RO YAL A RCHAEO LOGICAL INSTITUTE NEWSLETTER No. 55 APRIL 2 01 8
In this issue Consultation with Members • Grants and Awards • Dates for your Diary • Summer Meeting, Cork and Environs • Autumn Day Meeting, St Alban’s • RAI Annual Conference, Arras 200 – Celebrating the Iron Age • Miscellany • Book Offers 2 RAI Newsletter 55 April 2018 c s p c r o e s b c c E . p a f b A p B p e c p o a w a a b i p n B i a s c . n n o u p u e a o s . o o c o o x n g n
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n a n h b n a h d e i g n g u v o h h n t t o r s c i a r s y l l r i i d i l o o l d g g y y e e e e e e e e e e e r r r s s s s t t t f t l l l l . CONTINUING CONSULTATION WITH MEMBERS Andrew Williams, Hon. Treasurer In the 2017 Autumn Mailing was a table listing current Institute activities. Members were invited to rank these in order of importance. Twenty replies were received, and the aggregate scores are reflected in the table below.
Institute Activities Rank Your Ranking e Archaeological Journal 1 Research grants 2 Attendance at lectures in Burlington House 3 Post-doc and early career archaeology lectures in Burlington House 4 Newsletter 5 ‘Field trips’ in Spring and Autumn 6 Annual week-long ‘field trip’ 7= Sponsoring of students at meetings and conference 7= Conference 9 Hard copy Summer Meeting Report 10 Online viewing of Burlington House lectures 11 Others Meeting interesting and like-minded people Developing and widening membership Increasing charity ‘offer’ Advocacy for subject interests
Council, already engaged in reducing the Institute’s outgoings, has concluded that the £6,000 spent every year producing a hard-copy Summer Meeting Report could be better used to promote our charitable objectives. In 2018, the Summer Meeting Report will be available online only. e Institute has offered some of the money saved to support the Festival of Archaeology organised annually by the Council for British Archaeology and threatened by reduction in its grant from Historic England. We are mindful that only twenty members’ views have been received. Please use the 8 aggregate table if you would still like to contribute your view to Council. Please send the hard 1 0 2
copy to me at Williamsgate, Pembroke Road, Portsmouth PO1 2NS , or scan and email to l i r [email protected]. p A 5 5
r e t
GRANTS AND AWARDS t e l s
contributions to archaeology. e winners are w Current Archaeology e
Awards 2018 N
voted for entirely by the public – there are no Every year, these awards celebrate the projects and I panels of judges. A publications that have made the pages of Current e latest awards were announced on 23 Febru - R Archaeology over the past twelve months, and ary as part of Current Archaeology Live! 2018: the people judged to have made outstanding 3 Archaeologist of the Year: Hella Eckardt Book of the Year: Lost Landscapes of Palaeolithic Britain , edited by Mark White Research Project of the Year: Blick Mead: explor ing the ‘first place’ in the Stonehenge land scape (University of Buckingham) Rescue Project of the Year: An Iron Age chariot burial: excavating a square-barrow cemetery at Pocklington (MAP Archaeological Practice) Current Archaeology Live! 2019 will be held in February 2019, with further details available at https://www.archaeology.co.uk/vote
Pocklington Chariot burial (P. Halkon)
ROYAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE RESEARCH GRANTS e Institute awards the following grants annually: Tony Clark Fund Up to £500 for scientific work including dating 8
1 Bunnell Lewis Fund Up to £750 towards archaeology of the Roman period in the UK 0 2 l i RAI Award Up to £5000 towards archaeological work in the UK r p
A Please download an application form at http: //www.royalarchinst.org/grants
5 Closing date for applications : 10 December 2018. Awards announced in April 2019. 5 r e t t e l s which individuals can apply for a maximum sum w e RAI Cheney Bursaries of £200. Please check with the Administrator that N
I e bequest le by Frank Cheney continues to money remains in the yearly fund before you A
R provide the Institute with a small fund of money apply. Students who wish to apply for a bursary to enable students to attend conferences or RAI should email [email protected] or write 4 meetings. An allocation is available annually from to the Administrator, RAI, c/o Society of Antiquaries, Burlington House, Piccadilly, Lon - Ian Parker Heath Radbourne: e search for the don, W1J 0BE , at least six weeks before the event Old Hall they wish to attend, stating: the institution in Marcus Jecock Hanging Grimston Community which they study, the event they wish to attend, the Archaeology Project – excavations (Bunnell Lewis sum of money requested, a breakdown of how the Fund) money would be spent and a summary (up to 250 Michael Stratigos and Derek Hamilton At the words) of why they would like to attend the event Water’s Edge: Early Iron Age settlement patterns in and in what way this would be useful to them. Suc- central Scotland cess ful applicants may be asked to produce a brief Paul Gething Geophysical survey and field-walking report of the event for the Institute. During 2017, across the later prehistoric landscape of the nine students from universities of Manchester Bradford Kaims, Northumberland and York received bursaries to help them to attend Richard Bradley Excavations at Copt Howe, the Institute’s Annual conference, ‘Arras 200 – Cumbria Celebra ting the Iron Age’ (for their report, see Vicki Cummings Tombs of the North (including p. 21). an anonymous donation in memory of Paul Ashbee) Rachel Pope Illustrating Eddisbury: a re-evaluation RAI Dissertation Prizes of W. J. Varley’s 1936–38 excavations e RAI holds two competitions for dissertations on a subject concerned with the archaeology or RAI Research Grant Reports architectural history of Britain, Ireland and adjac - Several projects were unable to complete their ent areas of Europe. In even-numbered years, the research in time to send a report for this edition: competition is for the best dissertation submitted Peter Halkon Analysis and publication of a site by an undergraduate in full-time education, the near Elloughton, E. York Tony Baggs Memorial Award. In odd-numbered Nick Overton and Irene Garcia-Rovira Rock Crys - years, the prize is awarded to the best dissertation tal in the British Early Neolithic? submitted by a Master’s student. Nominations are Robert Wallace Bridge Farm made by University and College Departments. e winner receives a prize of £500 and the oppor - e Tudor dovecote at Fulham Palace tunity for a paper based on the dissertation to be Eleanor Sier published in the Archaeological Journal . e chief Fulham Palace Trust undertook a community criteria considered are (a) quality of work and (b) archae ology dig in October 2017 in an attempt to appropriateness to the interests of the RAI as discover more about the history of the ancient site reflected in the Journal . which was home to the Bishops of London for 1300 e RAI Masters Dissertation Prize, covering years. Funding was acquired to dig two trenches years 2016 and 2017, was awarded to Victoria west of the entrance to the Tudor Courtyard,
Ziegler from University College London, Institute where it was believed both the earlier medieval 8 1 of Archaeology for her dissertation From Wic to manor house and the old Tudor dovecote stood. 0 2
l Burh: Comparing the archaeological evidence from While the excavation did not uncover the dovecote i r the last phases of activity at mid Saxon sites within or the earlier manor house, it did reveal some p A Lundenwic with the earliest phases of activity at late exciting finds which are now being examined by 5
Saxon sites in Lundenburh . specialists. 5
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In the first week of the excavation, a variety of e t t
post-medieval materials including moulded plas - e l ter, Reigate stone, peg and pan tiles, tin glazed s RAI Research Grants, 2018 w Research grants for 2018 have been awarded to the pottery and Tudor brick were found. One of the e N following projects: more unexpected discoveries was a ‘steel picket’ I A
