Issue HANLEY MATTERS No. 11 the newsletter of The Hanleys’ Village Society Summer 2006 OFFICERS IRON AGE HILL FORTS President Nick Lechmere Not a lot is known about the doorposts, the smoke from fires Tel: 0771 644927 spectacular Iron Age fortress of dissipating through thatched roofs. Chair British Camp, on the Herefordshire Skilled craftsmen and women would Ian Bowles Beacon, as Deborah Overton have woven clothes coloured by Tel: 311931 pointed out in her talk about the hill plant dyes and made high quality Treasurer forts of Malvern and Bredon. We weapons and jewellery. Outside the John Boardman have no idea exactly when it was fort would have been farms growing Tel: 311748 constructed, who built it, who lived corn and raising chickens in wooden Secretary & Newsletter within its walls, what they did with huts on stilts to protect them from Editor Malcolm Fare their dead (no graves have been predators. Tel: 311197 found) and how long the site was Iron Age forts were centres of Archaeological Officer used. But it is certainly impressive. trade and the British Camp tribe Peter Ewence The earliest enclosure, known as would have known the occupants of Tel: 561702 the citadel, is perhaps 2200-2500 other hill forts, like the three at Programme Secretary years old and covers an area of about Bredon Hill. Of these Kemerton David Thomas 8 acres. A second phase added Camp is the most distinctive, with Tel: 310437 ramparts that followed the contours of an entrance shaped like a pair of the hill and expanded the site to some horns, filtering people through FORTHCOMING ACTIVITIES 33 acres, including a spring. massive double gates. 29 September 2006 Although now slumped into In the centre of the camp is a AGM & Talk by Mick ditches, the ramparts would originally raised area that may have been the Wilks on the history of have been sharply defined with a site of a temple. A roundhouse the RAF in Worcestershire. wooden palisade on top and excavated in the 1930s revealed a Village Hall, 7.30 pm. walkways for defenders. Around 1000 mini-reservoir, there being no AD there may have been a wooden natural source of water on the hill. 30 September 2006 Guided tour of four castle, and excavated pottery A burial mound found at Worcestershire suggests medieval settlements during Kemerton dates from the early churches by Tim the 11th and 12th centuries. Bronze Age. It contained two sets of Bridges - £5 incl. tea. Village Hall car park, Leading from British Camp to bones, one added later after 2 pm. another Iron Age fort at Midsummer exposure to the elements. This may 17 November 2006 Hill is what is known as the Shire give a clue to the customs of Iron Talk by John Pinnick Ditch, believed to be of Saxon Age people. A collection of bones on the history of origin, which is still used to divide found in the inner entrance area of Worcester porcelain. Worcestershire from Herefordshire. the camp has long been thought to Village Hall, 7.30 pm. In the 13th century it was reinforced be evidence of a massacre, but the 30 March 2007 by Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, latest thinking is that it reflects the Talk by of the National to prevent the Bishop of Hereford’s rituals of the time, with the dead left Trust on the History of Croome Park. deer encroaching on his land. exposed rather than buried. Village Hall, 7.30 pm. The large number of hut circles On the evening of 27 June found at British Camp indicate that a Deborah followed up her talk by thriving Iron Age community existed. leading a 20-strong group of Deborah Overton imagined them members on a conducted tour of living in round houses with painted Midsummer Hill. This hill fort, which wattle and daub panels between covers about 30 acres and was timber frames and carved constructed around 2400 years ago, is rather different from others From the top of Midsummer Peninsular Wars. in that it includes a low-lying Hill, there are fine views of On top of Hollybush Hill is area and spring that divide the Eastnor Castle, built by Charles a pillow mound or artificial two hilltops of Midsummer and Cocks in 1812, and of the burrow for rabbits, which were Hollybush. Also there is no obelisk that commemorates farmed in medieval times for evidence of round houses or his son, who died during the their meat and fur. any substantial structure. Instead, over 400 small rectangular platforms have been found laid out on a grid pattern. Some contained grain or pottery; others may have been used as stalls or animal pens – perhaps a sort of early Three Counties Showground. Another unusual feature of the fort is a trackway outside the ramparts paved with