ARCHAE CBA OLOGY Newsletter West Midlands Issue Number 26 Summer 2018

News from the Past 2019 In this Issue Saturday 23rd March Carrs Lane Church Centre Lectures, events and museum Carrs Lane, Birmingham updates HeadlineC Talk – What’s New HS2 On Ancient Tracks – new gallery at HS2 offers a unique opportunity to tell the Hartlebury story of Britain, it’s past and future. Find out museum about new discoveries in the West Midlands Virtual Saxon Fee: £20, CBAWM members may deduct £5 Wolverhampton Light refreshments included (please bring your Blists Hill Victorian own lunch). Town in Steam Send cheques payable to CBA West Midlands Steve Linnane to Caroline Mosley CBA West Midlands, 16 Obituary Beverley Court Road, Quinton, Birmingham B32 1HD Committee Contact Details Enquiries: 07786 941059 or email [email protected] Talks and Lectures Birmingham and and District Warwickshire Archaeological Society Archaeological Society 11th September October 2nd 2018 Dr Roger White Speaker: Richard Bradley Margaret Rylatt Memorial Barrows and Burnt Mounds: Lecture: Romans in the West Investigations at Meriden Midlands Quarry, 2013-2015 9th October November 6th 2018 Mathew Morris WARWICK MUSEUM LECTURE Castle Hill - In Search of the Recent Discoveries in Knights Hospitallers Warwickshire 13th November December 4th 2018 - AGM Vicki Score - The Akrotiri Project Speaker: Nick Daffern The Ice Age and Palaeolithic 11th December West Midlands a.k.a The Deirdre O'Sullivan Original West Midlands Safari J.B. Shelton Memorial Lecture: Park Urban Hopes and Urban Destinies: the Coventry Friaries ALL lectures are held at the (covering both Whitefriars and Birmingham and Midland Greyfriars) Institute except that on November 6th which will be All meetings will be held at held at the Warwick Market Hall Friends Meeting House, Hill Museum. Street, Coventry, at 19:30. There is a £1 door charge per member Evening lectures start at 7pm. (excluding children of family Lunchtime lecture in January members) to defray room hire starts at 1pm. fees. Door fee for non members Non-members welcome - £3 – is £3 pay on the door. Talks and Lectures

Staffordshire Archaeological and Archaeological and Historical Society Historical Society

28th September 2018 23rd November 2018 Dr Richard Bifield 1709-2009: Dr David Freke Mind the Gap: Celebrating the 300th 2500 years of high level activity anniversary of the Birth of the at Warmington, South Industrial Revolution at Warwickshire Coalbrookdale 7th December 2018 Annual 12th October 2018 General Meeting - this will Nigel Page Recent Investigation commence at 7.30pm - then at Baginton Warwickshire Mike Glasson Walsall, town of a Hundred Trades 26th October 2018 Dr Malcolm Dick Slavery, Anti- Unless stated otherwise, Slavery and the Black Presence lectures are held in the in the West Midlands 1700 to Guildhall, Bore Street, 1838 WS13 6LX, starting at 8.00pm. The doors are open from 9th November 2018 7:30pm when refreshments are Shane Kelleher Staffordshire available. Matters: Including the WWII ‘Stop Line’ HLF project, an Admission is free to members. update on Chase Through Time, Visitors are welcome: £3 and an overview of archaeology at Ironbridge https://www.sahs.uk.net/ On Ancient Tracks New archaeology gallery opens at County Museum at Hartlebury Castle

On Ancient Tracks introduces the story of 's early inhabitants using archaeological finds, stunning visuals and handling objects. The new exhibition begins over half a million years ago when the ice stood hundreds of metres tall above the Worcestershire landscape, with the earliest evidence of hominids, a different species to modern man, who lived in this area of Britain during the Ice Age. Iron Age in Worcestershire is a story of hillfort strongholds, tribal war and massacre on Bredon Hill, but also one of farms and villages in the countryside below, that prospered from agriculture and from industry such as iron and salt production.

The Roman army, on its way to Wales, passed through Worcestershire in the 40s and 50s AD. Britain prospered under Roman rule and the area that is now Worcestershire was no exception, with rapid expansion of important industries, including iron working in Worcester and pottery manufacture in Malvern.

Finally, the medieval period is dominated by the rise of the church with the Cathedral in Worcester at its heart, and also the rise of towns and their marketplaces where the county's agricultural produce was bought and sold. During this period the pottery kilns of Malvern became active once more and the Droitwich salt industry flourished. The cloth, and later the leather and gloving industries, added to the county's increasing prosperity and at the height of its powers the River Severn became one of the busiest shipping highways in the world. Hartlebury Castle is open 1 February – 23 December, Tuesday – Friday 10am – 5pm, Saturdays, Sundays and Bank Holidays 11am – 5pm. For more information please call the County Museum at Hartlebury Castle on 01299 250416 or visit www.museumsworcestershire.org.uk What Did the Romans Do For Us?

