessex Archaeology MEPHAM, L., 1999, Pottery for AS13105: Kingsbury Square, Wilton (archive assessment report) MEPHAM, L., 2000a, ‘Pottery’, in M. Rawlings, ‘Excavations at Ivy Street and Brown Street, Salisbury, 1994’, WANHM 93, 29-37 MEPHAM, L., 2000b, ‘Pottery’, in P. Andrews, L. Mepham and R. Seager-Smith, ‘Excavations in Wilton, 1995-6: St John’s Hospital and South Street’, WANHM 93, 191- 196 MPRG, 1998, A Guide to the Classification of Medieval Ceramic Forms. Medieval Pottery Research Group Occasional Paper 1 MUSTY, J., ALGAR, D.J., and EWENCE, P.F., 1969, “The medieval pottery kilns at Laverstock, near Salisbury, Wiltshire’, Archaeologia 102, 83-150 UNDERWOOD, C., and MEPHAM, L., nd, ‘The pottery’, in J W Hawkes, Excavations in Salisbury 1984-1990. Wessex Archaeology report Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 94 (2001), pp. 75-87 Cotton Wadding: Marlborough College and the Path to War by Brian Edwards The violence and savagery of the ‘Great Rebellion’ at Marlborough College in 1851 led not only to the Master’s resignation and the threat of closure, but more significantly to a radical and highly influential regime of discipline devised by George Cotton, Master 1852-8. By emphasising the perceived virtues of manliness, muscular Christianity and chivalry, whereby the character of the English gentleman was moulded, and by exalting the importance of organized games, the prefect and house systems, and the forerunners of the Officers’ Training Corps, Cotton’s reforms proved highly successful. So widely were they admired that, under Cotton’s successors, the ethos which had been developed at Marlborough, with all its religious, heroic and militaristic overtones, was emulated throughout Victorian and Edwardian public school life. Those imbued with such attitudes embraced enthusiastically the prospect of fighting the Great War in 1914, with tragic consequences. Cotton, George Edward Lynch. Master of Marlborough College 1852-1858. wadding (wodin) n. a mass of soft material placed in front of powder and shot, often made of cotton... INTRODUCTION The connection between the public school ethos and the obsessive enthusiasm that encouraged 750,000 men to volunteer in the first two days of the ‘war that will be over by Christmas’, is a subject familiar to many historians.' Paul Parker, presented his research in The Old Lie: The Great War and the Public School Ethos (1987), Robert Wohl, in The Generation of 1914 (1979), and Jay Winter, in The Great War and the British People (1986). In a more generalised work covering the broader effects of nineteenth-century association with medievalism and chivalry, Mark Girouard’s The Return to Camelot (1981) included a chapter dedicated to the tragic consequences of public school ideology in ‘The Great War’; as did Philip Mason in The English Gentleman: The Rise and fall of an Ideal (1982). Recent work on gender is also applicable, of which Joanna Bourke’s Dismembering the Male (1996) is an excellent example. The theme may be encountered in numerous other dedicated and general histories, but, unsurprisingly, is not a subject that is highlighted in accounts produced by the schools themselves.’ As a result, the connection does not tend to feature in local history accounts, and those who live in the vicinity of such as Marlborough College often remain unaware of the history of international consequence on their doorstep. The role of Marlborough College, as highlighted in this paper, is furthermore overshadowed by a myth in history regarding a Rugby legend. Dr Thomas Arnold is popularly regarded as the instigator of educational reform which contributed much to Victorian attitudes and values.’ As Bernard Darwin states in his English Heritage Series,’ an insight into The English Public School,’ ‘we are taught to believe that much of that change (“the singular and striking change” that came over schools) was due to Arnold’.° The image of Arnold as the grandfather of twentieth- century education and font of model school ideas’ is, however, extravagant.® Like the traditional fallacy of William Webb Ellis inventing the game of rugby,” Arnold’s name has been cultivated by a succession of Rugbeians in a bid to promote the influence of Rugby School.!® Had Arnold started a revolution at Rugby it would at the very least have been mentioned in the Mount Pleasant, The Cartway,Wedhampton, Devizes SNLO 3QD 76 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Detail from 1850s lithograph by Emberlin & Co depicting Marlborough boys playing cricket and (apparently) fighting. foremost educational prognosis of the first half of the nineteenth century. Yet published in 1833, five years into Arnold’s reign as Headmaster of Rugby, Bulwer Lytton’s comprehensive study contains no such citation. As Lytton Strachey rightly points out in his more objective biography of Arnold,'' ‘Dr Arnold’s reforms were tentative and few’,'? and ‘Dr Arnold not only failed to affect a change, but deliberately adhered to the old system’.'* This makes it clear that it is purely romantic to suggest Arnold in fact fostered educational change, as no change in schooling methodology occurred in his lifetime. Arnold in truth was not particularly eminent in his lifetime. He was not at all well-known outside his Oxford and Rugby circles,'? and his death in 1842, produced remarkably small copy in the obituary columns of the Times.'’? This all casts doubts on whether Arnold’s name (except perhaps by association with his more famous son, the poet and critic Matthew Arnold) would ever have become widely known had it not been for his inclusion in a novel by Thomas Hughes. Arnold was virtually unknown prior to the publication of Thomas Hughes’s Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857). Only following the growing reputation and popularity of Hughes’s novel did the nation become aware of Arnold, the book having catapulted the ‘good doctor’ into the national consciousness. It was therefore probably Hughes who ensured that his former headmaster’s name has been inexorably linked with a rapidly expanding public school ideal, and this he achieved not through fact but fiction.'° Hughes created ‘a selective image of Arnoldianism which was to be highly influential, and eclipsing the somewhat different reality’.!’ He did not live to learn of his fame however. Arnold died in 1842, fifteen years before Tom Brown was published, and therefore long before the nation at large became aware of him. The myth of Arnold has been perpetuated by generations of Rugbeians however, and their mentor has avoided a more realistic anonymity thanks to the fiction of Thomas Hughes. Tom Brown was to play an important part in spreading and condoning a certain idiom,'® and it must be acknowledged that if not for Arnold this novel might not have been written, and the ideal of the Christian gentleman would perhaps not have been so subtly conveyed. The book itself might well not have been so popular and literally interpreted however, had it not been for actual events that were subsequent to Arnold’s death, but prior to Hughes writing the book that seemingly pays homage only to Rugby and Arnold. These actual events readily lent themselves to the marketing and popularity of Hughes’s novel, and placed belief in widespread educational reform. They created a model school that would be rigidly copied, and provided a carrier that would transmit the resultant ideals throughout the Empire.'’ These actual events took place at Marlborough College. THE PATH TO WAR It became, indeed, the epitome of these uniquely English institutions which are to this day a central feature of British Society. (Thomas Hinde, Paths of Progress: A History of Marlborough College, 1992) When a rocket lit up the grounds of Marlborough College on 5 November 1851, it not only signalled what is considered the start of a riot, but it drew COTTON WADDING: MARLBOROUGH COLLEGE AND THE PATH TO WAR Tih attention to a “Great Rebellion’. School rebellions were not unheard of, but had been practically unknown since last breaking out more than thirty years previously due to the brutality and harshness of the retributions inflicted for any defiant acts. The build up to Marlborough’s Great Rebellion was also quite different from previous rebellions, as in place of the history of slow and innocuous preambles to school riots, there were events of undeniable barbarity and uncompromising character. These incidents included the theft of a donkey that was subjected to cruelty, and the stoning of the porter’s lodge which, while not unprecedented, had never resulted in so complete a destruction.*” No one was identified, and there was for the first time at the school a consensus among the pupils refusing to own up. In the place of identifiable parties, suspected ring leaders were accused and expelled. The reaction of the pupils to these expulsions was to amass an arsenal of fireworks and the start of the riot.*! The main weapons pupils put to use were throwing stones and the deployment both inside as well as out of fire crackers that jumped about and exploded in more than a dozen detonations. Disorder and disobedience characterised all that followed with windows being smashed, repeated attacks on the porter’s lodge, and a direct assault on some masters by dropping into a fire what Lockwood described in The Early Days of Marlborough College as ‘a bottle of gunpowder’.*” Following this occurrence, four boys were identified as having purchased fireworks in the town, and on this evidence alone were expelled. Several hundred boys formed an escort for one of the dismissed, and Lockwood claims they (including himself) were ‘eight abreast’ as they ‘doubled along the road’ and ‘woe to any person they met’. Which was unfortunate for the miller, an old enemy of the boys, who was dragged from his mount and rolled over and _over in the gutter. In celebration of this retribution meted out to the miller, windows were smashed to add to the thirty or more windows that had already been broken, and when enquiries were made as to the culprits, desks were banged and feet stamped in co- ordinated displays of disobedience. Public floggings were the result of this episode, but were greeted by boys refusing to watch and disobediently turning away to face the wall despite threats to flog them also. Revenge attacks were then carried out by the boys, with masters’ desks being smashed and locks picked to empty the contents into fires. Numerous pupils were expelled and excluded, including one William Morris.” This ‘state of almost constant war between the boys and the school authorities’ reigned throughout the closing months of 1851, and the continuing anarchy and chaos saw the Headmaster, Matthew Wilkinson, resign early in 1852.” The Great Rebellion had serious consequences for Marlborough College. It focused on the appalling living conditions and escalating punishments by a somewhat brutal staff. The result was pupils being withdrawn in droves, only a little over four hundred returning after the holidays when economic calculations demanded five hundred for the school to survive. Faced with failing discipline, falling standards in education, and insufficient pupil numbers to keep the school open, Marlborough College appeared on the brink of inevitable closure. The school which had opened less than eight years previously in 1843, was formulated as an experiment in creating a public school for a wider middle class, an experiment that was now, seemingly inevitably, doomed to failure. There was little that the headmaster Matthew Wilkinson could do, but he clung on to his post believing sincerely that he should not desert the school. Well into the new year when all was but lost, Wilkinson was offered the position of vicar of West Lavington. The position which offered considerably less in remuneration than his salary at Marlborough could not have been attractive, but with eight children and an aged mother among his dependants he rather unsurprisingly, after some considerable thought, accepted. He obviously believed that the school would close and there was a strong indication that this was on the horizon, so if he did not take the chance offered to him there and then, he would be left with nothing. With the school now rudderless and in such an inglorious mess, the situation must have appeared hopeless. There was no-one whom they could possibly appoint, and not one enquiry was received from the usual circulars. No-one of any standing or influence would want the position of Master of Marlborough in the school’s current predicament, so the uncompromising and remote School Council turned to the single application they had received for the position some ten years before. This was a desperate measure, and the fact that the applicant was still available and had not managed to find another situation in a decade since applying for the post, demonstrates how desperate both he and they must have been. However desperate, there apparently was only one person who would accept the post, so it was perhaps an easy decision for the college authorities when they appointed as headmaster one George Cotton. Cotton instigated immediate changes and quite incredibly and dramatically reversed Marlborough’s 78 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE George E. L. Cotton fortunes. In doing so he added the all-important ingredient of belief to the educational reforms he had implemented. As an educational world watched, Cotton first quelled a rioting and undisciplined school, instigated pride in development, and ultimately took the school to unparalleled academic success. His newly introduced practices and educational reforms stood out as much as the rioters’ fireworks that had shone so brightly against a background of Victorian darkness. That the effect was so startlingly dramatic at Marlborough, ensured the system would be stringently copied as it spread to other existing public schools and new schools were soon being founded in Marlborough’s image. Cotton’s example had drawn the attention of not only the upper classes and existing schools but the expectant newly expanding middle classes that Marlborough had been set up as an experiment to address. Demand soon outweighed places in existing schools as the new middle-class, resolved to strengthen their position in society, latched on to the newly advocated educational virtues in the expanding public school system as a way of increasing their own status by making their offspring gentlemen. Prior to Cotton’s miraculous turnaround at Marlborough, the old public school system had not played any part in defining social status. But with Marlborough having demonstrated how raw rough edges might rapidly be made smooth, the public school became not only where one had to have been educated, but where one’s sons were made into gentlemen. The demand saw twenty-five schools rapidly established in the decade following Cotton’s success, and Marlborough and Rugby masters and old boys were head-hunted into new positions nationwide. In the same decade that saw the expansion of public schools, the numbers receiving a classical education in England and Wales climbed to more than 25,000 as grammar schools boomed.” These boys were also to fall under the influence of Cotton’s example set at Marlborough. Those schools that had not immediately followed Marlborough’s lead were soon forced to follow suit, as a requirement to modernise and conform to a standard became established by the findings of two royal commissions. In 1861, the Clarendon (Public Schools) Commission examined the nine most prestigious schools, so Marlborough’s outstanding academic success in achieving two Balliol Scholarships in 1859 would naturally have been influential and created a favourable impression.” Acts of Parliament followed the publication of the commission’s reports in 1863,°’ but the main effect was the establishment of Marlborough and the other few schools created in the same mould as the model of secondary education for all who aspired to rise in English Society.** The Clarendon Commission was clear in its praise: These schools have been the chief nurseries of our statesmen; in them, and in schools modelled after them, men of all the various classes that make up English society, destined for every profession and career. . . have contracted some of the ruling habits of their lives; and they have perhaps the largest share in moulding the character of an English Gentleman.” The Clarendon Report had_ provided uncomplicated ‘evidence of the complete acceptance of the public school system as the best possible means of education for those who were to be leaders in the country in war or peace’.*” The school was forthwith of central importance to mid-Victorian society, and the influence of these institutions was such that they set the attitudes and determined the values of society, and in particular the leaders of that society.”! Marlborough’s academic success which commanded the attention of the commissioners happened during Bradley’s time as Master, but it was nonetheless Cotton’s triumph as he had stepped down only the previous year, in 1858.* Bradley was a colleague of Cotton’s at Rugby, and in acknowledging that his position was to build on his predecessor’s COTTON WADDING: MARLBOROUGH COLLEGE AND THE PATH TO WAR 79 success,’ he recognised that the key to Cotton’s rapid progress in establishing discipline and control was the introduction of a prefect system. Cotton has rarely been accredited with this innovation however, for despite prefects having been in widespread use in public schools long before Arnold first entered Rugby School, Arnold has traditionally been associated with the system that was widely adopted following its introduction at Marlborough. Cotton’s introduction of prefects was undoubtedly inspired by their use at Rugby, but the system of deployment Cotton adopted was nothing like Arnold’s.** Furthermore, the prefectorial system, although an essential element in Cotton’s bid for establishing control, would not in itself have asserted the influence necessary to encourage conformity throughout the school. The ideal was to encourage each and every pupil from every form and every year, to yearn to be regarded as a credit to the school. No previous institutionally imbued sense of belonging had achieved this level of co-operation in any public school prior to Cotton’s arrival at Marlborough.* It was therefore Cotton’s Illustration by Arthur Hughes for the 1869 edition of Tom Brown’s Schooldays innovative contribution which created the most striking new identity to overtake Victorian culture, by introducing something Arnold never encouraged — organised games.*° Cotton introduced games as a character building exercise, and in a letter home to parents in 1853 stressed their ‘manly’ importance.*’ Games were promoted by Cotton as being essential, not only for the body, but for the mind, spirit and character.** Aside from the physical and spiritual qualities games imbued, they provided a structure on which the school and therefore life could be based. The boys in the school could be divided into teams (houses) to be controlled more easily,” but also united in the name of the school.*? Games quickly reached ascendancy within the Marlborough College curriculum, and continued to maintain their status into the next century. As Sir Douglas Savoury, who entered the school in 1891 was to state in his memoir Sixty Years Ago, ‘the real power was exercised by the athletes — boys who, because they got into the Eleven or Fifteen, were made Captain of their houses. It is surprising how much athletics were exalted’. When Frank Fletcher became Master of Marlborough College in 1903, he attempted to reverse the half-century long trend and find his prefects among scholars, rather than athletes, who would then have to conform to more academic rituality.?! The efforts of Fletcher were mostly in vain however. Although he managed moderately to curtail the influence of athleticism, he found the boys naturally admired brawn over brain and continued to respond to the old ways.” Housemasters were also responsible for maintaining athleticism as the supreme virtue, as they continued to select athletes in preference to other boys when a vacancy arose in their houses. As Ulric Nisbet confirmed in The Old School Tie: Recollections of Marlborough before the First World War, ‘an unexpected vacancy occurred in T. C. G. Sandford’s House and, because I was thought to be good at games, he chose me to fill it’.’ This was a practice that continued into the services during the Great War, as Nisbet later recalled. When I joined the Battalion, he (the C.O.) asked me to try to get other OMs to apply for commissions in it. The result was that sometime during the first winter (of 1914) ORs (Old Rugbeians) and OMs were numerous enough to field a rugger side against officers in the battalion from other public schools .. .“" War poet Charles Hamilton Sorley had loved running at Marlborough, where rain meant games were replaced by ‘sweats’ — cross country runs.’ The poet Louis MacNeice had also loved these ‘sweats’ 80 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE as confirmed in a first-term letter to his parents. ‘On days too wet for games we are sent running over these downs with a time limit out and back; if you were too late either way you were caned but, once you got used to this strenuous effort, these runs were exhilarating’.'° At Marlborough it was not only ‘run the straight race’ however, but also ‘fight the good fight’.*’ As Tom Brown would impress on generations of impressionable schoolboys from every walk of life: ‘After all what would life be like without fighting ? . . . From the cradle to the grave, fighting, rightly understood, is the business, the real highest, honest business of every son of man.’*® That Thomas Hughes should encourage physical confrontation among schoolboys 1s unsurprising, as Asa Briggs points out in Victorian People, Hughes had a ‘boyish love of fighting’.!” Hughes believed all boys enjoyed fighting and admired this form of combat as a way of settling differences, as well as finding it an exciting spectacle. Like many other features in Tom Brown’s Schooldays, the fighting is based on actual occurrences at Rugby and Marlborough. Fighting was legendary at Marlborough, and held in high regard not just among the pupils, but rather surprisingly the staff, incumbent Chaplains and Old Marlburians in the Church of England hierarchy. In his Reminiscences in 1889, the Bursar, Rev. J. S. Thomas recalls with admiration ‘that famous fight in the early fifties’.-’ This fight, that started just after breakfast and was only halted by the bell for school at 10.00 am, was between two pupils who were hero- worshipped for not yielding. Despite the apparent injuries, barbarity and futility, Thomas could not find anything ‘brutalising’ in this encounter’. He greatly admired their pluck, the stiff upper lip attitude, and the failure to concede. Thomas’s descriptions of canings and the fascination with the resolve of both caner and victim are sickening, and require unabridged reading for the full horror of how these rituals were accepted and admired. For he ‘witnessed acts of which the only explanation could be that the author delighted in inflicting torture’, and supplies us with tremendous insight into the Victorian preoccupation with the bully. ‘No’, he wrote, ‘your real brute is the bully — he that having a giant’s strength will use it as a giant. The bully stirs up undying hatred.. / Tom Brown’s determination to stand up to Flashman despite the older boy’s seemingly insurmountable advantage in size and weight, was the personification of this trait.°' The insistence that the true bully could not be tolerated is laudable, but the label of bully was increasingly used to excuse the reason Detail of the Reredos in the rebuilt Marlborough College Chapel (photograph by Brian Edwards) to fight rather than to castigate cruel persecutors, or intimidatory actions with undue force. The religious authorities in particular relied on the moral of fighting bullies as an excuse for their bellicose patriotism in an attempt to acquit the church of responsibility when encouraging the slaughter of an enemy.*” COTTON WADDING: MARLBOROUGH COLLEGE AND THE PATH TO WAR 81 The Church played an important part in extolling the virtues of spiritual manliness, muscular Christianity, and bashing the bully. Not only in Marlborough College, but in public schools nationwide, the chapel was the place to reinforce and underline the messages regarding conduct, outlook and attitude.*? Cotton was regarded as a particularly influential narrator from the pulpit,*? an example which caused the chapel to become the focus of school life that it remains to this day. The present chapel is not that which resounded to Cotton’s urge to manliness however. It was rebuilt during the 1880s, and the Dean of Westminster and former Master, George Bradley, promptly reminded the congregation attending the consecration of the importance of ‘manful effort’.” Towering above Bradley, the new reredos reinforced the ultimate messages of the pervading ethos.*° As Mark Girouard explains in The Return to Camelot (1981), ‘the figures are ostensibly St Georges or St Michaels, but the faces that look out from under the helmets tend to be those of Victorian schoolboys’ — angels’ wings attached to young men dressed in armour. Boy heroes, the glorified image of having died young in battle. The young and impressionable were exposed to these powerful images throughout the compulsory chapel services that lasted for almost one and a half hours each and every day.”’ The intended effect of the iconography was the same as that employed in church misericords, bench ends, and wall paintings — to assimilate the flock.* The fusion of religious and martial spirits impressed upon the young congregation that warrior activity was not only religiously acceptable, but encouraged through implied glorification.” To fight and die in that fight was glorious, and was indeed in the service of justice, right, piety and the church. These images are the standards of chivalry and valour. The effect on the impressionable audience was as war poet and Old Marlburian Siegfried Sassoon described, ‘dying for one’s native land was believed to be the most glorious thing one could possibly do’. . Muscular Christianity was not of course confined to Marlborough; along with chivalry, it rapidly gained cult status, having found the perfect vehicle that would allow them to be transported into every walk of life — games.°! The success of games in harnessing the riotous assembly at Marlborough College saw these activities become pragmatized, once they had become more than mere amusement.® Marlborough had inaugurated the first inter-school matches in both cricket and rugby football,°? and when Marlborough College further facilitated the spread of this ideology by lifting games straight from the school playing field into adult life,* the subsequent proliferation of teams and clubs ensured the cult of games would rapidly spread throughout the classes. It is significant that, following Cotton’s introduction of games in the 1850s, the rules of many games were codified in the following decade as games had quickly expanded due to their cult status.°° Wisden laid claim to the rules of cricket in 1864, the Queensberry Rules were formulated in 1867, rugby football clubs met in an attempt to agree Union rules in 1863 and this led to the formation of the Football Association later the same year.°° The expansion of Victorian transport allowed teams to travel further afield, and special deals for sports clubs were offered by the railway companies to encourage teams to travel. As organised sport spread further and further afield, transported with them were the values of manliness, muscular Christianity and chivalry, all within a framework of militaristic organisation.”’ It was the Greeks who codified the link between war and sport through the inauguration of the ‘Memories’, postcard of a painting by R. C. Woodville, depicting a blinded young man recalling his schooldays. 82 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Olympic Games, but it was the Victorians who saw to it that organised games were inexorably linked with militarism. Marlborough College’s organisation of games both on and off the field was handled in military terms and tactics, and this was copied as the cult spread. Series matches were campaigns, planned as military manoeuvres. Teams were rallied by their captains and pack leaders, tactics carried out with military precision, and stirring talks given before kick- off and at half-time to continue the battle-plan. Having found an outlet beyond the battlefield, militarism spilled over into all manner of organisation throughout society. As Joanna Bourke explains in Dismembering the Male, ‘Victorian Britain became increasingly militarist . . . with civilian workers becoming disciplined by military techniques’.®* At Marlborough, even the school songs were reminders of the connection between militarism and bringing a sense of the noble cause into sport and other facets of school-life: ‘Be strong, Elevens to bowl and shoot, Be strong, O regiment of Foot (Carmen Marlburiense)’”’ The theme of the holy and noble cause that encouraged earthly sacrifice to gain a heavenly crown, were also the regular themes in hymns as well as sermons, and an enduring part of the bellicose patriotism that urged so many to their deaths. It is a testimony to the powerfully persuasive nature of the resultant ideology that even after the war, paeans of victory were evident in hymns being written for Remembrance despite wide acceptance that victory by either side was inevitably Pyrrhic. Both the Public School Hymn Book’ and other hymn books that remain in use today’! contain Remembrance hymns that harbour the chivalric sentiments that betrayed the dead of the Great War. Sir John Arkwright’s 1919 hymn ‘O valiant hearts’, is far more a call to arms than any recollection of the futility of sacrifice, but his hymn may still be found on Orders of Service on Remembrance Sunday. So however, can a hymn of great contrast. ‘O God all-loving’ avoids the use of military hyperbole so prevalent in Arkwright’s hymn. No ‘knightly virtues’, no ‘war’, no-one is ‘valiant’ in life or death. The only ‘victory’ is the ‘lasting peace’, as it pleads: ‘Lord, grant our children forget our rage’. This hymn endows Remembrance services with the regret of the war poets Sorley and Sassoon, with a sombre dignified remembrance of the dead, and contemplation of the circumstances of survivors as well as peace for future generations. This sensitivity was produced by the Master of Marlborough College at the time of the Armistice — Cyril Norwood. Norwood was very much an outsider at Marlborough, and more than once he let his regret of the part public schools had played in the conflict show through in public meetings during the Great War to discuss commemoration.’? His hymn can perhaps be taken as another symbol of his regret for the part that Marlborough had played through manliness and militarism. Multtary football team, France, 1916. The group is believed to include two soldiers from Marlborough and one from Avebury. COTTON WADDING: MARLBOROUGH COLLEGE AND THE PATH TO WAR 83 Fer Scheel | Patriotic illustration from the Boys’ Own Paper Marlborough College had again been to the fore in being one of the very few involved in founding the Cadet Movement. Immense enthusiasm greeted the Volunteer movement of 1859, and by May 1861 they found themselves armed. Attached to 2nd Volunteer Battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment they progressed to become the Officer’s Training Corps, and when war approached in 1913, every boy in the school was a member.”’ War it seems was just another sport, and was hailed as ‘the greatest game of all’.”4 The essence of this games-driven imperative is, as J.A.Mangan reveals in his introduction to The Games Ethic and Imperialism,” ‘concerned with ethnocentricity, hegemony and patronage, with ideals and idealism, with educational values and aspirations, with cultural assimilation and adaptation and, most fascinating of all, with the dissemination throughout the Empire of a hugely influential moralistic ideology’.”° It is impossible to overstate the cultural consequences of this moral enterprise, for not only in Britain but exported throughout the world by former public schoolboys, games quickly established themselves as an exceptionally important activity, and with these games a code of conduct and manner of thinking was imposed that would lead to conflict. Through the imperial spread of games, the resultant gospel of the public school ideology saturated with athleticism, bravery, endurance, loyalty, obedience to command, and an admiration for honourable conflict, had an overwhelming effect. As Mark Girouard explains in The Return to Camelot: throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century, the upper and middle classes had been increasingly encouraged to believe that a fight in a just cause was one of the most desirable and honourable activities open to a man and that there was no more glorious fate than to die fighting for one’s country... Opinions will always differ as to whether the Great War could or should have been prevented. One conclusion is undeniable: the ideals worked with one accord in favour of war’.”’ It was Cotton and not Arnold that ‘sowed the seed’, and germination took place at Marlborough. The plants raised, marketed and exported by Cotton sprouted throughout society. The product was an abundant crop, but it was not so much harvested, as cut down. Indoctrinated as they were, Cotton’s legions jumped at the chance of war.”* So compelling was the dogma that 175,000 were encouraged to enlist in the first week of the war, 750,000 in the first month, and 2.5 million in all before voluntary recruitment 84 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE ended.’”’ It was not just the public school educated that rushed head long into war, but the vast majority of their contemporaries as well, who were joined by the hundreds of thousands throughout society that had been smitten by the creeping foolhardiness of the Marlborough inaugurated persona. The motivation to fight had so perpetrated society that women encouraged the recruiting drive with white feathers, and many ordinary under-aged youths falsified papers to enlist.*° However, it was the more directly infatuated former public schoolboys who as a class were to pay the highest price. Death rates were highest among young officers, with more than one-third of the old boys who volunteered failing to return from war.*! The Great War is of course about 1914-18, but also about the long century that led to the outbreak of war. It will not be found in flickering films or war museums, but it is there nonetheless: in the archives and the oral traditions, in the sermons and hymns, on church walls and chapel furniture, in the memorials and the monuments. The path to the Great War started in a Marlborough College riot in 1851, but it extends beyond the rush to join up and the prolonging of the conflict by the former public schoolboys who were in control. The path extends beyond another riot at the school, that which greeted news of the Armistice, the terms of which were set out by more of this generation of former public schoolboys. For the terms of the armistice lead us on a path to 1939-45. For still we run the race, and fight In paths our bravest ones have trod. O make us strong to go. (‘Commemoration’: Hymns for use in the Chapel of Marlborough College, 1921) Notes 1 Robert H Macdonald, Sons of the Empire: The Frontier and the Boy Scout Movement 1890-1918, (1993); J.A.Mangan, Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public Schools: The Emergence and Consolidation of an educational Ideology, (1981); Tony Money, Manly and Muscular Diversions: Public Schools and the Nineteenth-Century Sporting Revival, (1997); Michael Rosenthal, The Character Factory: Baden Powell and the Origins of the Boy Scout Movement, (1986); John Springhall, ‘Building Character in the British Boy: The Attempt to Extend Christian Manliness to Working- Class Adolescents, 1880 to 1914’, in J.A.Mangan and James Walvin (eds), Manliness and Morality, (1987); Norman Vance, The Sinews of the Spirit: The Ideal of Christian Manliness in Victorian Literature and Religious Thought, (1985); Allen Warren, ‘Popular Manliness: Baden-Powell, Scouting and the Development of manly Character’, in J.A.Mangan and James Walvin (eds), Manliness and Morality, 1987, pp.199-219; Adrian Ceasar, Taking It Like a Man: Suffering, Sexuality and the War Poets, (1993); The life and writings of Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Robert Graves and Rupert Brooke. 2 Most school histories have been produced from within so tend to be a promotional exercise where the author only discusses events he wishes to, or in a manner which guides the reader away from a notionally objective account. See J.A.Mangan, ‘Social Darwinism and upper- class education in late Victorian and Edwardian England’, in J.A.Mangan and James Walvin (eds), Manliness and Morality, (1987), [especially p153, n.2.]. And this is certainly reflected in the following select Marlborough College bibliography: J.S.Thomas, Marlborough Thirty Years Ago, (1881); FE.Hulme, The Town, College and neighbourhood of Marlborough, (1881); Sketches From Marlborough, (1888); Rev. Newton Mant, The New Chapel at Marlborough College, (1889); Edward Lockwood, The Early Days of Marlborough College: or Public School Life Between Forty and Fifty Years Ago, (1893); A.G.Bradley, A.C.Champney, and J.W.Baines, A History of Marlborough College, (1893); J.R.Taylor, H.C.Brentnall and G.C. Turner, Revised and continued edition of A.G.Bradley, A.C.Champney, and J.W.Baines, A History of Marlborough College, (1923); H.C.Brentnall and C.C. Carter, The Marlborough Country, (1932); H.C.Brentnall and E.G.H.Kempson (eds), Marlborough College 1843-1943, (1943); Christopher Hughes, Marlborough: The Story of a Small and Ancient Burrough, (1953); Alan Mackichan (ed) Marlborough, (1963); Simon Brett (compiler), Marlborough College: A Short History and Guide, (1979); Niall Hamilton, A History of the Chapel of St Michaels and All Angels Marlborough College, (1986); Thomas Hinde, Paths of Progress: A History of Marlborough College, (1992); F.A.Brown, Family Notes, (1917), p.94-99; Roland Prothero (Lord Ernie), From Whippingham to Westminster, (1938), p.32; Ulric Nisbet, The Old School Tie : Recollections of Marlborough before the First World War, (1964); Ulric Nisbet, The Old School Tie II : Recollections of a very young man at the beginning of the Great War, (1979); Ulric Nisbet, ‘Diaries and Memories of the Great War’, c1920, typescript copy in Imperial War Museum; W.Keble Martin, Over The Hills, (1968), pp.22-24; Beverley Nichols, The Unforgiving Minute, (1978), pp.20-21; Jon Stallworthy, Louis MacNiece, (1995), pp.72-105, 180, 261, 457. 3 A.P.Stanley, The Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, (1844); Norman Wymer, Dr Arnold of Rugby, (1953). 4 The English Heritage Series, edited by Viscount Lee of Fareham & J.C.Squire, with an introduction by Stanley COTTON WADDING: MARLBOROUGH COLLEGE AND THE PATH TO WAR 85 Baldwin, besides The English Public School, included titles such as The Parish Church, and The English Road, and The County Spirit. All were published in 1931. 5 Bernard Darwin, The English Public School, (1931). 6 Bernard Darwin, The English Public School, (1931), pp.8-9. 7 H.C.Bradby, Rugby, (1900), pp.52-63. 8 Robert Gray, ‘Rugby Champion’, in The Sunday Telegraph, 18 June 1995. 9 Tradition has it that in 1823 Rugby pupil William Webb Ellis was the first to pick up the ball and run with it, thus inventing the game of rugby football. It is however likely that Webb Ellis was no more than a renowned cheat. The claim that he invented the game came in a letter to a magazine some fifty years after the event, and was immediately refuted by a contemporary of his who stated he was merely ‘inclined to take unfair advantage at football’. See Nigel Starmer Smith (ed), Rugby: A Way of Life, (1986), pp.11-13. 10 Primarily Dean Stanley, in The Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, (1844). It is however worth noting that historian James Leach who was associated with Winchester, made claims on behalf of Arnold at Rugby and then claimed that this influence was due to Winchester’s influence on Arnold. See, H.C.Bradby, Rugby, (1900), p.54. See also D.Newsome, Godliness and Good Learning: Four Studies on a Victorian Ideal, (1961). 11 Lytton Strachey, Eminent Victorians, (1917). Although more objective in its findings, Strachey’s bibliography illustrates that although he provides us with a more critical analysis, some of the claims he makes on Arnold’s behalf rely on the statements of Rugbeans that histories published prior to Arnold’s time at Rugby would contradict. 12 Lytton Strachey, Eminent Victorians, (1917; 1948 Penguin edition) p.200. 13. Lytton Strachey, Eminent Victorians, (1917; 1948 Penguin edition) p.220. 14 Robert Gray, ‘Rugby Champion’, in The Sunday Telegraph, 18 June 1995. 15 Only 250 words on a day when no other notable had died. -16 Thomas Hughes having painted a picture of his former headmaster as the leading light of educational reform. See Bernard Darwin, The English Public School, (1929). 17. Jeffrey Richards, “The Making of a Muscular Christian : Tom Brown’s Schooldays’, in Happiest Days : The Public Schools in English Fiction, (1988), p.24. 18 J.R. de S. Honey, Tom Brown’s Universe, (1977); Alec Waugh, Public School Life, (1922); Jonathan Gathorne- Hardy, The Public School Phenomenon, (1979). 19 For the spread of the ideology throughout society by way of broader education, scouting and other movements: Robert H Macdonald, Sons of the Empire: The Frontier and the Boy Scout Movement 1890-1918, (1993); Michael Rosenthal, The Character Factory: Baden Powell and the Origins of the Boy Scout Movement, (1986); and Allen Warren, ‘Popular Manliness: Baden-Powell, Scouting and the Development of Manly Character’, in J.A.Mangan and James Walvin (eds), Manliness and Morality, (1987), pp-199-219. Allen Warren, ‘Sir Robert Baden-Powell, the Scout movement and citizen training in Great Britain, 1900-1920’, English Historical Review, Cl, (April 1986), pp.56-78; Allen Warren, ‘Citizens of the Empire : Baden-Powell, Scouts and Guides and an Imperial ideal’, in John M. MacKenzie (ed.), Imperialism and Popular Culture, (1986); Martin Green, Dreams of Adventure, Deeds of Empire,1980; John Springall (Ed.), Sure and Stedfast: A History of the Boy’s Brigade, 1883-1983, (1983). 20 On this occasion it included the door, windows, chimney pot and many of the roof tiles. 21 J.S.Thomas, Marlborough Thirty Years Ago, (1881). Edward Lockwood, The Early Days of Marlborough College: or Public School Life Between Forty and Fifty Years Ago, (1893). 22 Edward Lockwood, The Early Days of Marlborough College: or Public School Life Between Forty and Fifty Years Ago, (1893). 23 Lifeline proclaims Morris ‘left Marlborough under a cloud, expelled after (the) rebellion’ and states his recollection of the causes for his own behaviour as ‘I took very ill to the studies of the place’. 24 Simon Brett (compiler), Marlborough College: A Short History and Guide, (1979), p.29. 25 Anthony Wood, Nineteenth Century Britain 1815-1914, (1960). 26 G.C.Turner, ‘Old Marlburians’, in Marlborough College 1843-1943, (1943), p.51. 27 There was also a Schools’ Inquiry Report published five years later in 1868. 28 Martin J. Wiener, English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit, 1850-1980, (1981), p.17. 29 British Parliamentary Papers 1864: 20, Report of H.M.Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Revenues and management of certain Colleges and Schools and the Studies pursued and instruction given therein. 30 Rex Warner, English Public Schools, (1945), p.30. 31 Asa Briggs, “Thomas Hughes and the Public Schools’, in Victorian People, (1954). 32 H.C.Brentnall, ‘The Early Years’, in Marlborough College 1843-1943, (1943) p.19. 33 H.C.Brentnall, ‘The Early Years’, in Marlborough College 1843-1943, (1943) p.19. 34 For an explanation of the differences see H.C.Brentnall, ‘The Early Years’, in Marlborough College 1843-1943, (1943) pp.18-19. 35 Asa Briggs, ‘Thomas Hughes and the Public Schools’, in Victorian People, (1954; Pelican edition), p.161. 36 H.C.Bradby, Rugby:The Great Public Schools, 1900. Note also that games are absent from Rugby School timetable as published by Arnold in ‘Rugby School’, Quarterly Journal of Education, Vol vii, (1834). See also 86 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Arnold Whitridge, The Life of Thomas Arnold, (1928), pp.112-114. 37 Jean Moorcroft Wilson, Charles Hamilton Sorley, (1985), 38 39 40 41 43 44 45 46 47 p37. The important aspect of manliness adopted by the schools is comprehensively covered by J.A.Mangan, Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public Schools: the Emergence and Consolidation of an Educational Ideology (1981); Norman Vance, The Sinews of the Spirit: The Ideal of Christian Manliness in Victorian Literature and Religious Thought (1985); Norman Vance, “The Ideal of Manliness’, in B.Simon and I.Bradley, (eds), The Victorian Public School, (1975); John Springhall, ‘Building Character in the British Boy: and The Attempt to Extend Christian Manliness to Working-Class Adolescents, 1880 to 1914’, in J.A.Mangan and James Walvin (eds), Manliness and Morality, (1987); Bruce Haley, The Healthy Body and Victorian Culture, (1978). F.E.Hulme, The Town, College and neighbourhood of Marlborough, (1881), p.97. J.R. de S. Honey, Tom Brown’s Universe : The Development of the Victorian Public School, (1977), pp:253; 273. Thomas Hinde, Paths of Progress: A History of Marlborough College, (1992), pp.110-112; Jean Moorcroft Wilson, Charles Hamilton Sorley, (1985), p:d2- Thomas Hinde, Paths of Progress: A History of Marlborough College, (1992), pp.112-113. Ulric Nisbet, The Old School Tie : Recollections of Marlborough before the First World War, (1964), Chapter 5, paral. Ulric Nisbet, ‘Diaries and Memories of the Great War’, c1920, typescript copy in Imperial War Museum; Ulric Nisbet, The Old School Tie I : Recollections of a very young man at the beginning of the Great War, (1979). Jean Moorcroft Wilson, Charles Hamilton Sorley : A Biography, (1985), p.45. Louis MacNeice letter home, from Dorset and Wilts RFU Schools programme 1995. See also Jon Stallworthy, Louis MacNeice, (1995), pp.72-105, 180, 261, 457. ‘Fight the good fight with all thy might’, a hymn by J.S.B.Monsell (1811-1875). To be found in The Public School Hymn Book, all editions, No 378; Hymns for use in the Chapel of Marlborough College, all editions No 213; Hymns Ancient and Modern, No 304. 48 Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown’s Schooldays, (1857). See 49 50 51 Asa Briggs, “Thomas Hughes and the Public Schools’, in Victorian People, (1954), Pelican edition, p.158. Asa Briggs, “Thomas Hughes and the Public Schools’, in Victorian People, (1954), Pelican edition, p.160. ‘Reminiscences’ is most commonly found in 1910 editions of Rev. Newton Mant, The New Chapel at Marlborough College, (1889). Bernard Darwin, The English Public School, (1929), p.164. Note that Cotton features as the stern young 52 53 54 55 master in Tom Brown’s Schooldays, and had tutored Hughes at Rugby. Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror, (1978), p.62. Marlborough College Prospectus, (1996). Thomas Hinde, Paths of Progress: A History of Marlborough College, (1992), p.51; The Marlburian, vol I, 18 September 1865 - 12 December 1866, pp.221- 23.1 For a full account see Rev. Newton Mant, The New Chapel at Marlborough College, (1889). See also Niall Hamilton, A History of the Chapel of St Michaels and All Angels Marlborough College, (1986), p.35. 56 Which at that time was still drying out and unpainted. 57 Jean MoorcroftWilson, Charles Hamilton Sorley, (1985), 58 59 60 p.42. E.Clive Rouse, Medieval Wall Paintings, 1968, fourth edition pp 13-18; Richard Hayman, Church Misericords and Bench Ends, (1989), p.3. Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror, (1978), p.62. Siegfried Sassoon, The Weald of Youth, (1942), p.278. 61 J.A.Mangan, Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian 62 Public Schools, (1981); John Springhall, ‘Building Character in the British Boy: The Attempt to Extend Christian manliness to Working-Class Adolescents, 1880 to 1914’, in J.A.Mangan and James Walvin (eds), Manliness and Morality, (1987), pp.52-74; Norman Vance, The Sinews of the Spirit: The Ideal of Christian Manliness in Victorian Literature and Religious Thought, (1985). Allen Warren, ‘Popular Manliness: Baden-Powell, Scouting and the Development of manly Character’, in J.A.Mangan and James Walvin (eds), Manliness and Morality, (1987), pp.199-219. Asa Briggs, “Thomas Hughes and the Public Schools’, in Victorian People, (1954), Pelican edition p.161; J.A.Mangan, Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public Schools, (1981), authors draft copy p3; J.A.Mangan, The Games Ethic and Imperialism, (1986), pp.135, 152; J.A.Mangan, ‘Athleticism: A Case Study of the Evolution of an Educational Ideology’, in B.Simon and I. Bradley, The Victorian Public School, (1975), pp.147-157. 63 Tony Money, Manly and Muscular Diversions: Public 64 Schools and the Nineteenth-Century Sporting Revival, (1997), pp.111, 176; Walter Jennings, Marlborough’s Cricketing Family, (1994), p.48K; E.G.Dunning, ‘Football in its early stages’, in History Today, December 1963, pp.838-847. Note that by failing to play any inter- school matches until almost a decade after they were introduced by Marlborough, Rugby seemingly did not contribute to the spread of games. Of the newly found thirst for continuing manly games after school, Marlborough Nomads, a team exclusively made up of old Marlburians, became one of the founding sides of the Rugby Football Union. 65 Asa Briggs, “Thomas Hughes and the Public Schools’, in Victorian People, (1954), Pelican edition, p.160. 66 Nigel Starmer Smith (ed), Rugby - A Way of Life, (1986), pela: COTTON WADDING: MARLBOROUGH COLLEGE AND THE PATH TO WAR 87 67 Asa Briggs, “Thomas Hughes and the Public Schools’, in Victorian People, (1954), Pelican edition, p.160; Eric Hobsbawm, ‘Mass Producing Traditions: Europe, 1870 - 1914’ in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, The Invention of Tradition, (1983), p.306. 68 Joanna Bourke, Dismembering the Male, (1996), p.252. 69 70 71 UZ 73 74 Marlborough College Songbook, published for ‘private circulation only’ c1926; J.A.Mangan, as quoted in Jean Moorcroft Wilson, Charles Hamilton Sorley, (1985), p.52. Public School Hymn Book, (1949 Revised 1958). Hymns Ancient and Modern, (Revised edition c1958). See Brian Edwards, ‘Names on the Path to Remembrance: the building of Marlborough College memorial Hall’, in WANHM, volume 93, (2000), pp.205-217. Marlborough : The Corps 1860-1960, (1960). Geoff Dyer, The Missing of the Somme, (1994), p.92; Anne Summers, ‘Edwardian Militarism’, in Raphael Samuel (ed), Patriotism: the making and unmaking of national identity, Volume 1 History and Politics, p.239. 75 J.A.Mangan, The Games Ethic and Imperialism, (1986). 76 J.A.Mangan, The Games Ethic and Imperialism, (1986), WAL p.17. Mark Girouard, The Return to Camelot: Chivalry and the English Gentleman, (1981), p.276. 78 Geoff Dyer, The Missing of the Somme, (1994), p.25 79 A.J.P.Taylor, English History1914-1945, (1965), p.20. 80 81 Public Record Office (Kew) exhibition of recently released papers 11 November 1996 - February 1997. Underage enlistment in 1914-18 has been regarded as mythical (see Geoff Dyer, The Missing of the Somme, (1994), p.3), but papers released 11° November 1996 demonstrate the truth of this claim. Among the VCs alone: Private George Peach VC was according to military records 18 when he died at Loos, but Parkhills, Bury, Lancs, parish records prove him to have been only 15. John Travers VC mortally wounded at Jutland, was 16. Edward Dwyer VC was 17 when he joined up. One extraordinary situation surrounds Private George Alfred Redrup, who won the 1914-15 star and the Victory Medal as two separate soldiers with the same name having enlisted twice - both times he was underage. Invalided in action with the King’s Royal Rifles, he was discharged when during his convalescence his true age of 15 came to light. When fit again he enlisted with the 3rd Battalion Worcester Regiment. Michael Heffernan, ‘For Ever England: The Western Front and the Politics of Remembrance in Britain’ in Ecumene 2, 3 July 1995. 88 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Z HU zak a =S5 E 7uh4 Excavated area Evaluated area 135m $U24300 Fig. 1. Location of site within Wiltshire and Collingbourne Ducis, showing position of evaluation trenches and excavated area SFB 100 202 @ 348 modem SFB 109 fenceline 1 i 214.213 211 ; SFB 104 ° ® Post-built 215t vip. a: SFB_102 226 9227 SFB 106 © SFB 108 130.78 7X $U24400 Fig. 2. Plan of excavated area Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 94 (2001), pp. 88-117 The Excavation of a Saxon Settlement at Cadley Road, Collingbourne Ducis, Wiltshire by Jo Pine’ with contributions by Mathew Gleave, Sheila Hamilton-Dyer, Steve Ford, John Letts, Nicola Powell, David Richards, Chris Salter, Jane Timby and David Williams An excavation at Collingbourne Ducis located ten sunken-featured buildings, a possible post-built structure and isolated pits and postholes. A wide range of finds were recovered from the sunken-featured buildings, including a bone pin made from walrus ivory. A series of four radiocarbon dates show that most of the site is dated to the middle Saxon period (early 8th—10th century AD) but one slightly earlier building dates from the 5th to the late 7th century AD. The settlement is 150m to the south-west of a Saxon cemetery that was partially excavated in the 1970s. This was dated on typological grounds to the 5th century but may now be in need of reassessment in the light of the chronology of the excavated settlement. INTRODUCTION An archaeological excavation was carried out in advance of building on land to the south of Cadley Road, Collingbourne Ducis, Wiltshire (centred on SU 24450 54000) (Figure 1). The site lies on the floor of the valley of the river Bourne and slopes from a height of 135m to 129m OD. It is approximately 100m east of the river itself and the underlying geology is mainly Upper Chalk, with the river gravel appearing on the -extreme western edge of the site (BGS 1975). An earlier evaluation on the site (Ford 1998) demonstrated the presence of one, possibly two, sunken-featured buildings (SFBs) and a single pit and posthole. These findings clearly illustrated the archaeological potential of the site and it was therefore proposed that two areas be cleared for excavation. In the event a single area was excavated in April 1998. This was carried out to a specification approved by Duncan Coe, Assistant County Archaeologist for Wiltshire. The project was commissioned by Berkeley Homes (Hampshire) Limited and the site code is CRCD98/9. It is anticipated that the finds will be deposited with Devizes Museum (Accession Number 009.29). The excavated area is close to the centre of the village, which was first recorded in AD 903. The name Collingbourne refers to the Upper Bourne river, which was previously known as the Coll. It also possibly means ‘stream of the dwellers of the coll’. In 1974 a Saxon cemetery containing 33 inhumations was discovered 150m to the north-east of the site. Most of the burials were poorly furnished, although some contained textiles, beads, and a range of metalwork including swords, knives, buckles, rings and brooches. A date of between AD 500 and 650 has been suggested for the cemetery (Gingell 1978). Bonney (1969) has also suggested that a 10th century charter points to burials at Inham Down, 3km north of Collingbourne Ducis; this has yet to be proven. THE EXCAVATION A single area (2638 sq m) was stripped of topsoil (Figure 2). This revealed ten SFBs, a possible post- "Thames Valley Archaeological Services, 47-9 De Beauvoir Road, Reading, RG1 5NR 90 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Table 1: Fill numbers allocated to each SFB SFB No. Fills SFB 100 268, 273, 376-7 SFB 101 503-5, 515 SFB 102 357, 360, 456-7 SFB 103 361, 363, 365, 374, 380, 492, 494-7, 499 SFB 104 309, 371, 458-9 SFB 105 388, 396, 399, 455, 46i SFB 106 394-5, 466, 470 SFB 107 479, 484, 490-91, 493, 555 SFB 108 553-4, 556-60 built structure, eight pits, and 48 other postholes. The SFBs were fully excavated and all postholes and pits were half-sectioned as a minimum, with the majority being fully dug. SFB 100 SFB 102 ch 345 304 C513 Sm Fig. 3. Detailed plans of SFBs 100-103 Sunken-Featured Buildings (SFBs) (Figures 2—6) Eight groups of features clearly represent sunken- featured buildings (100-108), although some of the ground plans are not complete. In addition, a single hollow (109) with no associated postholes, between SFBs 100 and 104, may also be an SFB. The SFBs were excavated by quadrant and the fills of each quadrant given separate context numbers (Table 1). SFB 100 (Figures 3—4) Orientation E-W Dimensions 3.75 x 3.25 x 0.17m The hollow (217) was slightly trapezoidal in shape and cut the natural chalk. It was filled with a clayey silt and, although relatively shallow, contained 135 sherds of Saxon pottery, animal bone, a bone pin, fragments of a bone comb and a honestone. Four SFB 101 EXCAVATION OF A SAXON SETTLEMENT AT CADLEY ROAD, COLLINGBOURNE DUCIS 9] SFB 100 W SFB 101 SFB 102 section reversed 10 Saar - as - : : OC Rea. 1S te SOs i ie. OSS Fig. 4. Sections through SFBs 100-103 postholes were within the hollow; two placed centrally at each end. It is not possible to say whether the second post at each end was a replacement of the gable post or whether it was there to lend additional support. Postholes 222, 225 and 329 contained between one and three sherds of Saxon pottery each. Four small stakeholes (330, 331, 332 and 348) were located on the slope of the hollow. SFB 101 (Figures 3-4) Orientation E-W Dimensions 4.50 x 3.00 x 0.42m The hollow (220) cut the chalk and was roughly rectangular, with slightly rounded corners. It had a relatively flat base with steeply sloping sides, apart from the western end where the sides sloped more gradually and there was a small ledge. Within the hollow were substantial central postholes at the eastern and western ends (307 and 502). Posthole 307 (359) contained four sherds of pottery and a fragment of copper-alloy sheet. Posthole 502 contained one sherd of Saxon pot. Adjacent to this were two postholes, 224 and 501, which may have been used to give added support to the gable post, as WwW section reversed might posthole 500, which was close to posthole 307. Posthole 224 contained three sherds of Saxon pot. At the south-east corner of the hollow were two more postholes (305 and 306) cut into the side of the SFB. Posthole 305 contained two sherds of Saxon pottery. A total of 541 Saxon sherds were recovered from the fill of the hollow (270, 279, 475 and 480). It also contained animal bone, fired clay, a glass bead, fragments of quern, three bone pins, a metal knife, a metal object, a nail and a bone comb. There were seven stakeholes (302, 309-11, and 503-5) in the base of the hollow; these did not appear to form any particular pattern. SFB 102 (Figures 3-4) Orientation N—-S Dimensions 4.00 x 3.10 x 0.20m This comprised an ovoid hollow (304) with relatively shallow sides, a flat base and slight ridges or ledges at the northern and southern ends. The hollow contained 68 sherds of Saxon pottery, animal bone, a pounder/ rubber, a nail and fragments of loomweight. Positioned centrally at either side of the hollow were postholes 313 and 345. The first had near vertical 92 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE SFB 104 SFB 105 ?SFB 109 44le 438 °° 437 414 iS Eh 7 oe 9 * 404 402 412 411 4i9 ~ 426 425 403 4)3@¢ @'es ea 41s 2 419 @ *| 420 4B 47416 SFB 106 Fig. 5. Detailed plans of SFBs 104-109 sides and a flat base and contained one sherd. Posthole 345 had a similar profile but contained no dateable evidence. SFB 103 (Figures 3—4) Orientation NE-SW Dimensions 4.75 x 3.20 x 0.36m This had been partially excavated during the evaluation (Ford 1998). The rectangular hollow (312) was cut into the chalk and had rounded corners, a relatively flat base and a thin ledge around the top. The primary fill, which consisted of chalk nodules and silts, contained seven Saxon pot sherds, two bone pins and a spindle whorl. The secondary fill, a silty clay, contained three Saxon sherds and some animal bone. From the tertiary fill, also a silty clay, came 125 Saxon sherds, animal bone, a spindle whorl, a fragment of quern, a bone comb and a pin. Posthole 507 was centrally placed at the north- eastern end of the SFB, within the hollow. This had near vertical sides and a flat base; no dateable evidence was retrieved from its fill. Close by was a small stakehole (508), which may have been a support for SFB 107/8 SFB 107 the gable post (507). Positioned directly opposite 507 was posthole 322. This was cut outside the hollow but probably took the second gable post. Posthole 322 was roughly square with vertical sides and a flat base and contained no dateable finds. A possible posthole (5) containing one sherd of Saxon pottery was in the southern corner of the building during the evaluation. Two stakeholes were also within the hollow (509 and 510). SFB 104 (Figures 5—6) Orientation N—-S Dimensions 3.25 x 2.35 x 0.06m This ephemeral structure was located close to building 102. The ovoid hollow (318) was very shallow and a complete ground plan could not be discerned. The fill contained 20 Saxon sherds and a fragment of copper sheeting. Three postholes (319-21) were cut into the hollow (Fig. 5). Posthole 321 contained one sherd of Saxon pottery. A dubious stakehole (506) occurred to the west of the hollow. It may have been disturbed by animal activity. EXCAVATION OF A SAXON SETTLEMENT AT CADLEY ROAD, COLLINGBOURNE DUCIS 93 SFB 105 (Figures 5—6) Orientation E-W Dimensions 4.60 x 3.60 x 0.28m The hollow (333) for this SFB cut the chalk natural and had gently sloping sides and a relatively flat base. A posthole was positioned centrally at each end of the hollow. Posthole 341, on the north-eastern edge of the hollow, contained one sherd of Saxon pot. The disturbance around the top of the posthole suggests that the gable post had been removed. Opposite this, in the centre of the south-western side, was a large posthole (346). Directly to the south-west and north- east of this were postholes 347 and 449. The position and size of these suggests that they housed support timbers for the main gable post. Cut into the base of hollow 333 was a further posthole, 337. The SFB had three distinct fills, all silty clays: the primary fill contained six Saxon sherds, a metal arrowhead and some animal bone; the secondary fill contained 44 Saxon sherds, animal bone, two bone pins, an offcut and a spindle whorl; the tertiary fill was only seen in the south-west quadrant. Eighteen sherds of Saxon pottery could not be assigned to a particular layer. section reversed ro) > oO SFB 108 During the cleaning of the base of the building numerous possible stakeholes were noted and subsequently excavated. Some of these are of dubious origin but the majority are convincing as archaeological features. In all there were 42 stakeholes in the base of the hollow. A number of the stakeholes (403, 419 and 421-4) may be associated with a shallow circular hollow (448). The remaining ones did not form any discernible pattern, although they did cluster towards the western half of the building. SFB 106 (Figures 5—6) Orientation E-W Dimensions 4.79 x 3.30 x 0.29m This SFB was observed but not examined in the earlier evaluation (Ford 1998). The hollow (340) had steep sides and a relatively flat base, which had been disturbed by tree roots. It contained 31 Saxon sherds, fired clay, animal bone and a bone pin. Five postholes were associated with it. Posthole 407 was situated centrally at the eastern end of the SFB. Opposite this, just outside the western end of the hollow, was posthole 349. Both probably SFB 104 SFB 105 SFB 106 Ss SFB 107/8 w oN section reversed SSS Se Eee ha ier eS SFB 107 SFB 108 Fig. 6. Sections through SFBs 104-109 94 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE supported the gable posts. Postholes 401, 400 and 406 also cut the base of the hollow; 401 contained one sherd of Saxon pot. These three postholes did not appear to be for roof supports and may have been associated with some activity taking place within the building. SFB 107 (Figures 5—6) Orientation E-W Dimensions 3.70 x 3.00 x 0.55m This SFB was cut into the top of an earlier building (SFB 108).The hollow (409) was slightly smaller than the cut for SFB 108. It had steep northern and southern sides, more gentle sloping sides on the west and east, and a relatively flat base. No postholes were associated with this building. It did, however, contain 345 sherds of Saxon pottery, fired clay, animal bone, a fragment of quern, a strap fragment, an antler point, two antler offcuts and an antler roughout. SFB 108 (Figures 5—6) Orientation E-W Dimensions 4.60 x 3.85 x 0.87m All that survived of SFB 108 was a large hollow/pit (511) with fairly steep sides and a flat base. No postholes were associated with it but it did contain 21 sherds of Saxon pottery, animal bone, an antler offcut or object, a smoothed crane bone ?implement, a metal spike and a small piece of unidentified iron. This SFB was unusual, being much deeper than the others on the site and without postholes. It had been cut by another SFB (107) at a later date. Otherwise, the shape and dimensions of the SFB are similar to the others at Cadley Road. Although the depth of this feature is unusual for this site, SFBs of similar or even greater depth have been recorded at Bishopstone, Sussex (Bell 1977), and sites in London (Marsden 1967).The lack of postholes associated with both this structure and SFB 107 also has parallels elsewhere. SFB 8 at Pennyland and Hartigans, Milton Keynes (Williams 1993), numerous SFBs at Mucking (Hamerow 1993) and 10% of the total SFBs at West Stow (West 1985) had no postholes associated with them. ?SFB 109 (Figures 5—6) Orientation ? Dimensions 3.10 x 2.60 x 0.26m A single, irregularly-shaped hollow was situated equidistant between SFBs 100 and 104 (Figure 2). There were no postholes associated with this but it did contain 21 sherds of Saxon pot and a small assemblage of animal bone. An SFB without postholes is not unusual (see also SFB 107/108 above), but in this example the plan of the hollow is also irregular. Discussion of SFBs FORM AND DIMENSION There have been several attempts to classify SFBs, such as von Guyan’s two-, four- and six-post huts (1952, 180) and Ahrens’ gable-post and corner-post houses (1966, 207-229). More recently, West grouped SFBs at West Stow according to the number of posts: two post, two-post derivative, four-post derivative, six post and six-post derivative (West 1985, 113-14).The evidence at Cadley Road suggests that SFBs 100-3, 105 and 106 would fit the two post and two-post derivative categories. However, SFB 104 does not fit a category and SFBs 107/108, and possible SFB 109 had no postholes at all. The hollows of most of the SFBs were similar in size; ranging from 3.70 to 4.79m in length and 3.00 to 3.85m in width. SFB 104 was slightly smaller at 3.25 by 2.35m. The hollow for the possible SFB 109 was irregularly shaped and just 3.10 by 2.60m. As far as depth is concerned SFB 108 stands apart, being 0.87m deep, whilst the others range from 0.06m (104) to 0.55m deep (107). SFBs 106, 103, 101 and 105 were roughly equally spaced (c. 12m apart) in a line running south-west — north-east across the site. SFB 107/108 was off this line but c. 12m to the south of SFB 105.The possible post-built structure was c. 12m to the east of this. SFBs 102, 104, 109 and 100 were also roughly equidistant (c. 3m apart), arranged in a slightly curving line with a south-west to north-east orientation. SFB 105 had a large number of stakeholes in the base of its hollow; a smaller number were observed in SFBs 101 and 103. Similar stakeholes have been observed in other SFBs in the Wessex region, such as at Riverdene, Basingstoke (Hall and Weaver 1998), Old Down Farm, Andover (Davies 1980), and further afield as at Mucking, Essex (Hamerow 1993). No hearths were found on the site. ORIENTATION Six of the SFBs were orientated east-west (100, 101, 105-8), with SFBs 102 and 104 oriented north-south and SFB 103 orientated north-east — south-west. The east—west orientation appears to be preferred for both SFBs and post-built structures on other sites, for example at Riverdene, Basingstoke (Hall and Weaver 1998), Walton, Aylesbury (Dalwood et al. 1989), and Pennyland, Milton Keynes (Williams 1993). There is EXCAVATION OF A SAXON SETTLEMENT AT CADLEY ROAD, COLLINGBOURNE DUCIS 95 no clear evidence of entrances for the SFBs at Cadley Road but presumably the doorway would not be facing the prevailing winds coming from the west. Doorways may have been placed at the eastern end of the building but Williams suggests that, given the preference of an east—west axis and the probable lack of windows in such small structures, a door on the south side would provide the maximum amount of light entering the building (1993, 79). CONSTRUCTION AND FUNCTION The SFBs at Cadley Road are mostly of the two post, and two-post derivative types, with postholes in the centres of each narrow end. These are usually interpreted as having taken supports for a simple ridge pole. Some of these postholes are found within the hollows and others just outside. Some postholes appear to be positioned to give support to the gable posts but these also might suggest re-roofing of the structure. One debate concerning SFBs is whether they had suspended floors or whether the base of the hollow was the floor surface. At West Stow it is suggested that some of the huts had suspended floors to create sub-floor space for storage and ventilation (West 1985). The evidence for suspended floors at Cadley Road is inconclusive. SFB 108 was very deep and there was no evidence of steps or an entrance into the hollow; this may, therefore, have had a suspended floor. However, access to the base of this building may have been by a wooden ladder, which was removed or did not survive. Other evidence at Cadley Road may suggest suspended floors. There were ledges in three of the SFBs; the northern and southern ends of SFB 102, around the majority of SFB 103 and eastern end of SFB 101. These ledges have been interpreted as remnants of floor levels, protected from wear by restricted access to the sides of pit owing to ‘low eaves (Farley 1976). However, an alternative suggestion is that such ledges have resulted from the cleaning out of the hollows (Rahtz 1976). The presence of stakeholes in the base of some of the SFBs at Cadley Road suggests that, for these buildings at least, the floor was the base of the hollow. It is possible that SFBs with suspended or hollow- base floors were not mutually exclusive and could have existed on the same settlement. Evidence for construction of the walls of the SFBs at Cadley Road is also inconclusive. Fired clay/?daub was recovered from the fills of three of the buildings: SFBs 101, 106 and 107. However, the fills of the SFBs most certainly represent rubbish disposal, thus the daub/fired clay may be derived from elsewhere on the site. It is probable that the walls were of timber and were covered with daub. The wide variety of functions for SFBs at other sites has been discussed in more detail elsewhere (e.g. Chapelot and Fossier 1985) with interpretations including spinning huts, weaving sheds, cheese making huts, storage units, workshops for iron smelting, bronze working, leather working, pottery manufacture, etc. The discovery of implements used for spinning and weaving (spindlewhorls, pin beaters and loomweights, see below) in the fills of four of the SFBs suggest that these activities were probably taking place on the site and possibly in one or more of the huts. The stakeholes in the base of SFB 105 are presumably connected with an activity taking place within this hut. It must be noted that there was evidence of only one post-built structure on the site. Whether this is a true reflection of the types of building at Cadley Road, or whether it is due to the superficial boundaries imposed by the excavation, is not possible to know. However, it could be suggested that the SFBs here were for domestic habitation rather than ancillary buildings. Possible Post-Built Structure A group of postholes towards the eastern end of the site may be the remains of a rectangular post-built structure (Figure 2). Postholes 323-326 and 338 form a line running north-south and may be the western side of the building (325 and 326 being a double- post setting). Postholes 342 and 343, 6m to the east, may have formed the other side of the structure. Posthole 339 or 408 may form the southern wall. No corner posts or postholes for the northern end of the building were detected. The postholes ranged from 0.19 to 0.45m in diameter and 0.08 to 0.22m deep. Only one posthole, 343, produced any dating evidence, a single sherd of Saxon pottery. Other Features POSTHOLES There were a further 24 postholes on the site that could not be attributed to a particular structure: 4, 200, 201, 207-16, 218-9, 221, 226-7, 314-17, 334— 5 and 344. They ranged from 0.19 to 0.50m in diameter and 0.07 to 0.26m deep. Five of these (4, 209, 214, 218 and 334) contained one to two sherds of Saxon pottery, posthole 314 had an ?intrusive sherd 96 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE of Medieval pot; the remaining postholes were undated. A row of 24 postholes forming the remains of a modern fenceline were also found (Figure 2). PITS/SCOOPS There were three pits with shallow bowl-shaped profiles. Pit 1 was 0.59m in diameter and 0.23m deep and contained one sherd of Saxon pottery. It may, possibly, be a component of the post-built structure. Pit 202, between SFBs 100 and 109, was oval in shape, 0.70m long, 0.50m wide, 0.13m deep. It contained two sherds of Saxon pottery. Pit 206, 0.64m long, 0.54m wide and 0.35m deep, was towards the centre of the site; this contained one sherd of Saxon pottery and some animal bone. Five scoops (203-205, 223 and 513) ranged in length from 0.90 to 1.10m, in width from 0.74 to 0.62m, and in depth from 0.05 to 0.16m. All contained between one and three sherds of Saxon pottery. THE FINDS Pottery by Jane Timby The assemblage of some 1432 sherds of pottery, weighing 21.96 kg, mostly dates to the Saxon period. This material was accompanied by a small number of Prehistoric, Roman, Medieval and post-Medieval sherds. The Saxon sherds are particularly well preserved, with fresh unabraded edges and an above average sherd size for rubbish material of 15gm.There were several examples of joining sherds within contexts. The assemblage was sorted into broad fabric groups based on the main tempering agents and the character of the clays used (Table 2). The sherds were examined macroscopically aided with the use of a binocular microscope (x20). No petrological work has been carried out. Each group was quantified by sherd count and weight by excavated context. Detailed information is available in the site archive. PREHISTORIC Five unfeatured bodysherds were found redeposited in Saxon contexts, four from SFB 102. The sherds contain a coarse, calcined flint temper, the nature of which provisionally suggests a Bronze Age date. Table 2: Pottery by fabric Ware Fabric No % Wr % Saxon Organic Ol 1S 8 6804 31 O2 53h 38 5995 27 O3 628 44 7602 34.5 Chalk Ei 3 * 24 a (E2 3 is 33 us (oe) 6 is 56 as Sandy Sl 79 55 738 BED) S2 6 x 91 vs SB 3 * 54 x S4 12 zs 171 x $5 2, ti 30 i S6 1 ts 12 rS SF 2 as 14 a S8 13 i 96 vd Roman NFCC 1 x 13) rs AHSY 2 us 67 es GREY 5 zs 65 *s SAM 2; us 3 re Prehistoric FL 5 es Qi, vs Total 1425 100 21955 100 *% = less than 1% Fabric description: FL: A moderately soft oxidised orange ware characterised by a sparse scatter of coarse (>6mm), angular, calcined flint temper. ROMAN Ten worn Roman sherds were found mixed in with the Saxon material, either indicative of continued use of Roman vessels in the post-Roman period, or the presence of a Roman site nearby. Recognisable pieces include sherds of New Forest colour-coated ware (NFCC) (Fulford 1975), possible burnt Dorset black- burnished ware and grey sandy wares similar to the Alice Holt range (Lyne and Jefferies 1979), including at least one handmade large storage jar. Other than two small sherds of samian recovered from SFB 107 (409) and SFB 102 (304), most of the Roman wares are typical 4th century products. SAXON The bulk of the assemblage comprises wares of Saxon date. Whilst there is quite a diversity of fabrics present for example, organic (fabrics O1—O3), chalk (fabrics C1-3) and sand (fabrics S1—8), most of the sherds EXCAVATION OF A SAXON SETTLEMENT AT CADLEY ROAD, COLLINGBOURNE DUCIS 97 (90% by sherd count) have organic matter as the dominant tempering agent (Table 2). In total, 14 separate fabrics have been identified. Fabric description. Organic-tempered wares: O1:A generally thick-walled fine matt sandy fabric containing a moderate to high density of organic temper. At x20 the matrix can be seen to contain a scatter of fine quartz sand, rare white chalk and occasional fine flint fragments. O2:A very fine, quite hard, sandy fabric with a slightly sparkling appearance. The paste contains a moderate density of organic matter, rare chalk and flint. O3:A sandy version of O2 with visible quartz grains. Chalk-tempered wares: C1: Oxidized with a grey core. A moderately hard, sandy textured ware containing a common frequency of rounded chalk, the larger fragments up to 5mm but mainly finer. C2: Oxidised ware with a dark grey core and slightly soapy feel. The paste contains sparse, rounded to sub-angular chalk inclusions <2mm in size. C3:A brown ware with a black core and interior surface. The paste contains sparse chalk, sub-angular quartz sand, iron and organic matter. Sandy wares: S1: A dense, fine sandy ware with rare to sparse organic material and rare iron grains. Smoothed surfaces. $2: A glauconitic sandy ware with sparse organic matter. S3: A sandy ware containing a dense to common frequency of rounded, ill-sorted quartz sand <0.5mm Sherds contain sparse to moderate organic matter and occasional chalk. S4: A dense, hard, compact fabric containing a moderate to common frequency of fine, sub-angular quartz <0.5mm, occasional fine chalk. S5: A hard sandy ware containing glauconitic grains, occasional sandstone and a small amount of organic matter. S6: A finely micaceous, brown sandy ware with sparse organic matter. Sandy texture but no macroscopically visible grains. S7: An oxidised ware with a grey inner core. A finely micaceous sandy ware with rare fine organic matter. S8: A hard orange-brown dense sandy ware. The paste contains a moderate to common frequency of well-sorted, sub-angular to rounded quartz sand and sparse red iron. Most if not all the vessels could be locally made as the main constituents, clay, chalk, flint and organic matter, are all easily available. Gault clay and the Upper Greensand, with horizons of glauconitic sand, outcrop immediately to the north of the site in the Vale of Pewsey. Most of the organic matter used appears to be coarsely chopped vegetable matter used unprocessed, as opposed to the very finely comminuted inclusions characteristic of dung used in some Saxon pottery. There do not appear to be any imports amongst the group. Slight differences in the texture of the clays used suggest more than one outcrop was being exploited. The patchy coloration on several vessels suggests the use of bonfire or clamp kilns for firing the vessels. Vessel forms. The majority of the vessels appear to be closed forms, simple rounded-base cooking pots/jars with a slight constriction around the neck. Within this category, however, there is quite a diversity of shape. Most of the rims are simple everted shapes leading into globular bodies. Some rims are slightly more externally concave than others, which are more vertical (e.g. Figure 7.14). Some vessels have a very slight shoulder (e.g. Figure 8.35). There is one example of a barrel-shaped vessel with a slightly beaded rim (Figure 7.23). A few straight-sided or simple curved walled vessels (e.g. Figures 7.6, 7.22, 8.34) suggest open forms such as bowls/dishes. The vessels range in size from large diameter forms such as Figure 8.32, to smaller bowls or cups (Figure 7.3, 7.27). A small bowl in a sandy ware from SFB 100 (Figure 7.1) may have served as a lamp. Many of the closed vessels are relatively thin-walled, particularly those in fabric O2. Surface finishes range from high quality burnishing, rough slightly irregular burnishing, to wet smoothing or simple wiping. At least two horizontal pierced lugs were recorded, one rounded (Figure 7.4) the other oval in shape (Figure 7.24). One sherd had a projecting flange that may also be part of a lug (Figure 8.29). A single example of a pierced vertical lug set perpendicular to the vessel rim was recovered from SFB 101 (Figure 7.5). Several pots displayed single wall perforations with examples made both before and after firing. Whilst most of the vessels are plain with a matt or burnished finish there are at least 13 sherds with stamped or incised decoration. Decorated sherds occur in both sandy and organic-tempered fabrics, the coarseness of the latter partially obscuring some of the impressions. The stamps include a minimum of seven different dies the commonest being the cross-in-circle motif, of which there are three examples (Figure 7.16, 7.18 and 7.19). Other stamps include a crescent shaped die (Figure 7.15), a segmented circle (Figure 7.25) and two radiating spoke designs used on the same vessel (Figure 8.38). Two sherds show the edges of stamps which although they cannot be deciphered (Figure 7.2, 7.12) suggest the use of other die types. A number of sherds have incised horizontal grooves running around the body which probably once formed part of a larger design (e.g. Figures 7.3, 7.12, 8.30 98 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE ‘Table 3: Pottery from sunken-featured buildings Group Organic Sandy Chalk No % No % No % SFB 100 114 81 25 18 1 x SFB 101 465 84 78 14 7 1 SFB 102 59 87 2 3 2 3 SFB 103 129 95.5 4 3 0 0 SFB 104 20 95 0 0 0 0 SFB 105 67 96 B 4 0 0 SFB 106 28 88 2 6 1 3 SFB 107 342 99 0 0 0 0 SFB 108 18 95 1 » 0 0 Total 1242 115 11 Roman Preh Total No Wr No % No % 0 0 0 0 140 1294 1 se 0 0 551 5917 1 1.5 4 6 68 582 2 1 0 0 135 2094 0 0 1 5 21 123 0 0 0 0 70 1137 1 3 0 0 32 180 3 rs 0 0 345 9988 0 0 0 0 19 330 8 5 1381 21645 and 8.38). At least two sherds are decorated with incised double line chevrons or pendants (Figure 7.20— 1). A sherd from SFB 106 is decorated with incised lines and hand-drawn ovals (Figure 8.30). One of the stamped pieces from SFB 101 (Figure 7.18) shows part of a much more complex scheme with an incised U-shape suggestive of a free-style depiction. Several sherds showed evidence of use in the form of external sooting or internal burnt residues. This was noted across the fabric groups and no regular patterning could be detected. Distribution. Most of the sherds derive from the ten SFBs (see ‘Table 3). The quantity of pottery recovered from each SFB ranges from just eight sherds from SFB 106 to 551 sherds from SFB 101. In every case the assemblages are dominated by organic-tempered wares. Some differences are observable between buildings in terms of the other wares present, for example, chalk-tempered wares were only recovered from SFBs 100-102 and Roman wares from SFBs 101—03 and 106-7. Perhaps the most significant differences are in the number of sandy wares present. These are particularly marked in SFB 100, 101 and 106, slightly less so in SFB 108, negligible in SFB 102, 103 and 105 and apparently absent from SFB 104 and 107. There is also a greater incidence of decorated sherds from the first group with eight examples from SFB 101, two from 100 and one from 106. These observations might suggest a temporal difference between the three groups of buildings. The only stratigraphic relationship comes from SFB 107, which cuts SFB 108. From this it could be inferred that the sandy and decorated wares might represent an earlier component to the assemblage, perhaps supported by the incidence of the Roman wares. It should be stressed that this is a very tentative suggestion and that further work on contemporary assemblages is needed to refine any chronology based on fabric incidence. Small groups of Saxon pottery were also recovered from a number of discrete pits and postholes found on the site. Chronology and affinities. The Saxon wares here clearly constitute a standard domestic assemblage dominated by closed vessels and organic-tempered fabrics. It is particularly fortunate that earlier archaeological work at Collingbourne located and investigated part of a small Anglo-Saxon cemetery. Although little pottery was associated with the cemetery it was dated to the 5th century on the basis of metalwork (Gingell 1978). Quite a number of other Anglo-Saxon cemeteries have been investigated in Wiltshire but these also tend to yield little pottery. Domestic sites are less well-known and until quite recently only two relatively small groups had been published, from Ogbourne St George and Wellhead, Westbury (Fowler 1966: who also cites a group from Downton). This situation is now rapidly changing with the recovery of a good assemblage of early-middle Saxon wares from Market Lavington (Mepham forthcoming), a small group from a middle Saxon industrial site at Ramsbury (Haslam 1980) and the present group from Cadley Road. Excavations at Market Lavington revealed an early Saxon cemetery and an adjacent settlement which appears in part to be contemporary (Mepham forthcoming). An assemblage of some 1215 sherds (9804gm) of early- middle Saxon pottery was recovered (ibid.). Like the Cadley Road assemblage the Market Lavington pottery falls into two main fabric groups; organic- tempered and sand-tempered, in this case in a ratio EXCAVATION OF A SAXON SETTLEMENT AT CADLEY ROAD, COLLINGBOURNE DUCIS 99 of approximately 8:1. Only seven of the Market Lavington sherds had any form of decoration and only two stamps, a segmented circle similar to the Cadley Road example and a segmented oval. The site at Ramsbury produced a very small assemblage of organic-tempered wares in a middle Saxon context radiocarbon dated to the late 8th—early 9th centuries (Haslam 1980, 30). Other small groups of organic-tempered wares have been found in both Wiltshire and south of the Cotswold Ridge, for example, Old Swindon (unpub.), Ashbury-Bishopstone (Timby 1999), the outskirts of Cirencester (Vince 1984, 240), Shorncote Quarry, Somerford Keynes (Barclay et al. 1995, 43) and Latton (unpub.) hinting at other settlements of similar character. To the south-east 6th century domestic occupation is known at Old Down Farm, near Andover (Davies 1980). Much attention has been accorded to the occurrence and design of Saxon pottery stamps, and to die links to identify the work of specific potters. A general paucity of examples in this region to date limits the validity of such a study here. The cross-in-circle stamp, thought perhaps to have been a good-luck symbol, is one of the commonest Anglo-Saxon stamps found and as such is not a good dating indicator. Further examples from the region occur at Black Patch, Pewsey (Myres 1977, fig. 306, 3669), Lechlade (Underwood-Keevil in prep; Timby in prep), the Barton cemetery, Cirencester (Brown 1976b), and Burn Ground, Hampnett (Grimes 1960). A number of other stamps feature amongst the material from Lechlade but there are no further parallels with the Cadley Road examples. A bossed urn from Wanborough, Wiltshire is decorated with small crescentic impressions reminiscent of the sherd from SFB 101 (Figure 7.15) (Myres 1977, fig. 334, 1025). Although no immediate parallels can be cited for the Cadley Road stamps they are by no means unique designs and vessels with similar impressions occur widely in Cambridgeshire and East Anglia (cf. Myres 1977). The conservative nature of the pottery assemblage is very typical of the Saxon period where pottery production is frequently seen as a household-based industry, where vessels are made by individual households for their own use using materials immediately to hand. Firing is carried out in bonfires, clamps or domestic ovens. None of the wares suggest trade although the use of stamps implies some degree of specialism.The stamps occur on vessels in identical fabrics to the undecorated examples, which might suggest the presence of an itinerant potter, perhaps employed to make vessels for special events, for example burial urns, festival pots, etc., and bringing with him his stamp dies as easily transportable tools of his trade but using local materials. Traditionally, evidence from sites like Hamwic (Southampton) and Portchester in southern England have suggested that organic-tempered wares were in use from at least the later 5th to 8th centuries and the sandy wares could be as equally long lived. There is a small amount of evidence accruing from a number of sites, for example Canterbury, Mucking and Dorchester (Oxfordshire), that the earliest Saxon groups do not contain organic-tempered wares (Brown 1976a, 192). Recent work in Gloucestershire has revealed quite a wide range of fabrics in use at sites like Lechlade during the Saxon period, where cemetery evidence indicates a phase of occupation spanning the mid 5th to late 7th/early 8th century (Boyle 1998, 35). The radiocarbon evidence from Collingbourne, like Ramsbury, clearly demonstrates the continuation of the organic or chaff-tempered tradition well into the middle Saxon period. Similar patterns of use are suggested from sites in London where the chaff-tempered tradition continues into the 9th century but has disappeared by the end of that century (Vince 1991, 48). The Collingbourne assemblage suggests that there was less diversity in the period spanning the 7th—9th/10th centuries where organic wares very much become the norm in this area. This is a particularly significant group of pottery that makes an important contribution to the study of Saxon ceramics in Wiltshire. It is to be hoped that future similar discoveries will help formalise an understanding of the ceramic sequences of the period and refine the dating. Present evidence would suggest that the early phase of the settlement is contemporary, at least in part, with the cemetery and that the date of occupation lies within the 5th to 6th centuries but that most of the assemblage dates to the middle Saxon period. MEDIEVAL/POST-MEDIEVAL Of the post-Saxon wares, a sherd of Medieval ware (intrusive) came from posthole 314 and a sherd each of post-Medieval tin-glaze and glazed red earthenware came from two postholes (235 and 2340) of the modern fence. CATALOGUE OF ILLUSTRATED SHERDS 7.1 Small bowl/cup or lamp in a dark brown ware with a black interior. Very smooth surfaces. Fine sandy, micaceous ware, fabric S1. SFB 100, 217 (376). 