WILTSHIRE
STUDIES
The Wiltshire Archaeological
and Natural History Magazine ©
_ Volume 95 2002
The Wiltshire Archaeological
and Natural History Magazine
Volume 95
2002
Published by
The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society
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THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
VOLUME 95 (2002)
ISSN 0262 6608
© Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society and authors 2002
Hon. Editors: Joshua Pollard, BA, PhD, and John Chandler BA, PhD.
Hon. Local History Editor: James Thomas, BA, PhD, FRHistS.
Hon. Natural History Editor: Michael Darby, PhD, FRES
Hon. Reviews Editor: Michael Marshman, ALA.
Editorial Assistant: Lorna Haycock, BA, Dip.ELH, Cert Ed.
We acknowledge with thanks publication grants for this volume from the following bodies: Wiltshire County
Council, for ‘Sorviodunum — A Review of the Archaeological Evidence’, by David J. James; Bryant Homes
Southwest Ltd, for ‘Excavations in 1999 on Land Adjacent to Wayside Farm, Nursteed Road, Devizes’, by
John Valentin and Stephen Robinson; Bloor Services Ltd, Persimmon Homes Wessex Ltd and Swan Hill
Homes, for ‘Iron Age Settlement and Roman Activity at Brickley Lane, Devizes, Wiltshire, 1999,’ by Daniel
Poore, Dave Thomason and Adam Brossler; the Defence Housing Executive, for ‘Excavation of Saxon pits
at Tidworth, 1999’, by David Godden, Sheila Hamilton-Dyer, Moira Laidlaw and Lorraine Mepham; and
to the Marion Browne Legacy, for a contribution towards the publishing costs of the natural history articles
included in this volume.
The journals issued to volume 69 as parts of The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine
(Part A Natural History; Part B Archaeology and Local History) were from volumes 70 to 75 published
under separate titles as The Wiltshire Natural History Magazine and The Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine.
With volume 76 the magazine reverted to its combined form and title. The cover title ‘Wiltshire Heritage
Studies’ (volume 93) and ‘Wiltshire Studies’ (volume 94 onwards) should not be used in citations. The title
of the journal, The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, remains unchanged.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the Society and authors.
Typeset in Plantin by John Chandler
and produced for the Society by
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NATUR
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HISTORY AALISEI I
AIS FORY MUSEL
18 FEB 2002
PURCHASED ©
GENERAL LIBRAR
Contents :
Sorviodunum — A Review of the Archaeological Evidence, by David J. James with a 1
contribution by David J. Algar
The Nineteenth-Century Re-use of Gravestones at Cherhill, by Harold Mytum 2H
A French Sculptor in Wiltshire: Henri de Triqueti’s Panel in the Church of St. Michael & All 34
Angels, Teffont Evias, by Elisabeth Darby
‘That Terrible Woman’: the Life, Work and Legacy of Maud Cunnington, by Julia Roberts 46
Hedgehogs in Wiltshire, a Survey, 1999-2000, by Humphrey Kay 63
Agriculture in Wiltshire in the First World War, by Ivor Slocombe 69
A Missing Drawing and an Overlooked Text: Silbury Hill Archive Finds, by Brian Edwards 89
The Life and Turbulent Times of Sir Roger Tocotes, 1430? — 1492, Sheriff of Wiltshire and 93
Royal Servant: a Fifteenth-Century Survivor, by Raymond J Skinner
A Possible Outer Bailey Ditch to Marlborough Castle: Excavations at Marlborough College 100
Pool, by Michael Heaton and Bill Moffat with a contribution by Lorraine Mepham
Sawfly (Hymenoptera: Symphyta) recording in Wiltshire 1947-2000, by John Grearson 107
The 1963 Excavations at Erlestoke Detention Centre. by A.M. Foster and D. Roddham 116
with contributions by Paul Robinson and Robert Hopkins
A Preliminary Account of the Ladybirds of Wiltshire (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) including 125
a previously overlooked record of the five spot (Coccinella quinquepunctata L.), by Michael
Darby
An Anglo-Saxon Decapitation and Burial at Stonehenge, by Mike Pitts, Alex Bayliss, 131
Jacqueline McKinley, Anthea Boylston, Paul Budd, Jane Evans, Carolyn Chenery, Andrew
Reynolds and Sarah Semple
Excavations in 1999 on Land Adjacent to Wayside Farm, Nursteed Road, Devizes, by John 147
Valentin and Stephen Robinson with contributions by Jane Bircher, Kate Brayne, H.E.M.
Cool, Mark Corney, Claire Ingrem, M. Laidlaw, Jo Mills and R.S.O. Tomlin
Iron Age Settlement and Roman Activity at Brickley Lane, Devizes, Wiltshire, 1999, by 214
~ Daniel Poore, Dave Thomason and Adam Brossler with contributions by Kate Atherton,
Bethan Charles, Hugo Lamdin-Whymark, Ruth Pelling and Jane Timby
Excavation of Saxon pits at Tidworth, 1999, by David Godden, Sheila Hamilton-Dyer, Moira
Laidlaw and Lorraine Mepham
Excavations at the Beckhampton Enclosure, Avenue and Cove, Avebury: an interim report
on the 2000 season, by Mark Gillings, Joshua Pollard and David Wheatley
A Brief History of Dauntsey’s School Natural History Society (fl.1933-1963), by Michael
Darby
Spiders of the Genus Philodromus (Araneae) in Wiltshire, by Martin Askins
A Recent Geophysical Survey on the Site of the Residence of the Medieval Bishops of
Salisbury at Potterne. by Naomi Payne
Excavation and Fieldwork in Wiltshire 2000
Reviews
Peter Ellis (ed.), Ludgershall Castle: Excavations by Peter Addyman 1964-1972, by Oliver Creighton
Richard Durman, Classical Buildings of Wiltshire and Bath. A Palladian Quest, by Pamela Slocombe
Saunders, Peter (ed.), Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum. Medieval Catalogue Part 3, by
Paul Robinson
John Chandler, Marlborough and Eastern Wiltshire: Wiltshire A History of its Landscape and
People 1, by Steven Hobbs
Rex Sawyer, Little Imber on the Down: Salisbury Plain’s ghost village, by Brian Lawrence
Stephen Palmer, The Microlepidoptera of Wiltshire, by John d’Arcy
Pamela Slocombe, Wiltshire Town Houses 1500 — 1900, by Colin Johns
A Millennium Mixture Part II, by Michael Marshman
Obituaries
Maurice Rathbone
Alison Borthwick
Graham Webster
Index, by Philip Aslett
240
249
269
274
279
292
292
293
294
295
295
296
297
297
300
300
301
301
304
The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural
History Society
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(Note that in citations Wiltshire Archaeological and
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University Committee for Archaeology
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WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL
AND NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY
BOARD OF TRUSTEES (from 29 September 2001)
Chairman
Lt. Col. C Chamberlain
Deputy Chairmen
Mrs G Swanton, BA, Dip.Ad.Ed.
J H Thomas BA, PhD, FRHistS
Other Elected Trustees
B K Davison OBE, BA, FSA, MIFA
Mrs W P Lansdown
D Roseaman
CA Shell, MA, MMet, PhD
D Shelton BA, BSc, Dip.Ed., FRGS
E Stanford, FRBS
JS S Stewart BSc, MB, ChB, FRCS
MJH Stiff BA, DPhil
DJ. Williams, MA
Nominated Trustees
A Mills (Member, Devizes Town Council)
P.R. Saunders, BA, FSA, FMA, FRSA (Director, Salisbury & South Wiltshire Museum)
Mrs J Triggs (Member, Kennet District Council)
Two Vacancies (Wiltshire County Council)
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COLLECTIONS TRUSTEES (from 3 March 2001)
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C Meays
Miss V Novarra
OFFICERS
Chief Executive G. Chancellor, BSc, PhD, AMA, MIMgt
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Deputy Curator Mrs A.J. Rawlings, BA (Hons), MA, AMA
Assistant Curator and Keeper of Natural Sciences A.S. Tucker, BSc, AMA
Sandell Librarian and Archivist Mrs L. Haycock, BA (Hons), Dip ELH, Cert.Ed.
Outreach Officer Ms J. Harvest, Cert.Ed, DipSpLD
Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 1-26
Sorviodunum — A Review of the Archaeological
Evidence
by David J. James’
with a contribution by David J. Algar
Evidence is presented of the archaeological finds made since the 18th century through excavation, field
walking, chance, and aerial photography. Previously unpublished information from excavations in the 1960s
and 1970s 1s also included. Analysis of the data provides a new insight into the location and possible nature
of Sorviodunum. A number of conclusions are drawn, the principal one being that there was a substantial
urban settlement in existence from the Ist to the 4th centuries AD. The paper recommends geophysical
investigations be carried out to define more precisely the boundaries of this important site.
INTRODUCTION
Considerable uncertainty has always been, and still
is, expressed in academic literature as to the
location, size and precise function of Roman
Sorviodunum. Until the beginning of the 20th
century antiquaries firmly believed that the Iron
Age hill-fort of Old Sarum (SU 13753268) with its
later Norman Castle and Cathedral could also be
identified with Sorbiodunum or Sorviodunum of
the Antonine Itinerary. This was based upon the
belief that Sarum is a corruption of the Roman
name and the fact that the site stands beside a
strategic nodal junction of Roman roads, where four
or more routes converge (Haverfield 1915). Until
1900 less than a dozen small artifacts of Romano-
British date had been found at Old Sarum.
Extensive excavations in the period 1909 to 1915
by W.H. St John Hope and Lt. Col. W. Hawley
revealed only a handful of artifacts and the
foundations of a building which might, or might
not, have been Roman (St John Hope 1910, 191;
St John Hope and Hawley 1911, 517; Hawley 1912
57-9; 1913 101). This led Professor Haverfield to
doubt it was the site of Sorviodunum and to suggest
_ it might be located in the valley below Old Sarum at
the village of Stratford-sub-Castle. However he
admitted that, up to that time, no trace of Roman
activity had been found there (Haverfield 1915, 26).
In a review of Romano-British Wiltshire carried
out between the First and Second World Wars Mrs
Cunnington cited the small number of finds from
Old Sarum plus two amphorae supposedly from
Stratford-sub-Castle (Cunnington 1930, 203-4).
However, writing just after the Second World War
the views of Professor Hawkes (Hawkes 1947, 32)
and D.H. Montgomerie, a member of Col Hawley’s
excavation team, were summarized by the latter who
thought that:
“it would be most unusual to find a hill-fort succeeded,
on the spot, by a regular Roman town ..... the
remains...seem too scanty to suggest a settlement of
any great size. There has been a suggestion that the
Roman Sorbiodunum may have been on the west
below the hill, towards the river Avon near the village
of Stratford, but the evidence of finds does not support
this strongly either. (Montgomerie 1947, 134)
Less than a decade later the situation was
reviewed again following the unexpected discovery
in 1953 of a fairly substantial quantity of Romano-
British refuse material as a result of housing
' Watermead, Mill Lane, Stratford-sub-Castle, Salisbury, SP1 3LJ * 26 Hulse Road, Salisbury, SP1 3LY
2 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
development at Paul’s Dene (SU 14353225). The
finds were made some 450m SE of the Old Sarum
East Gate on Bishopdown hillside (Stone and Algar
1955). Despite these finds the paper concluded that
there was still no evidence of extensive occupation
in the Old Sarum area but suggested that the south-
western slopes of Bishopdown had attracted
settlement in the form of a few isolated dwellings
during the late 3rd and 4th centuries. The 1955
review was closely followed by an excavation in 1957
inside Old Sarum, aimed primarily at elucidating
the continuity of the curtain wall around the outer
bailey, but as a by-product considerable quantities
of Roman period material were uncovered. The
excavation results indicated that occupation of Old
Sarum had begun early in the Roman period and
was of some consequence, lasting into at least the
3rd century AD (Rahtz and Musty 1958-60). In
the opinion of the excavators the evidence re-
opened the question of the exact location of
Sorviodunum. Also in 1957 a water pipeline trench
on Bishopdown revealed a number of Roman pits
but no structures (Musty 1959, 179).
The pace of finds quickened during the 1960s
and 1970s when a number of excavations occurred
in Stratford-sub-Castle. A gas pipeline trench in
1969 revealed significant 1st-4th century AD
occupation levels and building material scattered
over a distance of more than 200m (Algar 1970a).
In 1977, following earlier trial trenches across the
Roman road to Dorchester! (Musty 1958; Stratton
1965, 1966), part of a substantial building was
uncovered abutting the thoroughfare.
Unfortunately detailed results of the 1969 and 1977
excavations were never published, the latter due to
the untimely death of John Stratton the local
archaeologist in charge. One of the aims of the
present paper is to try and redress this omission by
providing a comprehensive summary of the results
(see Appendix).
In 1983, as an outcome of a seminar on
archaeology and planning, held in the Salisbury
Museum in July 1982 for officers of the Salisbury
District Council, the Wiltshire Library and Museum
Service produced an excellent appraisal of the
information then available on the Wiltshire
Archaeological Sites and Monuments Records
(Borthwick and Chandler 1984).? The authors
pointed out that while the evidence for Roman
occupation in the Salisbury area was poor there had
been sufficient finds to suggest that Sorviodunum
could be located at any one of three sites. These
were Old Sarum; Bishopdown, (spreading SE from
the East Gate of Old Sarum); or Stratford-sub-
Castle, where finds and land boundaries suggested
a possible Roman small town occupying
approximately 16ha.
Finally almost 20 years later, in 2001, the
Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History
Society has produced a very comprehensive and
valuable collection of papers in honour of Ken
Annable entitled Roman Wiltshire and After (Ellis
2001). A particularly apposite contribution comes
from Mark Corney who examines the nucleated
settlements across the county. Using evidence from
aerial photographs and excavations he concludes
that Sorviodunum was a roadside settlement, rather
than a town, with a core area extending for a
distance of approximately 500m to the north-east
of the River Avon giving a potential area of at least
10ha. The author felt there was the possibility that
Sorviodunum could have been an urban settlement
similar to those at Cunetio (Mildenhall) and
Durocornovium (Wanborough); however further
evidence was needed (Corney 2001, 5-38).
Despite the publication of Roman Wiltshire and
After it is clear from current literature that the
majority of archaeologists are, in general, unaware
of the numerous finds. The principal aim of this
paper is to provide a sharper focus on the evidence
for Roman Sorviodunum, to try and establish its
location, extent, type of settlement, and how long
it was in existence. The need to carry out a synthesis
of all the archaeological data currently available is
widely recognized, particularly by the Wiltshire
County Archaeology Department who have
provided much help and encouragement in writing
this paper.
THE EVIDENCE
The archaeological evidence falls broadly into five
categories, viz. excavations; field walking; chance
finds; aerial photographs; and historical land
boundaries. The evidence in each group is described
below and analysed in more detail in the discussion
section. A chronological summary of the finds is
given in Tablel.
Excavations
There are problems of definition when dealing with
‘excavations’, consequently it must be stressed that
the events and results described below include
SORVIODUNUM -— A REVIEW OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE 3
formal excavations and small scale trenching as well
as watching brief activities conducted during the
course of major gas and water pipe-line operations.
The evidence is presented under the separate site
headings of Old Sarum, Bishopdown and Stratford-
sub-Castle.
OLD SARUM
A detailed description of the excavations carried
out by the Society of Antiquaries is given by St John
Hope and Hawley (St John Hope 1910; St John
Hope and Hawley 1911; Hawley 1912, 1913). The
work took place in the area of the Norman Castle
and in the NE quadrant of the hillfort which
included the site of the Norman Cathedral.
Professor Haverfield, then a Vice President of the
Society, summarized the Roman finds in WANHM.
He reported that the only artifacts found were eight
or nine coins, all of the later empire and illegible
except for a Maximian, some potsherds, a bronze
armlet, and other metal trifles, a quern from
Andernach, some tiles, three pieces of painted wall
plaster, and lastly a piece of wall in situ (Haverfield
1915, 26).
Montgomerie writing some 30 years later gives
a summary of the excavation results with certain
adjustments ‘made possible through personai
knowledge’. In particular he gives a detailed
description of five late Iron Age/early Roman finds,
a bronze belt-link, three bronze brooches and a
bead-rim potsherd. He also gives an account of how
the section of wall was found and its construction
(Montgomerie 1947, 132-47). It was discovered on
the old ground surface when two untimbered
exploration galleries were dug laterally east and
north from an unfinished post-Norman well which
had been sunk down to the natural chalk through
the material of the Castle Mound.
A pebble floor appeared in the northern gallery
above which were occupation layers 0.9m thick
containing Romano-British refuse including pottery
and a coin thought to be of Maximian. Building
foundations were encountered in the eastern gallery.
They were bedded about 0.15m below the level of
the pebble floor. A further wall core was located at
the far end of the gallery some 2.5m after
encountering the first wall which ran almost N-S
and was traced over a distance of 3.5m to ‘an
external corner’ (Montgomerie 1947, fig. 4). The
building was clearly of some size. It was built of
_ ashlar and flints, on a foundation of chalk lumps
with a clay and chalk bedding laid on natural gravel.
Unfortunately further exploration of the building
had to be abandoned due to the extremely
hazardous working conditions.
As mentioned above, the principal aim of the
1957 excavations was to ascertain the integrity of
the curtain wall around the outer bailey following
the earlier excavations from 1909-1915 which had
shown that it existed in the NW (Cathedral) sector
(Rahtz and Musty 1960). An additional aim was to
try and locate a tunnel revealed in 1795 and last
seen in the 1820s. The excavations proved that the
wall was absent throughout the whole of the NE
sector where only a bank was a vestige of the pre-
Norman defences. The tunnel was found and
appeared to link the outer bailey with the north
east exterior of the earthwork. No dating evidence
was found but it was thought likely to be of Medieval
origin.
The excavations showed that the Old Sarum
earthwork was of early Iron Age origin followed by
occupation well into the Roman period. A section
cut through the bank in the NE sector revealed in
the lowest, undisturbed levels, hundreds of sherds
covering the late Iron Age and Roman periods
(Rahtz and Musty 1960, fig. 9). The earliest were a
series of bead-rim vessels, some of pre-conquest
‘Belgic’ origin. Because there was no stratigraphical
division between ‘Belgic’ and other snerds,
identified as Roman, the excavators questioned
whether all the sherds were not in fact post Roman
conquest. Pottery finds continued with forms from
the Ist century AD while the 2nd century was
represented by samian ware and coarseware.
Occupation continued without a break until at least
the late 3rd or early 4th century. There was a total
absence of developed New Forest pottery in the
trench which suggested that occupation might not
have continued into the Constantinian period.
However the excavators did point out that a sherd
of New Forest pottery was found in the area of the
tunnel only 70m to the NW.
In addition to the pottery, the lowest levels of
trench B gave up hundreds of pot boilers, several
dozen fragments of Roman tile, including four
combed pieces and one stamped LHS from Minety
(Darvill 1979, 328; 343), brick, part of a block of
dressed Chilmark stone, a few fragments of Purbeck
or Chilmark roof tiles, and a complete bronze
brooch, probably of mid-late Ist century AD. The
excavators highlighted the fact that earlier
researchers had believed searching for evidence of
pre-Norman occupation was likely to be
unsuccessful due to the thoroughness of Norman
re-construction in obliterating all traces. Their work
THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
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SORVIODUNUM - A REVIEW OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE 1
had shown that this was not true, at least in the NE
sector. They recommended further excavations in
order to set Old Sarum in its proper perspective.
BISHOPDOWN
The discovery in 1953 of a diffusely spread
Romano-British rubbish dump on the steep slopes
of Castle Hill came as a result of residents turning
over their gardens on a new housing estate (Stone
and Algar 1955). Consequently, rapid investigations
had to be carried out which took the form of visual
investigations and sampling at various locations.
This revealed that the refuse layer was up to 0.3m
thick and lay below about 0.2m of ploughsoil. The
greatest concentration occurred in the gardens
between nos.14 and 22 Juniper Drive. No
discoveries had been reported during the
construction of the houses.
The finds included baked clay and perforated
stone roofing tiles, fairly abundant quantities of
unabraded sherds, 14 coins and other domestic
rubbish. There were just two samian sherds; one
dating to the second half of the 1st century and the
other to the first half of the 2nd century AD. The
remaining pottery was almost entirely New Forest
ware dating to the later Roman period. The coins
started with an antoninianus of Tetricus II and
continued through until the end of the Roman
period. The refuse layer clearly indicated the
existence of a nearby dwelling or settlement site,
which from the ground contours probably lay higher
up the hill to the north, in the direction of the
Roman road junction, and could be dated to the
3rd and 4th centuries AD.
