A Watching Brief at Holdgate Hall Farm, Holdgate, Much Wenlock, Shropshire by H R Hannaford Archaeology Service Archaeology Service Report Number 163 © Shropshire County Council July 1999 A WATCHING BRIEF AT HOLDGATE HALL FARM, HOLDGATE, MUCH WENLOCK, SHROPSHIRE by H R HANNAFORD A Report for J L HARTLEY Archaeology Service Winston Churchill Building, Radbrook Centre, Radbrook Road,Shrewsbury, SY3 9BJ Tel: (01743) 254018 Fax: (01743) 254047 TELFORD & WREKIN COUNCIL A Watching Brief at Holdgate Hall Farm, Holdgate, Much Wenlock, Shropshire CONTENTS Page No 1 INTRODUCTION 2 2 HISTORY OF THE SITE 3 3 THE WATCHING BRIEF 5 4 DISCUSSION 6 5 REFERENCES AND SOURCES CONSULTED 7 ILLUSTRATIONS Fig. 1: Site location; 1:5000 scale Fig. 2: Location of service and drainage trenches; 1:500 scale 1 A Watching Brief at Holdgate Hall Farm, Holdgate, Much Wenlock, Shropshire 1 INTRODUCTION Holdgate is a small village in Tugford Civil Parish, situated about 11.5km southwest of Much Wenlock, Shropshire. In February 1999, a series of excavations for services and drainage were carried out as part of a barn conversion at Holdgate Hall Farm, Much Wenlock, Shropshire. The development site lay within the scheduled ancient monument known as: Motte, Bailey, & Garden Remains, Holdgate Castle, Shropshire, National Monument No. 19192. Scheduled monument consent for the works had been granted with the condition that they be subject to archaeological supervision and recording, as specified in a brief prepared by the Head of Archaeology, Community and Economic Services, Shropshire County Council and approved by English Heritage. The site owner commissioned the Archaeological Service, Shropshire County Council to carry out the archaeological supervision and recording. 2 A Watching Brief at Holdgate Hall Farm, Holdgate, Much Wenlock, Shropshire 2 HISTORY OF THE SITE Holdgate is situated on the southeast side of Corve Dale on a ridge of higher ground above the 160m contour running northeast-southwest, and bounded to the east, north, and west by the catchment and valley of the Trow Brook, a tributary of the River Corve. The ridge is formed by an outcrop of sandstone of the "Downton" Series Silurian Old Red Sandstone, a non-marine freshwater sedimentary rock laid down on a coastal plain on the southern edge of the former Old Red Sandstone continent some 400 million years ago. The sandstone ridge protrudes through a red marl of the Ledbury Group, which produces a brown, clayey topsoil. (Toghill, 1990, 12 & 101-2; RCHME 1986) Holdgate is first mentioned in the Domesday Survey of 1086, when it was known as Stantune. At that time it lay in Patton Hundred, later it fell within Munslow Hundred. Holdgate consisted of two holdings. Before the conquest one had been held by Ketel and was valued at 8 shillings; at the time of the Domesday Survey it had land for 3 ploughs and was valued at only 3 shillings. The other was held before 1066 as four manors by Genust, Alward, Dunning, and Aelfeva, and had been valued at 18 shillings. At the time of the survey, this holding had a castle, a church and priest, and land for six ploughs, and was valued at 25 shillings. By 1086, Holdgate was held by Helgot (from whom the post-conquest settlement took its name) from Roger of Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury. Helgot's lands formed the barony of Castle Holdgate, which passed by descent to Thomas Mauduit in 1204, and thence to Richard, Earl of Cornwall, who gave the estates to the Knights Templar. The barony then passed to Richard's son, Edmund, and in 1284 the lands were acquired by Robert Burnell, Bishop of Bath and Wells. (Thorn and Thorn, 1986, 4,21,5&6 and notes.) A secular college was founded at the castle before 1210, and dissolved after 1373 (SMR file SA183). The castle had a garden, mentioned in 1292 and 1315, and it has been suggested that earthworks southeast of the castle may represent the remains of a formal garden (RCHME, 1986). In 1428 the castle had two parks, one of which may have lain to the east of the castle. Fields on the south side of the modern road to the southeast of the castle were known in the 19th century as The Great Park, The Park Meadow, and The Little Park. (SMR file SA7721; Foxall, 1979) Holdgate remained in the possession of the Burnells and their descendants until c.1495, when it was retained by the crown; it was granted by Henry VIII to the Duke of Norfolk, but by 1551 it had passed to the Cressets. In 1644 the castle was besieged and heavily damaged by the Royalists, who abandoned it in 1645. (Jackson, 1988, SMR file SA183) The motte, with square foundations on its top, survives today, although the bailey is mostly destroyed. A