7.2 Bodysherd decorated with incised girth grooves and the edge of an impressed circular stamp. Dark grey brown 100 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Fig. 7. Saxon pottery (see text for detail) EXCAVATION OF A SAXON SETTLEMENT AT CADLEY ROAD, COLLINGBOURNE DUCIS 101 interior, dark grey interior. Fabric S4. SFB 100, 217 (273). 7.3 Small bowl] with slightly everted rim Orange-brown exterior with a black core/interior. Both the internal and external surfaces are burnished. Traces of blackened residue adhere to the inner rim face. Fabric O2. SFB 101, 220 (279). 7.4 Bodysherd with an applied horizontally perforated lug. Orange-brown in colour with a black core/interior. Fabric O3. SFB 101, 220 (375). 7.5 Rimsherd with a projecting perforated lug. Dark grey- brown in colour. Fabric O3. SFB 101, 220, (270). 7.6 Large diameter jar, dark grey in colour with a grey-brown interior surface. Fabric O2. Burnished exterior. SFB 101, 220 (279). 7.7 Black sandy ware jar with a well-burnished exterior and roughly-burnished interior. Fabric S1. SFB 101, 220 (279). 7.8 Dark brown jar with a dark grey-black interior and core. Burnished exterior finish. Fabric O2. SFB 101, 220 (270). 7.9 Wide-mouthed jar, patchy black and orange exterior, black interior. The exterior is roughly burnished, the interior has a smoothed inner rim face and linear wipe/scrape marks. Fabric S1. SFB 101, 220 (279). 7.10 Large jar, dark red-brown in colour with a black core and interior surface. Fabric O2. SFB 101, 220 (475). 7.11 Black sandy ware jar. Fabric S1. SFB 10i, 220 (480). 7.12 Black jar decorated with two parallel incised lines below the rim, possibly stamped below this originally. Fabric S1. SFB 101, 220 (279). 7.13 Jar with short everted rim, black to light grey in colour with a black core/interior surface. Fabric O2. Traces of residue on the internal surface. SFB 101, 220 (270). 7.14 Globular-bodied jar, dark orange-brown in colour with a dark grey interior. Fabric 02. Smoothed burnished exterior surface. SFB 101, 220 (279). 7.15 Bodysherd, black in colour. Decorated with a line of crescentic impressions delimited by pairs of parallel horizontal lines. Fabric O03. SFB 101, 220 (279). 7.16 Bodysherd, black in colour with a single cross-in-circle stamp. Fabric O2. SFB 101, 220 (475). 7.17 Short everted rim jar. Black sandy ware with sparse flint, fabric S1. The exterior surface and inner rim face have a burnished finish. SFB 101, 220 (475). Fig. 8. Saxon pottery (see text for detail) 100mm 102 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 7.18 Bodysherd decorated with poorly impressed cross-in- circle stamps and part of an incised free-style design. Dark brown in colour with a black interior. Fabric O3. SFB 101, 220 (270). 7.19 Bodysherd decorated with a line of three faintly impressed cross-in-circle stamps. Brown in colour with a dark grey interior. Fabric O2. SFB 101, 220 (475). 7.20 Bodysherd with part of incised Pchevron design. Red- brown with a grey interior. Fabric O3. SFB 101, 220 (279). 7.21 Bodysherd decorated with an incised double line chevron. Fabric O2. SFB 101, 220 (279). 7.22 Vertical-walled open vessel, black in colour with smoothed surfaces. Fabric O2. SFB 101, 220 (475). 7.23 Barrel-bodied jar with a slightly beaded rim. Patchy brown/black exterior, black interior/core. Fabric S6. SFB 101, 220 (279). 7.24 Bodysherd with an oval, horizontally-pierced applied lug. Grey-brown in colour with a black interior/core. Fabric O2. SFB 103, 312 (363). 7.25 Bodysherd decorated with at least three horizontal girth grooves below which is an incomplete segmented circle stamp. Grey black exterior with a brown interior. Fabric O2. SFB 103, 312 (363). 7.26 Simple rim ?bowl. Red-brown exterior, black interior. Sandy fabric with sparse organic matter, fabric O3. The interior surface is covered with a blackened residue. SFB 105, 333 (388). 7.27 Small bowl/cup, orange-brown in colour with a black interior/core. Fabric O2. SFB 105, 333 (388). 7.28 Large everted-rim jar, dark brown-black in colour. Fabric O2. SFB 105, 333 (399). 8.29 Bodysherd with part of a projecting horizontal lug or cordon. Dark brown exterior, black interior/core. Burnished exterior. Fabric O2. SFB 106, 340 (466). 8.30 Rim from a jar decorated with two sets of roughly parallel incised horizontal lines between which are incised ovals etched in freehand. Black in colour. Fabric O2. SFB 106, 401 (468). 8.31 Wide-mouthed jar, black in colour throughout. Fabric O02. SFB 107, 409 (491). 8.32 Large jar with slightly thickened rim. Patchy exterior, brown, black and light grey firing haloes; black interior. Fabric O1. SFB 107, 409 (493). 8.33 Jar, with a patchy brown/black exterior and a black interior. Fabric S1. SFB 107, 409 (493). 8.34 Vertical-walled vessel with a single perforation. Dark grey black in colour. Fabric O2. SFB 107, 409 (491). 8.35 Jar, dark brown in colour with a burnished finish. Fabric O2. SFB 107, 409 (493). 8.36 Necked jar with a black burnished exterior and mid brown interior. The interior surface shows wipe marks. Fabric O3. SFB 108, 511 (554). 8.37 Jar, dark brown in colour, black interior/core. Fabric O2. Pit 204 (256). 8.38 Bodysherd possibly from a biconical urn decorated with rows of stamps. Two styles of stamp have been used, both with radiating spokes. Black in colour. Fabric O2. Pit 204 (256). Animal Bone by Sheila Hamilton-Dyer INTRODUCTION Over 3,000 bones were recovered from the excavations. Apart from a few fragments from a line of ?post-Medieval postholes, all the material is from the Saxon SFBs and associated pits and postholes. The material derives mainly from hand excavation. Soil samples amounting to approximately 10% of the major fills were taken for wet and dry sieving and the bone recovered from these is included. METHODOLOGY Species identifications were made using the author’s modern comparative collections. Ribs and vertebrae of the ungulates (other than axis, atlas and sacrum) were identified only to the level of cattle/horse-sized and sheep/pig-sized. Unidentified shaft and other fragments were similarly divided. Any fragments that could not be assigned even to this level have been recorded as mammalian only. Sheep and goat were separated using the methods of Boessneck (1969) ‘Table 4: Species list and abbreviations used in text, tables and archive HOR domestic horse COW domestic cattle S/G identified to ‘ovicaprid’ only SHE domestic sheep GOA domestic goat PIG domestic pig RED red deer, Cervus elaphus ROE roe, Capreolus capreolus LAR large ungulate (probably mostly cattle but may also include horse and red deer) SAR small artiodactyl (probably mostly S/G but may also include some pig) MAM unidentified bone, probably mostly SAR and/ or LAR DOG domestic dog CAT domestic cat MEL MEL badger, Meles meles ARV TER water vole, Arvicola terrestris FOW domestic fowl GOO domestic goose or greylag, Anser anser ANAS/D domestic duck or mallard, Anas platyrhynchos CRANE cf. common crane, Grus grus PASSER small passerines of thrush and sparrow size BIR bird bone fragments, probably mostly fowl AMPH amphibian including common toad, Bufo bufo; and common frog, Rana temporaria FIS unidentified fish fragments EXCAVATION OF A SAXON SETTLEMENT AT CADLEY ROAD, COLLINGBOURNE DUCIS 103 and Payne (1985). Recently-broken bones were joined where possible and have been counted as single fragments. Measurements follow von den Driesch (1976) in the main and are in millimetres unless otherwise stated. Withers heights of the domestic ungulates are based on factors recommended by von den Driesch and Boessneck (1974). The archive includes metrical and cther data not presented in the text. Table 4 provides a species list and abbreviations used in the text, tables and archive. CONDITION The bone is generally very well preserved; over 70% of the fragments are largely unaffected beyond slight surface degradation and the expected soil staining. Slight or moderate erosion has affected 15%, while 7% show signs of gnawing. Some fragments (5.5%) have a crisp, almost fresh appearance that has been recorded as ‘ivoried’. Although these different preservation types are not concentrated in any one area but occur across the site, there are differences between each of the SFBs and the results are given in Table 5 (isolated small features have been excluded). Very few bones had been burnt, less than 1%, and these have not been displayed. It might be supposed that those features with high amounts of eroded bone would also have the least number of ivoried bones but this is not the case. It is unlikely that the bones, especially of the same element and the same species, would be preserved differently if lying close together throughout the depositional history. They are, therefore, likely to derive from different origins rather than having been thrown away in a single event. It is probable that some were dropped in situ while others may have been swept up after some time elsewhere and deposited in a building not in use. Gnawed bones may derive from either origin. The length of time of Table 5: Condition of animal bone from sunken- featured buildings SFB Unaffected Gnawed FEroded Ivoried Total 100 233 10 42 5 290 101 616 36 50 46 748 102 129 18 116 4 267 103 637 70 WT 53 833 104 40 2) 14 4 60 105 445 28 25 35 533 106 163 21 71 8 263 107 235 57 126 26 444 108 66 9 16 18 109 Total 2564 251 533 199 3547 surface exposure and whether bones were boiled, roasted or raw when discarded may also have a bearing on the final appearance. A relationship between preservation and number of bones might also be expected but this, again, is not so; neither does there appear to be any spatial relationship. SPECIES REPRESENTATION The bulk of the remains are of sheep/goat, cattle and fragments of these sizes. Of those fragments that could be distinguished to species, sheep is the most frequent at 72 fragments, while just six could be attributed to goat. Several other taxa are present and include horse, pig, dog, cat, red and roe deer, fowl, goose and songbirds. Also of note are two bones each of badger and crane. Pig is present but at a very low level in comparison with cattle and sheep. Bones of fowl are found in most contexts and are more frequent than those of pig. The deer remains are frequent and are of post-cranial bones as well as antler. Cat appears to be common but the 97 bones in SFB 100 are from only two individuals. In addition, there are several well preserved worked bone and antler items and offcuts. These include at least one of walrus ivory (see below). A summary of the species representation from each group is given in Table 6 and details for each context are available in the site archive. It can be seen that, like the preservation, the species representation varies across the site. The species variety appears to be less on the western side of the site but this may be an artefact as these features offered smaller samples. The relative proportions of the two most common taxa, sheep/goat and cattle, are more consistent than those of the less frequent taxa. In each of the buildings sheep/goat fragments are always the most frequently identified. Overall sheep/goat bones are more frequent than those of cattle and are equalled by cattle in only one feature. Cattle averages 40% of the cattle/sheep total, in SFB 101 the amount is low at only 27%. Cattle bone is highest in SFB 102 where cattle and sheep bones are equal but there are more sheep-sized than cattle-sized unidentified fragments. Pig is present in all but SFB 108, but amounts to less than 7% of the sheep/cattle/pig total. Fowl bones are very uneven in their distribution, 33 of the 74 bones come from SFB 103. These bones came from a minimum of three birds, probably more, and therefore do not represent a single skeleton but probably a scatter of unrelated bones. In contrast there were none at all from some areas of the site. The proportion of deer is very high in comparison with most other sites. From excavations at Melbourne 104 Table 6: Species distribution summary Fea- Horse Cattle Sheep/ Pig Red Roe- Cattle Sheep Mam- Dog ture goat deer deer size size mal 100. - 21 28 2 - - 53 47 32 - LOL 2 54 147 20 2 2 168 264 73 - 102 1 51 51 9 1 52 74 26 = 103 12 90 94 5 1 11 237 .200'. 121 J1 104. - 2 6 2) = = 9 29 4 = 105 1 40 59 5 4 2 107. 196 97 2 106 2 50 65 5 = = 42 71 21 = 107 1 47 88 9 tt 14 LOE sil 29 1 108. - 14 23 - 3 - 21 26 10 - other - 8 12 6 - - 20 20 31 - Total 19 BTY 513; 100 18 29 828 1044 444 4 % OF5: LONS= Toe M8 0:5) O88 2257 23836" S122. 10M *% Bil 2 50: 5 *% = Percentage of cattle, sheep and pig THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Cat Bad- Fowl! Goose Other Vole = Amphi- Total Birds Deer ger bird bian 97 - 4 1 2 - 3 290.- 7 0 3 1 9 2 - - 1 748 «#11 4 = = = 1 1 - - 267 2 1 3 = 33 8 15: 1 1 833) 56 12 = = 4 = if = = 60 5 0) = 1 2 = 3 - 4 593) 5 6 = = = 3 = - 4 263 3 (0) = = 6 2 2 2 - 444 10 21 - - 6 4 2 - - 109 12 3 = = = - = = - 97 (0) 10) 103° 2 74 21 26 3 13 3644 121 47 2:8- 0.1 2 O16 0.7. OF “O14 1016 Street, Southampton, the urban middle Saxon site of Hamwih, just 20 non-antler remains were identified from only 84 deer bones in a collection of well over 45,000 bones (Bourdillon and Coy 1980). At Cadley Road there are 28 in a collection of 47 deer remains from a total of less than 4,000 bones. Most, but not all, are of roe deer. Jaws and metapodia are common but there are also several meat bones from the limbs. Most of the red deer remains are antler offcuts. At the middle Saxon smelting site of Ramsbury to the north, 109 deer remains were identified in a collection of just under 8,000 bones (Coy 1980). At 1.3% (Cadley Road) and 1.4% (Ramsbury) of the respective totals these figures are very similar. This is in contrast with Abbots Worthy (Coy 1991) where just 19 red deer antler fragments were identified in a collection of just over 3,000 bones, although this is still much higher than from Hamwih. ANATOMICAL REPRESENTATION Most of the bones appeared to be randomly distributed across the site. There were few skeletons and other associated bones. In SFB 100 the partial skeletons of two young adult cats were recovered, and from SFB 102 a sheep and lamb. Occasionally the jaws of sheep and roe were recovered in pairs and the large left and right cattle radii in 102 may be from the same animal. Other associated bones may be present, but were not noticed during excavation and were not apparent during analysis. A summary of the anatomical distribution of the main domestic ungulate bones is given in Table 7. There are few of the smallest elements such as carpals, and many of those that were recovered were found in the soil samples. Cattle bones are less biased than the smaller sheep bones. It is noticeable that the most frequent sheep bones, jaws, metapodia, and tibia, are those which are the most resistant to attrition. These findings are typical of many assemblages (Maltby 1985). Allowing for these taphonomic influences, the remains are not strongly biased in favour of head and feet (slaughter and tanning waste) nor of the major meat bones. The representation of rib and shaft fragments is very high but many of these are small, and often chopped, pieces which usually represent less of the original bone than other elements. An examination of the WBE (whole bone equivalents) gives a more balanced picture, with the number of ribs only twice that of the other common elements. It also reveals that the number of ribs represented is barely sufficient for a single animal. The highest number of represented bones is for sheep tibia, at just 22 bones this illustrates the pitfalls of calculations on small samples. The distribution does indicate the use and disposal of whole animals, rather than disposal of selected body areas, but it is difficult to further interpret the disposal patterns represented. BUTCHERY Definite butchery marks were visible on 124 of the bones and many others appeared to have been deliberately split or broken. Most of the marks had been made using a cleaver or similar implement but there are also some knife marks. The marks indicate three types of activity; skinning, disarticulation of ! | | | { | EXCAVATION OF A SAXON SETTLEMENT AT CADLEY ROAD, COLLINGBOURNE DUCIS 105 joints, and meat removal. Disarticulation marks are the most frequent and occur on cattle, sheep and fowl.Butchery marks on horse bones are not generally common but there are two in this collection. One is a skinning mark on a second phalanx, the other is a chop mark above the pelvic acetabulum This might have been made when removing the leg but whether for human or dog consumption or another use is not clear. A cattle atlas and a jaw showed evidence of axial carcass division. Several jaws had been chopped near the articular hinge. Most of the marks on the cattle bones were for separating the carcass into joints but there are also a few skinning marks and some bones were split or broken, perhaps for marrow extraction. Several of the cattle-sized lumbar vertebrae had been laterally, but not quite axially, chopped. This implies that the carcass was divided in half, but not with the precision of recent saw-based butchery; it is easier to split a carcass down one side of the spine than directly through each vertebra. Many of the cattle-sized ribs had been chopped into short lengths. This was also the case for the sheep-sized ribs but a knife or fine cleaver was also employed. Several of the thoracic vertebrae had been chopped across. This would divide the area into ‘chops’. Other butchery marks were similar to those on cattle but were often made with a finer cleaver or knife. Many of the metapodia were axially split but it is not clear whether this was deliberate or a taphonomic artefact. There are few pig bones and only four with butchery marks, two of these are the typical axial splitting of the jaw observed throughout prehistoric and historic material. Six of the fowl bones had knife marks consistent with disarticulation, while a goose femur had marks more probably from meat removal. An axially split sternum gives evidence of halved geese. Four of the roe bones were broken, perhaps deliberately. One of the two badger bones was cut, giving evidence that this was utilised and not from an intrusive skeleton. The radius had two knife marks, one across the proximal front of the shaft, the other midway on the medial side. In the past badgers were killed for various reasons including for the pelt and fat. Table 7: Anatomical distribution of animal bone fragments cattle % sheep/ % goat skull 39 10.3 29 Drill maxilla/premaxilla 17 4.5 20 35 jaw 40 10.6 96 16.8 loose teeth 39 10.3 31 5.4 atlas 5 123 3 0.5 axis 3 0.8 2 0.3 other vertebrae - 0 1 0.2 ribs - 0 - 0 scapula 29 Meh 23 4.0 peivis 22 5.8 20 3.5 humerus 20 5.3 41 ee radius 22 5.8 52 9.1 ulna 10 Qe 17 3.0 femur 26 6.9 oii 4.7 tibia 29 Thetl ih 13.4 astragalus 3 0.8 5 0.9 calcaneum 7 1.9 3 0.5 other carpal/tarsal 7 1.9 - 0 metacarpus 26 6.9 46 8.0 metatarsus 19 5.0 70 1222 phalanges 13 3.4 9 1.6 shaft fragments - 0 - 0 other 1 0.3 1 0.2 Total BT. 573 sheep/goat includes 72 sheep, 6 goat pig % cattle- % sheep- % sized sized 3 4.5 44 29) 8 0.8 3 4.5 - 0 - 0 11 16.7 - 0 - 0 9 13.6 - 0 - 0 = 0 - 0 - 0 1 15 = 0 . 0 > 0 61 7.4 61 5.8 1 1S 305 36.8 494 47.3 4 6.1 6 0.7 2 0:2 5 7.6 - 0 - 0 4 6.1 - 0 - 0 1 15 = 0 - 0 2 3.0 = 0 - 0 = 0 - 0 - 0) 1 iM) - 0 - 0 1 15) = 0 - 0 2 3.0 - 0 - 0 0 - 0 - 0 4 6.1 = 0 - 0 5 7.6 - 0 4 0.4 4 6.1 - 0 - 0 = 0 313 37.8 469 44.9 5 7.6 99 12.0 6 0.6 66 828 1044 106 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE AGEING Sheep/goat jaws are well represented in the assemblage and offer a small but useful collection of data for assessment of ageing. Toothwear and eruption stages were recorded by the method of Grant (1982), jaws were then classified into the groups used by Maltby (1993 mf. 30). Jaws that were clearly pairs were counted once only. Jaws with insufficient teeth were placed between the two closest stages. Over half of the jaws could be identified as sheep but no goat jaws were positively identified. A summary of the results is given in Table 8. There is a clear peak at Stage 3 which approximates to an age of nine to twelve months. Without intervention most traditional breeds of British sheep lamb in April. If this pattern occurred with Saxon sheep these would represent the lambs of the year, killed in late winter. Almost no lambs are represented in the jaws, and bones from young lambs are also rare, but present. There is likely to be a bias against material from the youngest animals as their bones are small and porous and may suffer differential destruction. This does not account for the low numbers around Stage 5 (about two to three years). Several older animals are also present. Fewer cattle jaws were recovered and even less offered much ageing information. Of the 12 with any teeth, seven still retained the deciduous 4th premolar while three had permanent dentition, one with well worn teeth. No neonates are present but one jaw showed a Ist molar in the process of erupting and can be classed as a calf. Ageing by epiphysial fusion is less reliable than the data derived from teeth because of differential taphonomic effects. Little data is available from small or fragile elements, and erosion and gnawing damage to the more vulnerable unfused epiphyses can further confuse the picture. The limited amount of data from sheep/goat and cattle is illustrated in Table 9. On the basis of this evidence it can be seen that most cattle ‘Table 8: Sheep toothwear and eruption Stage 1 2 3 4 5 6 OF 70" 33 44s 6501 2 OES stages: 1 dp4 not in wear 2 M1 not in wear, dp4 in wear 3. M1 in wear, M2 not in wear 4 M2 in wear, M3 not in wear 5 M3 in wear, M1 not in heavy wear (Grant H) 6 M1 in heavy wear, M2 not a M1 and M2 in heavy wear Table 9: Ageing by fusion, sheep/goat, cattle sheep/goat cattle fused unfused fused unfused distal scapula 6 2 5 0 pelvis acetabulum 12 0 13 1 proximal radius 1 2 7 0 distal humerus 4 0 4 0 proximal phalanx 5 0 6 2 distal metapodial Z 9 8 2 distal tibia 2 5 5 1 femur 7 4 4 1 proximal tibia 2) 4 0 2 proximal calcaneus 2 1 0 2 distal radius 0) 4 1 2 proximal humerus 3 5) 2 1 ulna 2 1 0 0 totals 61 37 55 = «14 survival percentages age sheep/goat age cattle (months) (months) 6-10 90 10 7-10 94.7 5.3 13-16 83.3 16.7 12-18 89.5 10.5 18-28 50 50 24-36 81.3 18.8 30-42 50 50 42-48 46.7 53.3 survived beyond three years whereas half the sheep/ goat had died or been killed by around two years. In both cases the age profile is of slightly later culling than indicated by toothwear. Similar inconsistencies were found at Hamwih but the sheep/goat data still equated to culling at a later stage than Cadley Road. When adjusted for differing stage divisions the sheep tooth ageing pattern more closely resembles the situation at the early Saxon site at West Stow in Suffolk, with a culling peak at the end of the first year and with several being killed into the second year (Crabtree 1989). This appears to represent an interest in meat rather than wool production. In the local area the middle Saxon site of Ramsbury (Coy 1980) had a peak of animals at Stage 5, over two years old from a sample of 50 jaws. At Meonstoke (Hamilton-Dyer and Bourdillon nd) the 41 sheep jaws also indicate a pattern like nearby Hamwih with a peak of older animals with the third molar erupted, probably indicating wool flocks. The jaws found at Lechlade may indicate a situation more similar to Cadley Road but the sample (14) is much too small to be certain (Maltby pers. comm.). Old Down Farm (Bourdillon 1980) had only six jaws of which three were of young lambs. If the site is a high status settlement, these results could represent a deliberate selection for prime young meat animals that is not generally applicable. EXCAVATION OF A SAXON SETTLEMENT AT CADLEY ROAD, COLLINGBOURNE DUCIS 107 METRICAL DATA Butchery, gnawing and fragmentation, ancient and recent, reduce the amount of measurable bones. Only three cattle limb bones were recovered complete and six of sheep and goat. There are, however, a number of partial bones that offer useful data. Selective measurements for cattle, sheep/goat and fowl are given in Tables 10, 11 and 12. The three complete cattle bones are a radius and two metacarpi. The metacarpi offer estimates of withers heights of 1.110m and 1.139m (Table 10). The radius is unusually large with a greatest length of 302mm and giving an estimated height of 1.299m. This bone was one of a pair and may be from an old bull or perhaps a castrate. Part of the reason that this bone is perceived as unusual is that it is complete. While similar material from Hamwih offered 42 metacarpi of a good range of sizes only two radii were recovered intact, presumably because they are more likely to be chopped or smashed for meat and marrow than the metapodia, which have almost no meat. Though large the derived withers height is not outside the Hamwih values. The six complete sheep and goat bones include two metacarpi positively identified as goat. These are from different SFBs and are probably from two individuals, one of 0.634m estimated withers height and the other of 0.604m. Although more sheep than goat bones were identified they are difficult to separate Table 10: Selection of catthke measurements and comparison with Southampton radius — tibia astra- = meta- galus carpus Bp Bd GLI Bd SFB 101 59.7 55.3 102 86.4 52.9 61.3 88.1 103 64.1 59.2 63.5. 59.4 105 55.9 58.3 106 72.6 47.1 82.2 107 52.4 Maximum 88.1 59.7 63.5 61.3 Minimum 64.1 52.4 55.9 47.1 N 5 5 3 3 Mean 78a 5580). 15912" | 55/9 Melbourne St mean 73.9 56.8 60.9 55.9 Lower High Stmean 76.6 55.7 59.9 56.0 Measurement codes as per von den Driesch (1976) and some of the tibia measurements in Table 11 may also be of goat. All four of the complete sheep bones offer estimated withers heights of just over 0.57m. These are a little smaller than the Hamwih mean but still lie comfortably within the range. Other measurements are similarly a little under the Hamwih mean. This is a small sample that may not be representative but it is interesting to note that sheep measurements at Abbots Worthy (Coy 1991) are also slightly smaller than Hamwih. A high proportion of the recovered fowl bones were measurable and a selection is given in Table 12. Again it can be seen that these are very similar to those from Southampton, representing a typical small, almost bantam sized, bird. Measurements for other species were few, but were taken where possible and are available in the archive. They appear to be similar to those from other sites, including Hamwih. CONCLUSIONS This is a significant and well preserved collection from this site type with virtually no later disturbance. Other sites are frequently multi-period or have small and/or poorly preserved material, for example at Mucking (Done 1993) where a very large number of sunken- floored buildings produced very little bone and that in poor condition. Although the bulk of the bone is, as expected, of cattle, sheep and pig, the proportions of each vary in each feature. Pig is, however, consistently at a low level and sheep is always equal to or more frequent than cattle. The quantity and condition of the bone is also variable as is the presence and amount of other taxa. Remains of wild fauna are more frequent than at many Saxon sites with both red and roe deer present along with badger and crane. At 29 bones roe deer is more common than horse. Two Saxon sites have been excavated nearby in Andover at Charlton Gym (Hamilton-Dyer nd) and Old Down Farm (Bourdillon 1980) but both offered very small samples of bone, making comparison difficult. Both sites contained much higher amounts of pig and Charlton contained the unusual find of a pinemarten. To the south the excavations at Abbots Worthy (Coy 1991) offered an assemblage of similar size to Cadley Road, about half of which came from SFBs. As at Cadley Road the species proportions were found to be quite variable but cattle were more frequent. The anatomical distribution is not dissimilar and the high proportion of gnawing and ivoried bones with very few burnt is also like Cadley Road. Recent excavations at Lechlade also revealed SFBs and 108 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Table 11: Selection of sheep/goat measurements and comparison with Southampton scapula humerus ubia calcaneus astragalus GLP BT Bd GL GLI SFB 100 27.0 26.7 2553 5-9 101 30.2 26.8 26.1 54.5 26.7 YH fed | 23.4 25uf 102 28.4 25.5 23:8 26.4 24.3 26.3 103 24.1 26.0 27.4 24.5 105 28.3 25.5 2a 106 24.8 24.8 26.1 107 25.9 24.6 108 23D Max 30.2 PA ed 26.1 5D.D 27.4 Min 26.7 24.8 23.4 54.5 24.5 N 5 9 11 2 a Mean 28.3 20:2 24.6 55 25.9 Melbourne St Mean = 32.3 28.7 25.9 55.3 28.1 Range 25.6-36.8 24.0-31.6 21.8-30.0 49.7-61.6 22.9-31.1 n 192 200 267 56 56 Lower High St Mean 31.2 26.6 252) 51.6 26.7 Measurement codes as per von den Driesch (1976) Table 12: Selection of fowl measurements and comparison with Southampton GL Bp GL GL GE GL GL GL humerus humerus radius ulna coracoid cmc femur tmt context female 312 19.0 65.9 68.9 47.9 33.5 67.0 f 66.8 71.8 51.0 81.3 63.9 63.6 48.1 333, 62.6 17.1 60.4 36.0 77.4 217 63.6 220 53:9 56.0 63.5 55.2 GL Bp Git GL GL GL GL GL humerus humerus radius ulna coracoid cmc femur tmt female n 1 2 3 6 4 2 3 2, min 62.6 17.1 53.9 60.4 47.9 33.5 67.0 63.9 max 62.6 19.0 65.9 71.8 5522 36.0 81.3 66.8 mean 62.6 18.1 58.6 65.3 50.6 34.8 75.2 63.9 Lower High St 67.0 18.4 59.6 63.4 51.6 36.4 74.2 65.2 mean Melbourne St 65.3 17.9 56.5 66.3 51.6 36.7 73.8 65.2 mean Melbourne St 55.0- 16.5- 46.5— 52.8- 47 .3- 33.5- 66.0— 49.1- range TDD 20.6 66.2 76.8 60.3 42.5 84.2 71.0 EXCAVATION OF A SAXON SETTLEMENT AT CADLEY ROAD, COLLINGBOURNE DUCIS 109 preliminary analysis (Maltby pers. comm.) indicates some similarities in an assemblage approximately half the size of that from Cadley Road. Cattle is high and pig is very low but there are not so many wild species. The bird bones do include crane. At Meonstoke in the Meon valley to the east of Southampton excavations revealed another site with SFBs and an assemblage with a high level of pig (over 20%) and several wild taxa including red, roe, badger and pigeon. In the Savernake Forest to the north of Cadley Road an assemblage of over 7,000 bones was recovered from the middle Saxon smelting site of Ramsbury (Coy 1980). This site is clearly different with pig amounting to 20% or more of the domestic ungulate total and a high proportion of wild species including red, roe, fox, badger, beaver, kite, peregrine and snipe. This is a specialised industrial site in a heavily wooded area and is likely to be untypical. The bone assemblage from Cadley Road represents a relatively short period of (early/middle Saxon?) deposition with very little disturbance by later activity. Although probably not representing the entire occupation site, the collection represents a discrete group of material from a relatively rare site type. The assemblage differs substantially from the large urban collections of middle and late Saxon material in the area (such as Winchester and Southampton) but also from the small number of comparable rural sites such as Abbots Worthy, Ramsbury, Andover, Meonstoke and Lechlade. The variety of species, relatively low amount of pig, and preference for prime sheep meat shows this to be an unusual assemblage, perhaps indicating a specialised or high status occupation. Individual buildings at this site also contain different faunal groupings; this variation should be considered when analysing future rural Saxon assemblages, particularly those from small excavations. This is an important collection of material as bone from rural Saxon sites is relatively uncommon and clearly variable, contrasting with the consistency and low levels of wild fauna found at all parts of the large urban settlement at Hamwih. Continued study of Saxon sites provides a better understanding of the rural economy and of the origin and provisioning of the urban middle/late Saxon sites. Worked Bone by Sheila Hamilton-Dyer and Nicola Powell Thirty-six pieces of worked bone, antler and walrus ivory were recovered during the excavation. They comprise pieces of three combs, complete pinbeaters, pins and a spindlewhorl, as well as offcuts of antler and bone and artefact roughouts. These are all, with the exception of the walrus ivory, common finds on Saxon occupation sites. Saxon objects of walrus ivory are extremely rare. PINBEATERS AND PINS Five complete pinbeaters and one broken point were recovered from four of the SFBs (101, 103, 105 and 106). Pinbeaters, distinguishable in this case by their double points, were weaving tools. In addition, three pins with missing tips and a probable damaged pin were found in three SFBs (100, 101 and 105). Manufactured from pig fibulae, each pin has a hole bored through the distal end. These pins could have served as dresspins or been used in weaving. Similar pins were recovered from the settlement at West Stow (West 1985, fig 155). Fig. 9.1 Pin, tip missing. Length 101mm, SFB 100, 217 (268). Fig. 9.2 Pin? The narrowing of the broken end suggests this point may be a damaged pin. It is manufactured from bone or antler and has been highly polished. The section appears oval. Length 80mm. SFB 101, 220 (480). Fig. 9.3 Point. This may be a pinbeater. If so, it belongs to the group of smaller double-pointed pinbeaters. It is oval in section and polished. Length 50mm. SFB 101, 220 (480). Fig. 9.4 Pin, tip missing. Length 36mm. SFB 101, 220 (480). Fig. 9.5 A complete pinbeater made of polished walrus ivory. It is of pale colour, has double-points and is oval in section. Length 112mm. SFB 103, 312 (495). Fig. 9.6 A complete pinbeater of double-pointed form. It has an almost circular section and is manufactured from either bone or antler. Length 143mm. SFB 103, 312 (374). Fig. 9.7. A complete pinbeater made from either bone or antler. It is double-pointed and circular in section. Length 85mm. SFB 103, 312 (365). Fig.9.8 A thin double-pointed pinbeater. It is manufactured from bone and has a flattish oval section. There are striations on the surface and it appears dull and well worn. Length 116mm. SFB 105, 333 (399). Fig. 9.9 Pin, tip missing. Length 57mm. SFB 105, 333 (388). Fig. 9.10 A complete double-pointed pinbeater. It is manufactured from bone, polished and oval in section. Length 126mm. SFB 106, 340 (466). BONE SPINDLEWHORL A spindlewhorl formed from a cattle femur was recovered from SFB 106 (340) during cleaning (diameter 42mm) (Figure 9.11). A hole has been bored through the femoral head, which had been cut from the long bone. MacGregor et al. suggest that 110 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 100mm Fig. 9. Worked bone and antler: bone pins (1-4 and 9), pinbeaters (5-8 and 10), and a spindlewhor! (11), worked cattle rib (12), antler crown offcuts and roughouts (13-16 and 19), a crane metatarsus (17), and a roughly worked rhorse bone (18). (See text for detailed description.) the main period of spindlewhorls manufactured in this way was the 9th to 12th century (1999). Earlier spindlewhorls were usually formed from other parts of the bone. OFFCUTS AND ROUGHOUTS Fig. 9.12 Worked cattle rib. A 2mm groove runs the length of one side. Length 61mm. 340 (394). Fig. 9.13 Red antler crown offcut. The antler has been removed by sawing from a number of directions. Cut marks can be seen on one tine and much of the antler has been smoothed. A second tine has been broken. Length 184mm, width 121mm. SFB 107, 409 (493). Fig. 9.14 Three fragments from one antler offcut. Lengths 161mm, 130mm and 61mm. SFB 107, 409 (479). Fig. 9.15 Antler object. The end of a tine has been sawn from one side and then broken off. The tip has been worked to a fine point. The surface is smoothed and polished. Length 62mm, diameter 15mm. SFB 107, 409 (491). Fig. 9.16 Antler offcut.Tine has been whittled and roughly shaped to a point. End shows saw marks. Length 55mm, width 14mm. 511 (554). EXCAVATION OF A SAXON SETTLEMENT AT CADLEY ROAD, COLLINGBOURNE DUCIS 111 Fig. 10. Bone comb fragments from SFBs 101 and 103 (see text for detail) Fig. 9.17 Crane metatarsus, with filed and smoothed shaft edges. Bone is broken at both ends. Length 165mm, width 11mm. 511 (554). Fig. 9.18 Roughly worked length of bone. Cleanly cut at one end; the other end is broken off. Sides have been cut giving an ovoid section. May be horse. Length 74mm. SFB 107, 409 (479). Fig. 9.19 Antler roughout. It has been worked to a flat rectangular shape and may have been intended as a comb plate. Length 109mm. SFB 107, 409 (491). Antler offcut. Length 48mm. SFB 105, 333 (388). Not illustrated. COMBS Fragments of combs were found in two SFBs. All are composite and are of simple double-sided type fastened with iron rivets. Fig. 10.1 End piece of comb including one iron rivet holding two lengths of plate in place. There are also five fragments of plate including one with an iron rivet and three loose teeth. The plate shows scarring from tooth-cutting; otherwise the comb is plain. Length of most complete piece 20mm, width 47mm, thickness (plate) 3mm (centre) 2mm. SFB 101, 312 (361). Fig. 10.2. End piece of comb with one iron rivet in place securing two lengths of ‘D’ section plate. The plate is quite narrow and scarred from tooth-cutting. The teeth are fine and evenly spaced. The end has an oval cut into it, probably 0 100mm Fig. 11. Clay spindlewhorls from SFBs 103 and 105 (see text for detail) for decoration. Length 35mm, width 44mm, thickness (plate) 3mm (centre) 2mm. SFB 101, 220 (475). Fig. 10.3. End piece of comb including two iron rivets. Plate shows a D-shaped profile and some scarring from tooth-cutting. Rivets show corrosion. Teeth are fine and evenly shaped. SFB 103, 217 (376). Clay Spindlewhorls, Loomweight and Fired Clay by Jo Pine A total of 62 fragments of fired clay were recovered, including three spindlewhorls and three recognisable fragments of annular loomweight from SFB 101, 220 (480). The spindlewhorls were all from SFBs: Fig. 11.1 A low conical spindlewhorl with eccentric perforation. Diameter 39m, perforation diameter 8m, thickness 15mm. SFB 103, 312 (363). Fig. 11.2 Aconical spindlewhorl with central perforation. Diameter 44mm, perforation diameter 9mm, thickness 18mm. SFB 103, 312 (365). Fig. 11.3 A shallow conical spindlewhorl with central perforation. Diameter 42mm, perforation diameter 10mm, thickness 17mm. SFB 105, 333 (399) Brick and Tile by Jo Pine Nine fragments of brick and tile were recovered; all were too fragmented to identify, apart from the modern brick from fence posthole 238. The four fragments of brick and tile from within the SFBs is either residual or intrusive. A full catalogue can be found in the site archive. 112 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Struck Flint by Steve Ford A small quantity of 20 struck flints were recovered during the evaluation and excavation. Of these, five very fresh pieces are probably the result of actual manufacture in Saxon times. The remaining pieces, which are both patinated and unpatinated, are residual finds of prehistoric date. Of particular note are three, possibly four, that are blades/narrow flakes of Mesolithic or possibly early Neolithic date. The chalk downland of Wessex is not noted for dense Mesolithic settlement, although numbers of finds are found in the river valleys in the area (Richards 1990, 16). Worked Stone by David Williams It is apparent that the majority of the 53 pieces of stone examined were imported to the site from some distance away. Nineteen of the samples, which were probably used for honestones or querns, are Pennant Sandstone and come from the area around Clevedon in Avon. Five pieces are in Potterne stone quarried just south of Devizes. Two fragments of shelly sandstone seems to be a Lower Greensand stone and may possibly be from Coles Pit, Faringdon, Oxfordshire, a known quarry site for querns (Crawford 1953). There may be a possible piece of Wardour stone on the site, a building stone from about 20 miles south-west of Collingbourne Ducis. A single piece of piece of Heathstone, an iron- shot grit stone, comes from the Bagshot Beds. Other fragments of unworked stone, of chalk, sarcen and glauconitic sand and limestones, probably come from local sources. A catalogue of worked and unworked stone can be found in the site archive. Burnt Flint by Jo Pine In total 1.7kg of burnt flint was recovered from deposits on the site. Details are presented in the site archive. Metalwork by David Richards A small collection of 19 objects was recovered: 15 of iron (including six nails of post-Medieval date); and four pieces of worked but unidentifiable copper-alloy sheet. The two significant iron objects are a small knife from SFB 101 and a possible arrowhead from SFB 105. The knife is an unexceptional Saxon example (Cowgill 1987) but the weapon is more enigmatic. Swanton (1973) illustrates some small spearheads not much larger than this but these are invariably socketed and he makes only one reference (not illustrated) to a tanged weapon. However, the angular, straight-sided blade is typical of spearheads of his Type E2 and, as this object is rather heavy for an arrowhead, it may be a miniature weapon. Of the remaining objects, the hob-nail, a Roman form, may well be residual. The remaining objects are undatable. A complete catalogue can be found in the site archive. Iron Slag by Chris Salter Very little material that might be related to metallurgical activity was recovered. Only one piece of iron-working slag from SFB 101, 220 (475) could be definitely ascribed to metallurgical activity. This single piece of iron-working slag represents the sort of background scatter that is likely to have been produced by settlement and agricultural activity during earlier periods. Glass Bead by Matthew Gleave A single glass bead was recovered from SFB 101, 220 (270). Itis a complete small undecorated annular bead of translucent dark blue glass. Diameter 7.5mm, perforation diameter 3.5mm, height 3mm. There are a few scratches on the surface but no iridescence or weathering. Small annular beads in blue glass are a common type; for example Guido group 6ivb (1978) dates from the Iron Age, through the Roman and into the Saxon and Viking periods. Beads of this form show no special characteristics to enable more precise dating. The context of discovery here, however, would suggest that this bead is either a residual Roman find or is Saxon. Charred Seed Remains by John Letts Forty-eight flotation samples were submitted for analysis and 35 contained fragmented wood EXCAVATION OF A SAXON SETTLEMENT AT CADLEY ROAD, COLLINGBOURNE DUCIS 113 charcoal. Twenty-six samples contained charred cereal grain, but most of these grains are too fragmented and too poorly preserved to be identified to genus (Table 13). Only a few can be classified with any security as free-threshing bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) or generically as wheat (Triticum sp.). Naked bread wheat is generally the most common type of wheat found on post-Roman sites in Southern England and the absence wheat chaff suggests that this site does not differ from the norm. Samples from four of the seven SFBs contained grains of hulled barley (Hordeum vulgare), several of which have the distinctive twist that marks them as lateral grains of a 6-rowed form (H. vulgare sbsp. hexastichum). At least one of the better-preserved grains had sprouted prior to charring. One sprouted grain does not make for a brewers vat, but beer has certainly been brewed from barley since prehistory and was most probably made at this site. Sample 28 (SFB 102, 304, 360) contained a very small tail grain of wheat that would probably have been removed during cleaning sieving. Although this could indicate the presence of sieving waste, there are no chaff or crop weeds to confirm it. Hence, the samples seem to represent cleaned grain that has been charred accidentally. Sample 10 (SFB 101, 220, 270) contains one fragment of a large legume, either pea (Pisum sativum sbsp. sativum) or field bean (Vicia faba sbsp. minor), both of which have been grown in Britain since the Neolithic period as storable protein food for both human and animal consumption. Table 13: Plant remains by context SFB Context Cereal Cereal indet. frags vulgare subsp (barley) Hexa- stichum* SFB 100 217, 337 1 217, 268 = 217, 273 - 22222 7 329, 385 1 220, 270 - - = 220, 279 305, 356 - - = - 307, 359 304, 357 312, 363 312, 374 - - - = 318, 369 1 318, 371 - - = - 320, 372 - - - - 321, 273 - - 333, 388 1 1 333, 399 2 2 - = 341, 398 - 3 340, 394 340, 470 349, 467 400, 460 - - = = 511, 554 - = 1 - own! 1 _ SFB 101 SFB 102 SFB 103 SFB 104 SFB 105 SFB 106 Other features 511, 556 - 200, 250 1 - - - 202, 252 - 203, 254 1 - - - 205, 257 - - 206, 258 2 - - - 336, 392 *(6-row barley twisted) Hordeum H.vulgare cf. Hordeum Legume Chile Hordeum. sp. (frag) sp. (sprouted barley) Triticum Fragmented aestivum — sp. charcoal (bread wheat) ww OEL@Ore) +o) 1 i) Qi@le1O"@: | ' 1 Penne) er QO O. Qa one) (abundant) ©1@; @. O-@ OF @ 114 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Table 14: Radiocarbon dates Calibrated age ranges calendar years AD SFB Reference number SFB 101 BM3165 1490+50 SFB 102 BM3164 1210+50 SFB 103 BM3163 1245+45 SFB 106 BM3162 1160+50 Result, years BP 68.2% probability 95.4% probability 530-640 430-660 720-740 680-900 770-790 920-960 690-860 670-890 780-960 720-740 770-990 Radiocarbon Dating Four radiocarbon determinations were obtained by the British Museum Department of Scientific Research on bone finds as documented in Table 14. The calibrated dates were calculated using the INTCAL98 curve (Stuiver et al. 1998). DISCUSSION by Jo Pine and Steve Ford All dateable subsoil deposits, apart from some late post-Medieval fence posts and engineering trial pits, belong to the middle Saxon period. A few struck flints and pottery of prehistoric, Roman and Medieval date point to some activity here during these periods but at a low level, and probably no greater than use of the site for arable farming that involved manuring. The Roman pottery may indicate the use of Roman vessels in the early Saxon period long after their production had ceased. The programme of radiocarbon dating has provided both an absolute chronology for the Saxon deposits and further information on the development of the site. Typologically, the pottery from the site suggests that the earliest phase of occupation is dated to the 5th—6th centuries but may have continued into the 8th century. Two of the four dates on SFBs 103 and 102 (BM3163-4) have a calibrated date range of between 670 and 960 (at 95% probability), i.e. late 7th—10th century. One date on SFB 106 (BM3162) has a slightly later range of AD 720-990 but it is entirely plausible that these three buildings at least were in use together between AD 720 and 960, i.e. early 8th to late 10th century. One date on SFB 101 (BM3165) was significantly earlier with a range of AD 430-660. Whilst it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that SFB 101, together with SFBs 102 and 103, went out of use at about AD 670, it is difficult to reconcile this with the use of SFB 106, which went out of use some 60 years later, that is after AD 720. Whilst there is a statistical chance that the calibrated dates lie beyond the range presented in Table 14, the chronology presented does indicate a succession to the development of the site. Analysis of the distribution of pottery types within the buildings suggested that there may have been at least three phases of occupation. The distribution of sandy, decorated and Roman wares is thought to indicate that SFBs 100, 101 and 106 belonged to the earliest phase of occupation, SFBs 102, 103 and 105 to a middle phase, and SFBs 104 and 107 to the latest phase. The stratigraphic evidence from the intercutting of SFBs 107 and 108 shows some time depth to the occupation deposits discovered. However, the radiocarbon dates have cast some doubt on the details of this scheme, if not entirely discounting an overall pattern. Whilst the date from SFB 101 (BM 3165) may be significantly early, it is grouped with SFB 106 (BM3162), which has a later date. It is doubtful that the complete area of the Saxon settlement at Cadley Road was revealed during this phase of excavation although a focus of activity has been identified. At a local scale, the excavated buildings were close to the margins of the development site and further deposits could be present a short distance away, although another evaluation comprising a single trench 60m to the west did not reveal any additional Saxon deposits (Pine 2000). Evidence from other more extensively excavated sites shows that early and middle Saxon settlements often occupy large areas (2—3 ha.) without marked formal limits, as at Mucking (Hamerow 1993) and West Stow (West 1985); whereas at New Wintles, Eynsham (Hawkes and Gray 1969) the area covered was large but a few buildings were dispersed across the entire area. The detailed chronological analysis of extensive excavations such as at Mucking and West Stow shows EXCAVATION OF A SAXON SETTLEMENT AT CADLEY ROAD, COLLINGBOURNE DUCIS 115 that, despite the large number of buildings, they were used over several centuries and are best interpreted as representing much smaller settlements shifting their locations gradually over time. If, as seems likely, these characteristics of dispersed occupation with a frequently shifting location are typical of early and middle Saxon settlement, then it is perhaps unrealistic to consider that the Cadley Road deposits ever had formal limits and further occupation deposits could be present along the whole stretch of the valley occupied by the modern village. There is little information as to how a frequently shifting settlement pattern fits into tenural arrangements, especially in contrast to the more definable Roman pattern of fields, trackways and long-lived occupation sites and the pattern of long-lived village settlement of Medieval times. The excavation revealed ten SFBs but only one possible post-built structure. If doubt about the integrity of the latter is put to one side, then this combination of buildings is generally typical for the period (Higham 1992, 21). A common pattern on Saxon sites is of a small number of SFBs clustered around a larger post-built hall. This pattern has been interpreted as indicating that the SFBs were ancillary buildings, for craft, storage or even lower status occupants and that the larger post-built halls were the principal residences (West 1985). The evidence from Cadley Road does not appear to conform to this pattern, with the single possible hall being peripheral to the main cluster of buildings. Further post-built halls could of course be present beyond the margins of the excavated area but the evidence as it stands is for the use of SFBs as the main occupation structures. One aspect of this site that belongs to a pattern observed elsewhere (Arnold 1988, 41) is its proximity to a part-excavated Saxon cemetery located 150m to the north (Gingell 1978). The cemetery is dated to the 5th century based on analysis of the metalwork finds and therefore pre-dates those parts of the settlement site that are 8th century or later in date. However, SFB 101 had an earlier date, belonging to the 5th—7th centuries, and could be contemporary with the cemetery. The large and well-preserved faunal assemblage indicates that the Saxon inhabitants were dependant on a wide range of both domesticated and wild animals: cattle, sheep, goat, pig, red deer, roe deer, horse, dogs, cats, domestic fowl, duck and goose (or greylag goose). Badger, crane and song birds are also recorded. The most unusual discovery was the walrus ivory pin, clearly from a species not local to the site. Whilst the range of species is orthodox, analysis of the proportions of species present shows that the assemblage was unusual as there appears to have been a preference for sheep, which were at least the same as, or more frequent in number than cattle. The numbers of pig were low and wild resources were also being utilised, more frequently than at many other Saxon sites. The sheep appeared to have been raised for lamb meat rather than wool. Further data from other local sites will need to be collected to determine if this unusual assemblage represents a specialised or high status occupation or is merely typical of the local pattern of exploitation. The presence of quernstones made from rock originating from distant sources is hardly surprising in this chalkland region with little natural hard rock. However, the presence of a pin made from walrus ivory so far inland and so far away from the natural habitat of these animals is an unusual find. Whilst items or material of exotic origin would have had high value, the presence of only a single object of walrus ivory is too little to suggest that the occupants of the site had any special privileges to consume large quantities of such rare material. This find belongs to a wider pattern of ivory usage recorded in early and middle Saxon contexts within the region. Arnold (1988, 54) describes a distribution of ivory rings concentrating on an area from Dorset to the Wash. Apart from this find and the faunal assemblage, there is little else to suggest that this site is one of high status. There is a marked contrast between the building types, layout and artefactual remains at Cadley Road and those at high status sites such as Cowdrey’s Down, Basingstoke (Millett and James 1983) and the recently reported site at Flixborough, Lincolnshire (Loveluck 1998). The excavation of this site has made an important contribution to our understanding of the nature of middle Saxon settlement sites in Wessex, a period mostly known from burial and documentary evidence (Chadwick- Hawkes 1984, fig. 6; Cunliffe 1993). ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors wish to acknowledge the kind help received during the progress of this project. Thanks go to: Stuart Forrester of Berkeley Homes (Hampshire) Limited who generously financed the project; Duncan Coe and Bruce Eagles; Pamela Cogdell, for kindly sharing her knowledge of local history; Cordelia Hall, Luis Huscroft and John Tate 116 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE for their assistance with the fieldwork; Leigh Torrance for CAD illustrations; Adam Croney for finds illustrations (excluding pottery); and Melanie Hall for editing the text and illustrations. Bibliography AHRENS, C., 1966, ‘Vorgeschichte des kreises Pinneberg und der Insel MHelgoland: die vor- und fruhgeschichtlichen Denmaler und Funde in Schleswig- Holstein, 7’, in K. Kersten (ed), Veroffenlichungen des Jandesamtes fur Vor- und Fruhgeschichte in Schleswig, 205-32. Neumunster ARNOLD, C_J., 1988, An Archaeology of the Early Anglo- Saxon Kingdoms. London: Routledge BARCLAY, A., GLASS, H. and PARRY, C., 1995; ‘Excavations of Neolithic and Bronze Age ring-ditches, Shorncote Quarry, Somerford Keynes, Gloucestershire’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 113, 21-60 BELL, M., 1977, ‘Excavations at Bishopstone, Sussex’, Sussex Archaeological Collections 115, 1-299 BGS, 1975, British Geological Survey, Sheet 283, 1:50000. Keyworth BOESSNECK, J., 1969, ‘Osteological differences between Sheep (Ovis aries Linné) and Goat (Capra hircus Linné)’, in D. Brothwell and E.S. Higgs (eds), Science in Archaeology, 331-358. London: Thames and Hudson BONNEY, D.J., 1969, ‘Pagan Saxon burials and boundaries in Wiltshire’, WANHM 64, 25-30 BOURDILLON, J., 1980, ‘The animal bone from Saxon contexts’, in S.M. Davis, ‘Excavations at Old Down Farm, Andover, Part I: Saxon’, Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society 36, 161-180 BOURDILLON, J. and COY, J., 1980, “The animal bones’, in P. Holdsworth, Excavations at Melbourne Street, Southampton, 1971—76, 79-121. London: Council for British Archaeology Research Report 33 BOYLE, A., JENNINGS, D., MILES, D. and PALMER, S., 1998, The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Butler’s Field, Lechlade, Gloucestershire, Vol 1: Prehistoric and Roman Activity and Anglo-Saxon Grave Catalogue. Oxford: Thames Valley Landscapes Monograph 10 BROWN, P.D.C., 1976a, ‘Some notes on grass-tempered pottery’, in M. Farley (ed.), ‘Saxon and Medieval Aylesbury, Excavations 1973-74’, Records of Buckinghamshire 20, 135-290 BROWN, P.D.C., 1976b, ‘Archaeological evidence for the Anglo-Saxon period’, in A. McWhirr (ed.), Studies in the Archaeology and History of Cirencester, 19-45. Oxford, British Archaeological Reports 30 CHADWICK-HAWKES, S., 1986, ‘The early Anglo-Saxon period’, in G. Briggs, J. Cook, and T. Rowley (eds), The Archaeology of the Oxford Region, 64-108. Oxford: Oxford University Department of External Studies CHAPELOT, J. and FOSSIER, R., 1985, The Village and House 1n the Middle Ages. London: Batsford COWGILL, J., DE NEERGARD, M. and GRIFFITHS, N., 1987, Knives and Scabbards. London: HMSO COY, J.P., 1980, ‘The animal bones’, in J. Haslam, ‘A middle Saxon iron-smelting site at Ramsbury, Wiltshire’, Medieval Archaeology 24, 41-51 COY, J.P., 1991, “The environmental evidence: the animal bones’, in P.J. Fasham and R.J.B. Whinney, Archaeology and the M3: The Watching Brief, the Anglo-Saxon Settlement at Abbots Worthy and Retrospective Sections, 60-67. Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society Monograph 7 CRABTREE, P.J., 1989, West Stow, Suffolk: early Anglo- Saxon animal husbandry. Gressenhall: East Anglian Archaeology 47 CRAWFORD, O.G.S., 1953, Archaeology in the Field. London: Phoenix CUNLIFFE, B., 1993, Wessex to AD 1000, London: Longman DALWOOD, H., DILLON, J. and HAWKINS, A., 1989, ‘Excavations in Walton, Aylesbury, 1985-86’, Records of Buckinghamshire 31, 137-190 DAVIES, S.M., 1980, ‘Excavations at Old Down Farm, Andover, pt 1: Saxon’, Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society 36, 161-80 DONE, G., 1993, ‘Animal bone from Anglo-Saxon contexts’, in H. Hamerow, Excavations at Mucking Volume 2: The Anglo-Saxon Settlement, 74-80. London: English Heritage Archaological Report 21 DRIESCH, A. VON DEN, 1976, A Guide to the Measurement of Animal Bones from Archaeological Sites. Harvard: Peabody Museum Bulletin 1 DRIESCH, A. VON DEN and BOESSNECK, J., 1974, Kritische Anmerkungen zur Widerristhohenberechnung aus Langenmafen vor- und Frtihgeschichtlicher Tierknochen, 325-348. Munchen: Saugetierkundliche Mitteilungen 22 FARLEY, M., 1976, ‘Saxon and medieval Walton, Aylesbury: excavations 1973—4’, Records of Buckinghamshire 20, 153-290 FORD, S., 1998, ‘Land off Cadley Road, Collingbourne Ducis, Wiltshire, an archaeological evaluation’, Thames Valley Archaeological Services report 98/9, Reading FOWLER, P.J., 1966, “Two finds of Saxon domestic pottery in Wiltshire’, WANHM 61, 31-7 FULFORD, M.G., 1975, New Forest Roman Pottery. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports 17 GINGELL, C.J., 1978, “The Excavation of an early Anglo- Saxon cemetery at Collingbourne Ducis’, WANHM 70/71, 61-98 GRANT, A., 1982, ‘The use of tooth wear as a guide to the age of domestic ungulates’, in B. Wilson, C. Grigson and S. Payne (eds), Ageing and Sexing Animal Bones from Archaeological Sites, 251-254. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports 109 GRIMES, W.F., 1960, Excavations in Defence Sites 1939- 45. London: HMSO EXCAVATION OF A SAXON SETTLEMENT AT CADLEY ROAD, COLLINGBOURNE DUCIS 117 GUIDO, M., 1978, The Glass Beads of the Prehistoric and Roman Periods in Britain and Ireland. London: Society of Antiquaries of London Research Report 35 HALL, M. and WEAVER, S., 1998, ‘Excavations at Riverdene, Basingstoke, Hampshire, 1995’, Thames Valley Archaeological Services report 95/33, Reading HAMEROYW, H., 1993, Excavations at Mucking Vol 2: the Anglo-Saxon Settlement. London: English Heritage Archaeological Report 21 HAMILTON-DYER, S., (nd), ‘Animal bones from Charlton Gym’, unpublished report for Test Valley Archaeol Trust HAMILTON-DYER, S. and BOURDILLON, J.B. (nd), “The faunal remains’, in ‘Shavards Farm, Meonstoke, Hampshire’, unpublished report for Test Valley Archaeol Trust HASLAM, J., 1980, ‘A middle Saxon iron-smelting site at Ramsbury, Wiltshire’, Medieval Archaeology 24, 1-68 HAWKES, C. and GRAY, I.M., 1969, ‘Preliminary note on the early Anglo-Saxon settlement at New Wintles Farm, Eynsham’, Oxoniensia 24, 1—4 HIGHAM, N., 1992, Rome, Britain and the Anglo-Saxons. London: Seaby LOVELUCK, C.P., 1998, ‘A high-status Anglo-Saxon settlement at Flixborough, Lincolnshire’, Antquity 72, 146-161 LYNE, M.A.B. and JEFFERIES, R.S., 1979, The Alice Holt/Farnham Roman Pottery Industry. London: Council for British Archaeology Research Report 30 MACGREGOR, A., MAINMAN, A.J. and ROGERS, N.S.H., 1999, Craft, Industry and Everyday Life: Bone, Antler, Ivory and Horn from Anglo-Scandinavian and Medieval York. York: York Archaeological Trust MALTBY, J.M., 1985, ‘Patterns in faunal assemblage variability’, in G. Barker and C. Gamble (eds), Beyond Domestication in Prehistoric Europe, 33—74. London: Academic Press MALTBY, J.M., 1993, “The animal remains’, in P.J. Woodward, S.M. Davies and A.H. Graham, Excavations at the Old Methodist Chapel and Greyhound Yard, Dorchester, 198 1—1984, 315-340. Dorchester: Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society Monograph 12 MARSDEN, B. 1967, ‘Archaeological finds in the City of London 1963-4’, Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society 21, 189-221 MEPHAM, L.N., forthcoming, The pottery (from Market Lavington, Wiltshire), unpublished draft prepared 1992, Wessex Archaeology MILLETT, M., and JAMES, S., 1983, ‘Excavations at Cowdery’s Down, Basingstoke, Hampshire 1978-81’, Archaeological Journal 140, 151-279 MYRES, J.N.L., 1977, A Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Pottery of the Pagan Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press PAYNE, S., 1985, ‘Morphological distinctions between the mandibular teeth of young sheep, Ovis, and goats, Capra’, Journal of Archaeological Science 12, 139- 147 PINE, J., 2000, Land adjacent to the Last Straw Public House, High Street, Collingbourne Ducis, archaeo- logical evaluation, Thames Valley Archaeological Services, report 00/19, Reading RAHTZ, P., 1976, ‘Buildings and rural settlement’, in D.M. Wilson (ed.), The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England, 44-99. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press RICHARDS, J., 1990, The Stonehenge Environs Project. London: English Heritage STUIVER, M., REIMER, P.J., BARD, E., BECK, J.W., BURR, G.S., HUGHEN, K.A., KROMER, B., McCORMAC, G.,VAN DER PLICHT, J. and SPURK, M., 1998, INTCAL98 radiocarbon age calibration, Radiocarbon 40 (3), 1041-1084 SWANTON, M.J., 1973, The Spearheads on the Anglo- Saxon Settlements. Leeds: Royal Archaeological Institute TIMBY, J.R., 1999, ‘The pottery’, in M. Hall, ‘The archaeology of the Ashbury to Bishopstone pipeline, South Oxfordshire/Wiltshire, 1993’, Oxoniensia 62, 200-220 TIMBY, J-R., in prep, “The pottery from Sherbourne House, Lechlade’, in C. UNDERWOOD-KEEVIL, The Saxon pottery from Butler’s Field, Lechlade VINCE, A.G., 1984, ‘Grass-tempered pottery’, in A. Saville (ed) Archaeology in Gloucestershire, 248-75. Cheltenham: Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum VINCE, A.G. (ed.), 1991, Aspects of Saxo-Norman London: II Finds and Environmental Evidence. London: London and Middlesex Archaeological Society Special Paper 12 VON GUYAN, W.U., 1952, ‘Einige karten zur verbreitung des grubenhauses in mitteleuropa im ersten nachchrislichen jahrtausend und einige hinweise auf das archaologische, problem der volkerwanderungs- zeitlichen Hausformen der Schweiz’, Jahrbuch der Schweiz Ges fur Urgesch 42, 172-97 WEST, S.E., 1985, West Stow: the Anglo-Saxon Village. Ipswich: East Anglian Archaeology, Report 24 WILLIAMS, R.J., 1993, Pennyland and Hartigans. Aylesbury: Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society Monograph 4 118 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Fig. 1. The interior of the chapter house in 1820. Plate XIV of John Britton’s Cathedral Antiquities of the English Cathedrals, volume 2 (London 1836).[Photo: © The Society of Antiquaries of London] Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 94 (2001), pp. 118-138 The Thirteenth-Century Stained Glass of the Salisbury Cathedral Chapter House by Sarah Brown The study of the surviving stained glass from Salisbury cathedral chapter house, augmented by the antiquarian evidence, enables us to reconstruct one of the most impressive glazing schemes of the 13th century, in which heraldry was one of the most prominent and impressive features. A consideration of the dating evidence, both heraldic and stylistic, confirms that the chapter house was glazed in the 1260s rather than in the 1280s. While confirming the traditional earlier chronology for the chapter house and its decoration, the stained glass also offers additional evidence for the importance of Richard, earl of Cornwall, as a benefactor of the cathedral. The painted windows add to our appreciation of 13th-century Salisbury as a centre of monumental painting as well as manuscript ilumination. INTRODUCTION: DESTRUCTION AND DISPERSAL The stained glass of Salisbury Cathedral is almost better known for the story of its destruction than for its surviving beauty. In an oft-quoted letter of June 1788 to Mr Lloyd of Conduit Street, London, John Berry, glazier of Harnham, explained: I expect to Beat to Peceais a great deale more verey sune as it his nowe use to we and we Due it for the lead... if yow want Eney more of the same sorts yow may have what thear his, if it will Pay for Taking out, as it is a Deal of Truble to what Beating it to Peceais his.! The rate of destruction gathered pace after James Wyatt’s appointment as cathedral architect in the following year. Between 1789 and 1792 he oversaw a wide-ranging restoration of the cathedral, carried out with Bishop Shute Barrington’s enthusiastic support. His subsequent work for the bishop, by then translated to Durham, earned him the soubriquet ‘Wyatt the Destroyer’. The enraged but impotent John Carter, antiquary and draughtsman to the Society of Antiquaries, found stained glass fragments among the discarded rubble left lying in the Plumbery, while quantities of glass were said to have been dumped in the town ditch.’ The religiously uncontroversial subject matter of the chapter house windows, considered below, ensured that the windows attracted less attention from Reformation iconoclasts than those in the cathedral church. More dangerous to their survival was the cumulative effect of successive campaigns of post- medieval repair.* A major reglazing was undertaken during the episcopacy of John Jewel (1560-71), including the provision of 435 feet of new glass, with only occasional references to the re-setting of old glass. The chapter house was one of the few parts of the cathedral to have escaped Wyatt’s attentions, despite its poor state of repair [Fig. 1]. Structural problems had been recognized as early as the 1690s, but were only addressed in the 1850s. A report on its condition was commissioned in 1843, and in 1855 an extensive restoration was undertaken in memory of Bishop Denison (d.1854), a project supervised by architect Henry Clutton and latterly by George Gilbert Scott." This work succeeded in stabilising the building but was very far-reaching, involving the strengthening of 33 The Avenue, Liphook, Hampshire GU30 7QS 120 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Fig. 2. Heraldry recorded in the chapter house windows in 1610 by Nicholas Charles, Lancaster Herald [BL Lansdowne Ms 874, folio 74, © The British Library]. the buttresses, the reconstruction of the central pier and the heavy restoration of the sculptural reliefs lining the walls. The sculptures were re-coloured in such a way that surviving traces of their medieval polychromy, recorded in some detail by William Burges, were lost.° The windows were re-glazed by the London firm of Ward & Hughes in a loose imitation of the original stained glass, while the magnificent, if damaged, medieval pavement was replaced by a Minton replica. In fact, what survived of the medieval stained glass had already been removed from the chapter house in the years between 1819 and 1824. This had been the work not of iconoclastic vandals or insensitive restorers, but of those reacting against the garish geometric glazing introduced into the windows of the cathedral church by Wyatt. This had been derided by Carter as ‘large, ill-adapted, common geometrical divisions ... sold by the pound’.® Using salvaged chapter house glass, together with medieval panels of continental origin bought in the London salerooms, the Salisbury glazier John Beare reglazed the windows of the west wall to great acclaim.’ Seven shields of arms removed from the chapter house windows remain in the west window, while other panels were re-sited in the south nave aisle during the restoration of 1922-24 undertaken by the firm of Lowndes & Drury. Some chapter house glass was not used in Beare’s scheme, but remained in the cathedral glazing store. One figure, recorded sketchily by Carter and in more detail by Charles Winston, has now been lost. An important panel of chapter house grisaille remained in the cathedral until at least 1897, but by 1916 had been sold to American collector Raymond Pitcairn by the London dealer Roy Grosvenor Thomas. It is now in the Pitcairn Collection at Bryn Athyn (Pennsylvania).* In 1911 the same dealer gave a panel of grisaille fragments said to be of Salisbury provenance to the Victoria & Albert Museum and in 1913 three similarly fragmented panels now in the Toledo Museum of Art (Ohio) were sold by him to a private collector.’ HISTORIOGRAPHY AND SOURCES The recorded history of the chapter house glass has been almost as piecemeal as its post-reformation destruction. There are no medieval documentary sources for its creation and it is first mentioned in the cathedral’s fabric records only in the 15th century in connection with repairs. The heraldry in its windows attracted the interest of 17th-century antiquarian visitors, with observations recorded in 1610 by Nicholas Charles, Lancaster Herald [Fig. 2] and in 1644 by the royalist Captain Richard Symonds.'° In Fig. 3. The chapter house windows, drawn by John Carter in 1802 [BL Add Ms 29939, folio 81r, © The British Library] THE THIRTEENTH-CENTURY STAINED GLASS OF THE SALISBURY CATHEDRAL CHAPTER HOUSE 1211 the 18th century Richard Gough made brief notes.'! Only at the beginning of the 19th century do the windows emerge from obscurity. In 1802 John Carter made a series of drawings [Figs. 3 & 4] that remain the most important visual record of the design of the windows.” The first serious analysis of the Salisbury cathedral stained glass, with an important section on the chapter house, was prepared by Charles Winston in 1849 in anticipation of the visit of the Royal Archaeological Institute.!* He also made a series of invaluable water-colour drawings [Fig.5].'? In 1930 Canon J. M. J. Fletcher published a useful account of the cathedral’s stained glass.!? The heraldry of the chapter house windows was discussed by E. E. Dorling in 1903 and by Hugh Shortt in 1958.'° A short account of the chapter house glass was provided by R. O. C. Spring in his publications of 1973 and 1987.'’ The 1993 conference of the British Archaeological Association was the occasion of an important paper by Professor Richard Marks on the cathedral’s 13th- century glass. This was published in 1996 but omitted a discussion of the chapter house, although in 1993 W x. Gitinuntiar ffoeceP igo Fig. 4. The chapter house windows, drawn by John Carter in 1802 [BL Add Ms 29939, folio 82r, © The British Library] Fig. 5. A ‘regal personage’ drawn by Charles Winston in 1849. [BL Add Ms 35211, © The British Library] OOM vs he had suggested a date of c.1265-70 for its glazing, based on stylistic criteria.'* The present author’s 1999 publication on the cathedral covered glass of all dates and locations, but was of necessity short.'’ Professor Blum’s recent article on the chapter house windows offers an invaluable account of the gradual deterioration of the chapter house glazing in the post- reformation period, but does not examine the heraldic evidence in detail and does not place the historiated glass and its grisaille in any stylistic or iconographic context. In this account Professor Blum repeats her already published interpretation of the building history of the chapter house, arguing that it was begun only in 1280.*° In her account of the Bryn Athyn panel, the late Dr Jane Hayward followed Dr Blum’s interpretation of the building chronology, and dated the chapter house glazing well into the 1280s.This paper will present evidence that the chapter house was built and glazed in the 1260s and was complete before the death of Henry HI in 1272. THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE — i) bo CHs3 CHs4 | se i = 1° 4 ‘ _w a i a an i = TOS 1 ca | : “ie = == — wa ® af Fig. 6. Plan of the cathedral, with windows numbered according to the system of the international Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi. [Drawn by Peter Spencer, © NMR, Crown Copyright] THE THIRTEENTH-CENTURY STAINED GLASS OF THE SALISBURY CATHEDRAL CHAPTER HOUSE 123. THE BUILDING OF THE CHAPTER HOUSE?! The cathedral at Old Sarum had cloisters on its north- east side and at the new cathedral site cloisters were laid out on the south side of the church as part of the setting out of the 1220s [Fig. 6]. The cloister walks were originally intended to be 164 feet in length, identical in size to those at nearby Wells.*” In the 1220s the same building programme responsible for the erection of the south transept also laid out the east walk of the cloister and the lower courses of the chapter house vestibule, which all share the same distinctive roll-moulded plinth. The decision to enlarge the cloisters to their present extent, with walks 181 feet in length, covering the churchyard and encroaching on the bishop’s domain, transformed them into the largest in England. This extension was made possible by the donation of a 16 foot strip of land, made in the first year of Bishop ‘W’, when Master Robert was dean. This grant can be assigned either to the year 1248 (Bishop William of York and Dean Robert de Hertford) or 1263 (Bishop Walter de la Wyle and Dean Robert de Wykehampton). The later date seems more plausible, explaining the substantial grants of timber made into the 1260s, post- dating the 1258 completion and consecration of the church.”? By 25 March 1266 the cathedral was said to have been completed, at a cost of 42,000 marks and it is reasonable to suppose that this included the cloisters and chapter house.*? The chapter house at Westminster Abbey, constructed above an undercroft, was built between c.1246 and 1253,” and there is therefore no practical reason why the Salisbury chapter house, which it so closely resembles, could not have been constructed in a similarly short space - of time. Indeed, the strong stylistic relationship between the two buildings has long been recognized and Salisbury has traditionally been described as Westminster’s direct and closest heir.*° However, Professor Blum has proposed a later date, envisaging a start date of c.1280, a hypothesis based on the reported discovery in the mid-19th century of a number of pennies of the reign of Edward I ‘in those parts of the foundations requiring under-pinning’.”’ Burges remains the only source for this discovery. The pennies themselves have not survived and the exact location of their discovery was not recorded.** In 1995 Professor Blum commissioned a tree-ring dating analysis of the chapter house roof. This report, as yet unpublished in full, provided felling dates ranging from 1253 to 1285, with an estimated average date of 1265.*° In the published summary of the report, its authors concluded that “The results leave little doubt that the documentary record that the ‘Church of Salisbury’ as completed by March 1266 refers not only to the cathedral but to the chapter house and possibly the cloisters as well’.*° In 1996 Dr Norton favoured the earlier date for the pavement of the chapter house.*! Windows, of course, would normally be one of the last decorative elements to be installed in a building and a delay between completion and glazing is possible.” None the less, this article will seek to show that the heraldic and stylistic evidence of the stained glass supports a date in the 1260s, strengthening the case for the traditional earlier date for the Salisbury chapter house. THE ORIGINAL APPEARANCE OF THE CHAPTER HOUSE WINDOWS The nature of the 13th-century chapter house glazing can be reconstructed from a combination of surviving panels and antiquarian evidence. Scattered across a CRU ted OM RE Fig. 7. The arms of England ancient, now in the west window. [© NMR, Crown Copyright] 124 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Above: Fig. 8. The arms of Cornwall, now in the west window [© NMR, Crown Copyright] Below: Fig. 9. Grisaille type A in window s11, Drawn by Octavius Hudson in 1843 [V&A Prints and Drawings collection, B3a, © V&A] number of locations in the cathedral are miscellaneous historiated panels, shields of arms and grisaille designs that can be documented as having originated in the chapter house. At the base of the west window are six more-or-less complete 13th-century shields that were recorded in the chapter house by more than one 17th, 18th and 19th century antiquarian visitor. They depict the arms of England ancient (gules three leopards passant guardant or) [Fig. 7], France ancient (azure semy of fleur de lis or) Cornwall (argent a lion rampant crowned or, a bezanty bordure sable) [Fig. 8], Clare (or three chevrons gules), Provence (paly gules and or) and Bigod (or a cross gules). The remains of a seventh shield with a bezanty bordure now contains a composite figure of a devil in 16th-century (French?) glass. The disposition of these shields was recorded by John Carter, who showed them to have been arranged two per light just below the spring of each mullioned opening [Figs. 3 and 12]. Assuming that every window was treated the same, the eight windows could have admitted sixty-four shields. The main lights of the windows were otherwise filled with decorative foliate grisaille with narrow foliate borders. The conventionalised foliage is the counterpart of the sculptural stiff-leaf of the cathedral’s capitals and architectural sculpture. Winston noted that unlike the bulk of the grisaille from the church, the chapter house designs had no cross-hatched backgrounds. Two, possibly three, such designs survive, re-used in the windows of the Sc) THE THIRTEENTH-CENTURY STAINED GLASS OFTHE SALISBURY CATHEDRAL CHAPTER HOUSE 125 RSS [EPS E | eS PD iN INC S 1s : 4 i Above: Fig. 10. Grisaille type B in window n9. Drawn by Octavius Hudson in 1843 [V&A Prints and Drawings collection, B3a, © V&A] Right: Fig. 11. Grisaille type C, drawn by Charles Winston in 1849. [BL Add Ms 35211, © The British Library] cathedral church. One fills the outer lights of window sll in the south-east transept (type A) [Fig. 9]. A second fills the middle panels of a two-light window in the north choir aisle (n9, type B) [Fig. 10], with a third design filling the apex of the same window (type E) [Fig. 13]. This, a variation of the former, is of questionable authenticity. The central element, which distinguishes it from the first design, has cross-hatched areas and in both panels is significantly more corroded than the surrounding areas. One of Thomas Willement’s 19th-century sketches appears to show this motif surrounded by diamond quarries.** Perhaps - future conservation will provide an opportunity to examine this panel in detail. As mentioned above, a fourth grisaille design (type C) is now found in the Pitcairn collection [Fig. 11], while Carter’s drawings of 1802 documents a fifth (type D), a variation of the Pitcairn design [Fig. 12]. The Pitcairn design, together with that in s11, was copied by Ward & Hughes for their glazing of 1855. Some vestiges of the Pitcairn design may remain in the cathedral, augmented by 19th-century glass, in the south clerestory of the south transept (S19).*4 Three border designs are recorded in association with chapter house grisaille types, and fragments of all three can be found re-used in the windows of the cathedral church. The evidence for the original disposition of the grisaille is ambiguous. Carter’s published drawings and Cattermole’s view of the chapter house interior in 1820 [Fig. 14] show more than one design per window. Cattermole’s drawing suggests a haphazard arrangement apparently arising out of the patching and repair of the windows. Carter, who recorded the windows before the removal of glass had begun, suggests an alternation of designs and borders, although Professor Blum’s researches show that considerable repair and patching of the windows had already taken place. A single grisaille type and border design per window seems the most likely original disposition. As four, if not five, designs can be accounted for, it is possible that each window had a different grisaille design. Alternatively, if the design of dubious authenticity be discounted, four designs were divided between eight windows, each one presumably used twice. The only historiated panels were located in the tracery of the windows. A single large medallion, originally located in the central oculus of one of the 126 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Left: Fig. 12. Grisaille types D, C and A, with associated border designs, from John Carter’s The Ancient Architecture of England, (1845), plate LXXIX. [Photo: © The Society of Antiquaries of London] ee. TN = BS BD ay Below left: Fig. 13. Grisaille type E, in window n9, from Lewis Day, Windows, A Book about Stained and Painted Glass (1897). windows, is now sited in south nave aisle window s33. It depicts a bishop and a king standing under the arches of a simple architectural canopy [Fig. 15]. The bishops are dressed in mass vestments, carry crosiers and are in the act of blessing. The kings (one surviving and one recorded) are dressed in tunic and mantle, are crowned and carry sceptres to which they point. None of the figures are nimbed. The two smaller oculi below contained demi-figures of angels issuing out of clouds [Fig. 16], holding a variety of emblems (suns, scrolls, half moons), of which ten survive scattered around the cathedral.” The pointed trefoil opening beneath the central large oculus contained a single figure of either a bishop or a king. Two bishops survive in south nave aisle $33, while Winston drew ‘a regal personage’ with a missing face, then preserved in the glazing store [Fig. 5], presumably the model for the figures of kings placed in this position in 1855 by Ward & Hughes. This figure has now disappeared. ; ‘THE HERALDRY The heraldic stained glass offers valuable evidence as to the date and circumstances in which the chapter house was glazed. To the complement of surviving THE THIRTEENTH-CENTURY STAINED GLASS OF THE SALISBURY CATHEDRAL CHAPTER HOUSE 127 Sato Fee Fees Fig. 14. The interior of the chapter house in 1820, looking east, by R. Cattermole, from John Britton’s Chronological History and Graphic Illustrations of Christian Architecture (1835), plate 49 [Photo: © The Society of Antiquaries of London] 128 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE shields can be added a number of others described in the antiquarian record. The arms of the King, now in WI, were accompanied by those of his eldest son (gules three leopards passant guardant or, a label of five points azure).