During 1957 the Salisbury City Engineers
Department initiated a water scheme in connection
with a reservoir on Castle Hill, Bishopdown. Several
miles of trenches were cut across an area that
included the Eastern Suburbs of Old Sarum and
Bishopdown. No Roman period structures were
revealed in the Eastern Suburbs but on Bishopdown
15 pits of Iron Age/Roman date were sectioned
(Musty 1959, 179-82). The paper detailed typical
finds from one pit. These consisted of three bead-
rim sherds and a high proportion of burnished black-
grey and black wares in the lower levels. The upper
layers contained early Roman material including
samian ware from the third quarter of the 1st century
AD and ‘a reddish ware with a sandy glitter’. Musty
was of the opinion that the date of the whole group
of pits might be as late as the Ist century AD.
The paper also took the opportunity to report
on further finds made on the Paul’s Dene Estate
since the earlier ones detailed by Stone and Algar
(1955). Subsequent finds had come from points to
the north and south of the 1953 rubbish layer and
may represent an extension of it. From the garden
of 14 Hill Top Way part of a flanged bowl of 2nd
century AD date had been found and in the bank
on the opposite side of the road a large portion of a
jar with a simple everted rim. This was possibly early
although with it was a sherd from a New Forest
ware thumb pot. Pottery found at numbers 9 and
11 Juniper Drive was all of a late form, including a
mortarium with a brown slip and the rims of several
jars including a rope rim.
Three Roman roads should pass through the
area sectioned by the water pipeline trench.
However no road section was positively identified.
This was thought to be due to the obliteration of
the Roman levels by the present day roads, some of
which lie in comparatively deep cuttings. The paper
concluded that there was an Iron Age settlement
area on Bishopdown that had carried on in a
Romanised form throughout the Roman period.
Evidence of occupation is estimated to be spread
over an area of at least 4ha.
In 1991-2, in advance of proposed land
development, AC archaeology conducted a staged
evaluation, initially over c.70ha centred on
SU150323 followed by geophysical surveying and
sample excavation. Features revealed included Iron
Age/Romano-British storage pits, ditches, one of
which had a substantial V-profile, and trackways.
Dense nucleated scatters of burnt flint were located
on the gravelly soils of the higher ridge top running
towards Old Sarum and near to the earlier finds in
the 1950s and ‘70s (WANHM 1994, 155). In 1997
a series of test pits were dug by Wessex Archaeology
for Wiltshire County Council over an area of 0.7ha
on farmland to the east of Old Sarum
(SU14753267) representing part of the proposed
route of the Salisbury Northern Link Road. The
finds were predominantly small quantities of worked
and burnt flint together with Romano-British and
Medieval pottery (WANHM 1999, 139).
STRATFORD-SUB-CASTLE
Over a period of about 15 years, from 1962 until
1977, a number of excavations were undertaken in
Stratford-sub-Castle, the archaeological fieldwork
being carried out by members of the Salisbury
Museum Archaeological Research Group
(SMARG). Very brief details of the various pieces
of work, except for the excavation of a substantial
building in 1977, were given in WANHM and/or
8 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
the Archaeological Review of CBA Groups 12 and
13 in their notes on excavations during the previous
year. In an attempt to clarify the considerable
amount of evidence uncovered David Algar, a
former Secretary of SMARG, presents a summary
report in the Appendix. The main points that
emerge are summarized in the following
paragraphs.
In the abnormally dry months of May and June
1962 a linear parch-mark appeared between Old
Sarum and the Salisbury-Devizes road (Musty
1958, 471). It was sectioned (trench A at SU
13463180) in the meadow on the western side of
the Stratford Road. Although the ground had been
disturbed, due to the close proximity of the modern
road and to the foundations of a minor 13th/14th
century building, a new line for the Roman road to
Badbury Rings was confirmed (Stratton 1965). In
1964 a second trench (B at SU 13603199) was cut
across the parch-mark at the eastern edge of the
Salisbury Theological College playing field some
250m NE of trench A (Stratton 1965). It revealed
not only the Roman road but also the corner of a
Romano-British building adjacent to the western
side of the thoroughfare. The building had knapped
flint walls and dressed ashlar quoins. The associated
finds dated the structure to the 3rd/4th century.
Two further trenches (C and D at SU
133033160 and 13403175) were dug across the
parch-mark line in 1965, one in Fisherton Meadow
on the west side of the river Avon and the other in
the same meadow as the 1962 section (Stratton
1966). The trenches were 260 and 80m SE of trench
A respectively. The height and width of the agger
and the separation of the side ditches were the same
in both trenches. The Fisherton Meadow cut
revealed a series of chalk floors running up to and
part way under the agger and together with the
occupation debris suggested that the road
constructors had lived alongside the road in the
last quarter of the 1st-century. Trench D, 80m SE
of the 1962 dig, produced large quantities of sherds,
but in contrast to the finds from the Fisherton
Meadow trench they ranged in date from the Ist to
the 4th centuries AD. Box tile, stone roofing tile,
knapped flint, greensand fragments and plaster were
also found suggesting the presence of a substantial
building close to the road.
In the second half of the 1960s a new housing
site (Castle Keep Estate) was developed at the NE
end of the meadow in which trenches A and D had
been excavated. The construction work revealed
considerable evidence of settlement, chalk floors, a
cobbled area and a small oven. Two sections of the
Roman road to Badbury Rings (Margary 1955,
Roman Road 4c) were again exposed revealing its
construction of hard-packed flints with layering
suggesting many resurfacings (Moore 1966, 26-7).
Other finds included 1Ist/2nd century AD samian
ware and coarse pottery which was mainly ‘Belgic’
and Durotrigic derived wares and included a small
quantity of 3rd century New Forest wares. In
addition there were two very worn coins, probably
of late 1st century AD date, Purbeck stone and
ceramic roofing tiles, hypocaust tiles, and a slab of
polished Purbeck marble.
During 1969 a North Sea Gas pipeline trench
was dug across the meadows to the SE of the
Stratford Road and the Castle Keep Estate cutting
the Roman road at right angles at a point 20m NE
of the 1965 trench D. Occupation debris was located
along a length of over 200m and for 65m of this
distance the trench revealed multiphased tiled and
walled structures of timber and flint, some with
plastered walls and with at least four super-imposed
floor levels. Structural material included imbrices,
hypocaust tiles, a tile stamped LHS and a fragment
of window glass. A large quantity of pottery, dating
from the Ist to the 4th centuries AD, was recovered
(see list at Appendix). This included sherds of
samian, New Forest and Oxford wares, an amphora
fragment and lead glazed wares. A dupondius of
Nero and a sestertius of Commodus were also
found. From the north end of the section, some
25m from the Roman road, a pit yielded a 3rd/4th
century AD group of pottery and fragments of
imbrices and painted wall plaster.
In 1977 it was decided to explore further the
building found at the edge of the Roman road in
1964 (trench B). A substantial structure, 19.8m
long and 6.2m wide, was excavated. It had its long
axis at right angles to the Roman road, rammed
chalk foundations about 0.5m deep and 1m wide
and walls with mortared flint and ashlar dressings.
The internal structures, while confusing, did reveal
a hearth or furnace in the SE end and a cobbled
surface at the NW end. About halfway along the
SW side of the building an external wall was found
at right angles suggesting another room or structure.
Three coins were found inside the building, an
antoninianus of Gordian III, an irregular radiate
and a very worn 4th century AD bronze, which
together with a further 11 found outside indicated
a likely 3rd-4th century date.
Evidence for a second structure with chalk
foundations/floor and flint walls was found on the
SORVIODUNUM — A REVIEW OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE 9
opposite side (SE) of the road just beyond the agger
side ditch. It would appear that lack of time
precluded any further investigation and the whole
site was backfilled.’ At the time the excavator was
of the opinion that the building was a mansio for
travellers.* Given the apparent large urban nature
of the site it is more than likely that it is a typical
strip building (Burnham 1987, 176) housing either
a shop, workshop, or light industrial activity. The
second building, located on the other side of the
road and also right up against it, may well be of a
similar type in view of its close proximity.
In 1999 in advance of new housing construction
in the Stratford Road, on land between Roselea and
Avonview (SU 135319 CP), an archaeological
evaluation was carried out followed by full
excavation (McMahon and Hawkes 1999; 2000;
WANHM 2001, 251). Two phases of Roman-
British activity were identified on the site which lies
some 25m west of the Roman road 4c. The earlier
phase comprised two pits, two postholes and a soil
spread producing finds including 1st-2nd century
pottery. Some 7% of the 341 sherds found were
samian, the majority of Cental Gaulish origin, and
EAVERSTOCK]
Fig. 1. Map showing extent of Roman period finds and road system (Ordnance Survey base, Crown Copyright)
10 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
include a complete stamp of the Lezoux potter
LOLLIVS. Only one sherd pre-dates c. AD 70.The
postholes appeared to respect the alignment of the
nearby Roman road. These features were sealed by
a later phase of soil horizons and roughly metalled
surfaces of flint nodules or chalk rubble thought to
be external yards to buildings. This phase yielded
2nd-3rd century AD pottery with just one sherd of
possible 4th century origin. The amount of ceramic
building material found was small but included a
i 44
_ ~are's 3
Fig. 2. Potential street grid at Stratford-sub-Castle (AP No. NMR 15365-61)
piece of roof tile and four fragments of box-flue
tile. The latter items suggest the presence of a fairly
high status building in the vicinity, containing either
a vault or rooms heated by a hypocaust system
(Mcmahon and Hawkes 2000, 18).
Most recently in 2001, in advance of planning
consent for the construction of a new house at
Silverdale in the Stratford Road (SU 13453185),
two small evaluation trenches were machine dug.
They were some 20m to the south-west of those
SORVIODUNUM -— A REVIEW OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE 11
carried out on the opposite side of the Stratford
Road in 1999 and about 30m from the edge of the
Roman road. The deposits in the trenches revealed
intensive occupation and development throughout
the Roman period with finds suggesting possible
continuity from the Late Iron Age. There was
evidence of a substantial 2nd-4th centuries AD
building, with rammed chalk floor, a wall robber
trench, and a possible hearth, overlying boundary
ditches of 1st-2nd centuries AD origin. The robber
trench appeared to respect the alignment of the
nearby Roman road. Finds included a fragment of
roofing tile, a piece of fibula and about 50 sherds of
pottery. The pottery assemblage included samian
ware, colour-coated ware, and coarsewares and was
predominately early Romano-British. Charac-
teristically later fineware fabrics, such as New Forest
or Oxfordshire, or later vessel forms were not
recorded. Amongst the coarseware were sherds of a
very dark grey sandy fabric that may represent the
continued use of Late Iron Age pottery in the area.
Field Walking
There would appear to have been very little
systematic archaeological field walking carried out
over the years in the areas of Old Sarum,
Bishopdown and Stratford-sub-Castle, except by
the Ordnance Survey. In 1950 an Ordnance Survey
Field Investigator examined the meadow south-west
of the Stratford Road in Stratford-sub-Castle, which
had just been ploughed for the first time in living
memory and where trenches A and D were
subsequently dug in the 1960s. He reported the
discovery of a Romano-British dwelling site at
SU13453178 where he found a patch of flints 5m
in diameter amongst which were a number of coarse
Romano-British wares, animal bones and tile
fragments.°
The Investigator dug a small trench in the centre
of the patch of flints and recovered coarse grey and
black wares, several sherds of plain samian,
fragments of brick, mortar and combed box flue
tile, animal bones and oyster shells. Nearly all the
finds were confined to a layer of clay and flints 0.4m
thick immediately under the ploughsoil. Also
present was a 0.1m thick layer of broken chalk which
began just below the plough-soil then dipped away
sharply at an angle of 20 degrees to the horizontal
until it met a hard flint pebble surface underneath
the finds. The solid layer of flint pebbles was set in
a hard mortar-like matrix suggesting some kind of
hard standing or courtyard near a building. Passing
this site about 10m to the west was a line of flint
gravel 3m wide (SU13413186 -13444176) amongst
which the Investigator found a number of coarse
Romano-British sherds and tile fragments. In
addition the area centred at SU13453183 produced
surface finds of Romano-British sherds, oyster shells
and animal bones.°
During the late 1990s the author conducted a
limited amount of field walking in the Stratford-
sub-Castle area. This was confined to those fields
to the east and west of the Roman road from Old
Sarum down as far as the River Avon in the valley
below and across on the opposite side of the river
up as far as the Devizes Road on the SW ridge.
Surface finds of Roman period material were
scattered on either side of the Roman road for a
distance of nearly 1km (Figure 1).The precise limits
of the lateral spread were more difficult to pinpoint
but appeared to range between 50 and 150m on
either side of the Roman road.
Chance Finds
Numerous small finds have been made in the three
areas under consideration over a period of nearly
230 years since the first recorded ones in about 1771
(Haverfield 1915, 24). The majority of discoveries
are not surprisingly coins (see Table 1, 1, 4-6, 9,
10, 12-15, 17-22, 25, 27, 30, 33, 35-37,and 39-45).
These are examined in more detail in the discussion
below.
A single inhumation burial, attributable to the
Roman period, was found in 1845 outside Old
Sarum a short distance from the East Gate. Three
other 19th century finds made in the same area
were a spoon and a padlock spring of unattributable
date, and a bronze anthropomorphic bucket mount
dating to the Ist century (Table 1, 3 and 7). There
is also a deposit of Romano-British bones and
pottery in Salisbury Museum which was found on
Bishopdown in 1934 approximately 90m from
Bishopdown Houses (Table 1, 16).
Two almost complete amphorae (Table 1, 8 and
11), both recorded as originating from the fields to
the south of Old Sarum, have produced
considerable debate as to their authenticity (Stone
and Algar 1955, 106). The first, which is on display
in Salisbury Museum, is a normal specimen dating
to the Augustan or Claudian period and the second,
which is in Devizes Museum, has an unusual
corkscrew-like base with no known parallels and
12 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
may not be Roman. While researching the
background to these items the author was fortunate
enough to come across a document in the Salisbury
Museum archives which casts further light on their
own specimen.’ It was a letter sent to the Museum
Curator in May 1935 by Lt. Col. J. Benett-Stanford
of Tisbury explaining that it was he who was
responsible for discovering it and not his father. He
then went on to report that:
An old rubbish dealer half way down the street
opposite the Museum front door had this stored away
at the back of his shop. He told me that when a keeper
some years before (this conversation was c1895) was
digging out a ferret in the big fence line that runs
from Old Sarum to Stratford-sub-Castle he came
across this vase and dug it out.
Given the large banks on either side of the trackway
from Old Sarum down to Stratford-sub-Castle
(The Portway), which even today are densely filled
with rabbit burrows, coupled with the substantial
evidence of Roman period occupation in the area
close by, the story of this particular find now seems
more plausible.
A number of significant discoveries occurred
in the 1960s at Stratford-sub-Castle during road
widening and housing development in the area of
the Old Post Office (SU 135317) and the new
Castle Keep Estate (SU 13453180). The finds were
made between November 1965 and January 1966
and were deposited in the Salisbury Museum under
accession nos 49/1967 and 52/1967 (Table 1, 33
and Appendix). Other finds include a penannular
bronze strip bangle found in soil removed from
Stratford-sub-Castle (SU 135317) in about 1965
and a number of individual coins in addition to
those found during the course of excavation (Table
1, 30, 31, 33, 35-37, and 39).
Aerial Photography
The evidence from aerial photography has proved
extremely valuable. Examination of the English
Heritage National Monuments Records collection
at Swindon revealed a number of important
features. First the line of the Roman road from
Old Sarum to Badbury Rings could be picked out
on many of the photographs taken over the last 75
years. It was in fact discernible on one of the
earliest, taken in August 1929, and which came
from the Crawford Collection (CCC 8950/
ORACLEE 1). The feature was not recognized at
the time probably because it was firmly believed
that the Roman road to Badbury Rings followed
the line of lane called The Portway down into the
Tre.
snpiticbooptee! PET Bid
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pees ae oper Raa SS Wi ly
SP ™ | 4
yy
SS S 1957 Ex>
SES
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-—- =
== OLD SARUM
ae NY
is G
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a= = =
ais 3 =
22 Y \\
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43
4B
4 Y
4, by
Cu
0 4%
upatian observed
‘ining Waren Z Z,
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MUTT TATA
2001, fig. 2.7 with additions by the author)
SORVIODUNUM - A REVIEW OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE 13
=
Le
i
PING / o—
A eT
\ {
NS a
IS CG
Ne
N.
IN Z
Fig. 4. Part of Stratford-sub-Castle 1840 Tithe Award Map. The diagonal line added to the map shows the course of the
Roman road
village of Stratford-sub-Castle. While most of the
photographs provide some small clues to the
archaeology of the area the most valuable ones
were taken in the very dry summers of 1975 and
1995 (NMR 881/319, 881/321, 881/324 and NMR
15375-16, 15365-61). These show not only the
Roman road but also what would appear to be
elements of a laid out street grid system and
buildings (Figure 2, NMR 15365-61).
Mark Corney has plotted evidence of cropmarks
and parchmarks from air photographs of Stratford-
sub-Castle taken in the late 1980s and early 1990s
(Corney 2001,19-21; Fig. 2.7). He suggests that
although the marks are fragmentary they are
sufficient to indicate there may be a core area of
Sorviodunum with a planned, regular grid (Figure
3). In addition the photographs show other
rectangular areas of parching close to the line of
the Roman road 4c which could be interpreted as
the floors of Roman structures and also two ditches
(Figure 3, d and e) that might have been elements
of a defensive system around the settlement at some
period (Corney 2001, 21-2).
Land Boundaries
Examination of the Tithe Award Map for 1840
shows that a number of field boundaries in the
Stratford-sub-Castle area are aligned with the
Roman road (Figure 4). In particular fields
numbered 68 and 69, and also possibly 62 and 63,
exhibit the general shape and dimensions of early
Roman forts. Another interesting feature is the strip
fields numbered 79, 80, 81, and 113 lying virtually
at right angles across the line of the Roman road.
They could be remnants of the early land
boundaries that are also shown on sketch plans of
burgages in the period around or before 1700 (Hill
1962, 66).
DISCUSSION
Key Archaeological Indicators
Earlier attempts by researchers to identify the
location and function of Sorviodunum were
14 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
frustrated by a shortage of archaeological material
(Frere 1967, 274; Burnham and Wacher 1990). The
1983 review (Borthwick and Chandler 1984)
concluded that any one of the three sites currently
under examination — Old Sarum, Bishopdown, and
Stratford-sub-Castle — could have been Roman
Sorviodunum, while more recently Stratford-sub-
Castle has been considered the likely focus of the
settlement (Corney 2001). Careful examination of
all the evidence presented in the previous section
enables a clearer picture to emerge.
In Table 2 a number of key archaeological
indicators for the three sites are compared. From it
the following points can be made:
1. Settlement appears to have occurred
throughout the Roman period at Old Sarum and
Stratford-sub-Castle and there is some evidence to
suggest that Old Sarum may have been occupied
at the time of the Conquest but possibly not so
intensely in the later Roman period.
2. Finds of construction materials and
structures of some consequence indicate there was
a substantial settlement at Stratford-sub-Castle and
the likelihood of a similar one at Old Sarum.
3. The evidence from artifacts, and building
debris, together with elements of a street grid shown
on aerial photographs of Stratford-sub-Castle
suggests a degree of planning and the presence of
an urban or ‘town’ settlement.*
4. Although only a small amount of early
occupation material has been found on
Bishopdown, in the later Roman period settlement
appears to have been flourishing and was probably
a suburb or extra-mural part of the ‘town’. It was
possibly focussed alongside a road/trackway leading
south-east towards the New Forest (Stone and
Algar 1955, Corney 2001).
5.The area covered by the three sites discovered
so far is considerable, between 36 and 45ha.
The conclusions reached above are necessarily
tentative. However, analytical techniques and
research studies can assist in clarifying the picture
further. Perhaps one of the most useful ones is the
relatively recent development of a more
sophisticated method of analysing coin losses at
individual sites compared with the mean over the
whole of the country (Reece 1991, 1993, 1995).
Analysis by Reece of the coin loss at 140 sites in
Britain has shown that particular types of sites
exhibit similar cumulative frequency loss profiles.
