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From hollow to house: 50 years of discovery at West Stow

It is 50 years since the beginning of a Top: The hollow of a two-post structure after major archaeological campaign at excavation, looking north; it contained two ox West Stow. Over the course of eight skulls and a cat’s skeleton, and Roman and Anglo-Saxon refuse ( sfb 57, scale 6ft/c 2m) seasons, what remains one of the most extensively excavated early Anglo- Above: The first reconstruction, closed to the Major excavation began at West Saxon settlements in the country public but still standing after more than 40 was revealed. The excavations years; many excavated Anglo-Saxon Stow, , half a century ago, buildings had been dismantled before they revolutionised our understanding of reached this stage of decay resulting in not just one of the most the design and construction of timber explored Anglo-Saxon villages, buildings of that time, seriously but also a unique archaeological experiment. Richard Hoggett reviews

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questioning the then prevailing view of Above: Many of the Anglo-Saxons as unsophisticated buildings at West people who lived in holes in the ground. Stow are sited over their excavated Once the excavations had finished, counterparts; each the unique opportunity arose to put has unique features – these new interpretations to the test. the original Anglo- An exercise in experimental Saxon settlement is likely to have been archaeology that began in 1973 still more homogenous continues: to date ten Anglo-Saxon buildings have been reconstructed on the site. The half century anniversary is a fitting time to review the original excavations, and consider what we have learned from the reconstructions. Right: The original The site lies 10km north of Bury St reconstructed Edmunds, on a low sandy knoll of buildings, the first approximately 2ha in the bottom of house on the left and north-’s Lark valley. the sunken house on the right Flowing westwards into the Fens, the Lark has long been the focus of Stow was first recognised in 1849, when Credit for that belongs to renowned intensive occupation: prehistoric an inhumation cemetery of early Anglo- Suffolk archaeologist Basil Brown, who remains litter the valley, and Saxon date ( ad 410–700) was discovered had discovered and begun the , only 2km to the west, was nearby. Yet evidence for early Anglo- excavation of the Sutton Hoo ship the site of a small Roman town. The Saxon settlement was not recognised burial. Fresh from that experience, he archaeological significance of West until nearly a century later. had excavated a pair of Romano-British kilns at West Stow in 1940. While re- excavating these kilns with Stanley West in 1947, Brown noted early Anglo- Saxon artefacts and features in a sandpit then being dug into the north-eastern edge of the knoll. West later brought the site to the attention of Vera Evison, an Anglo- Saxon specialist, who excavated on the knoll for five seasons between 1957 and 1961 under the auspices of the Ministry of Works. Her work confirmed that substantial early Anglo-Saxon deposits survived, and led to the main excavation campaign under West’s direction between 1965 and 1972.

Left: Anglo-Saxon features revealed 1965–72. There are several sub-phases – only two or three halls were occupied at once, each with a group of ancillary sfb s; hachures to north-east mark the sandpit where Basil Brown first identified remains in 1947

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( The site is best known for the early Right: From 1965–72

E V I Anglo-Saxon settlement. However, the a core team of H

C supervisors and R

A excavation also revealed the knoll to be labourers was W

O densely packed with prehistoric and

T supplemented by S

T Roman features. Several scatters of local and university S E volunteers W

/ mesolithic flint-working waste were T S

E identified, as was a late neolithic W

Y

E inhumation surrounded by an enclosing L N

A ditch associated with 47 cremation T S 4 burials. There was also an iron age Below: Stanley West settlement on the knoll, comprising a (in blue shirt) series of enclosures, roundhouses and discusses a feature at numerous pits. These were superseded the excavations he by a cluster of five Romano-British directed; he first dug at West Stow in the pottery kilns, two of which had first 1940s with Basil brought Brown and West to the site. Brown

end. The seven identified halls have had a range of ancillary functions, measured 8–15m long, each being about such as dwellings, workshops and store half as wide as it was long; most had a rooms. Artefacts from the sfb fills allow southern door and a central hearth. One the buildings to be phased into a hall was subdivided at one end, sequence spanning 200 years. This suggesting it may have been more shows that there were only two or three important than the others or performed family groups of this kind in residence a different function. at any one time. The hollows of 68 sfb s were Although confined to the knoll, the excavated, typically some 4m long by settlement appears to have moved 3m wide. Seemingly built in clusters around the hilltop as halls and sfb s around the halls, they fell into two main rotted, were dismantled and replaced. types. One had a single post at either During the final phase of occupation, end, presumably supporting a ridge- around ad 600–650, at least one of the beam. The other had three posts at each family groups seems to have drifted end, with the four corner posts away from the knoll to join a new focus providing extra roof support. The of settlement elsewhere. This is most hollows were mostly filled with rubbish, likely to have been to the east, where accumulated during the building’s life the medieval village and parish church or, as seems more likely, deposited of West Stow developed. after dismantling. A vast array of artefacts and ecofacts The halls have been interpreted as were recovered during the excavations, communal buildings, each the focal enabling a great deal to be said about point of an extended family group. the settlement’s economy and Satellite groups of sfb s are thought to environment. Wheat, barley and rye