*° Until 1272 this combination would signify Henry III and the Lord Edward, the future Edward I. It fits the circumstances after 1272 far less comfortably. Edward’s first son to survive infancy was Alphonso, born in 1273. The only known use of the arms of England with a label of five points im association with the young prince is on the Beatus page of the Alphonso Psalter (London, British Library, Add Ms 24686, fol. 11) where they are paired with those of Holland. The manuscript was probably begun in 1284 to commemorate the projected marriage of the eleven year old prince to the daughter of the count of Holland. Its original scheme of decoration was, however, abandoned when Alphonso died in August of the same year.*’ The arms were subsequently borne by Edward of Caernafon, born in 1284, who succeeded as Edward II in 1307. The prince is first recorded sealing with the differenced arms of England in 1299, although his arms appeared in the chapter house of York Minster, glazed in the early 1290s.** Fig. 15. Bishops and King. Medallion and trefoils from the chapter house windows, now in nave window s33. See also frontispiece to this volume. [O NMR, crown Copyright] The balance of probability thus favours the commemoration of Henry III and the Lord Edward, and as Dorling and Shortt have already demonstrated, the chapter house shields relate most satisfactorily to the reign of Henry III. Indeed, a number of the shields are also found in the display of heraldry carved in the spandrels of the wall arcade of the nave aisles at Westminster Abbey, a scheme conceived in the years around 1260.” In this scenario, the arms of Cornwall represent Richard, earl of Cornwall and king of the Romans, the King’s brother, who like him died in 1272. The arms of France represent Louis IX, brother-in-law of Henry III by virtue of their respective marriages to Margaret and Eleanor, daughters of Raymond Berengar, Count of Provence. In 1243 Sanchia (d.1261), the third of the count’s daughters, became Richard of Cornwall’s second wife. Henry III’s devotion to his father-in-law, who died in 1245, is well attested. In 1244 the King had ordered that a large cloth with the arms of Cornwall, England and Provence be made to be hung behind the rood of Westminster Abbey.” The arms of Provence survive in the third bay of the wall arcade of the south nave aisle at Westminster Abbey and are depicted in one of three early stained glass shields surviving in the Abbey.”' They are recorded as having been displayed in the chapter house there.” In 1247 the arms of the late Count of Provence were ordered to be installed in the great hall at Rochester Castle and in 1252 were introduced into the windows of the king’s lower chapel at Havering.’? Conspicuously generous alms were distributed in the Count’s memory and in Westminster Abbey regular requiem masses were said in his memory.*? Among the shields preserved in the west window are the arms of Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk and earl marshal, who died in 1270. His successor, his nephew Roger, adopted the arms of the marshalcy (party per pale or and vert a lion rampant gules), in preference to those represented in Salisbury’s chapter house. ? The earliest account of the chapter house heraldry (Nicholas Charles, 1610), recorded the arms of the Empire (or an eagle displayed sable). These arms were used by Richard, earl of Cornwall, who on 17 May 1257 was crowned King of the Romans (or of Germany), in Aachen Cathedral.?° The single-headed eagle appears on the wall of the first bay of the north nave aisle of Westminster Abbey.’ These arms were associated with Richard in a number of surviving or recorded decorative schemes. They decorated the borders around the figure of Largesce painted (1263- 72) on the window splay of the King’s chamber at THE THIRTEENTH-CENTURY STAINED GLASS OF THE SALISBURY CATHEDRAL CHAPTER HOUSE 129 Si 62? . WANG bia * 9r- ay Fig. 16. Angels in medallions from the chapter house windows, now in nave window s33. [© NMR, Crown Copyright]. Westminster Palace.** They were also included alongside the arms of Cornwall in the extensive heraldic display on the tomb chest of Edmund Crouchback, earl of Lancaster (d.1296).° The arms of Cornwall together with those of England, Poitou and a double- - headed eagle (attributed to the Hansa) appear on a copper alloy steelyard weight in Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum.*° The Conyers falchion (c. 1257- 72?) displays the arms of England with the single-headed eagle of the empire, and it has been suggested that this weapon once belonged to Earl Richard.”! In 1644 Richard Symonds had tricked this shield as or an eagle displayed gules. Hugh Shortt, who was apparently unaware of the earlier Nicholas Charles description, identified the arms as those of the honour of the eagle, which in 1241 was assigned to Peter, Count of Savoy, Queen Eleanor’s uncle (d.1268).*° The honour of Pevensey, or L’Aigle, had died out in 1231 and there is no evidence that Peter of Savoy ever used these arms. Those on his seal were or a lion rampant gules and he also used the arms of Savoy, gules a cross argent.°? Symonds’ drawing therefore appears to have introduced a heraldic red herring to the interpretation of the chapter house heraldry. The so-far unidentified shield sketched and described by Carter, ‘a blue lyon on a white ground’ confirms the impression given by the more securely identified heraldry. Glover’s Roll, compiled c.1253, identifies these arms (argent a lion rampant azure) as those of Piers de Brus, lord of Skelton and Annandale.*? While this northern family had no apparent association with Salisbury, its inclusion in the chapter house heraldry may reflect an association with Richard of Cornwall. According to Matthew Paris, Piers de Brus II had accompanied the earl on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, dying en route at Marseilles. His son, Piers de Brus III, succeeded in 1242 and died without issue in 1272. He had no male heir and his estates were divided between his four surviving sisters.” Of the second bezanty border surviving in composite form, no firm conclusions can now be 130 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE reached. The blue of the border is entirely modern, although the bezants appear to be medieval and the proportions of the shield are identical to those of the other chapter house shields. It is possible this was once part of a differenced version of the arms of Cornwall, as proposed by Dorling. If so, it probably represented Henry, Richard of Cornwall’s eldest son by his first wife, Isabel. Henry commanded the left wing of Henry III’s army at the battle of Lewes in 1264. He joined Louis [X’s crusade and was murdered at Viterbo in March 1271 by the sons of Simon de Montfort.*° Cattermole’s 1820 view of the chapter house east window appears to show a cross (possibly patonce) surrounded by a bezanty border. This may be the shield from which the surviving bezanty border derived, although these arms have not yet been identified. Neither the published rolls of arms of Henry III nor those of Edward I record a shield of this exact form.*’ However, quoting the Lansdowne manuscripts as his source, Riland Bedford assigned the arms gules (or purpure) a cross patonce argent to Boniface of Savoy, Archbishop of Canterbury 1245- 70.*° Although the author has found no contemporary record of the archbishop’s arms, bordures were a not uncommon adaptation of secular coats of arms for episcopal use.”’ Boniface was a son of Thomas I, Count of Savoy. Queen Eleanor was his niece and he attended the consecration of the cathedral in 1258. This occasion would have been an ideal opportunity for the dean and chapter to attract donations towards the cost of the chapter house and its glazing. The surviving arms of Clare are not especially helpful in dating, as they could refer to either Richard de Clare (d.1262) or Gilbert de Clare (d.1295). The same is true of the arms of Warenne (checky or and azure), recorded by both Carter and Cattermole. John de Warenne, earl of Surrey and Sussex, succeeded in 1240 and died in 1304. The evidence of the surviving or recorded shields, thus suggests that the Salisbury chapter house heraldry was planned before the death of Henry III in 1272. Richard, earl of Cornwall and King of the Romans, died in the same year. For the majority of the shields to represent men still living when the scheme was conceived, a date in the 1260s would have to apply —Roger Bigod died in 1270 when his arms became defunct. However, the inclusion of the arms of the count of Provence, dead by 1245, serves as a timely reminder that shields could be used posthumously, to commemorate individuals or alliances of the past. A further caveat must be the appreciation that only a small proportion of the original heraldry survives or can be accounted for. Had all sixty-four shields remained, their evidence might point to rather different conclusions. THE HISTORIATED PANELS It is possible, however, to test the heraldic evidence against other criteria, which together support the contention that the chapter house was glazed in the 1260s rather than the 1280s. While comparisons between monumental paintings and manuscript illumination 1s often unsatisfactory, it is clear that one development in English art in the period c.1260 — c.1270 can be discerned in both, and can be identified in sculpture too. The abandonment of crumpled, troughed drapery forms in favour of the calmer, French-inspired broad fold drapery has been identified in miniature in manuscripts such as the Oscott Psalter of c.1265-70 (BL Add Ms 50000) and on a monumental scale in works such as the Westminster retable of c.1270-80, where it is accompanied by an elegant, swaying body posture and delicate micro-architecture.”’ In Salisbury cathedral the transition can be illustrated by the contrasting styles of two sculpted episcopal effigies, that of Bishop de Bingham who died in 1246 [Fig. 17] and that of Bishop de Bridport who died in 1262 [Fig.18]. While the drapery of the Bingham effigy is executed in regular troughed folds, the drapery of the Bridport effigy and that of the figures in the spandrels of the elaborate canopy have made the transition to broad fold.*! Charting its assimilation in stained glass is complicated by the small number of firmly dated works, but has certainly been achieved in the glass from the former Augustinian Priory of Chetwode (Bucks) dated by Richard Marks to c.1260-80. The draperies in the historiated panels from Salisbury’s chapter house, on the other hand, have not made this transition. While there are some broader, less ruffled drapery areas, there are also deeply creased fabrics, such as the copes of the three bishops, which display a cascade of tightly spaced drapery troughs, the folds characterised by a series of small hooks at their extremities, reminiscent of the drapery of the Bingham effigy. The figures are rather statically posed, with down-turned feet, strongly resembling funeral effigies. The architectural canopies over the figures of a bishop and a king have substance, but none of the delicacy associated with the micro-architecture of tombs and tabernacles of the 1280s. THE THIRTEENTH-CENTURY STAINED GLASS OF THE SALISBURY CATHEDRAL CHAPTER HOUSE 131 Left: Fig. 17. The effigy of Bishop Robert de Bingham (d.1246). [© NMR, Crown Copyright] Above: Fig. 18. The effigy of Bishop Giles de Bridport (d.1262). [© NMR, Crown Copyright] THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 132 THE THIRTEENTH-CENTURY STAINED GLASS OF THE SALISBURY CATHEDRAL CHAPTER HOUSE 133 Useful comparisons can also be made with works of an earlier period, associated with the illuminator active in the period c.1245-55 working for patrons in Salisbury and vicinity, known as the Sarum Master. The drapery of these rather monumental figures in some cases has the same small hooks at the end of drapery creases, as in the Amesbury Psalter (Oxford, All Souls College Ms. 6) of c.1250-55, while the Missal of Henry of Chichester of c.1250 (Manchester, John Rylands Library Ms lat.24) displays calmer, broader drapery folds, but has a number of architectural canopies of comparable character to those in the chapter house windows.”’ The degree to which these glaziers and illuminators may be indebted to artists employed in the decoration of the cathedral choir, in use in the 1240s, is now rather difficult to judge. The elaborate vault paintings over the choir and presbytery were over-painted in the 18th century and inaccurately restored in the 19th century.™ Jacob Left: Fig. 19. Angel medallions formerly painted on the north-east transept vault, as recorded by Jacob Schnebbelie in 1789 [Oxford,Bodleian Library, Gough Maps volume 32, folio 60r. © Bodleian Libarary] Above: Fig. 20. The pulpitum of the cathedral (now on the west wall of the north transept), installed in the choir by 1236. [O NMR, Crown, Copyright] Schnebbelie’s watercolours of 1789 [Fig. 19] convey subject matter and design but do not convey a very accurate impression of the style of these lost works.” They are valuable, none the less, as a record of the remarkable similarities between the earlier campaign of monumental paintings of medallions of demi- figures of angels issuing from clouds, painted on the vaults of the eastern transepts and those in the chapter house windows. The painted pulpitum, in place by 1236 [Fig. 20], has similar demi-angels in the spandrels of its arcade and the facial types of the sculpted angels have affinities with the vault paintings and the later chapter house sculpture and glass. THE GRISAILLE DESIGNS A detailed study of English 13th-century grisaille typologies has yet to be written, but even a cursory survey reveals that a number of important changes were transforming this glazing type in the second half of the 13th century.°® The abandonment of the cross- hatched background was one such development, beginning perhaps in the third quarter of the century, while the adoption of naturalistic foliage forms in place of conventionalised ones was a phenomenon of the last quarter. Some of the grisaille in the Salisbury nave, completed by 1258, had already abandoned cross- hatched backgrounds and Salisbury appears to have been among the earliest buildings to adopt this lighter, more translucent aesthetic.°’ The chapter house designs all have clear backgrounds and more slender foliage fronds. However, by c.1290, glaziers at Wells and York were following their French counterparts in decorating their grisaille with naturalistic leaf forms curling through trellis-like frames, accompanied by naturalistic foliage borders.** In other words, the conventionalised grisaille and related borders from Salisbury’s chapter house would have looked up-to- date in the mid 1260s, but old-fashioned by the mid 1280s. A few miles away at Clarendon Palace, a small number of fragments of grisaille very similar to that in the cathedral chapter house were recovered from excavations. Their original location within the Palace is unclear, but they may have been associated with the later documented glazing campaigns for Henry III, carried out in 1256 or1267.” The glazing of the Salisbury chapter house, like Westminster before it, was predominantly cool and silvery, dominated by expanses of grisaille - in Lethaby’s words the two buildings were ‘vessels of light’.”° The grisaille windows in both buildings contained shields of arms, although there is no 134 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE evidence for the inclusion of figures in the Westminster windows.’! The warmth and colour in the interior was at a lower level — both buildings had richly decorated pavements and in both the lower walls were polychromed and gilded. The buildings therefore grew lighter as the eye rose towards the over-arching vault. The next generation of chapter house interiors adopted a richer décor and an altogether new approach to the glazing of large windows. The chapter houses at York [Fig. 21], Southwell and Wells were all glazed in this way, in a rich contrast to the silvery restraint of Westminster and Salisbury.’? The band window, in which horizontal rows of richly coloured historiated panels alternate with horizontal rows of grisaille, had evolved in France in the period c.1260-70, maintaining a high level of interior illumination, while maximising the narrative potential of stained glass.’ The need for light was especially important in a chapter house, a place for the daily transaction of business. York chapter house was the first English building to employ this new glazing mode, one which was maintained throughout the later glazing of the nave. Of the three late 13th- century chapter houses cited, it alone retains its glazing substantially intact and in situ and despite the loss of its polychromed masonry and the removal of its painted vault, conveys the impact of these extraordinarily rich and colourful interiors.“ Fig. 21. The interior of the chapter house of York Minster before the removal of the painted vault. From Joseph Haltpenny, Gothic Ornaments in the Cathedral Church of York (1795). THE MESSAGE: HISTORY, MEMORY AND MEMORIAL The chapter house was central to the daily life of the resident cathedral community, second in importance only to the choir itself.”? It was also a tangible expression of the corporate identity of the community and although it was not a consecrated structure, it served a quasi-liturgical role in the life of the resident canons, as well as being a place of business and the imposition of communal discipline. The chapter house windows contain imagery that complements the variety of functions fulfilled in this building. Forces of authority and legitimacy are represented by the paired figures of bishops and kings, the complementary pillars of church and state. Each figure carries the appropriate attributes of their respective authority. It is probably no coincidence that the posture of the bishops so closely resembles the images of bishops on a series of Salisbury episcopal seals that stretch back to the days of Old Sarum.”° Just as a seal authenticated and empowered the document to which it was attached, so the chapter house legitimised the acts, statutes and daily decisions made within its walls, recorded in the registers and cartularies. That the 13th-century cathedral chapter of Salisbury was keenly aware of its history and wished to maintain continuity between the old site and the new was demonstrated in 1226 when the bodies of Bishops Osmund, Roger and Jocelyn were reverently carried down from Old Sarum for burial in the Trinity Chapel of the new cathedral.’” None of the figures of bishops and kings in the chapter house windows were specifically identified by label or inscription. None are nimbed, although they are accompanied in the tracery of the windows by nimbed figures of angels issuing out of the clouds of heaven. They are thus figures not of this world, but are figures who have passed into history. If all eight windows were treated alike, eight pairs of bishops and kings could have been accommodated in the large medallions, with four bishops and four kings alternating in the smaller trefoil openings below — a total of twelve bishops and twelve kings in all. It seems reasonable to assume that these figures were intended to convey some specific meaning and were not simply decorative devices for filling tracery openings. The episcopal succession of Salisbury from the time of its transfer from Sherborne in 1075 to the end of the reign of Henry III rather conveniently provides twelve names: Herman (1058-78), Osmund (1078-99), Roger (1107-39), Jocelyn de Bohun THE THIRTEENTH-CENTURY STAINED GLASS OF THE SALISBURY CATHEDRAL CHAPTER HOUSE 135 (1142-84), Hubert Walter (1189-93), Herbert Poore (1194-1217), Richard Poore (1217-28), Robert de Bingham (1229-46), William of York (1247-56), Giles de Bridport (1257-62), Walter de la Wyle (1263-71) and Robert de Wykehampton (1271-84). The royal succession over the same period accounts for only eight rulers between William I and Henry III. Additional Kings must therefore have been added for the sake of the symmetry of the scheme. None the less, it is plausible to suggest that the kings and bishops were intended to represent those illustrious figures from church and state who figured in Salisbury’s history as an independent episcopal see. The chapter house was a significant place of memorial and memory, expressed in the daily observance of the Pretiosa, a service following Prime, at which the cathedral’s benefactors were remembered in the reading of the martyrology.”® Indeed, the bishops of past generations might once have chosen the chapter house as their place of burial. The lifting of the prohibition on burial inside churches meant that the Trinity Chapel or choir was now preferred, while the elaborate tiled pavement made burial beneath the chapter house floor impractical. The windows therefore ensured that the bishops could be present in spirit if not in reality. Of the twelve bishops listed above, ten were to die in office, of whom seven are known to have been buried in the cathedral.’”? A surviving 15th-century obit calendar records the obits of almost all the twelve bishops listed above.*” Only a fragment of the medieval Martyrology survives, recorded by Leland.*! But it includes the names of bishops Hubert Walter, Giles de Bridport, Walter de la Wyle and Robert Wykehampton. Walter de la Wyle and Robert de Wykehampton, in particular, deserved to be remembered in the chapter house, having been - instrumental in the enlargement of the cloisters and the building of the chapter house itself. No King of England had been buried at Salisbury, but the cathedral had benefited from royal generosity. That Salisbury was a cathedral city at all was the consequence of episcopal reorganization under the Conqueror, believed to have been Osmund’s uncle. Bishop Poore’s epitaph, recorded by John Leland in the 16th century, acknowledged the role of Kings Richard, John and Henry in securing the transfer of the cathedral from Old Sarum to the new site.*’ The cathedral had good reason to be grateful to Henry III. He had been a generous, if sporadic benefactor to the cathedral from its translation to a virgin site in 1220 until its completion in 1266. Substantial gifts of timber from the royal forests were made throughout the period.*’ As a regular resident at the nearby palace of Clarendon, a favourite retreat, the King was able to keep abreast of progress. As the choir neared completion in the 1240s, he made a number of gifts of vestments and liturgical vessels, including a pyx, a silk cope, copes of red samite with gilded clasp and bells, and purple samite cloth.*t Accompanied by the Queen and in the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry attended the consecration of the cathedral in 1258.*? But other monarchs had also contributed to Salisbury’s prosperity — charters in the cathedral’s favour had been issued by Henry I, Stephen, Henry II, Richard, John as well as Henry Il.*° King Richard had presented the cathedral with a silken cloth decorated with ivory to hang around the high altar.*’ The Martyrology fragment, together with the obit calendar, also commemorate Richard of Cornwall as a cathedral benefactor, the donor of a gift of gardens. His younger son and heir, Edmund (d.1300), continued this link with the Cathedral, donating a small croft and a windmill for his own obit.** As we have seen, Earl Richard was commemorated in two of the chapter house stained glass shields and an associate may also have been commemorated in the glass. In his study of the decoration of the Westminster chapter house, Dr Binski has suggested that there was ‘a general tendency in thirteenth-century English chapterhouses not to have what used to be termed ‘iconographic programmes”.*? However, a number of themes and preoccupations recur in English chapter house decoration in the 13th and 14th centuries. The commonest theme was Marian, which in Salisbury was expressed in (lost) figures of the enthroned Virgin and Child surrounded by the (surviving) Virtues and Vices that decorated the outer doorway. Nor was Salisbury’s the only English 13th- century chapter house to contain historical and commemorative imagery. According to Leland, the chapter house of Sherborne Abbey, altered and perhaps refurbished in the mid-13th century, had a vault decorated with painted images of ‘bishops that had their sete in Shirburn’.°° The walls of the chapter house of Gloucester Abbey were painted with inscriptions in Lombardic letters recording the names of noble benefactors, probably painted between 1237 and 1283.°! The blind tracery of the west wall of York chapter house was decorated with two tiers of figures of bishops and kings under canopies.** The windows of the chapter house of Wells Cathedral, glazed in the first decade of the 14th century, contained images of saints accompanied by members of the chapter identified by Lombardic inscriptions, believed to have 136 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE been contributors to the fabric whose memory was perpetuated in the prayers of their successors. It is to this cultural and religious milieu that the Salisbury windows belonged. Although diminished and dimmed by time and neglect, the chapter house windows were once one of the great glazing schemes of 13th-century England. They can now take their place among the great artistic endeavours of the reign of Henry III, that most prolific patron of stained glass. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Much of the research on which this article is based was undertaken while working on a publication for the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (since merged with English Heritage). Its conclusions were presented at a research seminar “The Gothic Chapter House in England’ held in York in November 1999 and has benefited from the comments and suggestions of colleagues, especially DrTim Ayers, Dr Christopher Norton and Tim Tatton Brown. I am also grateful to J.A.Goodall FSA for his comments on aspects of the heraldry. Notes J. E. Nightingale, ‘Letter to the Editor’, WA&NHM 19 (1881), pp.226-7. ? John Carter, ‘The Pursuit of Architectural Innovation’ Gentleman’s Magazine 73 (1803) pp.642-3; Charles Winston, ‘On the Painted Glass at Salisbury’ in Memoirs I]lustrative of the Art of Glass Painting (London 1865), pp.106-30. * This process is charted by Professor P. Z. Blum in “Thirteenth-Century Glass of the Salisbury Chapter House’, Gesta 37/2 (1998), pp.142-49. * Summarised in Sarah Brown Sumptuous and Richly Adorn’d. The Decoration of Salisbury Cathedral, (London 1999) pp. 46-48. > William Burges, ‘The iconography of the Chapter House, Salisbury’, The Ecclesiologist 20 (1859), pp. 109-14 and 147-62. For a full account of the sculptures, together with restoration diagrams, see P. Z. Blum, ‘The Sculptures of the Salisbury Chapter House’ in Laurence Keen and Thomas Cocke (eds) Medieval Art and Architecture at Salisbury, British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions 17 (Leeds 1996) pp. 68-78. ° Carter , ‘Architectural Innovation’ p. 1123. * Salisbury and Winchester Journal 15 June 1824. * The panel was drawn by L. F. Day and published in his book Windows. A Book about Stained and Painted Glass (London 1897) p. 386. For details of the Bryn Athyn collection see J. Hayward & W. Cahn (eds), Radiance and Reflection. Medieval Art from the Raymond Pitcairn Collection (New York 1982), especially pp.229-31. ° The V&A panel is c278-1911. The Museum’s catalogue records that Grosvenor Thomas found the grisaille in boxes “in the crypt” and had them made up into panels. For the Toledo Museum panels see M. H. Caviness et al, Stained Glass before 1700 in American Collections: Mid-Western and Western States, Corpus Vitrearum Checklist III (Washington 1989) p.218. ’° London, British Library Lansdowne Ms 874, fol. 32r. C. E. Long (ed) ‘Diary of the Marches of the Royal Army during the Great Civil War kept by Richard Symonds’, Camden Society 74 (1859), p.137. '! Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms Gough Wilts. 3, fol.55r, notes made c.1769-80. ' BL Add Ms 299339, fols. 81r, 82r, 83r. Published in part in John Carter, The Ancient Architecture of England, (revised edition by John Britton, London 1837), plate bexix5 sp! aii. 'S Charles Winston, ‘On the Painted Glass at Salisbury’. "BL Add Ms 35211, iii (nos. 177-86), iv (nos. 187-203). Other Salisbury drawings are dated 1853. 5 J. M. J. Fletcher, ‘The Stained Glass in Salisbury Cath- edral’, WA&NHM 45 (1930), pp.235-53. '° BE. E. Dorling, ‘Notes on some armorial glass in Salisbury Cathedral’, The Ancestor 4 (1903) pp.120-126; Hugh Shortt, ‘13th-century Heraldry from the Chapter House’ Friends of Salisbury Cathedral Annual Report 28 (1958) pp. 16-21. 'TR.O.C. Spring, The Stained Glass of Salisbury Cathedral (Salisbury 1973) and The New Bell’s Cathedral Guides: Salisbury Cathedral (London 1987). 'S Richard Marks, “The Thirteenth-Century Glazing of Salisbury Cathedral’ in Keen & Cocke (eds) Medieval Art and Architecture at Salisbury Cathedral, pp.106- 20 and Stained Glass in England during the Middle Ages (London 1993), pp.143-4. ' Brown, Sumptuous and Richly Adorn‘ pp.88-94. °° This was an interpretation first forwarded in her unpublished doctoral thesis, ‘The Salisbury Chapter House and its Old Testament Cycle’ (Yale University, 1978), later published in P. Z. Blum, ‘The sequence of building campaigns in Salisbury Cathedral’, Art Bulletin 73 (1991) pp.6-38 and in ‘Thirteenth-Century Glass of the Salisbury Chapter House’, op. cit. *1 This section is indebted to recent research by Tim Tatton- Brown, consultant archaeologist to the Dean and Chapter of Salisbury, presented in papers given at the research seminar ‘The Gothic Chapter House in England’, York, 23-24 November 1999 and at the Society of Antiquaries of London, 24 February 2000. *?-Tim Tatton-Brown, “The Cloisters of Salisbury Cathedral’ Friends of Salisbury Cathedral Annual Report 65 (1995) pp.8-10. °>W7. G. Simpson, ‘Documentary and dendrochronological evidence for the building of Salisbury Cathedral’, in Keen & Cocke, Medieval Art and Architecture at Salisbury, pp.10-20. THE THIRTEENTH-CENTURY STAINED GLASS OF THE SALISBURY CATHEDRAL CHAPTER HOUSE U3;7, *4’Thomas Cocke and Peter Kidson, Salisbury Cathedral. Perspectives on the Architectural History (London 1993), p. 43. > Paul Binski, Westminster Abbey and the Plantagenets. Kingship and the Representation of Power 1200-1400 (New Haven and London 1995), pp.15-16. °° See, for example, Geoffrey Webb, Architecture in Britain. The Middle Ages (Harmondsworth 1956), p. 153:‘The Westminster chapter-house (58 feet across) was the model for Salisbury, which followed some ten years later’. *7 Burges, ‘The Iconography of the Chapter House, Salisbury’. This later date has been followed in the cathedral’s own chapter house guide book: David Durston, The Chapter House, Salisbury Cathedral (Much Wenlock 1995). 8 In 1976 Miss M. M. Archibald, of the Department of Coins and Medals at the British Museum was unable to find any record of this discovery in the Numismatic Chronicle and shed some doubt on its value in dating the building. Letter of 9 December 1976 in RCHME files. °° Blum, ‘Thirteenth-Century Glass’ p.147. *° “Tree-Ring Dates List 64’ in Vernacular Architecture 27 (1996), pp.79 & 81. The report was compiled by Nottingham University Tree Ring Dating Laboratory. 31 Christopher Norton, ‘The Decorative Pavements of Salisbury Cathedral and Old Sarum’ in Keen & Cocke (eds) Medieval Art and Architecture at Salisbury, pp.90- 105. >? At Westminster Abbey, for example, canvas sheets were used to close the chapter house windows for some time immediately after the building’s completion. Binski, Westminster Abbey, p.16. > BL Add Ms 34866, fol.42. 34 Winston described grisaille of this design ‘in the great south transept’ (BL Add. Ms 35211, iii, no. 180). While most of the glass in S19 appears to be of 19th-century date (the work of Bell & Beckham for G. E. Street), some of the very heavily corroded or dirty panels may be medieval. Their height and inaccessibility make this impossible to confirm at this time, but will perhaps be clarified as a result of future conservation. > Nave aisle window s33 contains four complete medallions and two partial ones. The west windows of both nave aisles (n35 and s36) contain two medallions each. © Recorded in 1610 by Nicholas Charles, in 1644 by Richard Symonds and c.1769-80 by Richard Gough. *7 Lucy Freeman Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts 1285-1385 (London 1986), 2 pp. 13-14. *8 G. J. Brault, Aspilogia III: The Rolls of Arms of Edward I (London 1997) II p.153. A felling date of 1288 for the principal roof timbers of the York Chapter House roof was secured from tree-ring analysis commissioned by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England architectural survey division, now part of English Heritage, by the University of Nottingham Tree- Ring Dating laboratory. The results are as yet unpublished. The chapter house was in use by 1295. W. Brown (ed), The Register of John le Romeyn, Lord Archbishop of York, 1286-1296. Part 2, and the Register of Henry of Newark, Lord Archbishop of York 1296- 1299, Surtees Society 128 (1906) p.23. * Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in London I: Westminster Abbey (London 1924) pp.53, 55; Binski, Westminster Abbey pp.31-33. *° Calendar of Close Rolls 1242-47 p.153. 4" RCHM(E) London. Westminster Abbey p. 22. The glass is now located in St Edmund’s chapel. PW.R. Lethaby, Westminster Abbey Re-Examined (London 1925) p. 125. ® R. Allen Brown & H. M. Colvin , The History of the King’s Works: The Middle Ages 2 p.809 & 957. “4 Sally Dixon Smith, “The Image and Reality of Alms Giving in the Great Halls of Henry III’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association 152 (1999), p.90. © 'T. D. Tremlett, H. Stanford London and A. Wagner, Aspilogia II: Rolls of Arms Henry II, (London 1967) p. 116. © J. Alexander and P. Binski (eds), Age of Chivalry. Art in Plantagenet England 1200-1400 (London 1987), p.203. “ The distinction between the double-headed and single- headed eagle only became fixed in the 14th century and appears for the first time in Walford’s Roll of c.1275. Aspuogia II p.167-8. 48 -P. Binski, The Painted Chamber at Westminster (London1986), pp. 41-42 & 145. * John A. Goodall, “The heraldry on the tomb of Edmund Crouchback. Earl of Lancaster (d.1296)’ in Ann McGee Morganstern, Gothic Tombs of Kinship (Pennsylvania 2000), pp. 167-174 (esp. p. 170). °° Peter and Eleanor Saunders (eds), Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum. Medieval Catalogue Part 1 (Salisbury 1991) p. 48 (entry by John Cherry). >! Alexander & Binski, Age of Chivalry p. 259, Cat. 165. °° Shortt 1958 (op. cit. note xx). > Aspilogia II, p.53 & 66. I am grateful to Mr John A. Goodall FSA for his comments on this issue. 4 Aspilogia II p. 124. 55 Anon. ‘The Brus Cenotaph at Guisborough’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 13 (1895) pp.246-7, 258. °° G.E. C. The Complete Peerage III (London: 1913) p. 432 7 Aspilogia II, pp.215-6; G. Brault, Aspilogia II. The Rolls of Arms of Edward I (London 1997), 2, pp.510-16. >8W.K. Riland Bedford, The Blazon of Episcopacy (London 1897) p.2. 3° In the second half of the 14th century, for example, Richard Scope, archbishop of York 1398-1405, bore the arms of Scrope of Masham with a bordure charged with mitres. 60 N. J. Morgan, A Survey of Manuscripts [Juminated in the British Isles: Early Gothic Manuscripts (II) 1250- 1285 (London 1988) pp.136-139; Alexander & Binski Age of Chivalry, pp.340-41. 6! The drapery of the small angel in an aedicule above the 138 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE head of the Bingham effigy is broad fold. °° Alexander & Binski, Age of Chivalry pp.530-31. ® Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts II, pp. 57-61. °F. R. Horlbeck, ‘The vault paintings of Salisbury Cathedral’, Archaeological Journal 97 (1960), pp.116- 30. © London, Society of Antiquaries, Ms 263; Oxford, Bodleian Library Ms Gough Maps vol. 32. °°’The best study available to date is in Marks, Stained Glass in England pp128-134 & 142-3. ° THlustrated in Marks, “Thirteenth-Century Glazing’, p.114, fig.4f. °*’The grisaille glazing of the collegiate church of St Urbain at Troyes,of c.1270, uses naturalistic foliage on clear backgrounds. Inventaire Général des Monuments et Richesses Artistiques de la France, Les Vitraux de Champagne- Ardenne, Corpus Vitrearum Recensement IV (Paris 1992), pp. 276-283. The glazing of the Wells chapter house stair of c.1290 and of the chapter house of York Minster, in use by 1295, is naturalistic. For York see D. E. O’Connor and J. Haselock ‘Stained and Painted Glass’ in G. E. Aylmer & R. Cant (eds) A History of York Minster (Oxford 1977) pp. 334-41 and Sarah Brown, Stained Glass at York Minster (London 1999) pp.23-31. For Wells see Richard Marks, ‘The medieval Stained Glass of Wells Cathedral’ in L. S. Colchester (ed) Wells Cathedral. A History (Shepton Mallet 1982), pp. 132-34. This account will be superseded by Dr Tim Ayers’ account in his forthcoming CVMA volume on Wells. Iam grateful to him for allowing me to read his text in advance of publication. © Richard Marks, “Window Glass’ in Clarendon Palace by T. B. James, A. M. Robinson and E. Eames (London 1988), pp.229-233;T. J. Pettigrew, “Notes on the Ancient Royal Palace of Clarendon’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association 15 (1859), pp.246-264. ” Lethaby Westminster Abbey Reexamined, p.125. “| Tbid. and J. G. Noppen, ‘Westminster Chapter House’, Country Life 16 September 1949, pp.841-844, especially fig.8. ” The glass of Southwell has not been published, but a few fragments of full-colour canopies survive in situ. © M. Lillich, ‘The Band-Window: A theory of Origin and Development’, Gesta 9/1 (1970) pp.26-33. ™ Christopher Norton, ‘The Medieval Paintings in the Chapter House’, Friends of York Minster Annual Report, 67 (1996), pp.34-51; Brown, Stained Glass at York Minster pp. 23-31. ” See David Lepine, Brotherhood of Canons Serving God. English Secular Cathedrals in the Later Middle Ages (Woodbridge 1995). *° John Wordsworth, ‘The Seals of the Bishops of Salisbury’, Archaeological Journal 45 (1888), pp.22-42. I am grateful to the Society of Antiquaries of London for permission to examine the Society’s collection of seal impressions. “WH. Rich Jones, Vetus Registrum Sarisberiense; The Register of St Osmund, II, Rolls Series, 78 (1884), p.55. *’ ELH. Frere, The Use of Sarum (London 1898-1901), Ip. 18. ” Osmund, Roger and Jocelyn had been moved from Old Sarum to the Trinity Chapel in the new cathedral. Robert de Bingham was buried to the north of the high altar. Giles de Bridport was buried in the south choir aisle. Walter de la Wyle was buried in the chapel of St Edmund, with Robert de Wykehampton in the Trinity chapel. “°C. H. Wordsworth, Salisbury Ceremonies and Processions (Cambridge 1901), pp. 229-42. 8! L. Toulmin Smith (ed), The Itinerary of John Leland (London 1964), 1 pp. 265-6 *° The Itinerary of John Leland, 1 pp. 262-3. ‘> Simpson, ‘Documentary and Dendrochronological Evidence for the Building of Salisbury Cathedral’ op. cit. 84 Calendar of Liberate Rolls 1240-45 pp. 222, 291, Calendar of Liberate Rolls 1245-51, p. 61, Calendar of Close Rolls 1247-51 pp. 143, 166,201. 8° The Itinerary of John Leland 1 p.266 Se See W. H. Rich Jones & W. Dunn Macray (eds), Charters and Documents Illustrating the History of Salisbury in the 12th and 13th Centuries, Rolls Series 97 (London 1891). “7 WH. Rich Jones The Register of St Osmund, I pp.132- 3% 88 Andrew Brown, Popular Piety in Late Medieval England. The Diocese of Salisbury 1250-1550 (Oxford 1995) p:52 *° Binski, Westminster Abbey p.187. °° The Itinerary of John Leland, 5 p.153. °! M.T. W. Payne & J. E. Payne, “The Wall Inscriptions of Gloucester Cathedral Chapter House and the de Chaworths of Kempsford’, in Transactions of the Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 92 (1994), 87-104. °? Christopher Norton, ‘The Medieval Paintings in the Chapter House’. Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 94 (2001), pp. 139-147 The Urbanity of Marlborough: a Wiltshire Town in the Seventeenth Century by I.L. Williams By taking criteria commonly used for determining whether a place was functioning as a town at a given period, this paper discusses the evidence for town life in 17th-century Marlborough. Its urban characteristics, including concentration of population, marketing and trade, corporate government, complex social structure and influence over its surrounding area, are all explored, and its status and importance are assessed. When we get to Wiltshire we are in the classical land of small boroughs.! Maulbery looks very fine, ....° Marlborough lies in the upper valley of the River Kennet in eastern Wiltshire, where the Roman roads from Winchester and Salisbury joined to pass northward through Wanborough (Durocornovium) to Cirencester. Just north of the river this road was crossed by their route from London to Bath. The Kennet valley narrows at this point, and the chalk downs lie close to the town to north and south. In such a situation, at the junction of four routes (that to Winchester having become disused) and the two agricultural zones of downland and river valley, the borough was well placed to become a market town. It lay on a royal estate, and markets were probably held there even before they were formally granted in the first charter of 1204.* Under royal patronage the borough prospered throughout the middle ages, and Marlborough Castle was frequently used as a stopping place on the monarchs’ progresses to the west of England.* The castle lay almost three quarters of a mile to the west of the original Saxon settlement round the Green, and the town was able to expand unhindered along the chalk outcrop which underlies the present High Street.° By the early modern period and by most standards, Marlborough was undeniably a town. One well-known set of criteria, that originally proposed by Maurice Beresford and later formulated by Clark and Slack, demands that a town should have a significant concentration of population, a specialist economic function, a sophisticated political form, a complex social structure and a distinct influence beyond the immediate boundaries of the town. Marlborough exhibits all these characteristics to a greater or lesser extent.° Graham adds that the occupational structure of a town should not depend on agriculture’, and in the case of Marlborough this also can be proven from documents, notably in the probate records of the townspeople, which have survived in large numbers. Whether Martin’s tongue- in-cheek definition of a town, that it is ‘a place which is distinguishable from a large village by the presence of traffic jams and more than one house of ill repute’ applied to seventeenth-century Marlborough there is no way of knowing,* while Corfield dissents from the view of all the other historians quoted, regarding any settlement with a population of less than 5,000 as being too small to be truly urban.’ Everitt reduces the urban requirements to only two, the possession of trading rights, and of ‘functions independent of farming activities’, both of which criteria Marlborough readily fulfils.'° Of the criteria demanded by Clark and Slack, the concentration of population is the most immediately visible. Despite the nineteenth-century expansion of Marlborough College, and some twentieth-century housing development, anyone approaching the town along the Bristol road from the west or down Granham Hill from Pewsey is immediately aware of the contrast between the rural scenery of the upper Kennet valley and surrounding downland, and the 7 Chandler Close, Devizes SN10 3DS 140 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE busy townscape of the long curving High Street, with its close-built houses, the near vista closed by the church of SS. Peter and Paul, and the far vista by the Guildhall and the tower of St. Mary’s church. On Wednesdays and Saturdays the town displays another of its urban characteristics in the presence of the market, the only one in Wiltshire outside Salisbury which is still kept twice a week. The buildings of the High Street are mainly of three storeys, and several of them are hotels or public houses. There were even more of these in the seventeenth century, and their importance in road travel is seen in the many wide arches leading back to the former stable yards. They illustrate well Marlborough’s other specialist economic function: as well as being a market town it also acted as a staging post on the Great West Road from London to Bristol and Bath. The prominence of the Guildhall indicates the presence of another of Marlborough’s urban attributes, its corporate identity. The original Guildhall stood on the north side of the High Street, but this was replaced by a new building on the present site in 1631-3.'! That structure was destroyed in the Great Fire of Marlborough in 1653, rebuilt, replaced again in 1792, altered in 1867 and replaced by the existing building in 1901-2.'? A complex social structure, together with an influence beyond the boundaries of the town, which are the other urban characteristics demanded by Clark and Slack, are not readily observed in the present fabric of the town, but must be sought in documentary evidence. It is one thing to assert that Marlborough had a significant concentration of population in the seventeenth century, but it is quite another to determine the actual number of people living in the borough with any accuracy. Urban population studies in the early modern period can be difficult, due to the erratic survival of contemporary documents, as well as the high mobility of urban populations.'’ There are several documents which have been used to study the demography of English small towns of the period, notably the ecclesiastical census of 1603, the Protestation Returns of 1641-2, the Hearth Taxes of the 1660s onwards and the Compton Census of 1676.'' Unfortunately, the returns from the 1603 survey are not extant for the Diocese of Sarum, and the Protestation Returns exist only for the south of Wiltshire, not the north. There is only one surviving Hearth Tax return for the county as a whole, that for Michaelmas 1662, and this has not only suffered much damage over the centuries, but also excludes figures for the numbers of householders exempt from payment.'? Exemption lists and certificates do exist for a few isolated areas of Wiltshire, but the two Marlborough parishes are not among them.'® This leaves only the Compton Census, which gives a figure of 3,200 for the population of the two parishes.'’ This appears too high to be read as the number of adults (even Salisbury’s adult population was no larger than about 3,500-4,000 at the time), but even as the total population is this figure credible? Table 1. Marlborough population figures 1676 and 1811 Parish 1811 = 1811x 0.5 1676 St. Mary 1223 611 2000 SS. Peter and Paul 1356 678 1200 Total 2579 1289 3200 Source: P. Clark & J. Hosking, Population Estimates of English Small Towns 1550-1851 (Leicester, 1993), pp.163-4. The population table produced by Wrigley and Schofield indicates that the population of England virtually doubled between 1676 and 1811.!'° The relative figures for Marlborough are given in Table 1. This shows that the Compton Census figure is about twice the expected amount in the parish of SS. Peter and Paul, and about three times in the parish of St. Mary. This discrepancy does not occur in other towns in the area (Table 2.). In no case are the figures a particularly good fit, but none of them exhibit an inconsistency of the order of that in the Marlborough population figures. Table 2. North Wiltshire small towns, population figures 1676 and 1811 Town 1811 = 1811x0.5 1676 Chippenham 3410 1705 1290 Devizes 3750 1875 1010 Swindon 1341 670 870 Wootton Bassett 1390 695 920 Source: as Table 1, pp.159-165. One other test may be applied to the Marlborough population estimates. It has been suggested that, by taking the average number of baptisms over a ten- year period, and multiplying the figure by 30, a good approximation of the population of a parish may be obtained.'’ The relative figures for Marlborough are given in Table 3. This tends to confirm that the Compton Census figure is too high, although not as high as is suggested by comparing it with the figure for the 1811 Census. THE URBANITY OF MARLBOROUGH Table 3. Marlborough population from baptism entries, 1671-1680 Parish av. bpts. av. x30 1811x0.5 1676 St. Mary 53-11 1593 611 2000 SS. Peter and Paul 32.2 966 678 1200 Total 85.3 2559 1289 3200 Source: WRO 1050/2 and 1050/16, parish registers for St. Mary and SS. Peter and Paul, Marlborough. The doubling of population between 1676 and 1811 proposed by Wrigley and Schofield may in reality not be accurate for north Wiltshire market towns. Wootton Bassett, which lies some 13 miles north west of Marlborough, is one of the few places in the county for which a list of population has survived from the late seventeenth century.*’ It was compiled by local assessors 1n 1697 to comply with the requirements of the so-called Marriage Duty Act.”! The list includes children, and gives the total population as 1,050. This compares reasonably well with the Compton Census figure of 613, if that figure is increased by 40% to allow for children. The 1697 figure is, however, three quarters of the 1811 figure, which indicates a population increase of only one third between the two dates. Reducing the 1811 figure for Marlborough by a like amount would give a population figure for the town at the end of the seventeenth century of 1,934. This is still considerably lower than the figure indicated by manipulating the numbers of baptisms, but it does serve to confirm the propositions that (a) the Compton Census figure for Marlborough is too high, even though both incumbents were resident at the time the Census was taken, and that (b) the increase in population of the town was nothing like so great as 100% between 1676 and 1811. ‘ Whatever its actual population level, Marlborough was functioning both as a market town and as a road town by the end of the sixteenth century. Both these attributes were encouraged by the expansion of inland trade which occurred in the seventeenth century, and it was due to the prosperity which this commercial expansion engendered that the town was able to recover easily from both the disaster of military occupation during the Civil Wars, and the Great Fire of 1653 which destroyed a large part of the town, including the church of St. Mary and the recently- built Guildhall.*” The broad High Street was not only the physical but also the commercial and economic centre of the town, and it was here that the markets were and are held. Markets were an essential part of the country’s economy as soon as agriculture 141 progressed beyond subsistence level, since the influx of farm produce allowed the towns to grow beyond their ability to feed themselves.*? The importance of the market to the town was such that standard weights were kept in ‘leatherne bagges’ in the Guildhall. In 1610 a list of these, made in 1588, was copied into the Chamberlain’s Book. The weights ranged from 56lb. avoirdupois to '/, oz. troy weight. Brass measures of volume were also kept, as well as an iron measure for yards and ells. At Marlborough, Blome noted that corn, malt, provisions, butter and particularly cheese were sold,” while Aubrey referred to the town as ‘one of the greatest markets for cheese in the west of England’, and one of the places attended by the London cheese factors. He also remarked that ‘the eeles at Marlborough are incomparable; silver eeles, truly almost as good as a trout’. He does not say if these, too, were sold in the market. *° A contemporary account describes the town as a gallant place both for Corn, Butter, Cheese, and other suchlike provisions as any was in all the Country: The street wherein the market was kept, is supposed to be in length and breadth full as large as Cheape-side, and on both sides had many goodly shops filled with rich and costly Commodities, Silks and Tafety, Cloath, and Lace, Linnen and Woolen, Gold and Silver, no braver Wares can be had or bought in London. . The same source, describing the Fire of 1653, relates that about four or five tons of cheese stored in the market house (presumably the Guildhall) was ‘consumed to nothing’.”’ The cheese market continued in importance beyond the seventeenth century. A trade card printed in the town in the 1770s advertises that one Mr. White has for sale ‘a large Assortment of Fine Double North Wiltshire and Loaf Cheeses’, and as an added incentive to purchasers, notes that ‘they will bear a Voyage to the West and East Indies’.** Although Chippenham, rather than Marlborough, was the centre of the dairying area, it did not become an important market for cheese until well into the nineteenth century.” In 1801 cheese, butter and corn were being sold in the ‘market-house’ at Marlborough.” In return for the supplies of food and raw materials which country people brought to market, towns were able to supply the country- dwellers with goods or services which were not available to them at home.*! As Defoe observed, Marlborough ‘has a pretty good shop-keeping trade, but not much of the manufacturing part’.*” Despite this, it was able to supply goods made by local craftsmen and those manufactured elsewhere, to provide specialist services, and to act as a point of 142 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE exchange for information and ideas.*’ As agricultural productivity increased, at least some of the townspeople could take advantage of the increased spending power of the yeomen and gentry of the surrounding countryside, and Marlborough was able to support suppliers and manufacturers of luxury items, such as the goldsmiths, watchmakers and silk merchants of the town, traders who, in particular, rarely remained in communities which were in decline.** Marlborough’s other specialist economic function was as a staging post on the road from London to Bath and Bristol. East and west of the town the road followed various routes at different times, sometimes more than one at once, but due to the narrowing of the Kennet valley, all the routes had to converge on Marlborough.* The first documentary evidence of coaching through the town is in June 1657, when Onesiphorus Tapp placed a notice in The Public Advertiser: If any be desirous to go from London to Redding, Nubery, Marlborough, Bath or Bristol, they may please to take notice that at the Red Lyon in Fleet Street, upon any Thursday, they may be accommodated with a Coach and 4 Horses to carry them to or from any of the said places at Reasonable rates by Onesiphorus Tapp of Marlborough.”*° By the 1680s, as well as benefitting from the through traffic from Bath and Bristol, Marlborough was sending a coach, two wagons and a carrier to London every week: Mr. Yarrant [recte Tarrant], Carrier, comes to the White Swan on Holbourn-Bridge On Wednesday, goes out on Thursday. Mr Coleman’s and Mr. Perdue’s Wagons come to the Rose on Holbourn-Bridge on Wednesdays, go out on Thursdays. Mr. Richard Hobb’s Coach comes to the Angel on the Back-side of St. Clements on Tuesday, goes out on Thursday.*’ A government survey of inns was made in 1686, in order to establish the amount of beds and stabling available in each locality, and thus to ascertain the numbers of troops which could be billeted anywhere in the kingdom.”** In it, Marlborough was shown as being second only to Salisbury within the county of Wiltshire in its provision of beds, though third behind Devizes in the amount of stabling it was able to provide. The Bristol road was turnpiked during the first half of the eighteenth century, and by its end 62 stage coaches a week were passing through Marlborough.*” In the seventeenth century, however, most travellers were still using their own vehicies. When John Evelyn passed through the town in June 1654, on his way to visit his wife’s Wiltshire relations, he was travelling in a coach-and-six. He dined at Marlborough, ‘which having been lately fired, was now new-built’.*° As the Great Fire had occurred only 14 months before, the town must indeed have risen phoenix-like from its ashes. In 1668 Samuel Pepys was another visitor to the town, on a return journey from Bath to London. He stayed at the Hart, and noted that Marlborough was a ‘pretty fair town for a street or two’. He overslept, and ‘all the five coaches that come this day from Bath, as well as we’, had left before he was awake.*! The road was not only much used but also much complained of. The satirical writer Ned Ward, relating the story of a possibly fictitious journey to Bath, told how he had demanded of his innkeeper, who was also the Mayor, that he repair the way down the hill from Savernake Forest, only to receive the reply: That we cannot do by no means, Sir, for in so doing we should Ruine half the Town; for the Dammage that Hill occasions, brings a Considerable Trade to our Wheel- wrights, Farriers, and Chyrurigions; also Creates no small Business to those of my own Function, and Maintains three or four Families to support the Coaches, and Assisting at other Accidents.” However, since the road was so busy it cannot have been as difficult to traverse as contemporary writers would have their audience believe: “Complaints are poor evidence’, and the regularity of the carrying service indicates that wheeled traffic could normally manage to reach its destinations on time.*’ Even before the days of the mail coaches, Marlborough was a postal stage. Until 1635 the Royal Mail was, as its name implies, exclusively for the use of the monarch’s business, enabling the government in Westminster to keep in touch with the sovereigns on their travels, or with any towns where Royal business made rapid communication necessary. The Master of the Posts was charged with organising the traffic, and in 1574, during Queen Elizabeth’s progress, Thomas Pike and Anthony Diston entered post at Marlboro, for serving xviij dayes, begone the xvijj of August, and ending the third daye of September, both dayes included. at ij’ per diem, xxiv’."! When the Mails were opened to public use in 1635 Marlborough was chosen as one of the stages on the London to Bristol road, receiving posts from Newbury and forwarding them to Chippenham. By 1677, according to Gardiner’s General Survey of the Post Office, the town was also dealing with by-posts from Devizes, Westbury, Warminster, Frome and Trowbridge.’ The postmasters were normally innkeepers, since they had the necessary horses and stabling at their disposal, and this was certainly true in the case of Onesiphorus Tapp and John Sadler, who THE URBANITY OF MARLBOROUGH were successively postmasters in Marlborough in the seventeenth century. Tapp appears not to have recognised Sadler’s appointment, and continued to organise the carriage of mails to London, contrary to the Post Office monopoly, until in June 1670 his servant, Robert Kember, was ordered before the Board to account for his behaviour.*® More serious from the users’ point of view was the sometimes erratic nature of the mail service. In April 1674 Mr. Chandler of Marlborough, with others, had written a letter to the Deputy Postmaster- General, Colonel Whitley, complaining about the ‘Slow, and Late arrivall of theire Letters, whereby they are much Damnifyed, Especially as to their Saturdays- market’.*’ In his reply Whitley agreed with the Marlborough gentlemen that the cause is ‘the negligence of the Postmasters: and the Badness of theire Servants and Horses, Particularly att Newberry in the first place.” Mr Drew of Newbury was to be admonished.** John Sadler of Marlborough does not seem always to have been a particularly conscientious official either. In March 1677 Colonel Whitley wrote to him: I can noe longer endure your shamefull neglects of the Mailes, I have greiveous Complaints from Bristoll, of the prejudice they receive thereby, and find that it is 7, 8, 9, or 10 Houres comonly betwixt you and Chippenham which is but 15 Miles and ought to be performed in 3 Houres, This is a most abominable shame and Scandall to the office, ...1° This is almost the last that is heard of John Sadler. Whitley’s term of office as Deputy Postmaster-General ended later in 1677, and his successor’s letter-books have not survived. Although the town received its first charter in 1204, the Borough did not become a corporate entity until 1576.°° The Elizabethan charter has been lost, - though it was still in the Borough archives in 1715, when it was included on a roll of Corporation documents which was delivered to the Court of Chancery. A receipt for the roll was signed by Humphrey Wall, one of the Masters in Chancery, who was himself a Marlborough man.*! The town was divided into five wards. Bailey and High Wards, and part of Kingsbury Ward lay in the parish of SS. Peter and Paul, while the parish of St. Mary comprised Green and Marsh Wards with the remainder of Kingsbury Ward. The Borough was governed by the mayor, council men and sworn burgesses. The mayor, together with the borough’s justices and constables, the sergeants at mace and the bailiffs were elected annually at the Court of Morrow Speech held during September. All were annual cr bi-annual 143 appointments except for the sergeants who, although they were formally elected every year, appear to have held office for life. The lordship of the borough passed out of royal hands in 1547, when it was granted to Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, and in 1625 William Seymour, Earl of Hertford, confirmed the borough’s privileges in return for the right to nominate one of the bailiffs. The number of council men and sworn burgesses varied over the years. In 1614, for instance, there were sixteen councillors and 74 sworn burgesses, but by June 1662 the numbers had reduced to twelve councillors and 36 sworn burgesses.’ This was the last meeting of the Mayor’s Court under the old regime. The following August the King’s Commissioners arrived to reform the Borough government under the ‘Act for the well governing and regulating of Corporations’, and removed all those councillors and burgesses who would not conform. The Mayor was dismissed, as were all but one of the councillors and twenty-one of the burgesses. The new council was in effect Anglican and Tory, whereas the old regime had tended to be Puritan and Whig." The urban criteria demanded by Clark and Slack include ‘a sophisticated political form’, and the privileges granted to Marlborough by its charters included that of holding various courts in the borough. The Court Leet was known as the Mayors’ Court, or the ‘Court from three weeks to three weeks’ since it originally met every third week. By the seventeenth century it was held less often. In 1620, for instance, it met only four times, but by the end of the century it usually met five or six times between June and December.” Ward constables presented nuisances at this court, such as obstructing the highway. The obstruction was often of timber in various guises, and the offender was required to clear it away before the next court or pay a fine. These presentments occurred so often in the early seventeenth century that the fines seem to have become merely ‘licences’ to store the timber in front of the properties during the course of building work. The practice of making presentments to the Court fell into disuse, and virtually none is to be found after 1660. The Court of Morrow Speech was the court of the councillors and sworn burgesses, and was normally held immediately after the “Three Week’ court.*° Proceedings of both these courts are to be found in the General Entry Books of the borough. These run erratically from 1501 to 1554 (during which time they also include the business of the Court of Pie Powder), and continuously from 1614 to 1736.°’7 The Court of Pie Powder evolved into the court of the Clerk to the Market, the records of which do not commence until 1785.* 144 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE The borough’s court of civil pleas was known as the ‘King’s Court’ or the “Town Court’. Its minute books are extant from 1641 to 1819, though there are many gaps. The court, which was held between two and four times a month, heard cases of complaint between townspeople, many of them relating to debts. On 28th December 1659, for instance, the debts for which payment was sought ranged from 10s. to £40, though most were for under £10. There were also 25 cases of trespass, with claims for damages of similar amounts. The borough Quarter Sessions, granted under the Charter of 1576, were held in January, April, July and September. Its records are many and various, but except for one miscellaneous volume, which also contains business not relating to the court, and a few bundles of apprenticeship indentures, there are none earlier than 1707. Before that date the proceedings of the court were often recorded in the record books of the King’s Court.°’ The business of the Borough Sessions mirrored that of the County Quarter Sessions, being concerned with such matters as settlement and removal, alehouse licences and the maintenance of roads and bridges, as well as the punishment of delinquents. In 1716 Dr Henry Flewer was presented for making insulting remarks about the King ‘whilst walking through a field of turnips near Pewsey’.°” The anti-Royalist and puritan sentiment in the town was seen in religious as well as political matters. The vicar of St. Mary, William Hughes, was ejected from his living in 1662, but he remained in the town as a schoolmaster and conductor of conventicles, seemingly without any pressure from the borough justices, until his death in 1688.°! Nicholas Proffett, the rector of SS. Peter and Paul managed to change with every wind, and kept his place throughout the upheavals of the time. In 1658 the Mayor, Thomas Bayly, and the inhabitants of the parish of SS. Peter and Paul petitioned Lord Protector Cromwell to grant an augmentation of income to Proffett on the grounds that ‘our parish is populous’, but the parsonage was worth only £20 per annum; ‘we have lived 27 years happily under the powerful preaching of Nicholas Proffett ... He has 2 weekly lectures and is diligent in private instruction’. The petition was granted in part, but despite this favour by the puritan government Proffett kept his place at the Restoration and was still vicar of the parish when he died in 1669.° The Quakers were also active in the area, and in 1656 George Fox visited Marlborough to hold a meeting. He was able to avoid arrest by the protection of a local J.P., Edward Stokes of Tytherton Lucas.*! Other Friends were less fortunate. Mary Loe ‘was concerned in Christian love to utter some pious exhortation to the People in the Market-place at Marlborough’, and for this she was imprisoned in the cells under the Guildhall. When another member of the Marlborough meeting, Robert Bryant, tried to intervene on her behalf, he, too, was incarcerated.” The other two urban criteria demanded by Clark and Slack, that a town should have a complex social structure and a distinctive influence beyond its immediate boundary, can be seen in Marlborough only to a limited extent. There certainly were ‘leading’ families in the town, as the list of mayors indicates. From the beginning of the seventeenth century to the disruption of 1662, the surnames which appear by far the most often are Bayly, Francklyn and Lawrence. After the disruption, the Gilmore, Greenfield and Lippiatt families are among the most prominent in the list.°° The social distinction of these families seems to have been based almost entirely on wealth. When a list of claimants was drawn up after the Great Fire of 1653, the losses of members of the Bayly family amounted to almost £6,000, with Thomas Bayly, a silk merchant, alone claiming £2,339. This individual total was exceeded only by John Lawrence, innkeeper and maltster, who lost £2,410.°’ Other former or future mayors who claimed substantial losses after the Great Fire included John Keynes (£2,087), John Hearst (£862), Christopher Lippeatt (£1,220), Robert Clement (£1,178), William Gough (£1,134) and Thomas Hunt (£1,350). All these men lived close to each other on the north side of the High Street in High Ward.°* Unfortunately, the only surviving Hearth Tax return for Marlborough, that of Michaelmas 1662, is damaged, but the ward totals survive. High Ward had the largest average number of hearths per household at 5.5, whereas the other wards ranged from 3.6 to 2.6. Christopher Lippiatt was taxed on five hearths, while Hunt, Gough, Hearst and Keynes had six apiece.°” The influence of Marlborough outside its boundaries was largely a function of the area over which its market attracted people to the town. The Calley family of Burderop Park, even though they lived close to the market at Swindon, and near to those of Highworth and Faringdon, still sent their servants to Marlborough to buy groceries in the 1630s.’”° Boys from local parishes as well as the town itself were apprenticed to Marlborough masters, and some also came from nearby parts of Berkshire and Hampshire. Few Marlborough boys were apprenticed in other Wiltshire towns, though some did go to masters in towns and cities outside the county. Edward Goddard, gentleman, apprenticed two of his sons in Bristol, the THE URBANITY OF MARLBOROUGH elder to a merchant and the younger to an apothecary. A few boys travelled from London to be apprenticed in Marlborough, but these were probably due to family connections.’! The market brought plenty of young men into the town from the surrounding districts, and many returned to marry Marlborough girls. In the 1620s and 30s grooms are recorded as coming from Wanborough to Burbage, and from Clyffe Pypard to the Berkshire border. Some couples who wished to marry outside their own area obtained a licence from the Bishop of Sarum to marry in Marlborough: in 1639 Thomas Arnolde and Anne Foreman, both of Yatesbury, were married at SS. Peter and Paul.”” Even in the late eighteenth century, when Marlborough was well past the peak of its prosperity, it was still regarded as the most important town in north-east Wiltshire. In 1798 Wroughton was referred to as being ‘near Marlborough’.” Marlborough was one of the four Sessions towns in the county but, unlike Salisbury or Devizes, it seems to have had little to offer as a social centre for the local gentry . The only public entertainment of which there is a record is the race meetings which were held on the downs to the north of the town. Goddard Smith of Tockenham visited the meeting every year from 1730 to 1734. The meeting was followed by a Ball, but as Marlborough, unlike Devizes, never acquired an Assembly Room, the dances were held at the Angel Inn. Goddard also attended Ordinaries, at Buckeridges in 1732 and at the Three Tuns in 1733." The race meetings continued throughout the eighteenth century.”? Entertainment of another kind was available at least by the end of the eighteenth century. A Whitsuntide Revel was held on Marlborough Common in 1795, but the gentry were not likely to have been interested in running for a pig, bullet-diving in a tub of flour, or backsword playing - (‘the man who breaks most heads to be entitled to half a guinea’).”° Even though Marlborough was one of the most important towns in the county during the seventeenth century, it was only one of a large number of small market towns in England as a whole, and even within Wiltshire its relative importance seems to have declined in the eighteenth century. The reasons for this are difficult to pin down, but one may have been its over-dependence on the traffic on the Bath road. This was turnpiked to the east of the town in 1726, and to the west between 1713 and 1740.” As a result, the fastest coaches could now travel from London to Bath in one day in the summer, and a day and a half in the winter.’* There was no longer any need for the traveller to stay overnight in Marlborough. The market 145 too was changing. Although the cheese-factors still came from London in large numbers, they dealt direct with the producers and their agents, rather than in the open market. This was true of other commodities as well. The rise of the retail shop would also have had an adverse effect on the market.’” One effect of this stagnation is very clear to see: Marlborough has relatively few buildings dating from the eighteenth century. There are some properties in Kingsbury Street and the area round the Green, and the odd refronting in the High Street, but there is nothing in the town to compare with the Market Place and Long Street in Devizes, or the glories of the Parade in Trowbridge. From the end of the seventeenth century onwards, Marlborough entered a period of quiescence from which it has never completely recovered. References. 1 F.W. Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond (London, 1897), p. 175. 2 C. Morris(ed.), The Illustrated Journeys of Celia Fiennes 1685-c.1712 (London, 1982), p. 227. 3. The Victoria County History of Wiltshire, vol. 12 [hereafter V.C.H. Wilts. 12] (1983), p. 212. 4 N. Hidden, ‘Royal itineraries and medieval routes’, Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine [hereafter WA&NHM], 89 (1996), p. 84 passim. 5 J. H. Stevenson, ‘The castles of Marlborough and Ludgershall in the middle ages’, WA&NHM 85 (1992), pp. 78-9. 6 M. Beresford, History on the Ground (revised edn. Stroud, Glos., 1998), pp. 127-8; P. Clark and P. Slack, English Towns in Transition 1500-1700 (Oxford, 1976), pp. 4-5. 7 B. Graham, ‘The evolution of urbanisation in medieval Treland’, Journal of Historical Geography 5 (1996), p. 113. 8 G.H. Martin, review of G. Rosser, Medieval Westminster 1200-1540, in Journal of the Society of Archivists, 12 (1991), p. 66. 9 P. Corfield, ‘Economic growth and change in seventeenth- century England’, being Unit 10 of Block II: The Traditional Community Under Stress (Open University, English Urban History 1500-1780, Milton Keynes, 1977), p. 36. 10 A. Everitt, ‘The Banburys of England’, Urban History Yearbook 1 (1974), p. 29. 11. R.Tittler, Architecture and Power: the Town Hall and the English Urban Community c. 1500-1640 (Oxford, 1991), p. 64. 12 N. Pevsner (revised B. Cherry), Wiltshire (Harmonds- worth, Middx., 1975), p. 334. 13 N. Goose, ‘Urban demography in pre-industrial England: what is to be done?’ Urban History 21 (1994), p.276. 146 14 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 P. Clark and J. Hosking, Population Estimates of English Small Towns 1550-1851 (revised edn., Leicester, 1993), p. vii. Public Record Office [hereafter PRO], E179 259/29. PRO, E 179 259/26b. A.Whiteman with M. Clapinson, The Compton Census of 1676: a Critical Edition (London, 1986), p.126. E. A. Wrigley and R. S. Schofield, The Population History of England 1541-1871 (London, 1981), p. 209. W. G. Hoskins, Local History in England (London, 1959), p.143. Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office [hereafter WRO], 212B/7202A/12. For a full account of the surviving Wiltshire records of this Act (15 Car.II c.13.) and their use as a check on the Compton Census figures see I. L. Williams, ‘North Wiltshire demography 1676-1700’, WA&NHM 90 (1997), pp.110-114. Corfield, “Economic growth and change’ (1977), p. 54. P. S. Richards, ‘The growth of towns: a study in methodology’, Local Historian 9 (1970-1), p.190. WRO, G/22/1/205/2. R. Blome, Britannia (London, 1673), p.242. J. Aubrey, John Aubrey’s Natural History of Wiltshire (1969 reprint, New York), pp.115, 105, 62. L.P., Take Heed in Time, or a briefe Relation of many Harmes which have of late been done by fire in Marlborough and in other places (London, 1653, reprinted Marlborough, 1991), pp.4, 8. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Johnson Collection A.R. Wilson, Forgotten Harvest: the Story of Cheesemaking in Wiltshire (Calne, Wilts, 1995), p. 102. J. Britton, The Beauties of Wiltshire ... vol. IJ (London, 1801), p.175. P. J. Corfield, ‘Defining urban work’, in P. J. Corfield and D. Keene (eds.) Work in Towns 850-1850 (Leicester, 1990), p. 211. D. Defoe, A Tour through England and Wales Divided into Circuits or Journeys (2 vols., Everyman edn., London, 1928), vol. 1, p. 286. J. Patten, English Towns 1500-1700 (Folkestone, 1978), p25: P. Borsay, ‘Urban development in the age of Defoe’, in C. Jones (ed.) Britain in the First Age of Party 1680- 1750: Essays Presented to Geoffrey Holmes (London, 1987), p.212. Mr. W. H., Gent., An Infallible Guide to Travellers .. . (London, 1682), pp.53-54. W.A. Webb, The Early Years of Stage Coaching on the Bath Road, told by the Original Notices (Devizes, 1922), p.2. T. Delaune, The Present State of London (London, 1681), p.419. PRO, War Office Miscellanea, WO 30/48; J. H. Chandler, ‘Accommodation and travel in pre-turnpike Wiltshire’, WA&NHM 84 (1991) p.86. J. H. Chandler, ‘Stagecoach operation through Wiltshire’, South Wiltshire Industrial Archaeology Society, 40 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 68 69 70 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Historical Monograph 6 (Salisbury, 1980), passim. E. S. de Beer (ed.), The Diary of John Evelyn (6 vols., Oxford, 1955), vol. 3, p.99. R. Latham &W. Matthews (eds.), The Diary of Samuel Pepys (11 vols., London, 1976), vol. 9, p. 241. E. Ward, A Step to the Bath: with a Character of the Place (London, 1700), p. 11. O. Rackham, The History of the Countryside (London, 1987), p. 249; G. L. Turnbull, Traffic and Transport: An Economic History of Pickfords (London, 1979), p.6. J. W. M. Stone (ed.), The Inland Posts 1392-1672 (London, 1987), p.15. British Library, Harl. Ms. 7365. Stone, The Inland Posts (1987), p.191. Post Office Archives [hereafter POA], Post 94/13, 209. POA, ibid. 402. POA, Post 94/15, 323. For details of Col. Whitley’s correspondence to John Sadler see I.L. Williams, ‘Early mails to Marlborough’, Hatcher Review vol. 5 (1997), pp.25-32. V.C.H. Wilts. 12 (1983), p.212. M. Rathbone, ‘List of Wiltshire borough records earlier in date than 1836’? Wiltshire Archaeologial and Natural History Society [hereafter WANHS] Records Branch 5 (1951), pp.39n.2, 60. WRO, Ailesbury deeds, Cal. Scroggs, 197. WRO, G22/1/20 & 22. A.R. Stedman, Marlborough and the Upper Kennet Valley (Marlborough, 1960), p. 156. WRO, G22/1/21 & 23. Stedman, Marlborough (1960), p. 211. WRO, G22/1/12-30. Rathbone, ‘Wiltshire borough records’ (1951), pp.40, 52: Stedman, Marlborough (1960), p. 221. ibid. p. 226. G.L. Turner, Original Records of Early Nonconformity under Persecution and Indulgence (3 vols., London, 1911), vol.1, p.106. Cal. S.P. Dom., 1658-9, p. 181. WRO, 1050/16. N. Penney (ed.), The Journal of George Fox, (London, 1924), p. 139. P. Donovan, ‘Religious dissent in Marlborough’, The Marlborough Journal 15 (1995), p. 13. J. E. Chandler, A History of Marlborough: the Gateway to Ancient Britain (Marlborough, 1977), pp. 44-5. J. Waylen, A History Military and Municipal of the Town (otherwise called the City) of Marlborough and more generally of the Entire Hundred of Selkley (London, 1854), pp. 517-8 J. C. Green, ‘Seventeenth century fire disasters: a study of the Great Fire of Marlborough, 1653’ (Unpublished B.A. dissertation, University of Birmingham, 1998), Map 3. PRO, E179 259/29 Bundle 1, mem. 15v. J. T. Cliffe, The World of the Country House in Seventeenth-century England, (New Haven, Conn., 1999), p.149. THE URBANITY OF MARLBOROUGH 71 C. Dale (ed.), Wiltshire Apprentices and their Masters 1710-1760, WA&NHS Records Branch 17, (Devizes, Wilts, 1961), passim. 72 WRO 1050/15. 73 V.C.H. Vol. 9, p.105. 74 WA&NHS library, Box 44, Ms. 478, ms. diary of Goddard Smith. 75 P. Borsay, The English Urban Renaissance: Culture and Society in the Provincial Town 1660-1770 (Oxford, 147 1989), p. 366. 76 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Johnson Collection. 77 ~V.C.H. Wilts. vol. 4, pp. 257, 267-8. 78 F.E. Hulme, The Town, College and Neighbourhood of Marlborough (London, 1881), p. 220. 79 A. Everitt, “The food market of the English town, 1660- 1760’, Contributions to the 3rd International Conference of Economic History, Munich 1965 (Paris, France, 1968), pp. 68-9. 148 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE B= trench/Test Pit [| Watching brief area = area ie Former building “Possible extent of villa \ former \ Sergeants’ Mess 224 223 Fig. 1. Netheravon villa: location and excavation plan Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 94 (2001), pp. 148-153 Archaeological Investigations at the Roman Villa, Netheravon, 1996 by Mick Rawlings A series of sample excavations has confirmed the presence of a substantial Romano-British building on the southern periphery of the village of Netheravon, south Wiltshire, which was previously identified during construction of a military base in the first decade of the 20th century. The verification of the date and likely extent of the building provides a useful contribution to on-going research into the nature of Romano-British occupation and settlement in the area, 1n particular along the upper reaches of the Avon valley. INTRODUCTION A brief programme of archaeological investigation was undertaken in July and August 1996 at the former site of the Support Weapons Wing (SWW) at Netheravon. The Defence Estates Organisation (DEO), part of the Ministry of Defence, had proposed to initiate landscaping and refurbishment works in this area and the main aim of the archaeological programme was to provide further information concerning a potential Roman villa which had been identified during construction of the military base at the beginning of the 20th century. It was hoped that such information would assist in the preparation and implementation of a mitigation strategy that could ensure the long-term management and protection of significant archaeological remains in the area. The first part of the archaeological investigation was undertaken as part of a Channel Four television series, The Time Team. Technical support for this stage was provided by Wessex Archaeology who then continued the investigations on behalf of the DEO. THE SITE The village of Netheravon is situated in the narrow upper valley of the River Avon in the south-eastern part of Salisbury Plain, approximately 19 km to the north of Salisbury. The former site of the SWW is situated at approximately 90-100m aOD on a chalk spur at the southern margins of the village (Figure 1), overlooking Netheravon House to the north and the River Avon to the east, and is centred on NGR SU 148482. At the time of the investigations the site was largely covered with tarmac and concrete aprons around the sleeper foundations of former buildings. The natural topography slopes gently down from west to east, with the building bases set into terraces. Around the eastern and northern margins of the site, the slope increases to a steep gradient into the floodplain of the river. Demolition of the buildings, including the former Sergeants’ Mess which occupied the central part of the investigation area, had already taken place prior to evaluation works commencing. The current ground surface comprised areas of concrete slab hardstand, tarmac roadways, small patches of grass cover and a disused grass tennis court. ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Evidence of archaeological activity in the immediate area comes from antiquarian investigations and chance discoveries made during development of the barracks in the early part of the 20th century. The identified location of the Roman ‘villa’ in particular Wessex Archaeology, Portway House, Old Sarum Park, Salisbury SP4 6EB 150 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE is reliant upon later notes concerning discoveries in 1907 and 1936. Initial notes were compiled in 1907 by Col. W. Hawley but these were not published until 1930 (Anon). In these notes Hawley refers to the discovery of Roman remains during the construction of huts at the Cavalry School ‘about 100 yards south of Netheravon House’. He visited the site and excavated what is described as the floor of a small room just over 4m square. One wall was over 0.5m thick and was considered to be an exterior wall; the others were thought to be internal divisions within a larger building. The floor of this room comprised a mosaic with an outer border of coarse red tesserae and an inner one of white- and plum-coloured ones. These were set into a base of opus signinum. Tesserae in other colours, including green, blue and yellow, were found scattered within the material infilling this room. Hawley found very little pottery and only three identifiable coins; two of Constantine I (AD 268-70) and one of Claudius Gothicus (AD 307-37). He also found a quantity of roof tiles and large brick tiles. The larger wall extended to a depth in excess of one metre, and Hawley concluded that he had found an insignificant room within a larger villa, most of which lay within ‘a shrubbery of large yew trees’. However, in his list of prehistoric antiquities published in 1914, Goddard reported the finding thus: In the grounds of Netheravon House Lt. Colonel W. Hawley and Rev. G. H. Engelheart uncovered, 1907, a small room about 13ft square, plainly paved with red and white tesserae, with not very definite wall foundations, the ground round seemed to have been disturbed and no extension could be found, and the work was never completed. A ‘bath’ 5ft x 5ft x 2ft deep is said to have adjoined the rcom. Goddard’s report is the first mention of the discovery of a bath and of the involvement of the Reverend Engelheart. It is possible that Goddard received his information from Engelheart rather than Hawley. Grinsell (1957) recorded that a tessellated pavement and probable bath had been found in 1907. He also referred to a hoard of bronze coins said to have been found previously near the same spot, and to a part of a tessellated pavement found nearby in 1936. In a booklet on local history, Finch (1968) added from eyewitness accounts that the 1907 Hawley/ Engelheart excavation took place on the site of the present Coal Yard and Sergeants’ Mess. This is the only reference in writing to the location of the discoveries in relation to buildings within the Cavalry School. It is possible that both the 1907 excavation and the later 1936 discoveries are recounted here as one event. The Coal Yard and the Sergeants’ Mess were approximately 30m apart (Figure 1). Assuming that Finch is reporting the memories of those who made the 1936 discoveries, it would suggest that the 1907 excavation was on the site of the Sergeants’ Mess and that the tessellated pavement found in 1936 was on the site of the Coal Yard. The presumed location of the discoveries suggests a structure or range of structures over a distance of at least 30m east/west. Hawley suspected that the building extended into a shrubbery of large yew trees. Unfortunately such trees occur to both the north and east of the former Sergeants’ Mess, so it is not now possible to know which direction Hawley meant. A geophysical survey carried out within the area of the SWW by the Ancient Monuments Laboratory in 1987 failed to identify archaeological deposits due to the depth and make-up of much of the overburden. This survey is not published but a report is lodged with the Archaeology Service of Wiltshire County Council and a copy is lodged within the archive for this current programme of investigation. THE 1996 INVESTIGATIONS The archaeological work undertaken on behalf of the DEO was designed to provide information which would assist in the design of hard and soft landscaping for this area. It included trial trenches and test pits, geophysical survey, topographic survey and a watching brief during trenching for new cables. The location of the works is shown on Figure 1: Nos 2, 3, 4 and 5 were trial trenches each c. 3m x 3m; Nos 20-30 and 33-34 were hand-excavated test pits each 1m x 1m; and Nos 1, 31, 32 and 35 were watching brief sites. A full report on the results of the work (Wessex Archaeology 1997) is available in the project archive, which is currently held at the offices of Wessex Archaeology under the project code 42255. Modern disturbances associated with the 20th century military use of the site were recorded in many of the areas of investigation. Archaeological features and deposits, predominantly of Romano-British date, were found in seven locations; Trenches 2, 4 and 5; Test Pit 26; and Watching Briefs 1, 31 and 35. Pottery of Romano-British date was also recovered from topsoil and subsoil layers within a number of Test Pits, most notably 36 sherds from Test Pit 23. The geophysical surveys revealed nothing of archaeological interest. A wall aligned almost north-south was recorded at the eastern edge of Trench 2. The ground slopes ARCHAEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS AT THE ROMAN VILLA, NETHERAVON, 1996 151 away here to the east and this wall was at the back of a terrace cut into the slope. It was made up of angular blocks of chalk bonded with a chalky mortar and was set into a foundation trench 0.6m deep and at least 1.15m wide. Immediately to the west of this wall were two adjacent and co-aligned ditches or gullies. A deposit of building rubble covered much of the area within Trench 4, which was only 8m to the east of Trench 2. This rubble contained many squared chalk blocks and fragments of stone roof tile. At the base of this deposit was a mass of stone roof tiles sealing a second layer of rubble. In Trench 5 was a sequence of deposits extending to just over one metre in depth. No walls or floors were recorded, but there were a number of small pits and ditches and a gravel bank 0.5m high which appeared to form the edge of a terrace. This bank sealed a small ditch which was aligned north-west- south-east. A wall composed of flint blocks was observed in Watching Brief 35, which was aligned north-south and 0.5m high. This feature remains undated as does a small north-south aligned ditch recorded in Watching Brief 31. THE FINDS Most of the artefacts recovered during the course of the investigations were of Romano-British date. Some worked and burnt flint was recorded and this is likely to be of prehistoric origin. Three pieces of post- medieval glass were also recorded, along with one sherd of medieval and six sherds of post-medieval pottery. Amongst the assemblage of ceramic building material was a number of diagnostic pieces of -Romano-British date. These included three fragments of flue tile, a possible tegula fragment and a possible imbrex fragment, all of which were found in Trench 5. Two potential baked clay tesserae were also recovered from Trench 5. A small piece of painted wall plaster found in Trench 4 was almost certainly of Romano-British date. The majority of the pottery assemblage consisted of Romano-British material and mainly comprised coarsewares, including greywares (probably from several different sources), Black Burnished ware from the Poole Harbour area, grog-tempered wares, and oxidised sandy wares including some white-slipped sherds. The small proportion of finewares comprised samian and Oxfordshire white and colour-coated wares. The date range of the assemblage is almost entirely within the later Romano-British period; this is suggested by the presence of the Oxfordshire fine wares, and drop-flange bowl and everted rim jar forms of 3rd/4th century AD type. The only feature to produce material which could definitely be dated to the earlier part of the Romano-British period was the ditch found below the gravel bank in Trench 5. This earlier material included a single sherd of samian, a number of sherds from a white-slipped beaker, and the rim of a greyware bead rim jar; the group can be dated to the second half of the 1st or beginning of the 2nd century AD. A large quantity of stone roof tiles, almost 150kg in weight, was recovered during the course of the work. This consisted mainly of small fragments, but a few almost complete tiles were recovered, some with surviving nail holes, and one with a nail in situ. Three main stone types were recognised: cream/white shelly limestone, greenish-grey micaceous sandstone, and a red micaceous (Pennant) sandstone. In addition, two pieces of oolitic limestone (both from Trench 5) appear to have formed parts of larger architectural fragments. DISCUSSION The 1996 investigations have confirmed the presence of at least one substantial building of Romano-British date within the former Support Weapons Wing at Netheravon. Structural remains included a substantial wall (in Trench 5) along with large quantities of building rubble and stone roof tiles. Previous investigations in the early part of this century had found a room with a tesselated floor and possibly an adjacent bath. The evidence suggests that a building or complex of buildings of fairly high social status was located here, and the application of the term ‘villa’ to this site is appropriate on this basis. At least three different colours of stone roof tile were recovered, all from non- local sources, and these may possibly have been used to create a distinctive pattern. There is some additional evidence of decoration in the form of painted wall plaster and architectural stonework. A limited assemblage of datable material indicates that the villa was in use in the later part of the Romano-British period (3rd-4th centuries AD). This material includes the coins of Constantine I and Claudius Gothicus found by Hawley in 1907. Some activity at the site in the Ist-2nd centuries AD is attested by the pottery found in a ditch at the base of the stratigraphic sequence in Trench 5. 152 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE It appears that the villa complex is located around the area of the former Coal Yard and Sergeants’ Mess (i.e. Trenches 2-5), although other features were found beyond this core area (Test Pit 26; Watching Briefs 32 and 35). The groundworks associated with the development of the modern military base have had a significant impact on the remains of the villa, and the surviving deposits were predominantly found within terraces cut into the underlying slope. The confirmation of the Netheravon villa adds to the growing evidence regarding the nature and pattern of settlement in this area during the Romano-British period. Previous reviews of this aspect of Roman Britain have often referred to Salisbury Plain as an area notably lacking in villas and characterised instead by a number of non-villa settlement types (e.g. Collingwood 1923). This has led to a view that the Plain, along with a number of other areas showing a similar lack of villas, may represent former large imperial estates. More recent assessments of this period, most notably Hingley (1989), have emphasised the limited nature of the aerial photographic and field survey evidence in the Salisbury Plain area, along with a genuine paucity of information regarding the nature of non-villa settlements. Hingley re-examined a model which had initially been proposed by Collingwood and Myres (1937) for Cranborne Chase. In this model the absence of villas was seen as the result of the small size of land tenure parcels, leading to an inability to increase production to the level required in order to accumulate sufficient wealth for villa construction. The resultant settlement pattern was one of nucleated villages with villas on the periphery. Recent work in the Avon Valley has revealed evidence for a number of villas or similar substantial buildings of Romano-British date. One of these is at Figheldean, very close to Netheravon, where geophysical survey has clearly shown that this is a winged corridor villa (Gaffney er al. 1998). Surface finds indicate occupation in the 3rd-4th centuries AD, although the building is located within an enclosure initially of Middle Iron Age date which has itself been the subject of recent investigation (Graham and Newman 1993; McKinley 1999). It can be suggested that the site displays a continuity of occupation through to the later Romano-British period, with the winged corridor villa representing the final phase of activity. Another villa has been identifed at Charlton, in the northern part of the Avon valley (Corney et al. 1994) and surface finds again suggest occupation in the 3rd-4th centuries AD. A third example is at Compton, just over 4km from Netheravon, with other possible villas or similar sites also at Enford, Fifield Folly and Littlecott, all within 4 km of the Netheravon site. Gaffney et al. (1998) point out that the location of these villas coincides geographically with the possible extent of the early Anglo-Saxon estates first postulated by Bonney (1976), and therefore indicates some form of continuity of settlement boundaries into the 6th century AD. The villas appear to be predominantly of 3rd-4th century AD date, and Hingley (1989) has indeed suggested that even if Salisbury Plain was an imperial estate during the Ist and 2nd centuries AD, it may well have been sold off to private landowners in the later part of the Romano- British period As with the Figheldean villa and to a lesser extent with the Netheravon example, there is also continuity from earlier occupation. At Figheldean this can be traced back as far as the Middle Iron Age, and there is certainly a close correlation between Late Iron Age settlements and villas in central Wessex (M Corney pers. comm.). The full nature and development of the Romano-British setthkement pattern in the Salisbury Plain area requires a much broader study (but see RCHME forthcoming). However the investigations at the Netheravon villa will contribute towards that debate. Subsequent to the completion of the archaeological investigations at the Support Weapons Wing, the core area within which Romano-British structural elements were located was incorporated into the gardens of Netheravon House. A quantity of topsoil was placed over the existing ground surface in order to seal the archaeological remains. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The initial evaluation work at the Netheravon villa site was undertaken by The Time Team and financed by VideoText Communications. The input of the producer, Tim Taylor, and the rest of the production team was crucial to the success of this work. The remaining part of the work was directed by Mike Heaton on behalf of Wessex Archaeology, with assistance provided by Dominic Barker, Bob Davis, Julie Lovell, and Dave Murdie. Information on the finds was provided by Lorraine Mepham. The figure was produced by Elizabeth James, with detailed locational information provided by the RCHME. All of the work undertaken within this project was carried out under the guidance of Ian Barnes (Defence ARCHAEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS AT THE ROMAN VILLA, NETHERAVON, 1996 153 Estates Organisation) and Duncan Coe (Wiltshire County Council), and their collaborative assistance is duly acknowledged. Mick Rawlings is grateful for the advice and information given freely by Mark Corney on all matters relating to the Salisbury Plain area. Bibliography ANON, 1930, ‘A Villa at Netheravon’, WANHM 45, 490-1 BONNEY, D., 1976, ‘Early Boundaries and Estates in Southern England, in P.H. Sawyer (ed.), Medieval Settlement: Continuity and Change, 72-82. London COLLINGWOOD, R.G., 1923, Roman Britain. Oxford COLLINGWOOD, R.G., and MYRES, J.N.L., 1937, Roman Britain and the English Settlements. Oxford CORNEY, M., GAFFNEY, C.F., and GATER, J.A., 1994, ‘Geophysical investigations at the Charlton villa, Wiltshire (England), Archaeological Prospection 1, 121-8 FINCH, R., 1968, Netheravon with Fittleton. Gloucester (revised edition) GAFFNEY, V.L., GAFFNEY, C.F., and CORNEY, M., 1998, ‘Changing the Roman landscape; the role of geophysics and remote sensing,’ in J. Bailey (ed.), Science in Archaeology: an agenda for the future, 145- 55. London: English Heritage GODDARD, E.H., 1914, ‘List of prehistoric, Roman and pagan Saxon antiquities’, WANHM 38, 294 GRAHAM, A., and NEWMAN, C., 1993, ‘Recent Excavations of Iron Age and Romano-British Enclosures in the Avon Valley, Wiltshire’, WANHM 86, 8-57 GRINSELL, L.V., 1957, ‘Archaeological Gazetteer’, in Victoria History of Wiltshire 1(i), 90-1 HINGLEY, R., 1989, Rural Settlement in Roman Britain. London: Seaby MCKINLEY, J.I., 1999, ‘Further Excavations of an Iron Age and Romano-British Enclosed Settlement at Figheldean, near Netheravon’, WANHM 92, 7-32 RCHME, forthcoming, The Field Archaeology of Salisbury Plain WESSEX ARCHAEOLOGY, 1997, Netheravon Roman Villa, Wiltshire; Archaeological Evaluation. Unpublished client report, document ref. 42255.1 Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 94 (2001), pp. 154-160 The Coleoptera (Beetles) of a Salisbury Reedbed Including ‘Twenty-Two Species New to Wiltshire by Michael Darby During a ten-week period 183 species of Coleoptera were collected in a reedbed on the outskirts of Salisbury. They are listed, with a discussion of rare and local species of interest, and a comment on the importance of this wetland site. INTRODUCTION In April 2000, Chalkhill Environmental Consultants, the environmental consultancy wing of the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, commissioned Dr Michael Salmon and the author to survey the Coleoptera and Hemiptera of a three hectare reedbed, part of Salisbury District Council’s landholding in the Butts area of the city. The purpose of the survey was to inform future management decisions about the possible restoration of the reedbed which is known to be drying out. This work is part of the Salisbury Wildlife Project with funding from Salisbury District Council and English Nature. Much of the concentration of interest in Wiltshire’s invertebrate biodiversity has centred on the calcareous grassland and woodland habitats for which the county is famous. Sporadic surveys of wetland sites have been carried out, but have tended to focus on open water such as ponds, canals, lakes and rivers. THE SITE The site divides into two distinct geographical areas bounded on the east by the River Avon, on the west by allotments and a public park, and on the north by a species-rich meadow. Both areas support communities representing different stages 1n the usual succession of reedbeds from virtually pure reed- swamp, through reed-fen to carr woodland and finally to dry woodland. At the southern end is an area of carr woodland and reed-swamp with shallow standing water. Here the vegetation is dominated by common reed (Phragmites communis) partly overhung by species of Willow (Salix spp.) including sallow (Salix cinerea). These trees, some with dead and dying branches, provide a different range of habitats (rot holes, dead wood, fungi, etc.) from those elsewhere on the site, which support a different fauna including several interesting species. By the time of the last visit on 19 June 2000, part of this southern area, previously under water, had dried out exposing areas of wet mud and litter which produced a number of new species. At the northern end is the main reedbed. Here common reed is less abundant being concentrated along a central ditch running NW/SE where the water level is highest. In some areas the dominant plants are nettles (Urtica dioica), great willow herb (Epilobium hirsutum), common comfrey (Symphytum officinale), goose grass (Galium aparine), and reed canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea), but a wide range of species more typical of wetland situations does survive in other areas. These include reed- sweet grass (Glyceria maxima), lesser pond sedge (Carex acutiformis), meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria), marsh bedstraw (Galium palustre), marsh marigold (Caltha palustris), water mint (Mentha aquatica), common meadow rue (Thalictrum flavum), and yellow loosestrife (Lysimachia vulgaris). In addition four isolated sallows (Salix cinerea) grow in the middle of the reedbed and an The Old Malthouse, Sutton Mandeville, Salisbury SP3 5ND THE COLEOPTERA (BEETLES) OF A SALISBURY REEDBED 155 Fig 1. View looking north-west showing the main reedbed on the left and the River Avon on the right. interrupted row of hawthorns (Crataegus spp.) runs along the western perimeter. At its northern tip the reedbed is much drier. Common reed is almost absent and a coarser reed- fen vegetation proliferates. METHODOLOGY The period of the survey lasted from 7 April 2000, when the first visit was made, to 19 June 2000. Several of the early visits took place in freezing temperatures. The author concentrated in the main on - Carabidae (ground beetles) and the Staphylinidae (rove beetles), and Dr Salmon on the phytophagous species, particularly Chrysomelidae (leaf beetles) and Curculionidae (weevils). - Insects were collected using sweep nets, beating trays and sieves. A series of pit fall traps was placed in both areas but these were not found to be productive, either because they were disturbed (probably by animals) or because they filled with water. A trap comprising a small pile of lawn grass cuttings (carrier bag-full) which had been allowed to go mouldy, was placed under one of the sallows in the main reedbed for three days with interesting results; eleven species taken were not encountered at any other time. The attractant qualities of dung, carcasses, fungi, etc. are well known but those of grass cuttings have not been studied in detail so far as the author is aware. Undoubtedly some of the species are resident on the site, but others, which are well known inhabitants of compost heaps, etc. were presumably attracted from elsewhere, perhaps the allotments. Several collections of litter, frass, etc. were retained and passed through Berlese funnels off-site. SURVEY RESULTS The following Coleoptera were recorded: (* = New to Wiltshire) CARABIDAE Notiophilus biguttatus (F., 1779) Common Notiophilus substriatus Waterhouse, 1833 Local Elaphrus cupreus Duftschmid, 1812 Common Loricera pilicornis (F., 1775) Common Dyschirius globosus (Herbst, 1784) Local Clivina fossor (L., 1758) Common Bembidion properans Stephens, 1828 Common Bembidion biguttatum (F., 1779) Common Bembidion guttula (F., 1792) Common *Bembidion mannerheimi Sahlberg, 1827 Local Pterostichus diligens (Sturm, 1824) Common Pterostichus minor (Gyllenhal, 1827) Local Pterostichus strenuus (Panzer, 1796) Common Agonum albipes (F., 1796) Common Agonum fuliginosum (Panzer, 1809) Common 156 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Agonum moestum (Duftschmid, 1812) Local PTILIIDAE * Agonuin piceum (L., 1758) Local Ptenidium intermedium Wankowicz, 1869 Local *Agonum thoreyi Dejean, 1828 Local Ptenidium pusillum (Gyllenhal, 1808) Common Amara aenea (Degeer, 1774) Common Acrotrichis atomaria (Degeer, 1774) Common * Harpalus rubripes (Duftschmid, 1812) Local Acrotrichis fascicularis (Herbst, 1793) Common Dicheirotrichus gustavi Crotch, 1871 Local Acrotrichis sitkaensis (Motschulsky, 1845) Common *Trichocellus placidus (Gyllenhal, 1827) Local Acupalpus meridianus (L., 1761) Local SILPHIDAE Badister bipustulatus (F., 1792) Common Silpha atrata L., 1758 Common Demetrias atricapillus (L., 1758) Common Dromuus linearis (Olivier, 1795) Common STAPHYLINIDAE Metabletus foveatus (Fourcroy, 1785) Common Proteinus brachypterus (F., 1792) Common Lesteva heeri Fauvel, 1872 Common HYDROPHILIDAE Carpelimus bilineatus Stephens, 1834 Common Helophorus obscurus Mulsant, 1844 Common Carpelimus elongatulus (Erichson, 1839) Common Coelostoma orbiculare (F., 1775) Common Anotylus rugosus (F., 1775) Common Cercyon haemorrhoidalis (F., 1775) Common Anotylus tetracarinatus (Block, 1799) Common *Cercyon tristis (Illiger, 1801) Notable/Nb * Stenus aceris Stephens, 1833 Common Megasternum obscurum (Marsham, 1802) Common Stenus bimaculatus Gyllenhal, 1810 Common Anacaena globulus (Paykull, 1798) Common Stenus boops Ljungh, 1810 Common Anacaena lutescens (L.) Common Stenus cicindeloides (Schaller, 1783) Local Stenus fulvicornis Stephens, 1833 Common HISTERIDAE Stenus juno (Paykull, 1789) Common Abraeus globosus (Hoffmann, 1803) Local Stenus picipes Stephens, 1830 Common ALLOTMENTS Fig 2. Map showing location of reedbed and spinney in the Butts area of Salisbury THE COLEOPTERA (BEETLES) OF A SALISBURY REEDBED 157 Stenus pusillus Stephens, 1833 Common Myllaena infuscata Kraatz, 1853 Unknown Paederus riparius (L., 1758) Local *Leptusa fumida Kraatz, 1839 Common Lathrobium brunnipes (F., 1792) Common Leptusa ruficollis (Erichson, 1839) Unknown *Lathrobium fovulum Stephens, 1833 Common Cordalia obscura (Gravenhorst, 1802) Unknown Lathrobium fulvipenne (Gravenhorst, 1806) Common Geosuba circellaris (Gravenhorst, 1806) Common Lathrobium geminum Kraatz, 1857 Common Atheta fungi (Gravenhorst, 1806) Common Rugilus rufipes Germar, 1835 Common * Atheta castanoptera (Mannerheim, 1830) Common Gyrohypnus fracticornis (Mueller, 1776) Unknown *Atheta xanthopus (Thomson, 1856) Common Xantholinus linearis (Olivier, 1795) Common *Atheta laticollis (Stephens, 1832) Common Neobisnius villosulus (Stephens, 1833) Unknown Atheta longicornis (Gravenhorst, 1802) Common Philonthus sordidus (Gravenhorst, 1802) Common Drusilla canaliculata (F., 1787) Common Gabrius nigritulus (Gravenhorst, 1802) Common Oxypoda opaca (Gravenhorst, 1802) Common *Gabrius pennatus Sharp, 1910 Common *Tinotus morion (Gravenhorst, 1802) Common Gabrius trossulus (von Nordmann, 1837) Local * Aleochara bilineata Gyllenhal, 1810 Common Quedius cruentus (Olivier, 1795) Common *Aleochara sparsa Heer, 1839 Common Quedius fumatus (Stephens, 1833) Common Quedius maurorufus (Gravenhorst, 1806) Common PSELAPHIDAE Tachyporus chrysomelinus (L., 1758) Common Bryaxis bulbifer (Reichenbach, 1816) Common Tachyporus hypnorum (F., 1775) Common Bryaxis curtisi (Leach, 1817) Local Tachyporus obtusus (L., 1767) Common Reichenbachia juncorum (Leach, 1817) Common Tachyporus pallidus Sharp, 1871 Local Tachyporus solutus Erichson, 1839 Common SCARABAEIDAE Tachinus marginellus (F., 1781) Common Aphodius contaminatus (Herbst, 1783) Common Tachinus signatus Gravenhorst, 1802 Common Cypha longicornis (Paykull, 1800) Common SCIRTIDAE *Oligota inflata (Mannerheim, 1830) Unknown Elodes marginata (F., 1798) Local * Myllaena dubia (Gravenhorst, 1806) Common Cyphon coarctatus Paykull, 1799 Common Fig 3. Standing water in the spinney at the south-eastern end of the main reedbed 158 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Cyphon padi (L., 1758) Local ELATERIDAE HAypnoidus riparius (F., 1792) Common Athous haemorrhoidalis (F., 1801) Common Agriotes obscurus (L., 1758) Common CANTHARIDAE Cantharis nigricans (Mueller, 1776) Common Rhagonycha fulva (Scopoli, 1763) Common Rhagonycha testacea (L., 1758) Common Malthodes marginatus (Latreille, 1806) Common DERMESTIDAE Anthrenus verbasci (L., 1767) Common MELYRIDAE Malachius bipustulatus (L., 1758) Common NITIDULIDAE Kateretes bipustulatus (Paykull, 1798) Local Brachypterus glaber (Stephens, 1835) Common Brachypterus urticae (F., 1792) Common Meligethes aeneus (F., 1775) Common Meligethes atratus (Olivier, 1790) Common *Epuraea distincta (Grimmer, 1841) Na SILVANIDAE Psammoecus bipunctatus (F., 1792) Local BY TURIDAE Byturus ochraceus (Scriba, 1790) Local Byturus tomentosus (Degeer, 1774) Common COCCINELLIDAE Adalia bipunctata (L., 1758) Common Adalia decempunctata (L., 1758) Common Coccinella septempunctata L., 1758 Common Propylea quattuordecimpunctata (L., 1758) Common Psyllobora vigintiduopunctata (L., 1758) Common LATHRIDITDAE Enicmus histrio Joy & Tomlin, 1910 Unknown Enicmus transversus (Olivier, 1790) Common Melanophthalma transversalis (Gyllenhal, 1827) Unknown CIIDAE Cis bilamellatus Wood, 1884 Common Cis boleti (Scopoh, 1763) Common MY CETOPHAGIDAE Mycetophagus multipunctatus F., 1792 Local ALLECULIDAE Isomira murina (L., 1758) Common PYROCHROIDAE Pyrochroa serraticornis (Scopoli, 1763) Common MORDELLIDAE Anaspis frontalis (L., 1758) Common Anaspis garneysi Fowler, 1889 Unknown Anaspis humeralis (F., 1775) Common OEDEMERIDAE Oedemera lurida (Marsham, 1802) Local CERAMBYCIDAE Grammoptera ruficornis (F., 1781) Common CHRYSOMELIDAE Chrysolina polita (L., 1758) Common Phaedon cochleariae (F., 1792) Common Phaedon tumidulus (Germar, 1824) Common Galerucella grisescens (Joannis, 1865) Vagrant/Accident Galerucella tenella (L., 1761) Common Lochmaea crataegi (Forster, 1771) Common *Phyllotreta diademata Foudras, 1860 Local Phyllotreta undulata Kutschera, 1860 Common Aphthona lutescens (Gyllenhal 1813) Local Aphthona nonstriata (Goeze, 1777) Local Longitarsus luridus (Scopoli, 1763) Common Longitarsus melanocephalus (Degeer, 1775) Common Longitarsus parvulus (Paykull, 1799) Na Altica lythri Aube, 1843 Common Chalcoides aurata (Marsham, 1802) Common Chalcoides aurea (Fourcroy, 1785) Common * Epitrix pubescens (Koch, 1803) Local Chaetocnema concinna (Marsham, 1802) Common Cassida viridis L., 1758 Common ATTELABIDAE Rhynchites aequatus (L., 1767) Common APIONIDAE Acanthephodus onopordi (Kirby, 1808) Common Protapion apricans (Herbst, 1797) Common Protapion nigritarse (Kirby, 1808) Common Protapion varipes (Germar, 1817) Notable/Nb Perapion hydrolapathi (Marsham, 1802) Common CURCULIONIDAE Phyllobius pomaceus Gyllenhal, 1834 Common Strophosoma melanogrammum (Forster, 1771) Common Sitona lineatus (L., 1758) Common Sitona striatellus Gyllenhal, 1834 Common Leiosoma deflexum (Panzer, 1795) Common Euophryum confine (Broun, 1881) Naturalised Dorytomus dejeani Faust, 1882 Local Cidnorhinus quadrimaculatus (L., 1758) Common Ceutorhynchus asperifoliarum (Gyllenhal, 1813 Local Ceutorhynchus assimulis (Paykull, 1792) Common Ceutorhynchus quadridens (Panzer, 1795) Common *Baris lepidit Germar, 1824 Na Anthonomus pedicularius (L., 1758) Common Anthonomus rubi (Herbst, 1795) Common Curculio salicivorus Paykull, 1792 Common THE COLEOPTERA (BEETLES) OF A SALISBURY REEDBED *Tychius tibialis Boheman, 1843 Na Gymnetron pascuorum (Gyllenhal, 1813) Common Tachyerges salicis (L., 1758) Local Leperisinus varius (F., 1775) Common Total = 183 species Common and Local = Categories assigned by Recorder software (not defined in Recorder Manual.) Na = Nationally notable (scarce) category A species as defined by Hyman and Parsons, ie. taxa which do not fall within RDB categories but which are none-the-less uncommon in Great Britain and thought to occur in 30 or fewer 10km sqaures of the National Grid or, for less well recorded groups, within seven or fewer vice counties. Nb = Nationally notable (scarce) category B species, defined by Hyman and Parsons as: taxa which do not fall within RDB categories but which are none-the-less uncommon in Great Britain and thought to occur in between 31 and 100 10km squares of the National Grid or, for less well recorded groups, between eight and twenty vice-counties. NOTES ON SPECIES OF INTEREST Epuraea distincta: thought to be associated with the fungus Daedaleopsis confragosa and only ever recorded from eight vice-counties. Orthoperus improvisus: not listed by Recorder. Previously synonymised with O. mundus, Matthews, it will appear in a forthcoming revision of European Corylophidae by S. Bowstead. - Longitarsus parvulus: there are only published records for Kent, Sussex and Cambridgeshire since 1970, and it has been thought to be declining. However, the beetle has been recorded from eight other sites in Wiltshire in the last few years, and has also been found in numbers in Hampshire. Since the recorded foodplant is flax (Linum perenne ssp.) which is now being grown more commonly than in the past, this may account for the increase. Protapion varipes: a widespread but local grassland species which may be declining. It is associated with clover (Trifolium spp.) in particular. Baris lepidii: very local species associated with wetland sites. It has only been recorded from six vice-counties 159 in recent years but was formerly much more widespread. Tychius tubialis: The discovery of this primarily coastal species is unusual. However, on the continent the species has been associated with hop trefoil (Trifolium campestre) and knotted clover (T- striatum) away from coastal situations. In this country it is only known from the south and appears to be declining. Difficulties of identification may have led to confusion with other species. Both B. lepidii and T. tibialis are additions to Morris 1973,1979. Staphylinidae: The number of species recorded (55) is more than double the number for any other site in the county and accounts for the bulk of the new county records. This is not a reflection of rarity, however, but of the difficulties of determination, even for experienced Coleopterists, and the fact that no surveys such as this (looking in detail at the Coleoptera of a small area) have taken place previously in the county as far as we are aware. Several Staphylinidae occurring throughout the site, in particular species of Anotylus, and the single representative of the Scarbaeidae: Aphodius contaminatus (and probably other beetles), are not familiar wetland species and may be present as a result of dog dung from the public footpath around the reedbed. CONCLUSIONS The Salisbury reedbed is important for Coleoptera, not simply for several rare and local species, but as the home of a large number of common species with a specific wetland habitat requirement. It seems likely that many are the residual elements of a different (larger?) wetland fauna in the past dependent on higher water levels. The species recorded after the fall in water levels in June, however, make clear that the process of water loss and gain in the spinney area is critical. As an indication of the species richness it is worth noting that the number of Coleoptera recorded for Great Ridge Wood, Wilts.(over 1,500 acres of mixed woodland with no wetland habitats apart from one small pond) after more than twenty years collecting by David Nash and the author, stands at 181 species, two fewer than the reedbed. 160 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE The placing of the small pile of grass cuttings in the main reedbed which produced twelve species not found elsewhere, makes clear the sensitivity of the site to vegetative change. Finally it is worth noting that Chalkhill Environmental Consultants have found the Desmoulins whorl snail ( Vertigo moulinsiana (Dupuy, 1849)), aspecies of European importance, in the river corridor, for which future restoration to protect and enhance the habitat will also have to take account. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitutde to Chalkhill Environmental Consultants, Salisbury District Council, English Nature and Colin Dyke of the Salisbury Wildlife Project for making the survey possible; to Piers Mobsby for kindly allowing me to borrow the copy of the Management Plan he produced for the site in 1992 (from which the details of the botany have been extracted) and to Dr Michael Salmon for allowing me to publish his records. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to Colin Menendez of Chalkhill Environmental Consultants for reading through the manuscript and making various suggestions for improvements. References HYMAN, P.S., and PARSONS, M.S. 1992,1994 A Review of the Scarce and Threatened Coleoptera of Great Britain, Joint Nature Conservation Committee. MORRIS, M.G. 1973,1974 and 1979 ‘A Preliminary Account of the Weevils of Wiltshire (Coleoptera, Curculionoidea)’, WANHM 68, 19-24; 69, 30-37. ‘Additions and Corrections’, 74, 10-12. RECORDER. Environmental recording software package produced by Joint Nature Conservation Committee. Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 94 (2001), pp. 161-176 161 The Excavation of a Cremation Cemetery of the Bronze Age and a Flint Cairn at Easton Down, Allington, Wiltshire, 1983-1995 by David J. Ride A linear cremation cemetery of the early Middle Bronze Age was discovered during excavation of a small flint cairn. Nine cremation burials are described, one furnished with grave goods: an awl and four beads. Two collared urns and the remains of a Beaker vessel were recovered. The cemetery is similar in some important respects to one discovered by Dr] F S Stone 0.45km distant in 1933. Both cemeteries border the same area of Neolithic flint mines. Differences among the newly discovered cremation burials are discussed, as are similarities with nearby funerary monuments. It 1s concluded that elements from a common cultural package were selected at the different sites. Theories regarding the placement of the cemetery are briefly examined. INTRODUCTION Easton Down is a plateau chiefly of open downland lying mainly in Wiltshire but reaching into Hampshire to the north. It contains parts of the parishes of Allington, Winterslow and Over Wallop. The 150m contour runs through it. It lies on the Tarrant member of the Upper Chalk (Bristow et al. 1997; Ride and Hopson, forthcoming) whose most common macrofossils are of Belemnitella mucronata. Seams of flint nodules and of tabular flint occur in this member of the chalk at different levels, and incline gently to the horizontal. The overlying soils, of the - Icknield series, are light in texture and thin, typical of downland rendzinas, and contain in places yellowish pebbles originating from eroded Reading beds; they bear a turf of grass rich in herbs, which was once cropped short by sheep but now by rabbits. The soils overlie a few centimetres of chalk fractured by root penetration, worm action and rabbit disturbance, and rendered soft by rain water acidified by atmospheric carbon dioxide and dissolved organic acids. Easton Down is well known to archaeologists as the site of a remarkable series of discoveries and excavations made by Dr J. F. S. Stone, around the 1930s and summarised by him in his book Wessex before the Celts (Stone 1958; and see a summary of Stone’s Easton Down excavations by Field and Barber 1998a). Most notable of the monuments is the complex of Neolithic flint mines (Stone 1931, 1933, 1935a; Barber et al. 1999). Associated with these were structures that Stone interpreted as dwelling pits of the Beaker period (Stone 1931b, 1935a). A small round barrow lies at the NE edge of the area of shafts, and was found to overlie a detached human skull (Stone 1934). Occupation of the area was also confirmed by Stone’s discovery and excavation of a long, low, flat cairn some 18m by 6m and from 0.08m to 0.18m in height, consisting of large flint nodules, covering a row of seven pits ‘arranged more or less in a straight line’, four of which contained funerary urns (Stone 1933). There were deposits of cremated human remains present in four pits, some only in what appear to be token quantities. Stone argues that the cairn, or platform, was a single entity and not the result of the merger of two cairns, as its faintly hour-glass plan could imply. The cairn is situated at the apparent edge of the Neolithic industrial area. It is now known that a period of well over a millennium separates the mines from the cairn, and the only conjectured link between them is the deliberate marking of presumed ancestral land boundaries or territories by the later inhabitants. A similar case of later funerary monuments bordering flint mines occurs some 3km to the NNE 19 Parkland Way, Porton, Salisbury SP4 OLY 162 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Fig. 1. Blake’s Firs Cairn: the cairn early in the excavation of Easton Down, at Martin’s Clump, where is recorded a group of 337 Neolithic flint mine shafts (Stone 1934; Field and Barber 1998b; Ride 1998; Barber et al. 1999). A long barrow (RCHME 1979, p39) - more correctly an ‘oval barrow’- lies at the southern edge of this group, a round barrow impinging on its bank; two more round barrows lie on the western and northern boundaries of the mines respectively. The individual flint mines at the centre of the Easton Down complex are prominent, but smaller infilled shafts can be observed spreading outwards from the central core. In particular, faint contours of small shafts can be detected stretching NNW for about 450m. Further evidence for their existence is provided by the many worked flints thrown up in rabbit scrapes. At the seeming edge of this extension, 14m NNW of a small linear feature used now as a parish boundary, and on !and thought never to have been ploughed, lay a small cairn (Figure 1), with a visible diameter of less than two metres standing just proud of the turf, about 0.15m in height, composed of unworked flints of moderate size consistent with surface collection. It is referred to as ‘Blake’s Firs Cairn’, so named from the nearby patch of woodland. It was discovered by Mr Pat Sawyer during the course of his duties as warden of the area. The Archaeological Section of the Porton Down Conservation Group began an excavation in 1983, initially under the direction of Mr David James (the then Head of Range Section of the Porton Down Ministry of Defence Establishment) and subsequently of the author, with the original modest aim of investigating the cairn (Figure 2). THE EXCAVATION METHOD The selected mode of excavation was by individual metre squares. This technique was suited to a site whose boundaries were undefined; it facilitated recording; and it provided novice and more experienced amateur excavators with clearly marked areas of responsibility. An origin was defined well to the NW of the cairn, and squares were labelled numerically southwards from this point and alphabetically eastwards, omitting the letters I and O. (The coordinate system was subsequently extended northwards by the use of zero and negative numbers.) BRONZE AGE CREMATION CEMETERY AND FLINT CAIRN AT EASTON DOWN, ALLINGTON BLAKE'S FIRS CEMETERY AND CAIRN inchester Plan showing features and limits of excavation Many flint flakes Many flint flakes North 163 SU 23478 36377 Antler @ 0123 4 5 6] Site [Reference Trial trenches lron Age rim sherd a & Trial trench ( Cairn ) CB6 \ ©) Be CB4 Good quality e oN flint modules Collared Urn rim sherd OS ©) Posible CB in trench CBS i OC @ Roakted soil Hearth? | © EU atten 43 flint flakes Possible flint diggings ay 7 ack ae prose a @ a — Samian ware sherd Fig. 2. Blake’s Firs Cairn: excavation plan = a CB3'_ |) OcBs Scale of metres 164 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE A 5m x 5m square, centred on the cairn and orientated to true north, was marked out, and metre squares within it quadranted for higher resolution excavation. The NW peg of this square served as the horizontal and vertical site datum (NGR SU 23478 36377); it lay on the boundaries between ranks 4 and 5, and of files J and K of the excavation grid. However, before digging to this plan began, trial trenches 0.5m wide and 0.5m deep were excavated to the four compass points from the edges of the “cairn square’ with the aim of discovering what archaeological context, if any, the cairn possessed. SUMMARY OF RESULTS The northern trial trench interrupted two pit cremation burials (CB1l and CB2), circular holes about half a metre in diameter and depth, cut into the chalk bedrock. They were filled with ash, charcoal, burnt flint, roasted soil and the cremated remains of human bones and teeth. It was apparent that the undifferentiated remains of funeral pyres had been conveyed into the pits. They had been covered with large, flat flints and there was no surface indication of disturbance prior to excavation. It became clear that a wider excavation than was originally envisaged was necessary; everywhere this was performed down to or deeper than the undisturbed chalk. In all, seven pit cremations were revealed, arranged linearly, the line passing to the east of the cairn; some pits were greatly disturbed by rodents. A small deposit of cremated juvenile human bone (CB9) was found within a ring of flints in the subsoil. A further burial (CB8) of cleaned and fractured cremated remains, originally in a bag, together with beads and a bronze awl, was found lying to one side of the line. Crushed remains from two miniature collared urns were discovered Grid squares Granular chaik layer Solid chalk to the north of the cairn; charcoal and a few friable flakes, possibly of bone, were associated with one of them. The other ceramic finds comprised sherds of a single Beaker and unidentified components of coarser vessels, possibly larger urns. A single rim sherd of an Iron Age vessel was found near the edge of the cairn and one sherd of Samian ware was washed by rain from the track to the south of the cairn. An antler from a young red deer, a possible ritual deposit, was found near the bag burial. Numerous (1136) worked flints were recovered, but only one identifiable tool: a crude scraper. A compact assemblage of small flint flakes indicated a single knapping event. Large flint nodules of a quality suitable for knapping were recovered from the undisturbed base of the western trial trench and possible flint ‘diggings’ noticed 8m SSW and 9m NE of the cairn. These finds and features are discussed in more detail below and their positions shown in Figure 2. No post- holes or ditches were observed. No certain pyre sites were identified. The plan of the excavation shows additional trial trenches and ‘projections’ at each end of the line of pit cremation burials. A statistical analysis of the spacing of the pits, and the deviations of their centres from the line of best fit through them, suggested that any further pits would be captured with a 95% probability by excavating a trench 1.5m wide through otherwise unexamined ground. There is thus a reasonable probability that all the pit cremation burials were discovered - with the assumption that they were deliberately aligned and that the precision of the alignment would have been maintained were there further burials of this type. No deposits were discovered beneath the cairn, although an arrangement of tabular flints beneath its centre may have been the remains of a distorted cist. Granular chalk layer Chalky rainwash Scale of metres 1 2 3 4 Fig. 3. Blake’s Firs Cairn: section of cairn looking south midway across row 7 BRONZE AGE CREMATION CEMETERY AND FLINT CAIRN AT EASTON DOWN, ALLINGTON 165 Northwest Turf and soil layer Southeast Ground surface No obvious silting of the ditch Chalk bedrock 0 Scale im a a a a Fig. 4. Blake’s Firs Cairn: section of linear feature 14m SE of cairn The Cairn The excavation of the cairn proceeded by quarter square steps, removing one flint nodule at a time. Most of the flints were of small or moderate size, nodules or fragments of tabular flint, unsuited to knapping. A few worked flint flakes were found in the pile. As worked flakes are abundant on the site, it is likely that the cairn was formed by indiscriminate surface collection of flints. A cross section of the cairn (Figure 3) shows that it had partially sunk into the chalk over the millennia. Its weight and attractiveness to perching birds - with the attendant concentration of uric acid - had combined to fracture and rot the underlying chalk allowing subsidence to occur. Inevitable spreading of the flint pile had also taken place. A number of larger tabular flints at the base of the cairn, arranged off-centre, suggested the presence of a cist that had collapsed. The structure appeared to be only partially below the original ground surface, as were the cists of Stone’s ‘urnfield’ cairn. This protrusion may have resulted in both cases from some erosion of the chalk surface over the course of three and a half millennia. No bones, pottery or charcoal were discovered in the postulated cist. A well defined rabbit burrow ran centrally under the cairn into it. Sherds from a large, coarse, red vessel were discovered just below the ground surface at the SW edge of the cairn, and may be from an urn originally placed beneath it. If this is so, the rabbits removed all trace of the urn and its contents from their original location. Several large flint nodules were discovered on the NE quadrant, 1.5m from the centre, which may have formed part of a rudimentary and partial kerb to the cairn. The Linear Feature The shallow ditch to the SSE of the cairn which runs NE-SW, thought to be of Bronze Age date, and used in modern times as a Rural District and Union boundary, was cut by the excavation (Figures 2 and 4). Nothing was discovered that confirms an early date or suggests an alternative origin for the ditch. The Cremation Burials and their Contents CBl1 This was the most intact of the pit burials (Figure 5), appearing to have escaped the depredations of rodents. It was circular and fiat bottomed, some 0.5m in diameter and its base was about 0.6m below the ground surface. It was covered with large, flat, flint capstones. Its fill consisted of ash, charcoal, burnt soil, some burnt flint, snail shells (mainly Pomatias elegans, which would have burrowed into the pits later) and 1.035kg of calcined human bones. The bones were submitted for analysis to Elizabeth Sanderson; from her report, the bones represent one individual, the enfleshed body being rather unevenly cremated, the pyre having died down before cremation was consistently performed. Not all body parts are represented in the remains, although the presence of phalanges suggests that everything that survived the 166 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Fig. 5. Blake’s Firs Cairn: cremation burial CB1 fire was buried. The condition of the skull sutures and the degree of wear on a premolar indicate a mature adult. There was no indication of bone disease. While sex could not be determined with certainty, the small frontal suture of the skull and the gracile form of the frame tend to indicate that the individual was female. Charcoal from the burial was sent for carbon 14 analysis with the result of 1470bc + 90 (HAR-5889), which yields a corrected date range of 2012-1517BC at the 95.4% certainty level (Calibration Program Revision 2.0 from the University of Washington, Seattle - unsmoothed Suess - 1987). CB2 This burial resembled CB1 in shape and - qualitatively - in content. It was slightly smaller in diameter and marginally less deep. Only 0.068kg of bone was recovered. McKinley (1997) records that a cremation burial does not normally yield the maximal possible bone content, the average being about 40-60%. Elizabeth Sanderson’s report suggests that the remains were only partially retrieved for burial, or survived cremation, which was more evenly performed than in the case of CB1. The condition of the two teeth recovered, and the lack of epiphyses on the limb joints suggests a child, possibly aged four or five years. Charcoal samples (BF02) were sent to Harwell for carbon 14 analysis. The results were not published and exhaustive searches (including by English Heritage, keepers of the Harwell archive) have failed to locate the certificate. However, the uncalibrated date was twenty years younger than for BFO1, an insignificant and statistically meaningless difference. CB3 This was a shallow, oval pit, about 0.8m on its longer axis, which lay along the line of the burials. It reached only 0.1m below the present natural chalk level. It contained some cremated bones of an adult (0.146kg and 11 teeth), together with ash and charcoal. Its ovality seemed to derive from the presence of a ‘bay’ to a circular plan, with cremated bones from a baby or child therein (0.058kg). It, too, was covered with a layer of flint nodules. The juxtaposition of adult and infant creates a compelling assumption that they were kin, perhaps mother and child. They were cremated separately, otherwise the bones would have been mingled; only about 5% of cremation Bronze Age burials contain the remains of more than one individual (McKinley 1997). The shallowness of the pit suggests that the child’s remains were interred first; it would have been impossible to add the adult’s remains to such a small pit, and later burial alongside, to the same depth, appears a logical option; however, the evidence is open to alternative interpretations. CB4 The burial lay in an area of loose soil. One interpretation of the confused stratigraphy is of an infilled depression with a diameter of about 3m centred somewhere in square S9. It had been massively disturbed by rabbits so that the burial pit had disappeared. Its presence was shown by an intact capping of large, flat flints. One of these, a cortical flake from a large nodule, had been roughly flaked so that it bore a superficial resemblance to a large lanceolate hand axe 150mm in length, 95mm in maximal breadth and weighing 0.5kg. Traces of ash were present, and a Beaker sherd was found beneath the capping; rabbit runs near the CB yielded other sherds from the same Beaker. It is possible that another small burial existed close to CB4 (marked as ‘possible CB’ on Figure 2), but it may have been merely some of the content of CB4 redistributed within rabbit workings. CB5 This was a roughly circular pit 0.4m in diameter, with only a slight taper downwards, and 0.5m deep. It was much disturbed by rabbits and the contents almost entirely removed, an action that probably accounted for a greyish, concreted layer about 0.4m thick containing flecks of bone and flint just to the south and east of CB4 and CB5. Only a few fragments of cremated bone and charcoal remained in the pit, but the sides were still blackened. The capping appeared to have collapsed inwards giving the appearance that the hole had been lined with flints. Less likely, the pit had been deliberately lined with flints to form a cist. The stratigraphy in the area was chaotic, owing to intense rabbit activity, and interpretation is difficult and open to error. BRONZE AGE CREMATION CEMETERY AND FLINT CAIRN AT EASTON DOWN, ALLINGTON 167 CB6 The pit was 0.6m in diameter, tapering to 0.3m at the base, and 0.3m deep. Rabbits had entered it from runs on one side and removed most of the fill. Some ash and charcoal remained, together with fragments of cremated bones totalling 0.08kg and a human tooth, possibly an adult incisor. The flint capping had collapsed into the hole. Small fragments of Beaker pottery were found in the pit and in the rabbit workings around it. CB7 The pit was approximately circular, 0.56m in diameter and 0.57m deep (Figure 6). Rabbits had removed all but the lower 80mm of fill, which consisted of a soot- like substance (not charcoal) with embedded bone fragments of which 0.18kg were recovered, containing pieces of skull and the remains of a ball and socket joint from an adult, together with a tooth. There Fig. 6. Blake’s Firs Cairn: cremation burial CB7 were no identifiable capstones present. The sides of the pit were coloured pink to a thickness of 10- ~ 20mm, which may have resulted from a very hot fill. The practice of hot filling was noted at a near contemporary cemetery in Derbyshire (Barnatt 1994) and suggests that the pyre lay near the pit. This practice may account for some of the burnt debris abundant in the area (see CB5). CB8 This cremation burial was unlike others at the site. The bones had been separated from the cremation debris (which were not found), cleaned and smashed into fragments. They were buried in light brown, granular, chalky soil which filled an irregular solution hole in the chalk. The bones were compactly arranged in a perfectly circular bun shape, indicating that they had been contained originally in a flexible bag, Fig. 7. Blake’s Firs Cairn: awl and beads from CB8 probably of woven fabric or animal skin. The burial included 0.6kg of calcined bones; the larger, flat pieces from the skull lay at the bottom of the deposit. Sutures in the occipital region of the skull were not fully closed, and it was deduced that the bones belonged to an individual aged from 10 to 12 years. This deduction is supported by the presence of two deciduous teeth and the size of the palate, which was nearly complete. There was no vertebral residue, except for the axis. Two phalanges or metatarsals were present. The deposit clearly represented only one individual. On top of the bones, and positioned centrally and horizontally lay a bronze awl (discussed below). It is likely that the awl was used to pin the bag together. Centrally placed on the awl in CB8 was a black shale barrel bead, 12.4mm in diameter and 8.5mm long, its hole formed by opposing, acute conical depressions in the faces, which met, but not quite axially. On top of the barrel bead lay a circular quoit bead (possibly sandstone or ceramic) 21mm in diameter, and above it a similar one, differently coloured, 29mm in diameter. 50mm from this arrangement lay a cylindrical segment of a fossil belemnite, almost certainly intended for use as a bead, too (Figures 7 and 8). The barrel bead is identical to ones accompanying Urnl in Stone’s nearby urnfied. About 0.5m north of CB8, in the northern half of square R9, under the top soil, lay what appeared to be a deliberate arrangement of flints, with two tabular flints encircled by seven nodular flints. The ring included a near spherical pot boiler in the northernmost position. The whole measured 0.5m by 0.3m. To the north of this structure lay an antler 168 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE BELEMNITE BARREL CM 0 5 Fig. 8. Blake’s Firs Cairn: aw! and beads from CB8 from a red deer, about three years old, the brow and bez tines having developed but broken off and absent. The main tine was snapped 160mm from the tip and lay at a sharp angle to the main shaft, the break lying under the pot boiler. The appearance was of a ritually despoiled deposit and a platform for further deposits or offerings. CB9 The burial consisted of 0.21 kg of calcined bones and a small incisor tooth, most likely from a child. It rested on the natural chalk surface within an irregular ring of five flint nodules, 0.18m in diameter and 0.25m below the present ground surface. There was no ash or charcoal present. The metre square containing the burial (R3) yielded many fragments of burnt flint and a pot boiler. Species analysis of the charcoal from two cremation pits Samples of charcoal from CB1 and CB3 were submitted for identification to Rowena Gale. CB1 contained oak (Quercus sp), field maple (Acer campestre) and a type of prunus (Prunus spp) - cherry, bird cherry or blackthorn. CB3 contained predominantly field maple, with traces of ash (Fraxinus excelsior) and hazel (Corylus avellana). Apart from oak, the other trees/shrubs are species of mainly open land. The variety of woods in the samples suggests that fortuitous gathering of pyric material was practised, rather than any ritually significant species of wood being employed. FINDS Bronze awl The awl was round and tapered, 54.5mm long, in almost perfect condition, still sharp at the point and ground at the other end to form a flat tang. Staining on the tang end suggested insertion into a handle. Photomicrographs (Figure 9) were taken by Mrs Judith Parkes (Parkes 1999). These show longitudinal marks consistent with wear near the tip and latitudinal marks across the face of the tang, consistent with its being ground flat on a stone. An electron probe analysis on a small sample drilled from the awl was performed by Dr Peter Northover; the following comments are summarised from his report (Northover 1999). The awl was made from a high tin content alloy, 14.75%, which is exaggerated by the effects of corrosion, a true figure probably being 13% to 14%. The advantage of a high tin alloy is that it provides a high level of hardness together with relative ease of working. The chief impurities are arsenic (0.36%) and sulphur (0.14%); iron, nickel, zinc, silver and bismuth, are all present at or near the limits of detection (in this case 100-200ppm). A similar awl from Stockbridge (see below) has a tin content of 13.1%; awls from Cliffe Hall, Lewes, Sussex have contents of 12.6% and 14.2%, while another from Butterwick, Yorkshire has 12.8% tin. The Bush Barrow dagger, close in time to the Porton awl, is of similar composition to it, with impurities of arsenic (0.23%), silver (0.01%) and bismuth (0.004%). In summary, the awl is made from typical material available in the locality at the time. CERAMICS Beaker. Sufficient sherds and fragments (24) of a single Beaker were recovered to enable an attempt at BRONZE AGE CREMATION CEMETERY AND FLINT CAIRN AT EASTON DOWN, ALLINGTON 169 DS754807 26 kV Fig. 9. Blake’s Firs Cairn: photomicrograph of awl tang (top) and point (bottom) reconstruction (Figure 10); they included material ‘from the rim, waist and body. A line of square impressions, probably executed with a whittled twig or a bird bone ran round the lip, below which was a cord-impressed line. Around the waist was another cord-impressed line. The body decoration was of vertical lines of herring-boning, probably performed with a finger nail. The colour of the fabric was typical of late Beakers. The beaker most closely fits Group 5 of the scheme of Lanting and Van der Waals (1972), putting the best estimate of its date from this classification at between 2100 and 1800BC, not inconsistent with the carbon 14 dates from the cremation burials, allowing for generalisation in the scheme and tolerances on the carbon assays, as discussed by Kinnes et al. (1991). No obvious parallels, with respect to both shape and decoration, Table 1. Snail counts in 0.5kg samples Square T9 Upper light brown Lower light brown layer 0.3m deep layer 0.5m deep Cecilioides acicula 2 4 Clausilia bidentata 1 1 Cochlicopa lubrica 1 Discus rotundatus 2 Helicigona lapicida 1 Helicodonta obvoluta 1 Helix hortensis 1 Helix nemoralis 1 Oxychilus cellarius 1 3 Pomatius elegans 6 2 Pupilla muscorum 1 Retinella nitidula 1 Vitrea contracta ) WW Vitrea crystallina 1 could be found in Clarke’s corpus of Beakers (Clarke 1970) nor, more specifically, in Case’s survey of Wiltshire Beakers (Case 1995), although - if the reconstruction is accurate - it fits best with Clarke’s categories S1 or S2, both of late form according to his scheme. Most Beaker sherds were recovered from the area of CB4, CB5 and CB6, and it was thought a possibility that the depression in which they were CM 0 5 10 15 Fig. 10. Blake’s Firs Cairn: Beaker 170 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE placed could have been an inhumation grave. Therefore, the area was excavated into undisturbed chalk, without finding further archaeological remains or determining the origin of the depression in the chalk in which the cremation burials lay. The depression may have been merely the result of human pit cremation burial excavation and subsequent rabbit activity. There is nothing to suggest that the beaker was deposited in a complete state, nor as ritually deposited sherds. Snail counts from two light brown, friable layers that formed part of the fill of the depression (in square T9) were made, and are given at Table 1. The data tend to suggest that the area was wooded when the fill occurred. This conclusion is supported by the molluscan analysis performed on samples taken from beneath Stone’s cephalotaphic barrow nearby (Stone 1934). Miniature urns. Urn!I: About 40% of a miniature bipartate collared urn (Figure 11a) was discovered lying on its side, its mouth to the NW, on top of the (now) natural chalk surface next to large, isolated flint nodule. It was crushed and broken. A few fragments of charcoal were discovered around and under the urn. It was lifted with its matrix of soil and excavated on the bench. Three small, flat, thin fragments of material were discovered within the urn; they mostly resembled flakes of cremated bone. Two large sherds at the bottom of the matrix formed a whole segment of the urn which greatly assisted physical reconstruction. The urn is 110mm in height and has no decoration. It was fired to a dark red outside and black inside. The tempering is of coarse, crushed flint, clearly visible on the outside of the urn. The vessel fits most readily into the ‘Late’ classification of Burgess (1986), and is very similar in shape and size to one of the urns from Stone’s nearby urnfield (Stone 1933), although the latter is decorated. Other similar, but decorated, examples are from Collingbourne Kingston, Winterslow and Durrington (illustrated in Longworth 1984). Urn2: When discovered, the base of the urn (Figure 11b) was horizontal and upright on the surface of the chalk. The body had collapsed towards the WSW with a side horizontal, and part of the opposite side lay on top of it. Some sherds were scattered, mainly to the west of the urn. About 70% was recovered. The fabric was coarse and almost black, so that fragments were at first mistaken for charcoal. The remains were fragile, probably owing to inadequate firing. No charcoal, bone or other material was discovered with the urn. Several flints of moderate size overlay the urn but there were other similar ones nearby, and it could not be said for sure that a deliberate flint capping had been constructed. Attempts to reconstruct the vessel were hampered by its crumbly nature, but it could be determined that it was similar in shape and size to Urn1. It, too, had no decoration. The urn exhibited some asymmetry, as if warped during firing or squashed whilst green. Except for its decoration, the description Fig. 11. Blake’s Firs Cairn: (a) Urn 1 and (b) Urn 2 BRONZE AGE CREMATION CEMETERY AND FLINT CAIRN AT EASTON DOWN, ALLINGTON 171 Table 2. Number of flakes and their weights (kg) from metre squares (no entry implies no collection or unstratified). * denotes half square 0.01 21 107 8 39 1 f aS oO’ er _ 0.14 | 0.99 | 0.32 27 1 0.10 | 0.98 | 0.01 i=) i) ON Qo +O — _ Ke) _ i) Unstratified: 184 flakes weighing 4.36k: Total: 1136 flakes weighing 20.18kg UL bs a hee ae ae ae ae eee 1.10 33 i 31 0.72 | 0.02 | 0.54 15 18 0.19 | 0.13 15 16 0.34 | 0.39 12 13 ONT? 0.15 16 11 0.31 | 0.30 43 0.23 a= 0.05 Bai 0.01 bail 213) 10:01 se 0.10 of the miniature urn from Stone’s nearby urnfield may be aptly applied to Urn2: ‘made of brownish badly fired clay’. Stone’s urn was accompanied by only two pieces of charcoal and buried in a rudimentary ‘cist’. Other. One rim sherd from a collared urn, of similar size to Urns 1 and 2 and of a coarse brown fabric, lay beneath the flints of the southern edge of the cairn, and a sherd from an Iron Age vessel under the flints of the northern edge. A single sherd of Samian ware was washed by rain from the track to the south of the cairn. Several sherds of a large vessel were found near the cairn (see below). Many small fragments of unidentified pottery were discovered across the site. FLINT Worked flint debitage was not initially collected systematically. When collecting began it suffered from varying degrees of recognition by the many excavators. Therefore the assemblage recovered suffers from an unknown but substantial degree of bias. Despite the imperfections of collecting, the assemblage shows that flint knapping was an intensive activity at the site, consistent with the close proximity of flint diggings, and partially reveals the relative level of activity across the area. Table 2 shows the weight and number of flakes bagged from each metre square. Numbers of cores were also discovered. A core rejuvenation flake was identified, indicating an advanced level of knapping. Only one 172 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE possible tool was discovered: a crude scraper. This paucity of tools, even wasters, is unusual, but could be accounted for by later scavenging by those unable to knap for themselves. The flints are washed, marked and bagged by metre squares; they remain in the archive available for further analysis. An example of a single event of skilled knapping was shown by an assemblage of 43 small flints flakes, two of which fitted together, from an area approximately 0.6m square, located 3m SE of the cairn’s edge. There were eleven secondary flakes; the remaining were tertiary flakes and included thinning flakes cl4mm in length. The assemblage suggests that the production of an implement occurred on the site after the major disturbances caused by the burials. In contrast, from its general distribution, it may be deduced that the bulk of worked flint debitage was generated before the burials occurred. Burnt flint occurred across the site but was not recorded; samples are retained in the archive. A few examples of modern gun-flint cores and waste blanks were found (Fowler 1989, 1992); they are spread widely over the area and far beyond. Elsewhere the gun-flint knappers seem to have systematically exploited existing piles of flints, but the cairn escaped their activities, probably because it contained too few nodules of suitable size. One drawback of excavating individual metre squares out of sequence is that no overall view can be obtained of the progressive stratification of the site. It is thus not possible to say for sure whether a flint platform, as exists at other comparable sites (e.g. Kimpton: Dacre and Ellison 1981), was present. The areas of CB1 and CB2 carried a density of unworked flints that is subjectively comparable to the high end of naturally occurring flints in undisturbed ground - apart from their capstones. In the area of CB4 the overlying flint layer beneath the top soil was dense. In squares 18, U8,T9 and U9 (the ‘chaotic’ region) there was a layer of flints varying from 0.1-0.2m thick; the weight of flint from U8 was 114kg, from U9 135kg, from T8 86kg and from T9 159kg. In contrast, in the adjacent squares S8 and S9 there were few unworked flints present other than the capstones to CB5 and CBOo. Nothing in the nature of a cairn comparable to Stone’s nearby urnfield existed. Even the presence of other than a small, localised platform is doubted. DISCUSSION DATING EVIDENCE The radiocarbon dates for the charcoal from the burials provides the most direct dating of the cemetery. Dating using the Beaker, urns and awl is less reliable because there are no commonly agreed typochronologies for these artefacts. Kinnes et al. (1991) demonstrate the difficulties of achieving such a scheme for Beakers, and the same problems would apply to urns. Case (in Kinnes et al. 1991) states that the most realistic precision that one can hope to attain at present is a span of 250 years. Following Case, the form of the artefacts and the carbon 14 dates can be realistically set between the first and second quarters of the 2"? millennium BC. No certain dating is available for the cairn. The Stockbridge cairn contained beads and an awl closely similar to those found at Blake’s Firs; this fact, together with the inclusion of Blake’s Firs Cairn within the cemetery prompts the inference that it, too, is roughly attributable to the start of the 2nd millennium BC. The undisturbed state of the burials (except by rodents), and the incorporation of worked flint into the fabric of the cairn, suggests that the large number of worked flints retrieved predate the cemetery and cairn. The assemblage of 43 flakes is likely to represent a later episode, however, for otherwise they would almost certainly have been disturbed by burial activities. These flakes, which are thus tentatively ascribed to the Middle Bronze Age, display a high level of competent knapping. COMPARISON OF THE SITE WITH LOCAL PARALLELS With the evidence of a putative central cist and the sherds of a possible urn close to the surface nearby, it is probable that the cairn is the primary monument and that the cremation burials and urn depositions are later interments and placements. No such uncertainty occurs with the Easton Down urnfield where the flint cairn overlies the burial cists. Flint cairns are not uncommon in the area; two more, both cl.5m in diameter, were discovered by Mr Sawyer about 1.3km to the north of Blake’s Firs Cairn. They lie on the slopes of a dry valley. The first (SU 237 376) is composed of many hundreds of flint nodules, the great majority of which show signs of perfunctory knapping. No obvious flint diggings can be seen nearby. The second (SU 236 376) is of unworked flint, consistent with ancient field clearance but similar in appearance to Blake’s Firs Cairn as discovered. Neither has been examined in detail. Stone records a cairn at SU 2270 3730 (Stone 1935b), 1.2km north of the Blake’s Firs site, ‘twenty-five feet in diameter and nine inches high composed almost entirely of flints, forming a cairn which appears to have settled down and spread.... A small scooped out hole, very BRONZE AGE CREMATION CEMETERY AND FLINT CAIRN AT EASTON DOWN, ALLINGTON IF) irregular, was found almost central... about twelve inches in diameter... fragments of a completely crushed urn of overhanging rim type [collared urn] were unearthed... but hardly any ashes were found’. He recorded another, similar, cairn at SU 2053 3401, 3.7km SW of Blake’s Firs, 18 feet in diameter and 9 inches high (ibid). It contained 145 intentionally deposited flint flakes and a core, and a central cist (24 x 19 inches and 12 inches deep) full of charcoal and the cremated bones of an adult. Neither cairn was examined for surrounding secondary burials. The similarities of both monuments to features of the Blake’s Firs complex are marked, but an even more striking parallel is with a cairn excavated on Stockbridge Down, 14.5km to the east (Stone and Hill 1940), one of a group of seven barrows. The cairn was ‘twenty- five feet in diameter and eighteen inches high... composed mainly of flint nodules of moderate size which appeared to have been collected from the surrounding soil’. Two or three Beaker vessels were represented by 28 sherds, and there were 19 sherds of ‘typical Middle Bronze Age cinerary urn ware’. The primary interment was a Beaker inhumation of a female that also included a small, double pointed, square sectioned, bronze awl. Two secondary cremation burials had been inserted in the Beaker burial pit, both with bones but little charcoal. Three metres from the primary burial lay a cremation burial in an inverted collared urn. The bones of a 15 year old adolescent had been placed in the urn and the cremation debris packed round it. The burial was accompanied by 136 beads and a bronze awl. The beads include shale barrel beads and quoit beads of the same pattern as those found with the bag burial at Blake’s Firs cemetery (CB8), and the awl is identical to that found with it. Hamilton (1995) lists 12 miniature collared urns from his Salisbury Plain study area; all but one (from _ Collingbourne Ducis) appear similar. All come from burial sites but are only occasionally directly associated with burials. Two miniature collared urns contained cremated remains and one held ‘token’ deposits of burnt bone. In two cases there was a larger urn that contained the cremation with the miniature urns acting as accessory vessels. Miniature collared urns are frequently associated with charcoal. Hamilton notes that at Wilsford G38 an arc of pits is centred on a buried miniature collared urn; two of the pits contained collared urns comparable in form with those from Stone’s urnfield. At Blake’s Firs, the urns are in line with the cairn, but with only two of them present this is only weakly indicative of an intended geometry. Otherwise, the two miniature collared urns fit the usage described by Hamilton. LINEAR NATURE OFTHE BURIALS The main feature of the Blake’s Firs cemetery is the arrangement in a line of un-urned cremation burial pits. This linear grouping is seen, approximately, in Stone’s urnfield. He gives (Stone and Hill 1940) a further example from Lancaster Moor where urns had been placed in pairs ‘at intervals of a yard in a long line extending east and west’. Barrett (1973) also describes an instance of multiple rows of linearly placed urns at Ashford Common, Sunbury. There is also the local example of an accurate alignment of nine round barrows to the axis of a long barrow at Winterbourne Stoke, 2km west of Stonehenge, and a similar arrangement of barrows is visible at nearby Normanton Down.Too much should not be made of the ritual significance of these alignments of graves; they may occur as the result of prescribed ritual, but the practice may have arisen to denote the temporal sequence of burials and thus ensure the correct identification of those buried rather than as an aspect of ritual importance. In the case of flat cremation burials, where no permanent feature marked the interment, it also guarded against the disturbance of previous burials. Coles and Harding (1979) interpret rows within multiple row cemeteries as family groupings, and it is reasonable to include in this view single family cemeteries where only one row is present. STRUCTURE OF THE CAIRN Stone and Hill (1940) describe the Stockbridge Down cairn as a ‘barrow’. While this terminology is technically correct it seems more appropriate now to recognise a class of monuments - at least locally - as flint cairn burials. Evidence of these small features and their attendant secondary interments can be destroyed by a few passes of the modern plough and extant examples can be easily overlooked. This vulnerability and invisibility may account for the mismatch between a probable capacity population and its known cemeteries. The composition of the Blake’s Firs cairn, which includes some flakes of worked flint, appears to be of surface gatherings; there is no evidence that flints were mined specifically for the purpose or that the material is the rejected residue of mining. Stone suggests a similar collecting strategy for the Easton Down urnfield although, from a recent inspection, its flints appear larger in general than those of the cairn at Blake’s Firs. Weight for weight, it is easier to gather and transport large flints than small ones, and the Easton Down urnfield nodules may include spoil or rejects from the nearby flint mines; size distributions of surface scatters are not typical here. Size selection may not be ritually significant, merely a matter of expediency. 174 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE LOCATION OFTHE SITE It is acommonly held conclusion that human remains were regarded partly as a resource with which to reinforce territorial ownership by ritual interment, and perhaps selection was practised in regard to this supposed custom. The locations of the Easton Down urnfield and barrows at Martin’s Clump, on the apparent edges of flint mining areas, have been noted, as has the likely position of Blake’s Firs Cairn on another peripheral point of the Easton Down mines. It is probable from the evidence that the dead of the period were generally disposed of with reverence, in which case many more cemeteries or individual graves must exist on or near Easton Down, and the expectation is that some of these, at least, will also exhibit the potential for interpretation as statements of ancestral territorial rights or obligations, or for what are now termed ‘liminal rituals’. The linear feature to the south of the cemetery appears to respect its presence. Unless it ‘missed’ the cemetery by accident, this implies an early date for its construction, for the evidence of the presence of the flat cemetery would have quickly disappeared. If the linear predates the cemetery the possibility arises that the cemetery performed a liminal function with regard to the linear. In other words, the group buried at Blake’s Firs occupied the territory to the north of the linear, and were separate from but adjacent to those buried in the Easton Down urnfield. The evidence for Blake’s Firs Cairn covering a burial is not conclusive. Its location may have been significant whether it performed a mortuary purpose or not. It was noticed that the cairn lay in the direction of sunrise at the winter solstice as seen from Woodhenge, cllkm distant. Careful calculations paying regard to refraction by the air were performed which show that if the conjectured wooden structure at Woodhenge were 12m in height, and used as a viewing platform, an observer would see the dawn midwinter sun standing tangent on the horizon at Blake’s Firs Cairn at about 1850BC. The platform was needed to see over an intervening ridge. If Woodhenge were 20m high the date would have been 2400BC. The location of the cairn on a false crest, creating the condition of tangential viewing, strengthens this conjecture. Neither the ‘first light’ position of the sun nor the ‘half exposed’ condition provide dates which fit the required range. Informed opinion is sharply divided on the significance of such data, but they are given here as relevant to the current debate. In the author’s opinion the mathematical facts do not alone constitute a case for deliberate alignment. CONSIDERATIONS OF RITUAL AND SOCIETY That the linear burials at Blake’s Firs cemetery are un-urned may not be due to cultural differences with urned burial rites, merely that urns were not available, either through scarcity of supply, the poverty or low status of the family or tribe, or simply indifference. The difference between un-urned and in-urn burials is less than that between cremation burial and inhumation, yet these two latter practices were contemporary. Poverty is also hinted at by the lack of grave goods, although the amateurish attempt at producing a simulacrum of a hand axe (CB4) can be interpreted as such a provision. Degrees of prosperity, or social acceptance, may be demonstrated in the layout of the cemetery; a line of substantial pits containing the remains of large pyres indicates group effort pertaining to group custom, whereas the insubstantial off-line burial of CB9 suggests the endeavour of perhaps a single, marginalised individual. The crude nature of the collared urns, their lack of decoration and perhaps their small size may also point to low economic or social status, although their connection with any single burial discovered remains unclear. However, such conjectures regarding relative degrees of prosperity and status may be inaccurate. McKinley (1997) notes that cremations may also have included pyre goods. Richly provided funerals may thus have left residues indistinguishable from poor ones. Burial is but one process in the funeral rite, its importance relative to the other components not necessarily constant. It may not be diagnostic of the overall level of funerary resources expended, a more critical indicator of wealth or social standing. High status human remains may sometimes receive only superficial, token burial, if any, the bulk being retained for other ritual purposes, likely chosen in preference to lower status remains. Barrett (1994) has explored in depth the relationships between funerary ritual and society. He comments that mortuary assemblages of artefacts ‘are not so much an indicator of a newly established élite as the fortuitous outcome of a reordered funerary ritual’, concluding that ritual creates belief rather than being applied as an invariant societal observance. He views the development of ritual as the product of perpetual reflexive interactions between innovative individuals and the potentially conservative norms that characterise society at a given moment. He regards as mistaken attempts to use the growing body of archaeological data to refine a view of an imagined established ritual. Ritual is, he writes, more concerned with defining or reinforcing - using the ceremonies of BRONZE AGE CREMATION CEMETERY AND FLINT CAIRN AT EASTON DOWN, ALLINGTON 175. transition from life to disposal of the corpse - new hierarchical relationships among the living than with new modes of existence for the dead. Affection, respect, custom and obligation are likely to be major determinants of the level of provision of grave goods which may also depend on whether they are furnished from personal, family or communal resources in every instance. The greater sophistication in the treatment of the remains in CB8 and the inclusion of an awl and beads may mark a distinction of sex, class or occupation rather than of departure from existing group ritual. Moore and Rowlands (1972) cite the discovery of a similar awl in a cremation burial within an inverted urn at the centre of a barrow 8.5km to the NW near Amesbury. They write that this type of awl is typical of female graves in the Wessex Culture. Evidence that beads were confined to female burials in a near contemporary cemetery in Hungary is given by Chapman and Randsborg (1981). It is noteworthy that assemblages of beads contain different patterns. All the beads in CB8 differ in pattern from one another. They are not simply a sentimental deposit of the randomly garnered effects of the deceased: they are drawn from an orthodox catalogue of prescribed goods. Barrett (1994) notes that two deposited necklaces, from Shrewton 5J (inhumation) and 5L (cremation burial), each contain varieties of beads. He queries: ‘Does this hint at the extent to which these necklaces had circulated among the living - given and then worn, split and subdivided, indicators of a status bestowed or won from others...?’ Undoubtedly, the beads from CB8, like the awl, possessed individual meaning, but perhaps not until bestowed at the burial. A similar instance of cremated remains wrapped _ in cloth and fastened with an awl or pin occurs ina burial within a cairn overlying the bell barrow at Winterslow, 1km SSW of Blake’s Firs (Stevens and Stone 1938). The unique nature within the Blake’s Firs cemetery of CB8 in its possession of undisputed artefactual grave goods accords with the observation by Ellison (1980) that where such grave goods occur they are distributed one per site or cluster. This fact alone may account for the presence and nature of CB8, rather than social differentiation. The presence of a relatively more richly endowed and more carefully treated female burial among, but differentiated topographically from, the more robustly treated burials may be anticipated from the statement by Bradley (1981) that ‘there is evidence for the burial of whole families or communities rather than that of one part of society; there is evidence that women may have enjoyed roughly the same status as men’. More than this, perhaps only women or girls qualified for the uniquely styled ‘one per site’ burial. The seven cists of Stone’s urnfield, too, contained but a single burial with grave goods - beads and a bone awl; the cremated bones of the burial belonged to a child of about eight years; perhaps significantly, it occupied the end of the row. Ellison (1980) notes that 52% of MBA cemeteries contain fewer than 12 burials, most commonly between 10 and 25, ‘situated within or beside a barrow, or, occasionally, forming a small, flat cemetery’. Within these criteria, and with each possessing a single child burial with grave goods, the two cemeteries on Easton Down may be termed similar and typical, lending force to the thesis that kindred, but not necessarily congruent, funerary rituals were practised there and nearby. CONCLUSIONS A small cremation cemetery belonging to the early phase of the Middle Bronze Age and containing a flint cairn has been described. It is the second such linear cremation cemetery to be found in the area; both lie at the edges of the Easton Down Neolithic flint mine complex and they appear to be close in time. Differences in burial practices within the cemetery may result from economic or social stratification within a single society or from differing individual ritual roéles, regardless of the degree of homogeneity of that society. The cemetery displays strong cultural links with other funerary monuments in the wider locality. There appears to have existed a well defined package of artefacts and practices from which a selection was made to suit both individual and local group needs or preferences (that is, variation in ritual), subject to availability of resources. This package included token or whole body cremation burial beneath or beside a flint cairn, a near linear arrangement of burial pits or cists (either in urns or un-urned), miniature collared urns and the occasional inclusion of beads and awls as grave goods. Blake’s Firs Cairn and its cemetery, and the neighbouring Easton Down urnfield, are consistent with the notion of liminality with respect to the Neolithic flint mines at Easton Down; however, it remains to be shown that other nearby monuments sharing the same cultural package conform to such an idea. 176 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In addition to those people mentioned in the text, thanks are due to the excavators: Margaret Attenborough, Don Callow, Adrian Clarke, John Clipson, Wendy Freemantle, Martin Fowler, David James, Trevor Kay, Ailsa McKee, John Notman, Pauline Notman, David Ride, Sandra Ride, Mary Rudd, Dick Ryan, Pat Sawyer. The site was visited by Andrew Lawson, Peter Fasham, Julian Richards and Sue Lobb, all then of the Trust for Wessex Archaeology, who gave helpful advice and opinions. Major Harry Smith, RA, surveyed the position of the cairn. The then Director of the Chemical Defence Establishment, Dr Graham Pearson, gave permission for the excavation and provided encouragement. This report is published with the consent of the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency. Bibliography BARBER, M., FIELD, D., and TOPPING, P., 1999, The Neolithic Flint Mines of England. London: English Heritage BARNATT, J., 1994, ‘Excavation of a Bronze Age unenclosed cemetery, cairns, and field boundaries at Eagleston Flat, Cubar, Derbyshire, 1984, 1989-1990’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 60, 287-370 BARRETT, J.C., 1973, ‘Four Bronze Age cremation cemeteries from Middlesex’, Transactions of the London & Middlesex Archaeological Society 24, 113-134 BARRETT, J.C., 1994, Fragments from Antiquity: an Archaeology of Social Life in Britain 2900-1200 BC. Oxford: Blackwell BRADLEY, R., 1981, ‘Various styles of urn - cemeteries and settlement in Southern England c1440-1000 be’, in R. Chapman, I. Kinnes and K. Randsborg (eds), The archaeology of death. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press BRISTOW, C.R., MORTIMORE, R.N., and WOOD, C,J., 1997, ‘Lithostratigraphy for mapping the Chalk of Southern England’, Proceedings of the Geological Association 109, 293-315 BURGESS, C., 1986, ““Urnes of no small variety”: Collared urns reviewed’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 52, 339-351 CASE, H., 1995, ‘Some Wiltshire beakers and their contexts’, WANHM 88, 1-17 CHAPMAN, R., and RANDSBORG, K., 1981, ‘Approaches to the archaeology of death’, in R. Chapman, I. Kinnes and K. Randsborg (eds), The archaeology of death. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press CLARKE, DL, 1970, Beaker pottery of Great Britain and Treland. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press COLES, J, and HARDING, A., 1979, The Bronze Age in Europe. London DACRE, M., and ELLISON, A., 1981, ‘A Bronze Age cemetery at Kimpton, Hampshire’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 47, 147-203 ELLISON, A., 1980, ‘Deverel-Rimbury urn cemeteries: the evidence for social organisation’, in J. Barrett and R. Bradley (eds), Settlement and Society in the Brush Later Bronze Age. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports 83 FIELD, D., and BARBER, M., 1998a, The Neolithic flint mines on Easton Down, Winterslow, Wiltshire. RCHME Survey Report FIELD, D., and BARBER, M., 1998b, The Neolithic flint mines at Martin’s Clump, Over Wallop, Hampshire. RCHME Survey Report FOWLER, M.J.F., 1989, ‘Hampshire gun-flint industries’, Hampshire Field Club Newsletter (new series) 12, 24-26 FOWLER, M.J.F., 1992, ‘A gun-flint industry at Martin’s Clump, Over Wallop, Hants’, Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club 48, 135-142 HAMILTON, M.A. 1995. The Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Pottery of Southern Britain. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Wales, Cardiff KINNES, I., GIBSON, A., AMBERS, J., BOWMAN, S., LEESE, M. and BOAST, R., 1991, ‘Radiocarbon dating and British beakers: the British Museum programme’, Scottish Archaeological Review 8, 35-78 LANTING, J.N., and VAN DERWAALS, J.D., 1972, ‘British beakers as seen from the continent’, Helinium 12, 20-46 LONGWORTH, I., 1984, Collared urns of the Bronze Age in Great Britain and Ireland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press MCKINLEY, J.I., 1997, ‘Bronze Age “barrows” and funerary rites and rituals of cremation’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 63, 129-145 MOORE, C.N., and ROWLANDS, M.J., 1972, Bronze Age metalwork in Salisbury Museum. Salisbury: Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum. NORTHOVER, P., 1999, Analysis of a Bronze Awl #R1435. Department of Materials, Oxford University (Privately commissioned report) PARKES, J.A., 1999, Analytical report on bronze awl. DERA (Privately commissioned report) RCHME, 1979, Long Barrows in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, London: HMSO RIDE, D.J., 1998, ‘Excavation of a linear earthwork and flint mines at Martin’s Clump, OverWallop, Hampshire, 1984’, Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club 53, 1-23 RIDE, D.J., and HOPSON, P. M., forthcoming, “The distribution of flint mines on Porton Down’, Procs. of the Hampshire Field Club STEVENS, F., and STONE, J.F.S., 1938, “The barrows of Winterslow’, WANHM 48, 174-182 STONE, J.E'S. 1931, ‘Easton Down, Winterslow, S. Wilts, flint mine excavation’, WANHM 45, 366-372 STONE, J.F.S., 1933, ‘A Middle Bronze Age urnfield on Easton Down, Winterslow’, WANHM 46, 218-224 STONE, J.ES., 1934, ‘A flint mine at Martin’s Clump, Over Wallop’, Procs. of the Hampshire Field Club 12, 177-180 STONE, J.F.S., 1935a, ‘Excavations at Easton Down, Winterslow, 1933-4’, WANHM 47, 68-80 STONE, J.F.S., 1935b, Notes on excavations, vol 2. MS in library of Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum STONE, J.E.S., and HILL, N.G., 1940, ‘A round barrow on Stockbridge Down’ Antiquaries Journal, 20, 39-51 STONE, J.F.S., 1958, Wessex before the Celts. London: Thames and Hudson Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 94 (2001), pp. 177-181 From Tiny Seeds... by Antoinnette Rawlings The provenance and succession of owners of an unusual eighteenth-century folk art picture, composed almost entirely of seeds and probably depicting Darby and Joan, are discussed. The seeds employed.in making the picture are identified, and the work 1s placed in the context of folk art and collecting at the time of its creation and subsequently. In 1997, the Society acquired, at local auction, an unusual and fascinating example of folk art, which has become known at the Museum simply as ‘the seed picture’ (Accession 1997.42). Set within a 5 x 7.5 in. ebonised shadow box, the scene depicting an old man and woman sitting outside a cottage is conceived remarkably almost entirely of seeds. Traditionally, it has been thought that the figures portray the real life- life couple, Darby and Joan, immortalised in Henry Woodfall’s ballad “The Joys of Love never Forgot’, published in The Gentleman’s Magazine in 1735. John Darby died in 1730; Henry Woodfall was his apprentice’. There seems to be nothing but their apparel, countenance and setting to support this identification, but the picture becomes all the more charming once it is seen in the role of representing the old couple. Part of the ballad reads: Old DARBY with JOAN by his side, You’ve often regarded with wonder, He’s dropsical, she is fore-ey’d, Yet they’re ever uneasy asunder. Together they totter about, Or sit in the sun at the door, And at night when old Darby’s pot’s out, His Joan will not smoke a whiff more. No beauty nor wit they possess, Their several failings to smother, Then what are the charms, can you guess, That makes them so fond of each other? “Tis the pleasing remembrance of youth, The endearments which that did bestow, The thoughts of past pleasure and truth, The best of our blessings below. Those traces for ever will last, Where sickness and time can’t remove, For when youth and beauty are past, And age brings the winter of love, A friendship insensibly grows, By reviews of such raptures as these, The current of fondness still flows, Which decrepit old age cannot freeze. Apparently, the seed picture had come from the estate of the studio potter Katharine Pleydell-Bouverie (1895- 1985). This was itself of interest, as the Society holds examples of her work in the collection and she had been a notable Wiltshire resident, living at Kilmington Manor, near Warminster, for many years. However, it was the picture’s link with Katharine’s forebears, which made it such a significant acquisition, firmly placing it in Wiltshire for at least most of its existence. On the backing paper of the frame are two nineteenth century inscriptions in different hands, which show how the picture had been handed down through the female line, until it reached Katharine. They read: Given to Constance Jane Bouverie née Nelson by her mother, Lady Nelson, 1873 née MJD Agar Mary Jane Diane Agar. This belonged to her Gt. Grandmother Elizabeth Spencer Countess of Pembroke. These two figures are done with Flower Seeds. It appears therefore that the picture was first owned by Elizabeth Spencer (1737-1831) who married Wiltshire Heritage Museum, 41 Long Street, Devizes SN10 1NS 178 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Henry, 10th earl of Pembroke in 1756. The second daughter of the 3rd duke of Marlborough, Elizabeth was renowned for her beauty and gentle and kind nature. She bore two children (her daughter Charlotte dying in childhood) and was devoted to her son George, who was to succeed his father as the 11th earl of Pembroke. Her marriage, sadly, was not to last and after enduring Henry’s affairs, illegitimate children and constant wanderlust, the long suffering Elizabeth left the Pembroke seat of Wilton House near Salisbury in 1788 and lived from then on at Pembroke Lodge in Richmond, made available to her by George III. There is no knowing when or where Elizabeth acquired the seed picture during her eventful life. Stylistically, it may be dated roughly to the late- eighteenth century,* but it is uncertain whether she came by it during her years at Wilton or after her move to Richmond. Is it possible that she even acquired the picture in Oxfordshire before her marriage? From the style date this seems unlikely and since it is so much a product of rural life, Wiltshire is favoured as a provenance, from her days at Wilton House; this however, 1s pure supposition and in no small part due to a desire to view the work as a thoroughly Wiltshire piece! What is certain is that at some point the picture passed from Elizabeth to her granddaughter, Diana, George Pembroke’s daughter from his first marriage to his cousin Elizabeth Beauclerk. Diana married Welbore, 2nd earl of Normanton in 1816 and subsequently passed ‘Darby and Joan’ to her only daughter, Mary Jane Diane Agar. In 1845 Mary married Horatio, 3rd earl Nelson and had five sons and four daughters. Earl Nelson was a JP and president of the Wiltshire Friendly Society whose seat was Trafalgar House, Standlynch (near Downton), thereby extending the seed picture’s presence in Wiltshire. It is not known whether the picture passed to Diana and Mary following the deaths of the previous owners or during their lifetimes. However, thanks to the inscription, it is clear that in 1873, Mary Jane Diana, Lady Nelson, gave the picture to her second daughter, Constance Jane, who went on to marry the third son of the 4th earl of Radnor, the Rev Canon the Hon Bertrand Pleydell-Bouverie in 1870. Bertrand was rector of Pewsey (1880-1910) and canon of Salisbury from 1894. Since, however, the couple lived at Southbourne in Hampshire at some point, it seems likely that the seed picture left Wiltshire. However, it was to return. Bertrand and Constance do not appear to have had any issue and as Katharine Pleydell-Bouverie (1895-1985) was a daughter of the Hon Duncombe Pleydell-Bouverie, (second son of the 4th earl of Radnor), it would be reasonable to suppose that Katharine acquired the picture from her aunt, Constance Jane. Known for her love of the countryside and things rural, Katharine would certainly have appreciated such a work of folk art. Carefully handed down for over 100 years, this curious little picture was surely treasured by its owners. This is particularly interesting since the aristocracy are usually perceived as owning architecturally grand houses full of collections of fine art and exquisite ornamental items executed by academic artists. Folk or naive art is, by contrast, a product of the vernacular. There was certainly a clear distinction made between the ‘fine’ or ‘high’ art produced by trained artists and folk art. As James Ayres points out: When the Royal Academy of Arts was established in 1769 it was determined that “No needlework, artificial flowers, cut paper, shell work, or any such baubles should be admitted”. Oil paint, bronze, marble and terracotta were the media of the Academicians, painters or sculptors, although watercolour was acceptable for preliminary studies. Other materials such as stone and wood were disdained’. However, whilst the ability to commission RA artists was a privilege of the rich, the middle classes were employing, for far less money, itinerant artists to paint their prize cattle, favourite dog or even to depict themselves, though ‘face painters’ could command higher prices. Whilst the terms folk or naive art suggest a lack of savoir-faire and finesse, much of this work was the product of great technical skill and ingenuity. Before the Industrial Revolution, there had been a long tradition in Britain of art meant for everyday domestic use or adornment, made by people with no formal training, especially within rural communities. This genre was often seen as the work of the uneducated craftsman or labouring class but could also be the product of the leisured classes and more particularly women. Folk art ‘could be described as the occupational therapy of a too leisured class sex’.* Following the decline in the craft guilds which had to some extent protected the techniques of the craftsman and enforced quality control, the seventeenth century saw art and craft instruction manuals appear, and in time these activities became increasingly popular. Ladies were especially encouraged to fill their time with polite pursuits, hence such publications as Robert Sayer’s copybook, The Ladies Amusement (1760). In the home, women were traditionally skilled with the needle, producing items of great skill and beauty and soon began to turn their hand to all manner of accomplishments. FROMTINY SEEDS... In the latter part of the eighteenth century, Reeves and Son began to produce watercolour cakes and, by the 1830s, watercolour and oil paints were available in tubes. Before these innovations of convenience, pigments had to be ground and sized to make paint, a specialist craft in itself and very much part of the peculiar skills of the formally trained painter. Consequently the eighteenth-century amateur would use virtually anything she could lay her hands on — seaweed, shells, cloth, feathers, straw, rolled and cut paper, wax or seeds to create two-dimensional pictures, usually within frames or shadow boxes. Making wax flowers, paper reliefs and pin ‘prickt’ pictures were particularly favoured by ladies. However, folk art was not purely the product of leisured ladies. It was often the by-product of another trade. Itinerant painters needed to diversify to make a living and were often the same people who would paint shop fronts or decorate houses. One of the few identified folk artists in England was a tailor by trade — George Smart of Tunbridge Wells. His fabric pictures 179 usually depicted quaint rural scenes. Especially popular and virtually mass-produced were pictures of the character ‘Old Bright’, the postman and the scene of ‘The Earth Stopper’: He has many visitors to inspect this singular collection, who seldom leave his house without becoming purchasers. He calls himself, “Artist in Cloth and Velvet Figures to his Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex”, who with his characteristic good humour, patronizes the humble tailor’. The tastes of Royalty and the aristocracy then were not confined to academia. Mary Granville (1700- 1788), better known as Mrs Delaney, became recognized for her works using cut paper and even taught George III’s daughter Princess Elizabeth the skill. Therefore, could the seed picture have been made by an English gentlewoman or was it the product of a local tradesman such as a seed merchant? Bailey's Western and Midland Directory (1783), lists the firm Andrew Gearys and William Chapman as Nursery 180 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE and Seedsmen at Salisbury, for instance. A seed merchant is suggested merely because a range of seeds was the media used to create the picture. Identification of the seeds themselves makes it clear that this example of folk art was the result of great ingenuity, expression, precision and skill and whilst it may have been made purely for amusement, it certainly took careful planning and many hours to produce. There are in the region of twenty different seeds and pieces of plant material present in the seed picture. The background is made from common stinging nettle seeds — tiny and difficult seeds to collect. To create such a dense ground, someone must have spent a great deal of time collecting the seeds from drying nettles. Joan’s blouse is made of gypsophila seeds, her skirt from vetch, her apron from opium poppy; the creator even went to the trouble of decorating the edge of the apron with a different seed — cultivated lettuce. Darby’s breeches are conceived of small- flowered catchfly seeds while his legs are a type of daisy seed. The dark buttons on his coat are delphinium seeds and the coat itself some kind of Cruciferae. Even the figures’ glossy white eyes, which to the untrained eye could easily be taken for enamel paste, are in fact made from gromwell seeds. The curling hands have been created from pumpkin seed coat and one of Darby’s shoes from a sunflower seed. It has been suggested, but remains unproved, that butter beans or similar have been used for the faces. For whoever made this remarkable piece, time was not a pressure and precision working and perseverance were a pleasure. In every instance seeds or plant materials have been used where possible — onionskin for the window, a cereal type straw for the glazing bars, moss for the floor. The only non ‘seedy’ element seems to be strips of folded cardboard to make the seats, the backing paper and the animal glue to adhere everything to that backing. A significant discovery, however, was the use of sorghum used to suggest the presence of a bush or small tree outside the cottage door. All of the other seeds and plant materials used could have been found in English rural waste grounds, gardens and meadows. Some seeds would have been more prevalent in the south of England at the time, such as gromwell and catchfly, but otherwise unremarkable. Sorghum, however, is distinctly an African cultivar, a food crop grown during the hot summer months and unlikely to ever have been grown in Britain. How then, did it become part of the seed picture? The eighteenth century was a time of great interest in all things botanical and horticultural, when the collecting and trading of seeds flourished. Both Elizabeth, Countess of Pembroke’s husband and son undertook the obligatory Grand Tour and the Earl’s illegitimate son Augustus travelled widely during his time as a naval officer. Perhaps one of them brought or sent samples of sorghum to England? It is not, however, a decorative or kitchen plant, which could have embellished the extensive gardens at Wilton House. If however, the seed picture was the work of a market gardener or seed merchant, why go to all the time and trouble to collect thousands of common seeds such as nettle? Sadly all is guesswork and supposition. There is known one other seed picture, which is almost identical and once formed part of the Dallas Pratt collection of British folk art. Judging from a photograph, sorghum was not used in this picture, which is rather interesting but unenlightening. Unfortunately, the Pratt example, with a seed work picture of a witch-like figure considered to have been by the same hand, had no known provenance whatsoever and both were sold at auction by Christie’s in 1995, it is thought to America. Nevertheless, the very knowledge that more than one exists begs the question, how many were made originally? Was it a lady of the leisured class laboriously making such items as gifts for loved ones and as examples of her accomplishments, or a tradesman who discovered that such a by-line sold well? What is more or less certain is that the frames of both known examples, which are identical, were made professionally. The shadow box type of frame used, made specifically to contain three-dimensional pictures, reflects the popular use of the so-called ‘Hogarth’ picture frame. Usually made of pear-tree wood and stained black to imitate ebony, such frames, typical during the eighteenth century, often had a gilded slip between the frame and the picture itself. The seed picture’s gilded slip is also ‘sanded’, a device used to soften the effect of the brightness of the gilding. The utmost care and considerable time were taken in every instance in the creation of this intriguing piece of folk art — the choosing of the subject, the composition of the scene and interpretation of the poem (if the figures are indeed Darby and Joan); the precise planning of what materials to use, the collection of the seeds and plants, the ordering of the frame and not least the doubtless painstaking execution of the picture with its many different constituent parts. Without further evidence, which may well yet come to light, the provenance of the seed picture and the origins of Elizabeth Spencer’s ownership of it, remain unknown. Nevertheless, it is a rare and extraordinary example of eighteenth- FROMTINY SEEDS... century British folk art with strong Wiltshire links, which reflects not only something of the society and culture of its time but also alludes to the tastes and personal possessions of members of some of Wiltshire’s most notable families. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The acquisition of the seed picture was made possible thanks to grant aid from the MGC/V&A Purchase Grant Fund, The Beecroft Bequest and the Primrose Trust. Grateful thanks are due to the South West Museums Council and members of the Society who contributed financially to essential conservation work. Special thanks are also due to Ruth Pelling and Mark Robinson, Archaeobotanists in the department of Environmental Archaeology at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, who identified the seeds. Notes 1 Christie’s Sale Catalogue, Folk Art, Oak, Country Furniture and Works of Art, including The Judkyn/Pratt Collection of British Folk Art, 1995, p.23 2 James Ayres, English Naive Painting 1750-1900, 1980, 147 3 ibid, 133 4 James Ayres, British Folk Art, 1977, p.7 5 Clifford’s Guide to Tunbridge Wells, 1822 Bibliography ABERYSTWYTH ARTS CENTRE, 1992, Bringing it All Back Home: Art Made by Communities in Wales. Aberystwyth: Canolfan y Celfyddan AMERICAN MUSEUM IN BRITAIN, 1976, American and British Folk Art. Bath: American Museum in Britain AYRES, James, 1996, 200 years of English Naive Art 1700- 1900. Alexandria, Va: Art Services International AYRES, James, 1985, The Artist’s Craft. Oxford: Phaidon - AYRES, James, 1980, English Naive Painting 1750-1900. London: Thames and Hudson AYRES, James, 1977, British Folk Art. New York: The Overlook Press BAILEY, 1783, Bailey’s Western and Midland Directory, or Merchant’s and Tradesman’s Useful Companion BARBICAN CENTRE FOR ARTS & CONFERENCES, 1985, British Naive Painters. London: Barbican Centre for Arts & Conferences BIHALJI-MERIN, Oto, and TOMASEVI, Nebojsa-Bato (ed.), 1984, World Encyclopaedia of Naive Art. London: Frederick Muller BOUVERIE, Bertrand P., 1890, A Few Facts Concerning the Parish of Pewsey in the County of Wiltshire. Skeffington BUCK, A.G.R., 1951-1952, ‘Some Wiltshire Fonts. Part I’, WA&NHM vol. 54, 28-35 181 BURKE, Bernard, 1911, Burke’s Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage. Harrison & Sons CHRISTIE’S, Sale Cat. 8 Nov 1995, 23, Folk Art, Oak, Country Furniture and Works of Art. .., London: Christie’s CHRYSLER MUSEUM, 1975, The Gift of American Naive Painting from the Collection of EW & BC Garbisch. Norfolk, Virginia: Chrysler Museum COOPER, Emanuel, 1994, Peoples’ Art, Working Class Art from 1750 to the Present Day. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing COUNTRY LIFE, 1944, ‘Lady Jane Pleydell-Bouverie’ (portrait), Country Life Magazine vol. 95, no.2452 CROWLEY, D.A., 1981, “The Manor Court of Downton in the Eighteenth Century’, WA&NHM vol. 74/75, 152 DEBRETT, 1935, Debrett’s Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage & Companionage, Dean & Son Limited GARBISCH, Edgar W, 1969, American Naive Painting of the 18th and 19th Centuries. New York: American Federation of Arts HARRIES, Stanley, 1984, New Frontiers of Naive Art in Europe Muller. London: RONA: Blond and White HERBERT, Lord (ed.), Henry, Elizabeth and George (1734- 80), Letters and Diaries of Henry, Tenth Earl of Pembroke and his Circle, 1939, Jonathan Cape KALLIR, Jane, 1982, The Folk Art Tradition, Naive Painting in Europe and the United States. New York: The Viking Press KELLY’S, 1925, Kelly’s Handbook to the Titled, Landed and Official Classes, Kelly’s Directories Limited LEECH, John, 1983, ‘How Rector solved dastardly murder’, Wiltshire Gazette, 13 Oct. 1983 LEVER, Tresham, 1967, The Herberts of Wilton, John Murray NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, 1985, American Naive Paintings from the (US) National Gallery of Art. New York: Museum of American Folk Art PANTAZZI, Michael,1997, Album de collages de l’Angletterre Victorienne. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux PEESCH, Reinhard, 1983, The Ornament in European Folk Art. New York: Alpine Fine Arts Collection Limited PHILLIPS, Sale Catalogue 1 May 1985, The Contents of Kilmington Manor, Warminster, Wiltshire. PRICE, Sally, 1991, Primitive Art in Civilized Places. Chicago: University of Chicago RAYNOR, William, 15.10.1999, ‘Bertrand Pleydell- Bouverie’ (obituary), The Independent RADNOR, Helen, 1928, Catalogue of the Earl of Radnor’s Collection of Pictures. Longford Castle STEVENS, Frank, 1922, ‘Longford Castle and the Bouverie Family’, WA&NHM, vol. 42, 111-112 WA&NHM, 1898-1899, ‘The Honourable Louisa Hay’ (obituary) WA&NHM vol. 30, 62 WILTSHIRE GAZETTE, 27.09.1928, ‘Rectory Houses Sold’ WOODFALL, Henry, 1735, ‘The Joys of Love Never Forgot’, published in Gentleman’s Magazine or Monthly Intelligencer, vol. 5, printed by Edward Cave Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 94 (2001), pp. 182-194 James Bennett of Salisbury (1797-1859): Jeweller and Newspaper Proprietor by Robert Moody James Bennett, descended from the Bennett family of Pythouse in the south-western corner of the county, was born in 1797, the younger son of a Salisbury cutler, silversmith and jeweller. Following his mother’s death in 1821,he took over the family business and at the same time became involved in local affairs, being elected Mayor of the city at the early age of 28. His activities as Mayor and then as Chamberlain shed an interesting light on the duties of an early 19th century local dignitary, and his subsequent purchase of the Salisbury and Winchester Journal provides an example of a Salisbury tradesman who became a figure of influence in his native city as a magistrate and as proprietor of the oldest and arguably the most distinguished newspaper in the county. Further, his descent from Edward ITI and his marriage to a likely natural daughter of George IV adds an unexpected royal flavour to this account of his activities and connections. In March 1859, the Salisbury and Winchester Journal published a letter from an anonymous correspondent writing under the name of ‘Vicinus’ commencing as follows: Sir, The unostentacious terms in which you have recorded the death of the Proprietor of the Salisbury and Winchester Journal, the late Mr. Bennett, are entirely suitable for the unpretending habits and demeanour of that respectable person; but it might not, perhaps, have been inappropriate to have added that, whilst a citizen of Salisbury, he was also a male descendant of one of the most ancient gentilital families of this country.! Further reference to the Salisbury and Winchester Journal reveals that the ‘unostentacious terms’ (although quite exceptionally edged in black) merely consisted of a brief account of his career as a member of the City Corporation and as a magistrate, and that he died at his residence in the Close having been unwell for only an hour and sitting as a magistrate until two days before his death.’ There was no fulsome obituary for this ‘respectable person’ therefore who had some rather unexpected royal connections and a life spent in Salisbury, the details of which shed an interesting light on the activities and connections of a provincial citizen in the first half of the 19th century. James Bennett was born in Salisbury in 1797, the younger son of William Bennett, a silversmith, engraver and watchmaker’ who, in 1786, had moved from Catherine Street into the High Street.* In 1793 he was described as a silversmith’? and in 1805 as a goldsmith.®° He was also churchwarden of St. Thomas’s and a member of the Corporation. He derived some of his income from property at Kington Magna and Bedchester near Fontmell Magna,’ just over the county boundary in Dorset, where his grandfather John Bennett lived and was buried in NW 2RS It is probable that James Bennett was educated in one of the many proprietary schools in Salisbury before being sent to London, according to family tradition, to be trained as a lawyer. However, his father died when James was only 21 years old and as his elder and only brother William was destined for the church,” he returned to Salisbury to learn the business of his father who, in the notice of his death in 1818 was described as ‘an eminent silversmith and jeweller of this city ... much beloved by his family and highly esteemed and respected by all who knew him’.!” Although his will provided that his widow, Elizabeth, should be entitled to carry on his business, she Harptree House, East Harptree, Bristol BS40 6AA JAMES BENNETT OF SALISBURY (1797-1859): JEWELLER AND NEWSPAPER PROPRIETOR 183 James Bennett, 1797-1859, portrait by Walter Tiffin survived him for less than three years and so it was that at the age of 23 James Bennett arranged for the following notice to be published in both the Salisbury and Winchester Journal and the Devizes and Wilts Gazette: James Bennett returns his sincere thanks to the Nobility, Gentry and Public for the favours conferred on his late Mother; and begs leave respectfully to inform them that the BUSINESS is continued by himself in all its branches in the same manner as it has been conducted for the last 35 years. J.B. hopes, by keeping an extensive assortment of the best goods, to merit a continuance of those favours so liberally extended to both his parents!! In 1822 James Bennett is listed as a cutler!’ carrying on business in the Market Place!’ — or more correctly in the Cheese Market, the small area between St. Thomas’s churchyard and the Market Place end of Castle Street. In 1826, he supplied a silver race cup to the Corporation at a cost of £18!" and three gold watches by him are known, the earliest being hallmarked for 1828." It is unlikely, of course, that he would have actually manufactured watches and clocks bearing his name, such articles being bought in and perhaps assembled or encased by him for sale. Ata meeting of the Corporation on 26 September 1822 James Bennett was elected a free citizen and assistant (i.e. a member) of the City Corporation.!'° On 1 October 1825 he and Thomas Norwood Chubb were nominated to be proposed to the Council for one of them to fill the office of Mayor.'’ Two days later, on being elected, Chubb immediately offered £100 to be excused that office.'* At a meeting of the Mayor and Aldermen held on 6 October James Bennett and Henry Everett were nominated!’ and at the subsequent meeting of the Council, Bennett was duly elected Mayor’ and first sat as such on 16 December at what now seems to us to be the early age of 28.°! Following his election as Mayor, the Devizes and Wilts Gazette reported that they understood that ‘he intends giving a splendid dinner to the Corporation and principal inhabitants of the City’’ and on 17 November the Gazette reported that, ‘. . . he gave a most extensive and elegant entertainment. We have heard that not less than 700 cards of invitation were issued’.*? If what the Gazette had heard was true, Bennett was probably relieved that in the event only 340 guests and 60 servants were entertained. The caterer, Harrington,’ charged him £354 made up as follows:” Le Sead Providing Dinners etc for 250 250 00 00 ditto ditto for 90 at 17/- 76 10 00 50 Quarts Turtle Punch at 5/- 12 10 00 Dinners and strong beer for 60 servants at 2/6 71000 30 Bottles Port and Sherry 71000 Total 354 00 00 The account of the banquet that appeared in the Salisbury and Winchester Journal gives a fascinating insight into the lavish scale of a Mayoral banquet in the reign of George IV, the cost of which perhaps explains why so many members of the Corporation were willing to pay a fine to be excused the office of Mayor: On Wednesday last the oaths of Office were administered to James Bennett, Esq., Mayor of this city for the year ensuing, by our much beloved and highly respected Recorder, the Earl of Radnor. Invitations, on an unusually extended scale, had been issued by the Mayor elect to the principal inhabitants of the City and Close and to the Noblemen, Gentlemen, Clergy, and Yeomanry in the neighbourhood, to dine with him on this day. The large room in our Council-chamber was filled with guests, as was also the Assembly-room, where Mr. Sparshatt presided. Turtle, venison, game, and every delicacy of the season, were placed on the tables in abundance, and served up in a manner which reflected the greatest possible credit on Harrington, every dish 184 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE being cooked in a superior style, and what was intended to be hot being so in reality — a rare quality in the eatables at public dinners. The decorations too, under the immediate superintendance of Mrs. Harrington, were in the best taste, and much admired. The dessert was superb, and the wines were deservedly praised. After dinner ‘Non nobis Domine’ was sung at the Council Chamber by professional gentlemen of this city, aided by Charles Taylor, from Covent Garden. These gentlemen in the course of the evening sung many beautiful and popular glees, and Taylor excited the mirth of the company by his excellent comic songs, which were sung in the most humorous style, and in a manner which we have seldom heard surpassed. The toasts, usual on such occasions, were given from the Chair; the Mayor’s and the late Mayor’s healths were drunk with much enthusiasm and both these gentlemen returned thanks in speeches which called forth the approbation of the company. Amongst those who honoured the Mayor with their attendance, we particularly noticed the Rt. Hon. The Earl of Shaftesbury, Lord Folkestone, Lord Arundell, Lord Bridport, Mr Benett, Sir John Astley, Sir Chas. Hulse, Mr Lockhart, Hon. Capt. Bouverie, Hon. Mr Howard, Hon. Mr Arundell, Rev. Archdeacon Fisher, Rev. Chancellor Marsh, Rev. C.W. Shuckburgh, Rev. Ed. Duke, Lt.Col.Rolt, C.B., Mr Powell, Mr Matcham, Mr Bolton, Rev. T.C.May, Rev. H.Wake, Captains Curry, Peyton, Macdonald, Sayers etc. etc. etc. We cannot conclude our account of the above entertainment without observing that the utmost conviviality and harmony prevailed throughout the evening, both in the Council Chamber and Assembly- room: and the enjoyment of the company was not a little promoted by the gentlemen of the musical profession. Woulds (from Bath) sung, in his most admirable style, a variety of comic songs, which gave great delight to the company in the Assembly-room.”° The Salisbury Journal reveals much about Bennett’s mayoral duties while still a comparatively young man. In January 1826, for example, a requisition ‘most respectably and numerously signed’, was sent to him asking him to call a meeting ‘to take into consideration the propriety of petitioning Parliament to carry into full effect the resolution passed in the House of Commons in May 1823 upon the subject of Colonial Slavery’.*’ Bennett promptly called the necessary meeting.** In the same month, ‘Our worthy Mayor received 100 guineas from Wadham Wyndham esq. M P for the poor of this city: being a most acceptable donation at this inclement season’.”” In March he chaired a special meeting of the Society for the Suppression of Mendicity*” and continued to attend their meetings in the following year when in April of 1827 it was reported that no less than 571 people had been relieved from the funds of the Society during the preceding quarter.’! Considerable wining and dining was enjoyed by Bennett and his fellow councillors. In May: A party of Gentlemen dined at our Council House on Monday last in celebration of the King’s Birthday. Our worthy Mayor James Bennett esq presided. After dinner a number of loyal and other toasts appropriate to the occasion were given from the chair and drunk with fervour by the Company. The dinner and wines were provided by Harrington in his usual style of excellence and the evening was spent most agreeably.*? Two weeks later the Wiltshire Society held its tenth anniversary meeting in London. As Mayor, Bennett would have been expected to attend but in response to the toast to the Mayor and Corporation Alderman Sutton read a letter from him, ‘expressive of his deep regret in being deprived of the pleasure he anticipated in attending the meeting enclosing a donation in aid of the charity accompanied with his hearty wishes that success would attend so laudable an institution. . .’*’ In June he appointed a day for the election of two members of Parliament for the city — the Corporation being the sole electorate prior to the passing of the 1832 Reform Act.** A Council of the Corporation was duly held and in the absence of any other candidates, he then announced that Viscount Folkestone and Wadham Wyndham were elected. The two new members accompanied by the Corporation and many others then walked in procession round the market place preceded by ‘a band of music’. At five o’clock the inevitable dinner took place provided by Harrington as usual and ‘harmony and good humour were the order of the day’. It was not only the assembled company who benefited from the occasion as the two new members made liberal donations to the various charitable institutions of the city and also ordered that 16 hogshead of strong beer be given to the populace!” As Mayor, Bennett would have regularly sat as a magistrate and in July at the City Sessions he presided with William Henry Tinney, the Deputy Recorder, and other magistrates. At these Sessions, amongst many other sentences handed down, William Cooper was ordered to be transported for seven years for stealing a silver watch and Jane Bell was sent to prison for 4 months and her 13 year-old accomplice William Bell sent to prison for one month for stealing horse hair.*° While still mayor, Bennett became engaged to be married. His bride came not from Salisbury or the surrounding area as might have been expected but from Clapham Common in South London . Her name was Catherine Bossom, daughter and co-heir JAMES BENNETT OF SALISBURY (1797-1859): JEWELLER AND NEWSPAPER PROPRIETOR 185 of one James Bossom. However her actual paternity is thrown in doubt by a note written beside her name in a Bennett family tree found amongst the pedigrees of many other Wiltshire families collected by T. H. Baker of Salisbury, now in the Society’s Library. The note declares that she was ‘nat. daughter of George IV. She was a ward of Hatchard the publisher. She had a £3000 fortune’.*” Hatchard the publisher was John Hatchard the bookseller and publisher and founder of the famous bookshop in Piccadilly. He was also bookseller to various members of the royal family and thus may well have been asked to assume the obligations of ward to one of George IV’s numerous offspring. A letter from Hatchard to his ward shortly before her marriage to James reveals a little of what this eminent man thought of the proposed match: My dear Catherine, Having paid a visit to your future intended I have thought that a few lines, though hastily written, might prove very acceptable in the present state of your affairs. Ineed not say that we were met with the kindest possible treatment from every member of the household, and it was particularly gratifying that both Mary and William were at Sarum at the same time. It gives me the most unqualified pleasure to be able to say that what I saw and heard of our friend the Mayor was most satisfactory. You know that I have seen but very little of him before this visit, but what I there witnessed convinced me that there is every reasonable ground for anticipating as much family comfort as is desirable we should possess in this vale of tears. If one thing gave me greater pleasure than another it was to find that there seems an earnest and growing desire to glorify God, in his station of society, and I doubt not but he will be hereafter a decided follower of God; he is yet young in years and has not had those Gospel privileges which it has been your happiness to enjoy - pray earnestly and continually for each other, that all your doings may be with a view to the Divine Glory, be watchful against a habit of expecting too much, guard against every approach to a worldly spirit, and then I pray the Lord that He may, and I am sure He will, bless you in each other. There is now a pious man as Curate of his Parish Church, who has the fullest sanction of the Bishop — and this is also a favourable omen that the City has rarely enjoyed — may it long, very long be continued — may the labours of my brother Seaton be much blessed to hundreds. There is also a little select Christian society; with one lady in particular I am much pleased, and trust you will find in her a most agreeable and useful friend and co-adjutor in any good works which may be in hand. She is a woman of fine mind, decided piety and much of that spirit which I pray the Lord may be given in greater abundance to you and myself. Her piety seems to be of the most decided stamp — and altogether is the sort of person with whom I should rejoice that any young married friend of mine should be acquainted. Mr. Bennett seems most ardently to wish you would direct your attention to the Piano Forte, in which recommendation I would also join, as it is both useful in the way of pleasing amusement in the evening , and also in the instruction of any little Bennetts. You have now little to do comparatively, and if you can obtain the loan of an instrument, you might do something before you are united in marriage.** James Bennett and Catherine Bossom were duly married on 21 November 1826 at St. Mark’s Church, Kennington by James’s brother William. They returned to Salisbury and almost certainly made their home in the Cheese Market above the shop where Bennett was carrying on his business as a silversmith and jeweller. The early 19th century view of Castle Street looking south into the Cheese Market in John Britton’s Picturesque Antiquities of English Cities provides a glimpse of virtually all the buildings in the Cheese Market (the 18th century facades contrasting with the earlier frontages of the buildings in Castle Street) and in one of these James and Catherine would almost certainly have been living. A copy of a less picturesque but more realistic view of the Cheese Market taken before 1857 can be seen in the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum. It is likely that Bennett’s property was that before which three men can be seen in a group in the photograph. Three years later the first of her three children was born and was given the second name of Hatchard in honour of Catherine’s guardian. As has been shown, James’s mother had died in 1821 and by the time of his marriage his sister Elizabeth had already married John Randall, a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge and vicar of Lyonshall in Herefordshire. His elder brother William had graduated from Queen’s College, Oxford and in 1828 was to marry a considerable heiress, Frances, daughter of Zachary Bayley Edwards of Chalcot House, Westbury and niece of a former Member of Parliament for Southampton. Doubtless her fortune enabled William when later Vicar of Corsham — by no means a wealthy living — to have the assistance of no fewer that two curates in his parish duties.” In 1826 Bennett was elected one of the Chamberlains of the Corporation*’ and as former Mayor was sworn as a Justice of the Peace*’ and in the following year was elected Alderman.** He represented St. Thomas’s ward on the Corporation and in the first election under the new Municipal Reform Act in 1836 was placed at the head of the poll without soliciting a vote, according to his obituary 186 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Salisbury Cheese Market before 1857 — an unusual state of affairs in an age when the soliciting of votes by all sorts of means was the rule.” In the same year he was sworn a magistrate (although he originally became a Justice of the Peace ten years earlier at the age of 29) and continued to sit as a magistrate until two days before his death. As senior Chamberlain in 1834, Bennett had the unpleasant duty of informing the Corporation that he had no funds to pay the mayor’s salary, the greater part of the previous year’s bills or the money due to the city charities. Expenditure exceeded income by some £120 and this did not include any extraordinary expenses which amounted to £1,800 over the previous five years. He reported that the Corporation had been in a similar situation about 30 and 50 years previously but had been released from its difficulties by receiving fines from members of the corporation refusing to assume the office of Mayor. He made it clear that unless some plan were adopted to raise further money, the affairs of the Corporation could not be carried on. He suggested that the Corporation should borrow £450, sell or lease four houses near St. Edmund’s churchyard and also grant the renewal of a lease on another house in exchange for a money payment.” In the event, at the Common Council meeting held in May 1834, it was decided to make various savings including abolishing the mayor’s £20 salary. Whilst the Earl of Radnor agreed to forgo his salary as Recorder, the Town Clerk refused to accept a reduction in his salary and wrote a long letter setting out his reasons, and when the Corporation withdrew its proposal he said he would be willing to place his name on any list of subscribers amongst the Corporation provided ten others also added their names. In contrast, Edward Davies, the Bailiff, agreed to give up his salary provided that no call or application be made to him to subscribe towards Corporation funds.*? The Corporation’s financial difficulties were resolved as a result of Bennett’s efforts as in the following year a resolution was passed that, ‘the thanks of the council be given to James Bennett esq. for the able and efficient manner in which he had discharged the various duties of the office of Chamberlain’, and it was ordered that the resolution be engrossed on vellum and the seal of the Corporation be affixed thereto*® — a rather meagre reward when compared to the large inscribed silver salver to the value of £60 presented to his predecessor Edward Stevens when he retired from the office of Chamberlain in 1826 — and which Bennett himself JAMES BENNETT OF SALISBURY (1797-1859): JEWELLER AND NEWSPAPER PROPRIETOR 187 delivered to Stevens on behalf of the Corporation!” In 1829, Bennett’s second son was born and in 1831 a daughter was baptised at St. Thomas’s and named Catherine Bossom after her mother’s ‘official’ father. In the same year Catherine Bennett’s sister Martha was married in St.Thomas’s by John Hatchard’s son, another John and vicar of St. Andrew’s Plymouth. So it is clear that the early connection with the Hatchard family was maintained following Catherine’s marriage to James. In the following year Catherine Bennett died, aged 29, after having been ill for almost a year. Following her death, Bennett preserved locks of her hair and these were incorporated in gold lockets, one of which bears the minutely engraved inscription, “To the Memory of a Dearly Beloved Wife Catherine Bennett who entered into Eternal Rest the 1 6th August 1832 aged 29 years’. The grim reality was that Bennett was now left with three very young children to bring up. Somewhat incredibly, and according to family tradition, he relieved himself of the burden by sending his eldest child, James, to school in London at the tender age of four and by arranging for him to travel by coach on his own!"* Even this very small family was further reduced in size when James’s second child, William died in 1835 aged only Six. Salisbury in the 1830s was in many ways not a particularly comfortable place in which to live. Extreme poverty amongst the agricultural labourers in the surrounding countryside and widespread unemployment in the city did not bode well for property-owning citizens. When the agricultural workers of South Wiltshire marched on Salisbury in 1830 to be met by the reading of the Riot Act and the Wiltshire Yeomanry, certain leading citizens, in common with the inhabitants of many other communities in the county, decided to take steps to - protect themselves and their property. In December 1830 over 300 prisoners were to be tried in the city following the earlier disturbances” and on 10 January 1831the Salisbury Journal reported that ‘Our Salisbury Volunteer Corps of Infantry’ would soon appear — ‘a force composed of men of property, loyal and well informed’.*° On 31 January the Journal published a list of subscribers to the cost of equipping and supporting the new force, headed by Wadham Wyndham, who subscribed £150 and the Bishop of Salisbury and W. B. Brodie who each subscribed £100. Bennett and his fellow potential officers agreed to make annual subscriptions according to their respective ranks —W. B. Brodie as the future colonel agreed to subscribe £20 per annum and Bennett and his fellow lieutenants £7 per annum each.”! On 14 February a meeting of inhabitants was convened for the purpose of ‘adopting Measures for the Protection of the City against Nightly Depredations’” and a fortnight later the officers were duly gazetted including ‘James Bennett gent’ as a lieutenant.?’ Thus, in the absence of any police force, Salisbury’s property owners with governmental sanction formed their own body of men to patrol the streets at night and to provide support to the militia in case of further unrest. A light note is struck by the report in the Journal of 28 January 1831 that the colonel and officers of the 3rd Wilts Local Militia have ‘kindly lent their musical instruments to the Salisbury Volunteer Infantry’!** In politics, Bennett was very much in favour of Reform, and in March 1831 he and twenty-six other leading citizens met in the Reading Room of the Salisbury and Wiltshire Society and resolved that a petition for reform be left at the Council House for signature by others, and then to be presented to the Commons by one of the Salisbury Members of Parliament, Duncombe Pleydell-Bouverie.*’ Clearly reform, which was of course of a very limited nature, did not suit everyone for he and some of his fellow dignitaries were the ‘respectable and well-known gentlemen’ named in a poster published ten years later suggesting that they would be able to give a satisfactory answer to the question, ‘What is the Good of Reform?’”? In the 1833 election Bennett who was one of the 575 people entitled to vote following the extension of the franchise by the Reform Act of 1832 voted for Duncombe Pleydell-Bouverie and William Bird Brodie —a gentleman whose financial misfortunes were to be to Bennett’s advantage seventeen years later. The plight of the Irish populace at this time did not escape the notice of the people of Salisbury. In June 1831 Bennett was one of the eighteen citizens who, ‘impressed with the necessity of affording immediate relief to the Irish Poor who are now enduring all the Horrors of Famine and Disease’, signed a petition addressed to the mayor requesting he should ‘call a meeting of the Inhabitants of this City for the purpose of raising a Subscription on their behalf’.*’ A meeting was duly held and Bennett was one of the committee members who subscribed and with another collected subscriptions details of which were duly published in the Salisbury and Winchester Journal.** In 1835 it was the turn of the “Distressed Irish Clergy’ to attract the attention of the charitable inhabitants of Salisbury and on this occasion James subscribed £3.” In 1836 Bennett purchased for £1,200 the freehold of a house in Queen Street from Henry 188 THEWILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Shorto the cutler®’ who carried on business there certainly until 1832.°' It maybe, therefore, that James incorporated Shorto’s business into his own, as 1n the 1844 Poll Book for Salisbury Bennett is shown as being in actual occupation of the property. In 1851 he sold it to William Flowers for £1000. In 1837 James Bennett married for the second time. His new wife was Mary Bithiah, daughter of Thomas Grove of Clapham Common and they were married at the Church of the Holy Trinity, Clapham. One daughter followed by six sons were the product of this marriage. James brought his new wife to his old home in the Cheese Market. We know from the 1841 Census ( by which time the first three of their own children had been born) that also living in the house were three servants — the minimum number expected to be in the household of a professional or successful businessman of the time. On the Census day, James Hatchard and Catherine Bossom — the children of his first marriage and aged 13 and 10 respectively were not returned as being at home and so were presumably away at boarding schools. Bennett was very much aware of his descent from the Bennetts of Pythouse. In 1834 he registered his pedigree with the College of Arms, tracing his descent back to the 1623 Heralds’ Visitation of Wilts; a short pedigree bringing it up-to-date was registered in 1840.°° Burke’s General Armory of 1842 describes the family as ‘a very ancient family of which thirteen descents is recorded in the College of Arms deducing the line down to the Rev. Wm. Coles Bennett vicar of Corsham’. This was the pedigree that had been registered by Bennett. Burke also states that ‘James Bennett of Salisbury esq being the brother of the Rev. Wm. Coles Bennett’ was entitled to bear the arms of Bennett of Pythouse. These arms were originally confirmed to Thomas Bennett in the Herald’s Visitation of 1565 and were later quartered with the arms of Ashlock of Heytesbury. In c. 1850, James Bennett had printed an elaborate pedigree showing the descent of himself and his children from the Pythouse family.“ His descent derived from William, third son of the Thomas Bennett who proved his right to bear arms in the 1623 Visitation. William’s wife was Agnes, daughter of John Hitchcock of Preshute. Perhaps James Bennett knew that one of Agnes’s grandfathers was Edmund Hungerford, son of Sir Anthony Hungerford of Down Ampney, and that her other grandfather was Thomas Hitchcock whose own grandmother was the daughter of the Earl of Rutland,” a direct descendant of Edward III — a second distant royal connection! At the second general meeting of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society held in Salisbury in 1854°° a temporary museum established in the Council Chamber included articles loaned by Bennett and his clerical brother William. Amongst these were, ‘a Stone-ware Jug, elaborately mounted in Silver-gilt, of the time of Queen Elizabeth’, and also a, ‘large Folio Family Bible, richly bound, with massive silver mounting, and illuminated, containing the Pedigree of the Bennetts and about 140 illustrations, dated 1679’.°’ This Bible almost certainly originally belonged to James’s ancestor William Bennett of Semley who died in 1712 and whose brother James had been Mayor of Salisbury in 1674, both sons of William and Agnes Bennett.®* This James’s son, another James, who was at one time a John Burgis Bennett 1728-1780 I William Bennett = Elizabeth (neé Craddock) 1762-1818 d. 1821 William Coles b. 1794 2nd daughter of 1797 — 1859 James Bossom | James Hatchard William Henry Catherine Bossom b. 1828 b. 1829, d. 1835 b. 1831 Jenevora = Arthur Williams 1778-1812 (1) Catherine, d. 1832, = JAMES BENNETT = (2) Mary Bithiah, d. 1861, — Elizabeth = John Randall daughter of Thomas Grove _ b. 1798 See ees ean eens reno re Frances Grove Edmund Grove Thomas Arthur Frederic Charles b. 1839 b. 1841 b. 1843 b. 1845 Stephen Ashlock Frank Ewan Hugh Anthony b. 1847 b. 1849 b. 1851 Simplified genealogical table of James Bennett’s immediate family JAMES BENNETT OF SALISBURY (1797-1859): JEWELLER AND NEWSPAPER PROPRIETOR 189 merchant in Lisbon and later of Salisbury, died in 1716 and is buried in Berwick St. John church. Charles Bowles in his contribution to Colt Hoare’s Modern Wiltshire errs in asserting in a footnote to his mention of James Bennett’s monument, that, ‘the late worthy mayor of Salisbury, Mr. Bennett, was descended from the above named James Bennett’.®” He should have written, ‘the above named William Bennett’ (whose monument, with that of his wife, Agnes, Bowles also describes), and also, “is descended’ as while James was indeed the late mayor he was not yet the late Mr. Bennett! The Mr. Benett who honoured Bennett with his attendance at his mayoral banquet was John Benett the owner of Pythouse and Member of Parliament for the county since 1819, and well known for the part he later played in the Pythouse riot of 1831. He was, of course, James Bennett’s distant kinsman. The different spelling of the surnames is explained by the fact that John Benett was descended from Thomas Benett of Norton Bavant who purchased Pythouse in 1725, the estate having been sold by Anthony Bennett in 1669. However, he was related to James because Thomas Benett’s mother, Patience, was a member of the original Pythouse family and brother of Thomas Bennett, at one time private secretary to Prince Rupert and whose portrait still hangs at Pythouse.’° The last of the family to live at Pythouse was the eccentric Colonel Jack Benett-Stanford. He spent many years in genealogical research into all branches of the family and in the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society’s library are several boxes containing the results of these researches. Amongst these papers is a copy of a letter written by Colonel Benett-Stanford in 1928 to a correspondent who had apparently written to him for details of James’s aunt Jenevora. In this letter he gives details of her birth and death and her marriage in 1812 at St. Thomas’s in Salisbury to Arthur Williams, and finally he states that, ‘she was a favourite of Geo. III’. So here is a third somewhat unexpected and enigmatic royal connection!”! In the 1830s and 1840s, James Bennett continued to carry on his business in the Cheese Market and one of his activities was the commissioning of the manufacture of handsome architectural and other medals. The British Museum has two white metal medals, one depicting Salisbury Cathedral and the choir of the cathedral and signed ‘Bennett Direx’, and the other the west front of Winchester Cathedral and the choir of the cathedral signed ‘Bennett Sarum’.” In Devizes museum are two of his medals — a white metal medal in its original case showing Old Sarum and Stonehenge and signed ‘Bennett Sarum’, and a bronze version of the medal depicting Salisbury Cathedral. In Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum are four further examples of these medals. The medal depicting Salisbury Cathedral and the choir of the cathedral attracted particular attention. In 1830 the Salisbury and Winchester Journal informed its readers that: they had been favoured with the sight of a beautiful specimen of art, in the shape of a medal containing bas- reliefs of the exterior and choir of Salisbury Cathedral. We beg to direct the attention of our readers to this exquisite production, which has just been published by Mr Bennett, silversmith of this city — satisfied that a single glance will suffice to establish its claim to general patronage. Such efforts as this are at once an honour to the arts, and to the city whose proudest ornament it so admirably commemorates, and which will thus be present to the eyes of admiring generations long after the towers and columns of that awful and splendid fabric shall have fallen prostrate before the sure but silent ravages of the great Destroyer - Time” In 1842 Bennett’s business was described as that of a, ‘watchmaker, Gold and Silversmith, Jeweller and Cutler and supplier of writing desks, dressing cases, work boxes, tea urns, papier machee trays etc’™ — all luxury goods and services for the benefit of the more affluent inhabitants of Salisbury and the surrounding area. In 1842, for instance, he supplied a handsome silver snuff box priced 8 guineas and a silver cup priced 21 guineas to the committee organising the Marnhull Diversions (i.e. races) near Shaftesbury.” In the same year he supplied a massive silver candelabrum and a full sized hash dish and cover costing 160 guineas that was to be presented to the surgeon George Sampson on his leaving the city, each piece of plate being engraved with Sampson’s arms and crest.” In common with other Salisbury professions and businessmen, such as attorneys and auctioneers and even painters and glaziers and a brazier and tinman, he combined his main business with that of an insurance agent, and in 1842 was shown as agent for the fire business of the British Insurance Company and the life business of the Westminster Insurance Company.”’ As well as carrying on his business, sitting as a magistrate and acting as an Alderman of the Corporation, James Bennett was an inveterate signatory to various petitions, subscriber to charitable causes and attender of meetings. In 1836 he subscribed to a fund for the relief of those who suffered in the violent hailstorm of 5 April’ and in the same year signed a petition supporting efforts to see a separate Court of Quarter Sessions established in the 190 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE city.’” In 1843 he subscribed to a fund in aid of Salisbury Infirmary*®’ and in the following year attended a meeting to receive a deputation of the directors of the Great Western Railway Company relating to the formation of a junction line from Salisbury to Bath and to support such a proposal.*! He was also a manager of the Salisbury Savings Bank and Annuity Society and took his turn with other managers, all local clergymen and prominent citizens, in attending the office of the Bank, no doubt with the intention of conferring respectability on the institution.* In 1849 James Bennett made a purchase that was to provide many of his descendants with their livelihood for over a hundred years. Salisbury was the home of the Salisbury and Winchester Journal and General Advertiser of Wilts, Hants, Dorset and Somerset — one of the oldest provincial newspapers in the country. In the early 19th century William Bird Brodie (M.P. for Salisbury from 1833 until 1843)and Charles George Brodie were the proprietors of the business of bankers, booksellers and stationers as well as publishers of the Salisbury and Winchester Journal. In October 1847 the Brodies went bankrupt*’ and in the following year Bennett purchased from the trustees in bankruptcy the copyright of the newspaper for £4000, the stock-in-trade of the stationery business and bookshop for £3,905 and the freehold of the premises in the New Canal from which the newspaper was published for £2,246 16s.6d., discharged from the mortgages over the property to secure debts amounting to over £17,000. The only indication of the change of ownership was an announcement in the issue of 7 October 1848 that, ‘the assignees of the estate of Messrs Brodie beg to announce that they have sold by Private Contract their interest in the Salisbury and Winchester Journal and the Printing, Stationery and Bookselling business carried on at the premises on the New Canal Salisbury’. No mention was made of the identity of the purchaser although by referring to the foot of the final column of the last page, the reader would have learned that the newspaper was now printed and published by James Bennett Printer of The Market Place Salisbury.* So that he could devote all his time and energies into running and developing the newspaper and printing business, in 1855 Bennett entered into an arrangement with James Clench which relieved him of the responsibility of the business of a jeweller, silversmith and watchmaker so long carried on by him and his father before him. He agreed with Clench that the business would henceforth be known as Bennett and Clench. Clench would not be his partner but merely a manager entitled to receive 5% of the gross receipts of the business. All the outgoings would continue to be paid by Bennett.*’ The business as managed by Clench was carried on not in the Cheese Market but in the New Canal in part of the property purchased by Bennett from the Brodies’ trustees in bankruptcy. Included in the property was a stationery business and bookshop carried on in the New Canal premises. In 1857, Bennett granted a lease to William Brown, who was probably already his tenant as in a trade directory of 1851 he is described as a bookseller and stationer carrying on business in the New Canal, of the shop and counting room and a number of other rooms including two rooms then converted into a Reading Room and also the back Library. Brown agreed to use the premises for the business of a bookseller, stationer, bookbinder, copperplate printer, engraver, librarian, public reading rooms and patent medicine vendor® — the last use probably being a continuation of the business carried on by the Brodies earlier in the century together with their banking, newspaper and printing businesses. Bennett was now, therefore, able to devote all his energies into running and developing the printing business and in particular the newspaper, which had a wide circulation in Wiltshire and the adjoining counties, being ‘ forwarded by the Post to several Coffee Houses in the cities of London, Bath, Bristol and to the universities’. In the 1830s under the Brodies’ management, the newspaper was strongly Whig and pro-reform. However, under Bennett’s ownership, it became entirely neutral in politics, returning to its 18th-century stance of being ‘open to all parties, influenced by none’ — as it was described in 1784.*’ The newspaper’s once familiar leader headed by the arms of Salisbury and Winchester was also introduced while Bennett was proprietor. The circulation increased and in September 1854 the Journal declared the ‘Government return of stamps just issued shows the circulation of this journal, during the past year, to have been 130,000 being an increase of 10,000 on that of the highest year since the Salisbury and Winchester Journal has been in the hands of the present Proprietor’.** This claim, however, did not find favour with Bennett’s competitors. The Wiltshire County Mirror *° was a particular thorn in his side, and its proprietor Robert Farrant went so far as to describe the conduct and management of the Journal as ‘the most dishonest ever heard of in the annals of journalism’ — strong words indeed. What Farrant was suggesting was that the circulation figures were being artificially inflated JAMES BENNETT OF SALISBURY (1797-1859): JEWELLER AND NEWSPAPER PROPRIETOR 191 by counting the newspapers that were sent by post and thus attracting stamp duty. Four years later in 1858 he was repeating the allegations. On 13 October, the Mirror suggested that the Journal was: persisting in addressing a number of stamped papers to distant persons, which, if dead, their successors can hand to the kitchen-maid for fuel . . . at present we would only further observe that we wish him health, happiness, and prosperity, but feel called upon to remark that in our estimation the way to attain it is not by tampering with the employes of this establishment, especially on Sunday Mornings, or by opening and detaining letters plainly addressed to the Editor of the Wiltshire County Mirror. Needless to say, these allegations became the subject of correspondence between Bennett’s solicitors and the Wiltshire County Mirror. His solicitor’s letters sent both in 1854 and 1858 were subsequently printed by Bennett, together with Farrant’s acknowledgements, none of which substantiated the allegations made against him.*’ Not only did the circulation increase according, of course, to the Journal’s figures, but the newspaper doubled in size by the time of Bennett’s death. At the same time as producing the newspaper Bennett was also involved with printing. A notice in the newspaper in September 1854 stated that, ‘the printing of auctioneers’ Posting Bills, Catalogues and Particulars, Tradesmen’s Circulars, Law Forms, Prospectuses, Address cards as well as every description of Book-work, Music, Tracts, Sermons and Pamphlets is executed with Neatness, Correctness and on Moderate Terms’,’'and in 1857 an advertisement declared that he undertook printing ‘of every description, in any language’.*” As well as printing various books, he also subscribed to them. As early as 1834 he subscribed to the Rev. Peter Hall’s Picturesque Memorials of Salisbury * and in 1851 both printed and subscribed to James Smith’s Wilton and its Associations *' with illustrations by Walter Tiffin the Salisbury artist who painted Bennett’s portrait at about this time. Following Bennett’s death in 1859 his widow Mary continued to be involved with both the silversmith and jewellery and printing and publishing businesses until her children were in a position to assume responsibility for them. In the 1861 Census return Mary describes herself as a silversmith and jeweller employing four men and one boy, and as a printer employing fourteen men and seven boys. It is likely, therefore, that James Bennett was employing similar numbers at the time of his death. In the 1851 Census James Bennett was still living in the Cheese Market with his wife Mary and three of their children. No mention is made of their only daughter then aged twelve or of their first two sons then aged ten and eight respectively, so one presumes that they suffered the same fate as James’s children by his first marriage (and of numerous other children of the middle classes at this time) by being sent away to boarding schools at a very early age. Also living in the house were a cook, a housemaid and a nurse — as in 1841 the minimum number of servants likely to be employed in a household of this kind. Amongst Bennett’s neighbours in the Cheese Market at this time were a merchant and chemist with his wife and eight children, the chemist’s assistant and their two house maids and a parlour-maid, the City Postmaster, and his fellow magistrate, William Fawcett with his wife and three sons, one of whom, Henry, was to attain national fame as the blind politician and eventual Postmaster General. The fictional visit of Mr. Pinch in Martin Chuzzlewit to Salisbury — ‘a very desperate sort of place; an exceeding wild and dissipated city’ — provides some clues as to the character of Bennett’s shop: ‘But the shops. First of all there were the jewellers’ shops, with all the treasures of the earth on display therein, and such large silver watches hanging in every pane of glass, that if they were anything but first-rate goers it certainly was not because the works could decently complain of want of room’.” What ‘treasures of the earth’ would have been on display in the Cheese Market are known. Following closely on the Great Exhibition of 1851, the next year saw the opening of the ‘Salisbury Exhibition of Local Industry, Amateur Productions, Works of Art, Antiquities, Objects of Taste, Articles of Vertu, etc’. and the catalogue printed by Bennett at the Journal Office revealed what ‘Bennett, Goldsmith and Jeweller, Salisbury’ had on display in the Exhibition. They include: Silver goods — Centre Ornament: The pillar formed by entwined stems of the vine, growing into six branches, for candles, and supporting a basket for flowers; the base of a triangular form, and richly ornamented, supporting a group of Bacchanalian figures. Ditto, a Nautilus Shell, supported by coral branches, the base formed by sea-horses riding on the waves. Cup, after Cellini, copy of those in Her Majesty’s possession at Windsor. Tea Kettle and Stand, with Coffee and ‘Tea Service, en suite, designed in the Chinese style, enriched with foliage of the tea plant, and elaborately engraved with birds and scrolls. .. Communion Service, Camden pattern, consisting of a flagon, two chalices, patine, and plate. White Marble Gilt Clock, surmounted by an equestrian figure of Richard Coeur de Lion. Jewellery — Case of eighteen Diamond, Emerald, Ruby, and other 192 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Salisbury Exhibition of Local Industry, held in Salisbury Guildhall, 1852 Rings. Necklaces, with diamond, ruby and emerald lockets. Bracelets, with ditto. Brooches, with ditto. Lady’s Gold Watch and Chain, etc. etc. etc.°° In 1855 Bennett moved himself and his family and business out of the Cheese Market. It is not improbable that the move was precipitated by his knowledge that part of the Cheese Market was soon to be demolished to make way for the new Market House (the fagade of which now fronts Salisbury Library). As has been shown, the business, now managed by James Clench, was moved to the New Canal and Bennett and his family moved to a house more suitable to his position as a senior magistrate and proprietor of the Salisbury and Winchester Journal. In that year he took an assignment of the lease of 11 The Close from the executors of Thomas Davis’’ and moved into what was at the time described as an ‘eligible and complete family mansion’. This handsome house, now occupied by the Bishop Wordsworth School, had been ‘recently fitted up without the least reference to expense’ by Davis and was ‘replete with every possible requisite of comfort and convenience’, and provided a very spacious home for Bennett and his wife and daughter and six sons — the youngest of whom was six years old when the move was made. An advertisement in the Salisbury Journal for the letting of the house in 1845 refers to the house as being a ‘capital mansion house and offices in excellent repair . . . containing a handsome entrance hall and staircase, drawing room en suite, of large dimensions, dining room and library, with sixteen bedrooms over; also attached laundry, brew house, stable for six horses, extensive carriage room, and every requisite accommodation of a family of distinction. In the garden is also a modern greenhouse’.”* The sixteen bedrooms included a number of very small attic rooms no doubt suitable for the accommodation of the servants ( including Maria Clinch who had been the family’s nurse for at least the last fourteen years) that would be necessary to enable Bennett and his family to live in suitable style in the Close.” JAMES BENNETT OF SALISBURY (1797-1859): JEWELLER AND NEWSPAPER PROPRIETOR 193 In 1856 Bennett’s only surviving son by his first marriage, James Hatchard, was ordained deacon having graduated from Exeter College Oxford, and in the same year his only daughter by his first marriage, Catherine Bossom, was married in the Cathedral as was her right as a resident of the Close. Her husband was Alexander Minty Luckham — a farmer from Dorset who, a couple of years later, was doubtless glad to have a father-in-law who was in a position to lend him money when he took over the tenancy of Studland Farm, and found himself in desperate need of funds to pay his labourers’ wages. 1° Following Bennett’s death, his widow continued to live at 11 The Close until her demise in 1861. It was then occupied by their only daughter, Frances, who doubtless took responsibility for keeping it as a home for her brothers, the youngest of whom was only ten years old when their mother died. However in 1873 she moved out of the house and sold the whole of the furniture and effects by public auction. There can be little doubt that the contents of the house would have been in most material respects the same as those enjoyed by James during his time, and the catalogue of over 500 lots sold over three days reveals that he had a taste for theological books — as well as for port. Offered for sale were over 700 books most of which had a decidedly religious flavour (although Benson and Hatcher’s History of Salisbury was amongst them) and over 200 bottles of wine — mostly port of the 1847 and 1851 vintages; 22 champagne glasses were part of the large quantity of glass and china offered for sale as well as 20 oil paintings by ‘old and modern masters’.!! Bennett did not long enjoy his position as newspaper proprietor or as a resident of the Close, for he died early in 1859. He was buried in the cloisters - of the Cathedral where the stone marking his grave on the northern side of the green can still be seen and on the day of his funeral the Journal reported that ‘during the day nearly the whole of the shops of the city were partially closed as a mark of respect to his memory’.!” Although James Bennett was proprietor of the Salisbury and Winchester Journal for only just over ten years, his family continued to own and manage the newspaper until 1964, and so for another century Bennett Brothers — the name under which the business was soon to operate — figured prominently in the life of Salisbury; and in the entrance hall of the Guildhall hangs a mahogany wall dial clock by Bennett and Clench — a reminder of James Bennett, the jeweller and clockmaker. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author wishes to express his gratitude to the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum for permission to reproduce its copy of the early photograph of the Cheese Market; to his brother-in-law, Will Bennett, for allowing him to reproduce the portrait of James Bennett and to quote from family documents in his possession; and to Lorna Haycock, for her encouragement and assistance. Notes 1. Salisbury and Winchester Jnl., vol. CXXXIX, 26 Mar. 1859. 2. Ibid. vol. CXXXTX 19 Mar. 1859. 3. M. Snell, Clocks & Clockmakers of Salisbury, (Salisbury 1986), p.4. 4. SW J, 2496, 10 Apr. 1786. 5. P. Barfoot and J. Wilkes, Universal British Directory, 1793-1798). K.H.Rogers (ed.) Early Trade Directories of Wiltshire, W.R.S. vol. 47 (Trowbridge 1992), p. 31. 6. W. Holden, Triennial Directory, 1805), ibid., p.45. 7. W.R.O. 776/445, will of William Bennett 1817. 8. John Hutchins, History & Antiquities of the County of Dorset, ( 4 vols.1868) Vol. III, p.558 Year of John Bennett’s death incorrectly shown as 1773. 9. He became Vicar of Corsham in 1832. 10. SW J, 4253, 7 Dec. 1818. 11. Ibid. 4363,5 Mar. 1821 and Devizes and Wilts Gazette, 270, 1 Mar. 1821. 12. In the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum are 2 knives bearing his name. 13. J. Pigot, Commercial Directory 1822). 14. W.R.O. G 23/1/24, Council Min. Bk. 1822-33, 28 Sept. 1826. 15. M. Snell, op cit., p.5. 16. W.R.O. G 23/1/24 , Council Min. Bk. 1822-33, 26 Sept. 1822. 17. W.R.O. G 23/1/16, Meetings of Mayor and Aldermen Min. Bk. 1809-33, 1 Oct. 1825. 18. W.R.O. G 23/1/24, Council Min. Bk. 1822-33, 3 Oct. 1825. 19. W.R.O. G 23/1/16, Meetings of Mayor and Aldermen Min. Bk. 1809-33, 6 Oct. 1825. 20. W.R.O. G 23/1/24, Council Min. Bk. 1822-33, 7 Oct. 1825. 21. Ibid. 16 Dec.1825. 22. DW G, 509, 13 Oct. 1825. 23. Ibid. 514, 17 Nov. 1825. 24. Harrington was landlord of the Black Horse Inn Salisbury and supplied food and wine for many Salisbury banquets .M. Cowan (ed.) The Letters of John Peniston, Salisbury Architect, Catholic and Yeomanry Officer 1823-1830. W.R.S. vol. 50 (Trowbridge 1996) p. xv. 25. Private MS., Bennett family. 26. SW J, 5443, 21 Nov. 1825. 66. Ole THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE . Ibid. 5453, 30 Jan. 1826. . Ibid. . SW J, 5451, 16 Jan. 1826. . W.R.O. G 23/1/130, Soc. for the Suppression of Mendicity Min. Bk. 15 Mar. 1826. . Ibid. 4 Apr. 1827. . S.W J, 5467, 1 May 1826. . Ibid. 5469, 15 May 1826. . Ibid. 5473, 12 June 1826. . Ibid. . Ibid. 5479, 21 Jul. 1826. . WANHS Library, Devizes, Box 741, MS. 850, T.H.Baker notes. . Private MS. Bennett family. . The Clergy List (1853), p.56. . W.R.O. G 23/1/24, Council Min. Bk. 1822-33, 15 Nov. 18206. . Ibid. . Ibid. 9 May 1827. . SW J, vol. CXXXIX, 19 Mar 1859. . W.R.O. G 23/1/25, Council Min. Bk. 1833-37, 23 Apr. 1834. . Ibid. 13 June 1834. . Ibid. 16 Dec. 1835. . W.R.O. G 23/1/24, Council Min. Bk. 1822-33, 15 Nov. 1826. . John Bennett, A Memoir of the Bennett Family of South Wilts, (Salisbury 1952), p. 45. . SW J, 5670, 27 Dec. 1830. . Ibid. 5672, 10 Jan. 1830. . Ibid. 5673, 31 Jan. 1830. . Ibid. 5675, 14 Feb. 1830. . London Gazette, 22 Feb. 1831 (quoted in S W J, 5677, 28 Feb. 1831). . SW J, 5673, 29 Jan. 1831. . Ibid. 5678, 7 Mar. 1831. . Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum 112/1987, poster. . SW J, 5692, 20 June 1831. . Ibid. 5693, 27 June 1831. . Ibid. 5931, 21 Dec. 1853. . W.R.O. 776/446, Abstract of Title. . C.N.Moore, “The Salisbury cutler industry’, Wiltshire Industrial Archaeology no 4 1973),p.11. . W.R.O. 776/446, Draft conveyance. . Richmond Herald, College of Arms, to author 22 June 2000. . WANHS Library, Devizes, Box 180, MS. 1659, printed pedigree. . Wilts. Visitation Pedigrees 1623 (Harl. Soc. cv-vi), pp. 83-84. Bennett was one of the original fifty members of WANHS living in the south of the county. WANHM, vol. II, 1855, p. 34. 68. 69. 70. TAG lies 13% 74. Use 76. atte 78. 719. 80. 81. 82. 83 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93: 94. 95. 906. 97. 98. 99. WANHS Library, Devizes, Box 180, MS. 1659, printed pedigree. Charles Bowles, Modern Wilts. Hundred of Chalke, (Shaftesbury 1830), p.144. For the family of Benett of Pythouse and Norton Bavant see Burke, Landed Gentry, 1846), p. 82. J Benett-Stanford to C Partridge, 11 Feb, 1928: WANHS Library, Devizes, Box 19B, MS. 245. Described and illustrated in Jeremy Taylor, The Architectural Medal: England in the Nineteenth Century, 1978), p. 49. SW J, 5669, 20 Dec. 1830. W.R.O. 776/444, billhead. W.R.O. 776/444. This correspondence shows that confusion arose as to who was liable to pay for the silver thus causing considerable delay in payment being made. SW J, 6240, 7 Feb. 1842. J.Pigot, Commercial Directory, 1842). SW J, 5966, 5 Sept. 1836. Ibid. 5949, 9 May 1836. Ibid. 6299, 1 Apr. 1843. Ibid. 6358, 1 June 1844. Ibid. 6314, 15 July 1843. W.R.O. 911/6, recital in conveyance, 24 Jan. 1850. SW J, 6545, 7 Oct. 1848. W.R.O. 776/443, agreement. W.R.O. 776/437, agreement. Mrs.Herbert Richardson, ‘Wiltshire Newspapers - Past and Present’, WANHM vol XLI (1920), p.67. SW J, vol. CXXXIV, 30 Sept. 1854. First appeared in 1852 and was published by the Salisbury chemist Robert Farrant. Printed correspondence private MS. Bennett family. SW J, vol. CXXXIV, 30 Sept. 1854 . Brown’s Strangers Handbook and Illustrated Guide to the City of Salisbury, (Salisbury 1857), p.(a). Rev. Peter Hall, Picturesque Memorials of Salisbury (Salisbury 1834), p.v. James Smith, Wilton and its Associations (Salisbury 1851),p.vii. Charles Dickens, the Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, Chapter V. WANHS Library, Devizes, W.T. 50, catalogue of Salisbury Exhibition 1852. W.R.O. 776/447, recital in draft conveyance. S W J, 6397, 1 Mar. 1845. For a photograph of 11 The Close see Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, Salisbury The Houses of the Close 1993), p. 87. 100.A M Luckham to J Bennett, 13 Nov. 1858: W.R.O. 776/455. 101.W.R.O. 776/447, Sale Catalogue, Nov. 1873. 102.S W J, vol . CXX XIX, 26 Mar. 1859. Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 94 (2001), pp. 195-204 The Marlborough Mount Revisited by David Field,’ Graham Brown! and Andrew Crockett’ The mound situated within the grounds of Marlborough College undoubtedly formed the motte of a medieval castle, but has also been considered to have an earlier origin, comparisons being made with the neighbouring mound of Silbury Hill in the Kennet valley near Beckhampton. A recent earthwork survey and investigation of the Marlborough Mount occasioned a reassessment of the available evidence. Little evidence for prehistoric construction exists and the mound would appear to be of medieval origin. Following the abandonment of the castle, probably in the 16th century if not before, 1t was incorporated into a designed garden layout and formed a ‘mount’ with a grotto at the base, belvedere near its summit, and summer house on the summit. During the mid-18th century it was divorced from its garden context when college buildings were erected on, beside, and around the mound. INTRODUCTION Increased interest in the Neolithic monuments within the World Heritage Site at Avebury in recent years has reawakened ideas that a large earthen mound of similar form to Silbury Hill situated within the grounds of Marlborough College may also be of Neolithic date. While there is very little evidence for this, the idea of a prehistoric origin of the mound has become so entrenched within recent literature that despite the work of Best (in Whittle 1997), it almost seems to have developed its own mythology. Prompted by the _ recognition that certain garden features on the mound had fallen into disrepair and that a management plan was required to keep it in good order, the opportunity was taken by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (now English Heritage) to survey and investigate the nature of the site. The form and history of the castle, and its relationship with the town have been discussed by Brentnall (1933; 1935; 1936; 1938) and Stevenson (1992), and that aspect of the site is not covered here. The mound lies on first terrace valley gravels just above the alluvium of the present floodplain of the River Kennet. It is situated north of the river itself, and hard against the river bluff, but within the confluence of the river with a now canalised stream that formerly rose on Manton Down to the north- west of the site. The gravel terraces of this part of the Kennet valley floor are too narrow for viable agriculture and have tended to be used for meadow. The proximity of the town of Marlborough, however, has ensured that the area around the mound has been developed and taken on something of an urban aspect, being currently occupied by the buildings of Marlborough College. ARCHAEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND Aware of Colt Hoare’s view that the mound might be prehistoric (1821, 15), Brentnall assiduously recorded how, in 1912, a ‘channel was cut up the side of the mound to accommodate the flue of an engine-house chimney. About half-way up and between two and three feet in ...a pocket of red deer antlers’ was found. These were evidently of some antiquity as they were brittle and the chalk was said to have thoroughly impregnated 1. English Heritage, National Monuments Record Centre, Kemble Drive, Swindon SN2 2GZ; 2. Wessex Archaeology, Portway House, Old Sarum Park, Salisbury SP4 6EB 196 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE them, and Brentnall thought that they must be antler picks. In fact the deposit comprised a beam and one tres tine; the remainder being crowns with the brow tine broken off and burrs worn (Brentnall 1912, 24- 5). Portions of a red deer antler had previously been found at the base of the east side of the mound ‘opposite the Hall, where the bank has been walled up with sarsen’ (Eve 1892, 66), while Brentnall himself went on to record a further discovery on the slope to the south of the chapel, 36m north of the mound (Brentnall 1935). Aware that finds of antler had been found locally in Roman deposits, Brentnall was cautious in drawing parallels with prehistoric sites simply referring to Silbury Hill as ‘our greater neighbour’. However, all this seemed to confirm the view already current by the end of the 19th century that the mound was ‘supposed to be British and pre-historic like Silbury Hill’ (Eve 1892, 65), and the seed was sown. Brentnall’s documentary research clearly indicated that the mound was without doubt the motte of Marlborough Castle, which, although not specifically mentioned in documents until 1138 (Renn 1968, 239- 40), is thought to have originated soon after 1066 (Brentnall 1938: Stevenson 1983). Stukeley believed that there were antecedents, and that it lay on the site of a Roman fort, noting that Roman coins were discovered when the mound was landscaped in the 17th century (Stukeley 1776). Despite his misidentification of the site as Cunetio (Mildenhall), there are other discoveries of Roman artefacts from the site. Trenches cut in the nearby Cricket Field in 1892 produced two Roman coins and a probable pair of shears (Eve 1892, 66). Brentnall too (1938, 141) described the presence of Roman coins recovered from what was evidently the ‘castle ditch’. In fact the few excavations into the mound have produced inconclusive evidence of date. In 1892, anew cart-shed was constructed near the laundry immediately north of the mound, and plans of the grounds show that this partly lay across the line of Brentnall’s conjectured moat (Plan of Marlborough College by E Blore c.1848-50: Ground Plan of Marlborough College of c.1850 — both in Marlborough College archives). One corner of the shed cut into the base of the mound, and excavations for foundations revealed that below a thick deposit of accumulated surface soil a layer of chalk decreased in thickness towards the edge of the mound. Beneath the chalk at the base of the mound was a deposit of ‘stiff creamy clay’. The foundations for the shed itself cut into ‘undisturbed chalk’ but at 2.4m distance, presumably in the former ditch, it was found necessary to lay concrete as the ‘foreman found spongy earth and mud’. Foundations for the Victorian Physical Laboratory, built partially across the site of the ditch late in the 19th century, were inspected every day by the College Natural History Society during construction. Trenches here encountered 1.2m of rubble, evidently rubbish employed to backfill the ditch. Beneath this lay ‘mud’, at its deepest about 18m from the Mount, but the only dating material was a horseshoe and a portion of a glazed tile, and it would appear that the ditch had been scoured out (Eve 1892, 67). In 1912, when water-pumping arrangements were considered inadequate for the College, a new pumphouse partially set into the base of the mound was constructed, together with an inclined flue that led to a chimney on the summit. The latter feature occasioned the cutting of the previously mentioned channel up the west side of the mound where the six pieces of antler described above were discovered. At the base of the mound, the ancient ground level was revealed as a thin black layer of charcoal c.1cm thick, overlying alluvium, which was in turn overlaid by a thin layer of red clay. On this weathered surface lay the chalk rubble of which the mound appears to have been constructed (Brentnall 1912, 24). Neither the 1892 nor the 1912 excavations produced other finds from sealed contexts, but a portion of the charcoal found beneath the mound in 1912 was retained (Hayman 1956, 97) but cannot now be traced. Surface finds consisted of a token of ‘Edward Delamere’, a spur and clay pipe both probably of the 17th century, 19th-century pottery and a ‘doubtful’ fragment of Late Iron Age pottery (Eve 1892, 66: Brentnall 1912, 25). Further excavations were carried out in 1955 at the base of the western edge of the mound. Above the natural ground surface was a layer of packed chalk and soil, over which lay a thin layer of flint, and then a layer containing medieval refuse incorporating building materials, bone, shells, and Norman pottery. A second trench was cut in 1956, 1.8m to the south of the boiler house, the aim being to try to obtain further charcoal samples from the deposit that was encountered in 1910 and ‘two one pound jars of impure charcoal’ were indeed obtained, but evidently not dated. The stratigraphy of the earlier trench was confirmed but additionally provided details of the layer considered to represent the body of the mound, allowing it to be subdivided into four distinct layers of chalk and soil, silty soil, chalk rubble, and alluvium (Hayman 1956, 14-15). All finds made by the College Natural History Society were passed to Devizes Museum (T Rogers pers. comm.). THE MARLBOROUGH MOUNT REVISITED THE MOUND The mound (Fig. 1) rises steeply from 83m in diameter at the base to 31m across the top, and is just over 18m in height. In plan form it is very nearly circular, although post-medieval and recent activities have slightly affected its symmetry. No serious rounding or weathering of the overall profile is observable and if it were not for a spiral walk the sides would be tapered. The spiral walkway, little more than 1.5m wide, takes four rising circuits to reach the summit, but is now swathed in vegetation that all but obscures hints of soil creep and possible revetting on the inner side. Some modern revetment of the mound is present at ground level on the west and east sides. On the summit a flat-bottomed depression some 15m in diameter, surrounded by a shallow earthen bank that overlies the spiral, provides a solid base for a water tank. Nearby, closer to the north-west edge, is the brick chimney that once served the boiler-house at the base of the mound. A number of cuts and runnels scar the sides of the mound to a depth of 0.5m or more. One of these marks the line of the boiler-house flue, but others may have occurred as a result of fallen trees or of children sliding down the mound. These scars reveal that the mound ~ at least in part — is composed of chalk, although flint and sarsen building material can be observed in places, particularly close to the summit. The remains of an arched brick belvedere, some 3m wide and 2m deep, survive in the east just below the summit and adjacent to the spiral walkway. At ground level a grotto, 11m in length by 4m wide, is cut into the south side of the mound, and currently roofed by corrugated iron at the level of the first spiral circuit. Immediately in front of this is a concrete setting of three linked circles approached by concrete steps. A few metres to the west of this feature a flight of concrete steps provides modern access to the summit. : The area by the foot of the mound is laid to tarmac in order to provide vehicular access to school buildings, and in the north-east the boiler-house has clipped the base of the mound. Other school buildings surround the mound and these, together with garden landscaping, have obscured any remnant of ditch that might have surrounded the monument. DISCUSSION The garden mount Whatever the original nature of the mound, that it was used as a garden feature is not in doubt. The 197 castle was ruinous in 1541 when Leland visited Marlborough, and Sir Francis Seymour constructed a house on the site before 1621. This is thought to have been located in the same area as a later house (below), and formal gardens may also have been constructed at this time (Stevenson 1983, 169: Bradley et al 1893, 33). Parliamentary soldiers utilised the mound in 1642 and are likely to have erected defences (Stevenson 1983, 169), but in 1644, with the changing fortunes of war, Charles I took advantage of the position of Seymour’s house in order to strengthen his influence in the region, evidently fortifying it. Much damage was apparently done; ‘some of Lord Seymours own tenants have cut down and much defaced the house there’ (Bradley et al 1893, 30). John Evelyn visited Marlborough in 1654 and reported in his diary that ‘...at one end of the town we saw Lord Seymours House, but nothing observable except the Mount, to which we ascended by windings for near half a mile..’ (ibid 1893, 34). Celia Fiennes described the house as a ‘great rambling building’ when she passed through in c1701- 3, the building then ‘most pulled down’ (Morris 1947, 330) and a new one designed by John Deane was under construction for Charles Seymour, the 6th Duke of Somerset (1662-1748). After 1750 this became a coaching inn, ideally situated just outside the town on the London to Bath road, until, in 1843, it was converted into a school and became the home of Marlborough College (Stevenson 1983, 170). As the Mount was noted as a garden feature by Evelyn, the gardens themselves are likely to have been laid out before 1654, probably by Sir Francis Seymour. The mound is referred to by Stukeley quite deliberately as a mount, rather than a mound or motte, and is depicted by him as an integral part of the garden layout (Fig. 2,3 and 4). He illustrates it at one corner of a formal garden arrangement that comprised compartments to both north and south of the house with geometric flower beds or lawns, and with a long rectangular canal set into a terrace leading from south of the Mount towards the river. Garden com- partments to the north of the house were thought by Brentnall (1933, 76) to be laid out over an outer bailey that accounted for the curving nature of the Bath to London road. In the south a channel cut from the river is shown arcing around the base of the Mount and then feeding the canal. The compartment formed by this arrangement appears to have been used as a ‘wilderness’ but at its southern (river) end several formal lines or avenues of trees were present (Fig. 3). As this must have been the formal approach to the Mount (no other access is depicted) it is likely that THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE | LED, a, - ag a yo » WY , EAB ys . * \ on, lp “i\\n AY S ms Shy” ny ‘ea : 2 in By py Wi \ Ypy IMM TN N | b | ~___) enclosures } Silbury x o™ Hill ae Marlborough / Trench 3 \\ Trench 5 (304) Trench 4 Trench 9 a eat se c ee Trench 7 Trench 8 \ \v 07] \ \ \\ Trench 10 “SN Trench 11 io Evaluation trench Fig. 1. Ducks Meadow: location plan NOTES AND SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS 16m to end of trench (103) + Section E 135.5m | — — AOD [105] [107] Fig. 2. Ducks Meadow: Trench 1, plan and section THE FINDS Pottery by Jane Timby The evaluation resulted in the recovery of a small group of handmade sherds from posthole fill (104) dating to the earlier prehistoric period. The sherds, comprising 26 bodysherds and five rims, represent at least two recognisable vessels. A small number of other small miscellaneous pieces are, on the basis of paste, clearly from different vessels. Vessel 1 (Figure 3.1) A simple bowl rim with a concave profile decorated on the exterior face with horizontal parallel lines of twisted-cord decoration. A faint single twisted cord line runs round the upper rim surface. The fabric is very smooth and mid-brown to dark grey in colour. The only macroscopically visible inclusions in the finely micaceous paste are dark brown, rounded, iron grains. Eleven bodysherds in the same fabric may derive from the same vessel, some of which join but not to 221 the rim. One bodysherd has the faint traces of a line of twisted cord impressed decoration along one edge. Vessel 2 (Figure 3.2) Four rimsherds, of which two small sherds join, and six bodysherds are probably all from the same simple rim bowl. The sherds are concave and thick-walled (14mm) tapering towards the rim. The fabric is dark reddish-brown to black in colour. The finely micaceous, sandy paste contains occasional iron pellets possibly including glauconite and a scatter of other mixed inclusions. At x20 magnification these include fragments of burnt bone, flint, quartzite, organic material and at least one rock fragment which appears to be decomposing granite. In addition to the above sherds there are five other small bodysherds, orange-brown in colour with dark grey or brown cores and sparse flint inclusions, and ten pot crumbs too small to distinguish further. Provisionally this group of wares is dated to the later Neolithic (3000-2200 BC). The twisted cord decoration of vessel 1 can be paralleled with Neolithic (Grooved ware) sherds from Durrington Walls (Longworth 1971), and technically the material here has to be considered as Durrington Walls sub-style. A similar style vessel with cord impressed horizontal lines below the rim was recovered from the West Pottery 10) 100mm Fig. 3. Ducks Meadow: pottery and flint 222 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Kennet palisaded enclosure (Hamilton 1997, fig 60.1). Further parallels in terms of style and positioning of decorations can be made with bowls from Grime’s Graves, Norfolk (Longworth et al. 1988, fig 4). Use of bone tempering is extremely unusual, although possibly more common than thought, and to date none has been published from Grooved Ware (R. Cleal pers. comm.). It has been noted in Neolithic pottery elsewhere, in particular Hazleton North long cairn, Gloucestershire (Smith and Darvill 1990), and in Beaker pottery from Wiltshire (Cleal 2000a). Although Grooved Ware is by no means uncommon in Wiltshire (see Longworth and Cleal 1999 for recent gazetteer) none has been recorded to date from this particular location. Worked Flint by Graeme Walker A small assemblage of 21 pieces of worked flint was recovered. It is of interest as it contains knapping waste, a core/hammerstone, utilised flakes and a fine pressure-flaked triangular arrowhead (Figure 3.3). Green (1980) is of the opinion that these are blanks for barbed and tanged arrowheads and coeval with Conygar and Green Low types (1.e. Table 1. Catalogue of worked flint Context Description 104 1 triangular arrowhead, ?barbed and tanged blank, late Neo/EBA 1 core re-used as a hammerstone 1 primary flake 5 secondary flakes 1 Putilised secondary flake 4 tertiary flakes 106 1 secondary flake, possible scraper blank tertiary flake _ 205 — secondary flake tertiary flake, broken —_ ~) S o a secondary flake tertiary flake retouched tertiary flake =p 704 —_ secondary blade, broken and ?utilised Beaker). Although no micro-debitage was recorded, the material may all derive from tool production. The material from fill (104) is in fresh condition and the arrowhead is pristine, indicating rapid burial. DISCUSSION The small scale of the project means that little can be said of the nature of the site. Posthole [105] in Trench 1 may be interpreted as a post setting within a palisade trench [107], and the large flint cobbles at the bottom of the cut were perhaps used as packing. The presence of this feature, and another isolated posthole (204/206), suggests the existence of structures. The finds from Ducks Meadow, although few in number, make an interesting group. The bone- tempered pottery is an important addition to the small number of sites from which such material has been recovered (Cleal 2000a). In particular, comparison might be made with Crescent Copse where the similarly unabraded condition of the pottery and flint suggests rapid burial (Cleal 2000b). Unabraded pottery was also uncovered from palisade enclosure ditches at West Kennet (Hamilton 1997, 116) where it was found at the edge of post-pipes. The location of the site, some 8.5km east of Avebury, adds to the growing evidence for the importance of the Kennet Valley in the later Neolithic, and of particular interest is the proximity of this site to the Marlborough Mound. The Mound lies within the grounds of Marlborough College, across the River Kennet and 0.9km to the north- west of Ducks Meadow. While the date of the mound has been much debated (Best 1997), and a Neolithic origin has certainly been considered, there 1s little direct evidence to support it. The location of a Neolithic site so close to the mound may add to this possibility. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The project was managed by Dawn Enright. The evaluation was supervised by David Kenyon and the illustrations are by Peter Moore. We are grateful to Rosamund Cleal for casting her expert eye over the pottery and offering some useful comments and parallels. The project archive has been deposited at Devizes Museum. NOTES AND SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS Bibliography BEST, J., 1997, ‘Appendix: The Marlborough Mound’, in A.Whittle, Sacred Mound, Holy Rings. Silbury Hill and the West Kennet palisade enclosures: a Later Neolithic complex in North Wiltshire, 169-70. Oxford: Oxbow Books CLEAL, R.M.]J., 2000a, ‘Pottery’, in M. Heaton and R.M.]J. Cleal, ‘Beaker pits at Crescent Copse, near Shrewton, Wiltshire, and the effects of arboreal fungi on archaeological remains’, 74-77, WANHM 93, 71-82 CLEAL, R.M.J., 2000b, ‘Prehistoric context of the site’, in M. Heaton and R.M.J. Cleal, ‘Beaker pits at Crescent Copse, near Shrewton, Wiltshire, and the effects of arboreal fungi on archaeological remains’, 79-80, WANHM 93, 71-82 GREEN, H.S., 1980 The Flint Arrowheads of the British Isles. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports HAMILTON, M.A., 1997, ‘Pottery’, in A. Whittle, Sacred 223 Mound, Holy Rings. Silbury Hill and the West Kennet palisade enclosures: a Later Neolithic complex in North Wiltshire, 93-117. Oxford: Oxbow Books LONGWORTH, I.H., 1971, “The Neolithic Pottery’, in G_J. Wainwright and I.H. Longworth, Durrington Walls: Excavations 1966-1968, 48-155. London: Society of Antiquaries of London LONGWORTH, I. and CLEAL, R., 1999, ‘Grooved Ware gazetteer’, in R. Cleal and A. MacSween (eds), Grooved Ware in Britain and Ireland: Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers 3, 177-206. Oxford: Oxbow Books LONGWORTH, I.H., ELLISON, A. and RIGBY, V., 1988, Excavations at Grimes Graves, Norfolk 1972-1976, fasc 2, The Neolithic, Bronze Age and later pottery. London: British Museum SMITH, I.F. and DARVILL T.C., 1990, “The Prehistoric Pottery’, in A. Saville, Hazleton North, Gloucestershire 1979-82: The excavation of a Neolithic long cairn of the Cotswold-Severn group, 141-52. London: English Heritage The Devizes Millennium Horse by Mark E. P. Hows' and Peter T. Greed INTRODUCTION In 1845 the Devizes Horse (‘Snob’s Horse’) was cut by journeymen shoemakers (known as ‘snobs’) on the slope of Oliver’s Camp, an Iron Age hillfort on Roundway Down above Devizes (Petrie 1926, Newman 1997, Levien 1923). This was finally lost in the 1920s, although some features can still be seen today in favourable light (Mortimer 1997). Several attempts (1903, 1939, 1954, 1977, 1979, 1987 and 1998) have been made to recut this, all of which have failed for one reason or another. The most successful of these attempts was made in 1954 by sixth-form students at the local Grammar School. The figure was detected on the escarpment by James Smith, the then Head Boy, and, joined by Peter Greed, they researched the little known history. Peter drew up a plan (based upon the measurements of what remained of the original outline) for recutting the horse, including the calculation of all the measurements from three major survey points to the 92 location pegs which defined the outline. Permission to recut was obtained, but the expense was prohibitive. There followed three more attempts, based upon the same plan, before the latest unsuccessful effort of 1998/99. Out of this however was born the new Devizes horse. THE DEVIZES MILLENNIUM WHITE HORSE 1999 General Information The dimensions of the white horse are 45.7m by 45.0m, cut facing right in Bank Field on Roundway hill, at SU 015 641. (To visit the white horse, follow the A361 towards Swindon. Turn left at the sign for Roundway Garden Industrial Estate and follow Folly Road towards Roundway Hill. On entering Roundway take the right-hand fork at the telephone box and again ' Dr Mark E.P. Hows, 34 Whitehouse Road, Woodcote, Berkshire, RG8 OSA 224 the right-hand fork at the next junction. Bank Field is the field at the top of the rise on the right. There is a stile for public access to the field.) History This restoration attempt was instigated by a newcomer to the Devizes area, Sarah Padwick, who suggested, in a letter to the local press, that it might be a good idea to celebrate the millennium by cutting a chalk-hill figure in the shape of a crop circle on the local Roundway Down. She was unaware of the existence of the Snob’s Horse. This initiated the final attempt to recut the horse in 1998, which was unsuccessful as the site had by then been classified as an English Nature Site of Special Scientific Interest. The site would also be too close to the Iron Age fort ramparts and therefore not acceptable to English Heritage, and access to the site for cutting and ongoing upkeep is very poor. However, a local tenant farmer, farming on Roundway Down, offered certain areas of his land for the cutting of a new white horse chalk figure. The site had already been laid aside for public recreation and, although having a much more gentle slope of 1:3, it was deemed suitable, as there was a wonderful 107 degree vista to the south, overlooking Devizes and the Vale of Pewsey. A tarmac road led to the gate of the field, a stile already allowed public access and 28 ay 29 64 ( 3 Or 45 (i Ne 54 Na NN OF GA st? Sy ~< NS peer Greep Feb \ bared on orginal plan of Ae FF. 4 SS: 60 56 47 41 57 acd 50 26 6s THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE on the same tenant farm there was access to chalk pits. Views on the suitability of the site were sought from those interested bodies who had opposed the recutting of Snob’s horse. With no objections, and once permission was granted by the Crown Commissioners (who owned the land), the planning application supported by Roundway Parish Council was drawn up. This was based upon Peter Greed’s plan of 1954, but the direction in which the horse faced was reversed (i.e. to the right and being on a south facing slope it thus faced east). Construction The construction plan was as follows: main survey points sited 31 July 1999; pegging out of the outline 28 August 1999; cutting the outline of the horse 18 and 19 September 1999; Pearce Civil Engineers on site from 20 September 1999. The centre of the three survey points (marked X in Figure 1) was located using a GPS instrument, which ensured that the national grid reference reading was that stated on the planning application. In order to ensure the other two were horizontally placed, a a2 25 ¢. SUOIS64 ox x t B G7 6a 8s 69 1% 8) 84 1s 3 $3 Fig. 1, Devizes Millennium Horse: the revised plan (courtesy Cavaliers of the Devizes Millennium White Horse) NOTES AND SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS three feet long spirit level was used. One member of the team, with the spirit level, was sent about one and a half miles away, and with ‘three monkeys’ standing at the position of each survey point, directed them by mobile telephone so that they were horizontally level. Using these points of reference (marked X on the plan) the 92 points of the horse outline were triangulated. This method was the same as that used by George Marples to construct the Pewsey Horse in 1937 (Marples 1981). The horse was pegged out and joined with tape to form the outline for digging; this took two and a half hours. The cutting of the outline took place in gales and torrential rain which lasted for the whole of the weekend. However the weather did not dampen the spirits of the 250 plus who turned out to support the project. From pre-school children and their buckets and spades to those more senior citizens, all played their part. The first sod was cut by the Rev Peter King, vice-chairman of Roundway Parish Council and Councillor Noel Woolrych, the Mayor of Devizes. Each participant received an individual certificate of participation, incorporating the design of the horse with all the pegs indicated so that each could record that part of the outline that he/she had cut. Besides the great number of individuals many community groups also participated. Pearce Civil Engineering was able to have access to the site on time despite the continuing inclement weather. A novel process of infilling was used: it turned out there was no need to excavate and transport chalk from pits about three quarters of a mile away. Although it was known to be a chalk hillside from the test diggings previously carried out, the solution had not been obvious. Some of the top soil was removed from the body of the horse and then three chalk pits were cut from within (the depth of chalk within the body was estimated to be in excess of fifty feet). Working entirely with the machines within the bounds of the body of the horse, chalk was excavated from within, topsoil infilled, and the chalk placed on the top and compacted by machine. This process is known as double digging (Hows 2000) and is an unusual method for the construction of hill figures. The double digging method saves on disposal of the earth removed, the need for fresh chalk excavation elsewhere and the associated costs and effort. Sarsen stones were then lowered in place for the eye and nostril. A time capsule tunnel was also excavated and hidden, awaiting the time capsule to be placed there on New Years Eve. Wildflowers have also just been planted to encourage chalk land butterflies to live and breed on the hill. The horse (Figure 2) was finished on 29 September 1999, and the time capsule laid down at 225 the turn of the millennium. A new hillfigure (which has been the dream of Peter Greed for 45 years) has been created for the millennium by the local community. Unfortunately the old Devizes horse he wanted to restore cannot be brought back to life and will shortly join the other 28 hillfigures lost forever. However, the future of the new horse is assured for the next millennium. Fig. 2. Devizes Millennium Horse: the finished horse (photo: M. Hows) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (MH) The author would like to thank the Cavaliers of the Devizes Millennium White Horse and in particular Peter Greed, Sarah Padwick and John Markwell for their help with information and allowing me to be involved in creating and documenting the Devizes White Horse. Bibliography HOWS, M., 2000, ‘A new era in hillfigure construction’, Third Stone 38, 29-31 LEVIEN, D.V., 1923, Wessex white horses and other turf landmarks on the Great Western Railway. London: Great Western Railway MARPLES, M., 1981, White Horses and Other Hill Figures. 2nd edn. Stroud: Alan Sutton MORTIMER, N., 1997, ‘The Snob’s Horse Spotted’, Third Stone 27, 7 NEWMAN, P., 1997, Lost Gods of Albion. 2nd edn. Stroud: Alan Sutton PETRIE, F., 1926, The Hill Figures of England. London: Royal Anthropological Institute The most comprehensive hillfigure data source available can be found at http://www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/hows/ personal/hillfigs/ 226 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE The Rev Edwin Meyrick and his Family: a Brief Investigation of a Forgotten Wiltshire Clergyman by Tony Pratt The Rev Edwin Meyrick is not a figure who has left a large mark on history but even restricted investigation allows something of him to be seen. He may stand, moreover, for the many local vicars and rectors who, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, did so much historical and natural-historical work and who were so influential in the Society, especially its early years. Edwin Meyrick was born on 27 December, 1815! at Urchfont, the third son of the Rev Arthur Meyrick, vicar of Urchfont, and Mary Ann Foxton. Edwin was baptised on the first day of 1818 by his uncle the Rev Edward Graves Meyrick, vicar of Ramsbury. Edwin Meyrick’s father, Arthur, was born on 13 July 1786 but was not baptised until 31 January 1787. He went to Oxford University, attending Trinity College, and gained a BA in 1806 and an MA in 1809.’ In 1812 he is recorded’ as being the Curate at Chilton Foliat, when the Rector was Arthur Popham and the population of this small village was about 600. Arthur Meyrick died on 31 December 1855. Little is known of Edwin Meyrick’s early life. His father was incumbent at Urchfont until 1838, when Edwin was 23, so his childhood home was the small village nestling at the base of the high scarp that forms the northern edge of Salisbury Plain in the fertile lands south of the ancient town of Devizes. Meyrick had five brothers, the eldest being Edward (born 20 December 1830, died 13 December 1883).* Although very involved with Trinity College, Oxford, he was also Vicar of Ramsbury. He married Mary Batson,’ date unknown, and had at least one son, Edward Meyrick. The second, Arthur, was born 19 May 1814. He was at Corpus Christi College in Oxford.° Then came Edwin, followed, in 1817, by Thomas, who also attended Corpus Christi being a scholar there between 1833 and 1845.’ Little is known of Arthur Meyrick’s fifth son, Maurice, only that he was a Curate in later life.* The final son, Llewellyn went to Queens College in Oxford in 1838, gaining an MA.” He and his brother Maurice were in the same area in 1868, Plaistow in Kent.'’ Llewellyn was later Vicar of Baydon. There was also a sister, Emma, of whom nothing has been found. Edwin Meyrick, along with his five brothers, also went to Oxford University, attending Queens College. He matriculated on 6 December 1832, aged 17 and gained a BA in 1836 and an MA." Edwin Meyrick was not purely an academic. He was ‘a fine scholar and athlete,’!’ and it is said that he became ‘famous in the fields of archery by winning the gold medal proclaiming him England’s Champion Toxophilist,’!’ although it has not been possible to check this assertion. Edwin was married to Martha, family name unknown, nor is their marriage date available. In 1840 Meyrick was appointed curate at Baydon™ and was presented to the living of Chiseldon parish in 1847, where he remained vicar until 1866.'° His only son, Arthur, was born at Chiseldon on 1 November 1850 and baptised by Edwin a month later. Just over a year later, on 26 February 1852, Marian was born being baptised on 4 March. Edwin Meyrick was always keenly interested in antiquities, even before going up to Oxford. It is recorded that he was, ‘excited about some finds at Avebury that shed fresh light on the circle of Sarsen stones’.!° His archaeological activities were still remembered a century later, when A. D. Passmore wrote: “There is a tradition that a former vicar of Chiseldon (Meyrick) opened barrows around here many years ago.’!” He was a member of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society. The date when he joined is unclear but he was certainly a member for many years until 1871'* contributing finds to the Museum at various times. He presented a basket hilted rapier in 1853,!° a ‘fossil fish’ in 1855,°° and in 1862 iron arrows and spearheads from Aldbourne Chase”! and material found at Barbury Castle,” as well as ‘five medals struck in honour of the capture of Porto Belo by Admiral Vernon, found at Chiseldon’.*? He was also, as with many of the vicars of the time, interested in natural history and phenomena. For example, he gave the Devizes museum ‘A coloured sketch of a remarkable Parhelion [a bright spot on a solar halo], seen at Chiseldon on Monday June 25th,’ 1860 at 5.30 pm.”* 26, Long Close, Chippenham SN15 3JZ NOTES AND SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS In 1865 Meyrick exercised his franchise twice during the year in local elections. This is known because the North Wilts Herald, ‘in the interests of fair play,’ published how people voted *° Chiseldon was a small place (population about 600) but had a thriving Garden Society which held annual shows. In 1864 there is no mention of the vicar but in the following year Meyrick was much involved. The newspaper reported that: “There were some fine carrots from the Vicarage garden [and] ... A luncheon was very kindly provided at the Vicarage by the Rev E Meyrick, the respected vicar, to which a large number sat down. Present was also Mrs Edward Meyrick.’?’ Just one week later the Meyricks were back in the news, although in less joyful circumstances, and here the only ‘direct’ view of Arthur Meyrick’s childhood is obtained. The North Wilts Herald reported that: Last week a son of the Rev E. Meyrick, the esteemed rector of Chiseldon, about 13 years of age,** was in a tree gathering horse chestnuts when the bough on which he was standing broke and the unfortunate youth fell to the ground, a distance of 14 or 15 feet. On taking him up it was found that he had fractured both his arms. Mr Meyrick was from home, attending a meeting of Wiltshire Archaeological Society. Mrs Meyrick, however, immediately sent for Dr Maurice of Marlborough who set the broken limbs. From enquiry made yesterday (Friday) we are glad to report that master Meyrick was progressing favourably. °° It is interesting that the newspaper talks about ‘a son’ — Arthur was the only son, as far as can be found. This is supported by Arthur’s entry in Alumni Oxoniensis, for he followed his father and uncles and attended Oxford University, and only three years after the trouble above. He matriculated in1868 at Queens College, gaining a BA in 1871 and an MA in 1875.” He was headmaster of Amesbury School*! between 1874 and 1888, then he was in Crawley until 1898 and Hastings until 1900.” Edwin Meyrick ceased being vicar of Chiseldon in 1865 and was living atWyndersham House School at Amesbury® in 1868 and in 1870.** His appointment as Rector of Allington followed in 1876,” where he remained until 1884.*° It is known that he was involved in education. He ‘took pupils at Chiseldon and then at Amesbury’.*’ This was the same school run by his grandfather and father, although the location moved with the Meyricks. He had an income from the parish of £220 with 35 acres of glebe land and a house. Allington at this time had a population of 84 * The national Census of 1881 shows Edwin as Rector of Allington and Arthur as incumbent of Amesbury with a four year old son. Arthur had 227 married Judy (family name unknown) and the Amesbury Parish register shows that Arthur junior was born on 27 May 1877 and baptised on 25 June. His father is given as ‘clerk in Holy Orders’. Edwin Meyrick died 13 April 1893 and was buried in Amesbury churchyard, west of the path, in the plot next to Martha, who had died 19 May 1876.” The career of Edwin Meyrick is probably not dissimilar to those of many small country clergy in the middle of the nineteenth country. The Meyrick family owned several houses belonging to the family in Marlborough, but these were in the generation preceding Edwin and belonged to the other local branch, his uncle Edward Graves Meyrick’s family.*° Every male member of this family in Edwin Meyrick’s generation, and most of their children, went into the church, mostly holding unremarkable country livings. An ecclesiastical family indeed. Notes 1 Crockford, Clergy List (1884), 831. 2 Alumni Oxoniensis, 1715-1886, 949. 3. Tanner, G. F. ‘On the Rural Deaneries of Marlborough and Cricklade’, Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine (hereafter WANHM) 41 (1921), 132. 4 Alumni Oxoniensis, 1715-1886, 949: attended Trinity College, matriculated 3 April 1830 and was there on staff between 1836 and 1854. He was Vice-President of the College in 1848. 5 Dictionary of National Biography: Twentieth Century, 1901-1911, 617-18, and Meyrick, 1939 (see note 12). 6 Alumni Oxoniensis, 1715-1886, 949: matriculated 4 November 1831, student between1831-1834 but no record of degree. 7 ibid.: matriculated February 27" 1835, BA 1838, MA1841. 8 Crockford, Clergy List (1868), 456 in 1839: Crockford, Clergy List (1884) 831. 10 Maurice at Kennet Cottage, Plaistow, and Llewellyn Minister for Plaistow’s Broken Road School Church: Crockford Clergy List (1868). 1 Alumni Oxoniensis, 1715-1886, 949. 12 Meyrick, F. J. Life in the Bush (1840 — 1847): a memoir of Henry Howard Meyrick (London: Nelson, 1939), 50. 13. ibid, 73. 14 Thirty years before his brother, Llewellyn, would hold the same living. 15 Wiltshire & Swindon Record Office 3027/37 has 1865, while Crockford has 1866. 16 Meyrick, op. cit., 50 17 Passmore, A. D. ‘Notes - Barrow 19 Wiltshire’, WANHM, 49 (1949) 239-40. 18 ‘List of Annual Members’ WANHM 7 (1872), 342. 19 ‘Donations to the Museum’ WANHM 1 (1853), 216. 228 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 20 ‘Donations to the Museum’, WANHM 2 (1855), 393. 21 ‘Donations to the Museum’, WANHM 7 (1862), 120: specimens of bearded and broad arrrow, glaive and iron spearhead. 22 ibid.: portion of horse shoe and iron knife.The story of these finds, and those detailed in note 9, also appear in WANHM a couple more times: they were ‘exhibited (6 Dec 1850) .. . later donated to Coniston Museum by the Rev E. Meyrick’ (WANHM 42 (1922) 75). These items were still in Coniston in 1917, when E. H. Goddard saw them: ‘Wiltshire objects in Coniston Museum. I noticed in September 1917 in the Ruskin Museum at Coniston several iron objects from the collection of the Rev E Meyrick all mounted on one card. They were a socketed iron spearhead and two iron arrow heads with long barbs from Hillwood, Aldbourne Chase, and a fragment of a sinuous edged horse shoe with T headed nails, and one edged knife from ‘Badbury Castle’ the arrowheads may have been mediaeval, the horseshoe was probably Roman or late Celtic in age. In connection with these and apparently from the same collection are a few other iron relics and some good bronze implements but there is nothing to show where these came from or whether they are from Wiltshire.’ WANHM 40 (1919), 354-5. 23 ‘Donations to the Museum’, WANHM 7 (1862), 120, footnote to the donation record: ‘When the buildings known as “Old Work-house” at Swindon were pulled down a short time since, a medal struck in honour of Admiral Vernon, and condemnatory of the policy of Sir Robert Walpole was found. It differs somewhat from those exhibited by Mr Meyrick’. 4 ibid. North Wilts Herald 22 July 1865, 4. 2 25 26 This was before the days of the secret ballot (instigated under the Secret Ballot Act of 1872). In the election in Swindon in May he voted for Messrs Goddard and Gould, and in the Cricklade election he voted for Jenkins and Long : North Wilts Herald 26 August 1865. 27 North Wilts Herald 16 September 1865,5. Mrs Edward Meyrick was Edwin’s sister-in-law. 28 In fact he was 15. 29 North Wilts Herald 23 September 1865, 5. 30 Alumni Oxoniensis, 1715-1886, 949: Rev Arthur Meyrick, o[nly] s{on] Edwin of Chiseldon, Cleric. 31 Crockford, Clergy List (1904), 952. 32 Ibid. 33 Crockford, Clergy List (1868), 356. 34 Crockford, Clergy List (1870), 242. In this list his brother Edward is shown as being vicar of Ramsbury and his cousin Fredrick as Prebendary of Lincoln, Rector of Blickling (Norfolk) and examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Lincoln. 35 Crockford, Clergy List (1884), 831. His patron at Allington was the Earl of Craven. 36 Alumni Oxoniensis, 1715-1886, 949. 37 Meyrick, loc.cit. (note 12 above). 38 Crockford, Clergy List (1884), 831. 39 Recorded in the handwritten MSS of T. H. Baker “Transcript of Wiltshire Monumental Inscriptions held in WANHS Library’ (1927).The inscription is recorded as: Hic jacet Edwinus Mayrick in pace invectae patientiae vir obut Aprilis 13" AD 1893, aetat suae 77. Juxta Martha uxor Edwini Mayrick amantissima suorum carissima suis obiit Maii 19" AD 1876 aetat suae 56. 40 Meyrick, op. cit., 24. Frederick speaks of, ‘houses in Ramsbury, one of them of Arthur [Edwin Meyrick’s father], a house called Bodorgan after the home of the Meyricks in Anglesey. Recently Discovered Tegula Mammata from North Wiltshire by Bob Clarke During 1999 two possible fragments of tegula mammata were discovered as surface finds in North Wiltshire, the first during an organised surface collection, the second as a casual find. Tegula mamumiata was an early form of cavity walling where a tile had four conical bosses attached near the corners. The tile was then held in place on the wall by nails, the cones or mammae on the back then creating the cavity (Brodribb 1989,63). Both fragments would appear to be complete examples of mammae (Seager Smith pers. comm.). The first cone was located during a fieldwalk survey at Cuff’s Corner, Clyffe Pypard centring on NGR SU 08077643 (Clarke 2000). Evidence Engineering Training Centre, Bldg. 814, DERA Boscombe Down, Salisbury SP4 OJF NOTES AND SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS Tegula mammata from Clyffe Pypard and Silbury Hill recovered points to a structure of the Romano- British period situated within the area investigated. The ceramic assemblage is dominated by North Wiltshire wares, spanning the Ist to 3rd Century AD. The cone from Cuff’s Corner has a base diameter of 64mm and a height of 60mm which follows Type B as described in Brodribb 1989,63. It is not regular in shape, having a small bulge half way along the side suggesting that the cone was formed in a mould. The base has deliberately been roughened, possibly whilst removing excess clay from the mould which would assist in the attaching of the cone to the tile. The second cone was discovered next to a footpath at NGR SU 108675, one kilometre south of the recently discovered Romano-British site adjacent to Silbury Hill (Corney 1997,139). Ceramic evidence from this settlement at Winterbourne dates from the lst century AD (Seager Smith 1996,48).This example has a height of 57mm and base diameter of 59mm. The cone follows a similar pattern of manufacture to the find at Cuff’s Corner but displays a much more pronounced deformation. It would appear that prior to firing, the cone was squeezed leaving it irregular down one side. This example also follows Type B in Brodribb 1989. 229 (ils “40 CENTIMETRES. hl CU DISCUSSION Examples of tegula mammata are rare. It is considered that they were not used past the Ist Century AD in this country (Rook pers. comm.). The Corinium Museum holds two tegula mammata one of which displays a similar form of mammae to those mentioned above. Fragments of mammae have also been recovered during excavations in Dorchester, at both the Woolaston Road site (Brodribb 1989,65) and more recently Wessex Court (Seager Smith pers comm). Excavations at Braughing, Hertfordshire located an early (1st -2nd AD) bath-house which also produced fragments of mammae similer to Type B in Brodribb 1989 (Rook pers. comm.).’The examples above are constructed from five component parts, that is one tile and four cones which are luted onto the surface of the tile. The bases of the two new examples appear to have been deliberately roughened which suggests preparation for adhesion. The fabric of both new examples is extremely hard unlike the Corintum Museum tegula mammata which are considerably softer and more friable (Gentil pers. comm.). This may not be unusual in Roman brick 230 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE and tile products as many tubuli (box flue), a possible successor to tegula mammata, can display a range of fabric hardnesses. As noted above both cones were located within an areas of Ist —3rd Century AD activity (Clarke 2000; Seager Smith 1996,48). Other finds from these two sites suggest an early date which is consistent with provenanced examples of tegula mamunata such as the Braughing example (Rook pers. comm.). Whilst the evidence points suggestively towards both cones being fragments of tegula mammata another more modern interpretation has been made which must be taken into account. Mr E. Price, Director of the long running Frocester Court excavation considers both cones to be examples of acid bottle bungs dating to c.1850, a number having been found as surface finds on his land (Price pers. comm.). This is a view that has been echoed at the Corinium Museum where the fabric hardness was questioned and it was suggested that a 19th century agricultural date was possible (Gentil pers. comm.). If indeed a 19th century date is more appropriate for the cones then conceivably more examples should be known. The state of preservation of both cones is extremely good which suggests that far from being rare these artefacts are more often misinterpreted as relics of Victorian agricultural techniques. Whilst this may be the case, the author considers that both cones are examples of mamma which are component parts of Type B tegula mamunata as described by Brodribb (1987). ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly thanks go to Rachael Seager Smith of Wessex Archaeology for her identification and comments regarding the mammae, Paula Gentil of the Corinium Museum for her discussion and access to the Cirencester examples, Eddie Price of Frocester Court for his lively debate and Tony Rook for his most useful and interesting discussion and comments. Thanks also go to Mr. Almey of Bupton Hill Farm, John England & Mark Gillett for reporting the finds to me. Any errors are naturally my own. Bibliography BRODRIBB, G., 1987, Roman Brick And Tile. Gloucester: Alan Sutton CLARKE,B., 2000, Fieldwalk Results Centred On SU08077643 Cuff’s Corner, Clyffe Pypard And Watching Brief At 13 Broadacres. Broad Town Archaeological Project BTAP 5 & 6 CORNEY,M., 1997, ‘New Evidence ForThe Romano-British Settlement by Silbury Hill, WANHM™ 90, 139 SEAGER SMITH, R., 1996, ‘Romano-British Finds, in A. B. Powell, M. J. Allen, and I. Barnes, 1996, Archaeology In The Avebury Area, Wiltshire: Recent Discoveries Along The Line Of The Kennet Valley Foul Sewer Pipeline, 1993, (Salisbury: Wessex Archaeological Report 8), 39-48 Fonthill House by Michael Darby Since the publication of the account of the Fonthill Estate in the Victoria History,' further information about Fonthill House has come to light. In particular ‘Thomas Henry Wyatt’s and David Brandon’s drawings have been located in the Victoria and Albert Museum? and descriptions found of the early interiors. By the early 1790s William Beckford regarded ‘Fonthill Splendens’, the Palladian house designed by James Paine I, which he inherited from his father, as both unfashionable and uncomfortable, and employed James Wyatt to build Fonthill Abbey on nearby Stop’s Beacon. Beckford moved in 1807 when he promptly demolished ‘Splendens’, the only part to survive being the west pavilion which was acquired by a local landowner, George Mortimer. Mortimer added an entrance porch and service wing before selling it, as Pavilion House, in 1829, to James Morrison,MP. James Morrison, the eminent businessman and owner of several prestigious properties including Basildon Park in Berkshire, re-named the property Fonthill House and made several improvements, particularly to the Park. John B.Papworth added a The Old Malthouse, Sutton Mandeville, Salisbury SP3 5ND NOTES AND SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS new south entrance gateway and small lodge; and it seems likely that the ‘Ornamental Dairy and Cottage for J.J.Morrison, MP’ which Owen Jones showed at the Royal Academy in 1845, may also have been for Fonthill, though it is not known whether it was built.’ The precise date of Wyatt and Brandon’s first involvement is not clear, but it must have been before May 1848, the date on a manuscript specification attached to the V&A drawings. These drawings, which amount to 75 sheets and tracings, and are dated 1849, show that the architects incorporated Pavilion House as the nucleus of their design, but added to it a tower and various additional rooms in the fashionable Italianate style. No illustrations of the mid-Victorian house survive, but photographs taken at the turn of the century, by which time several further additions SOCRPAEES OOD O oo quaneannanecenssaen eae ee ee tee "* paamaenete| { 231 had been made, show clearly that Wyatt and Brandon’s scheme was carried out." After James Morrison’s death, Fonthill House passed to his son Alfred. Alfred added substantially to his large inheritance through the profits of Morrison and Dillon, London’s ‘first? Departmental store, which he founded, and invested a large part of this fortune in works of art, one contemporary recording that his houses were: ‘full of rich Persian carpets, ... Greek gems and gold work, and miniatures . . . His collection of pictures included the finest Clouet out of France and best Goya out of Spain.’ Part of this collection was housed at Fonthill, where Morrison employed Jackson and Graham, the well-known firm of decorators and cabinet makers, to provide suitable storage cabinets, shelving and Inlaid ebony display cabinet by Owen Jones from Fonthill (photograph reproduced by permission of the Fine Art Society) 232 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE decorations. For the design he turned to his father’s architect Owen Jones, who was a friend of both T.H.Wyatt and his brother (Sir) Matthew Digby Wyatt, and who would soon become famous for his Grammar of Ornament (1856). It is in Jones’s obituary in The Builder that reference is made to the Fonthill interiors. The writer notes that Alfred had gathered at Fonthill: ‘a large and fine collection of Chinese porcelain and enamels .. . comprising many of the finest objects from the Summer Palace at Pekin. The study of these objects was a delight to Mr Jones, and ...to use his own words “opened his mind to a new world of ideas with regard to colouring as practised in decorative art”, the first fruit of which are to be seen in the decoration of the staircases at Fonthill House, in which the purest Greek forms are united with the delicate tones of colour in the finest specimens of egg-shell pottery.’® Later, Jones was to publish Chinese Ornament (1867), based on these studies, as an appendix to the Grammar. The same writer also records that Jones ‘built, decorated, and fitted up’ a new room to the house to accommodate the Chinese collection described as being: ‘in the Cinquecento style, of which it forms an exquisite example. The Chimney piece and fittings are entirely of ebony, inlaid with ivory, and the ceilings of wood, panelled and inlaid, the mouldings being black and gold’. Cinquecento is a term often applied misleadingly to Jones’s designs which were purely eclectic and made no attempt to imitate or reproduce that style.’ That Jones’s work also included other rooms is made clear by the inclusion of two designs for the Drawing Room at Fonthill in the exhibition of his works held in the Albert Hall after his death.*® The major part of Fonthill House was demolished in 1921 and the remainder in c.1975, largely because its situation by the lake made the house damp and the provision of drainage difficult. In addition heating arrangements were inadequate although no fewer than five separate systems were used.’ No illustrations of the interiors are known to have survived. Some internal fitments and loose furnishings were either given away or sold between 1910 and 1920 through the firm of John Walton of Mere who retained no records,!° and a final sale before demolition was held in July 1921. Of this sale a local newspaper recorded on 21 July: ‘Fonthill House, which next week will be sold literally in pieces ... as builder’s material ... The catalogue contains just four hundred lots including . . . oak and mahogany doors, some of them inlaid . . . bookcases, carved mantelshelves ... marble stairs, chandeliers. !! It is clear that some of the internal fittings found their way into local houses. These included a set of Detail of Owen Jones mirror from Fonthill (photograph reproduced by permission of the Fine Art Society) elaborate ebony and inlaid display cabinets, fireplaces and an overmantel (possibly that described by The Builder as in the Cinquencento style) part of which belonged to the London dealers Haslam and Whiteway in 1984" and some of which passed through the Fine Art Society” and then Sothebys in the same year.'* The involvement of Wyatt and Brandon at Fonthill was not surprising. They were a well known local firm, and works such as their church of St. Mary and St. Nicholas at Wilton of 1841-5, for the Sidneys, had established them in a national context. The employment of Jackson and Graham and of Owen Jones, however, was in a different league, and should cause us to look at Fonthill with renewed interest. Although Jackson and Graham still await a full study it is clear that their work represented the highest achievements of the cabinet maker’s art in this country. They made extensive use of exotic woods imported from all over the world, employed the most intricate NOTES AND SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS of (photograph reproduced by permission g ° 2 q S Ho} iB) 2 Ww ° & Ww = SF fe) § on =) Ss ° ra ww (5) § Q isn} 1S) S s 2 Mo} B = Me} g = oO al ome) oO 5) 8 & Bh sg i) Q 234 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE carving and inlaying techniques, often in conjunction with other materials such as ormolu and enamel, and supplied the most illustrious clients including royal families not just in this country but in France, Siam, Turkey and Egypt.'? Many of the individual pieces they provided in the 1860s as part of the furnishing of Alfred Morrison’s London House at 16 Carlton House Terrace (recently restored as the headquarters of the Crown Estate Office), after working at Fonthill, were exhibited at international exhibitions and won many gold medals. And of Owen Jones who designed these pieces, and who had earlier been the recipient of a gold medal himself, that of the Royal Institute of British Architects — the highest honour that the profession can bestow upon one of its members - it has been said that he was the one truly visionary designer of his age. References 1. Victoria County History, Wiltshire, 13, 1987. 2 Department of Prints, Drawings and Paintings, D.467- 541 — 1899. 3 RA no. 1273. Recorded in R. Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts: a complete dictionary of contributors and their work from its foundation 1n 1769 to 1904, 1970. The design is described in the Civil Engineer and Architect’s Journal, July 1845, 215. 4 Illustrated in VCH Wilts and another in E.E. Dorling, Wiltshire Contemporary Biographies, 1900, 56 5 M.D.Conway, Travels in South Kensington, 1882, 158. Repeated in Dictionary of National Biography, Supplement, 1909, 1075. 6 The Builder, 9 May 1874, 385. 7 OnJones see M. Darby, The Islamic Perspective, 1974. 8 London International Exhibition 1874, Catalogue of Works by the late Owen Jones, nos. 65 and 100. 9 WANHS Library, Bennett-Stanford Papers, box 17, MSS 207. 10 Conversation between Peter Floud and Major John Granville- Morrison, recorded in V&A files, Exhibition of Victorian and Edwardian Decorative Arts, 1954. Floud visited Morrison to look for Jones’ artefacts but failed to locate any. 11 WANHS Library, Wiltshire Cuttings, 16, p.192. 12 Illustrated in C. Gere and M. Whiteway, Nineteenth Century Design from Pugin to Mackintosh, 1993, pl. 143. 13 At least one of the ebony and ivory pieces had been painted over white when acquired by the Society. I am grateful to Peyton Skipwith of the Fine Art Society for his help. 14 Sotheby’s sale of Fine and Decorative Arts, 17 February 1984. The fireplace and overmantel are illustrated on the front cover. 15 See C.Edwards, ‘The Firm of Jackson and Graham’, Furniture History, XXXIV, 1998, 238-265. Ludgershall Castle: Two Addenda THE LUDGERSHALL GEM SET SEAL RECONSIDERED by John Cherry In the excavations at Ludgershall a gem set seal was found and published recently in the excavation report (Ellis 2000, 157-8). Peter Addyman drew my attention to the suggestion made by Stuart Rigold, when he visited the site in the 1970s, that the seal may have belonged to a Michael de Rivalibus, who may have been the brother of Peter de Rivaux, Henry III’s Poitevin treasurer. This note will consider the evidence for that identification. Peter de Rivaux was an important minister and adviser of Henry III after the fall of Hubert de Burgh in 1232. He was deprived of his office in 1234 and reinstated in 1236. He does not appear after 1258. There is a good modern biography of Peter by Nicholas Vincent who has also commented on his origins (Vincent 1994). He is said by Roger of Wendover to have been a son of Peter des Roches and by Matthew Paris to have been a son or nephew. Peter des Roches was a knight under Richard I who became a priest and was appointed Bishop of Winchester in 1205. Peter de Rivaux may well have been his son, nephew or clerk and it is not impossible that Peter de Rivaux had one Dept. of Medieval and Modern Europe, The British Museum, Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3DG NOTES AND SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS or even more brothers, though there is no evidence for any (Vincent 1996, 27, 293). Peter de Rivaux’s name as given in the Close Rolls between 1218 and 1222 is ‘Petrus de Orivallis’. From 1223 the form ‘Petrus de Rivallis’ also occurs and supplants the former spelling. In the earliest wardrobe account of 1227, the form ‘de Orivallis’ occurs. The chroniclers, Roger of Wendover and Matthew Paris, usually but not always prefer the form ‘de Rivallis’. T.F. Tout comments ‘I have failed to find any Rivaux or Orivaux in Poitou from which he may have derived his name’, but Nicholas Vincent suggests that he may have been born at Roche d’Orival near Rouen in Normandy. Peter was granted the custody of the castle and town of Ludgershall on 20" July 1232, along with a great many other castles (Tout 1920, 189). The inscription on the seal reads +SECRETUM MICHAEL DRUI’B’. There is no doubt of the significance of the first two words (“The secret seal of Michael’). It is the last name that is crucial. There is no abbreviation after the letter D, although there is a greater gap after the D than RUIB. This suggests that the post probable interpretation is that the surname is DRUIBUS, and extension of the medieval name Drew or Dru (Hanks and Hodges 1988, 153; Reaney 1979, 107). Alternatively, it could be argued that the engraver had omitted the abbreviation after D (though he was able to include it after the I and B). If the surname begins with the letter R, the more likely explanation is that it is a name such as Ruba. A William de Ruba seals in 1315 (Ellis 1981, no.1975). Iron prick spur, no. 3: the plan view is traced from x-ray 426; scale 1:2 235 Another line of argument following this reading was suggested to me by Paul Harvey. The first element might relate to the old English ruh (rough); the B’ could then stand for a form of modern barrow such as Roborough, Devon (Ruweberga, 1187: Gover et al. 1931, 222), or Rowborough, Wiltshire (Rueberwe, 1255: Gover et al. 1939, 242). Rowborough was the name of the hundred in Wiltshire which contained Devizes. The Domesday extent of this is discussed in the VCH (VCH 1955), and there was certainly a Rowborough family in Wiltshire in the 13" century (Clanchy 1971, nos 187, 474). The name might therefore stand for Michael de Rowborough. Whichever of these alternatives one favours, they seem to be more probable than the suggestion made by Stuart Rigold, which does not have any validity, and may have been made in the teasing and light- hearted manner of that great archaeologist. IRON PRICK SPUR, NO. 3 by Blanche Ellis In the Ludgershall Castle excavation report (Ellis 2000, 137) no illustration was published of this spur, which was dated typologically to the mid-twelfth century. Its overall length is 130mm, and the length of neck is 52mm (including goad length 21mm). For a description and discussion of this spur see Ellis, loc. cit. References CLANCHY, M., 1971, Civil pleas of the Wiltshire Eyre 1249. Wiltshire Record Society 26 ELLIS, P., (ed.) 2000, Excavations at Ludgershall Castle. Devizes ELLIS, R., 1981, Catalogue of Seals in the Public Record Office, Personal Seals: vol. IT. London GOVER, J.E.B., MAWER, A., and STENTON, F.M., (eds) 1931, The place names of Devon, part 1. Cambridge GOVER, J.E.B., MAWER, A., and STENTON, F.M., (eds) 1939, The place names of Wiltshire. Cambridge HANKS, P.H. and HODGES, F., 1988, A Dictionary of Surnames. Oxford REANEY, P.H., 1979, A Dictionary of British Surnames. London TOUT, T.F, 1920, Chapters in Medieval Administrative History: vol 1. Manchester VCH 1955, Wiltshire: vol. 2. London VINCENT, N., 1994, English Episcopal Acta IX: Winchester 1205-38. Oxford VINCENT, N., 1996, Peter des Roches: an alien in English politics, 1205-38. Cambridge 236 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Excavation on Roundway Down by Sarah Semple! and Howard Williams? In 1840 a barrow on Roundway Down was opened revealing a female inhumation in an iron bound coffin or chest, accompanied by a cabochon garnet and gold necklace, a composite gold pin-suite and a wooden bucket with bronze mounts (Hughes 1843, 12f; Jackson 1851, 176-7; Merewether 1851, 47-8; Akerman 1855, 1-2; Robinson 1977/8, 191-5). The Roundway burial is representative of a distinct group of high-status female barrow burials, ascribed a late 7th century context based on the stylistic dates given to the surviving artefactual assemblages from the Roundway burial and the remarkable female inhumation from Swallowcliffe Down (Meaney and Hawkes 1970, 47-9; Speake 1989). Fig. 1. Location of Roundway Down barrow opened in 1840 The Roundway Project was developed as a means of drawing together all known evidence regarding the Anglo-Saxon burial and its location. In September 2000 a programme of geophysical survey and excavation was directed by the authors in the presumed area of the barrow opened in 1840 by Lord Colston and Stoughton Money. The relocation and re-excavation of the site was seen as a vital component in a reconsideration of the chronology and social significance of the phenomenon of female high status barrow burial. The project succeeded in locating the site and thus returning the nationally significant grave assemblage to its original funerary and landscape context. Furthermore, the project may have reunited the remarkable grave assemblage (housed at Devizes Museum) with the skeletal remains they once accompanied. A full publication of the results including a detailed phasing, the result of radiocarbon analysis and specialist reports is currently in progress. This purpose of this note is to draw attention to the recent work and briefly outline the results of the survey and excavation. LOCATION The location of the barrow opened in 1840 was suggested by Leslie Grinsell as the denuded mound marked on the OS 1:25,000 (SU 0059 6476). This identification was later confirmed by Robinson in his detailed account of the Roundway burial and assemblage (1977/8, 193). Aerial photographs of the area show an upstanding barrow during the 1940s and the National Monument Record in 1960 describe a heavily plough damaged barrow 0.40m high with quantities of Bronze Age pottery eroding from the eastern side. The tumulus is marked on the most recent edition of the 1:25,000 OS, but can no longer be distinguished in the field. The barrow occupied a high position on the chalk downland (205m OD) 500m WSW of the hillfort of Oliver’s Castle and 1.7km NW of the village of Roundway (Figure 1). METHODOLOGY AND RESULTS Geophysical survey was undertaken on behalf of the project by Dr. Mike Hamilton (University of Wales, Newport). A gradiometer survey was undertaken over a 100m sq. area and a resistivity survey used provide ‘The Queen’s College, Oxford, OX1 4AW ? School of Archaeology, Trinity College, Carmarthen NOTES AND SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS 2317 Fig. 2. Extent of excavations in September 2000 a more detailed image of the barrow over a 40 m sq. area. This revealed a double ring-ditched round barrow with a maximum diameter of 14m and a central negative feature approximately 2 x 2m square. A 100m sq. area was field-walked on a 20m sq. grid and a 40m sq. area encompassing the full monument was metal-detected in advance of machine excavation. Fieldwalking identified a concentration of prehistoric pottery and flint, and Roman material was also present. A sample 2m sq. test pit demonstrated plough 238 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE damage to the depth of the natural chalk. Subsequently, a 20 x 30m area was machine stripped revealing the western half of the monument (Figure 2). The trench was then extended by hand over the central feature, and a 6 x 1.5m slot dug to sample the ring-ditches in the south-eastern portion of the monument and to investigate an anomaly noted on the gradiometer survey. A 2 x 4m area was opened at the eastern corner of the trench to expose a portion of the linear feature identified on both the gradiometer and resistivity surveys. The excavations demonstrated a complex sequence of events between the early Bronze Age and the Early Medieval period. Initial analysis indicates the primary monument comprised a segmented ring- ditch [6] with a minimum of two causeways, c. 8m in diameter, encompassing a mound raised over a central grave. It has not as yet been established whether the square burial chamber ([21] c. 2 x 2 x 2m) represents the original Bronze-Age chamber or an enlargement in the Early Medieval period. It can however be argued that a central burial of Bronze Age date was removed or destroyed in the Early Medieval period. The chamber backfill included Bronze Age pottery, cremated bone and a polished flint disc, material suggestive of a primary central burial, possibly of Beaker date. Contemporary with the creation of the monument and central burial, an adult (burial 2) was placed in a crouched position on the chalk floor of the north-west terminal of the inner ditch [6] and covered with chalk (62). A series of tiny shale beads were found in the neck and wrist region of burial 2. The stratigraphic sequence indicates that a second outer ditch [5] was constructed at a later stage after considerable erosion and filling of the inner ring-ditch. A crouched juvenile burial (burial 1) was recovered from the upper fill (19) of the south-west terminal of the inner ring-ditch [6]. The burial was made after a considerable length of time had elapsed since the construction of the primary monument but subsequent to the cutting of the outer ditch. The skeleton was tightly flexed and placed on its back. ‘Two secondary cremations were located to the west of the monument. Cremation 1 [7] was inserted into the outer ditch and was heavily truncated by ploughing. Cremation 2 [9] was inserted into the north-west terminal of the inner ditch. Both cremations were un- urned and unaccompanied by artefacts. These may be contemporary with [36] a sub-rectangular pit immediately outside the outer ring-ditch to the south- west. The pit was filled with a mass of cremated remains, including animal and human bone and three large portions of charcoal. The feature was capped with a layer of tightly packed burned chalk (37). This feature may represent the sweepings from a cremation pyre, or perhaps several cremation events, deliberately buried as part of the post-cremation rites. During the Early Medieval period, the barrow was used again. A considerable portion of the mound was opened revealing the central prehistoric grave. At this point the chamber [21] was either constructed, destroying a Bronze Age central burial, or was discovered and entirely emptied and the female high-status burial inserted (oriented east- west). In either case, some attention was clearly paid to the position of the earlier grave. The contents of the prehistoric burial were removed and at least partially broken up, a residue thrown in with the grave backfill. This practice of re-using not only a mound, but also burial chambers finds a close comparison with the Swallowcliffe Down female secondary barrow burial, of 7th-century date (Speake 1989). Although an extensive area to the west of the barrow was stripped, there was no indication of further Early Medieval graves in the environs, suggesting the barrow may have been re- used exclusively by this single, central grave, rather than acting as a focus for a communal cemetery. Excavation of the central chamber indicated the grave had been broken open twice in recent times. The first was the documented excavation in 1840 [108]. Subsequently, an undocumented intrusion had halted abruptly when it was clear the chamber had already been emptied [83]. A collection of disarticulated human bone, including parts of a pelvis and skull, upper and lower arm bones, upper and lower leg bones, vertebrae and collarbone, were recovered from the 1840 backfill (82, 99) and from the later disturbance (20). These may represent the primary burial (Bronze Age), the secondary (Early Medieval) burial, or a combination of both. AMS dates are currently awaited. A small portion of the Early Medieval grave fill survived (100) from which small fragments of human bone and pottery were recovered through sieving. WIDER IMPLICATIONS The Roundway female burial is a site of national significance. It represents one of a distinct group of high-status female barrow burials dated to the late 7th century, based largely on the stylistic attributes of the artefactual assemblage (Meaney and Hawkes 1970, 47-9). Other examples from Wiltshire include the Swallowcliffe Down female burial and a number NOTES AND SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS of burials from Derbyshire, including Galley Low and White Low (Ozanne 1962-6). Accounts of the 19" century investigations at Roundway are fraught with ambiguities and contradictions and until now even the location of the barrow opened in 1840 was uncertain. The project has succeeded in relocating this important site and has returned the grave assemblage to its original funerary and landscape context, demonstrating the Roundway female burial was a secondary burial reusing an ancient monument. The project has also potentially reunited the artefacts with the skeletal remains. Osteological studies will contribute to our understanding of the buried individual and most importantly, the use of the assemblage as an integral component of the argument for presenting a 7th-century date range for female high-status barrow burial can now be tested scientifically. The dating of the recovered bone will have national implications for our understanding of the social and political makeup of the 7th and 8th centuries and for widening our understanding of the symbolic use of ancient monuments for high-status mortuary purposes. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Project was generously supported by grants from the Research Fund of the School of Archaeology, Trinity College, Carmarthen; The Committee for Archaeology, Oxford University; The Meyerstein Awards, Oxford University and The Eric Fletcher Fund, Society for Medieval Archaeology. Our thanks go to Mr. J. Butler and Carter Jonas Associates for permission to undertake the excavation and to Dr. Paul Robinson for first suggesting the project and for his continued interest and advice. Particular thanks go to Dr. Mike Hamilton for conducting the 239 geophysical survey, to Dr. John Blair and Dr. Trevor Kirk for their invaluable assistance throughout and to Duncan Coe for his interest and helpful advice. Our thanks also go to all the excavation team and in particular to Alex Langlands (University College London) and Marion Manwaring (University of Wales, Cardiff) for their assistance in running the season. Finally we would like to thank Alan Aldridge for his time and the loan of his equipment and Ann Jarvis for arranging our accommodation and facilities at Bishop’s Cannings. Bibliography AKERMAN, J.K., 1855, Remains of Pagan Saxondom BRADLEY, R., 1993, Altering the Earth. Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Monograph Series Number 8 HUGHES, J.B., 1843, ‘Communication to The Society’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries 1, 12f. JACKSON, J.E. (Revd.), 1851, ‘Note on the Remains of the Anglo-Saxon Period: Relics presented by J.Y. Akerman to the Society of Antiquaries’, Archaeological Journal 8, 176-7 MEANEY, A. and HAWKES, S.C., 1970, Two Anglo-Saxon Cemeteries at Winnall, Winchester, Hampshire. London: Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph Series No.4 MEREWETHER, J., 1851, Diary of a Dean OZANNE, A., 1962-6, ‘The Peak Dwellers’, Medieval Archaeology 6-7, 15-48 ROBINSON, P., 1977/8, “The Merovingian Tremissis from ‘Near Devizes’: A Probable Context’, WANHM 72/3, 191-195 SEMPLE, S.J., 1998, ‘A fear of the past: the place of the prehistoric burial mound in the ideology of middle and later Anglo-Saxon England’, World Archaeology 30:1 SPEAKE, G., 1989, A Saxon Bed Burial on Swallowcliffe Down. London: English Heritage WILLIAMS, H., 1997, ‘Ancient Landscapes and the Dead’, Medieval Archaeology 41, 1-32 Swanborough Tump by Sarah Semple! and Alex Langlands’ Swanborough Tump is situated in the ancient parish of Manningford Abbots, close to the western boundary of the hundred of Swanborough (SU 1300 6010) (Figure 1). The Tump presently comprises a low mound, positioned in an area of woodland, immediately adjacent to the Pewsey to Manningford Bruce road. Despite the mutilated condition of the monument, no evidence for any antiquarian intervention has emerged. The Tump is thought to be the marker for the meeting-place of Swanborough 'The Queen’s College, Oxford 7 Institute of Archaeology, University College London 240 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE MARLBOROUGH ~ SWANBOROUGH _ TUMP MANNINGFORD Fig. 1. Location of Swanborough Tump Hundred. In August 1999 a survey of the mound and surrounding earthworks was undertaken by the authors to provide an accurate record of the monument and to investigate the extent and arrangement of the remains. The meeting place of Swanborough Hundred is indicated by the hundred name, Swaneberga hundred 1086 Exon DB (Gover et al. 1939, 317). The Liber Monasterii de Hyda, a 15th century document (Edwards 1866), preserves a land charter of AD 987 for Manningford Abbots, an estate running south from Swanborough Tump (Sawyer 1968, 865). In the attached set of estate bounds written in Old English swanabeorh (swan + beorh: ‘barrow, hill or mound of the peasants or common men’) is mentioned, a reference to Swanborough Tump. The Tump therefore, is presumed to be the late Anglo-Saxon meeting place for Swanborough Hundred (VCH 1957, 182; VCH 197555, 106): ‘The monument is positioned on a long low natural rise at the junction of two routes (Figure 1). The north-south path to the east of the monument, known locally as Dragon Lane, is of uncertain date. The northern section from Cocklebury Farm to the Tump is unlikely to predate the Kennet and Avon Canal and Cocklebury Farm. The southern section leading to Manningford Bruce may be earlier. The east-west route may however, form part of a long distance communication linking Burbage to Pewsey and continuing west to Woodborough and possibly Etchilhampton (Figure 2). The antiquity of the Burbage to Pewsey section is suggested by a number of references evident in pre-conquest charter material. The existence of the road is indicated also in the charter for Manningford dated to AD 987 (Sawyer 1968, 865), where the OE bounds running east from Swanborough Tump in the direction of Pewsey travel along the weges (way or road). The bounds then depart from the road continuing in a north-east direction along the smalan granan paeth (small... path), eventually meeting the bradan wege (broad way or road), represented by the modern north-south route from Marlborough to Manningford. West of Swanborough Tump, the mention of a stanford in the AD 941 charter bounds for Beechingstoke (Sawyer 1968, 478) provides possible pre-conquest evidence for the continuation of the Burbage to Pewsey to Swanborough route west to Woodborough. The existence of a modern place- name Harepath Farm located on the outskirts of Burbage, on the course of the Pewsey to Burbage road, may be further evidence of the road’s pre- conquest importance as a major thoroughfare. The route may also have passed in immediate proximity to the suggested late Anglo-Saxon meeting place, Etchilhampton Hill (see Tinkfield Farm, Gover et. al. 1939, 313; Aliki Pantos pers. comm.). Pewsey functioned as an important settlement in the 9th century and the route may be of this period if not earlier. NOTES AND SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS The Tump is located in Frith Copse, woodland probably no earlier than the 19th century; the earliest record being Frith Coppice c.1840 TA.To the north is Swanborough Field and there is some suggestion of a second barrow in this field in the vicinity of the Tump (Beaven pers. comm.). An earthwork survey was undertaken at a scale of 1:100 (Figure 3). A long low earthwork was identified oriented north-east to south-west. The long mound is partially truncated at its north-west end by the road and has two definite summits. Two lobes are visible, positioned either side of the south-west end. The survey indicates some destruction or intervention may have taken place in the past creating the unusual shape of the mound to the north-west. The twin summits suggest either further undocumented intervention towards the centre, or that the monument comprises two mounds built in immediate proximity. A comparable pair of round barrows is located on Roundway Hill. These are visible as a single long 241 mound, but intervention in the 19th century demonstrated the presence of two monuments (SU 0150 6480). The use of a Neolithic long barrow as an early medieval meeting place is evidenced at Knightlow (Warwickshire) and the selection of Bronze Age round barrows is an attested phenomenon e.g. Mutlow (Cambridgeshire). A late Anglo-Saxon construction date for some meeting mounds, evidence for a purposeful and politically driven period of monument construction in the 10th and 11th centuries, is plausibly argued by Adkins and Petchey (1984, 243- 151). The erosion of a considerable portion of Swanborough Tump by the Pewsey to Woodborough road could be used to argue for a terminus ante quem of the 9th century, but damage in more recent centuries cannot be ruled out. The survey presents an accurate record of the form and extent of the monument at the present time. Its structure and the date of its construction still remain to be established. a AVG (825) . Wic Leage? vi i) (Auuilfond (1086) ) e@Brpces Ruwan Hlincae? . 7 Hlincks Heafod? af a eNigs SIG eA l Up a J nC 6 K 1 Beorhtnothes Ge Maero? , 1 f vA “ Water Course A, Ceathonininge Leade?e~ aN, x s 4 / jades? g / s \ Ne be B ff / Crens forda = Wilcotum (940) an / eS ( Projected Route 2 ~“ xO NS . ‘ Wileote Gao) 77 a eS . Gis aes a \ \ \ — : 7 rs / ‘ \ \ Ras ee \ S Wie ey ~s \ PaaS 50m Contour \ See ae é Be a ee N es ~ 5 \ Ye —— Ye pea} y D x Wideberghg (#208) » Swanborough Tump eis ON Aen sey poe Parish Boundary \ / \ Swanabeorh is _ sa b ‘ a y S ne Le eee N= \ a < TS Re aad —< bi Wiodde? OEB ce Oe \ ait p a \ \ ” jounds Stantord™ ~~ 4 \ Oe X = \ YH =~ S aN i Sees 7 on thone Gaeran? 2 Re \ ~ bi Wiodde? : \ K | E Wi ee \ = g &/ 5 a Smalan Wege Sa . So RSiAy A 4 Botenwel 2 on thone Gaeran? \: ; ze g = fe aucheal aie i \ \ Manvaaeron) ue fe Soe Y ane ey) pes \ \ . Maningatorde (987). : we ys — oN Segsonaoey \ “Maneforde (1086) \. sees ey, I} / aI ia in ‘ ! =a Maningatorde De a ‘ i IB — s) ler —eft on Afene + } ¥ Za % ; S/ = nee a __Manyngetora, ie eh N “2 Slo < \ | Breuse((1279) l ) Nee : (¢ — yy \ eras Bl = Os / } a ‘ , Ves s\e >~ { a TEN A N b\" x AS BSN eis | ie ee as o > / “a . % \ z north niwetune (892) ~ e } *Manyngetord *. Gil Newetone (1086) SS Aa /yf fg, Bon (1279) | fe (GA iD lg —" ( Sta he? be / é Fig. 2. Possible routeways demonstrated through documentary evidence 242 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Fig. 3. Survey of Swanborough Tump ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank the Visconde Nuno de Pereira Machado for permission to undertake the survey and J. Munby QC for assistance with access. We wouid also like to thank Mr. N. Beavan and Mr. I. A. Dannreuther for their invaluable information regarding the site. Emma Marks assisted with the survey and the project was undertaken on behalf of the Compton Bassett Area Research Project and was made possible through funding from The Royal Archaeological Institute, Queen’s College, Oxford and The Meyerstein Awards, Oxford University. Our thanks also go to Dr. John Blair, Aliki Pantos and Dr. Andrew Reynolds for their comments. gual et US Tih Bibliography ADKINS, R. A. and PETCHEY, M. R., 1984, ‘Secklow Hundred Mound and Other Meeting Place Mounds in England’, Archaeological Journal 141, 243-252 EDWARDS, E. (ed.) 1866, Liber Monasterti de Hyda. Rolls Series GOVER, J.E.B., MAWER, A. and STENTON, F.M., 1939, The Place-Names of Wiltshire (EPNS 16). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press SAWYER, P. 1968, Anglo-Saxon Charters An Annotated List and Bibliography. London: Royal Historical Society VCH 1957, Victoria History of the County of Wiltshire, Vol. 1(1), R. B. Pugh et al. (ed.). London: Institute for Historical Research VCH 1975, Victoria History of the County of Wiltshire, Vol.10, E. Crittall (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 94 (2001), pp. 243-255 Excavation and Fieldwork in Wiltshire 1999 Amesbury 15 Church Street, Rear of Antrobus Arms Hotel (SU 1549 4151); Saxon / Medieval Field evaluation of a proposed housing development on land to the rear of the Antrobus Arms Hotel was carried out by AC archaeology. The evaluation comprised a single trench. Evidence for a large north- south aligned ditch was uncovered. On the basis of its size and position within the town it may be that the ditch formed the boundary to either the early settlement or to the ecclesiastical complex located nearby. Although pottery from the upper fill is considered to be 12th to 13th century, it is possible that the feature is of earlier date (Saxon or early medieval). Other features (probably pits) were also present to the south-east of the ditch, some of which also contained medieval finds, although others also included more recent artefacts. The trench contained much root disturbance and a complex sequence of alluvial deposits. Boscombe Down Airfield (SU 1755 3983; SU 1836 4087); Prehistoric, Roman and Undated Fourteen watching briefs were carried out at the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) site at Boscombe Down during 1999 by DERA Archaeologists Bob Clarke and Colin Kirby. Twelve recorded only natural or modern deposits and two produced archeological features. The first (at SU 1755 3983) recorded a single ditch probably of post- medieval date. The second (at SU 1836 4087) recovered a number of artefacts including worked flint, a chalk loom weight and Roman pottery from the Alice Holt Kilns, Hampshire. The Old Vicarage, Church Street (SU 1525 4145); Medieval and Post-Medieval Archaeological deposits, including chalk-block walls and human skeletal remains, were revealed during re- excavation of a service trench adjacent to Ss Mary and Melore at Church Street in Amesbury. They were recorded by Asi. Human remains comprised disarticulated and in situ skeletal elements, likely to be of medieval date. Other deposits included two superimposed chalk block walls containing brick fragments within their cores, probably of 18th-century date. The in situ skeletal remains have been left undisturbed, and the disarticulated material has been re-buried in plastic bags adjacent to their point of discovery. The small archive of site records (Asi 3122 will be deposited with Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum and, in microfilm form, with the National Monuments Record at Swindon. Below Vespasian’s Camp; ?Roman Following a study of aerial photographs by David Jacques, a Masters student at Cambridge University, a geophysical survey using standard resistivity and fluxgate magnetometry was carried out by Colin Shell on a putative Roman site in a bend of the River Avon at Amesbury, below Vespasian’s Camp. Features were revealed but the results were not conclusive. DERA, Boscombe Down (SU 1744 4071; SU 418 139); Early Bronze Age and Prehistoric Remedial works to a Scheduled Monument, the upstanding bowl barrow SNM 28939, were required after contractors, working on behalf of the Ministry of Defence, undertook earth-moving activities without archaeological supervision. The remedial works, undertaken with Scheduled Monument Consent by Wessex Archaeology on behalf of COMAX Property Services, comprised the cleaning and recording of the area disturbed by the earth-moving. In order to assess the preservation of the monument and assist in the formulation of forward management plans for it, a measured survey was also undertaken and a section excavated through the barrow ditch. The survey revealed significant disturbance to the monument by i) truncation during building works and 11) trenches for modern services. The full extent of the barrow ditch was located within the area disturbed by earth- moving. The excavation indicated some damage to the ditch from the footing of a 1918 building, but 244 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE otherwise the sequence of fills within the ditch survived relatively intact. A watching brief was carried out during the excavation of 23 geotechnical trial pits along the proposed route of a i3 km water main. Worked and burnt flint from buried soils were found in two of the pits with indications of buried soils (undated) in seven others. A V-shaped ditch was also recorded. 