He found that towns had a different loss pattern
from other more rural settlements while those in
eastern Britain were in turn different from the ones
Table 3: Numbers of coins identified by period (Reece 1991)
Period Date Old Bishop- Stratford Total
No. Sarum down sub Castle
1 to 41AD - - 2 2
2 41-54 - - 1 1
3 54-68 - - 1 1
4 69-96 - - 4 4
5 96-117 2 - 1 3
6 117-138 1 - - a
4 138-161 1 - 2 3
8 161-180 = - - -
9 180-192 - - i 1
10 193-222 2 - 1 3
11 222-238 1 - - 1
12 238-260 - - 2 2
13 260-275 3 1 11 15)
14 275-296 3 1 2 6
15 296-317 1 - - 1
16 317-330 2, 3 4 9
7 330-348 3} 2 3 8
18 348-364 2 2 1 5
19 364-378 - 2 2) 4
20 378-388 1 1 - A
21 388-402 2) 3 - 5
Totals 24 15 38 77
in the west of the country.’ In addition forts, temples
and villas each had their own distinctive individual
profiles. A final group, called ‘bad’ towns, showed
maximum coin loss in the later 4th century as
opposed to the almost equal coin loss in the 3rd
and 4th century exhibited by the ‘good’ towns.
The total recorded number of coins found at the
three sites under examination in the present study is
93. Of these 16 could not be positively dated.
Although the remaining 77 coins is a relatively
modest figure (Table 3) it compares quite favourably
with the small numbers found at eight of the 140
sites examined by Reece (1991). A cumulative
frequency analysis was carried out on the data and
the result is presented in Figure 5. This shows clearly
that the coin loss profile for the three sites taken
together is broadly in agreement with the average
for a ‘good’ Western town but not with that for a
Western settlement or a ‘bad’ town. Examination of
‘Table 3 shows that the coin losses in the 3rd and 4th
centuries AD are broadly comparable.
250
2 A_/\
Difference from British Mean
> oo
-100 ‘y Vi
/
Vs
i
-150 Bf
Coin Period
~® Sorviodunum ~> Western Towns ~~ Western Settlements
-S- "Bad" Towns
Fig. 5. Coin loss profiles
SORVIODUNUM -— A REVIEW OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE 15
Researchers have also been developing methods
of differentiating classes of Romano-British sites
from their finds assemblages (Allason-Jones 1988,
Cool 1995, Cool and Baxter 2001, Evans 2001).
Evans has carried out a functional analysis of the
pottery used at different types of sites by examining
the percentages of dishes/bowls, jars and drinking
vessels present. This kind of analysis has shown that
the levels of use of these three categories of pottery
differ between rural and urban sites (Evans 2001,
26-31 and figs 4-9). At urban sites in the south-
west of Britain the percentage of jars is less than
dishes/bowls. This contrasts with rural sites where
jars predominate (Evans 2001, fig. 6). Examination
of the Sorviodunum pottery assemblages shows that
jars account for around 27% and dishes/bowls 60%,
strongly suggesting an urban rather than a rural
settlement.
Settlement Functions
Having established that Sorviodunum was an urban
settlement there remains the question of what were
the likely functions it performed and the sequence
of events leading to its formation. As far as functions
are concerned there are four possibilities:
One, the settlement served the surrounding area
as a local market/trading centre to which the rural
populace brought their produce and goods to barter
or trade and came to procure items for sale or
exchange. Farmsteaders and villagers from
surrounding sites, for example the ‘village’
settlement recently excavated at Butterfield Down
(SU 166414) 10km to the north (Rawlings and
Fitzpatrick 1996), and from Boscombe Down (SU
189394) 9km to the east (Richardson 1951), would
almost certainly have used it. In addition people
living further afield would have travelled to
Sorviodunum depending upon the types of goods
available and the distance to their next nearest town
in the opposite direction.!”
Two, the town acted as a regional administration
center for the Roman authorities.
Three, it provided a stopping off point and
communications centre for the large volume of
traffic travelling along the Roman roads that
converge at Sorviodunum. Part of the traffic would
have been due to the movement of goods,
particularly pottery from the New Forest (Fulford
1975, 120) and the Poole Harbour area. It has been
shown that Sorviodunum was on one of the major
corridors for the movement of South East Dorset
Black Burnished ware north through to Silchester
and London (Allen and Fulford 1996). In addition
stone and other building materials, including lead
from the mines in the Mendips on its way to both
British and Continental destinations, would have
passed through.
Four, the town would, in common with most
other ‘small’ towns in Roman Britain, have been a
centre for light industry whether manufacturing
metalware, leather or other goods (Burnham 1995,
10).
Of the four functions the only one with which
there is uncertainty is number two. However Wacher
(1995, 206-7) has pointed out that even in small
towns there must have been official, or quasi-official,
buildings such as mansiones, mutationes, granaries,
stores-buildings for collecting taxes in kind and
residences for the different kinds of regionarii and
possibly public facilities such as baths, amphitheatre,
or a temple. It has already been suggested that there
might have been a temple on Old Sarum (Stone and
Algar 1955, 104). However, further excavations/finds
are needed in order to establish if any such official
types of building were present.
The sequence of events that led up to the
establishment of an urban or town settlement must
be a matter of some conjecture. At the Conquest
there appears to have been a number of sites occupied
locally by Iron Age tribes including Old Sarum,
Bishopdown, Highfield (Stevens 1934), and
Boscombe Down (Richardson 1951). Smith (1987,
6) and Webster (1993, 145) were both of the opinion
that the military would have set up a fort, however
temporary, giving as an indicator the find of early
samian ware. Webster also believed (1993, 145) it
would have been located at the crossing of the river
Avon in Stratford-sub-Castle. Frere (1975, 7) in his
paper on the origin of small towns concluded that
the great majority in Roman Britain owed their sites
to official action. The coin analysis provides
additional support since most ‘good’ Western towns
(Reece 1993, 865) appear to have military origins.
Possible further support for the military fort theory
also comes from the shape of the field boundaries in
Stratford-sub-Castle located close to the river and
the crossing point of the Roman road (Figure 4).
Settlement Growth and Size
The setting up of a military fort could have quickly
resulted in a civil settlement or vicus being
established alongside, providing shelter and housing
16 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
for supporting staff, camp followers and people
trading goods. Some of these individuals would have
come from the surrounding Iron Age settlements,
and others from further afield. Once established
the growth of a settlement would have depended
principally on economic forces (Wacher 1998, 102).
Other factors would have included the level of
military presence, construction of the London to
Dorchester road, and the amount of official activity
taking place in the area (Burnham and Wacher
1990). The apparent laying out of a street grid in
the settlement suggests at least some degree of
Romanization and deliberate planning which is
seldom seen at less important settlements
(Burnham 1987, 167).
By the 2nd century many small and most large
towns had constructed an earthen and/or a walled
defence around part of the settlement (Mullett
1990). In the case of Sorviodunum the more easily
defendable area of Old Sarum would have been
invaluable during times of trouble or unrest. So far
no remains of an earth bank have been discovered
in Stratford-sub-Castle although there is some
evidence of ditches c.6m wide on the north and
south sides of the settlement (see Appendix below).
These are in addition to the two features identified
on aerial photographs as ditches by Corney (2001)
and mentioned above (Figure 3, d and e). The close
proximity of Old Sarum, Bishopdown, and
Stratford-sub-Castle to each other (Figure 1)
coupled with the fact that Old Sarum and Stratford-
sub-Castle both lie alongside the Silchester to
Dorchester Roman road leads to the conclusion that
all three ‘sites’ formed part of the Sorviodunum
settlement.
The overall size of Sorviodunum could well have
changed during the course of the Roman period.
Most of the larger ‘small’ towns appear to have had
an area of between 4 and 14ha enclosed by a
defensive earth bank or wall (Todd 1970, 116;
Millett 1990, table 6.4). The maximum area of land
available for settlement inside the Old Sarum
earthwork is 12ha. For the remainder of
Sorviodunum the evidence currently available
suggests Romano-British occupation in Stratford-
sub-Castle covered at least 16ha and may have been
as much as 25ha while that on Bishopdown was
8ha or more. These figures could well be an
underestimate of the actual size, but without further
excavations or geophysical investigations it is
impossible to be sure. Work elsewhere has shown
that the extent of extra-mural settlhement can be
considerable. For example the ‘small’ Roman-
British town of Durobrivae in Cambridgeshire
stretches for some 3km along Ermine Street when
extra-mural areas are taken into account (Mackreth
1995). Sorviodunum might have had additional
extra-mural suburbs, possibly on the land to the
NE of Old Sarum!' or the areas covered by the
settlement site at Highfield 0.6km south (Stevens
1934) and the one in the vicinity of Moberly and
Netheravon Roads 1.3km SE (Stone and Algar
1955, 110). The latter two sites could well have
extended further than the areas already discovered.
At this stage it is not possible to determine if the
intra-mural area of the town was inside Old Sarum
or at Stratford-sub-Castle or whether it was at both.
End of the Roman Period
So far no evidence has been found to determine
the fate of Sorviodunum at the end of the Roman
period. Opinion is divided as to the likely scenario
in Britain after military withdrawal. Some experts
believe that there was almost complete collapse in
the face of Saxon incursions into Britain (Esmonde
Cleary 1989). Others postulate that the way of life
in existence at the end of the 4th century continued
with little change well into the Saxon period (Dark
2000). Corney (2001, 22) has pointed out the fact
that Sorviodunum is one of the few places in
Wiltshire which features in the historical Anglo-
Saxon record'’ implying there was still a sub-Roman
population and authority in the Salisbury area in
the mid 6th century AD. Excavations at Butterfield
Down, 10km to the north, indicate that the ‘village’
was still functioning at the beginning of the 5th
century with 9% of the coins coming from the
period AD 388-402 (Rawlings and Fitzpatrick
1996). The coin loss for the same period at
Sorviodunum was nearly 7% suggesting that
occupation also continued into the early 5th
century.
WAY AHEAD
The importance of towns, particularly those that
have until recently been classed as ‘small’, in Roman
Britain has been stressed on many occasions, most
recently in Brown (1995). Very few sites have been
extensively investigated even when they are still open
fields. One of the major problems is that vernacular
buildings in small towns often leave little trace of
floors or foundations. This is because the depth of
SORVIODUNUM — A REVIEW OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE WH
stratified deposits is often very small compared with
that in large towns and cities, and deep ploughing
has often eroded open-field sites (Wacher 1995).
The area of Sorviodunum lying above the present
River Avon flood plain has been seriously affected
by this problem and in addition by Medieval
settlement activities. However that part of the site
located between 200 and 300m on either side of
the river Avon is likely to be less disturbed with the
Roman levels starting at a depth of 0.6m and going
down to at least 1.4m or more.
Looking to the future, because Sorviodunum
appears to have been a substantial town settlement
in the Roman period, there is an urgent need to
preserve and protect those areas of the site which
have so far escaped the ravages of development and
are not already scheduled. The on-going debate over
Romano-British wealth distribution and the
‘ownership’ of land in the Salisbury Plain area and
whether it formed part of an Imperial Estate
(Hingley 1989; Frere 1967, 274f) would suggest
Sorviodunum may have held an unusual, if not
unique, position as an urban settlement in Roman
Britain. There is little doubt that the site of
Sorviodunum offers enormous potential for further
research (Corney 2001, 23). Only detailed
investigations will elucidate the precise role and
functions played by Sorviodunum throughout the
Roman period.
CONCLUSIONS
The archaeological evidence suggests there was
extensive occupation at Old Sarum and Stratford-
sub-Castle throughout the Roman period. Because
of their close proximity the two sites together with
that on Bishopdown must be considered as all
forming part of Roman Sorviodunum. Occupation
at Old Sarum covered a maximum area of 12ha
and at Stratford-sub-Castle between 16 and 25ha.
The urban settlement straddles the main Roman
road from Silchester to Dorchester for over a
kilometre and would have had the status of at least
a large ‘small’ town. At this stage in our knowledge
the settlement on Bishopdown can be best
considered as a suburb or extra-mural area of the
town.
The complete range of functions carried out at
the urban settlement is still far from clear. However
as a minimum it would have provided an important
market facility for the considerable number of
settlements in the surrounding area; acted as a
strategic centre for traffic using the Roman road
network; and almost certainly housed a local
administration unit for collecting taxes and ensuring
the laws and edicts of the Roman authorities were
carried out. Any further insight into the life and
times of Roman Sorviodunum will have to await
more detailed investigations in the future. There is
an urgent need to progress these investigations in
the light of the ever-increasing pressure from land
development. In the short term, surveys of a
geophysical nature could assist in establishing the
extent of the site and could lead to a structured,
longer term, programme of protection and study.
On the evidence gathered during the present
research Sorviodunum appears to have been a much
larger and more important Romano-British site
than had been realised previously.
APPENDIX
by David J Algar
Excavations and finds in
Stratford-sub-Castle 1962-77
carried out by SMARG
1962-1965
During the abnormally dry May and June in 1962,
John Stratton noticed a linear parch-mark in the
fields between Old Sarum and the Salisbury-
Devizes road. In Stratford-sub-Castle this parch-
mark was approximately 65m north of the accepted
line for The Portway, the Roman road from Old
Sarum to Badbury Rings and thence to Dorchester
(Durnovaria) as shown on the Ordnance Survey
maps. The line of this road had been assumed to be
the same as that of the trackway which ran from
near to the Old Castle Inn, in part as a hollow-way,
down to the Stratford-sub-Castle road. It appeared
to follow this road as the mid-part of a double dog-
leg for about 90m before crossing old water
meadows and then the River Avon.
The parch-mark revealed in 1962 showed up very
clearly as a straight line on the Old Sarum side of
the river and also on the opposite bank. However,
half-way up the hill towards the Devizes Road, the
line became less distinct, appearing to take a less
steep route than the shortest one. At the Avon, the
line of the parching crossed the river at a small island
called, because of its shape, Tadpole Island. As it
18 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
N Ne
N x
A ep <
STeaksO> WK CASTLE Sy ow
Vo
aX \
NN
“bo wy
g Jf
Q a
Phe,
Me of
@ XY cyt
u SK Th aN
. : ANG yy FN
x Vi Y
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4, Tih yy S
reed, Xx os
4 D Ze XX ’ YY, SALIS Bo RY,
Bx cine Henly Rowers - Griiot, stomped pa”
© MARY ste,
HA
Fig. Al. Location of various trenches dug in the 1960s
seemed very likely that the parch-mark was the true
line of the Roman road. John Stratton decided to
see if this could be demonstrated by excavation.
A trial trench (A) was cut in the meadow, across
the parch-mark at the western side of the Stratford
Road at SU 1346180 (Figure Al). The siting of
this trench proved to be unfortunate. The new line
for the Roman road was confirmed by the sectioning
of the road agger. This however was rather disturbed
through its proximity to the modern road and by
the fact that it had formed the foundation for a
minor 13th/14th century building (Musty 1958,
471).
In October 1964 permission was obtained to
cut a trench across the parch-mark line at the
eastern edge of the playing field used by the
Salisbury Theological College. This, trench (B) was
on the Old Sarum side of the Stratford Road at SU
13603199. At a depth of 0.38m below the present
ground surface was a layer of fine rolled flint
overlying a layer of large flints which were in turn
bedded in more fine gravel. Below this there was
another layer of large flints set directly on the river
gravel subsoil. The agger survived 0.41m in height
and 6.40m wide. On either side were large flints
forming a kerb to prevent the agger material
spreading. Outside the kerbs were small side ditches
0.38m wide and 0.28m deep. An unabraded samian
sherd was found in one of the ditches. The width of
the road including the ditches was 7.16m.The road
surface had been lost through ploughing activity
so there was no evidence of rutting or wear.
Adjacent to the road on the NNW side was a corner
of a Romano-British building with knapped flint
walls and dressed ashlar quoins. From the
associated finds (pottery, ironwork, iron? slag,
plaster and animal bones, etc.) it has been possible
to date the structure to the 3rd/4th century. The
building foundations were in part across one of the
side ditches so that it clearly post-dated the
construction of the road. Excavations in 1977
subsequently investigated the building further. At
present it is impossible to say when the road went
out of use (Stratton 1960, 138)
SORVIODUNUM -—- A REVIEW OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE 19
Two further trenches were dug in 1965. Trench
C was located in Fisherton Meadow on the west
side of the river Avon at SU 13303160. The agger
was located almost immediately. At no point was it
more than 0.25mm below the present ground
surface. Its surface was of fine rolled flint above
river gravel interspersed with larger flints in two
layers. The average depth of the agger was 0.56mm
and the width 7.32m with a small drainage ditch
on each side. On each side at 12.8m from the centre
of the agger there were two larger side ditches.
Within these outer ditches was a series of chalk
floors which ran up to and part way under the agger.
The presence of the floors and the occupation
debris associated with them (samian and ‘Belgic’
sherds, nails, and some indeterminate fragments
of iron), suggested that the road constructors had
lived alongside the road. One coin, an as of
Domitian minted in AD 84 and in fine condition,
was most probably lost in the last quarter of the 1st
century.
Trench D was at SU 13403175 in the centre of
the meadow, which had been the site of the first
trench (A). Here the height and width of the agger
and the separation of the side ditches corresponded
to those found in trench C. Again there were large
quantities of sherds but in contrast to the pottery
from trench C, the date range was from the Ist to
the 4th centuries. Box tile, roofing tile, knapped
flint, greensand fragments, and plaster were also
found suggesting the presence of a substantial
building close to the road.
A sectioning of the bank at SU 13503170 on
the line of the Roman road shown on the Ordnance
Survey maps revealed that it was an earthen bank
associated with three 18th century cottages; there
was also a stone conduit of similar date. Apart from
a single very abraded samian sherd all the pottery
was of the 18th century. Recent housing
development at Castle Keep Estate on part of the
meadow in which trenches A and D were located
revealed much evidence of settlement, chalk floors,
a cobbled area and a small oven. A length of Roman
road was also exposed. The finds included 1st/2nd
century samian ware and coarse pottery (mainly
Belgic and Durotrigic derived wares, but including
a small quantity of 3rd century New Forest wares),
two very worn coins, probably of the late Ist century,
Purbeck stone and ceramic roofing tiles.
There were numerous fragments of roof and
hypocaust tiles, and a smali slab of polished Purbeck
marble. Samian ware included a number of early
forms of Flavian date and a retrograde stamp
BELINICI M (Belliniccus of Lezoux, fl. Trajan-
Antonine). Other pottery was probably of 1st/early
2nd century; only two sherds of New Forest ware
were found. Subsequently further samian ware,
including a nearly complete platter of Dragendorf
Form 32 and the rare potter’s stamp CRESIMI
(Cresimus of Montans, fl. AD 80-120), were
discovered.
1969 NORTH SEA GAS PIPELINE
TRENCH
In 1969 the meadow to the west of the Castle Keep
Estate was crossed by a North Sea Gas pipeline
trench and as a result the Romano-British
settlement bordering the Roman road was sectioned
from north to south over a distance of about 100m
(SU 13363187-13473170). Along 65m were multi-
phased tiled and walled structures of timber and
flint, some with plastered walls and with at least
four superimposed floor levels. Building debris was
found scattered for over 200m. A large amount of
pottery (see list below) from the Ist-4th centuries
AD was recovered including New Forest and
Oxfordshire wares, an amphora fragment and lead
glazed wares. Samian sherds included the forms
Drag. 18, 27, 37, 38, and 45 bat’s head spout. A
dupondius of Nero AD 64-68 and a sestertius of
Commodus (Rome mint AD 187-188) were also
found.
A pit, from the north end of the section,
approximately 23m north of the Roman road,
yielded a 3rd-4th century group (see list below).
Part of a tile stamped LHS was found on the spoil
heap. The sandy terracotta coloured fabric had a
smooth upper surface and underneath were the
marks of two areas of mortar: had the tile been
complete (260 x 410mm) there would probably
have been three. Part of another LHS tile was
recorded from the Outer Bailey of Old Sarum
(Rahtz and Musty 1960, 366; Darvill 1979, 328,
343). The Roman road c.6m in width had buildings
right up to its edge which had ultimately collapsed
on to it. The site is possibly delimited by ditches
approximately 6m in width on the north and south
but the water table was too high to be sure.
List of pottery and other finds based on field
notes by Mrs V.G. Swan
UNSTRATIFIED MATERIAL RECOVERED FROM THE TRENCH
Samian
Dragondorf 45 bat’s head spout and Drag. 38. Probably
late 2nd or early 3rd century.
20 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Drag. 18 and small Drag. 27. Flavian or possibly pre-
Flavian.
Base fragment Drag.37. 2nd century.