Above: Posthole foundations of Hall 1, looking west; gaps show doorways to east and south (scale 6ft/c 2m)

The early Anglo-Saxon settlement Right: Burnt lasted from about 420 until the early remains of a sunken- 600s, when the villagers abandoned the floored building, with loom weights sAit eb. Tuhsey e xccaovmatiomn ruevneiatley d two main lying on planks, types of building: rectangular timber looking east; such halls, represented by rows of postholes, discoveries showed that sfb s had timber and “sunken-featured buildings” ( sfb s), walls and suspended comprising sub-rectangular hollows floors ( sfb 15, scale with one or more postholes at either 6ft/c 2m)

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were all cultivated, the crops being Right: The original V I H supplemented by wild fruit, nuts and sunken house (front, C R A 1974), the first house edible plants. Over 175,000 pieces of W (left, 1973) and the O T S animal bone were collected, indicating

Kimberley Rew T S the farming of large numbers of sheep, house (right, 1974). E W

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The latter, the first E cattle and pigs, as well as wildfowling, V I

attempt at a two-post H fishing and hunting deer. C R

sfb , was dismantled A

The strong emphasis on sheep in 1987. Rew later W O T S rearing matches the many excavated had a successful T S loom weights, spinning and weaving musical career, E W /

including writing T tools, suggesting that textile production S Walking on E W

was one of the specialist skills practised Sunshine and Love Y E L on the site, with surplus cloth being Shine a Light N A T traded out. Other crafts in evidence S were bone- and antler-working, especially in the form of combs, and pottery making, with a clay heap and decorative stamping tools surviving, along with the pots themselves. The other major skill in evidence, of course, was the high level of woodworking and carpentry required to construct and In terms of the buildings’ appearance, provided one of the largest excavated maintain the settlement’s numerous the rectangular halls are not too samples of sfb s, caused West to timber buildings. difficult to reconstruct, with vertical challenge this orthodoxy, and brought a posts defining walls and supporting new dimension to such reconstructions. roofs. Reconstructing the Two of the West Stow sfb s had burnt The excavations are only half the story. superstructure of the sunken-featured down (unlike the vast majority of the What happened next, once the digging buildings, however, has always been buildings, which had been dismantled). was over, confirmed West Stow’s status much harder. sfb s have been recognised As a result, traces of planked floors and Tas honee gofr theea mto rste imbpuoirltdanitn Ag nglo- across much of early Anglo-Saxon timber walls survived, suggesting a Saxon sites in the country. It is now best , but the exact nature of their much more complex, albeit known as a tourist attraction and construction and appearance has been conventional-looking building than had educational centre. Behind the debated – without resolution – for the previously been supposed. Rather than reconstructed Anglo-Saxon village, Below: A devastating best part of a century. There are no a place in which to live, it seems that the fire destroyed one of however, is a vast and ongoing exercise the buildings in 2005, modern counterparts. hollows offered ventilation or in , with presenting the Until the West Stow excavations, the insulation to floors raised from the different interpretations and building opportunity to prevailing interpretation of the sfb ground, and a space beneath that could techniques being tried and tested and excavate the remains imagined a tent-like thatched roof set perhaps be used for storage. and compare them to the results constantly being compared excavated Anglo- over a hollow in which the occupants When the excavations ended West to the original archaeological record. Saxon examples worked and dwelt. West Stow, which was keen to test his new hypotheses. Meanwhile a group of Cambridge students had formulated a desire to reconstruct an Anglo-Saxon building. The two parties met, the West Stow Environmental Archaeology Group was formed, and work began on the first reconstruction in 1973. This was a six-post sfb built to test West’s ideas, with timber walls and a plank floor suspended over the hollow. It was made using only tools, materials and techniques that would have been available to the Anglo-Saxons. Crucially, it worked. This first house is still standing, although it is no longer accessible to the public for safety reasons. Its design has gone on to underpin many of the reconstructions which have been built since, each experimenting with more sophisticated approaches to timber joints, thatching, planking and pegging.