1 Boscombe Rd (SU 1665 4090); Roman Wessex Archaeology carried out an archaeological watching brief on land previously occupied by the bungalow ‘Dun Servin’, at 1 Boscombe Road. A previous archaeological excavation immediately to the east, revealed a square enclosure of Romano- British date, probably a field or garden plot. The enclosure was replaced by two trackways between which lay a series of quarry pits or working hollows, also of Roman date. Another length of the southernmost trackway was observed during the watching brief. Ditches, which probably belong to the extensive prehistoric or Roman field system known to exist in the area, were also identified. Other features included probable pits or ditch terminals likely to be of Roman date. Butterfield Down (SU 166 412); Roman A further watching brief by Wessex Archaeology in the area of new housing development on the northern part of the Romano-British settlement at Butterfield Down (Development Phase 5) was undertaken during pipelaying. On this occasion no archaeological finds or features were observed and this probably indicates that the limits of the known prehistoric activity and Roman settlement lie to the south of the Phase 5 area, or was much was less intensive or long-lived in this part of the site. Amesbury—Winterbourne Stoke Global Crossing Communications Trench (SU 020 425-170 400); Undated A watching brief was conducted by Wessex Archaeology during the laying of a telecommunications cable through the village of Winterbourne Stoke and the Stonehenge World Heritage Site. For much of its length the cable trench was cut in the southern verge of the A303; consequently, ground disturbed by road construction or services was encountered through much of the area observed. Twelve archaeological features were recorded in a restricted area to the west of Longbarrow Crossroads. It is thought that these are part of an undated (probably prehistoric) enclosed settlement previously noted from aerial photographs. Ansty Ansty Manor House (ST 9558 2632); Medieval An archaeological evaluation was undertaken behind Ansty Manor, Ansty by AC archaeology in March 1999.'Two trenches were excavated in advance of the proposed development of an orangery and swimming pool. The trench on the site of the orangery, directly adjacent to the manor house, showed previous truncation of the subsoil to form a terrace with no archaeological deposits present; the second trench revealed two subsoil features below successive soil and demolition deposits. A portion of a linear ditch, running along the contours of the hill at the rear of the site, contained 12th to 13th century pottery. A second hollow proved undatable. Ashton Keynes Cotswold Community (SU 033 962); Bronze Age, Iron Age and Saxon Work by the Oxford Archaeological Unit (OAU) began on a new gravel extraction quarry at Cotswold Community on the Wiltshire/Gloucestershire border, adjacent to Hills Aggregates’ Shorncote Pit. Work in both counties revealed early Bronze Age pits; middle Bronze Age structures, fencelines, waterholes and pits; later Bronze Age and Iron Age boundary features, pits, a burial and two four-post structures; the edge of a Roman settlement with associated trackways and a field system; and Saxon hall buildings, one sunken- featured building, a burial and pits. Of particular interest was a late Bronze Age or early Iron Age pit alignment, 140m long within the area excavated, which comprised 1 64 pits within a double row (Figure 1). The fills of the pits were very clean, and the environmental evidence suggests that they lay in an open, grazed landscape away from settlement. This boundary is parallel to the modern county boundary (also the medieval parish boundary) and only 10m west of it. Excavation will continue in 2000. Avebury The Sanctuary, Overton Hill (SU 119 681); Neolithic Prior to Mike Pitts’ excavation at The Sanctuary (see Pitts, this volume) a geophysical survey was carried out using a caesium vapour magnetometer which showed correspondence with the excavated features EXCAVATION AND FIELDWORK IN WILTSHIRE, 1999 Fig. 1. Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age pit alignments at Cotswold Community (© OAU) and suggested the possibility of other features outside the excavated area. The survey was hampered in one area by the presence of a large linear magnetic anomaly running across the site parallel to the A4. The work was undertaken by Colin Shell and Gill Swanton. Avebury World Heritage Site Archaeological Field Monument Condition and Management Survey The OAU has recently completed a Condition and Management Survey of all recorded field monuments within the Avebury World Heritage Site. The survey was undertaken in order to review the physical condition and vulnerability of all 289 recorded field monuments within the WHS and to identify a framework of appropriate management options. A two-stage approach was adopted. This comprised a 245 desk study review of existing documents followed by a rapid field assessment of all identified monuments. The survey examined each of the monuments and assessed its condition, stability and vulnerability, focussing upon the archaeological, aesthetic and ecological aspects of field monument character. Results for the desk study and field assessment stages were collated into a computer database developed specifically for the project. The results of the project were reported in a fully illustrated report that has been deposited with English Heritage. The survey produced some interesting, if rather depressing figures. It suggested that only 16% of the monuments within the WHS were well preserved, and that 40% no longer survived as above ground earthworks. It was noted that the majority (67%) of the monuments were displaying some evidence of deterioration or continued vulnerability to either landuse or visitor pressure. The survey examined the various types of damage which were affecting the monuments. This suggested that 51% were being actively plough damaged, 7% were being damaged by burrowing animals, 12% by vegetation or tree damage and only 5% by visitor erosion. Eleven new sites were identified. Details of these are contained in an appendix to the main report. Bishopstone (north) Mill Bank, Hinton Parva (SU 2330 8348); Roman, Medieval and Post-Medieval Fieldwork undertaken by Rosemary Boon and Bernard Phillips revealed a triangular earthwork, evidently of two phases. Traces of a stone built dam across an adjacent stream, and visible stone reveting or walling, along with the field name, suggests that this is the site of a watermill. Three small trenches cut into the site revealed further stone walling and chalk foundations. The second earthwork phase, the cutting of a deep and extensive hollow at the northern end of the site, apparently took place to permit construction of one or more buildings at a lower level. Evidenced by clay pipes and pottery, the hollow had been partly infilled following dismantling of the structure around 1660. Included amongst the infill was a large quantity of iron slag. A single Romano- British and three Medieval sherds were also found. Hinton Parva (SU 2324 8340); Roman, Saxon and Medieval A small trial trench cut by hand in an area of slight earthworks, separated from strip fields by a boundary ditch, produced a single grass tempered sherd, two 246 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Roman sherds and many Medieval, but no trace of any structures. The work was undertaken by Bernard Phillips. Hinton Parva (SU 2320 8334); Roman and Undated A surface search of flower beds by Bernard Phillips revealed two unworn Romano-British pottery sherds and a large quantity of iron slag. Boyton Earthwork Enclosure in Great Ridge Wood, Monument No. 26850 (ST 930 364); Undated AC archaeology carried out the archaeological monitoring of mechanical clearance of tree stumps on and around the scheduled monument in Great Ridge Wood, in addition to recording the extent of the scheduled monument. No archaeology was disturbed. Broad Town Broadacres (SU 0905 7860) and Broad Town Road (SU 0862 7900); Medieval and Undated ‘Two watching briefs were undertaken for the Broad Town Archaeological Project (BTAP) by Bob Clarke, DERA Field Archaeologist, in conjunction with groundwork for development. The first at 13 Broadacres produced only modern features. The second, at 27 Broad Town Road, produced a range of features including an earlier profile of the Broad Town - Wootton Bassett road. Archaeozoologist Tracey Stickler carried out a full assessment of a quantity of animal bone recovered from the old road surface. A test pit was also excavated at East Farm House (SU 0893 7798) by Bob and Alice Clarke. It produced an assemblage of 14th - 15th century ceramics and a small amount of animal bone from an ashy deposit sealed by a deep clay topsoil. Calne North Calne Distributor Road (SU 0015 7265); Roman and Medieval The OAU carried out a field evaluation of the proposed route of the North Calne Distributor Road, on behalf of Surveying and Management Consultancy in February 1999.The evaluation investigated a linear earthwork which formed part of the Beversbrook deserted medieval village (SAM 906).The earthwork was interpreted as a hollow way. Romano-British pottery was recovered from its lower fill and Roman and medieval sherds from the upper. The amount of Roman material found during the evaluation confirms the findings of an earlier evaluation of the road corridor by the OAU in July 1994, which identified a Roman ditch. The hollow way is likely to be medieval in date, although it is possible that it is Roman in origin. The amount of Roman pottery recovered suggests that there is a contemporary settlement in the vicinity, possibly within the area of the medieval village. Chapmanslade Short Street Farm (ST 8370 4875); Roman Removal of topsoil during laying of a tennis court revealed the truncated oval-plans of at least three fired- clay structures surrounded by charcoal-rich soil and extensive spreads of Romano-British pottery. The pottery comprises grey-wares mainly, but also some mica-dusted fabrics similar in form and texture to New Forest wares, though of a more rustic nature. The structures, which are assumed to be kilns, have been left undisturbed beneath the tennis court. The work was undertaken by Asz. Chippenham Showell Farm (ST 906 715); Early Bronze Age and Roman Following earlier field evaluation, an excavation of c.lha was carried out by Cotswold Archaeological Trust (CAT).The earliest structure was a roundhouse defined by a drip gully with a diameter of 10.6m, which produced two sherds of Beaker pottery. A further highly truncated roundhouse with a diameter of c.7m was found 63m to the west; a barbed and tanged arrowhead was recovered from its interior. At least three phases of Roman (early 2nd — early- mid 3rd century) agricultural activity were found. The earliest consisted of gullies defining a series of agricultural plots. The relationship between these gullies and another aligned north-south was not established. A further deep and steep-sided gully may have had a structural function. These were cut by a ditch that enclosed a series of pits and postholes. The enclosure ditch was filled in the mid 2™ century, and was cut by a sinuous gully of uncertain function. In the mid 2™ to early 3 century a field system was laid out on either side of a ditched trackway. At least six plots could be defined, one of which contained a corn- drier. Two inhumations and several unurned cremations were also found, although the Roman EXCAVATION AND FIELDWORK IN WILTSHIRE, 1999 (rather than prehistoric) date of the latter is not assured. The site produced a good pottery assemblage, including fragments of Wiltshire moulded imitation samian ware, and several brooches. The focus of the agricultural activity lay beyond the area available for examination, probably to the north-west, although another evaluation showed that settlement remains extended into a field immediately to the north-east. The activity at Showell Farm is likely to be related to the early Roman agricultural boundaries detected in a previous evaluation 0.5km to the east, on the gravel terrace of the river Avon. Clyffe Pypard Cuff’s Corner (centred on SU 0807 7643); Iron Age and Roman Surface collection was carried out by members of BTAP and students from Swindon College under the direction of Bob Clarke (DERA Field Archaeologist) as part of an ongoing project exploring the development of Broad Town village. A substantial number of Roman finds are recorded on the Wiltshire SMR in this area including burials and coin hoards. A ceramic assemblage dominated by Savernake and West Swindon fabrics was recovered, along with a number of flint-tempered sherds dated to the Late Iron Age. Large amounts of Pennant Sandstone roofing tile and ceramic building material were also noted, including part of a tegula mammata. These results tend to indicate that the known building (SMR No: SU07NE304) 200m to the south is part of a more extensive site than first thought. Codford St. Peter’s Church (ST 966 399); Post Medieval An archaeological watching brief was undertaken by AC archaeology during groundworks associated with a new drainage scheme within the churchyard of St. Peter’s. Eight pits were excavated together with a series of drainage trenches. This resulted in the rapid recording of exposed parts of a series of brick-built vaults on the south side of the Church of unknown, but probably late 18th or 19th century, date. Collingbourne Kingston St. Mary’s Church (SU 2395 5585); Undated and Modern An archaeological excavation in advance of new drainage works was undertaken by AC archaeology at 247 St. Mary’s Church, Collingbourne Kingston, during November 1999. Three trenches were hand excavated within the churchyard, one along the outside of the east chancel wall, and two others extending eastwards away from the church. The trench closest to the church ex- posed foundations extending out from beneath the wall and buttresses. No earlier phases of the church were discovered, nor were any in situ burials encountered. The ground around the east chancel had been evidently disturbed in modern times, probably associated with 19th- century repairs to the church fabric. Small quantities of medieval pottery and decorated floor tile were collected from these disturbed levels. Cricklade Horse Fair Lane (SU 1020 9372); Roman and Medieval An application to construct a dwelling at the rear of 92 High Street initiated an archaeological evaluation. The garden boundaries appear to contain, as do most of the walls on both sides of the High Street, the Burghal Hidage strip, laid out in the 10th century. The cutting, undertaken by Bernard Phillips, showed that the earliest occupational evidence comprised residual 2nd to 4th century pottery and tile. Activity from the 10th to 16th century comprised a cutting for a timber tank, a ditch, an occupation layer, a post pit, a wall foundation trench and a pit or ditch terminal. From the early Medieval levels, there is evidence of bone and horn working, including part of a skate made from a horse bone. Devizes Brickley Lane (SU 0195 6090); Iron Age and Roman The OAU was contracted by Broadway Malyan Planning (Town Planning Consultants) on behalf of the building consortium of Bloor Services Ltd., Persimmon Homes Wessex Ltd., and Swan Hill Homes, to undertake archaeological excavations on land to the east of Brickley Lane. The works concentrated on three of the four areas of potential highlighted by the evaluation carried out by Thames Valley Archaeological Services during the summer of 1999. Area 1 was found to contain a double enclosure which included gullies and fencelines, and a pit scatter, both of which were of late Iron Age date. A Roman trackway, possibly on the line of an earlier drove-way, was also found, and respected the alignment of the enclosures. All features were concentrated on a low crest in the eastern half of the 248 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE site. Area 2 revealed two gullies and a shallow ditch that seemed to be part of a medieval field system. Area 4 was found to contain ten ditches and a gulley, representing a sequence of field boundaries of probable Roman date. Wayside Farm, Nursteed Road (SU 016 603); Iron Age / Roman Excavation of a prehistoric and Romano-British site at Wayside Farm was carried out by AC archaeology, following an initial evaluation of the site earlier in the year. The evaluation initially comprised of 15 trenches, but was extended following the discovery of extensive Roman occupation in the western part of the site. Subsequent excavation revealed four inhumations together with two stone structures (possibly ovens) and a number of cut features, largely concentrated in the northern portion of the site. Across large parts of the southern area a buried soil horizon or midden contained significant quantities of Romano-British artefacts, including both locally-produced and traded pottery, metalwork, worked stone and animal bone. Settlement activity is likely to date to the latter part of the Roman period. Downton Chalton Furze (centred on SU 1385 2310); Iron Age and Roman Surface artefact collection was carried out by members of Swindon College under the direction of Mark Brace, Longford Estate Field Archaeologist. The ceramic assemblage comprises Late Iron Age to Late Roman types, although it is dominated by fabrics from the New Forest and Oxfordshire kiln sites along with examples of Wessex grog-tempered ware. This suggests an intensification of activity during the 3" - 4th century. A substantial number of rotary and saddle quern fragments were also located. Witherington Farm, Witherington Rd (SU 1810 2510); Post-Medieval Field evaluation was carried out by Wessex Archaeology of a 2.9ha plot of land proposed for the construction of a recreational fishing lake. The proposed lake development lies within former water meadows that date to at least the 17th century. Remains of channels which fed water from the Avon across the meadowland are still extant. The area also contains several ring-ditches of possible prehistoric date. No archaeological features or deposits were revealed by the evaluation. Durrington Stonehenge Road (SU 1532 4425); Prehistoric An archaeological evaluation was carried out by Bristol and Region Archaeological Services (BRAS) in July 1999, prior to the erection of houses on land opposite the Stonehenge Inn. Two trenches were excavated. During the manual cleaning of the trenches a number of linear marks were observed cut into the surface of the chalk. The pattern very closely resembles prehistoric plough or ard marks. They probably date between the middle Neolithic and late Iron Age, and are similar to those recorded beneath the South Street long barrow, near Avebury, and at Durrington Walls, which lay less than 200m to the south-west. Heytesbury Park Street Gates (ST 9315 4265); Iron Age and Medieval Machine-excavated trenches, located over the footprints of two proposed dwellings adjacent to the former Park Street gates of Heytesbury House, revealed ditches, gullies, post-settings and other subsoil deposits from which stratified pottery of Iron Age and early to late medieval date was recovered, along with animal bone and burnt stone. The results of the work suggest that the site contains in situ archaeological deposits associated with the medieval precursor of Heytesbury, and hitherto unsuspected prehistoric activity. The work was undertaken by Asz. The archive (Asi 3093) will be deposited with Devizes Museum and, in microfilm form, with the National Monuments Record Centre at Swindon in due course. Latton Eysey Manor Farm (SU 1100 9440); Prehistoric to Post-Medieval Evaluation of an extensive site bordering the north bank of the River Thames by CAT identified at least eight areas of archaeological interest. The earliest feature encountered was a small ditch of possible Neolithic/ early Bronze Age date that may have been part of a rectilinear enclosure visible as a cropmark. Three small early-middle Iron Age agricultural settlements were identified, one of which produced evidence for metal- working. A large enclosure (110 x 60m) with associated settlement activity also dated to this period. Late Iron Age or Romano-British activity was limited compared to the preceding period and comprised only the occasional scattered pit and gully. EXCAVATION AND FIELDWORK IN WILTSHIRE, 1999 Medieval features which may have been associated with the deserted medieval village of Eysey (outside the study area) were also encountered. These took the form of ditches and upstanding earthworks probably representing ridge and furrow cultivation. In the same area, post-medieval ditches and upstanding earthworks are probably associated with water management. The southern and western parts of the study area lay on a floodplain that contained numerous former watercourses associated with the River Thames and Ampney Brook. When excavated, several of these relict channels were found to be rich in organic material including wood, seeds, and molluscs, although no dating evidence was recovered. Latton Lands (SU 760 680); Prehistoric? Gravel extraction by Cotswold Aggregates continued to be monitored by the OAU on the west side of the new A419 road. Part of a ring-ditch was located adjacent to the road (PRN 625), which had been evaluated by CAT in 1995. The exposed area was planned, covered and fenced off for preservation in situ. The only other archaeological features found were two pits containing burnt stone and charcoal, and medieval plough furrows. Work continues in 2000 on the east side of the road. Malmesbury Town Wall, Holloway (ST 935 873); Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon Archaeological investigations by BRAS continued adjacent to the Nuns’ Walk. An Iron Age ditch, and Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon ramparts were revealed together with associated ceramics. A series of radiocarbon dates were obtained from soil samples giving a date range of c.800-110BC for the development of the hillfort. Marden All Saints Church (SU 086 579); Undated AC archaeology undertook hand-dug cable trench excavations in December 1999 at All Saints Church, Marden, as part of a scheme to install new flood lighting. Three trenches were excavated. No dateable finds were recovered and no in situ burials were disturbed. Marlborough Marlborough College (SU 1840 6885); Medieval Machine-excavated trenches, supervised and recorded by David Murdie for Asi, were dug within the 249 proposed footprint of a swimming pool at Marlborough College. They revealed a small number of ambiguous features sealed beneath topsoil from which large quantities of unabraded medieval pottery were recovered. In the absence of evidence for wholesale soil movement, the pottery is likely to be in situ, and the site is therefore likely to be close to surviving medieval deposits. The lack of well-defined features and the paucity of other artefactual and ecofactual data suggests that any deposits close to the site are unlikely to be domestic in nature. The pottery recovered may reflect casual discard at the periphery of the medieval town. Marlborough Mount, Marlborough College (SU 1837 6866); Medieval to Post-Medieval The Marlborough Mount is a Scheduled Monument (Wiltshire No. 321) located within the grounds of Marlborough College. Wessex Archaeology was commissioned by Donald Insall Associates Ltd., on behalf of the Marlborough Mound Trust, to produce an archaeological desk-based assessment and undertake limited archaeological investigation. The then RCHME was also commissioned to produce a measured survey of the monument. The mound formed the motte of a motte-and-bailey castle from at least the middle of the 12th century and was incorporated into extensive garden works in the 17th century. It has been supposed that the construction of the brick Belvedere, on the south-east face of the mound, dates to this period. The archaeological works were undertaken as part of the College’s intention, aided by a benefactor, to consolidate and return the monument to a stable condition. The relationship between the Belvedere and the spiral pathway was established through hand-excavation of a test-pit at the front of the Belvedere. On the north-west face of the mound, a section of an exposed scar was drawn, recording the profile and structure of the mound at this level. No excavation of in situ mound material took place. Mildenhall CTI Transmitting Station, Forest Hill (SU 2097 6882); Modern Wessex Archaeology undertook a watching brief during the excavation for a concrete plinth within the CTI Transmitting Station on Forest Hill. The Transmitting Station lies within the earthworks of a Scheduled, probably Iron Age, enclosure (AM WI 850) with extant earthworks extending to the east and west of the Transmitting Station. No pre-modern deposits were encountered. 250 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Ogbourne St. Andrew St. Andrew’s Church (SU 188 724); Medieval The church of St. Andrew lies north-west of the present settlement, and a large round barrow is located within the present churchyard, 4m east of the chancel. The barrow and church are aligned and positioned on a substantial, but low, east-west earthwork that extends beyond the churchyard into an adjoining paddock to the west. Excavation of the barrow in 1884 recovered a male secondary interment of Anglo- Saxon date and established that the barrow was a Bronze Age construction. During September 1999 survey was carried out within the churchyard and the western paddock to establish the relationship of the church to the barrow. The earliest fabric of St. Andrew’s church suggests a late-12th century structure. Geophysical results indicate that the church may have formed part of a medieval manorial complex comprising numerous stone structures set within a sub-rectangular enclosure, which would also have encompassed the barrow. The work was directed by S. Semple and formed part of a programme of fieldwork examining Anglo-Saxon use of prehistoric earthworks. Quidhampton Fugglestone Red (SU 1175 3250); Prehistoric and Post-Medieval A fieldwalking survey by CAT recovered a small assemblage of struck flint as well as the usual background scatter of post-medieval material. Salisbury Anchor Brewery Site; Medieval to Post-Medieval Wessex Archaeology was commissioned by Gleeson Homes to undertake an archaeological evaluation of a c.0.47 ha area of land at the site of the former Anchor Brewery in Gigant Street, in advance of the proposed residential redevelopment of the site. Stage 1 of this evaluation comprised machine-excavated trenches within the southern part of the site, along with a short watching brief undertaken during the removal of contaminated material. The machine trenches identified the presence of well-stratified remains of medieval buildings along the Gigant Street frontage. These are likely to be of 13th/14th century origin. However, these remains have been severely truncated by modern activities. In the backlands of the development site the evaluation found deep garden soils along with a few archaeological features of medieval or post-medieval date. No evidence was found to suggest that the line of the former Town Ditch is located within the development site. Greyfriars Close (SU 1467 2940); Modern Wessex Archaeology was commissioned to carry out an archaeological evaluation in advance of proposed housing development adjacent to Greyfriars Close. ‘The trenches revealed extensive disturbance. No features or finds of archaeological interest were found. The Close (SU 1430 2973); Post-Medieval Observations maintained during refurbishment and renovation of No. 47 (a dwelling based upon a 17th century stables) recorded the remains of at least four building episodes additional to those published by the RCHME. Sub-surface deposits related to at least two building episodes beneath the present structure, utilising mortar-bonded masonry. Sub-surface internal features possibly allude to an earlier structure or function, and evidence of significant structural alteration to the creation of a large open space within the building above first floor level, preceding insertion of the existing stud-and-brick partition walls and the creation of the existing attic. The work was undertaken by Asi. The archive of site records (Asi 3121) will be deposited with Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum and, in microfilm form, with the National Monuments Record Centre at Swindon. Cockey Down to Bishopdown Farm Water Main Replacement (SU 165 317); Prehistoric / Early Roman During January and February 1999, AC archaeology undertook a watching brief and excavation along the route of the Cockey Down to Bishopdown Farm Water Main Replacement, near Laverstock. The pipeline route was approximately 1.5km long and ran through areas of known archaeological activity. A group of features close to the reservoir was dated to the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age. These comprised a large shallow hollow, cut by a possible pit or ditch and partially bounded by parallel curvilinear gullies. Four intensely burnt patches of in situ clay with flints were sited at the perimeter of the hollow. Nearby to the east, two substantial pits and a possible third marked the apparent eastern limit of this activity, whilst to the south a linear gully was encountered. Quantities of pottery dating to the Late Bronze Age / Early Iron Age and worked flint were recovered from these features. Two additional, uninvestigated features were sited away from the water EXCAVATION AND FIELDWORK IN WILTSHIRE, 1999 pipe trench - a large possible spread or hollow and further patches of in situ burning which suggests that activity extends south-east into the area of the reservoir. Late Iron Age/early Romano-British activity is represented by a well-preserved positive lynchet, with pottery of this period recovered from the revetment bank. A second lynchet was undated. A section was recorded through the Medieval deer park pale boundary of Clarendon Park, which survives as a well-preserved double bank and ditch. This showed the pale to be of a single construction episode, with a naturally filled ditch. No evidence was found for a pale fence surmounting either bank, and no finds were recovered. Roselea / Avonview, Stratford Road, Stratford sub Castle (SU 135 319); Neolithic, Roman / Medieval An archaeological evaluation and subsequent excavation were undertaken by AC archaeology on land between Roselea and Avonview in advance of house construction. The investigations revealed archaeological evidence from the early Neolithic, Roman and medieval periods. Worked flint of probable Neolithic date was recovered both as residual material within the fills of later features and as a sparse scatter across the surface of the natural alluvial deposits. Two phases of Roman activity were identified. The earlier comprised two pits, two postholes and a soil spread producing finds including pottery of the 1° — 2"4 centuries. The two postholes appeared to respect the alignment of the nearby Roman Road. These features were sealed by a later phase of soil horizons and roughly metalled surfaces which yielded 2"¢ — 3" century pottery. Portions of further, similar surfaces were subsequently observed within an adjacent foundation pit. The majority of excavated features were of medieval date, which had truncated earlier archaeology over more than half the excavation area. Medieval features consisted of a series of intercutting linear ditches, gullies and postholes. Pottery recovered from these features dates to the 12th/13th centuries. 19a New Canal (SU 1445 2991); Undated and Modern An archaeological evaluation at 19a New Canal was carried out by AC archaeology. Two trenches contained extensive disturbance from modern service trenches. Trench 1 (located against the eastern boundary of the site) revealed 0.8m of modern overburden, lying directly on natural valley gravels. Trench 2 (located against the western boundary of the site), revealed evidence for a compacted chalk 251 surface or foundation, as well as a linear feature and post-hole, all likely to be of 19th century or later date. Beehive Park and Ride Scheme (SU 1445 3350); Neolithic The third stage of fieldwork by Asi at the site of the Beehive Park and Ride Scheme comprised targeted excavation of features identified by evaluation, and a watching brief during topsoil stripping. Three Neolithic pits were excavated, from which pottery, flint, animal bone and a very rich environmental assemblage were recovered. Post-excavation analysis is on-going. The watching brief supported the conclusions of the evaluation - that much of the rest of the site contained no interpretable archaeological deposits except for components of a linear ditch system on the south-west side of the junction. These were observed to divert at Philips Road, presumably respecting the barrow cemetery in the field to the north. It is anticipated that the work will be fully reported next year. Shalbourne The Old Mill (SU 3160 6365); Post-Medieval Timbers exposed during under-pinning works below present floor levels of the late c.18th mill building, appeared to be components of an intact oak floor frame overlying at least one phase of a chalk revetted channel. Though undated, there is no reason to assume anything other than a medieval date for the structure, the rest of which almost certainly extends for some distance beneath the present building. The timbers have been left in situ, protected from the underpinning concrete by polythene. The work was undertaken by Asi. Shrewton The Catherine Wheel (SU 0685 4385); Post Medieval - Modern An archaeological evaluation undertaken by AC archaeology examined an area of garden belonging to the former Catherine Wheel public house. Two trenches were excavated in areas where new buildings were proposed. Over the northern part of the area, soils were found to overlay a weathered chalk surface covered by post-medieval / modern disturbance. To the south, the remains of a flint and brick wall and associated chalk floor were recorded, with traces of a second building (or possibly an external courtyard) extending beyond the excavated area. All these structures are of post-medieval date. 252, THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Southern Electric watching briefs Wessex Archaeology has been commissioned to carry out a series of watching briefs during cable and overhead support pole replacements throughout the county. The following observations were made during 1999. Overhead Support Pole Replacements, the Winterbournes (SU 1722 3434; SU 1774 3523); Undated Watching briefs were carried out during the excavation of sockets for replacement overhead support poles within sites at Winterbourne Earls and Winterbourne Gunner near Salisbury. No archaeological features were observed at either location. Upper Avon Valley, 11 Kv Cable refurbishment (SU 1157 5620; SU 0885 5775; SU 1358 5527; SU 1507 4702); Undated A watching brief was carried out during the excavation of sockets for replacement overhead support poles and also during trenching for underground cabling at four sites in the Upper Avon Valley (Charlton, Marden, Upavon and Figheldean). One possible archaeological feature was observed at Charlton, and a small assemblage of artefacts was recovered from Marden. Knowle Farm, Bower Chalke (centred on SU 0244 2364); Undated A watching brief was maintained during underground cable laying and pole erection in the vicinity of Knowle Farm. Three undated archaeological features were observed: two east-west aligned boundary ditches and a large sub-circular feature. Two sherds of medieval pottery were recovered. Sutton Mandeville All Saints Church (ST 9860 2885); Saxon / Early Medieval A single trial pit against the external face of the west tower of All Saints Church, Sutton Mandeville, was excavated in February 1999 by AC archaeology. The purpose of the investigation was to provide information on ground conditions, the nature of the footings and the archaeological content of an area in which drainage works were proposed. Foundations to both the west wall of the tower and the south-west corner buttress extend to some 1.60m below the present ground surface with at least three graves present and in part overlain by its foundations. A loomweight fragment recovered from a deposit which is likely to be the fill of one (or more) of these graves suggests either that these burials are of late Saxon / early medieval date, or that the digging of the graves had disturbed deposits of that period. Swindon Railway Heritage Centre (ST 14300 84900); Industrial A watching brief by CAT identified brick-built machine plinths and floor reinforcements during groundworks associated with the conversion of the railway works to a museum. Industrial debris derived from manufacturing processes and building rubble associated with the construction and expansion of the works during the late 19th century were also recorded. No archaeological deposits pre-dating the GWR works were encountered. Commonhead Roundabout Site (SU 1923 8218); Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age and Roman Evaluation following geophysical survey by CAT found a Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age pit and a spread of debris possibly associated with pottery manufacture. Two Roman pits may be associated with the Roman site examined on an adjacent site to the west. St Margaret’s Hospital, Stratton St Margaret (SU 1765 8755); Medieval to Post-Medieval An evaluation was undertaken by Wessex Archaeology, on behalf of CAPITEC, who are proposing to redevelop the site of St Margaret’s Hospital. The proposed development site, covering just over 5 ha, comprises the hospital and adjoining land to the west. Three trenches with a total length of 277m were excavated in fields to the south and west of the hospital buildings. The relicts of medieval ridge and furrow were observed in the south of the site and, although badly degraded, also in the west. A single ditch was recorded in the north-west, but the only finds from it were fragments of ceramic field drain, and the ditch is likely to represent a post-medieval field boundary infilled relatively recently. No evidence for any earlier activity on the site was found. Tidworth Seven Barrows; Modern An archaeological watching brief was carried out over remedial works to remove modern debris from the EXCAVATION AND FIELDWORK IN WILTSHIRE, 1999 Bronze Age barrow cemetery of Seven Barrows. The cemetery, which lies within Tidworth Camp in the Salisbury Plain Training Area, is a Scheduled Monument (WI 10206) and the work, which forms part of a wider programme for the improved management of the monument, was undertaken with Scheduled Monument Consent. The modern debris was removed from the upstanding barrows without causing any further damage, and no additional archaeological features or finds were recorded. The work was undertaken by Wessex Archaeology. Upton Lovell Upton Lovell G2a; Bronze Age Using air photographs and geophysics the de- scheduled round barrow Upton Lovell G2a was successfully relocated. Resistivity and magnetometry (both fluxgate and caesium vapour) were used to clarify the position and shape of the early 19th century excavation of the grave pit and confirm the diameter of the ditch. The work was undertaken by Colin Shell and Gill Swanton Warminster Home Farm, Bishopstrow (ST 895 444); Mesolithic/ early Neolithic and Post-Medieval Machine trenching by Asi on behalf of CgMs Consulting, along the line of a proposed access route to land at the rear of Home Farm, revealed parallel linear ditches of post-medieval date and scatters of late Mesolithic / early Neolithic worked flint within otherwise undifferentiated subsoils. Whilst the linear ditches are not remarkable, the flint assemblage indicates an episode, otherwise poorly represented within the chalkland landscapes of the south Wessex downs, of tool manufacturing or seasonal camp-based activity, and is of considerable archaeological significance. Comparison with lowland Mesolithic sites revealed in the adjacent Kennet watershed, suggests that this material is likely to be distributed for some distance across the site. West Overton North Farm (SU 128 688); Iron Age An element of a proposed Countryside Stewardship Scheme at North Farm, West Overton, was to remove certain archaeological sites from arable cultivation. The site in question, a Scheduled Monument, is the eastern portion of a Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age 253: enclosed settlement. Its limits needed to be accurately established to comply with the requirements of the Scheme. Aerial photographs of the western portion of the enclosure (under different ownership) clearly show the surrounding ditch and internal pits. A magnetometer survey was carried out by a team from the University of Wales. The results indicate that the enclosure ditch may be multi-phase, the spread of pits lies across the whole site and there are probably other structures present. During the survey surface finds were collected, including large, unabraded pottery sherds, probably from the pits, and brought to the surface by the most recent ploughing. West Overton water meadows (SU 13 68); Post- Medieval A two-day course on fieldwork run by Mark Corney and Gill Swanton for the Centre for the Historic Environment, Bristol University, included the earthwork survey of part of the last remaining water meadow in the upper Kennet Valley. Initial research indicates that there may be more than one phase to the system and early aerial photographs show how it continued downstream. Westbury Brook Lane, Industrial Park (ST 0855 0523); Medieval Evaluation of three areas of land at the Brook Lane Industrial Park, was carried out by AC archaeology during December 1999. The evaluation comprised 39 trenches, the majority of which produced wholly or largely negative results, with only a single trench containing extensive archaeological evidence. The trench was located on a raised gravel terrace considered likely to delimit the extent of archaeological activity. Features consisted of pits, postholes, linear gullies and occupation spreads characteristic of settlement activity; the associated pottery indicated a late-12th to 13th century date. These deposits are likely to relate to earthwork evidence recorded in fields immediately to the south. Wilton Kingsbury Square (SU 09800 31200); Medieval The excavation of a single 2 x 2 x 2m test-pit on the site of a proposed swimming pool at the rear of 3 Kingsbury Square, revealed pits and deeply stratified deposits relating to late medieval, and later, backland activity. However, despite the large quantity and variety of artefacts recovered, many of which are likely 254 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE to be residual, no Saxon or pre-13th century material has been recovered, nor are there indications of earlier structures beneath the pits. The work was undertaken by Asi. The archive and accompanying records (Asi 3015) have been transferred to Thames Valley Archaeological Services, who have since excavated the site. Various parishes Southern Range Road, Salisbury Plain Training Area The Southern Range Road, constructed in 1999, provides a military access road some 24km in length across Salisbury Plain Training Area from Warminster in the west to Tilshead in the east. A programme of site investigations and evaluations prior to commencement of construction had identified a number of areas of archaeological interest, many of which were further examined before the building commenced. This summary includes only those sites investigated by AC archaeology during the construction period. Seventeen areas in which a “strip-and-record” exercise was mounted were selected on the basis of known and anticipated archaeological content, so as to allow for an appropriate level of investigation and recording to be carried out in advance of the main contract works reaching those locations. A watching brief maintained throughout the groundworks programme identified a further nine areas in which rapid-response excavations were undertaken. The principal positive findings are set out below, prefaced by the site reference number. A programme of analysis leading to the publication of the results is currently being prepared. AC1000 A low density of isolated features and findspots was recorded along the length of the main route. These were mainly undated isolated gullies and lynchet banks or subsoil findspots. However, a small cluster of features was recorded at Breakheart Hill (ST 971 448). These comprised a large east-west aligned V- shaped ditch and a smaller, parallel flanking ditch, recorded at the point where a known linear earthwork (SPTA 297) traversed the route. Although a bank is apparent in the well-preserved section of the monument to the east, little evidence for this survived in the extensively vehicle-rutted section within the easement. These features may be part of a prehistoric ‘Wessex’ linear earthwork, although the only pottery evidence recovered was of Romano-British date (2nd to early 3rd century), from the tertiary fills. Some 23m to the north of this group lay a small undated east-west aligned gully, while 40m to the south a pair of undated east-west aligned linear trackways was recorded. AC1001/ 2 Archaeological features comprising four lynchets and a gully were recorded near ST 935 449, where the route traverses a hill crest to the east of West Hill. The site lies adjacent to extant lynchet systems, of which the recorded features are thought to be slighted continuations. No conclusive dating evidence was recovered. Two additional linear features were also identified during easement stripping along the lower eastern slopes of West Hill. These probably relate to post-medieval agricultural activity. AC1003 Two groups of archaeological features were identified during easement stripping within an area of set-aside arable along the base of the southern slope of East Hill near ST 938 445. Two intercutting curvilinear ditches are suspected to be of prehistoric origin, although no closely datable artefacts were recovered. Further to the west, three large, shallow linear features may represent part of a poorly-preserved lynchet system. AC1004 Two groups of archaeological features were identified during easement stripping to the east of Field Barn near ST 915 453, on the part of the main route approaching Battlesbury Hillfort. The westernmost of the two groups comprised largely undated ditches, gullies and possible postholes, although small quantities of worked flint and burnt flint were recovered from some fills. The features were sealed by alluvial deposits and may be of prehistoric origin, although the surviving remains are too fragmentary to state confidently whether they relate to settlement activity or agriculture. To the east of the possible prehistoric features, an area of intensive Romano-British activity was recorded. Described in order from west to east, this comprised a large north-south aligned holloway or sunken lane, with a single posthole cutting a fragmentary possible surface along its eastern edge. This holloway was flanked to the east by intercutting, roughly north-south aligned gullies, the fill of one of which contained a cow or horse skeleton at the point where it narrowed prior to merging with a large pit or scoop. Other pits, gullies and amorphous shallow EXCAVATION AND FIELDWORK IN WILTSHIRE, 1999 scoops or areas of tree root disturbance lay nearby; some features including quantities of Roman finds. Some 40m to the east of this activity, a NE-SW aligned, metalled trackway was flanked by ditches on both sides. Roman pottery and animal bone, including a complete horse skull, were recovered from the fills. AC1005 A group of linear features was identified during easement stripping West of Knook Castle in the area of ST 955 441. Most of these were relatively shallow gullies, probably representing field boundaries, although one substantial recut ditch was also recorded. Very few finds were retrieved: one fill of the large ditch yielded six fragments of animal bone, and fragments of Roman pottery were retrieved from one ditch and gully. AC1006/7 Two groups of archaeological features were recorded during the construction phase of groundworks along Knook Spur on Knook Down near ST 950 440. A large NE-SW aligned linear ditch cut at near right- angles an earlier curvilinear ditch, the greater part of 255 which lay beyond the easement to the north. These features had been previously investigated during the Stage 1 (pre-construction) works, during which the curvilinear ditch was shown to be part of a Bronze Age enclosure; the current excavation confirmed the results of this work. Pottery of the Bronze Age / Iron Age period, animal bone and burnt and worked flint were recovered from the fill of the linear ditch, while the enclosure ditch yielded worked flint, foreign stone and flecks of charcoal. The area exposed within the enclosure ditch circuit was hand-cleaned, although the sole feature present was an isolated, undated posthole. AC1009 Archaeological features were sporadically present along a c.1.2km length of easement at Battlesbury Spur centred on ST 898 460. A cluster of features included undated ditches and pits, and a group of truncated possible postholes (all undated) which although fairly well-defined, did not appear to forma cohesive structure. Worked flint, including a transverse arrowhead from one of the post-holes, may indicate a prehistoric date. Other features in the general area include pits containing later prehistoric pottery. THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 94 (2001), pp. 257-264 Reviews Monumental Inscriptions of Wiltshire: an edition, in facsimile, of Monumental Inscriptions in the County of Wilton by Sir Thomas Phillipps, 1822. Edited by Peter Sherlock. Wiltshire Record Society, Vol. 53, 2000, 458 pages. Price £20.00, hardback, ISBN 0 901333 30 1. The discovery of a number of burial urns in a field in East Anglia in 1658 led Sir Thomas Browne to meditate on the meaning of existence and the effect of time in dissolving memories and identities. ‘the greater part of must be content to be as though they had not been, to be found in the Register of god, not in the memory of man.’ One method of attempting to achieve a degree of immortality was to have a monumental inscription erected at the place of burial. Such epitaphs, often adorned with figures and armorial bearings, adorned cathedrals and parish churches as well as their burial grounds and attracted the attention of antiquarians who realised their importance as a source for the genealogies of landed and professional families. Sir Thomas Phillipps, the voracious collector of books and manuscripts and self confessed victim of ‘vellomania’, set about recording the epitaphs in the parish churches of Wiltshire. Initially he worked as an associate of Sir Richard Colt Hoare aiming to produce for the north of the county a history as Colt Hoare was to publish for South Wiltshire. This never came to fruition and the lasting result of his efforts was the Monumental Inscriptions of Wiltshire. Published in 1822 it had a print-run of just six copies of which five are extant. The limited distribution of such an important source for the history of Wiltshire families and churches coupled with its haphazard order and lack of an index has led it to be rather overlooked by researchers. So it is to the credit of Mr. Sherlock and the Wiltshire Record Society that this facsimile volume with the editorial apparatus of a scholarly introduction and comprehensive indexes can now take its rightful place on private and reference library shelves. The significance of the work lies primarily in the recording of epitaphs before they had decayed to illegibility and at a time just before so many were swept away by zealous church ‘restorers’. Although the majority of the deceased are recorded in parish burial registers nevertheless the contextual information of the epitaphs covering genealogical and biographical details are lacking from the bald register entries. Furthermore Phillipps instructed William Hensley, who undertook much of the work of transcription, to include donative tablets recording parochial charities or gifts for the upkeep of churches and their fabric as well as descriptions of armorial bearings. Thus subscribers to the recasting and rehanging of bells of Cricklade St. Mary in1780 are recorded. In Winterbourne Bassett he copied from the parish register early eighteenth-century baptisms of the Baskerville family, who were later to be uprooted and placed on Dartmoor in the imagination of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The vestigial sign of the initial concept to produce a history can be seen in the inclusion of incumbents and lords of manors. There is much here for the student of funeral ritual and custom in the flowery verses extolling the virtues of the deceased. George Herbert’s poem on the earl of Danby’s monument is a cut above the general standard of doggerel. Two acrostic epitaphs in Corsley and Collingbourne Ducis add a little variety. Although concentrating mainly on tablets inside churches in the cases of Mere, Chute and Great Bedwyn those in the churchyards were included while at Wanborough, South Marston, Stratton St. Margaret and some parishes in the Hundred of Highworth work was limited to the churchyards only. Inevitably the work has limitations. It did not cover every church. Although North Wilts occupies 286 pages compared to the 108 for the south of the county, several churches in the Swindon area were omitted, possibly as a result of a dispute over payment with J. W. Osbourne. Clyffe Pypard was overlooked as well despite the survival of the transcripts among Phillipps’ papers in the Bodleian Library. 258 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Furthermore there are errors in transcription. Discrepancies exist in the versions published by Phillipps and by Colt Hoare in some south Wiltshire parishes. Nevertheless such shortcomings cannot detract substantially from the value of the work .While it may be reasonable to wish that the Clyffe Pypard epitaphs might have been included in an appendix for the sake of completeness it would not be feasible to expect the text to checked against surviving tablets. This can be left to local historians for their own areas. This edition is a substantial improvement on the original through its excellent indexes. Thus Mr. Sherlock has successfully followed Sir Thomas Phillipps in attempting to redress the imbalance in favour of those to be found in the ‘record of man’. STEVEN HOBBS Martin Green. A Landscape Revealed: 10,000 Years on a Chalkland Farm. Tempus Publishing, 2000, 160 pages; 109 figures, 28 colour plates. Price £14.99, paperback, ISBN 0 7524 1490 9. A Landscape Revealed is just that; a thorough-going treatment of a specific landscape in its historical context. This represents the culmination (or, rather, the summary of work in progress) of some thirty years of projects conducted by the author on his own doorstep; and what a doorstep! Down Farm, near Sixpenny Handley, straddles the Dorset/Hampshire/ Wiltshire borders, sitting in the centre of Cranborne Chase where General Pitt Rivers lived and carried out pioneering work in archaeology. The area includes The Cursus, Wor Barrow, and numerous settlements, burial monuments, and other important archaeological structures from all periods. Martin Green’s family has farmed here since 1931, and he now carries on this tradition, devoting most of his spare time to his archaeological studies, and has, over the period of his researches, created a museum at the farm. The book is broadly arranged in chronological order and, as the title suggests, ranges from the Palaeolithic to the present day, although the majority of the work covers pre-Roman times. Along the way there are discussions of the work and collections of Pitt Rivers (including the Larmer Tree pleasure grounds at Tollard Royal), mention of other antiquaries who have worked in the area such as Colt Hoare and William Cunnington, and a chapter written by Dr. Michael Allen who reports on over five years’ work analysing pollen, soils, and snails from the Down Farm area. The work is well illustrated with maps, line drawings, black and white photographs, and a generous selection of colour plates bound into the centre of the book including aerial photographs, reconstructions, and the portraits of two individuals from Monkton Up Wimborne that featured in an episode of the BBC’s Meet The Ancestors series. The author’s enthusiasm and scholarly exposition carry the reader through the narrative, and demand that the area should be visited in order to experience the landscape at first hand. This book is an important addition to the body of work covering the Cranborne Chase area, and, beyond this, is a fine example of how much can be achieved by an ‘amateur’ archaeologist. In the words of Richard Bradley, Martin Green ‘...must be the most professional amateur in Britain ... His achievement is unique’. PHILIP ASLETT R. H. Thompson and M. J. Dickinson, Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles 49: The Norweb Collection Tokens of the British Isles, 1575 - 1750 VI Wiltshire to Yorkshire, Ireland to Wales. London, 1999. In the Middle Ages, the official coinage in England was struck in gold and silver only and the smallest coin was the silver farthing which in the late 15th century weighed 3 grs. Under Elizabeth I the smallest denomination was the silver halfpenny, an equally tiny coin, measuring 11 mm in diameter and weighing 3.5 grs. James I attempted to resolve the problem of the provision of small change by allowing Lord Harrington to purchase from the Crown a patent for striking farthings in copper. Similar patents were sold by his son, Charles I, to other entrepreneurs. However, these copper farthings were unpopular with tradesmen and general public alike and were suppressed by Parliament in 1644. Parliament planned to issue a low denomination copper currency. However, with the execution of Charles I in 1649 the royal prerogative to strike copper coins ceased. In the same year, unauthorized tokens in place of these copper coins began to be issued by a variety of people or bodies in Britain. They were principally local tradesmen, who, of course, benefited most from the existence of tokens, but included also town and city corporations (such as Marlborough and Salisbury) and even some private individuals. Their primary purpose, to facilitate trading, was sometimes declared on the tokens such as ‘for necessary change’ and REVIEWS ‘welcome you be to trade with me’. These tokens, conventionally known today as ‘tradesmen’s tokens, served effectively as the small change for the period until 1672 when their use was forbidden by Royal Proclamation. Around 12,000 different tokens were issued in the British Isles 3,500 in London alone and clearly they made a major contribution to the coinage in circulation. Tradesmen’s’ tokens were usually struck in copper or brass, very occasionally in mixed metal or in lead. The chief denominations were the halfpenny and the farthing. Penny tokens are uncommon: there are none in the Wiltshire series. In shape they were most often round: Others, however, were square, octagonal or heart-shaped (as the token issued jointly by Edmund Hide and Richard Leader at Highworth). The inscriptions on them normally included the Christian name and surname of the issuer, his trade or occupation and the village, town or city where he resided. The denomination, the initials of the issuer and his wife, and a device such as the arms of his trade-guild, a tavern or shop sign or a pun on his name, might also be given. The standard catalogue of tradesmen’s tokens is the edition by G. C. Williamson of W. Boyne Trade Tokens issued in the Seventeenth Century (1889, 1891) listing 274 tokens which are attributed to Wiltshire. Subsequently ‘new’ Wiltshire tokens have come to light while research has shown that a number of those tokens which were attributed to Wiltshire by Williamson in fact come from other counties or possibly do not exist as they are mis-readings of other tokens. The current listing of British tokens that is most often cited today is that by Michael Dickinson Seventeenth Century Tokens of the British Isles and their Values (1986). This assigns 258 tokens to Wiltshire. It draws heavily on E.G.H. Kempson’s Wiltshire_XVII Century Tokens (1978) which was partly based upon the Society’s own extensive collection of tradesmen’s tokens. This is the most complete collection in existence and was itself published by F.M. Willis in 1893, incidentally the first catalogue of any part of the Society’s collections. Photographs or drawings of the Wiltshire tokens are not included in any of the four catalogues above. The Norweb collection of British Tradesmen’s tokens is one of the largest and most comprehensive private collections of tokens to have been formed. It is being published in seven volumes of which this is No.6 and consists of tokens from Wiltshire, Worcestershire, Yorkshire, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Sark, Scotland and Wales. The purpose of the 259 publication is to ‘put the tokens .... at the service of those who would base studies on them’ (p.xvi). Each token is illustrated and a succinct description given, cross referring the entry to a more detailed description in Williamson and indicating where the reading of the token differs from that given by Williamson. The description includes the weight in grains and grammes, the metal (generally copper or brass) and the alignment of the dies. Very brief information is given about a few of the issuers. There is a long and informative introduction and a good bibliography. Up-to-date historical information is given on a number of tokens or their issuers. The provenances of each token are given showing that most were acquired from London dealers or from the celebrated collection formed by Ralph Augustus Nott (1883- 1960). The volume is important for a number of reasons. The collection includes 226 different Wiltshire tokens, which, although many/are not in good condition, is nevertheless very impressive considering that it is not a specialised collection formed by an enthusiast living in the county. This is the first occasion that such a large number of Wiltshire tokens have been illustrated in print and the volume then very usefully complements the previous catalogues of Wiltshire tokens. All the more common tokens are present. A number of unique tokens or tokens of great rarity are also included and are illustrated here for the first time. The accurate text confirms and in some cases corrects the transcriptions of the inscriptions given in previous catalogues. On tokens where the inscription is either unclear or incomplete, it reconstructs the correct reading in full, citing die-duplicates from other collections, including that owned by the Society. Tokens, which are of the same design but from different dies, are identified and the pairings of different dies are given for the first time. This will help to indicate which token issues were extensive or perhaps issued over a long period of time. The Norweb collection of Wiltshire tokens paves the way to the ideal of an eventual publication in full of the county series with good illustrations of each example, transcriptions of the legends and descriptions of the designs as well as information on the issuers and an explanation of the types. Such a catalogue will be a valuable contribution to local history and to numismatic studies and be of value to a wide range of people both within and outside the county including local historians, museum curators and finds researchers. PAUL ROBINSON 260 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE A MILLENNIUM MIXTURE The end of the second millennium has witnessed both disasters and triumphs during its celebrations. One of the little noticed triumphs, but one whose effects will be long-lasting, is the completion of parish projects and publications throughout the county. In the years 1999 and 2000 there have been more local histories published than in any other five, or even ten, years before. These projects have brought together groups of people concerned to create something that will provide a lasting record of their community. Many have set down an account of their parish at the end of the twentieth century, a greatly extended Domesday Book which will be of immense value to future local historians. Others have concerned themselves with the twentieth century, a complete history or a photographic record. All provide very valuable additions to the corpus of Wiltshire material which we all use. The authors of these works have been many and varied. In both town and village people have formed themselves into Millennium Committees or Projects, Book Groups and Trusts, often with just two or three people organising and encouraging many others to research and write. For some this has been the first historical research that they have attempted and many have so enjoyed it that they did far more than they originally intended. Again the discipline of writing may have been foreign to some but all have used pen or keyboard to great effect and their efforts are now preserved for posterity. Parish councils have instigated a few publications or have acted as publisher for the work of one enthusiastic individual. Existing history groups have produced some excellent works and in a few cases one person has conceived, written and published a book on their parish. A variety of funding has been obtained for many books, sometimes millennium funds but often local grants and loans. Great persistence has been shown in the pursuit of grants and loans and, in some cases this has occupied considerable amounts of time. In the acknowledgements to individuals there are four names which occur fairly frequently. Three of these are to be found in the Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office, the County Local Studies Library and as one of the joint editors of this journal. The fourth person deserves recognition, not only for these millennium publications but also for the range of books which he has published on our county. Roger Jones, of Ex Libris Press, has been involved in the editing and design of a dozen of the books mentioned below and has guided the authors through the unfamiliar throes of publication. Without his help several of these books may not have made it into print. In most cases these books represent a real community effort. Many people have attended initial meetings, formed committees, allocated tasks, cajoled each other, researched, written and then enjoyed their publication day with the whole community. Along the way they have got to know one another better, worked in teams and achieved something very tangible for their town and village. It is hoped that the intangible benefits will also long survive the millennium; a spirit of real community involvement and effort which is normally only visible in the face of disaster. The books considered here are divided into their themes; general histories, the last century, modern surveys and oral history, photographic and others. In the text each is referred to by parish and full bibliographic details are given at the end. Broadchalke is perhaps the outstanding example of a general history. An excellent range of sources has been used and both research and writing are very accurate. All aspects of production are local and, as they say themselves, it is the most comprehensive book ever compiled about Broadchalke. Particularly noteworthy is the chapter on village houses with pictures, maps and people, and also those on the people and families of the village. This book manages to have everything and there is information on archaeology, farming and roads along with some good examples of oral history. The parish has been home to various famous people and these are not forgotten. One of the smallest, and secret, parishes in the county is Stert but they have achieved publication of their book. Many of the villagers made the journey to New College, Oxford, who owned the manor for centuries, and researched the archives while others frequented the Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office. Again there is good material here on the local houses and memories of former villagers who have moved away. Stert had a family of clockmakers who are recorded while drove roads, footpaths, innkeepers and a crashed and buried wartime bomber are included in this interesting account. Shalbourne is so far in the east of the county that again, like Stert, many Wiltshire people are unaware of it. Their History Project has gone a long way to remedy this by bringing their village to our attention in a handsome volume. There is plenty of evidence of good academic research in this well written book. In a slightly different approach they have described each house in the schedule of the 1843 tithe award map with a picture and history of the present building. Also included is a section of oral history, a useful REVIEWS general history, a good interpretation of archaeological finds and an entertaining village photograph album. The author of the Downton book states that “This is no work of scholarship’, ‘Almost all sources all secondary’ and ‘not one visit to the Public Records Office (sic) at Trowbridge but plenty to public libraries. . . I am afraid that this is all too evident from the text and research of primary sources would have been of benefit to this book. There is however some lively writing and interesting playlets from the 1994 Downton Pageant. Both design and layout are good and the bringing together of diverse information on the parish from secondary sources is of merit. Secondary sources do however need to be verified and the lack of such checking can lead to statements such as ‘ale was supplanted by beer in the 1520s’, The Atworth project was conceived as an exercise in oral history and grew and grew. The initial work involved villagers being trained in oral history recording before interviewing other residents. The memories thus recorded are a good record of village events and doings for the last seventy or eighty years complemented by the views of schoolchildren on the present village and its future. To this has been added a history of Atworth contributed by the Atworth History Group and the late Professor Dowdeswell and a section of pictures on the village today. This project has demonstrated excellent community involvement, and the gathering of information that would soon be lost as older residents die. The cover photograph is a picture of all villagers forming the letter ‘A’. The villagers of Westwood had decided upon conducting a modern census and survey of the parish which would be lodged in the record office or library. They were persuaded to broaden this into a book covering most aspects of village history. There is some useful information from original research here although a longer period for the project may have allowed a fuller picture to be presented. A very good collection of photographs has been assembled and, especially through the census, the whole village has been involved in the project. The small hamlet of Beckhampton has produced a brief survey of its history, memories of the recent past and information on current residents in a short space of time. Useful information on the inns, horse racing, farming and wild flowers is presented and the community has done well to provide us much material on this little known settlement which to motorists seems only to be a roundabout and the Waggon and Horses. Alderbury and Whaddon provides a collection of articles covering the last two millennia. There is 261 much information about people and over 300 are named and indexed. There have been other recent histories of Alderbury and its church and this new book complements them and provides much more social history. Of all the books it is Westbury that has been longest in planning and execution and this has resulted in a well researched, detailed and meticulous book. The illustrations, photographs, original artwork and design are excellent making the first book devoted solely to the town of Westbury an impressive volume. The information on the businesses and organisations of the town will be an invaluable resource, not only for this generation, but for future local historians. Turning to the books covering the last one hundred years or so we immediately come up against Warminster. This excellently produced book can be regarded as a classic millennium publication. It takes up the story where a late Victorian history of the town ends, contains much original research, was produced by a dedicated team and is well written and put together. The arrangement is thematic with each section beginning at different dates so that the authors can provide us with the relevant background information for the subject. Subjects include all the usual ones but also some that are less usual, such as medical and dental practice, emergency services and, of course as this is Warminster, the Army. The early history of Whiteparish was written up by Christopher Taylor but until now there has been no record of the village for the last one hundred years. This book combines well researched articles, oral history, extracts from parish magazines and relevant pictures to remedy this omission. As in some other books mentioned here, natural history has been included in a well written article showing keen observation in the parish. North Bradley is essentially a one person project largely based on detailed research in a century’s worth of newspapers matched to extensive local knowledge and contacts. Arrangement is thematic and some subjects start before 1900 for the sake of a balanced picture. There are good extracts on the village, which has little written history for the twentieth century, and well researched photographs although some subjects could have been usefully expanded. Although the title of the Malmesbury book gives the dates of 1000, 1900 and 2000 it is largely concerned with the twentieth century town with just a few pages and maps relating to 1000 and 1900. The text is a well combined mixture of research into secondary sources and personal interviews in a themed presentation giving a well balanced view of a 262 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE small market town 1n an ever changing century. As with the better publications noted this has both a bibliography and index and the photographs are good but unfortunately suffer from poor reproduction. The Devizes Local History Group were always going to rise to the occasion for a millennium publication and so it has proved with their latest book on Devizes. This provides a picture of the town in the year 1900, with further material on the 1920s and 1930s, contrasting this with life in Devizes at the end of the century. As one would expect, this is well researched and well written and a worthy companion for the group’s earlier books. With an eye for future needs Devizes Camera Club were asked to undertake a photographic survey of all the businesses of the town and a selection from these indoor and outdoor pictures is of great value. Several parishes chose to concern themselves with a modern picture of their community. A most successful one 1s Marlborough which is an excellent and colourful book of short autobiographical pieces by local residents. There is a reasonable cross- section of people and the only criticism is that it is a little short on ordinary people, concentrating mainly on the great and the good. With that in mind, it does provide a wealth of information on the sort of people who live in a residential Wiltshire town and it will be assiduously mined by future local historians. Special mention must be made of the good quality of production of this volume. In Seagry we have a picture of life in the last year of the century. Village activities, organisations and people are depicted in this well produced book. Again this will be of great value to future social historians by presenting a comprehensive picture of modern rural life. Another small hamlet to have produced a book is Turleigh. Every householder has written a piece about their house and their family and included a picture of everyone living in the house. This is definitely a Domesday type survey, but without the economics, and, again, will be of great value to future historians. There are also good short articles on aspects of the community, including one on the flora and fauna with lists of plants for different areas. The Swindon, or rather Old Town, Swindon, book is pure transcripts of oral history. The idea, conceived in November 1998, was to interview some older residents for their memories of the century. In all 39 interviews are recorded, with a picture of each interviewee, and the century has been covered as the oldest person is aged 100 years. An interesting compilation from a distinct community living within a conurbation. Another community engulfed in Swindon is Stratton St Margaret. The parish council has produced a mixture of memories and current information on a variety of subjects. In all it is rather a mish-mash; there is useful information hidden here but good editing was required. In Edington we have a mainly pictorial small book on the parish, including Tinhead, as it is today. In the well taken modern photographs many villagers are depicted in a snapshot of late twentieth-century village life. Again a useful record but, as a publication, it would have benefited from more text. The Aldbourne project is extremely impressive with nearly 200 contributions. They have recorded every house, with a drawing of each, its history and biographical details of the occupants. There are paintings of some houses and many of the 1900 villagers while snippets of oral history are scattered throughout the book. This is a very valuable addition to our Wiltshire material and it will become even more valuable in the future. A great deal of time and energy was obviously expended on this project with more material collected than has been published; the complete oral history archive is held by the Aldbourne Civic Society. All efforts have been well rewarded with the publication of this book. There are two similar projects which were independently conceived but have provided books of people’s views on modern life and their environment. The first is Salisbury District whose Chalkdust project invited people from the District Council area to submit stories, poems, letters pictures and comments. All entries have been placed in the Chalkdust Archive while 162 have been published in this well arranged and carefully designed book. A copy has been given to every student attending school in the district and it 1s nice to see that many of the contributors are children. This is a charming, well edited collection of thoughts and reflections on modern life. The other project covers the Wiltshire County Council area and is restricted to prose contributions. The idea was to get a picture of the life of ordinary people at the end of the century and the many hundreds of entries are preserved in a library archive. Over 120 entries, many with a photograph of the contributor, are published here showing the diversity of life for young and old in both rural and urban areas of the county. Several common themes run through many contributions including concern for the environment, problems in farming and the complexities of life in split families. Of the photographic books that of Horningsham is in an impressive traditional mode. This one-person REVIEWS project came about from annual village gatherings which attracted many former villagers now living elsewhere and their memories of what life used to be like. The exhibitions of photographs at the meetings formed the nucleus of this collection and present villagers were assiduously questioned for information about the events and scenes. Photographic reproduction is of high quality and the text is relevant and informative. The one-person photographic survey of Holt has produced a small book from a large collection of photographs taken in the village during 1999. A very good picture of village life emerges from these pages with the images largely telling the story that unfolds during the year. We tend to rely on Roy Nuttal for publications on Fovant and for the millennium he has produced a new edition of his pictorial history of 1981.This short book covers the buildings, people and events of this distinctive village. A pamphlet records the main project for Staverton, the village millennium tapestry. It tells the story of the tapestry and the people involved with an illustration of each tapestry square, the history behind it and who stitched each one. One person is also responsible for the Sutton Benger book which is a well researched account of the church, school and a murder which remained long in villagers’ memories. This handsome and carefully crafted publication tells us about areas of village history that have not been previously published and is in a form written for everyone but with academic undertones. Certainly a history of the church was in existence but it is far from comprehensive and this new book is most welcome. The illustrations are both good and relevant and the depth of research is evidenced by a comprehensive bibliography. The church is also the theme of the Hindon book which provides the first full history of this institution to be published. It is a good and worthwhile project and is well executed. Again the breadth of references cited are good evidence of the amount of research carried out for this well written and entertaining account. A somewhat different book is the one that includes Bradford. This is the research report of a Millennium Festival Project for Bath, Bradford on Avon and Shaftesbury Abbey which resulted in a CD-ROM containing events of the late Saxon period. The book gives a useful summary of these events and brings together interpretations of a way of life one thousand years ago. There is an extensive bibliography and copious references. 