Gavin Simpson Dendrochronology of furniture at (also known as a ‘silent screw’), which were used R St Peter, Lanehan, Notts (Tony Clark Memorial in the First World War in the trenches, as supports Fund) for barbed wire defences. Another unexpected 5 Fulham Palace: excavating the canine © Fulham Palace Trust
discovery was the skeletal remains of a large the outer isles of Orkney are not, as yet, seeing a canine. concomitant growth in tourism. e new project A post-medieval pit was carefully examined, ‘Tombs of the North’ has been created to address and amongst the rubble some Tudor bricks and both these issues. First, the fresh excavation of sites tile fragments were uncovered – including some under threat from coastal erosion will take place possible Delware from the seventeenth century. to further our knowledge of these sites. is e mixed team of archaeological professionals informa tion will then be used to provide detail for and volunteers also found a fragment of what is a ‘Tombs Trail’ – booklets, information boards and thought to be a lice comb made of bone, potenti - websites to encourage visitors to the outer isles to ally from the seventeenth or eighteenth century. visit these sites. Engagement levels were high with 1503 partici - e first site chosen for investigation was Tres - pants involved in the three week project. Five ness on the isle of Sanday. is monument lies on schools, four uniform groups, 30 volunteers and the southern tip of a peninsula and is being actively three archaeological groups took part. In addi tion, eroded by the sea. Indeed, a ‘slice’ has been taken we ran a number of scheduled public events, off the southern end of the monument by erosion, includ ing: ‘Astonishing Archaeology’ which exposing the internal architecture to the elements. attrac ted 300 family learners, hands-on archae ol - In 2017 we opened a 12m x 3m exploratory trench
8 ogy sessions and geophysical survey lectures. We over the main body of the chambered cairn, 1
0 scheduled an ‘Ask the Archaeologist’ session each running roughly north–south and in line with the 2 l i chamber. No archaeological deposits were exca -
r day including two sessions with Young Archae - p vated but we did reveal the remains of a well-
A ologists involved in the project. preserved cairn. e chamber had clearly been
5 Tombs of the North: Excavations at
5 investig ated in recent times with loose slabs lying
r Tresness chambered tomb, Sanday, Orkney e close to and in the top of the chamber: this is prob - t t Vicki Cummings e ably the result of antiquarian activity. e very top l s e early Neolithic chambered tombs of Orkney courses of drystone walling with a single visible w e are well-known yet there have been no new orthostatic stall were visible in this area. ere may N
I investigations of these sites for several decades. well also be a later circular cairn built on top of the A
R Moreover, while Mainland Orkney benefits from earlier stalled cairn. We also recorded the eroding considerable tourist income generated by interest section using photogrammetry, and there is a now 6 in the outstanding archaeological remains there, an online, open access, 3-D model of the site: KEY 1. Cairn 2. Chamber 3. In situ dry-stone walling 4. Possible later stone structure 5. Cairn seen in eroding section
Tresness, 3D model (H. Anderson-Whymark) https://sketchfab.com/models/ pos sibly Norse periods. In 2017 the area surround - c4ba6d719bd241eebf68c40841a0159f ing the hearth was re-opened to allow it to be We are proposing to return in 2018 to conduct sampled for archaeomagnetic dating, con ducted larger-scale excavations. by Samuel Harris (University of Bradford). is is the first time this technique has been applied to In place and time: dating and analysing the prehistoric houses of this type, with the results early agricultural settlement of Shetland – poten tially influencing future approaches. e phase II Claire Christie, Gordon Noble and investigation of the second structure, c.30m to the Kevin Edwards north, continued in 2017 with the excavation of a In July 2017, researchers from the University of larger trench through the wall and across the area Aberdeen, again aided by volunteers from Archae- where the field walls abut the structure. e trench ology Shetland, returned to the site at Troni Shun revealed walls of similar construction to the neigh - investigated in 2016. e results of the 2016 field- bouring prehistoric house, with possible buttres- work indicated a prehistoric house with multiple sing of the external wall face, and yielded an arte - phases of remodeling. e analysis of the finds fact assemblage dominated by coarse stone tools. from the 2016 field season revealed a Bronze Age e field walls appear to abut the structure with a date for the earlier phases of the house with later phase of rebuilding overlying the wall col - significant later reuse in the Iron Age/Pictish and lapse. Further samples were collected for environ - 8 1
mental analysis which with that of the artefactual 0 2
l assemblage is ongoing. i r
In addition to the site at Troni Shun, the nearby p A site of Brunatwatt (HU 2503 5116) was also studied 5
with the aim of characterising the remains and 5
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collecting comparative data. e investigations e t t
involved the exploration of two adjoining enclos - e l ures, one of which had been noted as a possible s w prehistoric house, and a nearby field system. e N
However, the excavation of two trenches across I A
portions of the enclosures concluded that neither R enclosure was a prehistoric house. e recovery of Archaeology Shetland volunteer J. Smith excavating a small number of stone tools indicates possible trench across wall of 2nd structure (C. Christie) 7 prehistoric activity in the area. Further trenches Trench 8 was opened in 2006 based on Hope- were excavated over sections of the walls that form Taylor’s interim report that noted over 2000 years the field system, revealing a range of construction of stratified deposits in this area of the West Ward. methods. e ongoing comparative analysis of the His discoveries included a seventh- to ninth- excavation, environmental and artefactual data century industrial metalworking area, whose finds from Troni Shun and Brunatwatt will allow for the include pattern-welded swords and decorated gold sites to be placed in context. e initial results have artefacts, likely associated with the Northumbrian impacts for our understanding of the later reuse of royal court. e re-excavation of this area in 2006 stone structures and the composition of seemingly located new finds, including undisturbed evidence coherent sites. for Neolithic occupation, and significantly, the remains of Hope-Taylor’s section labelling, allow - Bridging the Past: the integration of two ing us to understand where many of the surviving eras of archaeological investigation of finds from the excavation were found, as well as Bamburgh Castle’s West Ward providing the opportunity to see, in section, what Joanne Kirton the BRP might expect to encounter in future Our project aimed to assess and consolidate a excava tion seasons. nation ally important archaeological archive We have amalgamated the artefactual assemb - related to Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland. lages from the Hope-Taylor and BRP excavations In 2006 the Bamburgh Research Project (BRP) into one contemporary archive. We are evaluating inherited a large, partial archive generated by and analysing the metal-work, pottery, and the Dr Brian Hope-Taylor during excavations in the small lithic and glass assemblages from Trench 8, 1960s and 1970s. Unfortunately, the archive is in and now have five radiocarbon dates for key strati - poor condition and many major elements are graphic horizons. Together with the worked bone, missing. is prompted the BRP to conduct a animal bone and paleoenviromental assemblages, paral lel excavation and re-excavate areas of Hope- these will allow the BRP to write up the Hope- Taylor’s trenches in an attempt to integrate the two Taylor and BRP Trench 8 excavations as one in the archives and help fill some of the significant gaps Spring of 2018. in the Hope-Taylor record. 8 1 0 2 l i r p A 5 5 r e t t e l s w e N
