A Watching Brief at Haughmond Abbey, Shropshire CONTENTS Page No 1 INTRODUCTION 2 2 HISTORY OF THE SITE 2 3 THE WATCHING BRIEF 3 4 CONCLUSIONS 4 5 REFERENCES AND SOURCES CONSULTED 5 6 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 5 ILLUSTRATIONS Fig. 1: Location of site Fig. 2: Late medieval (a) and early post-medieval (b) structures Fig. 3: Early post-medieval walls Fig. 4: Medieval floor tiles recovered from site 1 A Watching Brief at Haughmond Abbey, Shropshire 1 INTRODUCTION The ruined remains of Haughmond Abbey are set on the edge of a tract of mixed arable land 5km to the northeast of the centre of Shrewsbury. The site is bordered to the north and east by mixed woodland in the ownership of the Forestry Commission. Along the eastern side of the access track to the abbey is a pond (Fig. 1), originally one of the abbey's extensive system of pools and watercourses. In 1994, this pond needed dredging, an operation that had previously been carried out about 20 years before. No disturbance to the banks of the pond was anticipated. Nevertheless, because of the archaeological sensitivity of the area, it was thought necessary to conduct an archaeological watching brief during these works. Accordingly, Forestry Enterprise (Marches Forest District) of the Forestry Commission commissioned the Archaeology Service of the Leisure Services Department, Shropshire County Council, to carry out this watching brief. These works were undertaken in October 1994. 2 HISTORY OF THE SITE The Abbey The abbey's precise foundation date is uncertain, though a community existed here by 1130 at least, and probably originated in the early years of the reign of Henry I, perhaps about 1110 (VCH, 1973, pp62-70). In the medieval period, the abbey itself claimed to have been founded as a house of Augustinian canons by the FitzAlans of Oswestry some time between 1130 and 1140. Throughout the Middle Ages, under the patronage of the FitzAlans, the LeStranges, and their vassals, the abbey prospered and rapidly built up large estates, administered in a dozen bailiwicks based on Shropshire properties (Baugh and Cox, 1982). Augustinian houses were usually founded in remote and unfrequented sites, and often played a pioneering role in agriculture. Haughmond Abbey was no exception, and was sited in an area of non-parochial woodland. The original grant to the abbey included 60 acres of assarted land (Rowley,1972) in an area of extensive forest northeast of Shrewsbury of which Haughmond Wood is a remnant (Stamper, 1989). In 1297, Edward I licensed the abbot of Haughmond to to enclose 20 acres of his wood in the bailiwick of Haughmond, and in 1313 Edward II extended this to a further 60 acres in the same forest (Rowley, 1986). The canons are likely to have made full use of their woodland for fuel, timber, coppicing, and foraging of pigs, and were evidently not averse to hunting - for which they were criticised in 1354 (Baugh and Cox, op.cit.). Fish formed an important element of the medieval diet, and fish-farming and breeding were well developed (Stamper, op.cit.). Fishponds were a common feature of the medieval landscape, and religious houses often had large and complex systems of fishponds; the remains of Haughmond Abbey's ponds and connecting water-courses are still clearly visible today. Haughmond appears to have been a generally orderly and well-administered house, supporting about twelve or thirteen canons (Baugh and Cox, op.cit.). Although this discipline broke down under the rule of two incompetent abbots between 1488-1527, things improved under the last abbot, Thomas Corveser, and by the time of its suppression in 1539, the abbey's affairs were generally in good order (VCH, op.cit.). 2 A Watching Brief at Haughmond Abbey, Shropshire The post-dissolution estate/house After the Dissolution, the site of the abbey was granted by Henry VIII to Sir Edward Littleton, who in turn sold it in 1542 to Sir Rowland Hill. The abbot's lodgings, the great hall, and kitchen were coverted to use as a private residence, and were thus occupied until the mid-seventeenth century. This house was burned down during the English Civil War, but the ruins continued to contain cottages and farm buildings until the remains of the abbey were taken into guardianship by the state in 1933. 