Drag.?/Walters form. Probably late 2nd century.
Two other samian sherds. Probably 2nd century.
Coarse Pottery (NB Black-Burnished could include
imitations).
Three B-B plain dog dishes
One as above with looped trellis decoration
Fragment B-B cooking pot with double oblique-angled
lattice. Late 3rd-4th century.
Rim fragments of two miniature B-B cooking pots.
Hadrianic/Antonine.
Fragments of three B-B ‘bead and flange’ pie dishes. Late
3rd-4th century.
Fragments of one B-B pie dish. Hadrianic/Antonine.
Grey Wares (Most probably of New Forest origin).
Fragment of roll rim, storage jar. NF. 3rd-4th century
Fragment of dog dish. NF. 3rd-4th century
Neck of NF coarse grey jug. 3rd-4th century
Fragment of body of above. 3rd-4th century
Fragment of grey ware cooking pot with acute angled
lattice.
Fragment of grey ware cooking pot with obtuse angled
lattice.
Other grey fragments, some possibly NF. 3rd-4th century
One grey lid. NF. 3rd-4th century
One bead and flange narrow-mouthed NF jar with black
slip. 3rd-4th century
Other Pottery
Fragment amphora.
Colour-coated Wares
NEW FOREST (all late 3rd-4th century)
Pedestal base. NF? Beaker with black slip.
Fragment of indented beaker. NF with red/black slip.
Fragments of two NF flagons with red slip.
Fragments of a NF flagon with black slip.
Fragments of small NF stubby flanged bowl with orange
slip (anomalous).
Fragment of NF imitation ?Drag. 38 bowl (traces of red
slip).
OXFORDSHIRE
Fragment of imitation Drag. 38 bowl (red slip). Late 3rd-
4th century.
Lead Glazed Wares
‘Two fragments of softish orange fabric, brown lead glazed
slip with incised parallel lines. Found in Roman
deposit possibly Ist or 2nd century (Musty 1969).
Miscellaneous
Pottery disc, probably a counter.
Tile
Imbrices
Tegulae (including one large angled fragment).
Hypocaust (combed)
The position of some of the tiles suggests their re-use in
secondary structures especially as bonding courses
in walls, etc.
LHS stamped tle.
Glass
Fragment of window glass, one side rough from being
made in a mould.
Tron
One T-shaped box tile nail. (implying a hypocaust).
Two nails 25mm long.
One nail 51mm long.
One nail 76mm long.
One large 152mm long nail with traces of wood adhering.
Fragment of 25mm wide iron, possibly strapping.
Stone
Fragment of limestone quern.
Two fragments of limestone possibly ?Chilmark or
Purbeck.
Mollusca
Oyster shells.
Mussel shells.
FINDS FROM THE PIT AT NORTH END OF SECTION
The outline of the pit was not absolutely definite, so the
finds listed are probably but not certainly a group.
B-B cooking pot sherds including two with oblique angled
lattice. Late 3rd-4th century.
Two rims of B-B cooking pots. Hadrianic/Antonine.
Handle of a NF coarse ware jug. 3rd-4th century.
Fragment of a NF red colour coated ware beaker. 3rd-
4th century.
Fragment of NF parchment ware vessel with painted red
wavy line on the internal bevel of the rim.
Fragment of a large dark grey hand-trimmed storage jar.
Undatable.
Three fragments of imbrices, one with an animal paw
print on it.
Two fragments of wall plaster with a red stripe painted
over a white background.
One small nail.
Three fragments of limestone, ?Chilmark or Purbeck.
1977 EXCAVATION
In 1977 John Stratton decided to explore further
the substantial building found at the edge of the
Roman road in trench B in 1964. The excavations
took place during July/August as part of a Wiltshire
Youth and Community Service project with the
assistance of a party of French students from Loiret.
A 33 x Im trench was laid out at right angles to
the line of the Roman road in order to obtain a
further complete cross section. In addition a series
of boxes were excavated to the NE of the main
trench across the area known to contain the building
foundations (Figure A2). The building was
approximately 19.8 x 6.2m with the long axis very
approximately NW/SE and at right angles to the
line of the road (Figure A3).
The building had rammed chalk foundations
about 0.5m deep and 1m in width. Mortared flint
SORVIODUNUM - A REVIEW OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE 21
walls 0.7m wide were located central to this; these
survived in places up to 0.3m high where there
were four courses of mortared flint nodules. There
were ashlar dressings; at one corner three courses
remained. Internal structures were confused and
not really understood, but there were spreads of
chalk rubble, an area of burning above the remains
of a hearth or furnace at the SE end and a cobbled
surface at the NW end. A coin of Gordian III, an
irregular radiate and a very worn 4th century
bronze were found in the building. Although the
complete circuit was not excavated, there was one
wall at right angles about halfway along the SW
wall, so there would appear to have been another
room or other structure attached on this side. In
addition to the three coins mentioned above, the
excavation yielded a further 11 which were all with
the same date range and are listed below. After
the excavation a coin of Constantinopolis type was
found on the site.
In addition to the main building excavated,
traces of a second structure with chalk foundations/
floor and flint walls was found just outside the side
ditch at the edge of the agger on the other side (SE)
of the Roman road. ,
Fig. A2. Two views of 1977 excavation at Stratford-sub-Castle
bo
i)
THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Fig. A3. Plan of strip(?) building excavated in 1977, Stratford-sub-Castle
List of Coins Found in 1974 and 1977
1974
The coins were said to have been found at Post Office
Corner and at that time were in the possession of Mr
George Hill of Allington. They were identified by Hugh
Shortt who had some difficulty in accepting the find spot.
Augustus
1. As
Obv: Head right
Rev: Name of triumvir monetalis around s c
Mint: Rome. Date: 22 BC
Ref: cf. RIC 81, pl. IV 63
2. As
Obv: Head left
Rev: PONTIF MAXIM TRIBVN POT XXXIV around
sc
Mint: Rome. Date: 10-12 AD
Ref: RIC 219
Germanicus (under Claudius)
3. As
Obv: Head right
Rev: Claudius’ legend around s c
Mint: Rome. Date: 51-54
Ref: RIC 84
Vespasian
4. As
Obv: Head laureate right
Rev: Altar PROVIDENT S C
Mint: Rome. Date: 71
Ref: RIC 494
Domitian
5. As
Obv: Bust laureate right ?aegis
Rev: Moneta with scales and cornucopiae
Mint: Rome. Date: 85-96
Ref: RIC 335, 354a, 372, 387a, 395, 408 or 423
Trajan
6. As
Obv: Head laureate right
Rev: Victory left
Mint: Rome. Date: 101-2
Ref: RIC 434
Antoninus Pius
7. As
Obv: Head laureate right
Rev: Sow suckling piglets under holm-oak?
Mint: Rome. Date: 143-4
Ref: possibly RIC 733
Faustina I (under Antoninus Pius)
8. As
Obv: Draped head right
Rev: Juno standing with sceptre and patera left
Mint: Rome. Date: 145-6
Ref: RIC 1398
1977 Excavation
Gordian III (238-244)
1. Ag 23mm
Obv: IMP GORDIANVS PIVS FEL AVG
Rev: ROMAE AETERNAE
Mint: Rome. Date: 240
Ref: RIC 70
SORVIODUNUM - A REVIEW OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE 23
2. AE with silver wash 21mm
Obv: IMP GORDIANVS PIVS FEL AVG
Rev: P MTR P II COS II P P
Mint: Antioch Hybrid type with reverse of Philip I
Date: 247-8
Ref: Similar to RIC 236 but TR P III
Gallienus (sole reign 260-268)
3. AE 18mm
Obv: GAL[LIENVS] AVG
Rev: AE[TERNITAS] AVG [I]-//-
Mint: Rome
Ref: RIC160
Victorinus (268-270)
4. AE irregular flan
Obv: IMP C VICTORIN[VS P F AV]G
Rev: PAX [AVG] V*//-
Mint: I
Ref: Normanby 1406
Tetricus I (270-274)
5. AE irregular flan
Obv: [? ]CVS P F AVG
Rev: Salus type
Mint: I
Ref: Probably N1495
6. AE 16mm possibly irregular issue
Obv: IMP TET[RIJC[VS P F AVG]
Rev: PAX[AVG]
Ref: cf N1473 for type
7. AE 16mm
Obv: [IM]P TETRIC[VS P F AV]G
Rev: HILA[RITAS AVGG]
Mint: I
Ref: N1489
Tetricus II (270-274)
8. AE 17.5mm
Obv: C P[IV ESV]TET[RI]CVS CAES
Rev: SPES [PV]BLICA Spes 1c
Mint: I
Ref: N1526
Irregular radiates Date: 270+
9. Victorinus
AE 12mm
Obv: Victorinus / Rev: Invictus type
10. Tetricus I?
AE 13mm
- Obv: [ ? JICV[ ? ] / Rev: Fides type ?
11. Victorinus or Tetricus I
AE 12mm
Obv: ? // Rev: Aequitas or Providentia type
12. Victorinus or Tetricus I
AE Fragment only
Obv: ? // Rev: Comes type?
13. Tetricus I
AE Fragment only
Obv: ? // Rev: Salus type? (vertical sceptre)
14. House of Valentinian I or possibly Constantine I
AE 14mm A very worn coin
Obv: Perhaps Gratian // ?
After the excavation a Constantinopolis as LRBC 185
was found on the site by Mr M.A. Cole of Stratford-sub-
Castle.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author would like to express his gratitude to
the large number of people who provided
encouragement and assistance during the course
of this work. Particular thanks go to Clare
Conybeare; Roy Canham, Helena Cave-Penney and
their staff (Wiltshire County Council Education and
Libraries Department); David Hopkins and Sally
Poppy (Hampshire County Council Environment
Department); Pippa Smith and Talla Hopper
(Wessex Archaeology); Paul Robinson (Devizes
Museum); Chris Chandler and staff (NMR,
Swindon); Bill Moffat; and last but by no means
least to Peter Saunders and his staff at the Salisbury
and South Wiltshire Museum without whose
support and facilities this research would not have
progressed so smoothly.
Notes
1. Roman road (RR)4c, (Margary, 1955, 95).
2. The aim of the report is to show the valuable heritage
of Salisbury and to list the priorities and policies for
archaeological investigation. The appraisal is strictly
confined to the archaeological importance and
potential of the area. All archaeological periods are
covered by the report.
3. Personal communication from Mr P.A. Coggan.
4. A private communication from the excavator, John
Stratton, to the then landowner, Miss Coggan, dated
5th August 1977 contains some additional
information. This was to the effect that the building
floors were of cobbled flint with mortar cover and
some indication exists to give the impression that the
floor in one room had been painted red. Also that the
building had been covered with Mendip stone roofing
tiles, nail hung onto roof beams and lath, and all the
inside walls would have been mortar plastered.
24 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
5. Copies of original field cards held by the Wiltshire
County Archaeology Department.
6. The discoveries, made by the Ordnance Survey Field
Investigator (Mr G.W. Ridyard), appear to have never
been officially published.
7. Old Sarum document archive file No 1, item 13 held
in the Salisbury Museum.
8. In view of the considerable ongoing debate over the
most appropriate terminology for describing urban
settlements (Burnham 1995, 7-17) and the difficulty
at this stage in precisely categorizing the functions of
Sorviodunum, the term ‘town’ is used as the
descriptor in this paper. On the evidence found so
far the category ‘middle order settlement’ would
appear to be the most appropriate to describe
Sorviodunum (Burnham 1995, 10).
9. Western ‘good’ towns include Dorchester, Winchester
and Silchester, and ‘bad’ towns Gloucester,
Cirencester and Ilchester. Western settlements
embrace Wanborough, Catsgore and Camerton
(Reece 1993, 865).
10. Wiltshire and Hampshire Sites and Monuments
Records indicate a density of at least 0.4 sites/square
kilometer. Taking 7-10km as a reasonable distance
for the rural population to walk to and from market
in a day (Hingley 1989, 114f) gives nearly 120 farm
and small ‘village’ settlements within 10km of
Sorviodunum. An average ‘half-way’ distance of 16km
to the next town in any direction means that some
320 sites could have viewed Sorviodunum as their
principal trading centre. Taking the rural population
density figures for the optimum period of the first
half of the 4th century AD as between 20 and 50
persons/site (Millett 1990, 183-6) gives a potential
rural population range of between 6,400-16,000
people. To these figures must be added the likely
number of inhabitants in Sorviodunum itself. Millett
uses an urban density range of 137-216 people/
hectare which for 45ha gives a population of between
6,165 and 9,720. Therefore the combined rural and
town populations could have been between 13,000-
26,000 people.
11. Recent discoveries at the Beehive (SU 145335 CP) in
advance of a Park and Ride bus terminus construction
indicate the possibility of a site close by (Wessex
Archaeology 1998). Finds of tle and pottery (including
23 heavily abraded sherds amongst which were five
samian, one New Forest coated ware and one Black
Burnished ware) indicated a date range Ist-4th
centuries. 16 coins covering the period from Antonius
Pius (AD 138-161) to Valens (AD 364-378) were also
found. The site is located less than 1km to the NE of
Old Sarum on an area of land known as Folly Field
formed by the junction of the Roman Roads to Calleva
(Silchester) and Cunetio (Mildenhall).
12. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for 552 records that
Cynric defeated the Britons at Searobyrg, the Anglo-
Saxon name for Old Sarum (Gelling 1988, 54-5).
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Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 27-33
The Nineteenth-Century Re-use of Gravestones
at Cherhill
by Harold Mytum
Documentary and physical evidence indicates that at least five headstones at Cherhill were re-used, involving
the removal of their original inscriptions and decoration. This was undertaken with the tacit agreement of
the clergy. This type of memorial re-use has not been documented elsewhere, but has implications both for
the dating of memorial forms on the basis of inscriptions and for understanding the significance given to
memorials and their texts in rural churchyards during the 19th century.
INTRODUCTION
Archaeologists have become increasingly involved
with the study of 19th-century death, whether
through the study of crypts and vaults (Litten 1999;
Reeve and Adams 1993), burials (Boore 1986; Cox
and Stock 1995; Stock 1998), or memorials
(Mytum 1994, 1999; Rahtz and Watts 1983;Tarlow
1999). Only the last of these can be undertaken on
a wide scale, and without intervention which is both
costly and involves considerable ethical concerns
(Cox 1998). The guidance on archaeological
graveyard recording for long gave little consideration
to the matter of gravestone dating, with the
inference that this is easily ascertained from the
memorials (Jones 1976, 1979, 1984). Extensive
studies of memorials have now indicated that this
assumption needs to be treated with care (Mytum
forthcoming), and new guidance gives greater
attention to this matter (Mytum 2000). A
combination of physical and documentary evidence
at Cherhill provides an important insight into the
state of a 19th-century graveyard and the complex
use lives of gravestones. It is also a cautionary tale
of which graveyard recorders should be aware, and
reveals contrasting attitudes to memorials held by
successive Wiltshire clerics.
Memorials in burial grounds can be defined in
two ways: by their physical form and by their textual
content. Genealogists have carried out extensive
recording programmes to recover names and dates
of those commemorated, and at times have recorded
the whole inscriptions and the ways they are laid
out on the stones (White 1977; Rayment 1981).
Archaeologists have concentrated on recording and
considering the form and decoration, and also the
formal characteristics of the inscription such as
methods of inscription and style of lettering (Jones
1976; Mytum 2000). Within the text there is much
of importance which can enhance an archaeological
understanding. Not only names and dates, but also
places, occupations, and relationships occur, though
the popularity of these varies over time and from
region to region.
Some archaeological surveys have recorded a
very great deal of information regarding the
memorials, but often there has been insufficient
attention given to the sequence of events involved
in inscribing the stone. The issue was raised by
Sebastian Rahtz in the study of the Protestant
Cemetery in Rome (Rahtz 1987, 165), but not
elaborated. In this regard, the re-use of memorials
requires attention, and the evidence from Cherhill
is of particular importance.
The date of death of one or more individuals is
normally provided within memorial inscriptions.
These death dates are traditionally used by
archaeologists and art historians to provide some
Department of Archaeology, University of York, The King’s Manor, York YO! 7EP
28 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
indication of the date of manufacture and erection
of the memorial, though on some occasions
erection dates are explicitly given.' As a single stone
can be used to commemorate a number of
individuals who died at different times, it is the
whole inscription which was placed on the stone
before or as it was first erected that is crucial for
dating. The first text to be inscribed can be termed
the primary text. This consists of any introductory
phrases and may contain details of one or more
deceased. In most cases, the primary text includes
the primary commemoration or commemorations,
the first recorded death or deaths on the memorial.
However, where the primary text is merely a
statement about the monument or plot, defining a
family burial space, then the first deaths
commemorated will not be in the primary
inscription, but rather are recorded in a later
inscriptional event. This first commemorative role
for the monument should still then be termed the
primary commemoration. Many memorials have
several inscriptional events, often spread over
generations. Subsequent inscriptional events are
usually also commemorative, and can be termed
secondary, tertiary and later commemorations. They
are very important in the study of monument use,
and the social value of memorials. They indicate
attitudes to kinship and social relations, both
explicitly through statements of relationships, and
implicitly by who is placed with whom on the stone,
and in what order. The full set of commemorations
also gives indications of the patterns of burial and
commemoration within the graveyard, though the
fact that someone is commemorated on a stone does
not mean that they were buried in that plot, or even
in that graveyard.
RE-USE OF MEMORIALS
The normal assumption with regard to graveyard
commissioning and dating is that the text on the
memorial relates to the choice of that stone from
the mason, and its relatively rapid inscription and
erection in the graveyard. It is possible, however,
for memorials to be re-used. There are examples of
medieval slabs being used in the post-Reformation
period (Sunley 1999), but memorials of a later date
also suffered the same fate. These were normally
large stones and often the earlier inscription is still
visible; it also occurred inside churches, with ledger
stones. No examples of complete text removal and
re-use of decorated headstones has been
archaeologically recorded from Britain, but a
documentary source has suggested this possibility
for Cherhill (Plenderleath 1887, 299-300),? and
this has been linked to study of the surviving
headstones in the graveyard.
The Reverend W.C. Plenderleath, who was
Rector of Cherhill from 1860 to 1891, wrote a two
volume work in 1887 which included a discussion
of the churchyard (Plenderleath 1887).* The
relevant passage is worth publishing in full:
I have but just completed a transcript of all the
inscriptions now existing in Cherhill church-yard,
which I have added to my book of parochial indices.
And I have come across indications in the course of
that work of an amount of carelessness on the part of
my predecessors which I would not have believed
possible. There is a headstone in the churchyard, in
which the ornamentation of the stone looks like the
work of early in the last century, while the inscription
bears date 1824, and appears from the sharpness of
the cutting to have been actually incised at a still later
period. I happened to mention this to the clerk. He
said in reply that he had known of several stones
having been taken up, with the express permission of
my penultimate predecessor, (who resigned the living
in 1840: - I will not insult his name, for he was a man
whom I knew well and greatly respected: -)' these
stones to have been carried into Calne, the old
inscription entirely clipped off and a new inscription
cut, then to have been brought back and set up again
in the churchyard. Subsequent enquiries have
established the fact that several similar permissions
were given also by my immediate predecessor.’ And
the most curious thing is that although it is technically
an ecclesiastical offence to have done this without
the sanction of the ordinary, yet it does not appear to
have been, as far as I have been able to discover, a
civil offence at all, or punishable by any process known
to the common law. I can only say that I think we
shall all agree that if such really be the fact, it is
decidedly a casus omissus, - a malum sine remedio.
(Plenderleath 1887, 299-300)
This description of headstone re-use suggests
a practice at Cherhill which lasted over two
incumbents and therefore over several decades in
the early to middle part of the 19th century. The
stones chosen for re-use were already of some age,
according to Plenderleath. Indeed, it is likely that
they belonged to the first phase of widespread
headstone use in the churchyard, as few memorials
were erected in churchyards before the late 18th
century.”
THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY RE-USE OF GRAVESTONES AT CHERHILL 29
feet 50
Fig. 1. Plan of Cherhill churchyard, as of 31st December 1882, redrawn from the plan by W.C. Plenderleath, 1887. The
recut headstones are numbered, and re-used headstones and footstones are shaded black. Lines joining headstones
indicate a set of head and footstones; concentric rectangles indicate chest tombs, crosses indicate cast iron crosses
Plenderleath not only produced his
Memoranda, but also an index to the parochial
records in his care, listing all those mentioned
alphabetically under separate indices for each type
of register (WRO 1121/8). At the back of this
volume was a neatly produced and numbered
churchyard plan, and a transcription of all the
inscriptions. Memorials of various kinds are noted
on the plan — tombs, ledger slabs, head and foot
stones, and cast iron crosses. He makes no comment
on any decorative motifs with the inscriptions.