Market Hall Museum, Warwick – Thursday 23rd August 10am – 3pm

Try your hand as a Roman architect for the day. Design a mosaic and see if you can build a Roman arch that will stand for two thousand years. Then try on our Roman clothes and make a laurel leaf headdress to complete the look. Take part in our museum trail and quiz. £2.50 per child, no need to book just drop in. All children must be accompanied by an adult. More information - http://heritage.warwickshire.gov.uk/summer-holiday- activities-3/

What Did the Romans Do For Us? Relaxed Opening

Market Hall Museum, Warwick – Thursday 23rd August 4pm – 6pm

Discover our ancient Roman activities and explore our collections at your own pace whilst the museum is closed to the general public. All welcome, suitable for those who would benefit from a quieter museum experience. Take part in our museum trail and quiz. Book online at www.warwickshire.gov.uk/heritageboxoffice , £2.50 per child payable on the day. All children must be accompanied by an adult.

Dino Dig Excavation Family Activity Birmingham Museum – 26th May to 9th September on every Saturday and Sunday during the Dippy on Tour exhibition, and every Tuesday and Thursday during Birmingham School Summer holiday.

Experience what it is like to be a palaeontologist in this fun family activity. Using tools to excavate bones, fossils and fragments, uncover our own dinosaur skeleton buried in our giant sand pit.

More information http://www.birminghammuseums.org.uk/bmag/whats-on/dino- dig-excavation-family-activity Virtual Saxon Wolverhampton As part of a recent Viking and Saxon exhibit at Wolverhampton Museum and Art Gallery, a digital simulation was created of what Wolverhampton may have looked like during the Saxon period, that could be explored like a computer game. The column outside St Peter’s church is the only physical evidence relating to Anglo- Saxon Wolverhampton, but we can reconstruct what the settlement might have looked like from a range of other sources. Within the model, the topography was generated from lidar data from the Environment agency; the boundary is based on studies of old maps and would typically have been marked with a deep ditch. The church was generally on the highest part of the settlement, overlooking the hinterland. The first church at Wolverhampton was likely to have been made of timber, although the one in the model is based on the surviving Anglo-Saxon church at Escomb, co Durham. Virtual Saxon Wolverhampton

The settlement would have had an agricultural economy, supported by various farmsteads and enclosures, and the land around farmed in long strips, with teams of oxen pulling the ploughs. Nearby woodland would have been carefully managed as a valuable resource for timber, underwood and wild game such as deer and wild pigs, and pools and rivers will have provided fish. As well as keeping sheep, goats, chickens and oxen, the Anglo-Saxons were keen beekeepers, using wicker hives to collect honey and wax for many purposes. Salt, essential for preserving food for the winter months, will have been obtained from the salt-producing area around Droitwich to the south.

The focus of the settlement would have been the lord of the manor’s great timber hall with a central fire. Lyres and flutes would provide music. Cloth would be woven on looms. Poems and epic sagas such as Beowulf which celebrated loyalty to one’s lord would have been recited as entertainment. The houses are based on reconstructions at West Stow in Suffolk and Bede’s World (Jarrow), and would have been made of timber and wattle and daub, with thatched roofs.

The exhibit is now closed but it is hoped that a demo version of the simulation will be on display at News from the Past next year, so attendees can explore ‘Virtual Saxon Wolverhampton’ in real life! Blists Hill Victorian Town ‘in steam’ Blists Hill Victorian Town is one of the museums operated by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust within the World Heritage Site. It was opened in 1973 on the site of a former industrial complex that included a brick and tile works blast furnaces, and coal, iron and fire clay mines. Some of these buildings have been incorporated into the open-air museum, while other original buildings have been relocated here. The museum has three districts – a town area with shops, bank, and post office; an industrial district with a blast furnace and wrought iron works; and a countryside district with buildings such as a squatters cottage an tin roof church. Visitors can meet the Victorian townsfolk, watch demonstrations in their workshops, and buy curious goods from the traditional shops.

Blists Hill Victorian Town will be ‘in steam’ on Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th August, giving people a rare chance to get up close and personal with an array of Victorian Steam powered machines, all of which will be in their full working splendour.

The town’s replica of Trevithick’s 1802 Coalbrookdale locomotive will be running; the original is believed to be the world’s first steam locomotive. Other Museum engines in steam will include ‘Billy’, a fantastic 1903 Wallis & Steevens road roller, the Merryweather fire pump and the Fielding oil engine as well as portable and ploughing engines.

In addition, there will be a variety of special guest engines, both large and small, around the Town throughout the weekend. Normal admission charges apply.

https://www.ironbridge.org.uk/events/family-events/blists-hill-in-steam/ Ice Age @ Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum

Running from the 16th June to 8th September 2018, this exhibition will showcase stunning and surprising Ice Age finds with a Worcestershire connection.

Watch out for an early copy of the first geological map of the country, artefacts made over 300,000 years ago by the earliest humans to live in Worcestershire, and remains of extraordinary Ice Age creatures.