263 These books represent a great achievement and one which will be of immense benefit to our successors. Thirty millennium books so far, with at least four more to come, represent thousands of hours of research by hundreds of people to enrich our understanding of Wiltshire’s history. Aldbourne: Lee, David and Shuttleworth, Malcolm (editors). The Millennium Book of Aldbourne: a snapshot of the parish in the year 2000. Mrs P. Hagerty on behalf of the Trustees of the Aldbourne Memorial Hall, 2000; 256 pages, illustrations. Hardback, ISBN 0 9538013 0 6. Alderbury: Alderbury and Whaddon: a millennium mosaic. Alderbury & Whaddon Local History Research Group, 2000: Price £8.50, paperback Atworth: Nichols, Deborah (editor). History and Memories of Atworth at the End of the Second Millennium. Atworth Parish Council, 1999: 174 pages, illustrations, Price £5.00, paperback. Beckhampton: Beckhampton: a village through time.2000. Produced by volunteers and given only to residents of the village of Beckhampton. Bradford: MacDonald, Jennifer. A Millennium Tale of Monarchs, Murder, Mystery and Mayhem. Wiltshire County Council Libraries and Heritage, 2000; 121 pages, illustrations. Price £4.75, paperback, ISBN 0 86080 449 6. Broadchalke: The People of the Village. Broadchalke: a history of a south Wiltshire village, its land and people over 2000 years. The Broadchalke Millennium Book,1999; 287 pages, illustrations. Price £23.95, hardback. Devizes: Haycock, Lorna. A Devizes Century. Devizes Local History Group, 1999; 157 pages, illustrations. Price £8.95, paperback, ISBN 0 9525487 1 2. Downton: Waymouth, David. Downton: 7000 years of and English village. Downton Millennial Book Fund, 1999; 200 pages, illustrations. Price £14.95, hardback, ISBN 0 9536109 0 X. Edington: Hiscock, Jacky. Edington 2000: a celebration of village life. J.A. Hiscock, 2000; 71 pages, illustrations. Price £5.00 , paperback, ISBN 0 9539400 0 4. Fovant. Nuttal, Roy. The Changing Face of Fovant: a pictorial history. R. Nuttal, 1999; 50 pages, illustrations. Paperback. Hindon: Dewhurst, Richard. The Church in Hindon. Hindon Publishing, 2000; 63 pages, illustrations. Price £3.00, paperback, ISBN 1 9531586 2 4. Holt: Mizen, Jennie, A Year of Village Life. 2000; illustrations. Price £8.00, paperback. Horningsham: Taylor, Helen. Useful Toil and Homely Joys: a photographic record of Horningsham. ELSP, 2000; illustrations. Price £8.50, paperback, ISBN 1 903341 56 6. Malmesbury: Vernon, Charles. Malmesbury Then and Now: A portrait of the town in the years 1000,1900 264 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE and 2000. Malmesbury Civic Trust, 1999; 98 pages, illustrations. Price £9.50, paperback, ISBN 0 953669203. Marlborough: Maurice, Nick, Procktor, Ellen, Uttley, David (compilers). Marlborough People: a snapshot of local people at the millennium. PUMP, 1999; pages, illustrations. Paperback, ISBN 0 9536774 0 0. North Bradley: WLanfear, Joyce (compiler) for North Bradley Parish Council. The Story of the Parish and the People of North Bradley told in pictures and newspaper cuttings for the millennium. North Bradley Parish Council, 1999; 144 pages, illustrations. Price £5.95, paperback. Salisbury District: Chandler, John (editor). Chalkdust: thoughts on Salisbury and its district at the start of the new millennium. Salisbury District Council, 2000; 96 pages, illustrations. Price £4.99, paperback, ISBN 0 86080 453 4. Seagry: Cork, Tristan and Stallard, Paul. Reflections of Seagry: a Wiltshire village bids farewell to the 20th century. Candid Pictures, 2000.; 127 pages, illustrations. Price £14.99, paperback. Shalbourne: Shalbourne to the Millennium. Shalbourne History Project, 1999; 222 pages, illustrations. Paperback, ISBN 0 9536712 0 8. Staverton: Lavis, Pete. The Story Behind the Village Millennium ‘Tapestry. Staverton Millennium Tapestry Team, 2000. Paperback. Stert. Stert: the hidden village. Stert Millennium Project, 1999; 119 pages, illustrations. Price £6.00, paperback. Stratton St Margaret: Stratton Remembered. Stratton Parish Council, 2000; 137 pages, illustrations. Price £4.50, paperback. Sutton Benger. ‘Taylor, Kay. Sutton Benger from Saxon ‘Times to the Dawn of the 21st Century: a history of the church, schooling, charity and murder. ELSP in association with Kay S. Taylor, 2000; 96 pages, illustrations. Paperback, ISBN 1 903341 59 0. Swindon: Millennium Memories: interviews with residents of Old Town, Swindon; a sociological record from 1900 - 2000. ELSP in association with Old Town Group, Swindon, 2000; Illustrations. Price £6.00, paperback, ISBN 1 903341 53 X. Turleigh: Heap, Derek. Turleigh 2000: portrait of a Wiltshire village compiled and edited by the villagers. Ex Libris in association with Turleigh Trust Millennium Committee, 2000; 207 pages, illustrations. Paperback, ISBN 1 903341 52 3. Warminster: Lane, Celia and White, Pauline (compilers and writers). Warminster in the Twentieth Century. Warminster History Society, 1999; 448 pages, illustrations. Price £19.50, hardback, ISBN 0 950 9920 46. Westbury: Wood, Ken (editor). Westbury and Westbury Leigh: a celebration of the town and its people. Westbury Book Group, 2000; 194 pages, illustrations. Price £12.50, hardback. Westwood: Snailum, Susan. Westwood 2000: reflections on a village. ELSP in association with Westwood Millennium Project 2000, 2000; 207 pages, illustrations. Price £8.00, paperback, ISBN 1 093341 57 4. Whiteparish: Whiteparish: 100 years of an English village as told by the people of the village. Whiteparish Historical and Environmental Association, 2000; 184 pages, illustrations. Price £7.00, paperback, ISBN 0 9537744 0 6. Wiltshire: Chandler, John, Jones, Roger, Marshman, Mike and Matthews, Linda (editors). Wiltshire Time Capsule: life in our county at the turn of the century. Ex Libris in association with Wiltshire Libraries and Heritage, 2000; page, illustrations. Price £5.95, paperback, ISBN 1 903341 02 7. MICHAEL MARSHMAN Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 94 (2001), pp. 265-267 265 Obituary John Musty , archaeological scientist, died 8 Sep- tember 2000. He was born 16 February 1923. Following his retirement in 1983 as Head of the Ancient Monuments Laboratory of the then Department of the Environment, John Musty returned to Wiltshire and lived quietly at Stratford sub Castle until his death. He had had a remarkable three part career as a research chemist, as an archaeological scientist and finally as the influential author of Science Diary in the magazine Current Archaeology. John was a Wiltshireman by birth having been born in the village of Minety between Malmesbury and Cirencester in 1923. He obtained a scholarship to Marlborough Grammar School, which he left at the age of 17. He moved to the Salisbury area in 1940 to take up an appointment at the Chemical Defence Experimental Establishment on Porton Down. There he was encouraged to study part-time at Southampton University, which led to his qualifying as an Associate of the Royal Institute of Chemisty, the equivalent of a chemistry degree. In 1946 he married Vera, who was to remain constantly at his side for the next fifty-four years. The encouragement, practical support and devotion of a loving companion were at the heart of John’s subsequent achievements. It was during his time at Porton that John became involved with the archaeology of the Salisbury area. He had gained digging experience with Nicholas Thomas at the Snail Down barrow cemetery and, with Stuart Piggott and Richard Atkinson, at the West Kennet long barrow and at the Stonehenge excavations of the early 1950’s. It was through their Stonehenge collaborator, Dr J.F.S. Stone, who also worked at Porton Down, that John was encouraged to undertake his own excavations. These were carried out initially through the archaeological section of the Salisbury and District Field Club of which John became the leader in 1955. His earliest excavations were on the Bronze Age barrow and urnfield at Heale Hill, Middle Woodford and on the Roman road in Grovely Wood, Great Wishford. The first of these was directed in conjunction with Dr Stone. Subsequently there followed two seasons investigating the Iron Age enclosure at Down Barn West, Winterbourne Gunner. At Old Sarum, John Musty joined with Philip Rahtz in Ministry of Works excavations within the outer bailey, which included the location and exploration of a long lost tunnel. The association with Rahtz proved to be the beginning of a life-long friendship. This archaeological work quickly atiracted a large group of volunteer helpers, many from the Porton establishments, who were as enthusiastic as John was himself. John readily made friends and remained in contact with many of his diggers, some for years after they had ceased to be active in the field. In 1957, as a consequence of the death of Dr Stone, the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum set up an Excavation sub-Committee, and John Musty, who had been a prime mover in the formation of this committee, was the obvious choice to be its secretary. The numerous rescue and research excavations carried out over the next twelve years on behalf of the Salisbury Museum were a major amateur contribution to the archaeology of South Wiltshire. The most important of these were of pagan Saxon burials at Winterbourne Gunner, a warrior grave at Ford and, in 1958, on the site of medieval pottery kilns and workshops at Laverstock. This proved to be the most significant of John Musty’s excavations having yielded the material with which his name will always be associated. Subsequently, John became one of the few individuals to have investigated the site of Clarendon Palace. Here, an unsuccessful attempt was made to locate stratification, which could have provided a dating framework for the Laverstock pottery. The Laverstock report, which recorded details of nine kilns, three buildings and eighteen pits, was published in Archaeologia, volume 102. John’s other major excavation took place over six consecutive summers on the well-preserved earthworks of the deserted medieval village at Gomeldon. As a result of the exploration of the structures on seven building platforms, Gomeldon has become one of the better- 266 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE known DMY’s and the type-site for Wiltshire. The definitive report appeared in this journal, which was the vehicle for many of John’s articles from 1956 onwards. He was noted for the prompt publication of work undertaken. John was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1962. The Laverstock kiln excavations led John to catalogue and classify all known medieval pottery kilns in Britain. This work formed the basis of a thesis, which earned him a Master of Arts degree from Bristol University. Later he was invited to contribute a chapter to Medieval Pottery from Excavations, a festschrift for Gerald Dunning, the doyen of medieval pottery studies, where he was able to expand on his theme of a medieval pottery kiln classification. The Laverstock excavations were also instrumental in first bringing John into direct contact with the influence that science was to have on archaeology - a magnetometer survey by Teddy Hall and kiln wall sampling for remanent magnetism dating by Martin Aitkin. Subsequently a paper entitled ‘A Spectroscopic Survey of English and Continental Medieval Glazed Pottery’ was published by John Musty in association with another Porton colleague, Leslie Thomas. While in Salisbury, John was one of the founding members of the Council for British Archaeology, Group 12 (Wessex), and was at one time the President of the Group. Contact with the Wessex Group was never entirely lost and John often attended its AGMs. With a growing interest in the impact of science on matters archaeological, John decided in 1966 to apply for the newly created post of Head of the Ancient Monuments Laboratory in London, which he was successful in securing, and left Porton to start a second career. After a few months of commuting, he moved to Teddington with his wife and their son and daughter. The challenge at the AML was considerable, the staff numbers being too low and the laboratory facilities divided between two locations on either side of the River Thames. By 1973 the situation had been transformed with the Laboratory now housed at a single location, Fortress House, Savile Row, with the rest of the Ancient Monuments Directorate. A geophysics section had been established under the leadership of Tony Clark (whose own obituary appeared in this journal, volume 93). Many more archaeological conservators and other staff with specialised knowledge of environmental evidence had been appointed. In a valedictory article which John Musty wrote for Current Archaeology, he was obviously justly proud of the capital expenditure directed in the early years to his laboratory, which allowed the purchase of a powerful X-ray unit, a scanning electron microscope, an atomic absorption spectrometer and an X-ray fluorescence analyser; in fact, all the necessary equipment to enable the laboratory, for the first time, to cope with most of the scientific questions arising from archaeological excavations. The improvements to the laboratory were such as to merit visits from the Queen Mother and, later from Prince Charles, and Queen Margarethe of Denmark, high points of John’s career. With the laboratory better housed, staffed and equipped, John was conscious that yet more effort was needed if the immense backlog of material requiring attention was ever to be managed. This encouraged him to establish contracts with universities. Many of those individuals recruited to the university contracts are still working today as archaeological scientists, while others, stimulated in their careers by John Musty, are now in senior posts in museums and universities across the world. At one time John was a member of the Advisory Board of the Research Councils. One recommendation of this board was the establishment and funding by the Science Research Council of a Science-based Archaeology Committee (SBAC).This committee funded research projects and, for many years, John Musty sat on the committee as the DOE assessor. He was thus at the very heart of the funding process for archaeological science in this country. In acknowledgement of the considerable contribution he had made in his field, on his retirement in 1983, John was appointed a Companion of the Imperial Service Order (ISO) in the New Year’s Honours List. From Teddington, John regularly attended the London meetings of the Society of Antiquaries. At different periods he was Honorary Secretary of the CBA Research Committee, Vice-President of the Royal Archaeological Institute and, nearer to his Teddington home, President of the Kingston-upon- Thames Archaeological Society. Inevitably he became involved in the archaeology of this area, one aspect of which led to a study of the suppliers of brick and tile to Hampton Court Palace, published in the Archaeological Journal. From the days of his youth John had been an avid reader and collector of books, a hobby to which he was able to devote more time in retirement. He was particularly interested in the works of country writers, which formed a notable part of his impressive library. His writings were as numerous as they were diverse and included many interesting contributions to the Antiquarian Book Monthly Review and, more locally, OBITUARY to the pages of the Hatcher Review. In 1981, shortly before his retirement, John approached Andrew Selkirk, the editor of the popular magazine, Current Archaeology with the suggestion that he might make a regular contribution on scientific archaeology. The result of this was the publication of over fifty editions of ‘John Musty’s Science Diary’, through which John was able to keep in touch with the scientific world and to share the results of archaeological science with a wider audience. These contributions only came to an end in 1999 when John was forced to lay down his pen by the onset of Parkinson’s disease. Another project which John had planned and on which he had worked, over many 267 years, was the section on ‘Pottery, Tile and Brick’ for the Salisbury Museum Medieval Catalogue. It is particularly sad that he did not live to see this work in print. Volume three of this catalogue was almost complete at the time of his death and his text will now appear as his final contribution to the study of local medieval ceramics. John’s death is not only a great loss to his wife Vera, his children, Anthony and Sue, and to his numerous grandchildren but also to the world of archaeological science and to Wiltshire in particular. Here his contribution to the archaeology and local history of the county will long be remembered. DAVID ALGAR and PETER SAUNDERS 268 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 94 (2001), pp. 269-280 Index by Philip Aslett NOTE: Wiltshire places are indexed or referenced under civil parishes. Page numbers given in square brackets refer to references accidentally omitted (by the typesetter, not the indexer) from the index to volume 93, 2000, and precede the page numbers for this volume (94). For example: Avebury, [77], [177}, [269], [271], 1, 141. Aachen Cathedral (Germany), 128 Abbots Worthy (Hants), 107, 109 Abinger (Surrey), motte, 201 AC archaeology: evaluations, 243, 244, 253; excavations, 247, 248, 249, 250-1, 252, 254-5; watching briefs, 246, 247 Acer campestre (field maple), 168 acorns, 31, 32,45 Adams, W. Maurice, 34 Addyman, Peter, 234 Adkins, R.A., 241 aerial photography, 152, 236, 243,244, 253 Althelwulf, King, 212 Agistment Deed, 35 agricultural riots, 187 agriculture: prehistoric, 248, 249; Roman, 246-7; post-medieval, 254 Ahrens, C., 94 Ailesbury, Marchioness of, 39 Ailesbury, Marquess of, 26, 64 Ailesbury Trust, 65 Aitkin, Martin, 266 Aldbourne: Aldbourne Chase, 226; millennium book, 262, 263 Alderbury, millennium book, 261, 263 Aldwincle (Northants), Lyveden, 201, 202 algae, as epiphytes, 42 Algar, David, obituary by, 265-7 Alice Holt (Hants), kilns, 96, 243 Alleculidae (beetles), 158 Allen, Michael J., 258 Allington, 227; Blake’s Firs Cairn, 161-76; Easton Down, 161-76 Alphonso, Prince, 128 Alphonso Psalter, 128 Alumni Oxoniensis, 227 Amesbury, 175, 227; Amesbury School, 227; Antrobus Arms Hotel, 243; Boscombe Down, 243-4; Boscombe Down Airfield, 243; Boscombe Road, 244; Butterfield Down, 244; Church Street, 243; Longbarrow Crossroads, 244; Normanton Down, 173; OldVicarage, 243; St Mary and St Melore’s Church, 243;Vespasian’s Camp, 243; Wyndersham House School, 227, see also Stonehenge; Woodhenge Amesbury Psalter, 133 Amity [Emity] Oak, 39, 45 ammunition dumps, 27 amphibians, bones, 10, 15 Ampleforth (North Yorkshire), 62 Ampney Brook, 249 Ancient Greece, Olympic Games, 81-2 Ancient Monuments Directorate, 266 Ancient Monuments Laboratory, 150, 265, 266 Andover (Hants): Charlton Gym, 107; Old Down Farm, 94,99, 106, 107, 109 Andrews and Dury, map (1773), 34, 36 Angier, 63—4 Anglo-Saxon Clironicle, 212 animal bone see bone, animal animal remains see faunal remains Ankertell, Rev, 48 Annable, E K., [147], {219], [227], [231] Anotylus spp. (rove beetle), 159 Ansty, Ansty Manor House, 244 Authemis cotula (stinking chamomile), charred grains, [43], [44] anti-aircraft gun pits, [260] Antigua, [10] Antiquarian Book Monthly Review, 266 antlers, [141], [162], [166], [168], [198], 3,94, 103, 104,109, 164, 167-8, 195-6, 203; worked, 110— 11 Aphodius contaminatus (scarab), 159 Apionidae (weevils), 158 Apium graveolens (wild celery): seeds, [42]; uses, [44] Apium nodiflorum (fool’s watercress), [44] apprentices, 144-5 Arachnida, 30 Archaeologia, [219], 265 Archaeological Journal, 266 archaeological remains, effects of arboreal fungi on, [71], {80-1 Archaeological Site Investigations (As1), [257], [258], [259], [262], 243, 246, 248, 249, 250, 251, 253— 4 Arctium spp. (burdocks), [200] aristocrats, debts, 62-6 Arkwright, Sir John, 82 Arles (France), [230] Armistice Day, 84; observance, [205] arms see heraldry Arnold, Ann, [271] Arnolde,Thomas, 145 Arnold, Graham, [271] Arnold, Matthew, 76 Arnold, Dr Thomas, 75—6, 79 Arrhenatherum elatius (false oat grass), charred grains, [200] arrowheads, [256]; prehistoric, 8; Neolithic, [134], (149], [152]; Late Neolithic, [134],219, 221,222; Beaker/Early Bronze Age, 13; Early Bronze Age, 246; Roman, [227]; Saxon, 112; flint, 11-13, 14, 255; iron, [108]; metal, 93 arrows, 226 artificial mounds, 195-204, 222 Arundell, Everard, 60 Arundell family, 57, 62—3; estates, 59, 64 Arundell, Henry, 5th Lord Arundell, 57,58 Arundell, Henry, 7th Lord Arundell, 58, 62 Arundell, Henry, 8th Lord Arundell of Wardour, 56— 67 Arundell, James Everard, 9th Lord Arundell of Wardour, 65 Arundell, James Everard, 10th Lord Arundell of Wardour, 65-6 Arundell, Lord, 184 Arundell, Mr, 184 Arundell, Thomas (1), 57 Arundell, Thomas (2), 60 Arundel (West Sussex), motte, 202 Ashbury—Bishopstone pipeline, 99 Asher, John, 53 Ashlock family, arms, 188 Ashton Keynes: Cotswold Community, 244; Hall’s Close, [111];Shorncote Pit, 244 Asi (Archaeological Site Investigations), [257], [258], [259], [262], 243, 246, 248, 249, 250, 251, 253— 4 Aslett, Philip, review by, 258 Astley, Sir John D., [15], 184 Athelstan, King, 26 athleticism, in public schools, 79 Atkinson, Richard John Copland, [134], [228], 265 Attelabidae (beetles), 158 Atworth, [83]; millennium book, 261, 263 Atworth History Group, 261 Aubrey, John, [65], [111], [219], 1, 141 Audley, Edniuand, [267] Augustinian priories, 130 aurochs, bones, [162], [165] Australia, [70] Austria, [271], see also Vienna Avebury, [77], [177], [269], [271], 82, 222, 226; Alexander Keiller Museum, [77], [134], [256], 1, 3,5, 10, 15, 16, 20; Avebury Trussloe, [256]; Beckhampton, [115], 6, 195 (millennium book, 261, 263; Waggon and Horses, 261); Beckhampton Avenue, [1-8]; Beckhampton Road, [167]; Butler’s Field, [256]; church, [256]; Gibbs Field, [141], [147], [151]; Horslip Field, [141]; Horslip long barrow, [137], [167]; Longstones Field, [1-8]; Manor, [254]; Millfield, 1; National Trust Estate, [256]; Neolithic enclosure, [1-8]; North Field, [134], [137-41], 270 Avebury (corit.) {147], [151]; Overton Hill, [77], [256], 1-23, 244-5; Sanctuary, [7], [132], 1-23, 244-5; Silbury Hill, [7], [112], [131], [176], [177], 195, 196, 201, 202-3, 229; South Street long barrow, [167], 248; Swallowhead, 202; virtual reality simulations, [1]; West Kennet, [2], [131], [160], [167], [176], [256], 11, 14, 221-2, 265; West Kennet Avenue, [5], [6-7], [149], 1, 13;Windmill Hill, [6], [100], 4, 13, 14, 15; Windmill Hill causewayed enclosure, [131-80] Avebury and Stonehenge World Heritage Site, [79], [256]; projects, [1] Avebury World Heritage Site, 1,3, 195; Condition and Management Survey, 245 Avena spp. (oats), charred grains, [200] Avon see Bath; Bristol; Clevedon Avon, River (North), [108], [115], 209, 212, 216, 247 Avon, Raver (South), [107], [196], [260], 149, 152, 243,248; reedbeds, 154-60; Upper Avon Valley, 252 Avon, River (Stratford), [265] awls: prehistoric, 8, 12, 14-15; Neolithic, [149], [152]; bone, 175; bronze, 164, 167, 168, 169, 173; 1n funerary rituals, 175; Porton type, 168 axes: Neolithic, [134], [140], [149], [151], [153]; Roman, |227]; bronze, [238-9]; flint, 166, 174; Migdale-Marnoch type, [239]; polishing marks, [5] Ayers, Bill, 36, 45 Aylesbury (Bucks), Walton, 94 Ayres, James, 178 badgers, bones, 103, 105, 107, 109 Bailey's Western and Midland Directory, 179 Baker, Colonel, [15] Baker,T. H., [266], [268], 185 Balfarg (Scotland), 22 Balliol Scholarships, 78 Banham, Amanda, [137] Bank of England, 59 Bankes, William, 62 banks, Saxon, [188-9] Banks, Sir Joseph, [70] banquets, 183-4 Barford St Martin, Bustard Farm, [68], [69] Baris lepidti (beetle), 159 barrels, medieval, [27] Barrett, J. C., 173, 175 Barrington, Bishop Shute, 119 Barrow, General Sir Edmund, [206-7] barrows, [1 16], [140], [255], 161, 170, 201, 202-3 206, 207, 208; prehistoric, [264]; Neolithic, 239— 42; Bronze Age, [151], 241,250,253, 265; Early Bronze Age, 243; Anglo-Saxon, 236-9; bells, 175; bowl, [239], 243; long, [1-2], [92], [131], [137], [166], [167], 162, 173, 239-42, 248, 265 oval, 162; round, [260], 173, 241, 250 Bartlett, Alister, [220] Bartlett-Clark Consultancy, [220] Bartley, J., [67] Basildon Park (Berks), 230 Basingstoke (Hants): Cowdrey’s Down, 115; Riverdene, 94 Baskerville family, 257 Bateman, Clifford: note on excavations at Chippenham Western Bypass, [233-8]; report on excavations along Littleton Drew- THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Chippenham gas pipeline, [90-104] Bateman, John, 66 Bath (Avon), [13], [83], [103], [121], [253], [272], 139, 140, 142, 184, 190; Abbey, [87]; communications, 216; Millennium Festival Project, 263 Bath Herald, 48, 51 bath-houses, Romano-British, 229 Bathurst, Frances, [250] Batson, Mary, 226 Batten, John, [268] Bauhaus, [271] Bawcombe, Caleb, [69] Bawcombeg, Isaac, [69] Baxter, Jim, [270] Baydon, 226 Bayly family, 144 Bayly, Phomas, 144 Baynton, Sir Edward, [250] Bayntun, Mr, [15] BBC sce British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) BiG. 134, beads, 164; Roman, [225]; barrel, 167, 173; in funerary rituals, 175; glass, 91, 112 beakers, 168-9, 172, 173; Romano-British, [192], 151; classification, [75-6]; decoration, [76-7]; Dutch, |76] Beale, Norman, work noted, [268] Beale, Norman and Elaine, paper on Dr Ingen Housz, [120-30] Beare, John, 120 Beauchamp, Sir Richard, [85], [87] Beaumont College (Berks), [210] Beaushyn, Joan, [85] Beauvilain, Sir William de, 209, 216 beavers, bones, 109 Beckett, Professor, 60 Beckford, William, 230 Beckington (Somerset), 207 Bedchester (Dorset), 182 Bedford, Duke of, 65 Bedford, Ruland, 130 Bedfordshire see Woburn beeches, 27-8, 33, 40, 44 Beechingstoke, 240 Beesley, T., 207 beetles, survey, 154-60 Bejan Forest (Romania), 44 Belemnitella mucronata (belemnite), 161 belemnites, 161, 167 Belfast (Ireland), [210] Belgium see St Omer Bellamy, Peter, note on flintwork at Crescent Copse, Shrewton, [77-8] Bellings-Arundell, Mary, Lady Arundell, 58, 62, 63 Bell, Jane, 184 bells, 257 Bell, William, 184 belvederes, 199-200, 201, 249 Bendry, Mary, [127] Bendry, William Powell, [127] Benett, John, 189 Benett, Mr, 184 Benett, Patience, 189 Benett-Stanford, Jack, 189 Benett, Thomas, 189 Bennet, Mr, [15] Bennett, Agnes (née Hitchcock), 188, 189 Bennett, Anthony, 189 Bennett Brothers, 193 Bennett, Canon, [67| Bennett, Catherine (née Bossom?), 184-5, 187 Bennett and Clench, 190, 193 Bennett family, 182; arms, 188; pedigrees, 188 Bennett, Frances Grove, 193 Bennett, Frances (née Edwards), 185 Bennett, James (1), 188 Bennett, James (2), 188-9 Bennett, James (3), 182-94 Bennett, James Hatchard, 187, 188, 193 Bennett, John, 182 Bennett, Mary Bithiah (née Grove), 188,191, 193 Bennett, Thomas, 188, 189 Bennett, William (1), 188, 189 Bennett, William (2), 188 Bennett, William (3), 182, 185, 188 Bennett, William Coles, 188 Bennett, William Henry, 187 Benson, A. C., [212-13] Berengar, Raymond, Count of Provence, 128 Berengar, Sanchia, 128 Beresford, Maurice, 139 Berewike, William de, [52] Berewyke, Agnes, [52] Berewyke, Edith, [52] Berewyke, Richard de, [52] Berkeley Homes (Hampshire) Ltd., 89 Berkshire, [269], 145, see also Basildon Park; Beaumont College; Hungerford; Newbury; Reading Berlin (Germany), 59 Berry, John, 119 Berry, Keith, work noted, [268] Bersu, Gerhard, 18 Berwick St James, [68] Berwick St John: Ashcombe, 60, 65; church, [267], 189 Best, Martha, [55] Betjeman, John, [266] Beverley, Thomas, [85], [86] Bible, [249]; family, 188 Biddestone, [258], 211,216 Big Belly Oak, 24, 25, 33-4, 41; epiphytes, 42 Bigod, arms, 124, 128 Bigod, Roger, Earl of Norfolk, 128, 130 Bingham, Robert de, Bishop of Salisbury, 130,131, 135 Binski, P., 135 Biological Records Centre, 218,219 birds, bones, [45], [48], [49], [50], [51], [198], 74, 103 Birmingham (West Midlands), 205, 207 Bishops Lydeard (Somerset), [68] Bishopstone (East Sussex), 94 Bishopstone (near Swindon): Bury Mill, [257]; Hinton Parva, 245-6; Mill Bank, 245 Bishopstrow: Bishopstrow Farm, [112]; Field Barn, 254; Home Farm, [257], 253 Blackamore, Dr, [132] Black Death, [183], [202] Blackmore, Henry, [68] blades: Mesolithic, [257]; Roman, [227]; flint, [90], {102], [152], 11 Blaikie, Francis, 65 Blandford (Dorset), [270] Blois, Henry de, [107-8] Blome, R., 141 Bloor Services Ltd., 247 INDEX Blum, P. Z., 121, 123, 125 Blunsdon St Andrew, Groundwell Farm, [256-7] boars, and wild pigs compared, [165] Boessneck, J., [45] Bohun, Humphrey de, [107] Bohun, Jocelyn de, Bishop of Salisbury, 134-5 Bolton, Mr, 8, 184 Bombay Natural History Society, [63] bone: animal, [4], [5], [26], [45-51], [59], [73], [78- 9], [96], [LOO-1], [103], [131], [141], [144], [154— 68], [175], [176], [188], [189], [198-9], [200], [257], [261], [263], [264], 3, 10, 15, 74, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 102-9, 115, 248, 251, 255 (ageing, 106; analysis, 246); cremated, 238;human, [255], 18, 161, 164, 165-8, 170, 173, 238 (Iron Age, [260];in pottery production, [74], [75]; worked, [197], 8; (Roman, [227]; Romano-British, 248; Saxon, 109-11; medieval, [38-9], 247) bone objects: Roman, [227]; Saxon, 89 Boniface of Savoy,Archbishop of Canterbury, 130 Bonney, D.J., 89, 152 bookshops, 190 Boon, Rosemary, 245 Booth, Father Charles, 59 Boscombe Down Conservation Group, [255] bosses, Roman, [225] Bossom, James, 185 Bossom, Martha, 187 Botanical Society of the British Isles (BSBI), 29 Botelesham, Stephen de, [52] Botreaux, Lady Margaret of, [84], [85], [86], [87] Bourbon, [12] Bourke, Joanna, 75, 82 Bourne, River, 89 Bouverie, Captain, 184 Bower Chalke, [65]; Knowle Farm, 252 Bowles, Charles, 189 bowls: Late Neolithic, [146], 221; Early Iron Age, (263]; Roman, [228]; Romano-British, [192], 151; Saxon, 97, 99-102; medieval, 71—4; post- medieval, [35] Bowood, [16]; Bowood House, [120], [121-2], [124— 5] Bowstead, S., 159 Bowthorpe (Lincs), 26 Box, Hazelbury, [249] Boyne, W., 259 Boys’ Own Paper, 83 Boyton, Great Ridge Wood, 246 bracelets, Roman, [225] Brace, Mark, 248 bracken, 35 Bradenstoke:Abbey, [116],201; Barrow End, [116]: Clack Mount, [116], 201 Bradford-on-Avon: Barton Manor Farm, [257]; church, [249]; Cumberwell, [249-54]; Fitzmaurice Grammar School, [268]; Great Tithe Barn, [257]; Green Dragon, [250]; Little Cumberwell, [250], [252]; millennium book, 263; Millennium Festival Project, 263; schools, [268]; Swan, [70]; West Barn, [257] Bradford-on-Avon Preservation Trust, [257] Bradley, George Granville, 78—9, 81 Bradley, Richard, 258 Brailsford, J., [227] brambles, as epiphytes, 41 Branch, hundred, [114] Brandon, David, 230, 231, 232 Branigan, K., [103] BRAS (Bristol and Region Archaeological Services), 248, 249 Brassica nigra (black mustard), seeds, [42], [44] Braughing (Herts), [223], 229, 230 Braydon Oak, 37, 38, 40, 45 Breckland (Norfolk/Suffolk), 13 Breda (Netherlands), [120], [122], [126] Bremhill: Stanley, 213;Tytherton, 213 Brentnall, H. C., 195-6, 197, 198, 202 Breteuil, Gilbert of, [115] brick, [27-8], 266; Romano-British, [147], 150, 230-1; Saxon, 111; medieval, [24], 74; post- medieval, 74 Bridgeman family, [125] Bridgeman, Sir Orlando, [125] bridges, post-medieval, [255] Bridport, Giles de, Bishop of Salisbury, 130, 131, 135 Bridport, Lord, 184 Briggs, Asa, 80 Bristicii, [257] Bristol (Avon), [16], [246], [270], 140, 142, 190; communications, 216; Grammar School, [211]; Ham Green, [245]; Stoke Bishop, [254]; University, 253, 266 Bristol and Region Archaeological Services (BRAS), 248, 249 British Academy, [265] British Archaeological Association, 121 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), {269-70}, 258; Far Eastern Service, [270]; Natural History Unit, [270] British Insurance Company, 189 British Mycological Society, [80] Brittany (France), [271] Britton, Dennis, [239] Britton, John, [9], [65], [67], 118, 127, 185; Beauties of Wiltshire (1800), [10] Brixton Deverill, Manor House, [257] Broad Chalke, [257]; millennium book, 260, 263 Broad Town, 247; Broadacres, 246; Broad Town Road, 246; East Farm House, 246 Broad Town Archaeological Project (BTAP), 246, 247 Broadway Malyan Planning, 247 Brodie, Charles George, 190 Brodie, William Bird, 187, 190 Brodribb, G., 229, 230 Bromham, Spye Park, 34 brooches, Roman, 247 Brown, Capability, 58, 60 Browne, Sir Thomas, 257 Brown, Graham: paper on Marlborough Mount, 195-204; paper on Sheldon Manor, 209-17 Brown, Sarah, paper on thirteenth-century stained glass in Salisbury Cathedral Chapter House, 118-38 Brown, William, 190 Bruce, Charles, Earl of Ailesbury, 27 Bruce, Thomas Brudenell, 27 Bryant, Robert, 144 Bryn Athyn (Pennsylvania, US), 120, 121 bryophytes, as epiphytes, 42 BTAP (Broad Town Archaeological Project), 246, 247 Buckeridges, 145 buckets, wooden, 236 Buckingham, Marquess, 57 Buckinghamshire see Aylesbury; Chetwode; Milton 271 Keynes; Taplow Buckland, Edward, 47-55 bugs, survey, 154-60 Builder, The, 232 building materials: Roman, 247; Romano-British, 151, see also brick; chalk blocks; tiles buildings: Early Bronze Age, 246; Middle Iron Age, 152;Romano-British, 148—53; Saxon, 88-117, 244; medieval, 250; post-medieval, 250, 251; 18th century, 145, see also sunken-featured buildings (SFBs); villas; walls bullies, in public schools, 80-1 Burbage, 26, 34, 35, 145, 240; Harepath Farm, 240 Burgess, C., 170 Burges, William, 120, 123 Burgh, Hubert de, 234 Burgred, King, 212 burials see cremation burials; inhumations Burke, General Armory, 188 Burton (Lincs), 201 butchery: Saxon, 104—5; medieval, 74 butter beans, 180 Butterwick (Yorkshire), 168 Byturidae (beetles), 158 Cadet Movement, 83 cairns, 207, 222: flint, 161-76 Calley family, 144 Calne: Beversbrook, 246; North Calne Distributor Road, 246 Calne Without, Stanley Abbey, 209, 216 Caltha palustris (marsh marigold), 154 Cambridge: Trinity College, 185; University, 200, 243 Cambridgeshire, 99, 159 Camden, William, 202; 203 Canterbury, Archbishop of, 130 Canterbury (Kent), 99 Cantharidae (beetles), 158 CAPITEC, 252 Carabidae (ground beetles), 155-6 Cardigan, Earl of, 26, 43; The Wardens of Savernake Forest (1949), 36 Carex acutiformis (lesser pond sedge), 154 carriers, 142 Carter, John, 119, 120, 121, 124, 125, 126, 129, 130 Gase, H., 169,172 castles, 195-204 catchfly seeds, 180 CAT (Cotswold Archaeological Trust), 219-23, 246-7, 248-9, 250, 252 Cathedral Oak, 35, 45 Catholic Relief Act (1791), 61 cats, bones, 103 Cattermole, R., 125,127,130 cattle, 115; bones, 74, 102, 103, 104, 105, 107, 109; teeth, 106 Catton, Thomas, 64 Caus, Soloma de, 201 Cave-Penny, Helena, 69 cemeteries: Bronze Age, 253; Middle Bronze Age, 161-76; Anglo-Saxon, 98; Saxon, 89, 98, 115, see also inhumations Centre for the Historic Environment, 253 Cerambycidae (beetles), 158 ceramics see pottery cereals, charred, 113 CgMs Consulting, 253 chalk blocks, 151 272 Chalkhill Environmental Consultants, 154, 160 Chandler, Mr, 143 Channel Islands see Sark chapels, in public schools, 81 Chapman, R., 175 Chapmianslade, Short Street Farm, 246 Chapman, William, 179 charcoal, 164, 166, 170, 173, 196,249, 255; analysis, 168; radiocarbon dating, 172 Charles I, King, 197, 258 Charles IL, King, 57 Charles, Nicholas, 120, 128, 129 Charles, Prince, 266 Charlton, 152, 252 cheese markets, 141 emical Defence Experimental Establishment, 265 chemists, 191 Cherhill, Yatesbury, 145 Cherry, John, note on Ludgershall Castle, 234-5 Cheshire see Dunham Massey Chetwode (Bucks), Augustinian Priory, 130 Chideock (Dorset), 58 Chilton Foliat, 226 China see Pekin Chippenham, 141, 209, 216; Forest, 212,213, 216; Hardenhuish, 212; Lowden, 212,213;mails, 142; population, 140; Rowden, 212, 213; Rowden Down, 213; settlements, 212; Showell Farm, 246-7 Chippenham Without: Allington, 209, 211,213,216; Chappell Hill, 215-16; Chippenham Way, 216; Corsham Wood, 21 1,214;Derriards Farm, 209, 214, 216; geology, 209; Malmesbury Way, 214, 216; Pipsmore, 209, 214;Sheldon Manor, 209— 17; Sheldon Wood, 211, 214;Yadonhey, 214 Chipping Norton (Oxon), 205, 207 Chiseldon, 226-7; Burderop Park, 144 Chitterne, Breakheart Hill, 254 Christianity, and public schools, 81 Christian Malford, 50,51,54 Chrysomelidae (leaf beetles), 155, 158 Chubb, Thomas Norwood, 183 Chute, 257 Ciidae (beetles), 158 Cinquecento style, 232 Cirencester (Glos), 99, 139, 265; Barton cemetery, 99; Corinium Museum, 229, 230 Civil War, 57, 141, 197 Clare, arms, 124, 130 Clare, Gilbert de, 130 Clarendon Commission, 78 Clarendon Park, 70, 251; Clarendon Palace, 133, Clare, Richard de, 130 Clarke, Alice, 246 Clarke, Bob, 243, 246, 247; note on tegula mammata, 228-30 Clarke, D. L., 169 Clark, P., 139, 140, 143, 144 Clark, Tony, 266 Claudius Gothicus, 150, 151 clay, fired, 91,93,94,111 clay pipes, 196 Clay,R.C.C.,4 Cleal, Rosamund M.]J., 1 Clement, Robert, 144 Clement XIII, Pope, 61 Clench, James, 190, 192 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Clevedon (Avon), 112 Clifford, Lord, 65 Clinch, Maria, 192 clockmakers, 183, 193 Clouet, Jean, 231 Clutton, Henry, 119 Clyfte Pypard, 145,257; Cuff’s Corner, 228-9, 247 coach trade, 140, 142-3, 145, 197 Coccinelhidae (beetles), 158 cocksfoot, as epiphyte, 42 Codford, St Peter’s Church, 247 Coe, Duncan, 89 coffins, iron-bound, 236 coins, 258-9; Roman, 196, 247; Romano-British, 150, 151; modern, 6-8; foreign, 8 Coke, Thomas, 59, 64, 65 Coleman, Mr, 48,50, 142 Coleoptera: species richness, 159-60; survey, 154— 60 Coles, J., 173 College of Arms, 188 Collingbourne Ducis, 173,257; Cadley Road, 88— 117; Inham Down, 89 Collingbourne Kingston, 170; St Mary’s Church, 247 Collingwood, R. G., 152 Colston, Lord, 236 COMAX Property Services, 243 combs: Saxon, 111; bone, 90,91, 92, 109 Compton Census (1676), 140, 141 Concise Oxford Dictionary of Place Names, 26 Conquest, Benedict, 58 Conquest, Mary, Lady Arundell, 58,60, 61, 63,65 Constantine I, 150, 151 Conyers, falchion, 129 Cooper, William, 184 Cope, Valentine, 38 copper alloy objects: prehistoric, 8, 12, 14-15; Roman;Saxon, 91, 112;?medieval, 74;steelyard weights, 129 copper mines, 58, 65 copper sheeting, 92 coppicing, oaks, 25, 26, 33, 34 cores, 10-11, 219, 222, see also flintwork Corfield, P., 139 Corney, Mark, 253 Cornwall: arms, 124, 128, 129, 130; estates, 58,59, 62, 63, 64, 65; oaks, 44, see also Lanherne; Tresithney Correggio, Antonio Allegri da, 61 Corsham, 209, 216; Kingsmoor, 209 Corsley, 257 Corylus avellana (hazel), 168 Cotswold Aggregates, 249 Cotswold Archaeological Trust (CAT): evaluations, 248-9, 250; excavations, 219-23, 246-7; watching briefs, 252 Cotswold Ridge, 99 Cottle, Ehzabeth, 51 Cottle, Thomas, 5 Cottle, William, 5 Cotton, George Edward Lynch, 75-87 Council for British Archaeology, 266 Countryside Stewardship Scheme, 253 Coutts Bank, 60— Crabbe, George, 48 Cranborne Chase, 152,258 cranes, bones, 103, 107, 109, 111 Crataegus spp. (hawthorns), 155 Crawford, O. G.S., 16 Crawley (West Sussex), 227 cremation burials, 236—9; Middle Bronze Age, 161— 76; ?Roman, 246-7 Cricklade: High Street, 247; Horse Fair Lane, 247; St Mary’s Church, 257 Crocker, P., 60 Crockett, Andrew, paper on Marlborough Mount, 195-204 Cromwell, Oliver, 144 Crouchback, Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, 129 Crown Commissioners, 224 Crown Office Estate, 234 crucibles, medieval, 70 Cruciferae, seeds, 180 Cuncetio, 34, 196 Cunnington, Ben, 1, 4 Cunnington, Maud, excavations at the Sanctuary, 1-23 Cunnington, Robert Henry, 3, 4, 10,18 Cunnington, William, 8, 205-8, 258 cups, Saxon, 97 Curculionidae (weevils), 155, 158-9 Current Archaeology, 265, 266, 267 Curry, Captain, 184 Cursus (Dorset), 258 cutlers, 183,188, 189 Daedaleopsis confragosa (fungus), 159 daggers, 168 daisy seeds, 180 dams, 245 Danby, Earl of, 257 Darby and Joan, seed picture, 177-81 Darby, John, 177, 180 Darby, Michael: note on Fonthill House, 230—4; note on glow-worms in Wiltshire, 218-19; report on Coleoptera survey near Salisbury, 154-60 Dartmoor (Devon), 257 Darwin, Bernard, 75 Davies, Edward, 186 Davies, Joan, paper on Savernake Forest oaks, 24— 46 Davies, Mary, 58 Davis, Thomas, 192 Day, Lewis, 126 Deane, John, 197 debts, aristocrats, 62—6 deer:antlers, 16, 167-8, 195-6; bones, 103, 104, 107, 109 deer parks, 26-7, 251 Defence Estates Organisation (DEO), 149, 150 Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA), 243, 246, 247 Delamere, Edward, 196 Delaney, Mrs, 179 delphinium seeds, 180 Denison, Bishop, 119 Denmark, Queen of, 266 DEO (Defence Estates Organisation), 149, 150 Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 2-3 Department of the Environment, 265, 266 DERA (Defence Evaluation and Research Agency), 243, 246, 247 Derbyshire, 167, see also Galley Low; White Low Dermestidae (beetles), 158 Devizes, 112, 145, 226, 235; Brickley Lane, 247-8; executions, 48; Long Street, 145; mails, 142; Market Place, 48, 145; millennium book, 262, INDEX 263; Millennium White Horse, 223-5; Nursteed Road, 248; population, 140; stabling, 142; Wayside Farm, 248 Devizes Camera Club, 262 Devizes Local History Group, 262 Devizes Museum, 3, 13, 15, 16, 89, 189, 226, 236, 248 Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette, 50, 183 Devon see Dartmoor; Plymouth; Roborough; Ugbrooke Devonshire, Duke of, 65 Dickens, Charles, Martin Chuzzlewit, 191 Dickinson, Michael J., work reviewed, 258-9 die-back disease, oaks, 42-3, 45 dishes, ?medieval, 74 Diston, Anthony, 142 ditches, 254; prehistoric, 244, 254; Neolithic, 251; Neolithic/Early Bronze Age, 248; Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age, 250; Iron Age, 248, 249; Roman, 244, 246; Romano-British, 151; Saxon/medieval, 243; medieval, 244, 247,248, 249,251; post-medieval, 243,253; ring, 248, see also gullies; pits dogs, bones, 74, 103 Domesday Book, 26, 202, 212, 260, 262 Donald Insall Associates Ltd., 249 Dorchester (Dorset): Dorchester County Museum, 4:Wessex Court, 229; Woolaston Road, 229 Dorchester (Oxon), 99 Dorling, E. E., 121, 128, 130 Dorset: estates, 58,59, 62, 64,65, see also Bedchester; Blandford; Chideock; Cursus; Dorchester; Fontmell Magna; Kingston Lacy; Kington Magna; Poole Harbour; Shaftesbury; Sherborne; Sixpenny Handley; Studland; Verwood; Wor Barrow Douglas firs, 28, 33, 35, 36, 45 Dowdeswell, Professor, 261 Down Ampney (Glos), 188 Downside School (Somerset), 62 Downton: Charlton Furze, 248; millennium book, 261, 263; Pageant, 261; Standlynch, 178; Trafalgar House, 178;Witherington Farm, 248; Witherington Road, 248 Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 257 Drew, Charles, 4 Druids, 207 Dryden, John, 26 Duke, Edward, 184 Duke’s Vaunt [Font] Oak, 33, 35-6, 39, 45 Dunham Massey (Cheshire), 201 Dunning, Gerald, 266 Durham, 119 Durmast oak see Quercus petraea (sessile oak) Durocornovium, 139, see also Wanborough Durrington, 170;Durrington Walls, 13,21,22,221, 248; Stonehenge Inn, 248; Stonehenge Road, 248 earthworks, 195-204, 245; Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age, 250; Iron Age, 249;Anglo-Saxon, 249; medieval, 209-17, 246, 249, see also ditches; hillforts; mottes; mounds East Anglia, 99, 257 East Indies, 141 Easton Down, excavations, 161-76 Easton, Prior of, 34 Easton Royal, 34 East Sussex see Bishopstone; Hastings; Lewes Economist, The, 66 Edington: millennium book, 262, 263;Tinhead, 262 Edmund, 2nd Earl of Cornwall, 135 educational reforms, 78 Edward I, King, 123, 128, 130 Edward II, King, 128 Edward III, King, 182, 188 Edward VI, King, 38 Edwards, Brian, paper on George Cotton at Marlborough College, 75-87 Edwards, Zachary Bayley, 185 eels, 141 effigies, 13th century, 130-3 Egypt, 234 Ekwall, E., 203 Elateridae (beetles), 158 Eleanor, Queen, 128,129, 130,135 Elizabeth I, Queen, 142, 188, 258 Elizabeth, Princess, 179 Elizabeth, Queen Mother, 266 Ellery, Richard, 50,51 Ellis, Blanche, note on Ludgershall Castle, 235 Ellison, A., 175 Ellis, William Webb, 75 enclosures, 13; Bronze Age, 255; Neolithic/Early Bronze Age, 248; Iron Age, 249, 265; Late Iron Age, 247; Romano-British, 244; palisaded, 11, 14, see also hillforts; settlements Enford: Compton, 152; Littlecott, 152 England: arms, 123, 124, 128, 129; oaks, 44 Engleheart, George H., 4, 150 English Heritage, 6, 166, 195, 224, 245 English Nature, 154 engravers, 182 Epilobium hirsutum (great willow herb), 154 epiphytes, on oaks, 40-2 Epuraea distincta (beetle), 159 Essex see Mucking Esturmy family, 26 Esturmy, Richard, 26 Etchilhampton, 240; Etchilhampton Hill, 240 Evelyn, John, 142, 197,202 Everett, Henry, 183 Everleigh, Snail Down, 265 executions, 48, 52,53 Ex Libris Press, 260 Eynsham (Oxon), New Wintles, 114 fairs, 214 falchions, Conyers, 129 False Braydon Oak, 38, 43 Faringdon (Oxon), 144; Coles Pit, 112 farms, 212,214,216 Farrant, Robert, 190-1 faunal remains, from the Sanctuary, 15, 16 Fawcett, Henry, 191 Fawcett, William, 191 fencelines: Middle Bronze Age, 244; Late Iron Age, 247 ferns, 40-1 Ferris, Phomas, 51 Field, David, 6; paper on Marlborough Mount, 195— 204 field-names, 214-16 field systems: Roman, 246, 248; Romano-British, 244; medieval, 248 Fiennes, Celia, 197, 199, 200 Figheldean, 152, 252 fights, public schools, 80 273 Filipendula ulmaria (meadowsweet), 154 Finch, R., 150 Fine Art Society, 232 First World War see World War I Fisher, Archdeacon, 184 Fisher, Thomas, 205-7 Fisherton Anger, 48, 53 flakes, flint, 10-11, 12, 164, 166, 170, 173, 222; Levallois, 11, see also flintwork Fletcher, Frank, 79 Fletcher, Canon J.M.J., 121 Flewer, Henry, 144 flint blocks, 151 flint cairns: Middle Bronze Age, 161-76; alignments, 174 flint cobbles, Neolithic, 219, 222 flint mines, Neolithic, 161, 162, 175 flints, 251; burnt, 8, 112, 151, 164, 165, 172, 244, 254, 255; gun, 172; nodules, 166, 167, 168, 170; polished, 238; scattered, 251, 253; struck, 112, 114, 250 flintwork, 164, 165, 254, 255; prehistoric, 8, 10-14, 74, 151, 237, 243; Late Mesolithic/Early Neolithic, 253; Neolithic, 219,222,251;Middle Bronze Age, 171-2, 173, see also arrowheads; awls; axes; blades; cores; flakes, flint; hammerstones; knives; scrapers; tools Flixborough (Lines), 115 Flower, Ann, 50-1 Flowers, William, 188 folk art: materials, 179; practitioners, 178-9; seed picture, 177-81 Folkestone, Viscount, 184 Fonthill Gifford: Fonthill Abbey, 230; Fonthill House, 230-4; Pavilion House, 230,231;Stop’s Beacon, 230 Fontmell Magna (Dorset), 182 Football Association, 81 football teams, military, 82 Ford, Steve, note on finds at Cadley Road, Collingbourne Ducis, 112, 114-15 Foreman, Anne, 145 Forestry Commission, 27 forts, Roman, 196 fossils, 226 Fovant, millennium book, 263 fowl, bones, 103, 105, 107, 108 foxes, bones, 109 Fox, George, 144 Foxton, Mary Ann, 226 France, 66, 134, 234; arms, 124, 128, see also Normandy; Poitou; Provence; Rouen;Versailles Francklyn family, 144 Fraxinus excelsior (ash), 168 Frocester Court (Glos), 230 frogs, bones, 15 Frome (Somerset), 207; mails, 142 funerary monuments, 161-2 funerary rituals, 174—5, 257 funerary urns, 161 furnishings, Fonthill House, 230-4 Gacelin, Sir Geoffrey, 209 Gale, Roger, 206 Gale, Rowena, 168 Galiuni aparine (goose grass), 154 Galium palustre (marsh bedstraw), 154 Galley Low (Derbyshire), 238-9 games: and militarism, 81—3; organised, 79, 81 274 Garofalini, Jennifer, 6 Gdansk State Forests (Poland), 44 Gearys, Andrew, 179 geese, bones, 74, 103, 105 gem set seals, 234-5 Gentleman's Magazine, The, 35, 177 geophysics, 266; Amesbury, 243; Avebury, 244-5; Ogbourne St Andrew, 250; Roundway Down, 236-8; Swindon, 252; Upton Lovell, 253 George III, King, 178, 179, 189 George IV, King, 182, 183,185 Germany: oaks, 44, see also Aachen Cathedral; Berlin ghosts, 54 Gibbs, Henry Martin, 211 Gibet, Thomas, 65 Gibson, A., 21, 22 Gifford, Lady Frances, 58 Gillings, Mark, 21 Gilmore family, 144 Girouard, Mark, 75, 81,83 glass, post-medieval, 151 glaziers, 119, 120, 133, 189 Gleave, Matthew, note on finds at Cadley Road, Collingbourne Ducis, 112 Gleeson Homes, 250 Gloucester Abbey, 135 Gloucestershire, 99, see also Cirencester; Down Ampney; Frocester Court; Hampnett; Hazleton North; Kingswood; Lechlade; Somerford Keynes Glover’s Roll, 129 glow-worms, 218-19 Glyceria maxima (reed-sweet grass), 154 goats: bones, 107, 108; teeth, 106 Goddard, Edward, 144-5 Goddard, Edward Hesketh, 150 Goderville, Hilary (née Malesmains), 209 Goderville, Sir Walter de, 209 goldsmiths, 182, 189 Gough, Richard, 121 Gough, William, 144 Gower, Earl, 65 Goya, 231 gradiometer surveys, 236-8 Graham, B., 139 Granville, Mary (Mrs Delaney), 179 grasses, as epiphytes, 42 Gray, Harold St. George, 4, 16 Great Bedwyn, 257; Deer Park, 43; Tottenham House, 27, 43;Tottenham Park, 26, 27, 64,65 Great Beech, 45 Great Cheverell, 209 Greater London see Hampton Court Palace; Havering; Kennington; Teddington; Twickenham Great Exhibition (1851), 191 Great Ridge Wood, 159 Great Rollright (Oxon): Five Knights, 206, 208; Gough’s barrow, 206, 207; King’s Stone, 205, 206, 207; Rollright Stones, 205-8;Whispering Knights, 205, 206-7 Great War see World War I Great Western Railway Company, 190 Great West Road, 140 Great Wishford, Grovely Wood, 265 Greed, PeterT., note on Devizes Millennium White Horse, 223-5 Green family, 258 Greenfield family, 144 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Green, Martin, work reviewed, 258 Greenwood’s map (1820), 34, 36 Greenwood, William, 51 Greville, Sir Fulke, 57 Grime’s Graves (Norfolk), 222 Grinsell, Leslie V., 150, 236 grisaille, 13th century, 121, 124-6, 133-4 gromwell seeds, 180 Grose, D., The Flora of Wiltshire (1957), 43 Grosvenor, Earl, 66 Grosvenor family, 58 Grosvenor, Sir Thomas, 58 grotto, flint, 199 Grove, Thomas, 188 gullies, 254-5; Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age, 250; medieval, 251, 253, see also ditches gun flints, 172 gypsies, 47, 48, 50 gypsophila seeds, 180 Habakkuk, Professor, 58 hailstorms, 189 Halfpenny, Joseph, 134 Hall, J., 65 Hall, Peter, 191 Hall, Teddy, 266 Hambridge, E., 4 Ham Hill (Somerset), 4, 16 Hamiulton-Dyer, Sheila: note on finds at 3 Kingsbury Square, Wilton, 74; note on finds at Cadley Road, Collingbourne Ducis, 102-11 Hamilton, Michael A., 173, 236 hammerstones, Neolithic, 219,222 Hampnett (Glos), Burn Ground, 99 Hampshire, 57, 159, 161; estates, 59, see also Abbots Worthy; Alice Holt; Andover; Basingstoke; Kimpton; Meon Hill; Meonstoke; New Forest; Over Wallop; Southampton; Southbourne; Stockbridge; Winchester Hampshire Field Club, 4 Hampton Court Palace (Greater London), 266 Hamuili see Southampton (Hants), Hamwic Hansa, 129 Harding, A.,173 Harrington, Lord, 258 Harrington, Mr, 183-4 Harrington, Mrs, 184 Harrison, Emma, note on Neolithic activity at Ducks Meadow, Marlborough, 219-23 Harvey, Paul, 235 Harwell (Oxon), 166 Haslam, J., 203 Haslam and Whiteway, 232 Hastings (East Sussex), 227 Hatchard, John (1), 185, 187 Hatchard, John (2), 187 Hatcher Review, 266 Havering (Greater London), 128 Hawley, W., 150,151 Haylock, Cresswell and Brent, 64 Hayward, Jane, 121 Hayward, Dr Joseph, 51 Hazleton North (Glos), 222 Hearst, John, 144 Hearth Taxes, 140, 144 Hemiptera, survey, 154-60 hemp-nettles, as epiphytes, 42 Hemp, W.J., 4 henge monuments, timber, 21 Henry I, King, 135 Henry II, King, 135 Henry III, King, 128, 130, 133, 134, 135, 136, 234 Henry VIII, King, 38, 43, 57 Henry of Chichester, Missal, 133 Henry of Cornwall, 130 Hensley, William, 257 heraldry, 257; in Salisbury Cathedral Chapter House, 120-1, 123-4, 126-30 Heralds’ Visitation of Wilts (1623), 188 herbaceous plants, as epiphytes, 41—2 Herbert, Augustus, 180 Herbert, Charlotte, 178 Herbert, Diana, 178 Herbert, Elizabeth (née Beauclerk), 178 Herbert, Elizabeth, (née Spencer), Countess of Pembroke, 177-8, 180 Herbert, George, 257 Herbert, George Augustus, 11th Earl of Pembroke, 178 Herbert, Henry, 10th Earl of Pembroke, 178, 180 Hereford and Worcester see Richard’s Castle Herman, Bishop of Salisbury, 134 Hertford, Lady, 199 Hertford, Lord, 199 Hertford, Robert de, Dean, 123 Hertfordshire see Braughing; Lyonshall Heytesbury, 188; East Hill, 254; Park Street Gates, 248; West Hill, 254 Hide, Edmund, 259 Highworth, 144, 257 hillforts: Iron Age, 224, 249, 254, see also enclosures; specific sites Hill, N. G., 173 Hills Aggregates, 244 Hinde, Thomas, 76 Hindon, millennium book, 263 Hingley, R., 152 Histeridae (beetles), 156 Hitchcock, John, 188 Hitchcock, Thomas, 188 Hoare, Sir Richard Colt, 8, 61, 189, 195, 199, 257, 258 Hoare’s Bank, 61, 62, 64, 65 Hobb, Richard, 142 Hobbs, Steven, review by, 257-8 Holdenby (Northants), 201 Holdgate (Shrops), motte, 201 Holkham (Norfolk), 59, 64, 65 Holland, arms, 128 Holroyd, Mr, 50 Holt, millennium book, 263 Holy Land, 129 honestones: Saxon, 90; ?Late Saxon/medieval, 74 Hordeum vulgare (barley), grains, 113 horn, worked, 247 Hornet Oak, 43 Horningsham, millennium book, 262-3 horses, bones, 74, 102, 103, 105, 247, 255 Hoskins, W. G., 47 Howard, Mr, 184 Hows, Mark E. P, note on Devizes Millennium White Horse, 223-5 Hudson, Octavius, 124, 125 Hughes, Arthur, 79 Hughes, Thomas, 76, 80 Hughes, William, 144 Hull R., 50 Hulse, Sir Charles, 184 INDEX Hungary, 175 Hungerford, Sir Anthony, 188 Hungerford (Berks), 26 Hungerford, Edmund, 188 Hungerford family, 209-11 Hungerford, Sir Walter, 209 Hunt, Thomas, 144 Hydrophilidae (beetles), 156 hymn books, 82 ideologies, public school, 75-87 Idmiston: Gomeldon, 265-6; Porton Down, 168 imbrex, 151 industrial sites, Saxon, 98 inhumations, 3, 4-5, 15; Beaker, 5; Bronze Age, 238, 253; Late Bronze Age, 244; Iron Age, 244; ?Roman, 246-7; Roman, 247, 248; Anglo- Saxon, 236-9, 250; Saxon, 89, 244, 265; ?Late Saxon/medieval, 252; medieval, 238, 243 inns, and coach trade, 142 insurance agents, 189 invertebrates, biodiversity, 154 Ireland: oaks, 44; poverty, 187; tokens, 259, see also Belfast Irnham (Lincs), 58 iron objects, 94; Saxon, 112 iron slag, 112, 246 Isabel, Lady, 130 Isle of Man, 18; tokens, 259 Italy, 66, see also Rome; Viterbo ivory, rings, 115 Jackson and Graham, 231-2, 232-4 Jackson, J. W., 4 Jackson, Wilfred, 15 Jacques, David, 243 James, David, 162 James I, King, 258 jars: Roman, 96; Romano-British, 151; Saxon, 97, 99-102; medieval, 70, 71-4 Jefferies, Richard, 27, 35 Jewel, Bishop John, 119 jewellers, 182-94 jewellery see beads; brooches; rings John, King, 135 Jones, Owen, 231, 232, 234 Jones, Roger, 260 jugs, medieval, 7 1—4 Keiller, Alexander, 1,10, 15, 16 Keith, Arthur, 4,5 Kember, Robert, 143 Kempson, E.G. H., 259 Kennard, A.S., 4 Kennet and Avon Canal, 240 Kennet, River, 26, 139, 195, 200, 203, 219, 222 Kennet Valley, 139, 142, 195, 202, 203, 222; water meadows, 253 Kennington (Greater London), St Mark’s Church, 185 Kent, 159, see also Canterbury; Plaistow; Rochester Castle; Tunbridge Wells Kent, Sir Richard, 211 Keynes, John, 144 Kilmington, Kilmington Manor, 177 kilns, 216,248; Romano-British, 246; medieval, 70, 265, 266 Kilvert, Francis, 47, 48 Kimpton (Hants), 172 King, D.G., 15 King of Limbs Oak, 34-5, 45 King Oak, 36, 38-9, 40 King, Peter, 225 Kingston Lacy (Dorset), 62 Kingston-upon-Thames Archaeological Society, 266 Kingswood (Glos), 213 Kington Langley, 48, 50 Kington Magna (Dorset), 182 Kinnes, I., 169 Kinwardstone Hundred, 34, 36, 37 Karby, Colin, 243 kites, bones, 109 Knight, James, 64 Knightlow (Warwickshire), 241 knives: Saxon, 91, 112; flint, 12, 13 Knook: Knook Castle, 255; Knook Down, 255; Knook Spur, 255 Kyp, 201 Ladies Amusement, The, 178 LAigle, arms. 129 Lampi, Giovanni Battista, 56 Lampyris noctiluca (glow-worm), 218-19 Lancashire see Lancaster Moor; Stonyhurst Lancaster Moor (Lancashire), 173 Land Army girls, 27 landowners, 66 land-use patterns, Sheldon Manor area, 209-17 Langlands, Alex, note on Swanborough Tump, 239— 42 Langley Burrell Without, 47, 209 Langley Fitzurze see Kington Langley Lanherne (Cornwall), 62 Lansdowne manuscripts, 130 Lanting, J. N., 169 Lathridiidae (beetles), 158 Latton, 99; Eysey (deserted village), 249; Eysey Manor Farm, 248-9; Latton Lands, 249 Laverstock, 250; Ford, 265; kilns, 70, 71, 265, 266 Lawrence family, 144 Lawrence, John, 144 Leader, Richard, 259 Lea, John, 47 leaves, hairs, 30, 44 Lechlade (Glos), 99, 106, 107, 109 Leland, John, 135, 197, 201, 202 Leman, Mr, 208 Lethaby, W. R., 133 Letts, John, note on finds at Cadley Road, Collingbourne Ducis, 112-13 lettuce seeds, 180 Leveson-Gower estates, 64,65 Lewes (East Sussex): battle, 130; Cliffe Hall, 168 Liber Monasterii de Hyda, 240 lichens, as epiphytes, 42 Liddell, Dorothy, 16 limestone, worked, 74 Lincolnshire: estates, 59, 65, see also Bowthorpe; Burton; Flixborough; Irnham linears, 254, 255; Bronze Age, 165, 174, see also ditches Linum perenne (flax), 159 Lippeatt, Christopher, 144 Lippiatt family, 144 Lipscomb, Rev Christopher, 51,53 Lisbon (Portugal), 189 Little Bedwyn, 35, 36; parish boundary, 39 275 Lloyd, Mr, 119 Lockhart, Mr, 184 Lockwood, Edward, 77 Loe, Mary, 144 London, 58, 60, 62, 94, 99, 139, 187, 190; Ancient Monuments Directorate, 266; Ancient Monuments Laboratory, 265, 266; British Museum, 114, 189;Carlton House Terrace, 234; Clapham Common, 184, 188; coach trade, 140, 142, 145;communications, 216;Conduit Street, 119; Covent Garden, 184; Fleet Street, 142; Fortress House, 266; glow-worms, 218, 219; Haslam and Whiteway, 232; Holbourn Bridge, 142; House of Commons, 184; Lincoln’s Inn, 211; mails, 143; Morrison and Dillon, 231; Piccadilly, 57, 59, 185; Portman Square, 59; Royal Albert Hall, 232;St Clements, 142; Savile Row, 266;Victoria & Albert Museum, 120,230, 231;Westminster, 142;Westminster Abbey, 123, 128, 130, 134, 135; Westminster Palace, 128-9 Longford Estate, 248 Long Harry Oak, 43 Longitarsus parvulus (beetle), 159 loomweights, 91, 95; ?Late Saxon/medieval, 252; chalk, 243; clay, 111 Louis IX, King, 128, 130 Lowndes & Drury, 120 Luckham, Alexander Minty, 193 Luckham, Catherine Bossom (née Bennett), 187, 188, 193 Lucy, Marlborough Official Guide (1922), 37-8 Ludgershall, Castle, 234-5 lynchets, 251, 254 Lyneham Barrow (Oxon), 208 Lyonshall (Herts), 185 Lysimachia vulgaris (yellow loosestrife), 154 Lytton, Bulwer, 76 Macdonald, Captain, 184 McKey, Patrick, 53 McKinley, Jacqueline I.,5, 174 MacNeice, Louis, 79-80 magnetometer surveys, 243, 244-5, 253, 266 mails: coach trade, 142-3; delays, 143 Malmesbury, 265; Holloway, 249; millennium book, 261-2, 263-4; Nuns’ Walk, 249;Town Wall, 249 Malmesbury, Abbot of, 214 mammals, bones, 15 Mangan, J.A., 83 Manningford: Cocklebury Farm, 240; Dragon Lane, 240; Frith Copse, 241; Manningford Abbots, 239, 240; Manningford Bruce, 239, 240; Swanborough Tump, 239-42 Marden, 252; All Saints Church, 249 Margarethe, Queen of Denmark, 266 Margaret, Queen, 128 Marian, 135 Market Lavington, pottery, 98-9 markets, 214 Marks, Richard, 121, 130 Marlborough, 3rd Duke of, 178 Marlborough, 34, 35, 227, 240; Angel Inn, 145; apprentices, 144-5; Bath Road, 145;Castle, 26, 139, 195, 196, 197, 202-3; Castle Inn, 199, 200; charters, 139, 143-4; coach trade, 142-3; Common, 145; corporate identity, 140; Corporation, 143, 258; courts, 143-4; Duck's Meadow, 219-23; Grammar School, 265; Granham Down, 139; Great Fire (1653), 140, 276 Marlborough (covit.) 144:The Green, 139, 145; Guildhall, 140, 141, 144; Hart, 142; High Street, 139, 140,141,144, 145; Kingsbury Street, 145;as market town, 140, 141-2, 145; marriages, 145; millennium book, 262, 264; Mound (Mount), 195-204, 222, 249; Official Guide, 37-8; population, 140-1; public entertainment, 145; race meetings, 145; St Mary’s Church, 140, 141,143, 144, 203;St Peter and St Paul’s Church, 140, 141, 143, 144, 145; setting, 139; Silverless Street, 203; stabling, 142; Three Tuns, 145; town status, 139-40; trades, 142;turnpikes, 142, 145;urbanity, 139-47; wards, 143 Marlborough College, 195; canal, 197,200; College Chapel, 80; Cotton’s influence, 75-87; Cricket Field, 196; excavations, 249; expansion, 139; gardens, 197-202; Great Rebellion, 75, 76-7; Mound (Mount), 195-204, 222, 249; recruits, 83-4; sanitation, 200; Seymour’s house, 197,200; war casualties, 84 Marlborough College Natural History Society, 196 Marlborough Mound Trust, 249 arples, George, 225 Marriage Duty Act, 141 arsh, Chancellor, 184 Marshian, Michael, reviews by, 260-4 Martin, G.H., 139 martyrologies, 135 ason, Philip, 75 Massie, Joseph, 59 Aaster of the Posts, 142 Matcham, Mr, 184 Maubert, James, 58 Maurice, Dr, 227 mayors, salaries, 186 May,T. C., 184 meadow-grass, as epiphyte, 42 medals, 189, 226 Meer the Ancestors, 258 meeting places, mounds, 239-42 megaliths, 1,3; Rollright stones, 205-8 Melksham, Forest, 216 Melyridae (beetles), 158 Mengs, Anton Raphael, 61 Mentha aquatica (water mint), 154 Meon Hull (Hants), 16 Meonstoke (Hants), 106, 109 Mercer, 22 Mercia, 212 Mere, 232,257 Merewether, Mr, 51 Merleberge, 202, see also Marlborough metalwork: Romano-British, 248; Saxon, 91, 112, 115; post-medieval, 112, see also arrowheads; awls; blades; copper alloy objects; iron objects; knives; nails; scrapers Meyrick, Arthur (1), 226 Meyrick, Arthur (2), 226, 227 Meyrick, Arthur (3), 227 Meyrick, Edward Graves, 226, 227 Meyrick, Edwin, 226-8 Meyrick, Emma, 226 Meyrick, Judy, 227 Meyrick, Llewellyn, 226 Meyrick, Marian, 226 Meyrick, Martha, 226, 227 Meyrick, Maurice, 226 Meyrick, Thomas, 226 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Mildenhall, 34; Forest Hill, 249; parish boundary, 37, 39, see also Cunetio militarism, and games, 81—3 Millennial Oak, 35 millennium books, reviews, 260—4 mills, 18th century, 251 Milton Keynes (Bucks): Hartigans, 94; Pennyland, 94 Milton Lilbourne, 34 Minety, 265 Mingay, G.E., 59,61 Ministry of Defence, 149, 243 Mainistry of Works, 15, 265 Minton, 120 mints, Saxon, 69 molluse remains, 249 Monarch Oak see Cathedral Oak Money, Stoughton, 236 monumental inscriptions, 257-8 Moody, Robert, paper on James Bennett of Salisbury, 182-94 Moray, Sir Robert, 199 Mordellidae (beetles), 158 Morrison, Alfred, 231-4 Morrison and Dillon, 231 Morrison, James, 230-1 Morris, William, 77 Mortimer, George, 230 Mortimer, Mr, 66 Morven Institute of Archaeological Research, 16 mottes, 201, 202-3, 249 mounds, 239-42, 249, see also artificial mounds mounts see artificial mounds Mucking (Essex), 94, 99, 114 Municipal Reform Act (1836), 185 murder, oral history, 47-55 Murdie, David, 249 Murray, L.J., 16 Musty, Anthony, 267 Musty, John, obituary, 265-7 Musty, Sue, 267 Musty,Vera, 265, 267 Mycetophagidae (beetles), 158 Myres, J. N.L., 152 Nadder, River, 69 nails, 91, 112; Romano-British, 151 Nash, David, 159 National Monuments Record Centre, 6, 236, 243, 248 Natural History Museum (London), 3,5 Neale, J. P.,61, 63 Neckham, Alexander, 203 necklaces, 175, 236 Nelson, Horatio, 3rd Earl Nelson, 178 Nelson, Lady Mary Jane Diane (née Agar), 177,178 Netheravon: Cavalry School, 150;excavations, 148— 53; Fifield Folly, 152; Netheravon House, 149, 150, 152 Newall, Robert, 4, 20 Newbury (Berks), 142; mails, 143 New Forest (Hants), pottery, 96, 246, 248 New Queen Oak, 38-9 New Sarum see Salisbury New Spiral Oak, 38 New Zealand, 44 Nisbet, Ulric, 79 Nitidulidae (beetles), 158 Norfolk see Breckland; Grime’s Graves; Holkham Norman Conquest, 26, 216 Normandy (France), 235 Norris, William, 211 Northamptonshire, 209, see also Aldwincle; Holdenby North Bradley, millennium book, 261, 264 Northern Ireland, oaks, 44 North Mains (Tayside), 21 Northover, Peter, 168 North Wilts Herald, 227 Norton, Christopher, 123 Norweb, 259 Norwood, Cyril, 82 Nottinghamshire see Southwell Cathedral Nott, Ralph Augustus, 259 nunnertes, 57 Nuttal, Roy, 263 oaks: applications, 25; coppicing, 25, 26, 33, 34; die- back disease, 42—3, 45; epiphytes, 40-2; genetic diversity, 45; genetics, 28, 44; girths, 28, 33, 40, 41, 43,45; hybrids, 28, 33, 43-4; identification, 29-30; microscopy, 30; myths, 25; named, 33— 9; native, 33; petioles, 30, 44; pollarding, 25, 33, 34; Savernake Forest, 24—46; taxa, 31-2 OAU (Oxford Archaeological Unit), 244,245,246, 247-8, 249 Oedemeridae (beetles), 158 Officer's Training Corps, 75, 83 Ogbourne St Andrew: Barbury Castle, 226; St Andrew’s Church, 250 Ogbourne St George, 98 Og, Raver, 203 oil paints, 179 Old Haylock, 59 Old Spiral Oak, 38, 43 Oliver, Jack, paper on Savernake Forest oaks, 24— 46 Olympic Games, 81-2 onion skins, 180 oral history, 47-55 Original Queen Oak, 37-8 Orthoperus improvisus (beetle), 159 Osbourne, J. W., 257 Oscott Psalter, 130 Osmond, Jack, 3 Osniund, Bishop of Salisbury, 134, 135 ovens, Roman, 248 Over Wallop (Hants): Easton Down, 161; Martin’s Clump, 162, 174 Owen, Mr, 207, 208 Oxford,76; Bodleian Library, 205,257 ;Corpus Christi College,226;Exeter College, 193; motte, 202; New College, 260; Queens College, 226, 227; Trinity College, 226; University, 200,226, 227 Oxford Archaeological Unit (OAU), 244, 245, 246, 247-8, 249 Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, 15 Oxfordshire, 178; pottery, 151, 248, see also Chipping Norton; Dorchester; Eynsham; Faringdon; Great Rollright; Harwell; Lyneham Barrow; Rollright Stones Packwood House (Warwickshire), 201, 202 Padwick, Sarah, 224 Paine, James, 60 Paine, James (I), 230 painters, 189 paints, 179 INDEX Panama see Portobello Panton, Colonel, 57 Panton, Elizabeth, 57-8 Panton, Thomas, 57-8 Papworth, John B., 230-1 parish councils, millennium works, 260 parish registers, 257 Paris, Matthew, 129, 234,235 Parker, Paul, 75 Parker, R.A.C., 65 Parkes, Judith, 168 Passmore, A. D., 10,226 Pearce Civil Engineering, 224, 225 Pearce, Judith, murder, 47-55 Pedunculate Oak see Quercus robur (English oak) Pegge, E.L., 4 Pekin (China), Summer Palace, 232 Pepys, Samuel, 142 perambulations, 1301, 34, 36, 37 Perdue, Mr, 142 peregrines, bones, 109 Persimmon Homes Wessex Ltd., 247 Petchey, M.R., 241 Peter, Count of Savoy, 129 Pevensey, arms, 129 Pevsner, Nikolaus, 202, 211 Pewsey, 139, 144, 178, 239, 240, 241; Black Patch, 99; Martinsell, 26 Pewsey Horse, 225 Pewsey, Vale of, 97, 224 Peyton, Captain, 184 Phalaris arundinacea (reed canary grass), 154 Phillipps, Sir Thomas, work reviewed, 257-8 Phillips, Bernard, 245, 246, 247 Phragmites conmunis (common reed), 154 picture frames, 180 Piers de Brus , Lord of Skelton and Annandale, arms, 129 Piers de Brus II, 129 Piers de Brus III, 129 Piggott, Stuart, 15,18, 19, 21,22, 265 pigs, 115; bones, 74, 102, 103, 105, 107, 109 Pike, Thomas, 142 pinbeaters, Saxon, 95, 109 Pine, Jo, report on excavations at Cadley Road, Collingbourne Ducis, 88-117 pinemartens, bones, 107 pins, 175; bone, 90,91, 92,93, 109; walrus ivory, 89, 115 pin-suites, 236 Pisum sativum (pea), 113 Pitcairn, Raymond, 120, 125 pitchers, medieval, 70 pits, 254-5; Neolithic, 251; Beaker, 161;Early Bronze Age, 244; Middle Bronze Age, 244; Late Bronze Age, 244; Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age, 244, 245,252; Iron Age, 244; Roman, 244, 251,252; Romano-British, 151; Saxon, 88-117, 244; medieval, 68-74, 243, 247,253; post-medieval, 68-74, 247;stone, 4, 6, see also ditches; postholes Pitt Ravers, Augustus Henry Lane Fox, 258 Pitts, Mike, report on excavations at the Sanctuary, 1-23, 244 place-names, 212-13 plague, 214 Plaistow (Kent), 226 plaster, Romano-British, 151 Pleydell-Bouverie, Bertrand, 4th Earl of Radnor, 178 Pleydell-Bouverie, Constance Jane (née Nelson), 177, 178 Pleydell-Bouverie, Duncombe, 178, 187 Pleydell-Bouverie, Katharine, 177,178 Plymouth (Devon), St Andrew’s, 187 Poitou (France), arms, 129 Poland, oaks, 44 pollarding, oaks, 25, 33, 34 Pollard, Joshua, 4, 6, 8,21; note on finds from the Sanctuary, 10-15, 16 Pomatias elegans (snail), 165 Pomfret, Countess, 199 Poole Harbour (Dorset), pottery, 151 Poore, Herbert, Bishop of Salisbury, 135 Poore, Richard, Bishop of Salisbury, 135 Pope, Alexander, 61, 199 Popham, Arthur, 226 poppy seeds, 180 population, estimates, 140-1 Portchester (Hants), 99 Portland, Duke of, 65 Portobello (Panama), 226 Porton Down Conservation Group, 162 Porton Down Ministry of Defence Establishment, 162, 265 Portugal see Lisbon Roman, 251;Saxon, 88—117;medieval, 69-70, 251, 253; *modern, 251; concrete markers, 4, 8-10, 20; excavations, 5-10, see also pits; stakeholes Post Office, 142-3, 191 postpipes, 222 pottery: prehistoric, 8, 14, 18,96, 237,255; Neolithic, 19, 251; Late Neolithic, 219, 221-2; Beaker, 5, 164, 166, 167, 168-9, 222; Bronze Age, 96, 236, 238,255; Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age, 250, 252; Iron Age, 164,171,248, 249, 253,255; Late IronAge/Romano-British, 251; Late Iron Age, 196, 247, 248; Roman, 8, 96, 98, 114, 208, 243, 246, 247, 248, 251,255; Romano-British, 150, 151,245—-6, 248, 254;Anglo-Saxon, 249; Saxon, 91,92, 93,94, 95, 96-102, 114; Norman, 196, 203;medieval, 69, 70-4, 99, 151, 243,244, 245— 6, 247,248, 249, 251, 252, 253; post-medieval, 69,70-4, 99, 151; 19th century, 196;Alice Holt type, 96, 243; Black Burnished ware, 151;bone- tempered, 222; coarsewares, 70,71, 151;Dorset black burnished ware, 96; earthenwares, 71; Ebbsfleet ware, 14; finewares, 70, 71; Grooved Ware, 22, 221, 222; Horton type, 71; Kennet Valley wares, 70, 71; Laverstock type, 70, 71, 265, 266; Naish Hill glazed ware, 70, 71; New Forest colour-coated ware, 96; New Forest type, 246, 248; Oxfordshire ware, 151, 248; Samian, 96, 151, 164, 171, 247; Savernake ware, 247; stamps, 99; stonewares, 71;“Tudor Green’ ware, 70,71; unbraided, 222: Verwood type, 71;Wessex grog-tempered ware, 248; West Svindon type, 247;West Wiltshire micaceous ware, 70,71, see also beakers; bowls; clay pipes; cups; dishes; jars; jugs; kilns; tiles; urns Poussin, Nicolas, 61 poverty, Ireland, 187 Powell, Daniel, 51 Powell, Mr, 184 Powell, Nicola, note on finds at Cadley Road, Collingbourne Ducis, 109-11 Powys see Sarn-y-bryn-caled 21 Pratt, Dallas, 180 Pratt, Tony, notes on Edwin Meyrick, 226-8 prefects, in public schools, 79 Preshute, 39, 188; Manton Down, 195 Pretiosa, 135 Price, E., 230 Price, John, 51 printers, 190, 191 Proffett, Nicholas, 144 Protapion varipes (beetle), 159 Protestants, 60 Protestation Returns, 140 Provence (France), arms, 124, 128, 130 Prunus spp. (plum/cherry), 168 Pselaphidae (beetles), 157 Pteridium aquilinum (bracken), 35 Ptiliidae (beetles), 156 Public Advertiser, The, 142 public schools: bullies, 80-1; chapels, 81; and Christianity, 81 ; fights, 80; growth, 78; ideologies, 75-87; organised games, 79, 81; prefects, 79 publishers, 185, 190-1 Pugh, C.W., 4 pumpkin seeds, 180 Puritans, 144 Purser, John, 60, 62 Pyrochroidae (beetles), 158 Pythouse family, 188 Quakers, 144 quarries: Romano-British, 244; stone, 207, 208 Queen Oak, 37-8, 45 Queensberry Rules, 81 Quercus spp. (oak), 24-46, 168 Quercus cerris (Turkey oak), 25, 32 Quercus coccinea (American scarlet oak), 32 Quercus tlex (holm oak), 32 Quercus petraea (sessile oak), 25, 28, 32, 33, 45; acorns, 45; die-back disease, 43; leaves, 30, 44; named, 37—9; occurrence, 43-4; petioles, 30-1, 44; unnamed, 37 Quercus petraea © robur see Quercus ° rosacea (hybrid native oak) Quercus robur (English oak), 25, 26, 28, 31-2, 33, 45; acorns, 45; die-back disease, 43, 45; leaves, 30, 44; named, 35-6, 36-7; occurrence, 43-4; petioles, 30-1, 44 Quercus robur var. cristata (Savernake cluster oak), 25, 32, 44 Quercus rubra (American red oak), 25, 32, 44 Quercus ° rosacea (hybrid native oak), 25, 28, 30, 31, 32; acorns, 45; leaves, 44; named, 33-5, 37; occurrence, 43-4; petioles, 44; unnamed, 36 querns: Saxon, 91, 92, 94, 115; rotary, 248; saddle, 248; stone, 112 Quidhampton, Fugglestone Red, 250 race meetings, 145, 189 Rackham, O., 33 radiocarbon dating, 114, 166,172,249; the Sanctuary, 15 Radnor, Earl of, 183, 186 Rahtz, Philip, 265 railways, 190; works, 252 Ramsbury, 34, 226; smelting site, 98, 99, 104, 106, 109 Randall, Elizabeth (née Bennett), 185 Randall, John, 185 Randsborg, K., 175 278 Rawlings, Antoinnette, paper on eighteenth- century folk art picture, 177-81 Rawlings, Mick, report on excavations at Netheravon, 148-53 RCHME (Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England), 195, 249, 250 Reading (Berks), 142 reedbeds, Coleoptera survey, 154-60 Reeves and Son, 179 Reform Act (1832), 184, 187 Rembrandt, 61 Remembrance Sunday, 82 Research Councils, 266 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 60 Rachard I, King, 135, 234 Rachard, Earl of Cornwall, King of the Romans, 119, 130, 135; arms, 128-9 Richard’s Castle (Hereford and Worcester), motte, 202 Rachards, David, note on finds at Cadley Road, Collingbourne Ducis, 112 Rachmond (Surrey), Pembroke Lodge, 178 Rade, David J., report on excavations at Easton Down, Allington, 161-76 ridge and furrow, medieval, 252 Ragold, Stuart, 234, 235, rings, ivory, 115 Raot Act, 187 riots:agricultural, 187; Marlborough College, 76-7 Ravalibus, Michael de, 234 Raivaux, Peter de, 234-5 roads, 216, 240, 241; Roman, 34, 36-7, 38, 45, 139, 203, 251, 265; staging posts, 140, 142, see also trackways Robinson, Paul, 236; review by, 258-9 Roborough (Devon), 235 Roches, Peter des, 234 Rochester Castle (Kent), 128 Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, 134 Rollright Stones (Oxon), antiquarian visit, 205-8 Rolt, Colonel, 184 Roman Catholics, 57, 60, 61, 62 Romania, oaks, 44 Roman Road Oak, 36-7 Rome (Italy), 59,61;Villa Medici, 201 Rosa, Salvator, 61 Rouen (France), Roche d’Orival, 235 Roundway: Bank Field, 223-4; Folly Road, 223; Oliver’s Camp, 223, 236; Roundway Down, 223-5, 236-9; Roundway Hill, 241 Loundway Garden Industrial Estate, 223 Roundway Project, 236-9 Rouse, Amanda, note on finds from the Sanctuary, 15 Rowborough family, 235 Rowborough Hundred, 235 Rowborough, Michael de, 235 Royal Academy of Arts, 178, 231 Royal Archaeological Institute, 19, 121,266 Royal College of Surgeons, 4-5 Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments for Wales and Monmouthshire, 4 Royal Comnmussion on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME), 195, 249, 250 Royal Forests, 26 Royal Institute of British Architects, 234 Royal Institute of Chemistry, 265 Royal Mail, 142 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE Royal Society, 199 Ruba, William de, 235 Rubens, Peter Paul, 61 Rugby School (Warwickshire), 75-6, 78, 79, 80 Rugby Union, 81 Rupert, Prince, 189 Russ, John, 50 Rutland, Earl of, 188 Sadler, John, 142-3 St Katharine Oak, 43 St Omer (Belgium), 57 Salisbury, 59, 69, 70, 139, 145, 149, 178, 265, 266; Anchor Brewery Site, 250; Beehive Park and Rade Scheme, 251; Bishopdown Farm, 250-1; Bishop Wordsworth School, 192; Butts area, 156; Castle Street, 183, 185; Catherine Street, 182; Chalkdust Archive, 262; Cheese Market, 183, 185-6, 188-9, 190-2;:The Close, 60, 192, 193, 250; Cockey Down, 250-1; Coleoptera survey, 154-60; Corporation, 182, 183-4, 185-7, 258; Gigant Street, 250; Greyfriars Close, 250; Guildhall, 193; Harnham, 119; High Street, 182; jewellers, 182-94; Library, 192; Little Woodbury, 18;Market House, 192; Market Place, 183, 190; millennium book, 262, 264; New Canal, 190, 192, 251; Old Sarum, 34, 37, 38, 45, 123, 134, 135, 189,265; Philips Road, 251; Queen Street, 187-8; riots, 187;St Edmund’s churchyard, 186; StThomas, 182, 183,187, 189; Stratford Road, 251; Stratford sub Castle, 251,265 Salisbury, Bishop of, 187 Salisbury Cathedral, 189, 193; plan, 122; Plumbery, 119; restorations, 1 19-20; royal patronage, 135; stained glass, 119, 121;Trinity Chapel, 134,135 Salisbury Cathedral Chapter House: construction, 23; dendrochronology, 123; heraldry, 120-1, 123-4, 126-30; stained glass, 118-38 Salisbury District Council, 154 Salisbury and District Field Club, 265 Salisbury Exhibition of Local Industry (1852), 191— 2 Salisbury Lent Assizes, 47, 50,53 Salisbury Museum, 69, 265 Salisbury Museum Medieval Catalogue, 267 Salisbury Plain, 149, 152,173, 209, 226 Salisbury Plain TrainingArea, 253;Southern Range Road, 254-5 Salisbury Savings Bank and Annuity Society, 190 Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum, 129, 185, 189, 243, 250, 265 Salisbury Volunteer Corps of Infantry, 187 Salisbury Wildlife Project, 154 Salisbury and Wiltshire Society, 187 Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 50,53, 182, 183, 184, 187, 189; management, 190-1, 192, 193 Salix spp. (willow), 154 Salix cinerea (sallow), 154 Salmon, Michael, 154, 155 Salter, Chris, note on finds at Cadley Road, Collingbourne Ducis, 112 Sampson, George, 189 Sanderson, Elizabeth, 165, 166 Sandford,T. C. G., 79 Sark, tokens, 259 Sarn-y-bryn-caled (Powys), 21 sarsen stones, 8, 225, 226 Sarum, Diocese of, 140 Sarum Master, 133 Sassoon, Siegfried, 81, 82 Saunders, Peter, obituary by, 265-7 Savernake: Brimslade, 26, 39; Cadley, 32, 34 (Christ Church, 39); derivation of name, 26; Great Park, 26-7; LaVerme bailiwick, 26; parish boundary, 37, 39; St Katharine’s School, 43; St Michael’s Farm, 36 Savernake cluster oak see Quercus robur var. cristata (Savernake cluster oak) Savernake Forest, 142;Amuty Drive, 39;ammunition dumps, 27; animal bones, 109;Ashlade Coppice, 39;Ashlade Firs, 39; Bagden, 27,37; Birch Copse, 27, 33, 34, 45; Braden Hook, 27, 36, 37; Braden Hook Lodge, 37; Braden Way, 34, 37; Bullstoke, 26; Burch Wood, 26; Church Walk, 43; Crabtree, 27;Crabtree Common, 40; disafforestation, 26; Eight Walks, 27,29, 36,40, 43; Forest Enterprise Office, 38, 45; Forest Estate Map (1786), 36, 38, 39, 43; Furze Coppice, 35; Furze Coppice Lodge, 35; geology, 27; Grand Avenue, 27, 31, 44-5; Great Lodge Drive, 36, 38; Great Lodge Farm, 32, 36; Grey Road, 32, 43; habitats, 44-5; history, 26-8; Holt Pound, 40; Holt Pound Avenue, 33; Isbury Copse, 26; kilns; King’s Wood, 26, 38; Knoll, 36; Knowle Farm, 35; Long Harry, 32, 43; Morlee Wood, 26; nurseries, 27; oaks, 24-46; Park Coppice, 27; Postern Hill, 38; Postwives Walk, 33, 37,38, 40; quarter keeper, 35; RedVein Bottom, 36;Savernake Lodge, 37, 43; Sawpit Drive, 39; Sicily Cottages, 32; South Leaze, 36;Thornhill Nursery, 27, 38;Thornhill Pond, 43; Three Oaken Hill, 27, 35; Twelve O'clock Drive, 29, 32,37,43;Warren Farm, 40; White Road, 32 Savoury, Sir Douglas, 79 Savoy, arms, 129 Sawyer, Pat, 162, 172 Sayer, Robert, 178 Sayers, Captain, 184 SBAC (Science-based Archaeological Committee), 266 Scarabaeidae (scarabs), 157, 159 Schnebbelie, Jacob, 133 Schofield, R.S., 140, 141 Science-based Archaeological Committee (SBAC), 266 Science Research Council, 266 Scirtidae (beetles), 157-8 Scotland: oaks, 44; tokens, 259, see also Balfarg; North Mains Scott, George Gilbert, 119 scrapers: Beaker/Early Bronze Age, 13; Middle Bronze Age, 164, 172; flint, 11, 12, 13, 14 Seagry, 47,48; Church Farm, 50; millennium book, 262, 264 Seagry Hill, 50,54 seals, 234-5 seedlings, as epiphytes, 41 seed picture: 18th century, 177-81; materials, 180 seeds, 249; charred, 112-13; in folk art, 180 seedsmen, 179-80 Selkirk, Andrew, 267 Selkley Hundred, 34, 36, 37 Selwood, Ada, 54 Selwood, Dennis, 47,54 Selwood family, 47 Semple, Sarah, 250; note on excavations at 236-9; Swanborough Tump, 239-42 Roundway Down, note on INDEX Serres, Olivier de, 200-1 sessile oak see Quercus petraea (sessile oak) settlement law, 62-3 settlements: ?prehistoric, 244; Late Bronze Age/ Early [ron Age, 253; Iron Age, 248; Late Iron Age, 152;?Roman, 243; Roman, 244,246,248; Romano-British, 152,229,244;Saxon,69, 88— 117, 139;medieval, 209-17, 246, see also castles; enclosures; villages Seymour, Charles, 6th Duke of Somerset, 197, 199 Seymour, Edward, Duke of Somerset, 26, 36, 39, 143 Seymour family, 26, 197,199 Seymour, Sir Francis, 197 Seymour, Jane, 38, 39 Seymour, Sir John, 38 Seymour, William, Earl of Hertford, 143 SFBs (sunken-featured buildings), Saxon, 88-117 Shaftesbury (Dorset) ,66;Marnhull Diversions, 189; Shaftesbury Abbey, 57, 263 Shaftesbury, Earl of, 184 Shalbourne: millennium book, 260-1, 264;Old Mill, 251 sheep, 115; bones, 74, 102, 103, 104, 105, 107, 108; teeth, 106 Shell, Colin, 243, 245, 253 Sherborne (Dorset), 134; Sherborne Abbey, 135 Sherlock, Peter (Ed.), work reviewed, 257-8 Shorto, Henry, 187-8 Shortt, Hugh, 121, 128,129 Shrewton, 175; Catherine Wheel, 251; Crescent Copse, 222 Shropshire, 57, see also Holdgate Shuckburgh, C.W., 184 Siam, 234 Sidney family, 232 Silphidae (beetles), 156 Silvanidae (beetles), 158 silversmiths, 182, 185,189, 190,191 Sim, David, 74 Simon de Montfort, 130 Sixpenny Handley (Dorset), Down Farm, 258 skates, medieval, 247 Slack, P., 139, 140, 143, 144 slavery, 184 Slingsby Oak, 37 Smart, George, 179 smelting sites, 98, 99, 104, 106, 109 Smith, Goddard, 145 Smith, I. FE, 4 Smith, James, 191,223 snails, 165, 169, 170, 258 snipes, bones, 109 Snob’s Horse, 223, 224 Society of Antiquaries, 119,266 Society for the Suppression of Mendicity, 184 Somerford Keynes (Glos), Shorncote Quarry, 99 Somerset: estates, 59, 64, see also Beckington; Downside School; Frome; Ham Hill;Taunton Museum sorghum, 180 Sorley, Charles Hamilton, 79, 82 Sotheby’s, 15,232 Southampton (Hants), 185; Hamwic, 99, 104, 106, 107, 108, 109; Melbourne Street, 104; University, 265 Southbourne (Dorset), 178 Southern Electric, watching briefs, 252 South Marston, 257 Southwell Cathedral (Notts), 134 Sparshatt, Mr, 183 spearheads, 226; Saxon, 112 Spencer, Charles, 3rd Duke of Marlborough, 178 Spider Oak, 38 spindlewhorls: bone, 92,95, 109-10; clay, 111 Spiral Oaks, 38, 45 Spring, R.O.C., 121 springs, 202 spurs, 196,235 stabling, and coach trade, 142 staghorn oaks, 42-3 staging posts, 140, 142 stained glass, 13th century, 118-38 stakeholes, 91, 92, 93, see also postholes Staphylinidae (rove beetles), 155, 156-7, 159 Staverton, millennium book, 263, 264 steelyards, weights, 129 Stephen, King, 135 Stert, millennium book, 260, 264 Stevens, Edward, 186-7 Stickler, Tracey, 246 stinging-nettles see Urtica dioica (stinging nettle) Stockbridge (Hants), 168, 172, 173 Stokes, Edward, 144 stone circles, 1, 4,14, 18 Stonehenge, 1, 15,173, 189, 208, 265; trilithons, 20; Vallum, 205, 207, see also Amesbury Stonehenge World Heritage Site, 244 Stone, J.F.S., 161, 170, 173, 175, 265 stones, 207-8; burnt, 248, 249, see also sarsen stones 112, 248, see also hammerstones; honestones; querns stonework, flintwork; Stonyhurst (Lanes), 62 Strachey, Lytton, 76 straps, 94 Stratton St Margaret, 257; millennium book, 262, 264; St Margaret’s Hospital, 252 Studland (Dorset), Studland Farm, 193 Stukeley, William, 1, 196, 197, 198-9, 200, 202, 205— 7 Sturmy, Henry, 36 Suffolk see Breckland; West Stow Sunbury (Surrey), Ashford Common, 173 sunflower seeds, 180 sunken-featured buildings (SFBs): Saxon, 88-117; construction, 95; dating, 114; functions, 95 Support Weapons Wing (SW W), 149, 150,151, 152 Surrey: pottery industry, 70, see also Abinger; Richmond; Sunbury Surveyed Oak, 37 Surveying and Management Consultancy, 246 Sussex, 159 Sussex, Duke of, 179 Sutton, Alderman, 184 Sutton Benger: Bell Inn, 48, 51; Bell Piece, 48; Brookside Cottage, 47-55; millennium book, 263, 264; Murder Cottage, 48; Sand Furlong, 50; Seagry Road, 50,54; Sutton Lane, 50 Sutton Mandeville, All Saints Church, 252 Swallowclifte, Swallowcliffe Down, 236, 238 Swanborough Hundred, 239-40 Swan Hill Homes, 247 Swanton, Gill, 245, 253 Swindon, 99, 144, 257; Commonhead Roundabout, 252:millennium book, 262,264; Old Town, 262; population, 140; Railway Heritage Centre, 252 Swindon College, 247, 248 SW W (Support Weapons Wing), 149, 150,151, 152 279 Symonds, Richard, 120, 129 Symphytum officinale (common comfrey), 154 Taplow (Bucks), 201 Tapp, Onesiphorus, 142-3 Taunton Museum (Somerset), 4 Taylor, Charles, 184 Taylor, Christopher, 261 Taylor, Kate, report on excavations at 3 Kingsbury Square, Wilton, 68-74 Taylor, Kay, paper on murder at Brookside Cottage, Sutton Benger, 47-55 Tayside, see also North Mains Teddington (Greater London), 266 teeth: animals, 106; human, 164, 166, 167, 168 tegula, 151 tegula manmmata, 228-30, 247 Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, Raichard, Ist Duke of Buckingham, 66 tessellation, Romano-British, 150, 151 Thacker, C., 200 Thalictrum flavum (common meadow rue), 154 Thames, River, 248-9, 266 Thames Valley Archaeological Services, 247, 254 Thomas I, Count of Savoy, 130 Thomas, Rev J.S., 80 Thomas, Leslie, 266 Thomas, Nicholas, 265 Thomas, Roy Grosvenor, 120 Thompson, R. H., work reviewed, 258-9 Thorpe, Father John, 61 Tidworth: Seven Barrows, 252—3;Tidworth Camp, 253 Tiffin, Walter, 183, 191 Tildesley, M. L., 4-5 tiles, 266; Roman, 247; Romano-British, 150, 151, 229, 230; Saxon, 111; medieval, 74; post- medieval, 74; floor, 247; regula mammata, 228— 30, 247 Tilshead, 254 timber circles, 13; Late Neolithic, 10, 21 Timby, Jane: note on finds at 3 Kingsbury Square, Wilton, 70-4; note on finds at Cadley Road, Collingbourne Ducis, 96-102; note on finds at Ducks Meadow, Marlborough, 221-2 Times, The, 76 Time Team, 149 tinmen, 189 tin mines, 58, 65 Tinney, William Henry, 184 Tisbury: Place Farm, 66; Wardour Castle, 56-67; Wardour Park, 60 Titian, 61 toads, bones, 15 Tockenham, 145 tokens, 259 Toledo Museum of Art (Ohio, US), 120 Tollard Royal, Larmer Tree pleasure grounds, 258 tools: flint, 14, 164; manufacture, 253 trackways, 254-5; Roman, 246, 247; Romano- British, 244; sunken, 254 tradesmen’s tokens, 259 Tree Register of the British Isles (TROBI), 28 trees, as epiphytes, 41 Trentham estate, 65 Tresham family, 201 Tresithney (Cornwall), 58 Trifolium spp. (clover), 159 Trifolium campestre (hop trefoil), 159 280 Tiifolium striatum (knotted clover), 159 Tiiticum spp. (wheat), charred grains, 113 Triticum aestivum (bread wheat), charred grains, 113 Trowbridge: mails, 142; Parade, 145 True Braydon Oak, 25, 37, 38 Tunbridge Wells (Kent), 179 tunnels, 265 Turkey, 234 turnpikes, 142, 145 Twickenham (Greater London), 199 Tychius tibialis (beetle), 159 Tytherton Lucas, 144 Ugbrooke (Devon), 65 Ukraine, oaks, 44 University of Washington, Seattle (US), 166 Upavon, 252 Upton Lovell, 253 Urchfont, 226 urnfields, 265 urns: funerary, 161, 257; miniature collared, 164, 170-1, 172, 173, 174 Urtica dioica (stinging nettle), 154; as epiphytes, 42: seeds, 180 Van der Waals, J. D., 169 Van Dyck, Sir Anthony, 61 vaults, 247 Vernet, 61 Vernon, Edward, 226 Versailles (France), 59 Vertigo moutlinstana (Desmoulins whorl snail), 160 Verwood (Dorset), pottery, 71 vetch seeds, 180 Vicia faba (broad bean), 113 “Vicinus’, 182 Victoria History of Wiltshire, 230 Vienna (Austria), 59 villages, medieval, 246, 249, 265-6 villas, Romano-British, 148-53 Vincent, Nicholas, 234, 235 Viterbo (Italy), 130 von Guyan, W. U., 94 wadding, 75 Wainwright, G. J., 22 Wake, H., 184 Wales: tokens, 259; University, 6, 253 Walker, Graeme, note on finds at Ducks Meadow, Marlborough, 222 Wall, Humphrey, 143 walls: Romano-British, 151; post-medieval, 251; 18th century, 243; cavity, 228; stone, 245 walrus ivory, 109; pins, 89, 115 Walter, Hubert, Bishop of Salisbury, 135 Walton, John, 232 Wanborough, 99, 145, 257, see also Durocornovium Ward & Hughes (London), 120, 125, 126 Ward, Ned, 142 Warenne, arms, 130 Warenne, John de, Earl of Surrey and Sussex, 130 Warminster, 71, 177, 253, 254; Battlesbury Camp, 254; Battlesbury Spur, 255; Bull Inn, 53; mails, 142; millennium book, 261, 264 Warwick, Castle, 201 Warwickshire see Knightlow; Packwood House; Rugby School THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE watchmakers, 182, 183, 189, 190 watercolours (paints), 179 waterholes, Middle Bronze Age, 244 water meadows, 17th century, 248 watermills, 245 Waylen, John, 199 weights, standard, 141 Welbore, 2nd Earl of Normanton, 178 Wells Cathedral, 123, 133, 134, 135-6 Wendeval, Sir William de, 209 Wendover, Roger of, 234, 235 Wessex, 212 Wessex Archaeology, 70; evaluations, 248, 249, 250, 2592): (Amesbury, 243-4; Netheravon, 148-53); watching briefs, 252 (Amesbury, 244; Mildenhall, 249; Tidworth, 252—3;Winterbourne Stoke, 244) Westbury: Brook Lane Industrial Estate, 253; Chalcot House, 185; mails, 142; millennium book, 261, 264;Wellhead, 98 West Dean, motte, 201 West Indies, 141 West Lavington, 77 West Midlands see Birmingham Westminster, Dean of, 81 Westminster Insurance Company, 189 excavations West Overton: North Farm, 253; water meadows, 253 West Stow (Suffolk), 94,95, 106, 109, 114 West Sussex see Arundel; Crawley West Tisbury, Pythouse, 182, 188, 189 Westwood, millennium book, 261, 264 White, F, 4 white horses: Millennium, 223-5; Pewsey, 225; Snob’s, 223, 224 White, John, 38 White Low (Derbyshire), 239 White, Mr, 141 Whiteparish, millennium book, 261, 264 Whitley, Colonel, 143 Wildash, John, 43 Wilkinson, Matthew, 77 Willement, Thomas, 125 William I, King, 135 William of Lilbon, 34 Wilhams, Arthur, 189 Williams, David, 74; note on finds at Cadley Road, Collingbourne Ducis, 112 Williams-Freeman, J. P., 4 Williams, Howard, note on excavations at Roundway Down, 236-9 Wilhams, Jenevora (née Bennett), 189 Williamson, Barry, paper on Wardour Castle, 56— 67 Williamson, G. C., 259 Williams, R.J., 95 William of York, Bishop of Salisbury, 123, 135 Willis, EF M., 259 Wilsford cum Lake, 173; Bush Barrow, 168 Wilton: Kingsbury Square, 68-74, 253-4; St Mary and St Nicholas, 232;Wilton House, 178, 180, 199 Wiltshire: estates, 59,65; millennium book, 262, 264; tokens, 259 Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, 15, 20 Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, 1,3,226;AGM, 4; library, 189; meetings, 188, 227; outings, 4 Wiltshire Botanical Society (WBS), 28, 45 Wiltshire County Council: Archaeology Service, 150; Local Studies Library, 260 Wiltshire County Mirror, 190-1 Wiltshire Friendly Society, 178 Wiltshire Local Militia, 187 Wiltshire Regiment, 2nd Volunteer Battalion, 83 Wiltshire Society, 184 Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office, 49, 260 Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, 154 Wiltshire Yeomanry, 187 Winchester, Bishop of, 234 Winchester (Hants), 60, 109, 139; Cathedral, 189 Winsley, Turleigh (millennium book), 262, 264 Winston, Charles, 120, 121, 124, 125, 126 Winterbourne, 229; Down Barn West, 265; Winterbourne Earls, 252; Winterbourne Gunner, 252, 265 Winterbourne Bassett, 257 Winterbourne Stoke, 173; cable trench, 244; Longbarrow Crossroads, 244 Winter, Jay, 75 Winterslow, 170, 175; Easton Down, 161 Wisden, 81 Woburn (Beds), 65 Wohl, Robert, 75 Wolds (East Riding of Yorkshire), 13 Woodborough, 240, 241 Woodfall, Henry, 177 Woodford: Heale Hill, 265; Middle Woodford, 265 Woodhead,T., 4 Woodhenge, 1, 4,5, 13, 18, 22, 174 woodland, 216 Woods, Richard, 60 Woodville, R. C., 81 Woodward, B. B., 4 Woolf, D: R., 48 Woolrych, Noel, 225 Wootton Bassett, 246; population, 140, 141 Wor Barrow (Dorset), 258 Worcestershire, tokens, 259 Wordie, J. R., 65 World War 1,75, 79, 82; casualties, 84; recruits, 83-4 Woulds, 184 Wressle (East Riding of Yorkshire), Castle, 201 Wright, Mr, 60 Wrigley, E.A., 140,141 Wroughton, 145 Wulfgeat, 212 Wyatt, James, 119, 120, 230 Wyatt, Sir Matthew Digby, 232 Wyatt, Thomas Henry, 230, 231, 232 Wykehampton, Robert de, Bishop of Salisbury, 123, 135 Wyle, Walter de la, Bishop of Salisbury, 123, 135 Wylye, River, 69 Wyndham, Anne, 65 Wyndham, Wadham, 184, 187 Yarrant, Mr, 142 York Minster, 128, 133, 134,135 Yorkshire: tokens, 259, see also Ampleforth; Butterwick; Wolds; Wressle Young, William E.V., diaries, 1-23 Zlatna (Romania), 44 Hic . Re! WILTSHIRE HERITAGE MUSEUM GALLERY LIBRARY Published by The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society ISSN 0262 6608 .