Plenderleath did explicitly indicate, however, the
five stones which he knew were re-used, in the
following annotation linked to the transcripts for
stones 30, 32, 41, 44, and 65:
Mr. James Eatwell, Churchwarden, states of his
positive and personal remembrance, that the stones
marked on the plan 30 and 41 were given by Canon
Guthrie to have their inscriptions erased & other
inscriptions cut. Also that the stones marked 32 and
44 were similarly given by Mr. Farley. The stone
marked 65 he remembered to have been treated in
the same way during Canon Guthrie’s incumbency,
but whether by that gentleman’s permission or
unknown to him, can not say. Mr. Eatwell does not
remember what was the previous inscription on any
of these stones. (WRO 1121/8, 332)
Plenderleath was thus definitely able to identify
both visibly and through local knowledge five stones
which had been re-used, but it is unclear whether
30 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
these were re-used by relatives who might consider,
correctly, that they were legally responsible for the
stone. That they could use it again is an interesting
legal point, though the permission of the incumbent
was seen as necessary. The re-use, alternatively, may
have involved the selection of gravestones which
recorded families who had by then died out, and
which were felt to belong to no one and so could
be taken up, cleaned off, and re-inscribed.
Plenderleath could not make clear the relationships
between those originally and subsequently
commemorated, but considered it ethically
undesirable in any circumstances.
Fig. 2. Headstone 30 to Uriah Potton, died 1826, and
32, to Mary Elizabeth Wright, died 1845
The field evidence
A careful examination of the headstones in Cherhill
churchyard was carried out in April 2000 to discover
if the five identified headstones still survived, and
also to ascertain the stylistic changes in the
churchyard that made it possible for Plenderleath
to have his suspicions raised in the first place. The
survey was also designed to allow detailed
examination of the inscribed headstone surfaces to
identify any traces of previous inscriptions, and of
the cross-sections of the headstones to suggest a
definite thinning of the memorials due to such texts
being removed.
The plan produced by Plenderleath (Figure 1)
proved to be accurate and effective for the purpose
of locating stones, and all but no. 65 were still in
situ. The one missing stone may be one of anumber
removed from position and now stacked, leaning
against the east wall of the chancel, with their
inscribed faces towards the wall. This is most
unfortunate as it is this memorial which is the only
re-used stone dated 1824, and so must be the one
which he describes as having decoration.
Plenderleath’s comment ‘looks like a palimpsest’,
written after the inscription in his transcript (1883,
341), suggests that it was not like the others available
for study today, and must have had some of the
earlier features still visible. The 1824 date for stone
65 also provides the earliest dated example of the
reuse of a headstone at Cherhill.
The four surviving stones, 30, 32, 41, and 44,
all lie in the row of headstones placed facing the
east side of the path leading up to the south porch
of the church, and so all are in prominent positions.
Two (nos. 30 and 32) are the nearest headstones to
the porch, and are thick stones with typically shaped
tops, but no decoration (Figure 2). The inscriptions,
not easily legible today, start very high on the stone,
so if there had been any decoration it would have
been erased before the new text was added. Each
stone, according to the parish clerk quoted by
Plenderleath, was reused under a different
incumbent. The text of headstone 30 implies a date
of erection following the death of Uriah Potton in
Fig. 3. Headstone 44 to Jonas Rivers, died 1849, with an
unusually shaped top
THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY RE-USE OF GRAVESTONES AT CHERHILL 31
1826, with headstone 32 significantly later, as Mary
Elizabeth Wright died in 1845. Another headstone,
41, shows some sign of modification, with the
thickness of the stone implying some adaptation.
Whether this alone would have been sufficiently
distinctive to have aroused modern attention
without the documentary evidence, however, is
doubtful. The inscription on the stone indicates that
it was erected following the death of Catharine
Clifford in 1838, with her husband Peter dying only
three years later in 1841. It is noteworthy that the
inscription states that ‘He was 44 years Clerk of
this Parish’. This suggests that Peter Clifford, clerk
for such a long period when the vicar of Calne was
responsible for the care of Cherhill, may have been
a leading figure in the early re-use of headstones.
The last memorial to be reused was headstone
44, following the death of Jonas Rivers in 1849.
This stone does convey an unusual appearance,
being both unusually thin for headstones of this
date, and because of its shape (Figure 3). This is
distinctive and unusual within the churchyard, with
a flat top and shoulders. Another monument of
this form has been identified which indicates the
probable original date of the Rivers headstone.
Headstone 46 stands to the south of the Rivers stone
in the same row, and is in memory of Elizabeth,
wife of Charles Strong, who died in 1786. This
particular memorial has very well produced shallow
false relief foliage decoration at the top of the stone
(Figure 4). The finely cut lettering is only on the
left side of the stone; evidently Charles Strong had
intended to be commemorated next to his wife but
for whatever reason was not added. The Rivers
headstone would have been easily prepared by
removing a relatively thin sliver off the face of the
stone; erosion may achieve this yet for the Strong
stone, as the top left corner has already flaked away.
Re-used stones 30, 32, 41, and 44 had
footstones with initials which matched the newly
recorded names on the headstones. In the case of
the Rivers grave, this footstone 45 had the year of
death and an appropriate verse from the deceased
wife to the husband. It is noteworthy that the
adjacent Strong grave was also marked by a
footstone, in this case giving the initials and year of
death. The missing headstone 65 to William Flower
had a footstone at the eastern end of the grave, and
-here a more complex picture emerges. Whilst
William Flower died in 1824, the footstone 66 was
inscribed ‘S.F. 1733’ (Plenderleath 1883, 341). It
would seem likely, therefore, that footstones as well
as headstones were often but not always re-used.
Fig. 4. Headstone 46 to Elizabeth, wife of Charles Strong,
died 1786, with same shaped top as headstone 44. Note
the false relief foliage decoration
The incongruence between the headstone and
footstone dates and initials at the William Flower
grave gives some indication of the circumstances
in which headstone re-use could take place. The
earlier initials of ‘S.F’ on footstone 66 suggest that
it was already a Flower family grave (as was that
immediately to the north, with headstone 63 for
Sarah Flower, who died in 1796, aged 9 years, and
who had her own footstone 64, ‘S.F. 1796’). The
evidence from William Flower’s burial place
indicates continued use of a family plot over a period
of a century, with the re-use of a stone that must
have still been in reasonable condition. Other
continued use of family burial plots may
alternatively have led to the complete replacement
of the memorial, something to which Plenderleath
may have not had an objection, and for which we
would now have no evidence unless replacement
was explicitly mentioned in the inscription.’
Whether the other four examples of headstone and
footstone re-use were on graves already belonging
to the families now commemorated remains
unknown.
CONCLUSIONS
The re-use of headstones was probably never very
frequent or widespread, as implied by the indignation
of Plenderleath and the lack of any case law on the
subject. The replacement and restoration of
memorials was common enough, however, and is
sometimes explicitly recorded on the inscribed texts
(Mytum 2000, 127). Other forms of adaptation
could have occurred, and the Flower headstone re-
32 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
use suggests that this could occur on established
family plots. The context of prior grave ownership is
uncertain in the other four identified cases here. The
Cherhill documentation reminds gravestone
recorders to be aware of the potentially complex use
lives of the memorials. Not only may gravestone texts
be accumulated through a sequence of inscriptional
events, but such events can occasionally lead to the
removal of outmoded texts. Whether this practice
was a regional one beyond that of Cherhill would be
a subject of wider study. Gravestones are valuable
examples of popular material culture, combining
form and text in a way which allows many
opportunities for analysis. It is important to treat
such evidence critically, and as with many other
archaeological and documentary sources, consider
the particular factors that have affected the material
which survives for us to study today.
Notes
1. Erection dates occur very rarely in many areas, but
only in numbers in a few regions such as Stirling,
Clackmannan, Renfrew and Dunbarton in the central
lowlands of Scotland (Harrison 1990) and County
Louth in eastern Ireland (Mytum forthcoming).
2.1 am very grateful to John Reis for informing me of this
source.
3. A copy of the main text was used by the parish, and is
now in the Wiltshire County Record Office
(henceforth WRO), 1121/14, but this volume does
not contain the appendix referred to here.
4. Cherhill was united to Calne in a Deed of Consolidation
in 1733, and so the vicar of Calne was responsible
for services until a Rector was instituted in 1844
(Blackford 1941, 119-120). The vicar referred to here
was Canon Guthrie, mentioned by name with
reference to the stones in Plenderleath’s list of
churchyard monumental inscriptions (1883), WRO
1121/8; 332.
5. Rev. Farley, mentioned by name in WRO 1121/8, 332.
6. This pattern has been noted in Wales (Mytum 1990),
and Orkney (Tarlow 1999), and is thought to be a
national trend (Tarlow 1998). Houlbrooke (1999)
suggests that the late 17th century marks the
beginning of relatively large numbers of external
memorials, but this is rather the time when post-
medieval memorials first appear, and then continue
at a very low level for a century before there is a rapid
rise in numbers and an increased sophistication in
their form. Only the headstones from the later 18th
century onwards would have been suitable for late
re-use, the earlier examples being small, thick, and
much more crudely carved.
7. The replacement of headstones is frequent in Ireland.
Often here the original memorial is laid on top of the
grave, though it may subsequently be removed or
buried. Names of those on the original memorial may
be inscribed on the new monument in whole or part,
or the commemoration may start afresh. Frequent
tidying of English graveyards would make the survival
of replaced headstones rare.
Bibliography
BLACKFORD, J.H., 1941, The Manor and Village of
Cherhill. A Wiltshire Village from early Times to the
Present Day. Frome: Privately published
BOORE, E.J., 1986, The Church of St Augustine the
Less, Bristol: an interim statement, Transactions of
the Bristol and Gloucestershitre Archaeological
Society 104, 211-14
COX, M., 1998, Eschatology, burial practice and
continuity: a retrospection from Christ Church,
Spitalfields, in M. Cox (ed.), Grave concerns: death
and burial in England 1700 to 1850, 112-25. York:
Council for British Archaeology Research Report 113
COX, M. and STOCK, G., 1995, Nineteenth Century
Bath-Stone Walled Graves at Nicholas’s Church,
Bathampton, Somerset Archaeological and Natural
History Society 138, 131-50
HARRISON, J.G., 1990, Some Early Gravestones in the
Holy Rude Kirkyard, Stirling, Forth Naturalist and
Historian 13, 79-96
HOULBROOKE, R., 1999, The age of decency: 1660-
1760, in P.C. Jupp and C. Gittings (eds.), Death in
England. An illustrated history, 174-201. Manchester:
Manchester University Press
JONES, J., 1976, 1979, 1984, How to record graveyards.
London: Council for British Archaeology / Hertford:
Rescue, Trust for British Archaeology
LITTEN, J., 1999, Tombs Fit For Kings: Some Burial
Vaults of the English Aristocracy and Landed Gentry
of the Period 1650-1850, Church Monuments 14,
104-128
MYTUM, H., 1990, A Study of Pembrokeshire
Graveyards: Cultural Variability in Material and
Language, Bulletin of the CBA Churches Committee
27, 6-11
MYTUM, H., 1994, Language as symbol in churchyard
monuments: the use of Welsh in nineteenth- and
twentieth-century Pembrokeshire, World Archaeology
26.2, 252-267
MYTUM, H., 1999, Welsh Cultural Identity in
Ninetenth-century Pembrokeshire. The pedimented
headstone as a graveyard monument, in S. Tarlow
and S.West (eds), The familiar past? Archaeologies
of Britain 1550-1950, 215-230. London: Routledge
MYTUM, H., 2000, Recording and Analysing
Graveyards. Practical Handbook 15. York: Council
for British Archaeology
MYTUM, H., forthcoming, The Dating of Graveyard
Memorials: Evidence from the Stones, Post-medieval
THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY RE-USE OF GRAVESTONES AT CHERHILL 33
Archaeology
PLENDERLEATH, W.C., 1887, Parochial Memoranda
of Cherhill (Dio. Sarum). 2 vols. Unpublished copy
in private possession, transcription forthcoming,
edited by J.S. Reis
RAHTZ, P., and WATTS, L., 1983, Wharram Percy: the
memorial stones of the churchyard, York: Department
of Archaeology University of York Archaeological
Publications 1
RAHTZ, S.P.Q., 1987, The Protestant Cemetery in
Rome, Opuscula Romana 16, 149-67
RAYMENT, J.L., 1981, Notes on the recording of
monumental inscripuons. Plymouth: Federation of
Family History Societies
REEVE, J., and ADAMS, M., 1993, The Spitalfields
Project. Volume 1 - the Archaeology. Across the Styx.
York: Council for British Archaeology Research
Report 85
STOCK, G., 1998, The 18th and early 19th century
Quaker burial ground at Bathford, Bath and North-
East Somerset, in M. Cox (ed.), Grave concerns:
death and burial in England 1700 to 1850, 144-153.
York: Council for British Archaeology Research
Report 113
SUNLEY, H., 1999, St Nicholas’ Churchyard,
Kenilworth, Warwickshire: An Appropriated Monastic
Slab, Church Monuments 14, 35-36
TARLOW, S., 1998, Romancing the stones: the graveyard
boom of the later 18th century, in M. Cox (ed.), Grave
concerns: death and burial in England 1700 to 1850,
33-43. York: Council for British Archaeology Research
Report 113
TARLOW, S., 1999, Bereavement and Commemoration.
An Archaeology of Mortality. Oxford: Blackwell
WHITE, H. L., 1977, Monuments and their inscriptions:
a practical guide. London: Society of Genealogists
Other Sources
Wiltshire & Swindon Record Office:
WRO 1121/8 Index to the Parochial Registers of Cherhill,
Wilts, together with the Monumental Inscriptions in
the Churchyard
34 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Fig. 1. Henri de Triqueti : The Choir of Angels, marble tarsia 1863. Church of St. Michael and All Angels, Teffont Evias.
(Photograph by Idris Kirby, Tisbury)
Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 34-45
A French Sculptor in Wiltshire: Henri de
Triqueti’s Panel in the Church of St. Michael &
All Angels, Teffont Evias
by Elisabeth Darby
The Albert Memorial Chapel at Windsor Castle is probably the best-known work by the French sculptor
Henri de Triqueti (1804-1874) in this country. His contribution to the Chapel included fourteen mural
panels in marble tarsia, a technique he first explored in the 1840s. Only five other completed examples of
his process survive. One of these is The Choir of Angels, commissioned by Emily Fane De Salis (1822-
1896) of Teffont Manor, Wiltshire, and installed in the church at Teffont Evias in 1863. Although not the
earliest example, this marble tarsia panel was, however, the first to be erected and its publication here offers
the opportunity to examine Triqueti’s development of this interesting technique.
Above the east window in the Ley Chapel in the
church of St. Michael and All Angels at Teffont
Evias, Wiltshire, is a representation of a Choir of
Angels signed by Henri de Triqueti and dated 1863
(Fig. 1). Described in Pevsner as sgraffito,' it is, in
fact, an example of the marble tarsia technique first
developed by the French sculptor Triqueti in the
1840s which was to reach its most elaborate
expression in the Albert Memorial Chapel at
Windsor Castle executed between 1864 and 1875.
Although the work of Triqueti (including that in
England) has been extensively researched in recent
years, the Teffont Evias panel is largely unknown.’
This article will seek to explain why a marble tarsia
panel by this eminent foreign sculptor should be at
Teffont Evias and will place the work in Triqueti’s
development of the technique.
Henri de Triqueti (1804-1874) trained initially
as a painter.’ His career as a sculptor began at the
Salon of 1831 when he showed a bronze relief
entitled La Mort de Charles le Téméraire. The piece
was well-received and thereafter Triqueti devoted
‘himself to sculpture, executing a range of works in
a variety of materials. His most notable
achievements were the bronze doors for La
Madeleine in Paris (1831-1841) and the cenotaph
to the duc d’Orléans in the Chapelle St. Ferdinand,
Neuilly-sur-Seine (1842-3). During the 1830s and
1840s Triqueti executed a number of bas-reliefs and
also designed decorative art objects (including vases
and swords) which, inspired by Medieval and
Renaissance sources, incorporated different
materials and achieved polychromatic effects. His
interest in colour and in bas-relief demonstrates an
enthusiasm for exploring the boundaries between
painting and sculpture which was characteristic of
the Romantic sculptors in France at this time, but
which was also evident in his development of the
marble tarsia technique.
The process of tarsia which Triqueti developed
involved a marble ground on to which the design
to be executed was traced. Coloured marbles were
cut to the required shape and attached to the ground
with cement and occasionally metal clamps. Lines
were then engraved into these marbles where further
detail was required and these incisions were then
filled with coloured cements.* The process was
inspired by the marble pavements of Italy,
particularly those executed by Domenico
Beccafumi (c.1486-1551) in Siena Cathedral in the
The Old Malthouse, Sutton Mandeville, Salisbury, SP3 5LZ
36 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
early sixteenth century, after which date it fell into
disuse. The technique resembles marquetry in wood
and it was possibly as a result of his involvement
with the restoration of the marquetry and bone
reredos from the Abbey of Poissy in the 1830s,
together with his travels in Italy, that Triqueti
decided to explore marble tarsia. In reviving the
technique, Triqueti illustrates nineteenth-century
interest in the past which frequently involved the re-
introduction of old processes alongside the adoption
of forms and decorative motifs associated with earlier
styles. Further, nineteenth century revivalists often
sought to outdo their predecessors and this seems
to have been the case with Triqueti. Whereas early
examples employed a limited range of colours and
cements (largely black, white and grey), Triqueti
elaborated the range of both to such an extent that
one commentator suggested that ‘on peut dire qu’il
a ouvert une voie nouvelle a l’art décoratif’.°
Triqueti also realised that this process, confined
at Siena to pavements, had potential for wall
decoration. The sculptor seems to have begun
experimenting with marble tarsia in the early 1840s,
at a time when other techniques for polychrome
wall decoration, particularly fresco painting, were
being tried in public buildings in both France and
England with varying degrees of success.° The
advantage of the tarsia process over fresco, in his
view, was its permanence. He stated that the
cements had ‘the same hardness, adherence and
durability, as the marble itself’ and that it was ‘not
affected by the atmospheric influences often fatal
to fresco painting’.’ However, the durability of the
process, and its elaboration in terms of the range of
marbles and cements, was achieved only gradually
as the surviving examples testify.
Triqueti proposed the use of marble tarsia when
he was consulted by the architect Louis Visconti
(1791- 1853) about the decoration for the tomb of
Napoleon I at Les Invalides in Paris.* In 1843 he
was commissioned for a frieze, 70 metres long by
20.3 metres high, narrating the principal events of
Napoleon’s life, which was to decorate the walls of
the peristyle around the tomb. As it was thought
no atelier in France would be able to execute the
work, Triqueti travelled to Italy to study examples
there and to experiment further with the technique.
In 1844, however, the idea was abandoned, the
effect of the marble tarsia being considered ‘trop
éteint et effacé’ for what was already a sombre
space.”
Despite this setback, Triqueti continued to work
on the technique during the 1840s, and in 1848 he
Fig. 2. Henri de Triqueti : The Visitation of Mary to
Elizabeth, marble tarsia 1847. Victoria and Albert Mu-
seum. (Photograph by permission of the V & A Picture
Library)
exhibited at the Paris Salon two panels: The
Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth (Fig. 2) and Peace
and Public Prosperity which were described as
marble mosaic murals intended for churches, public
or private buildings.'° Neither of these panels was
purchased, nor did their display lead to any
commission and it would appear that Triqueti
temporarily abandoned his experiments with tarsia
for there is no evidence that he persevered with the
process during the 1850s. However, in 1862, he
showed the same two panels at the International
Exhibition held in London in that year. This seems
to have been a late decision on Triqueti’s part, and
the panels were not included in the catalogue in
consequence.'! The sculptor, who was often in
England from the late 1850s visiting exhibitions and
collections,'’ might have sensed opportunities for
decorative schemes in this country which prompted
him to reshow these works, even though they were
now fifteen years old. Certainly, their re-appearance
at the 1862 Exhibition led to a flurry of interest
and commissions.