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Bamburgh: Trench 8 re-evaluation with shoring Inset 8 One of Hope-Taylor’s rediscovered section tags © Bamburgh Research Project Ltd DATES FOR YOUR DIARY Places are limited, so please book promptly. at a London venue to be 2018 confirmed Spring Meeting ursday 10 – Sunday 13 May at n.b. This is a non-residential conference. Hereford, led by Pete Wilson and Tim Hoverd (details in this mailing) is year the RAI is joining with the ames Summer Meeting 7 – 13 July to the Scilly Isles, led Discovery Programme (TDP), the multiple by Hedley Swain (Fully booked – contact Caroline award-winning community archaeology project to be added to waiting list) empower ing and enabling Londoners to monitor and record the fast-eroding archaeology of the Forthcoming in 2018 ames foreshore. While communicating their Please tell Caroline if you are interested in findings to a wide audience, TDP will be celebrat - attend ing ing its tenth anniversary at a FREE two-day con- Autumn Day Meeting e Mithraeum, London ference. Papers will be presented by TDP staff and led by Hedley Swain (details to be confirmed) volun teers (the Foreshore Recording and Observa- RAI and TDP Joint Conference 13 – 14 October at tion Group or FROG), including new junior mem- London Ten Years of ames Discovery (see pre - bers, the TaDPoles, and by profes sional archae - lim in ary details below) ologists. e presentations will explore the As soon as they are confirmed, full details and archae ology of the River ames, London’s wider booking forms for Meetings will be made available archaeology, and coastal and inter-tidal archae - on the Meetings Programme page http://www. ology from elsewhere in the UK and further afield. royalarchinst.org/meetings. If you would like fur - e conference presentations will be filmed by ther details of any of these meetings sent to you, Doug Rocks-Macqueen and made available online please send your e-mail or postal details to the aer the event (via YouTube, TDP website and Administrator, RAI, c/o Society of Antiquaries of RAI website). You can see last year’s Fore shore London, Burlington House, London, W1J 0BE or Forum films here: https://www.youtube.com/ [email protected] or to Caroline Raison, playlist?list=PLBjeGwwG0rtT1x95_GIixlGpH73O RAI Assistant Meetings Secretary, 48 Park Avenue, uLrGn. Princes Avenue, Kingston upon Hull, HU5 3ES , or Cost: FREE, and tea and coffee will be provided at [email protected]. breaks, and a wine reception on Saturday evening. Booking will be via Eventbrite. Royal Archaeological Institute and Early bird ticket links will be provided to TDP Thames Discovery Programme volunteers (the FROG) and RAI members before Ten Years of Thames Conference: tickets go public. Date of ticket releases to be 8
Discovery confirmed. 1
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FROGs and A R TaDPoles at Greenwich ©TDP 9 MEETINGS NOTES
evolved in style and structure; in the fieenth cent - 163rd SUMMER MEETING, 8–15 ury being a typical Irish tower house owned by the July 2017: Cork and Environs Roche family, leading lords of the Cork area. e M. NIEKE, R. AMBLER, M. AMORY, borough settlement included a church, Dom in ican L. PARTRIDGE, W. HUSBAND, friary and leper colony. e castle was confiscated by the Cromwellians in the mid-seventeenth cent- K. STUBBS, S. SHAW, A. HOOSON, ury; by the early eighteenth century it had fallen and G. VICKERY into ruin. Sunday saw us in the company of Dr Tomás Ó At Toureen Peakaun we visited a remarkable Carragáin, the first of our expert guides from site retaining a small church dating to around 1100. University College Cork. A stunning day (in all is marks the site of a seventh-century monastic senses) began with Labbacallee wedge tomb, the site established by St Abban on royal land and ‘bed of the wise woman’, said to be the largest of named aer St Beccan – an Irish ascetic who died such Irish monuments; a long monumental struc- in 689. An important collection of decorated Rom- ture of limestone slabs and still retaining large an esque and earlier carved stones remains, includ- capstones and buttress stones at one end. 1930s ing cross shas, with fragments of a high cross excavations revealed two chambers, with pottery which has mortice and tenon fittings in a skeuo- and bone fragments. Unusually for a wedge tomb morph copying timber, possibly the earliest surviv - the main burial was that of a woman; further ing high cross in Britain or Ireland. Also present inspec tion revealed she had one leg shorter than are rare early shrine-post corners – perhaps the other. Wedge Tombs used to be thought to be indicative of a stone and timber-built reliquary Bronze Age but recent radio-carbon dating sug ests shrine and a sundial – one of only twelve known they are some 600 years earlier – c.3400 –3200 BC . in Ireland. At least 80 seventh- to eighth-century Travelling on we passed Glanworth Castle, a name stones with a mixture of Irish and Latin thirteenth-century castle built by Anglo-Norman names are known; several were found during settlers on a river cliff above a strategic crossing Tomas’s recent excavations. e names include point. It remained in use over several centuries and Cummene and Laidcem, ecclesiastics known to 8 1 0 2
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A Toureen Peakaun: R fragments of the high cross with chapel beyond 10 (M. Nieke) have been actively involved along with Beccan in seventh-century discussions about the correct date of Easter. Numerous burials were encountered within the chapel but no trace of an earlier church. In an adjacent field Tomas explained his dis - covery of a monastic enclosure including a small enclosed cell – appropriate for the asthete Beccan. A bullaun stone, with several round depressions, survives as does a well with religious associations. Today the church and well remain a pilgrimage site. Lastly to the Rock of Cashel, once the seat of the overkings of Munster. Its origins as a centre of power go back to the fourth and fih centuries AD when the Eóganacht came to power. e site sits dominantly in a landscape full of prehistoric barrows and later high-status ringforts. Recent research indicates that this rock outcrop has been modified to provide access, with the suggestion that an adjacent linear earthwork is part of a cere - monial pathway allowing access but then culmina- ting at an adjacent Royal ringfort. Legend has it that St Patrick baptised the grandsons of an early ruler there; no trace of any church of this period has yet been found. As a royal seat it is thought that inauguration ceremonies took place there – similar to those associated with royal sites including Dunadd in Scotland. e 28m-high round tower is the oldest known feature, dating to around 1100 and functioning as a free-standing bell tower. Its Cormac’s Chapel at Cashel (A. Williams) round-headed doorway is, as usual, well above ground level. e top floor, which housed the bells, cross head and in having subsidiary supports each has four evenly spaced triangular win dows. side of the sha. Cormac’s Chapel, newly revealed aer major e cathedral is a large cruciform Gothic con - restoration, is one of Ireland’s earliest and finest struc tion without aisles, built between 1230 and Romanesque churches. e building has a nave 1270, and crudely fitted in between the earlier
and chancel with projecting towers. External features. A fieenth-century tower rises over the 8 1 decoration of string courses and blind arcading crossing; around this time a residential tower was 0 2
l give it a very continental feel. Internally the chan - added at the west end of the nave. e cathedral i r cel retains wall painting, the dating of which is was abandoned by 1749 and by 1848 the roof had p A much discussed. Our wall-painting expert offered collapsed. It was taken into state care in 1875. 5 the view that these were likely to be original, rather Our second day took us into the city of Cork, 5