sandstone slabs brought from 3 miles away, also suggesting that the site was used for commercial as well as defensive purposes. Deborah Overton explains the layout of Midsummer Hill fort DOWSING WORK AT BOOTH END The Society Dowsing Group when the present crop is The position of a known has extended the work carried harvested. Roman ditch, excavated as out in 2005 around Booth End Another anomaly, which is part of the archaeological – the Cross Hands junction square and partly within the assessment of the Hanley where Roberts End, Gilberts large rectangle, is probably Mead site, is shown. Further End and the main Upton- the boundary of a medieval dowsing work in this area may Worcester roads meet. The farm. On the eastern side of show how this relates to other plan overleaf summarises the this a cross, enclosed within a features. Work will continue in results. Existing buildings are circle, suggests a Post Mill, this area later in the year, indicated in solid black. the cross being the main which may answer some of It has been established that ground timbers and the circle the questions posed but will the large rectangular anomaly the track around which the mill certainly raise a lot more at the top of the plan (cross- was rotated to face the wind. questions. hatched) is complete. On the Other rectangles (drawn in Peter Ewence same alignment and crossing line) have the form of cottages through the rectangle are or farm buildings. The anomalies that are probably substantial anomaly, close to roads. It is interesting to the cross and the Post Office, speculate that this may be may be the site of the Booth Roman, but only an Hall. excavation of a section would The site of the cross known confirm this. It does however to have stood close to the suggest a possible origin for Post Office has been found. the line of Roberts End Street. Its position was under the The northern end of this present pavement on the north rectangle is the site of a side of the existing milestone. scatter of Roman pottery. A This confirms exactly the systematic field walk of this position shown on early area would be productive Ordinance Survey maps. Dowsing at Booth End The Lechmere display HISTORY OPEN DAY century tax roll that may have cottage with no running water been borrowed by Judge or electricity, compensated by Over 100 people attended the Lechmere and never returned. a nominal rent that remained Society ’s local history Open Parked outside the Village unchanged for 40 years. Day on 3 June. At the same Hall was the CRO Comput@bus, The occasion was marked time the County Record Office which allowed visitors to look by the installation of a held an Archives Roadshow at a digitised version of the permanent display case to mark the availablility online 1797 enclosure map for the donated by the families of of the catalogue of the parish. A CD of this map has Anne Portsmouth and Lechmere papers. now been acquired by the Branwen O ’Brien in memory Archives Manager Robin Society. Chota and Joyce Webb and Whittaker identified some On display in the hall were a John and Betty King, who interesting items among the selection of Ordnance Survey farmed for many years at papers, including a deed of maps of the parish, including Gilberts End. 1506 whereby Richard the earliest known preliminary Other material on show Lechmere left his son Thomas coloured drawing of 1812, included a history of the Swan a property still known as which allowed people to see Inn from 1781, an account of Whittemere, another deed what changes had taken place the changing role of Shepherd selling the Three Kings to over the past 200 years. More House, which began life in Anthony Lechmere in 1710, recent developments could be 1891 as a home for waifs and the journal of Edmund seen from aerial photographs of strays, how the corner site at Lechmere ’s 17th century sea Hanley Swan taken in the Hanley Swan crossroads voyage telling of his encounter 1970s. evolved from the Coach & with pirates, and a 19th There were special displays Horses Inn through the Hanley century cure for pains in the devoted to the Lechmeres and Working Man ’s Institute to the bowels using leeches. the Hornyolds, with brief Village Stores and Post Office, The oldest documents in histories, family trees and short histories of the schools the Lechmere collection are a photographs. And at the other at Hanley Castle, St Gabriel ’s King Stephen charter and seal end of the social scale, there and St Mary ’s, and of 1140 granting rights to were accounts of life as a farm photographs of the Hanley Worcester Priory, and a 13th worker living in an estate Sea Scouts from the 1990s..