A FRENCH SCULPTOR IN WILTSHIRE: HENRI DE TRIQUETI AT TEFFONT EVIAS 37
The South Kensington Museum (now the
Victoria and Albert Museum), for example, bought
the panel representing The Visitation of Mary to
Elizabeth (Fig. 2) from the exhibition for the sum
of £130.” It was originally located in the Museum
of Construction and Building Materials — a part of
the South Kensington Museum which contained
examples of materials for buildings and their
decoration.'* Triqueti’s novel process of wall
decoration would have been of particular interest
to the museum at this date when an extensive
programme of internal decoration (in which mosaic
work was to figure prominently) was being
initiated.’
The Visitation panel has a solid marble ground
but the range of marbles used is limited and, indeed,
some sections appear painted rather than of
different stones.'!° However, both black and red
cement was used for the engraved decoration. The
panel is now in rather poor condition: some of the
cement has fallen out which suggests that Triqueti
had not yet mastered the shaping and roughening
of the grooves which kept the cements in place."’
It was also in the early 1860s that Triqueti’s work
was considered for the decoration of St. Paul’s
Fig. 3. Joseph Edgar Boehm : Emily Fane De Salis, bronze
statuette 1871. Private Collection.
Cathedral and for the dining hall of The Temple
(although nothing was to come of either proposal)!®
and that he was commissioned to execute the panel
for Teffont Evias church (Fig. 1).
The panel was commissioned by Emily
Harriette (1822-1896: Fig. 3), the eldest daughter
and heiress of John Thomas Mayne (1792-1843)
of Teffont Manor.'? The Mayne family had owned
the manor, and been patrons of the church at Teffont
Evias, from 1692 until 1802 when the estate was
sold to William Wyndham. It was bought back for
the family in 1813 by John Thomas Mayne who
shortly afterwards made additions (in picturesque
embattled style) to the exterior of the manor house
and also initiated extensive repairs and alterations
to the church. Most of the work on the church (the
origins of which date back at least to the 13th
century) was carried out by the architect Charles
Fowler (1791-1867) from 1821, but the tower was
completed and a spire added by the young George
Gilbert Scott (1811-1878) between 1830 and 1843
(Fig. 4).°°
Emily Harriette inherited the estate in 1852,
and in 1859 she married William Fane De Salis
(1812-1896) of Dawley Court, Middlesex. William,
the third son of Jerome, 4th Count De Salis,
belonged to the Soglio branch of the De Salis family
which was descended from Peter, Ist Count and
Envoy of the Grisons to Queen Anne.*! Educated
at Eton and Oriel College, William travelled
extensively on business to Australia and the Far East
in the 1840s, and he was subsequently director of
several Australian companies and of the P. & O.
Company (1851-1895), of which he was Chairman
between 1878 and 1881.”
There were no children from this late
marriage.’* The couple involved themselves in
charitable works, notably the building of a cottage
hospital to serve Harlington, Harmondsworth and
Cranford in Middlesex (opened in 1885) which
Emily visited regularly.** At Teffont, they were
responsible for the construction of a pair of
almshouses (1884-5) and the Manor School in
addition to providing a supply of fresh drinking
water for every house there.*? Emily was also a
frequent traveller to the continent, recording her
visits in sketches. *°
On their marriage, William and Emily made
Dawley Court their principal residence, but the
couple spent several months each summer at
Teffont. Here, they made a number of
improvements to the manor’’ and to the church.
William paid for a new roof for the north aisle while
38 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Emily displayed her artistic talents by painting a
new east window which was erected as a memorial
to her father; this window, unfortunately, does not
survive.**> Emily’s commission to Triqueti for a
marble tarsia panel for the Ley Chapel was,
therefore, one of a number of embellishments
undertaken in the early 1860s which continued the
improvements of her father.
Fig. 4. The Church of St. Michael and All Angels, Teffont
Evias, with Teffont Manor in the background.
(Photograph by Idris Kirby, Tisbury)
Why did Mrs Fane De Salis choose the work of
a French sculptor to decorate a small village church
in Wiltshire? She was not a noted patron of the arts,
although her surviving scrapbook reveals some
interest in sculpture, and both she and her husband
were portrayed by Joseph Edgar Boehm (1834-
1890) who, like Triqueti, was a royal favourite,
becoming Sculptor to Queen Victoria in 1881 (Fig.
3). * Emily was already familiar with Triqueti’s
work for she had boughi an ivory figure of a faun
playing cymbals by him which had been exhibited
at Colnagi’s in London in 1859.*° Triqueti was
noted for his use of ivory but this purchase alone
does not fully explain why she should have
commissioned an example of his marble tarsia
work. It was possibly also as a result of seeing the
two panels at the 1862 International Exhibition in
London that she decided to commission such a
work for the manor church.*! However, another
compelling motive for the commission was the fact
that Triqueti and William Fane de Salis were distant
relatives. Henri de Triqueti’s mother, Amadea
Sophia Maria Henrica (b.1776), was of the De
Salis-Samedan branch of the family (also from the
Grisons), being the only child of Joachim v. Salis-
Samedan and Margaretha de Sartigny.*? William
and Triqueti were distant cousins and Emily, as an
amateur artist herself, was no doubt interested in,
and anxious to support, such a renowned member
of the family.
Whatever the reason for this commission, the
Teffont Evias panel was to be the first of Triqueti’s
marble tarsias actually to be used as wall decoration.
Moreover, it was also larger than any of his earlier
panels, measuring more than 10 feet wide and 7
feet high.”
The Choir of Angels panel (Fig. 1) arrived in
London in the summer of 1863 when it was shown
at a conversazione of the Institute of British
Architects.** It was installed in Teffont Evias church
by the end of October.*? The work was well-
received, The Salisbury Journal commenting that
“The draperies are simple and beautifully disposed,
and the expression of the heads recalls the
reverential feeling and devout sentiment which the
early Italian masters gave to their inspired types of
angelic beauty. The tone of the colouring, though
sober, is far from cold in its effect, and harmonises
admirably with the subdued light of a gothic
church’. *°
Three different coloured marbles are used in
the panel: dark blue for the background; white
statuary marble for the flesh parts and the banner
which the angels hold; and Sicilian grey for the
draperies, wings and the clouds on which the angels
rest. The haloes of the angels, together with the
inscription engraved on the banner (which reads
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!) are gilded. Two different
coloured cements (black and red) are used as in
the South Kensington Museum panel. The
composition is more complex than that of The
Visitation panel, however, being of three seated or
kneeling angels arranged on either side of a central,
standing figure in a balanced composition. This
A FRENCH SCULPTOR IN WILTSHIRE: HENRI DE TRIQUETI AT TEFFONT EVIAS 39
Fig. 5. Henri de Triqueti : Marmor Homericum, marble tarsia 1865. University College London, south cloister.
(Photograph courtesy of the Conway Library, the Courtauld Institute of Art)
pyramidal format necessitated three separate
sections of marble, the vertical joints of which are
clearly visible.
The illustration reveals a problem concerning
the mounting of the panel on the wall of the chapel.
At the base of the panel is an engraved horizontal
line. This line seems to continue around the whole
piece (it is just visible on the right hand edge) but
has been cut off on both sides by the wooden frame.
The frame also appears to cut through the wings of
one of the angels on the right side, and both
Triqueti’s signature and the ribbon on that side are
uncomfortably close to it. This cutting of the image
may have been the result of positioning the marble
incorrectly. The photograph makes clear that the
marble panel is held up by metal clamps and that it
_ was, therefore, probably attached to the wall without
the frame. When the latter was added, it was realised
that the panel had been placed too close to the
ceiling of the chapel. The frame had to be lowered,
revealing the engraved line at the bottom but hiding
the side ones. This adjustment further explains
why the lower edge of the work cuts across the
top of the window in such a disconcerting manner.
Triqueti was to adopt a different solution to the
border in his subsequent tarsia panels.
The exhibition of the Teffont Evias panel in
London in July 1863 may have been one reason
why George Grote (1794-1871), best known for
his twelve-volume History of Greece (1846-1856),
commissioned Triqueti for another example of his
marble tarsia work.*’ This was the Marmor
Homericum (Fig. 5) which was presented by Grote
to University College London, an institution with
which he had been associated since the 1820s and
of which he became Vice Chancellor in 1862. The
Marmor Homericum was unveiled in May 1865 in
the south cloister of University College where it
remains.** It consists of a principal panel, 9 feet by
6 feet, which depicts Homer reciting the story of
Hector’s death and Andromache’s grief to the
people of Greece. Above and below this are smaller
40 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
panels portraying other incidents from The Iliad
and The Odyssey, and to the left and right are
allegorical figures from these sources. ”
The Marmor Homericum marks a new
departure in Triqueti’s tarsia work in several
respects. The range of coloured marbles and
cements employed is considerably greater than on
earlier panels, with red, green, brown, black and
purple engraved lines. In consequence of this
enhanced polychromy, the boundaries between
painting and sculpture are more fully explored. Also,
greater attention is given to the patterning and
details of the draperies, and to the jewellery,
furniture and other decorative objects in the scenes,
an indication of Triqueti’s involvement with the
applied arts. Another significant development in the
Marmor Homericum is the addition of a medallion
in Carrara marble at each of the four corners, with
reliefs representing Venus, Minerva, Helen and
Penelope. This combination of flat and relief
surfaces, polychromatic effects and attention to
ornamental detail, was to be utilised by Triqueti in
his most prestigious work in England — the
decoration of the Albert Memorial Chapel at
Windsor Castle.
Following Prince Albert’s death in December
1861, Queen Victoria embarked on an extensive
programme of commemoration.”’ Early in 1862,
and at the suggestion of her eldest daughter,
Victoria, the Crown Princess of Prussia, it was
decided to convert the Wolsey Chapel at Windsor
Castle into an Albert Memorial which the public
could visit as a place of pilgrimage. The cost of the
project was borne by Queen Victoria who entrusted
the overall design to the architect G. G. Scott (who
was also to be responsible for the Albert Memorial
in Kensington Gardens). The work of remodelling
the chapel began in 1862 but it was not completed
until 1875, shortly after Triqueti’s death.*!
In the summer of 1862 the Crown Princess
suggested that the roof of the chapel should be
decorated with marble tarsia pictures by Triqueti.’”
‘Triqueti’s work had been known to the royal family
for some time. In 1855, during a visit to Paris for
the Exposition Universelle de l’industrie et des
beaux-arts, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had
visited the Chapelle St. Ferdinand. Queen Victoria
described Triqueti’s monument to the duc
d’Orléans as ‘beautiful and touching’. ® In 1852
the royal couple had purchased Triqueti’s ivory
statuette of Sappho and Cupid, and in 1858 his
marble figure of Edward VI. In 1858 or 1859
‘Triqueti showed examples of his marble tarsia work
Fig. 6. The Albert Memorial Chapel, Windsor Castle.
(The Royal Collection ©2001, Her Majesty Queen
Elizabeth II. Photograph : Conway Library, Courtauld
Institute of Art)
to Prince Albert who expressed interest and gave
the sculptor ‘les plus précieux encouragements’.**
It was probably memories of this encounter, perhaps
prompted by the display of the panels at the 1862
Exhibition, which encouraged the Crown Princess
(who was a close friend of Triqueti®’) to suggest
the adoption of the technique in the chapel. The
idea was rejected by G. G. Scott, however, who
maintained that the curved surfaces of the ceiling
were inappropriate for large slabs of marble.*®
The idea of Triqueti’s involvement was not
entirely abandoned and, in the spring of 1864, the
Crown Princess once again suggested his tarsia
work for the chapel. This time it was agreed that it
should be used for the walls of the chapel beneath
the stained glass windows (Fig. 6).*’ Shortly
afterwards, in October 1864, Mrs Emily Fane De
Salis wrote to Sir Thomas Biddulph, Master of the
Queen’s Household, enclosing a photograph of the
tarsia panel at Teffont Evias and stating that as “This
work of art is the first of the kind produced in this
country by Monsieur de Triqueti & as Her Majesty
has selected this talented artist to decorate in a
similar manner the Wolsey Chapel....it might be
agreeable to the Queen to inspect a photograph’
recently taken of the work. The Queen’s response
A FRENCH SCULPTOR IN WILTSHIRE: HENRI DE TRIQUETI AT TEFFONT EVIAS 41
is not recorded and the photograph does not
survive in the Royal Archives.**
Triqueti’s scheme for the Albert Memorial
Chapel involved a series of fourteen rectangular
marble tarsia pictures, surrounded by borders in
Florentine mosaic (inlay of semi-precious hard
stones) with bas-reliefs. Set into the borders above
the tarsia pictures on the north, south and west
walls are medallion portraits of Queen Victoria and
Prince Albert’s nine children together with one of
the Princess of Wales. These were executed by Susan
Durant (d.1873), Triqueti’s favourite pupil and also
a close friend of the Crown Princess.*” The overall
format of the tarsia pictures and their borders, and
the combination of flat and relief surfaces, recalls
the Marmor Homericum on which Triqueti was
working at the same time.
The tarsia pictures and bas-reliefs on the north,
south and west walls of the chapel depict stories
from the Old Testament which allude to the virtues
and achievements of the Prince Consort: thus,
David listens to the angelic choir which inspires his
psalms (Fig. 7) refers to Prince Albert’s eloquence
and musical gifts.° The tarsia pictures in the east
end of the chapel are devoted to the Passion of
Christ. The first panels arrived in the winter of
1867°' but completion of the remaining ones was
delayed in consequence of the Franco-Prussian war
and they were not in place until 1871.°? Queen
Victoria, who ‘had never seen before any of Mr.
Triqueti’s inlay works’, first viewed the panels in
March 1868 with Susan Durant. The sculptress
reported that ‘the beauty of the marbles was quite
a surprise’ to Her Majesty, adding that ‘much as
she [Queen Victoria] had heard of them she had no
idea of anything so beautiful!’ The panels formed,
however, only one part of Triqueti’s contribution
to the Albert Memorial Chapel which also included
the cenotaph to the Prince Consort among other
works.** The sculptor did not live to see the interior
Fig. 7. Henri de Triqueti : David listens to the angelic choir which inspires his psalms, marble tarsia 1864-1871. Albert
Memorial Chapel, Windsor Castle. (The Royal Collection ©2001, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Photograph:
Conway Library, Courtauld Institute of Art)
42 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
finished in its entirety: he died in 1874 regretting
‘that he had not been able to show his beloved work
completed to the Queen’.”
The panel of David (Fig. 7) incorporates a choir
of angels resting on clouds, the figures holding
banners and draped in a manner reminiscent of the
Teffont Evias panel. However, the composition of
pairs of angels alternating with angels holding
instruments is more complex than in the earlier
work and creates a rhythm which is echoed in the
arches of the temple on the right of the panel. The
Albert Memorial Chapel panels continue the style
of the Marmor Homericum with their richness of
draperies, detail of objects and architectural settings,
and also with the variety of colours employed:
twenty eight different marbles from Great Britain,
France, Italy, Greece and Belgium were used for
the pictures, together with a range of coloured
cements.”°
The tarsia panels in the Albert Memorial Chapel
were executed by Triqueti’s former pupil, Jules C.
Destréez (b.1831) who, it was stated in The Art
Journal, with the aid of an entirely new process of
his own invention, had been able to reproduce every
detail of Triqueti’s drawings and had also improved
the cement so that it was as durable as the marble
itself. The writer in The Art Journal went on to
suggest that the importance of Destréez’s technical
contribution was evident when this, and the
Marmor Homericum, were compared with the
earlier Visitation (which, as we have seen, has lost
some of its cement), and stated that Triqueti would
have acknowledged his former pupil’s work by
including his name with his own on the tarsia panels
had he lived. *’
Triqueti (and Destréez) executed one final
example of marble tarsia in 1870: the Yates
Memorial presented to University College Hospital
by Charles J. Hare in memory of the benefactor,
Edward Yates. Like the Marmor Homericum and
the panels in the Albert Memorial Chapel, the Yates
memorial combines the tarsia technique with
Florentine mosaic, but some of the hard stones in
the side panels of the later work are left raised.
Moreover, the memorial incorporates two free-
standing statuettes on the lower section.** Even at
this late stage in his career, Henri de Triqueti was
willing to experiment further with a process on
which he had worked intermittently for nearly thirty
years.
Although initially conceived in France, and first
considered in relation to the tomb of the Emperor
Napoleon I, ultimately all Triqueti’s tarsia panels
that were used as wall decoration were for English
locations and for English patrons. These all date to
the 1860s, a period when there was considerable
interest in new decorative techniques for ceilings
and walls, including glass and ceramic mosaic, as
is evident in the Albert Memorial Chapel and the
South Kensington Museum. One appeal of the
technique for England seems to have been its
durability. At the time the Teffont Evias panel was
completed, it was stressed that the process was
ideally suited to the damp English climate: ‘It
recommends itself by its perfect durability, and the
indestructible character of its colours, attributes of
no mean value in this country, where the effects of
our humid climate render the preservation of other
forms of mural decoration, such as fresco painting,
both doubtful and difficult’. °? Other commentators
(including an earlier writer in Wiltshire
Archaeological and Natural History Magazine)
remarked not only upon the durability but also the
speed and moderate cost of the process; and several
suggested that it would ‘inaugurate a new era in
the mural decorations of the interiors of our
churches and public buildings’. °° In the event,
however, the marble tarsia process seems to have
died out with its inventor in the 1870s.
The panel in Teffont Evias Church occupies an
important intermediate stage in Triqueti’s
development of the process. A larger and more
complex composition than the experiments of the
1840s, it gave the sculptor an opportunity to execute
a piece for a particular location and thus to gauge
its effectiveness and practicality for wall decoration.
The exhibition of the panel in London in 1863,
following on from those shown in the 1862
International Exhibition, perhaps encouraged
further commissions such as the Marmor
Homericum. The later examples show a greater
range of coloured marbles and cements, an
elaboration of the borders, and far richer detail in
the pictures than the Teffont Evias panel due (at
least in part) to the technical contribution of Jules
Destréez. The interest of Triqueti’s marble tarsia as
an example of nineteenth-century revivalism and
technical virtuosity, and the paucity of executed
works, afford the Teffont Evias panel a special
position in the development of the process and, as
the first one actually used for wall decoration, it
deserves to be more widely known.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
for graciously allowing me to study and quote from
A FRENCH SCULPTOR IN WILTSHIRE: HENRI DE TRIQUETI AT TEFFONT EVIAS 43
material in the Royal Archives and for permission
to reproduce photographs of works of art in the
Royal Collection. I should like to thank Mrs. J.
Kelsey, Deputy Registrar at the Royal Archives, for
reading the manuscript and offering suggestions
and providing information. I am also grateful for
permission to quote from manuscript material held
by Library Services, University College London and
to the staff of the Strang Print Room and the Rare
Books and Manuscripts Department for their
assistance. I am indebted to Catherine Bernard,
Mrs. J.O. De Salis, Mr. Rodolph De Salis, Mrs.
Jean Elrington, Mr. David Foston, Professor
William Keatinge, and Mrs. M. McBain, all of
whom provided valuable information and advice
concerning the De Salis and Mayne families.
The Marmor Homericum photograph is
published courtesy of the Conway Library,
Courtauld Institute of Art; the Visitation
photograph with permission of the Victoria and
Albert Museum; the photograph of The Choir of
Angels panel and the church at Teffont Evias by
kind permission of Kirby Idris, Tisbury; and the
photograph of Boehm’s statuette of Emily Fane de
Salis is published courtesy of Professor W. Keatinge.
I am indebted to Sotheby’s Institute of Art for
generously funding the photographs for this article.
Notes
Documents in the Royal Archives are prefixed by the
letters RA and are quoted with the kind permission
of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
' Nikolaus Pevsner, revised by Bridget Cherry, The
Buildings of England Wiltshire (Harmondsworth:
Penguin Books, 1981), 518. Sgraffito, a decorative
technique used in a variety of materials, involves layers
of different colours being applied to a surface. The
design is scratched through the top layer to reveal
the colour underneath.
? Sylvain Bellenger, “Henri de Triqueti et Angleterre’,
A. Gonzales-Palacios (ed.) Antologia di Belle Arti,
La Scultura (Turin, 1996), II, 183-200 mentions the
Teffont Evias panel as ‘Probablement toujours en
place dans la chapelle de Teffont Manor’.
> For Triqueti see Bellenger ‘Henri de Triqueti’; Stanislas
Lami, Dictionnaire des Sculpteurs de I’Ecole frang¢ais,
XIX, (Paris, 1914-1921), IV, 318-324; Un age d’or
des arts décoratifs, 1814-1848, (Paris: Reunion des
musées nationaux, 1991); Henri de Triqueti 1804-
1874. Le prince gisant. Histoire et restauration du
gisant de Ferdinand d’Orléans (Montargis: Editions
du Musée Girodet, 1990).