r than later overpainted, works. A sarcophagus at starting at University College. We again benefitted e t t the west end of the nave is carved in Hiberno- from the expertise of the College’s staff, this time e l Urnes style with intertwined beasts and snakes and Colin Rynne, whose wide interests include the s w is roughly contemporary with the chapel. history of the city. He explained the non- e N
Outside is a replica of the twelh-century denominational College’s origins; it was incor - I A
St Patrick’s Cross – the original being on display porated in 1845, with two other Queen’s Colleges R indoors in the adjacent refurbished Vicar’s Choral at Belfast and Galway, under the provisions of the hall. It is unusual in not having a ring around the Irish Universities Act of 1845. We heard something 11 of its benefactors – including those whose money monastery that he founded in the seventh century, was made out of Cork’s international butter trade and where he is said to be buried. ere have been – and its members: George Boole, whose work on a succession of buildings on the site, and some algebra made possible the development of com - fragments of these survive including a doorway puter programming and was Cork’s first professor from the medieval cathedral which is built into the of mathematics. burial ground wall. is cathedral was demolished We had gathered in the striking ‘Tudor Gothic’ and a replacement built, but by 1861 it was felt to College quadrangle, by Cork architect Sir omas be ‘inadequate’, and a new cathedral was planned. Deane and his partner Benjamin Woodward, e architect, William Burges, took his inspira- which contains in its north wing a collection of tion from medieval cathedrals of France and the stones rescued by antiquarians. ese express the sumptuousness of his vision was reflected in its Irish language in characters from the Latin alpha - cost, projected as £15,000, finally in the region of bet, and include gravestones and others which bear £100,000. e central spire of the cathedral was some of the earliest evidence for Christianity in topped out in 1879, although the main body had Ireland. been consecrated in 1870, the year the Church of We passed the imposing early nineteenth- Ireland was disestablished and disendowed: a century Greek Revival portico at the entrance to concluding statement of diminishing Protestant Cork County gaol built between 1818 and 1823, now ascendancy. incorporated into the perimeter of the College Monday aernoon’s walk with Colin Rynne campus, but looking out towards the city, and took in Elizabeth Fort, Viking settlements by South approached by a bridge designed by Marc Isam- Gate Bridge, and a section of medieval town wall. bard Brunel, built in 1835. A memorial on the outer Near St Finn Barre’s cathedral we climbed to wall of the gaol to Seán Ó Caomhánaigh, ‘Fatally Elizabeth Fort by way of a narrow stepped alley, shot by the Free State Special Branch whilst Keyser’s Hill (Scandinavian: ‘path to the quay - engaged in making a tunnel to rescue Republican side’). Now a heritage site, the seventeenth-century prisoners from Cork Gaol. 3 August 1940’ is a stark five-point star-fort had a grim career: doomed reminder of the harsher realities of Irish history, Jacobite stronghold, barracks, pre-transportation memories of which are embedded in the history of convict depot, famine food depot, Black and Tan the gaol. base, fever hospital, air-raid shelter, and recent Moving on to Cork Public Museum through police station. Fitzgerald Park, we admired the recently restored Alo on the battlements we surveyed Cork, President and Mayor’s Pavilion, specially built for dissected south and north by branches of the River the 1902–03 Cork International Exhibition. e Lee; we could locate the three main Viking sites, house, built by the brewer Charles Beamish in 1845, and the clear midline of the narrow medieval town, was converted into a museum opened in 1910, and Main Street, still leading to river bridges north and aer a period as municipal offices, reopened in south. Continuing along the Fort’s high walkway,
8 1945. A new extension was added in 1996. we inspected gun emplacements and Cromwellian 1
0 But the group’s eagerness to see the Museum’s bastion. Finally, over the intervening trees, Burges’ 2
l i wide ranging collections, including much on the splendid golden angel appeared, blasting twin r p history and archaeology of the city, was curbed by trumpets above the cathedral sanctuary. A the discovery that an underpublicized policy of Descending Barrack Street, core of the first 5
5 Monday closing had been recently introduced. Viking area, to riverside level, we tracked some of
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e Fortunately, Colin recognized a member of the our bird’s-eye view. e triple-arched limestone t t
e Museum staff departing for lunch, and was able to South Gate Bridge (1713), technically significant at l s gain us admission. Our thanks are due to Acting a time when wider bridge-spans reduced road w e Curator, Daniel Breen and his staff for doing us a gradients, crosses the Lee at the site of the Droichet N
I great favour. (‘bridge’), timber entrance-bridge from first to A
R Finn Barre, the patron saint of Cork, is com - second Viking settlement. Discoveries here include memorated in the cathedral that bears his name. It ten houses ( c. 1100) raised above flood-level on 12 occupies the site of the burial ground of the timber-revetted clay platforms. Finds indicate a busy domestic, industrial and trading environ - regional powers at this time was revealed by the ment; intermarriage with the Hibernians made for inner timber palisade having been deliberately relatively peaceful coexistence. burnt shortly aer the fort was built. ere was no Cork continued to evolve, on islands largely sign of rebuilding aer this. man-made by artificial levelling in the marshy, e path to Castlenalact (Castle of the Standing tidal river. We noted Main Street’s side lanes, Stones) Bronze Age Stone Row led through the indica ting burgage plots, and, in Bishop Lacey overgrown garden of a derelict house. e row, the Park, excavated fourteenth-century wall-courses biggest in Cork, consists of 4 stones, the tallest (NE which evoke the medieval city, with waterways end) standing at about 4m. tall, descending in within and without its towered wall. height to the fourth at about 1.57 m tall. e One five-star visit remained. Product of the orienta tion is NE to SW along the line of Irish Arts and Cras movement, consecrated in sunrise/sunset, perhaps linking it with sun worship 1916 and since sympathetically refurbished, the and it may be connected to the hillfort. ere is a University’s Honan Chapel strikingly exemplifies mid-Bronze Age boulder burial nearby. the Hiberno-Romanesque architecture of the tenth Garranes Ring fort is an example of the most to twelh centuries. e architect was James common historic structure in Ireland, with some F. McMullen; building and furnishings were 3,000 remaining from the sixth to seventh cen - designed and created as a single commission, turies; they are mainly early medieval enclosed financed by the Honan merchant family. farmsteads. However, Garranes’ three rings denote It is a simple building with traditional round high status and it may have been the seat of a tower. Inside one is now met by Imogen Stuart’s minor kingdom during this period. Partial small pillar font (1996), its shallow bowl formed of excavation produced evidence for bronze casting, two stylised hands offering the water. From font to glass production and enamelling, indicating the altar, Oppenheimer Ltd’s mosaic River of Life fills pre sence of metal workers. During the 1990s, the the aisle with magnificent fish threading the lively loca tion of a 9m round house was discovered here, currents. Ceramic scenes inlaid in the wall arcad - the first built structure found in any ring fort. ing, serpent mosaics, plate, textiles and Harry 150 metres away there is a second fort – the Clarke’s brilliant, complex stained-glass windows Queen’s fort – dating from the same period, contribute to the impact of an exceptional place. which although not ditched has a similar-sized On Tuesday we visited Mid Cork; our guide was interior. Together they form a minor royal land- Billy O’Brien from the University, who was to lead scape. us through the Bronze Age to the Industrial era. Kilcrea was a house of Observant Franciscans of We began at Clanashanimud Bronze Age Hillfort. a kind rarely seen in England, where friaries were Irish Hillforts date from mid to late Bronze Age, usually established in towns and disappeared with some 100 examples remaining. Clanashan - among later buildings aer the Reformation. e imud, meaning the trench or ditch of timbers, urban friaries in Dublin have le little trace, but