Over this enormous timespan there were many changes in the local environment, from woolly mammoths roaming the tundra in Bromsgrove, to cave lions stalking the riverbanks beneath Bredon Hill. Humans came and went with the warming and cooling of the climate.

Visit Ice Age and come face to face with a Neanderthal, crawl inside our Ice Age shelter, and meet Fluffy the Woolly Mammoth.

Origins of Us @ The Hive

Running from 16th June to 8th September 2018, this exhibition explores how our understanding of our place in the world has developed over two centuries of research and discovery.

It will examine our relationship with human species who walked this land before us, and the way our understanding of the Ice Age origins of the human story in Britain has developed from the 19th century to the present. https://iceageworcestershire.com/ Obituary Steve Linnane

The archaeological scene in the west midlands has lost one of its most- respected and much-liked professional archaeologists, whose work, particularly in the 1980s, made significant contributions to our understanding of key sites in the region. Steve Linnane graduated in Ancient History and Archaeology from the University of Birmingham in 1977 and decided upon a career as a ‘digging archaeologist’. With a particular interest in medieval , in and France, he was part of the team directed by David Austin that excavated Barnard Castle (“Barney”) in County Durham. Peter Boland was one of the supervisors here and when he later became director Steve took over as assistant director for a number of years. With Barney having drawn to a conclusion in 1983 Steve joined the supervisory team of the project formed to investigate Castle, again under the direction of Pete Boland.

When Pete became Dudley’s first Borough Archaeologist in 1986 Steve succeeded as Director of the project and took full charge of the excavations overseeing several years’ of work on the Castle and in its environs that included leading an excavation at Dudley . Archaeological Project (DUCAP) was one of several large Manpower Services Commission (MSC) archaeological projects in the region at that time. Steve heroically persisted through the decline and eventual demise of MSC schemes, maintaining both the excavations and interim publications, after which he continued the excavations with volunteers, including the motte slope which contained many animal bones discarded from the castle’s kitchen (the scores of black bin bags required to store the bone assemblage became something of a bête noire for Dudley Archive Service, who were charged with their retention for some years until they could be properly analysed!).

After the complete cessation of excavation at the castle Steve went on to play a largely unsung but hugely significant role in post-excavation analysis. He undertook this with great persistence and fortitude mainly working alone in a former Victorian classroom at Dudley Archives in Coseley. This phase of his work was to culminate in three detailed volumes of work; “stratigraphical analysis”, “the finds” and a research design for full publication of the results of the ten years of excavation. Sadly, due mainly to financial pressures beyond his control this has yet to come to fruition. However, Steve’s work still remains and will form an absolute bedrock of information should publication become feasible at some future time, as is intended.

Committed to the importance of archaeology in the community, he was also instrumental in establishing the ‘Friends of Dudley Castle’, which still flourishes, while for several years he also ran a University of Birmingham extra-mural class for the Sutton Coldfield Archaeology Society and gave talks on a wide range of archaeological subjects. He undertook work on various archaeological sites in the West Midlands and beyond on behalf of the then Birmingham University Field Archaeology Unit and other organisations and spent some time in Ireland excavating sites affected by motorway and other developments during the “Celtic Tiger” boom years. Among the sites that he worked on there was a rath or ring fort at Baronstown, Co Meath, described by another archaeologist, Robert Chapple, as having been ‘immaculately excavated’ by one of the most experienced of Directors working in Ireland at that time.

In recent years Steve was part of a team analysing records and finds from excavations. This included working on identifying stratigraphic relationships for the small finds from the baths basilica site at Wroxeter; and on interpreting the structures at in Birmingham from the archive records of earlier excavations, producing reports on building materials, glass and medieval floor tiles from the site.

Very much an archaeologists’ archaeologist, Steve was an amicable, convivial, ‘larger than life’ character who has died far too young. He will be deeply missed, personally and professionally, by all who knew him. Sincere condolences go to his widow Stephanie Ratkai; Stephanie and Steve had been together since their University days.

Pete Boland, Mike Hodder and John Hunt This year is the 75th anniversary of CBA and will be the 60th edition of ARCHAE West Midlands Archaeology

OLOGY Thanks to all our supporters, both past and present - we look forward to West Midlands celebrating both these milestones with you in the next year

Name Role Contact Details Sheena Payne- Chair [email protected] Lunn ov.uk

Dr John Hunt Vice-Chair [email protected] Ellie Ramsey Secretary, Membership [email protected] Secretary and NewsletterTHis Editor

Position Vacant Supporter Liaison and Social Media Caroline Moseley Treasurer and Day School [email protected] Admin Peter Reavill WMA Editor [email protected] Dr Peter Crouch Website Editor [email protected] Jan Pick Education Liaison [email protected] Esme Hookway HE Student Liaison and NftP [email protected] Programme Organiser John Haslam [email protected] Dr Mike Hodder [email protected] Mike Shaw [email protected] Liam Delaney [email protected] v.uk http://www.archaeologyuk.org/cbawm/