4 The process is described in J. and M. Davison The
Triqueti Marbles in the Albert Memorial Chapel,
Windsor: a series of photographs executed by the
Misses Davison (London: Chapman & Hall, 1876),
> Charles Clement Artistes Anciens et Modernes (Paris,
1876), 324.
° Bellenger, “Henri de Triqueti’,190-1; M.H. Port (ed.)
The Houses of Parliament (New Haven and London:
Yale University Press, 1976), 268-81.
’ Leaflet describing the Marmor Homericum, 1865,
Library Services, University College London , Ms.
Add. 332, 94.
* This commission is discussed in Frangois Legrand ‘
Lechec des “tarsias” aux Invalides’, F. Hamon & C.
MacCallum (eds.) Louis Visconti 1791-1853 (Paris:
Delegation a l’action artistique de la ville de Paris,
1991), 181-183 and in Michael Paul Driskel As Befits
a Legend Building a Tomb for Napoleon 1840-1861
(Kent State University Press, 1993), 146, 150-153.
° Legrand, ‘L’echec des “tarsias” ’, 183. A surviving
drawing for the scheme is reproduced in Legrand,
181. As compensation, Triqueti was commissioned
for a marble figure of Christ on the Cross for the
main altar (Driskel, As Befits a Legend, 150-151).
The walls of the peristyle were subsequently decorated
with marble bas-reliefs after the designs of Pierre-
Charles Simart.
10 La Visitation [no.4916] and La Paix et la prosperité
publique [no. 4917]. Lami, Dictionnaire, 322. J. and
M. Davison, The Triqueti Marbles, ii states that
Triqueti was working on these panels in 1845.
'! The Art Journal, April 1862, 10. Henry Cole records
seeing Triqueti’s incised marbles on 3 March 1862,
and that they were in place in the exhibition building
on 12 June 1862. National Art Library, Henry Cole
Diaries.
' Bellenger, ‘Henri de Triqueti’, 186-90.
'5 Museum no. 8014-1862. Signed and dated 1847, the
panel measures 7 feet 2 inches high by 4 feet 11 inches
wide.
La Paix et la prosperité publique panel seems to
have remained in Triqueti’s possession until after his
death in 1874 when it was given to the Girodet
Museum at Montargis, probably by his daughter
Blanche Lee-Childe (Information kindly supplied by
the Museum). Signed and dated 1845, its dimensions
(H. 2.330m. by W. 1.440 m.), format and colours
correspond to La Visitation panel. It is illustrated in
Bellenger, ‘Henri de Triqueti’, 194, where it is referred
to as for Napoleon’s tomb.
‘4 11th Report of the Science and. Art Department
(London, 1864), 178.
'5 John Physick, The Victoria and Albert Museum The
History of its Building (London, 1983), pp.62-67.
'e The original museum description states the panel is ‘in
white and tinted marble, with black outlines on grey
ground’.
‘77. and M. Davison, The Triqueti Marbles, ii, suggested
44 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
that the grooves for the cement had to be wider at
the top than at the bottom, and that the edges needed
to be roughened in order for the material to remain
in position.
'8 These proposals are discussed in Victorian Church Art
(London : Victoria and Albert Museum, 1971), 86-
87 and Bellenger, ‘Henri de Triqueti’, 194-5.
'° For the Mayne family, see The Victoria History of the
Counties of England vol. XIII South-West Wiltshire:
Chalke and Dunworth Hundreds (Oxford University
Press, 1987: hereafter VCH XIII),189; Sir Richard
Colt Hoare, Bart. The Modern History of South
Wiltshire vol. [V (London: J.B.Nichols & J.G. Nichols,
1829), 112-113. On J.T. Mayne’s death in 1843, the
manor was held by his wife Sarah (1800-1871) until
1852 when it passed to Emily Harriette.
°0 Pevsner, Wiltshire, 518; VCH XIII, 193; Church
Guidebook (1998), 5-6.
7! Peter, Ist Count De Salis (1675-1749) and his
descendants were created Counts of the Holy Roman
Empire by the Emperor Francis I of Austria in 1748
in recognition of his services at the Treaty of Utrecht.
His only son and heir, Jerome (1709-1794) was
naturalised in 1730 and in 1735 married the Hon.
Mary Fane, eldest daughter of Ist Viscount Fane.
Their grandson, Jerome, 4th Count (1771-1836)
(William’s father) was granted the right to use the
surname of Fane and to bear the arms with the family
arms in 1835. Royal licence to bear the title Count in
England was granted in 1809. Rachel E.F. Fane De
Salis De Salis Family English Branch (Henley-on-
Thames: Higgs & Co.,1934); John P. De Salis The
De Salis Family in the British Commonwealth.
Geneological Tables and Short Notes on past and
present members (printed for private circulation,
1959).
*? Rachel De Salis, De Salis Family, 179-209. William
Fane De Salis published accounts of his travels:
Introductory Remarks to a residence in Australia, and
to Travels in China and India (c.1890) and
Reminiscences of Travel in China and India in 1848
(Waterlow & Sons, 1892).
> On Emily’s death in 1896, the estate passed first to her
sister Margaret Helen Mayne (1824-1905), and then
to the youngest sister Ellen Flora Mayne (1828-1907),
wife of Maurice Keatinge (1816-1896).
4 Rachel De Salis, De Salis Family, 261.
» Ibid; VCH XIII, 195; Lady K.L. Keatinge, Teffont and
the Mayne Family, unpublished typescript, 101.
°° Rachel De Salis, De Salis Family, 261.
7ON CEL XT; 186.
*S Salisbury Journal, 31 October 1863, 8. The guidebook
to the church records that the ‘badly deteriorated’
19th century stained glass was replaced between 1951
and 1960. Richard Kemm visited the church in 1868.
His interest was in memorials and inscriptions so,
whilst he noted the window and the brass plaque
underneath recording the circumstances of its
donation, he made no reference to Triqueti’s panel
which was in place by that date. Kemm Manuscript,
361, WAHNS Library. The brass plaque no longer
survives in the church.
*’ The scrapbook, in a private collection, contains
newspaper cuttings about Boehm but also the
sculptors Albert Bruce Joy and Harry Hems. Boehm’s
marble bust of William Fane de Salis was exhibited
at the Royal Academy in 1867 (no. 1056) but it was
sold in the 1940s, reputedly to a student who used it
as a practice block. (I am grateful to Mr. Rodolph de
Salis for this information).
*” The Art Journal, August 1859, 258. The Art Journal,
July 1860, 222 refers to this piece being exhibited
again in 1860, together with other works by Triqueti.
The De Salis Faun was bequeathed by Emily to the
British Museum in 1896 (Emily De Salis’s will, dated
1894, kindly provided by Mrs. Elrington) but has
not been traced (Bellenger , Henri de Triqueti’, 200
illustrated).
*! The exact date of the commission has not come to
light but, judging from other examples, this panel
would have taken about one year to complete and,
therefore, was probably commissioned sometime in
1862.
*> T am grateful to Mr. Rodolph De Salis for this
information.
33 See note 13.
*'The Building News, 31 July 1863, 590. The Salisbury
Journal, 31 October 1863, 8 states that the panel was
also shown at a meeting of the Fine Arts Society held
at the Marquis d’Azeglio’s in London where it
attracted considerable attention.
*® The Salisbury Journal, 31 October 1863, 8.
*° Ibid. This review was re-printed in The Builder, 31
October 1863, 771.
*7 A volume of designs for the Marmor Homericum,
compiled by Triqueti and presented by him to Grote
in 1871, is in Library Services, University College
London, Ms. Add. 332. The inside cover records that
the work was ‘commandé en novembre 1863’, but a
letter on p.2, dated 27 August 1863, records that
Triqueti and Grote had met that day in Basle to
discuss the project ‘apres nos premiéres ouvertures
de Londres’, suggesting that the idea was mooted
earlier.
The exhibition of the Teffont Evias panel was
probably one of many factors leading to this
commission. George Grote possibly saw Triqueti’s
work at the 1862 International Exhibition or his wife
may have suggested the commission. In 1860 Mrs.
Grote had published a biography of the painter Ary
Scheffer (who had been responsible for the overall
design of the cenotaph of the duc d’Orléans executed
by Triqueti in 1842-3) in which she referred to
Triqueti as ‘a genuine artist and sculptor’. Mrs. Grote
Memorr of the Life of Ary Scheffer (1860), p.67.
** A commemorative volume of photographs was
A FRENCH SCULPTOR IN WILTSHIRE: HENRI DE TRIQUETI AT TEFFONT EVIAS 45
published by S. Thompson, with text by P. Stanhope-
Worsley entitled Marmor Homericum designed and
executed by Henry de Triqueti (London: Day & Son,
1866).
>? The smaller tarsia panels represent : Minerva restraining
Achilles; The Departure of Odysseus from Calypso;
Priam asking Achilles for the body of Hector; and
Odysseus attacking the suitors of Penelope. The
allegorical figure on the left, from The Iliad, suspends
the shield of Minerva at the feet of Victory; the figure
on the right, from The Odyssey, is shown clinging to
a column after being shipwrecked with a statue of
Neptune above.
#0 See Elisabeth Darby & Nicola Smith The Cult of the
Prince Consort (New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 1983) chapters 1 and 2.
4! An account of the Albert Memorial Chapel is given in
Darby & Smith, The Cult of the Prince Consort, 30-
40. See also Philip Ward-Jackson ‘The French
Background of Royal Monuments at Windsor and
Frogmore’ Journal of the Church Monuments Society
vol. VII, 1993, 63-83.
# Darby & Smith, The Cult of the Prince Consort, 32.
® Philip Ward-Jackson, ‘The French Background’, 67.
4 Philip Ward-Jackson, “The French Background’, 70.
Triqueti was to describe Prince Albert as ‘the greatest
& best man he had ever known’ , RA VIC/R40/75.
§. Bellenger, ‘Henri de Triqueti’, 183-4.
4° Glass mosaic by Antonio Salviati was used instead for
the ceiling decoration. Darby & Smith, The Cult of
the Prince Consort, 32.
47 RA PP /Windsor /526; RA VIC/R40/31,43,44.
48 RA PP/VIC/Add/2145 Mrs Fane De Salis to Sir
Thomas Biddulph 19 October 1864.
® Darby & Smith, The Cult of the Prince Consort, 110,
note 85. Susan Durant, while working on the Albert
Memorial Chapel, arranged with Mrs Fane De Salis
to view her master’s work at Teffont, possibly in 1866
RA VIC/Add X 2/85. (I am grateful to Mrs. Kelsey,
Deputy Registrar at the Royal Archives for this
reference).
>»? RA VIC/R40/43, 44; J. and M. Davison, The Triqueti
Marbles.
>! RA PP/ Windsor/ 655.
°? RA PP/ Windsor/ 740; RA PP /Windsor/ 790D.
3 RA VIC/Add X/2 212/D.
** In addition to the tarsia panels and the cenotaph to
Prince Albert, Triqueti also executed the marble
benches under the panels, the reredos at the east end
of the chapel, and the figures representing the Angel
of Death and the Angel of the Resurrection for either
side of the west door : the latter two sculptures were
incomplete at the time of his death.
» RA VIC/R40/75.
°° J. & M. Davison, The Triqueti Marbles, iii.
>’ The Art Journal, 1874, 368.
*’ S. Bellenger, Henri de Triqueti’, 196 illustrates a
drawing for the memorial.
°° The Salisbury Journal, 31 October 1863, 8.
® Ibid. ; The Daily Telegraph, 31 January 1870; Wiltshire
Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, vol.
XI, 1872, 102. The latter commentator was writing
in relation to the Church of St. Mary and St. Nicholas,
Wilton by T. H. Wyatt (1841-5), and expressed the
hope that ‘now that Triqueti.....and others have made
the acquisition of this ornamental completion of
ceilings and walls both easy and inexpensive, it does
seem a matter of regret that some true lover or lovers
of the beauty of holiness should not take in hand the
introduction of mosaic into at least the central apse
of the church. ..’. In the early 20th century, the original
painted decoration was replaced by mosaic executed
by Gertrude Martin to the designs of Sir Charles
Nicholson, first in the central apse and later in the
south apse. Royal Commission on the Historical
Monuments of England. Churches of South-East
Wiltshire (London : HMSO, 1987) 215, 217; Pevsner,
Wiltshire, 578.
46 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Fig. 1. Maud Cunnington
Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 46-62
“That Terrible Woman’: the Life, Work and
Legacy of Maud Cunnington
by Julia Roberts
This paper is an attempt to reassess the life, work, and legacy of the Wiltshire archaeologist Maud Edith
Cunnington (1869-1951). It is argued that Mrs Cunnington’s work has been dismissed for reasons to do
with her personality rather than any inherent faults in her archaeological judgement. By discussing how
archaeologists are remembered, the constraints middle class women faced at the end of the 19th and
beginning of the 20th century, as well as investigating the developing discipline of archaeology, it 1s hoped
that a clearer picture of Mrs Cunnington’s achievements can be reached.
INTRODUCTION
As one of the most important members of the
Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History
Society in the first half of the 20th century, Maud
Cunnington presents an interesting study for a
variety of reasons. She was a well known and
respected figure in archaeological circles at a time
when few women were involved in archaeology and
when British social expectations were that women
would be if not invisible, then certainly in the
background.
Maud Cunnington came from a comfortable
middle-class environment, and married into an
equally sheltered existence (Figure 1). After her
marriage, Maud Cunnington could have retired into
this life, taking a leading role in small town society,
yet she chose instead to turn her attention to
archaeology. Her nephew, Colonel R.H.
Cunnington believed this was due to her desire to
be involved with the interests of her husband and
son (R.H. Cunnington 1954, 288), a reading of
women’s roles which permeates so much of 19th
‘and early 20th century writing:
....a man ought to know any language or science he
learns thoroughly: while a woman ought to know the
same language and science only so far as may enable
her to sympathise in her husband’s pleasure. (Ruskin
1865)
However, a desire to be a helpmeet to her
husband hardly serves as sufficient explanation of
how Maud Cunnington progressed from being the
follower in Ben Cunnington’s footsteps to the leader
in their archaeological ventures. Nor does it do
justice to the energy and enthusiasm with which
Maud Cunnington approached her self-appointed
task, or the public spirited nature of her work. She
published on a wide variety of subjects ranging
through all archaeological periods from Neolithic
to medieval and became a recognised pottery
expert. Mrs Cunnington not only excavated
prestigious sites such as All Cannings Cross,
Woodhenge and the Sanctuary, but also the less
well known sites of Lidbury, Morgan’s Hill, and
Lanhill, as well as conducting rescue excavations
at, for example, Netheravon and Battlesbury. One
might question Maud Cunnington’s techniques of
excavation, or her interpretation of sites (and this
paper seeks to demonstrate that she has been overly
criticised for these), but one cannot question her
commitment to bringing archaeology to as wide an
audience as possible.
SCARAB Research Centre, U.W.C.N., Caerleon Campus, P.O. Box 179, Newport, NP18 3YG
48 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Yet despite these undoubted achievements
Maud Cunnington is now a forgotten figure outside
Wiltshire, and even within Wiltshire her
contribution to archaeology has perhaps been
undervalued. This paper is intended to reassess her
contribution to Wiltshire archaeology and also to
demonstrate how personal reactions, as much as
archaeological criticisms, colour the way we
interpret the work of past practitioners.
The problem with the criticisms of Maud
Cunnington is that so few appear in print; Wheeler’s
mild comments on An Introduction to the
Archaeology of Wiltshire (Cunnington 1933a) were
the only ones made during her lifetime (see below).
It is for this reason that emphasis has been placed
on the censures voiced by Pitts (2000). Nowhere
else is there a published critique of Maud
Cunnington’s work and techniques; everything else
is ephemeral, based on hearsay and received
opinion. People who never met Maud Cunnington
react in horrer to her name. While those that did
know her, for example Peggy Guido and Stuart
Piggott, described her as ‘terrible’ or ‘horrible’,
when pressed as to how this awfulness manifested
itself very little information was forthcoming. One
would expect such a dreadful reputation to stem
from an incident or series of incidents and yet Stuart
Piggott merely recalled her ‘icy blue eyes and icy
blue voice’ (pers. comm.). Alexander Keiller’s
personal and professional animosity recorded in his
correspondence is referred to by Murray (1999,
108, 121) and Pitts (2000, 45), but neither of these
authors refer to the complimentary letters that
Keiller sent to Mrs Cunnington praising her work
and erudition (e.g. Alexander Keiller Museum ref.
8805128), which ensures that only one side of the
story is heard.
The main difficulty is that Maud Cunnington
has no voice of her own. There is no personal archive
like that of Keiller to consult. Cunnington’s voice
comes from her obituaries and the memoirs of her
family, but it is such a quiet voice, one that barely
reflects her and only really reflects her work. She
has, in effect, been silenced. While this paper cannot
give her back her voice, it is an attempt to provide a
broader picture of her life and work.
This paper is not intended as an exhaustive
account of Maud Cunnington’s work, partly
because of the sheer volume of her work (Appendix
2). Rather than approaching this subject from an
archaeological standpoint, here an attempt is made
to assess her life in more general historical terms.
Because the criticisms of Cunnington have focussed
on her excavation techniques, this paper
concentrates on her excavation reports rather than
her syntheses such as ‘Romano-British Wiltshire’
(Cunnington 1930b). The archaeology of the sites
in question has been examined only where it
contributes to the more general argument.
Therefore Manton Barrow is discussed as the first
excavation with which she was involved; Oliver’s
Camp because of the development of her style and
the inclusion of an explicit research strategy; All
Cannings Cross, the excavation which brought her
the most renown; and Woodhenge because of the
criticism it has subsequently received.
LIFE
Maud Cunnington was born in 1869. She was one
of seven children, the youngest daughter of Dr
Charles Pegge and Catherine Leach, and the grand-
daughter of R.V. Leach, the owner of Devizes
Castle. She was educated at Cheltenham Ladies
College, one of the few schools at the time to offer
an academic education for girls (Vicinus 1985, 169).
We are told by Cunnington family memoirs (R.H.
Cunnington 1954; E. Cunnington n.d.) that Maud
became interested in archaeology only through her
husband and son who were following in the family
antiquarian tradition which had begun with Colt
Hoare’s collaborator William Cunnington, and had
continued through following generations. From the
inception of the WANHS in 1853 there was rarely,
if ever, a time when the committee was without a
Cunnington representative. In 1887 Ben
Cunnington’s father Henry had died and Ben had
taken over the running not only of the family
business but also the role of honorary curator of
the Wiltshire Society’s museum in Devizes. Yet this
does not really explain why Maud Cunnington
became an archaeologist. Her own family seems to
have had a strong interest in history. Her sister Elsie
was an historian and married Jack Allen, the
Professor of History at Bedford College, while her
brother Ernest was an expert on the Vikings and
Viking Sagas. Maud Cunnington herself had
originally been interested in church architecture
(R.H. Cunnington. 1954, 228), but how this
translated into more secular concerns is not
addressed by her obituarists or biographers.
Following their marriage in 1889 Ben and Maud
Cunnington forged an archaeological partnership
that dominated Wiltshire for fifty years. Not only
did Maud become involved in Ben’s curatorial work,
“THAT TERRIBLE WOMAN’: THE LIFE, WORK AND LEGACY OF MAUD CUNNINGTON 49
in 1907 the Cunningtons began a series of
excavations that were to define local prehistoric
archaeology and give valuable assistance to the
interpretation of the Neolithic and Iron Age in
Britain. These excavations included work at Manton
Barrow, Oliver’s Camp, Knap Hill, All Cannings
Cross, Woodhenge, the Sanctuary and Yarnbury.
Aside from the excavation reports Maud
Cunnington wrote more general articles in
WANHM, Antiquity, the Archaeological Journal
and Archaeologia Cambrensis. She also published
several books, such as The Pottery from the Long
Barrow at West Kennet, Wilts. (1927a) and An
Introduction to the Archaeology of Wiltshire
(1933a). This substantial body of work led to her
being recognised as one of the foremost
archaeologists of her day (Wheeler 1923, 150), and
resulted in her election to Vice-President and then
President of the WANHS. She was awarded a CBE
in 1948, and in 1931 was elected as an honorary
fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
This was an exceptional honour. Maud Cunnington
was only the second woman to be elected and she
was in extremely illustrious company, other
honorary fellows including Montellius, Petrie, John
Evans, and |’Abbé Breuil.