possibly recalling popular memory, is about 8 here is a well-preserved example which owes its 8 1 hectares in area. It comprises two ditch and bank survival to its remoteness and a continuing devo - 0 2
l systems. e outer rampart has a peri meter of 1.02 tion among the local population. i r km; the inner rampart, c. 50 metres within, is at e friary was founded in 1465 by Cormac p A 0.8km in length. e banks were topped by palis - McCarthy, Lord of Muskerry. Suppressed in 1542 5
ades, with a rock-cut ditch protecting the inner and twice sacked by English soldiers, it continued 5
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one. ere was one entrance in the perimeter, a twilight existence into the nineteenth century. e t t
where a covered passageway led to the interior. e tower over the crossing remains and the walls e l Billy and his team excavated for eight months of the nave extend almost to their original height. s w during 2004–6; their radiocarbon date of c. 1200 Its preservation in this condition must owe e N
BCE makes it the oldest known prehistoric hillfort something to its change of use from friary church I A in Ireland. to local burial place, a custom which continues to R ey found no evidence for occupation. Prob - this day. A notice at the entrance warns against the able evidence for warfare among emerging dangers of do-it-yourself grave digging. 13 Kilcrea Friary (W. Husband) The face on the McCarthy castle (WH) If the friary is evidence of the McCarthy clan’s space, isolation and a port nearby. Saltpetre, piety, then the castle was their secular stronghold. charcoal and sulphur were all produced and e site is private land and heavily overgrown. e refined on site. Millwrights and coopers as well as castle was built at the same period as the friary and gunpowder men found employment. Much of the was a tower house with adjoining bawn or walled black powder used by the Royal Navy and the enclosure. ere were a number of defensive feat - army in the Napoleonic wars was produced here, ures: a moat, corner towers on the bawn and evi- but the manufacture of other, more powerful dence of a yett on the main entrance. is was a explosives rendered the Works unprofitable and hinged iron grill which could be swung over the they closed in 1903. main door to protect it from battering and impede e site was bought by Cork County Council in efforts to set it on fire. A face carved in stone high 1974. Some reconstruction was done, and a visitor up on the tower still suggests that strangers are centre was opened. is closed in 2002, but the being watched. area remains open as a Regional Park.
8 Inside, a large chamber on the ground floor has On Wednesday we explored sites along the 1
0 a vaulted roof, which retains traces of wickerwork coast west of Cork. Although without a guide from 2
l i in the ceiling. is was used during its construc - Cork University, we did not lack information, ably r p tion as a cushion between the centring and the supplied with notes and maps prepared by A stone vault and le in place as a key for the plaster Caroline. Our journey began on a main route west 5
5 once the wooden framework was removed. A and following a brief coffee stop at Clonakilty took
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e garderobe chute provided rudimentary sanitation. increasingly winding and narrow roads. is gave t t
e e cattle who roam over the site, inside and out, us time to appreciate the rural landscape and l s have no such scruples. glimpses of the sea. w e A final surprise lurks beneath the undergrowth e first destination was Castle Townsend, a N
I in the moat: a section of the long defunct Cork and very attractive small village built on a steep hill A
R Macroom Railway line. overlooking a sheltered harbour. Originally the e Royal Gunpowder Mills at Ballincollig village was built around a bolting mill and the 14 occupied over 400 acres and had the advantages of main street is lined with large Georgian houses. e present castle, now a hotel, was built in 1800 Next to the River Argideen, the ruined Friary has using stone from the earlier castle on the site. e a romantic character. It was founded by a seventh- church of St Barrahane overlooks the village and century saint, Molaga, reputedly a friend of St is well worth the short steep climb from the village David of Wales and credited with bringing bees to street, rewarded by a tree framed view of the bay. Ireland. e legend is that he placed a candle on a Built in 1826 the church has several interesting sheaf of corn and watched where it came ashore. features; stained glass windows, including one by As it had little land, and was supported by power - Harry Clark (whose work we also saw in the chapel ful local interests, the Friary avoided sup pres sion at Cork University) and an oar from a rescue boat during the Reformation. Destroyed when burnt by from the Lusitania , kept in memory of the many the Parliamentarians in 1642, it became a burial drowned passengers and crew who were brought place for the town. into the harbour when the ship was sunk in 1915. Our final destination of the day was Kinsale. e churchyard was filled with splendid memo - Blessed by warm sun and calm conditions we rials and a pleasing, modest memorial to the boarded a boat for a trip around Kinsale harbour. cousins Edith Somerville and Violet Martin who e master was the perfect guide having studied lived in the village. Some of us recalled reading the archaeology in Cork. It was easy to appreciate the Irish RM stories they co-authored, and the later strategic location of Kinsale and its position on the television series. Bandol, one of the main rivers of this part of west Aer a too brief walk to see the harbour, our Cork. Kinsale had been a Viking trading post, was next visit to the Drombeg stone circle was very walled by the Normans, an English stronghold and different. Built on a gently sloping site surrounded a naval station until 1921. e harbour provides by lush fuchsia hedges in full bloom and a view of sheltered protection and is dominated by the two the sea, it is in an impressive setting and landscape. seventeenth-century forts – the James Fort and the Meaning ‘small ridge’, Drombeg is apparently one Charles Fort. Even today the star shaped Charles of the most visited megalithic monuments in Fort is imposing and intimidating, with steep Ireland. Our group was fortunate to be almost ramparts seemingly impregnable from the sea. e alone there and there was a very intense peaceful James Fort on the opposite lower bluff is less well and quiet atmosphere. e stone circle has preserved and obscured by trees and vegetation. seventeen standing stones of local stone and a Together the forts presented a formidable defence central cremation burial. e burial was radio - of Kinsale and routes into central Ireland. We were carbon dated aer an early excavation in 1957 but fortunate that the aernoon’s timing allowed a the findings are debated; more recent results rapid visit to Charles Fort. Although some of the suggest a date in the Late Bronze Age. e stones buildings inside the fort have been lost, a vivid are placed symmetrically with the axial stone impression of the enclosed and isolated life of the opposite a pair of larger stones. Some interpreta - garrison and its dominating location could be tions link the orientation of the circle with the gained.