3 THE WATCHING BRIEF Although it was not expected that the banks of the pond would be disturbed, some groundworks were necessary to provide access for the contractor's heavy plant to and along the edge of the pond (Fig. 1). The ground slopes down to the west from the existing Forestry Commission track to the fishpond, and access tracks to the pond were cleared either side of a mound (Fig. 2) immediately adjacent to the Forestry Commission track. This mound rises about 0.75 metres above the level of the track; the top of the mound is roughly level and extends towards the pond, where there is a drop of about 4 metres to water level. Providing the necessary working access alongside the eastern edge of the pond involved cutting into the south side of the mound. This exposed a stone wall (Fig. 2, 1536) running parallel to the edge of the pond at a distance of about 6 metres from it. The wall was 11.8 metres long, and was built of purple and grey sandstone, bonded in a light brown sandy mortar. The base of the wall had been built directly onto the purple conglomerate sandstone bedrock, and its eastern face had been terraced into the overlying light brown sandy clay. Fragments of medieval tile in the coursework, including a fragment of thirteenth/fourteenth-century floor tile suggest a late medieval date for this wall. Some damage to this wall occurred during the initial site clearance, and further damage may have been incurred on the final tidying of the site. There were visible eastward returns (1541 and 1542) at either end of the wall, and the southern return was also seen about 16 metres to the east (1543), incorporated into later masonry (see below, 1532) exposed at the edge of the Forestry Commission track. These features thus would appear to represent the remains of a late medieval rectangular structure (Fig. 2, a), about 18.4 metres long by about 11.8 metres wide, set perpendicular to the fishpond on its eastern side. The clearance of the southern access to the pond along the south side of the mound exposed further masonry. This consisted of an L-shaped section of walls (Figs. 2 and 3, 1531 and 1532), faced with blocks of coursed and dressed Grinshill Stone, with a chamfered plinth. The wall core was of Grinshill and red sandstone rubble. The eastern arm of these walls (1531) was 1.6m thick, and the western return (1532) was probably of similar dimensions (although its northern face was not exposed). What could only be interpreted as a brick drain (1533) ran along length of wall 1532. The bricks were of early post-medieval type, probably of late sixteenth- to early seventeenth-century date, and were an integral part of the wall's construction. Careful 3 A Watching Brief at Haughmond Abbey, Shropshire cleaning of the core of the wall revealed that it incorporated an earlier wall (1543) on a slightly different alignment, probably a continuation of the southern wall (1542) of the late medieval structure (see above). This masonry probably belonged to an early post-medieval structure (Fig. 2, b) of a multi-angular - possibly L-shaped - ground plan, of which a corner had been exposed. The interior of the structure would have lain to the north within the mound (incorporating the late medieval building) and to the east below the present Forestry Commission track. After recording, these walls were re-covered with topsoil. On clearing the site, however, a dump of medieval floor tiles (Fig. 2, 1540) was exposed in the topsoil in the surface of the mound immediately above the exposed walls of the post-medieval structure. Most of the tiles were fragmentary with old breaks, but two complete tiles were recovered (Fig. 4). It is likely that these represented the disturbed remains of a floor belonging to this post-medieval building, using tiles robbed from the abbey ruins. A further short section of sandstone wall (Fig. 2, 1539) was exposed on the southern edge of the mound about 5 metres south east of the southeast corner of the late medieval building. Only a shorth length of this wall was exposed and it was not possible to date it or assess its precise relationship with the other late medieval and early post-medieval features. 4 CONCLUSIONS The late medieval rectangular building (Fig. 2, a) alongside the fishpond may possibly have been a fish-house, perhaps similar to the surviving abbot of Glastonbury's fish- house at Meare in Somerset (Platt, 1978, Fig. 125). After the dissolution, this building was incorporated into a prestigious structure (Fig. 2, b) - possibly a lodge or gatehouse - extending further to the south and east beneath the present Forestry Commission track. This building probably went out of use when the abbey ceased to be used as a private residence after the English Civil War. 4 A Watching Brief at Haughmond Abbey, Shropshire 5 REFERENCES AND SOURCES CONSULTED Baugh, G C, and Cox, D C, 1982: Monastic Shropshire, Shrewsbury Platt, C, 1978: Medieval England Rowley, T, 1972: The Shropshire Landscape Rowley, T, 1986: The Landscape of the Welsh Marches Stamper, P, 1989: The Farmer feeds Us All, Shropshire Books, Shrewsbury Toghill, P, 1990: Geology in Shropshire, Swan Hill Press, Shrewsbury Victoria History of the County of Shropshire, 1973, Vol.