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V Continuing the experiment, a second Right: West Stow I H

C sfb was reconstructed in 1974. This Environmental R A Archaeology Group

W followed the traditional sunken-floored O members at work in T S interpretation, with a view to

T 1973 on the first S E comparing and contrasting it to the reconstruction of a W /

T sunken-featured S raised-floored version. One problem E building, the “first W

Y which was immediately apparent with

E house”; it has three L

N this interpretation was the speed with posts at each end of A T S

, which the hollow filled as a result of the the hollow ) 2 (

T sandy soils into which it was dug. This E N .

G contrasts starkly with the clearly A E

S defined hollows recovered during the W /

P excavations, which were sufficiently U O

R intact at the end of a building’s use to G

Y

G have a second life as rubbish pits. This is O L O

E one of many ways in which the sunken- A H

C house design does not match the R A

L excavated evidence, indicating that the A T

N reconstruction is flawed. E M

N To date, ten reconstructions have O R I

V been built at West Stow: five variations Right: Making the N E on West’s version of the sfb , two halls, roof. Reconstructed W

O roofs are supported T

S one workshop, the original sunken

T by the principal S E house and the new sunken house (of timbers; plank walls, W which more below). In that time, only which are not load three buildings have been bearing, are inserted deconstructed, thus completing their later experimental lifecycle. One of the sfb s built in 1974 became structurally unstable and was dismantled in 1987. One of the halls, built over a number of years in the late 1970s, also became unsound and was dismantled in 1999. And in one extreme case an sfb , built in the mid 1990s, burnt down in 2005. Although not planned, the accident was turned to positive use when the remains were excavated to see how they Below: Long-straw compared to the burnt sfb s found thatch completes the during the original excavations. It also first reconstruction allowed many different archaeological techniques to be calibrated, given that the design, layout and contents of the building immediately before the fire were known.

Like the first house, the original sunken house is still standing, although time has taken its toll and in recent years it hAa sn devwelo speudn a ksigennifi chanotu ansd e increasing lean towards its eastern end as its timber frame has racked. A wooden prop was inserted to support the eastern gable a few years ago, but as the building’s 40th year passed the decision was taken that the structure had reached the end of its practical life. It was time for the next phase of the experiment to begin – recording and dismantling. This approach is very much in keeping with the

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archaeological evidence, which suggests Above: The original One particular criticism levelled at the tightly, resulting in a sturdy and secure that the original buildings were sunken house original sunken house was that it had roof, yet one which is suitably low-tech. dismantled rather than allowed to decay (behind, 1974) with been badly built because it wasn’t The timber roof-cap which sits atop the new version in situ, with all useable parts complete with “stuff- widely believed in by its constructors. the new house and effectively weights presumably being recycled, leaving just thatched” roof and This was emphatically not the case, but the ridge down is also a radical the hollow to be backfilled with timber capping; the in order to allay any suspicion the departure, albeit one with European domestic rubbish. roof uses no wooden construction of the new sunken house parallels. The net result is a thatched spars, of which no As the 50th anniversary approached, archaeological trace has been informed by all of the lessons roof which has been completed without it was thought fitting to construct a new has yet been found learned during the last 40 years. We are the use of wooden spars to peg it home. version of the sunken house adjacent to confident that the structure is as good This is something we were keen to the existing structure. Visitors to the as we can make it. achieve, because the more traditional site this summer can experience the But we are not simply reproducing thatched ridges completed on the site juxtaposition of the old and the new as a the old design. During this new build we have each required several hundred strong visual reminder of the ongoing have taken the opportunity to try an spars, yet to date no definite examples nature of the West Stow experiment. innovative approach to thatching the have been positively identified in the Initially some eyebrows were raised roof which we are confident has not Anglo-Saxon archaeological record. at the prospect of the anniversary build been used on any previous historical The experiment continues, and only being a replacement of what we widely reconstructions. Early in 2015 master time will tell how valid these methods consider to be an inaccurate Below: Details of thatcher Alan Jones and his team are. Here’s to the next 50 years! reconstruction. All good experiments stuff-thatched roof produced a “stuff-thatched” roof, which must be repeatable, however, and we on the new sunken has a base coat of gorse into which straw The West Stow team would like to hear house, made of gorse consider it important to continue to and straw, under has been pushed to create a top coat. from anyone with photographs of the test the design as rigorously as we can. construction in 2015 The gorse’s thorns grip the straw excavations or memories of having visited. Please contact lance.alexander@ westsuffolk.gov.uk. To mark the double anniversary of the beginning of the main excavation campaign in 1965 and the publication of the first monographs in 1985, the Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service has made pdf s of the reports freely available via the Suffolk Heritage Explorer website: https://heritage.suffolk.gov.uk/ west-stow. Richard Hoggett is senior archaeological officer with the Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service, and archaeological consultant to the West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village Trust

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