winter solstice and the surrounding landscape of We le on ursday for Waterford, Ireland’s 8 1 hills and sea. e associated huts have evidence of oldest city and the Viking capital, accompanied by 0 2
l cooking, with a visible hearth, well, a stone trough John Sheehan (University College Cork), who gave i r and an arc of burnt stones. e stone trough may us an introduction to Viking Waterford during the p A have been used for heating water or other uses journey. 5
such as dying or brewing. Doubts were expressed On arrival in the oldest part of Waterford, e 5
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on the wisdom of consuming water heated in a Viking Triangle, we entered the magnificent Medi - e t t
limestone basin. Whatever the func tion, such sites eval Museum, opened in 2012, and were met by the e l with burnt stones and a trough are the commonest Director and our guide, Eamonn McEneaney. e s w feature of Bronze Age activity in the Irish land - Museum is adjacent to the Anglican Cathedral, the e N scape. Bishop’s Palace, and the eatre Royal and directly I A
From Drombeg, we took another circuitous and linked to the eighteenth-century City Hall, still a R winding journey to Timoleague Friary and Abbey, working civic building. Below the museum’s seeing wide river estuaries and remote villages. ground level are the thirteenth-century Choristers’ 15 Hall and the fieenth-century Mayor’s Wine 1773. We also saw one of the iron chests in which Vault. they were hidden. It is Spanish and, incongruously Some of the materials used in the new construc - given its contents, features images of naked South tion reflect the history of the site. Dundry stone, a American women. golden limestone used for the façade, was much Our aernoon began with a brief visit to Christ used in medieval Waterford and comes from near Church Cathedral. e architect for the current Bristol, then Waterford’s main trading partner. build ing, completed in 1779, was John Roberts Oak was used internally because the Vikings had (1712–96) who designed much of Georgian Water - used it in their fortification. ford. Laid over earlier Viking and Norman Some of the museum’s contents reflect Water - founda tions, it is important in Irish history; the ford’s past loyalty to the English Crown. e Great marriage there in 1170 of Richard de Clare, 2nd Parchment Book of Waterford contains manu - Earl of Pembroke (known as Strongbow) with script records of the city from 1356 to 1649. It Aoife, daughter of the king of Leinster, established records Mayoral elections, by reference to the the kingdom. A copy of the imaginative painting calen dar year and regnal year of the ruling mon- of the event by Daniel Maclise (in the National arch. Aer the Cromwellian army took the city in Gallery, Dublin) was displayed. 1650, the last entry was defaced because it recorded Next, to the Bishop’s Palace. Built in 1743 by Charles II as king. Richard Castle, it contains good examples of Irish e Great Charter Roll of 1373 could be eighteenth-century furniture, paintings, silverware described as the world’s first Power Point pre - and glassware including the Penrose decanter, the senta tion, supporting Waterford’s wine monopoly oldest surviving known example of Waterford claim, which had embroiled them in a long - glass. On loan to the museum is a Mourning Cross standing and sometimes violent dispute with the of jet and gold, one of twelve commissioned on his nearby port of New Ross. e Roll is comprised of death by the mother of Napoleon Bonaparte. pre-existing documents supporting Waterford’s Waterford’s landmark monument is Reginald’s claim, bound together with eighteen specially com - Tower, also Ireland’s oldest civic building. On the missioned paintings, including seven images of way there, we looked in on ‘King of the Vikings’ a Kings of England, eight of royal governors of recently opened virtual reality adventure set in an Ireland, and the earliest representations of Irish archaeologically inspired recreation of a twelh- mayors. century Waterford Viking House. It is hoped that In 1534 there was a rebellion in Dublin. e aer visiting there, people will move on to the Mayor secured Waterford’s loyal support to Henry more serious museum. VIII, who sent the Cap of Maintenance in 1536 in A Viking tower hereabouts formed the apex of recognition. Made of red velvet from Lucca the Viking Triangle. e present Reginald’s Tower embroidered with the Tudor rose and daisies, it is was built in the late twelh or early thirteenth the only item from Henry VIII’s wardrobe to century, with a further fieenth-century phase,
8 survive. and has certainly been in continuous use for 800 1
0 One of the oldest gold ring-brooches in Europe, years. Becoming part of the city wall, it has been 2
l i set with four glass stones, and probably a love strategic in the defence of Waterford on many r p token, was made in Waterford in about 1210. It was occasions. In 1463 a mint was in operation here, A found in a garderobe during the 1986–92 excava - though being a secure building it was probably 5
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e medieval set to survive in northern Europe. Of the Viking gallery with finds from Waterford and l s highest quality, they date from the 1460s and are from Woodstown, the only excavated Longphort w e made from silk woven in Florence, with decorative in Ireland, partially excavated in 2002. ey N
I panels embroidered in Bruges. eir survival is include a full set of weapons from a Viking A
R remarkable: before Waterford fell to a Cromwel - warrior’s grave and the twelh-century Waterford lian army in 1650 they were hidden in the medieval Kite Brooch of gold, silver, niello and amethyst 16 cathedral and not found until it was demolished in coloured cabochon. Our aernoon finished at the House of Water - and quay, with an elegant crescent and St ford Crystal, where the tour demonstrates the Colman’s Cathedral above, a French neo-gothic skilled work and precision required to produce design by Pugin. Cobh was a tactical British naval such fine glassware. It was intriguing to see the base during the Napoleonic Wars, and opposite many stages required and have the chance to the shore is Spike Island, the site of an eighteenth- handle incomplete vessels. As one would expect we century star fort, later housing convicts for penal le through a large gi shop where the crystal was transportation, and now a tourist attraction. enticingly displayed and lit but it was disappoint - e Heritage Centre said little of the moment- ing that there was so little reference to the earlier ous sinking of the Lusitania off the Old Head of history of glass in Waterford. Kinsale in 1915. However, our first stop had been Cobh (Cove) is the deep water harbour for at Cobh Old Church cemetery where 169 of the Cork. It rapidly developed during the nineteenth drowned had been buried, most in mass graves. In century as the final fuelling point for mail boats, 2015, centenary commemorative glass plaques passenger transport across the Atlantic, and an were placed here by Cunard and the Port of Cork. embarkation point for the Irish diaspora. Willing ere are also 127 individual Commonwealth War or not, many of the departing Irish millions sailed graves, including that of Frederic Parslow VC, who from Cobh to the Americas or in convict trans - unusually was a civilian master of his ship, porta tion to Australia. steadfast under U-Boat attack only a couple of On the day of our visit, a large cruise liner was months aer the loss of the Lusitania, thereby berthed alongside and Cobh was once more a saving his cargo of military horses. ere is a good hubbub of market stalls, foreign accents and tin interpretation board at the cemetery entrance whistles. e Heritage Centre in the old rail providing more information on the Lusitania terminus made much of the voyages from the port, burials and referencing the lives of others who rest including the Titanic which moored there before here. One such is Jack Doyle, who aer a colourful its fatal voyage, oddly a popular attraction for the life as boxer, actor and singer, died in poverty and cruise passengers. e Centre highlighted the fate was brought back for burial to his native Cobh. of documented individuals: I was much taken by For lunch, we stopped in Ardmore, a popular the tale of Cork-born Anne (Bonny) Rackham, a seaside village with a mile-long sweep of beach – flame-haired pirate of the worst order. an opportunity for a paddle. Back in the coach up We had no time for the full tour of Cobh town, steep, narrow, winding roads for Ardmore church whose shore slopes steeply down to the esplanade and Round Tower. Voted one of the favourite 8 1 0 2