large 13th century round tower is incorporated into the farmhouse, Holdgate Hall (SA11391), which dates to the 16th century, with 19th and 20th century alterations. (SMR files, SA183 & SA11391) Around the castle, and particularly on the south side of the road through the village, there are extensive earthworks; those in the two fields to the south of the road were until recently thought to be the remains of the medieval village. In 1986 a survey of 3 A Watching Brief at Holdgate Hall Farm, Holdgate, Much Wenlock, Shropshire these earthworks was undertaken by the Royal Commission on Historic Monuments in England ; the survey demonstrated that in fact the earthworks were more complicated, and represented post-medieval and medieval field systems, ponds, trackways, and, possibly, garden enclosures, as well as possible settlement remains, all overlying the ridge(s) of the outcropping sandstone. (RCHME, 1986) 4 A Watching Brief at Holdgate Hall Farm, Holdgate, Much Wenlock, Shropshire 3 THE WATCHING BRIEF The development site was a small block of former agricultural buildings set on a platform of higher ground on the south side of the road opposite the church, and entailed the conversion to domestic use of a barn of timber-framed construction on sandstone footings. An L-shaped outbuilding to the south of the barn enclosed a small concrete yard. A trench was cut by a JCB with a 450m bucket for an electricity supply cable running eastwards for 90m from the south side of the converted barn to an existing pole (Fig. 2; A). The modern concrete yard on the south side of the barn immediately overlay the weathered and fragmented surface of the sandstone bedrock. To the east of the barn, the ground dropped away; here a deposit of reddish brown clay up to 0.25m thick overlay the bedrock, and in turn lay beneath turf and topsoil of up to 0.25m thickness. No archaeological features or deposits were encountered in the length of this trench, although it ran for part of its length adjacent to some slight earthwork features identified as platforms by the 1986 survey. A pit for a septic tank was cut 10m to the south of the southwest corner of the L- shaped outbuilding (Fig. 2: B). A ridge of sandstone bedrock was exposed immediately beneath the topsoil in the northern half of the area initially cut for the pit; this dropped away steeply to the south for 1.3m to form a ledge, upon which rested a deposit of hard red clay; no quarry marks were visible in the edge of the bedrock, and this ledge was considered to be a natural feature. A layer up to 0.2m thick of a brown sandy clay loam flecked with mortar and charcoal lay above the red clay on the south side of the sandstone ridge. The edge of a modern trackway running southeast down the field from the road was seen in the edge of the pit area above this layer; two distinct surfaces were seen, one above the other; the earlier consisted of sandstone rock fragments in a red clay loam matrix, and lay beneath a more recent surface of a mixture of sandstone fragments, pebbles, and fragments of modern brick. A layer topsoil up to 0.2m thick sealed these deposits. A series of drain runs were cut between the barn conversion, the septic tank pit, and the pond to the southeast of the development (Fig. 2; C, D, E, & F). Those to the west and southwest of the converted barn and outbuildings (F) exposed the sandstone bedrock lying immediately beneath the topsoil and modern trackway. They also showed that the platform on which the barn complex had been built was an entirely natural feature comprising an outcrop of sandstone bedrock. The drain runs and soakaway to the south and east of the development (C, D, & E) encountered bedrock immediately to the east of the barn, but elsewhere cut through natural reddish brown clay, beneath a slightly stony subsoil 0.15m thick (this layer produced the only find recovered during the watching brief, a sherd of pottery from the base of a medieval jug) which in turn lay beneath about 0.15m of topsoil. One of these trenches (C) cut across two slight earthwork features, which both showed as low scarps dropping to the southeast. These features were present in the topsoil only, and did not correspond to any underlying buried features, either man-made or natural. 5 A Watching Brief at Holdgate Hall Farm, Holdgate, Much Wenlock, Shropshire 4 DISCUSSION No significant archaeological features or deposits were disturbed during the cutting of the trenches. Nevertheless, the trenching did demonstrate that the platform on which the barn and outbuildings lay, described in the 1986 survey as an "earthwork platform" was an entirely natural feature formed by an outcrop of the bedrock.