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Ardmore, medieval sculpture in the blind arcading (A. Williams) 17 well-stocked churchyard where formal headstones and simple chunks of stone jostle together leaving little room for manoeuvre. Yet again we were intrigued by the family burial plots still in use within the interior of the roofless church. Up and away from the coast is the town of Lismore, important from the seventh century as a bishopric, monastery and centre of learning. Lismore village has a Heritage Centre, but we had no time to visit, having found a tiny independent coffee shop before eventually finding the church (another cathedral) with its resident family of swallows. Dedicated to St Carthage, the current building has been extensively restored over the last four hundred years. Memorial stones from the ninth century and a sixteenth-century tomb are rather outclassed by the Burne Jones window (the only one of its kind in Ireland) and attractive nineteenth-century chancel vaulting, tastefully coloured to pick out the imaginative carving on the bosses. e original twelh-century castle at Lismore was the residence of bishops until, in 1589, it was acquired by Sir Walter Raleigh who subsequently sold it to the Earl of Cork. rough marriage it came to the estate of the Duke of Devonshire. e present castle (rebuilt from 1812) is not open to the public except the West Wing which has been transformed into an art gallery with a small refreshment room. e castle dominates but is not fully visible from the gardens (which are open to the public). e entrance to the gardens is through the Riding House, a seventeenth-century gatehouse. e garden walls are also seventeenth century, as is the layout of the upper gardens. Here there are
8 Ardmore, the tower (M. Nieke) formal, kitchen, herbaceous and wild spaces, 1
0 contained by imposing manicured hedges. When 2
l i stops of the week, this ruined church (known as we visited, the gardens were heady with colour, r p the Cathedral), built in the twelh century, is sited scent and warmth. Conversely, the lower gardens, A on an, arguably, semi-circular platform, overlook- laid out in the nineteenth century, were informal, 5
5 ing Ardmore village with views along the coast. green and shady. e Yew Avenue is perhaps of
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e e church, despite its sixth-century ogham stones the seventeenth century. ese gardens were the t t
e and Romanesque blind arcading on an external perfect place for gently winding down, an excellent l s wall, is overshadowed by the twelh-century choice aer a busy and stimulating week. w e Round Tower, unusually rising in tiers, to 30m in Members appreciated the care taken by Hedley N
I height. St Declan is said to have founded a mon - Swain and Caroline Raison in their organisation A
R astery here in the sixth century, introducing and were very grateful to our guides who gave Christianity to the area. A humble oratory, said to freely of their time, combining to make this 18 be his burial place, is tucked into the corner of the meeting such a success. Rome itself. e plaster comes from the same town AUTUMN DAY MEETING houses as the mosaics, its survival due to water 28 October 2017: St Albans getting in following abandonment and whole ISOBEL THOMPSON sheets falling face down. Twenty-six members met at Verulamium e displays squeeze in material from major Museum, beside the public park which occupies Roman discoveries in the area since Frere’s excava - half the Roman town. e curator David orold, tions. ese include the Sandridge hoard of latest and Simon West, the District Archaeologist, were Roman gold solidi, and the Folly Lane grave of a our guides. David first explained that once the new first-century client king. e finds in two second- City Museum opens, in the fine Georgian Town century burials from Turners Hall Farm villa, near Hall overlooking the medieval marketplace at the Wheathampstead, are a strange array including top of the hill, Verulamium Museum will be able heirlooms a century old, bronze items wrapped in to plan an extension. e museum was built to possibly Middle Eastern cloth, British and Roman display the finds from Wheeler’s and Frere’s objects, a hunting kit of arrows and butchery excavations, notably spectacular mosaics from rich knives, and nothing of any real value. ey town houses. It markets itself as the ‘museum of reinforce the impression of local aristocratic con - Roman daily life’, and gets 70,000 visitors a year, tinuity from the calm which prevailed in Hertford - including schoolchildren from as far away as shire throughout the Roman ‘conquest’. France. As Verulamium is a Scheduled monu - e museum stands in the centre of the Roman ment, little excavation has taken place in recent town, with a corner of the forum-basilica plan decades, but geophysical survey of the entire reproduced in the paving outside. We walked Roman town, by Kris Lockyear of University uphill through the park, amidst fine autumn College London and his Community Archaeology colour, to the site of one of the town houses. From Geophysics Group, has produced a new plan in the modern building covering its hypocaust, the astonishing detail, including what is plainly the view gives a good impression of the Roman town’s town aqueduct. It is going to take years to absorb size and its setting, running down to the river Ver. and interpret these results. On the hillside beyond was the client king’s burial So, to the mosaics, where David explained the and the temple which succeeded it, accompanied different approaches to liing them for display. by a head cult which may have fed into the legend Wheeler cut his into sections, so the joins are of St Alban himself. Inside the building is another visible; Frere lied his whole, backed and then mosaic with floral motifs, which survived because rolled up, with lumpy results where tesserae came this wing of the house was terraced into the slope, loose. David Neal assigns all of them to a single and beneath is a simple X arrangement of heating workshop, which also supplied Colchester; those pipes, so most of the floor is solid. Simon West in Colchester Museum have similar floral motifs pointed out that one of the flower motifs may and guilloche borders. e ‘sea god’ is unusual; incorporate ‘lobster claws’ – but then told us that
Martin Henig thinks it the product of a different the sea god, found very close to this room, was 8 1 crasman. But there are few parallels, and much so-called because Wheeler assumed the building 0 2
l argument over whether the ‘lobster claws’ on the was a bath house. As sea gods are usually found i r sea god’s head aren’t horns; and is the wonderful with other watery attributes, and this probably p A semi-circular scallop shell mosaic really a wasn’t a bath house anyway …. We could toss this 5
sun burst? Are these double meanings inten- argu ment around for hours, but time being 5
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tional? Between forty and fiy mosaic floors are pressing, we walked on to the London Gate, the e t t
known at Verulamium, and there are bound to be grand gateway where Watling Street entered Veru- e l more. lamium. Only the bare foundations survive (a long s w ere is much to see in the side aisle, with story; it was probably demolished in the e N recreated Roman rooms and workshops. e mid-twelh century by the abbey), but this is the I A restored painted wall plaster here, with its strong best place to see the defences, the huge outer ditch R colours and trompe l’oeuil columns and marbling, and the wall itself. ere is still no consensus on is ‘better than ours’, according to museums in the date of the city wall. Here David and Simon le 19 By the London Gate, where Watling Street enters Verulamium, the outer ditch at left (C. von Patzelt)
us, with thanks from Tim Champion on our St Germanus in AD 429 here too, on the hilltop? behalf. Parallels can be found at St Riquier, but not nearly Being now outside the Roman town it was time enough is yet known about major Anglo-Saxon to head up through the Abbey Orchard to the monastic sites. Late Saxon floor tiles of a type Cathedral. e café is temporarily in a marquee known from major pre-Norman Benedictine outside, where we found our buffet lunch, and founda tions (Winchester Old Minster, Bury Professor Martin Biddle and Rosalind Niblett. St Edmunds, York) were found in the nineteenth Aer lunch Martin took us outside and introduced century when buttresses were added against the the abbey church, dominating the hilltop. e south wall of the nave. stand ing building, with its Norman tower of sal- A new ‘welcome centre’ is being built on the east vaged Roman brick, is a visible symbol of continu - side of the south transept. is is by the door used ity. We heard about the thread running from the by the majority of visitors, on the site of the Little 8
1 end of the Roman town to the later Saxon abbey, Churchyard. Excavation by the Canterbury 0 2
l before its replacement by Norman build ings. In Archae o logical Trust, with long experience of i r
p 1982 the Biddles’ excavations south of the abbey cathedral work, was still in progress, revealing A church revealed a late Roman cemetery overlain many eighteenth- and nineteenth-century burials
5 by levels full of very late Roman material including cutting into the foundations of long-demolished 5
r a fih-century or later ‘hand pin’. Richard Reece south transept apses. Natural ground level is not e t t also identified a very unusual pattern of coin loss nearly as deep as expected, but the Saxon boundary e l s here. More graves were found on the hilltop, close ditches may yet be found. w e to the nave south wall. is cemetery lies alongside And so into the cathedral, where Martin N
I three fih- to eighth-century field ditches found in pointed out the first two ‘capitals’ of the Norman A
R 1978 beneath the chapter house; the Norman nave north nave arcade west of the great screen. ese reflects a recti linear layout going back centuries. are quite different from those further west, which 20 So was the basilica of St Alban visited by are much simpler. e dedication in 1116 does not mean that the abbey church was then complete; did a Roman basilica/late Saxon church survive here until this date? e nave is now strikingly plain, apart from an array of medieval wall paint - ings on the west faces of the north arcade. Ann Ballantyne spoke about these, which marked the presence of altars. Mass could not be celebrated at any one altar more than once in 24 hours, hence so many. en east to the shrine of St Alban itself, beneath the fieenth-century timber Watching Lo where monks kept an eye on pilgrims like a medieval security camera. Martin explained how for 300 years the Lady Chapel, used as the gram - mar school, had been cut off from the body of the church by a public right of way, and when this was closed in 1878 and the east end opened up, hundreds of Purbeck marble fragments from the shrine were found concealed in the demolished wall. In 1991 the shrine was reconstructed in its late medieval position, using as much of the original material as possible. In a dark corner behind the Watching Lo is the cathedral’s other medieval shrine, the much battered shrine of ‘St Amphi - balus’, the priest who converted St Alban. It too St Albans, shrine of ‘St Amphibalus’ (C. von Patzelt) will be reconstructed as part of the cathed ral’s enhancement project. ere are drawings, and Town Hall into the City Museum, housing all the Richard K. Morris has done much work on what post-Roman material. Our visit, as meticulously it looked like. (As Martin said, this is not a real organised as ever, was full of variety and great saint’s name; ‘Amphibalus’ is a misreading of a interest, but we haven’t heard the last word on St word meaning overcoat. But he has his own Albans. archaeo logical interest. His bones were discovered in 1178 on Redbourn Heath, with others, in what came to be called the Mounds of the Banners. ROYAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL ese were presumably tumuli, of unknown date, INSTITUTE ANNUAL but the bones were immediately associated with CONFERENCE 2017: Arras 200 – the legend of St Alban and carried in procession 17–18 November down Watling Street to meet St Alban’s shrine, Celebrating the Iron Age 8 1 coming from the abbey. It must have been quite a 0 2
VICTORIA GREEN (CHENEY l day.) i r Pausing to inspect one of the finest medieval BURSIST: UNIVERSITY OF p A brasses in the country, that of abbot omas de la MANCHESTER) 5
Mare (1349–96), the tour finished in the north Walking in to a room filled with people who have 5
r transept, where the twelh-century stone slab base excavated sites and written books that have e t t of St Alban’s shrine has been set up as an altar brought to life and influenced your ideas about the e l table. Martin explained the inscriptions and Iron Age, is a very daunting prospect for someone, s w decoration. e cathedral project has been made who just the day before, received the results of e N possible by a £4-million Heritage Lottery grant, their Masters dissertation. However, this was my I A with the welcome centre to include new facilities situation on arriving at this conference. e R for study as well as exhibition space. is is Yorkshire Museum was the perfect setting, as it happening alongside the transformation of the houses many of the objects which were discussed 21 Middle Iron-Age finds from Queen’s Barrow, Arras (© Yorkshire Museum and V. Green) in the conference, such as the collection from the and methods to try to understand more about the Queen’s Barrow from the original Arras excava- Iron Age. tions. Being able to see such well-known objects Melanie Giles, Yvonne Inall and Helen on the opening night, then hear about new Chittock’s lectures centred on material culture, research in the area certainly brought on a mood which they used to reconsider the people who of excitement for the future from the delegates. made and used items such as jewellery, spears and e conference was held to celebrate the 200th pottery, and how their identities may be linked to anniversary of Reverend Stillingfleet excavating certain objects. e highly thought-provoking the Iron Age cemetery at Arras, which he pre - work presented by Janet Montgomery and Mandy sented to the Annual Meeting of the Archaeo - Jay on the chemical analysis of the remains of logical Institute held in York in 1846. e con - people from East Yorkshire, and Manuel
8 ference was framed by lectures placing East Fernandez-Gotz’s work on the more widespread 1
0 Yorkshire in context with Scotland, the surround - migrations during the Iron Age period reminded 2
l i ing landscape and Southern Britain. the audience of the wider pressures on the popula- r p ough the primary focus of the conference was tion of East Yorkshire. A East Yorkshire, Fraser Hunter’s keynote speech Personally, I found Paula Ware’s lecture on the 5
5 took us to Scotland where, he reminds us, they had MAP Archaeological Practice’s recent excavations
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e chariots too. A vehicle which seems to be of chariot burials was the highlight of the con - t t
e quintessentially ‘Iron Age’, it is still a rare find in ference; the chance to excavate something so l s the archaeo logical record, though Hunter, Paula iconic is something that I imagine many in the w e Ware, Anne Lewis and Robert Hurford all used room were slightly jealous of! In the short discus - N
I chariots, and their fittings, to shed new light on sion aer the lecture, the group were excited to A
R items, which on the surface, may have previously help with and read the reports of the sites. I am seemed simple to understand. Hunter’s lecture set looking forward to reading how such burials are 22 the tone for the conference, encouraging new ideas interpreted in a thoroughly modern context, following from the work John Dent and Ian Armit in the ‘Arras Culture’. I am thankful to the Royal were able to tell us is continuing on the Wetwang Archaeological Institute, the University of Hull burials. and the Yorkshire Museum, as well as the is conference included a range of people from Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society academic and commercial backgrounds, some and East Riding Archaeological Society for who were just starting their careers, being invited organising such a wonderful conference and to speak to an audience including Professor Ian providing me with a bursary to be able to attend. Stead, who kick started many researchers’ interest
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i ROYAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE NEWSLETTER r p editor Katherine Barclay, Williamsgate, Governor’s Green, Pembroke Road, A Portsmouth, Hants. po1 2ns . Email: [email protected] 5 5
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e next issue Copy for the next issue must reach the editor by the end of May 2018 for t t
e publication in August 2018 . l s w
e this issue’s cover picture : At Labbacallee wedge tomb (mid fourth century BC ), during our 2017 N
I Summer Meeting to Cork and environs: view from the unroofed antechamber across the dividing slab into A
R the large rectangular chamber, with the small chamber beyond the pier (A. Williams)
24 visit our web site at www.royalarchinst.org