Of Maud Cunnington’s life outside archaeology
we know very little. In 1890 Edward, Ben and
Maud?’s only child, was born. He was killed in action
in 1917. Ben Cunnington died in 1950 followed by
Maud, after a long illness, in 1951. Part of the reason
for this lacuna is that the memoirs of the
Cunnington family have been written by
Cunningtons more interested in documenting the
archaeological achievements of the family rather
than a general view of their lives (R.H. Cunnington
1954; E. Cunnington n.d.). It can also be suggested
that this lack of information stems from women’s
lives having been traditionally seen as unimportant.
None of the information that we have for Maud’s
life mentions anything other than her work or
motherhood. A prime example of this gap can be
seen in the way we are told that during the First
World War Ben was sent to France as a Provost
Marshall, Edward volunteered as a military doctor,
yet Maud went to London and did unspecified ‘war
work’ (Anon 1917, 152, 474). We have no
“information about her private thoughts, how she
felt about her son’s death, or why her archaeological
work intensified through the 1910s and ’20s. We
only have the personal reminiscences of a later
generation and a substantial body of archaeological
work to draw upon. Maud Cunnington dominated
the Wiltshire Society at a time when there were few
women members or contributors to the magazine.
Although she was not the first woman to publish
an article in WANHM, no other woman before or
since has been so prolific.
That she achieved so much is particularly
surprising when we consider that she lived and
worked at a time when women had little legal status
and were debarred from many forms of
employment. When Maud Cunnington was born
women had few rights. They could legally be
incarcerated against their will or beaten by their
husbands or fathers. Women were not allowed to
vote, or to attend university. If married they could
not own property, if divorced they could not retain
custody of their children. Throughout Maud’s life
there were incremental gains in the status of women
in this country, but it was a long and slow process
to combat the entrenched attitudes of British
society. Archaeology was not immune from these
attitudes; although the county societies, including
Wiltshire, accepted women members, the criteria
for their election were not always the same as for
men.' However, the national antiquarian societies
prohibited women from becoming fellows and,
although papers by women might be published in
their proceedings, they were not allowed to address
the meetings. It was not until 1920 that the Society
of Antiquaries of London submitted to the Sex
Disqualification (Removal) Act, and finally
admitted women fellows.’ Although these points
may seem irrelevant to a discussion of the work of
Maud Cunnington, it cannot be over-emphasised
that she worked in a predominantly male world and
while women may have been tolerated, they were
not always welcomed; an attitude of which Maud
Cunnington seems to have been aware (see below).
WORK
Before discussing how Maud’s work was viewed by
her contemporaries and later archaeologists, some
description of that work is needed. Although
interested in all aspects of archaeology the
Cunningtons only excavated in Wiltshire. Their
partnership was so closely melded that in her
obituary the writer stated:
To disentangle Mrs Cunnington’s contribution from
that of her husband’s would be a difficult and, indeed,
a thankless task; their work was too closely associated
for either’s part alone to present an intelligible picture.
(Anon 1952, 104)
50 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
But we are given some indication of how they
divided their labours. In Ben Cunnington’s obituary
we are told:
His was not, perhaps, the mind that leapt first to
the meaning of the evidence exposed, nor his the
hand that drew the plans or built the sherds into
cups and pots before the winter fire. But his was the
hand that welcomed you to the garden room in Long
Street, or to the tent pitched in the summertime
beside a remote earthwork in the downs, and his
was the voice that greeted you so cheerily. (Anon
1950, 499-500)
R.H. Cunnington gave a fuller picture of their
partnership during the late 1920s:
At that time their respective roles were well defined.
He would engage the diggers, never more than half a
dozen, and organise the work to economise labour as
much as possible but without scamping it... ... {he]
would usually act as a pioneer, with one of the men
opening up the ground for subsequent excavation...
...Maud’s part was to decide what should be dug,
and in what order, and to exercise general
supervision... ... Neither actually dug unless to take
out some ticklish object needing special care...
...When anything of special importance appeared,
W.E.V. Young, the foreman digger.. ... who was very
skilful and experienced, was called upon to take over
with the trowel. (R.H. Cunnington 1954, 229-30; and
see also Cunnington 1908a, 2)
After excavation Maud was again firmly in
charge. She studied the pottery and other finds,
drew up the records and wrote the excavation
report. It is strange that it was Maud not Ben who
wrote the reports, given that Ben had worked as a
journalist with the Central News Agency, and
continued to write on historical topics. R.H.
Cunnington suggested that Ben’s forte was as a
raconteur rather than as a writer, although he did
scrutinise the reports:
...but only to correct the style, not the matter: his
admiration for her and her work was too deep to ever
call that in question (1954, 230)
This was an admiration that R.H. Cunnington
obviously did not share, since although he praised
the completeness of Maud’s excavation reports he
stated that she ‘had no gift for writing’ (1954, 230).
This judgement seems overly harsh and does little
justice to the swiftness with which her writing style
and archaeological knowledge developed.
Manton Barrow and All Cannings
Cross
Manton Barrow, an Early Bronze Age burial mound
excavated in 1906, was the first report that Maud
Cunnington wrote. This report (Cunnington 1908a
and b) covered the main points of the excavation:
the size of the trenches; the location of finds; a
description of the interment; notes from specialists;
and detailed descriptions of the grave goods.
However, there were no plans or sections, or
informative photographs of the trenches. The
interpretation was minimal and the writing style
was flowery and verbose:
..there are the flint tools of mysterious palaeolithic
men from the gravels of Savernake Forest, the
stupendous and no less mysterious Avebury temple
and Silbury Hill, the cromlechs and the barrows -
derelicts stranded from the unfathomed depths of
time. It is the human element in these relics of the
past that make them of surpassing interest - even of
fascination to us; they are the labours of human hands,
the creation of human brains, the embodiment of the
ideas and of the aspirations, the hopes and the fears
of men and women like and yet unlike ourselves - our
predecessors in the land, if not actually our ancestors.
(Cunnington 1908b, 1-2)
In Maud Cunnington’s defence, this was her
first report and all its faults are those common to
excavation reports in county journals of the time.
It would seem that she herself was dissatisfied with
her presentation of the evidence. Her next report,
on the [ron Age site of Oliver’s Camp, was published
in the same volume of WANHM (Cunnington
1908c) and the style had changed dramatically.
Rather than evoking the shades of the Bronze Age
folk, Maud Cunnington presented a history of
antiquarian interest and conjecture about the site,
before turning to the work of Pitt-Rivers for
guidance (1908c, 416-7). Ken Annable suggested
that these references to Pitt-Rivers are the key to
the change in her style. She had met Pitt-Rivers
during his excavations at the Wansdyke some years
earlier (R.H. Cunnington 1954, 229), but Ken
Annable feels that between the Manton Barrow and
Oliver’s Camp excavations, Maud Cunnington had
read Excavations in Cranborne Chase and realised
that her own style was too romantic and
insufficiently scientific (pers. comm.). Certainly, in
the Oliver’s Camp report she included plans and
sections (Figures 2 and 3) and, unusually for
‘THAT TERRIBLE WOMAN’: THE LIFE, WORK AND LEGACY OF MAUD CUNNINGTON
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Rea
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E
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5
2 fad it Ca % Faces ly Bain uate wet ten
Fig. 7. Section C, through Rampart and Ditch.
A, Undisturbed Chalk.
Kh. surf
B. Chalk forming Kampart.
D. Ancient Turf lines,
G,. Filling-in.
ace soil.
~} ‘
», _ Silt.
Fig. 3. Oliver’s Camp: section through rampart and ditch (after Cunnington 1908c)
52 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
archaeology at this period, detailed contextual
information. More interpretation was included,
such as this succinct discussion of the rampart
stratigraphy:
It is scarcely possible that a rampart can be older
than the remains which are contained in it, in such
positions as these, and if this pottery is more recent
than the Bronze Age the rampart must be also.
(1908c, 419)
Nor was Maud’s new found expertise restricted
to excavation and publication techniques. She also
expressed awareness of more general archaeological
problems:
The exploration of earthworks has been neglected in
the past far more than their intrinsic interest has
deserved. Some of the reasons for this neglect are
obvious enough. The chances are, that, from the relic
hunters point of view, the results will be disappointing;
ramparts are apt to be unproductive, and searching
for scanty fragments in the silt of the ditches is often
dull work, and much time and labour may be
expended without any very tangible results. It is so
much quicker and simpler to explore a barrow, that
it is little wonder that our knowledge of barrows is
comparatively ample while of earthworks it is still so
meagre. As the contents of many barrows had to be
recorded before much light was thrown upon their
history, so the examination of many earthworks is
needed to help interpret the history of one. (1908c,
419)
After Manton Barrow the Cunningtons
focussed their interest primarily on non-funerary
sites, which in the light of this statement must have
been a research strategy chosen for the good of
Wiltshire archaeology.
Further seasons of excavation followed,
including Knap Hill in 1908 (Cunnington 1911),
which was arguably the first causewayed enclosure
to be recognised in this country (Anon 1952, 105;
Oswald et al. 2001, 12-13). But it was the excavation
of the Iron Age site at All Cannings Cross which
made Maud Cunnington’s name as an archaeologist
outside the confines of Wiltshire. The publication
of this site was hailed as ‘one of the finest
publications in recent years’ (Kendrick and Hawkes
1932, 160). The irony is that the Cunningtons began
their excavations unaware of the site’s importance
(Cunnington 1923b, 13) and the amount of work
needed to do it justice. However, having started,
the Cunningtons continued until — at least by the
standards of the time — the excavations were
complete. This dedication is particularly admirable
when one considers that, as ever, their excavations
were self funded, and that their time at All Cannings
Cross was interrupted not only by the First World
War but also Edward’s death in 1917.
All Cannings Cross became a reference point
for many later studies of the British Iron Age.
Furthermore, the report shows Maud Cunnington
gaining confidence in her archaeological abilities
and developing her own ideas on prehistory, ideas
which would affect her interpretation of other sites,
and in particular Woodhenge. At the end of the All
Cannings Cross report is a section entitled “The
sequence of types of pre-Roman pottery in
Wiltshire’ in which she argued for a more fluid
pottery sequence, and therefore chronology, than
previously accepted. Maud’s suggestion was that
because known Bronze Age pottery was
predominantly from funerary contexts, whereas
Iron Age pottery was predominantly from domestic
contexts, there could be a chronological overlap
between the two styles (Cunnington 1923b, 194-
5).> While this assertion is patently flawed, in the
context of the 1920s and early ’30s, with so little
known about typological sequences, the suggestion
of contemporaneity of pottery styles had plausibility.
Woodhenge
Woodhenge is an enclosed multiple timber circle
close to the large henge at Durrington Walls. The
site was originally believed to be a disc barrow but
aerial photographs by Squadron Leader Insall in
1925 revealed concentric rings within the earthwork
(Wainwright and Longworth 1971, 207). The site
was excavated between 1926 and 1928, and the
work was reported with typical Cunnington
thoroughness (1929), but Maud’s interpretation of
the monument proved extremely controversial. Her
assertion, on the basis of the work at Woodhenge,
that Stonehenge was a single phase monument of
Iron Age date was immediately disputed
(Engleheart 1930, 142-3). It is this assertion which
has been remembered and ridiculed’ and is,
arguably, partly responsible for her diminished
reputation. However, if we study her argument in
detail, and without the benefit of hindsight, it does
demonstrate a certain logic, even if it equally
demonstrates inconsistencies. AtWoodhenge Maud
Cunnington uncovered a timber monument of
concentric circles. In the absence of similar wooden
sites, she turned to Stonehenge for comparisons
(Figure 4). This was an obvious choice, given
“THAT TERRIBLE WOMAN’: THE LIFE, WORK AND LEGACY OF MAUD CUNNINGTON 53
Fig. 4. Woodhenge and Stonehenge compared (after
Cunnington 1929)
Hawley’s recent excavations at the site, and W.M.F.
Petrie’s statement that ‘Stonehenge by its tenons
and mortices is an evident imitation of wooden
architecture’ (Petrie 1882, cited in Cunnington
1929, 20).
Maud believed that at Woodhenge she had
found the prototype for Stonehenge, a belief O.G.S.
Crawford endorsed (Anon 1934, 533). Her
argument rested on the basis that the timber and
stone elements of the two monuments were laid
out on a very similar plan, the outer ring at
Woodhenge being approximately half the size of that
at of the Aubrey Holes at Stonehenge, for example.
But for the Woodhenge as prototype theory to work
both monuments had to be single phase
constructions and this argument depends on
ignoring the variety of dates suggested by the
prehistoric material at Stonehenge. Maud
Cunnington then compounded this error by her
misdating of Woodhenge, and therefore by exten-
sion Stonehenge. This error is excusable since it
was based on the misdating of Grooved Ware
pottery, which was not identified as Neolithic until
1936 (Warren et al 1936, 197). Maud originally
believed that the pottery she had recovered from
Woodhenge was late Bronze Age, because of the
absence of the impressed cord ornamentation
characteristic of early Bronze Age ceramics
(Cunnington 1929, 26). The recovery of Beaker
pottery in the ditch, and the mistaken identification
of Grooved Ware under the bank as Collared Urn,
suggested an earlier date, but having decided that
funerary pottery styles were conservative, Maud
Cunnington would only concede a middle Bronze
Age date for the site at the earliest.’
Having dealt with the problem of the date of
Woodhenge, Maud then turned to Stonehenge. On
the basis that it must be later than its prototype
and with supposedly Iron Age pottery recovered
from the Y and Z holes, she suggested an Iron Age
date (Cunnington 1930a, 112). It was at this point
that her argument completely foundered. Although
she was not alone in suggesting Stonehenge was a
single phase monument (R.H. Cunnington 1935),
or indeed in debating the date of its construction,
her conclusions relied, as Engleheart pointed out,
on ‘laboured special pleading’ (1930, 143). Even
without hindsight, on the evidence that had been
recovered by the 1930s, her argument was flawed.
Because she wanted Woodhenge to be a model for
Stonehenge every possible shred of evidence was
used to prove this and anything which contradicted
her argument was ignored or distorted.°
There was, as mentioned above, instant
objection to this conclusion, although Engleheart
was the most outspoken in print. Kendrick and
Hawkes, who elsewhere were extremely
complimentary of Maud Cunnington’s work,
pointed out;
It is obviously difficult to account for the discovery
of Beaker pottery at Stonehenge if we are to believe
that it is a ‘one period structure’ erected some
considerable period after Woodhenge (1932, 94)
Regardless of this disagreement, Maud
Cunnington continued to believe and publicise her
own theory. The excavations at the Sanctuary
(Cunnington 1931) were used to reinforce the view
that wooden monuments were generally succeeded
by stone ones. Although she recognised the multi-
phased nature of the Sanctuary, this did not lead
her to believe in a multi-phase Stonehenge. Even
the recognition of Grooved Ware as Neolithic and
therefore Woodhenge as a Neolithic monument, did
not result in any reassessment of her ideas. In the
1938 edition of the Introduction to the Archaeology
of Wiltshire she still maintained Woodhenge was
Bronze Age, although now she conceded early
Bronze Age (1938, 62-5), and that Stonehenge was
a single phase monument of Iron Age date (1938,
52)
It should however be stressed that it is only with
hindsight that we can categorically state that Maud
54 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Cunnington was wrong in her opinions.
Archaeologists in the 1920s and 30s could argue
with her conclusions, but with prehistory as a
subject in its infancy, even after the Stonehenge
excavations, they could not conclusively prove her
wrong. The Cunningtons continued to excavate and
Maud continued to be considered an authority in
the archaeological world: she gave a paper at the
International Congress on Prehistoric and
Protohistoric Sciences in 1932 (Grinsell 1989, 52);
was the president of the WANHS in 1933; and was
made an honorary fellow of the Society of
Antiquaries of Scotland in 1931. She published
excavation reports on the Sanctuary (Cunnington
1931) and Yarnbury (Cunnington 1933b), she
argued Belgic invasions with Hawkes and Dunning
in the Antquartes Journal (Cunnington 1932a), and
in 1933 her synthesis of Wiltshire archaeology was
received with acclaim:
This book has long been needed, and none other than
Mrs Cunnington could so fittingly have written it.
(Wheeler 1934, 203)
Although Wheeler noted omissions, such as
reference to the work E.T. Leeds had undertaken
on the Anglo-Saxons, and errors such as her
adherence to the old Abercromby classification of
Beakers, he concluded:
A last word on the book, however must be one of
appreciation for a manual which is a tribute alike
to the archaeological wealth of the county and to
the ability of its antiquaries, amongst whom the
author herself holds a high place. (Wheeler 1943,
204)
Despite Mortimer Wheeler’s praise, An
Introduction to the Archaeology of Wiltshire was
the last substantial work Maud produced. By the
time of its publication she was 64 and her
indefatigable energy was running out. Yarnbury in
1932 was to be the last excavation of the
Cunnington partnership. While Ben continued
publishing historical articles, Maud’s contribution
diminished drastically (Appendix 2). Although a
revised edition of the Introduction was printed in
1938 (with a fourth edition in 1948), and she was
awarded a CBE in 1948 for her services to
archaeology, she became an increasingly forgotten
figure in the years before her death, and fifty years
later her name evokes little recognition outside
Wiltshire.
In part this marginalisation was inevitable. In
the 1920s Maud Cunnington had followed and
contributed to archaeological thought, discussing
migration, diffusion, race, and trade. She relied
upon new techniques such as aerial photography,
for example at Woodhenge. Her excavations had
helped define Neolithic and Iron Age studies, and
she had become a pottery expert consulted by other
archaeologists (e.g. Curwen and Curwen 1927, 29).
In the 1920s Wheeler had referred to her as a
revolutionary when it came to the dating of Iron
Age ‘camps’ (1923, 151), but the developments of
the 1930s and ‘40s largely passed unnoticed in her
work. Ill health led to her retiring from active
archaeology; by the late 1940s she was bed-ridden
and had lost her memory (Anon 1952, 104). New
techniques of excavation were developed by Wheeler
and Bersu, archaeology became increasingly
specialised, with workers concentrating on specific
periods, such as Piggott’s (1931) and Daniel’s
(1941) work on the Neolithic, and Hawkes (1931)
and the Wheelers’ (1936) work on the Iron Age.
The days of the county amateur were over, and the
new, increasingly professional age of archaeology
had begun.
LEGACY
It could be suggested that Maud’s achievement has
been overshadowed by more than just the changing
nature of archaeology. Whilst she has been forgotten
outside Wiltshire her name reverberates in certain
quarters of the county. Comparisons to Alexander
Keiller are inevitable, and it is arguable that his
attitude to Maud Cunnington has overshadowed
her achievements. Keiller’s dislike of her is well-
known. In a letter that Keiller sent to W.E.V. Young,
while Young was the Cunningtons’ foreman at the
Sanctuary, he wrote of her as ‘a very unpleasant
old woman’ (Keiller, quoted in Pitts 2000, 45). In
fact Keiller often went further:
Oh dear, oh, dear Young. Isn’t it sad! I wish that you
and I had lived twenty-five years hence, or that Gray
and Mrs Cunnington had expired a quarter of a
century ago. (Keiller to Young 1930)’
Keiller seems to have felt the Cunningtons’
excavation and recording techniques were
impossibly lax and that he should have been in
charge of the Sanctuary excavations, a view which
Pitts appears to share (Pitts 2000, 45). It is true
that Keiller was undoubtedly the better excavator,
but that does not mean he conducted excavations
‘THAT TERRIBLE WOMAN’: THE LIFE, WORK AND LEGACY OF MAUD CUNNINGTON 55
to modern standards, nor does it mean that Maud
Cunnington’s work was hopelessly flawed. Keiller
opened larger areas than the Cunningtons, insisted
on straight sections and three-dimensional
recording. Keiller kept drawn and photographic
records, but although these techniques may look
very modern he dug and recorded in arbitrary spits
rather than following layers.
It was not just techniques of excavation that
differed between the two camps; the whole ethos
of what they were doing and why could not have
been more divergent. The only common factor in
the archaeology practised by the Cunningtons and
Keiller was their ability to purchase the sites they
excavated and to pay for the publication of their
site reports. But the difference of scale makes this
similarity largely meaningless. The Cunningtons
purchased Woodhenge and the Sanctuary, as well
as paying for their own excavations and taking part
in raising funds for the public ownership of the land
around Stonehenge; while Keiller’s immense
fortune was directed towards the excavation and
purchase of Windmill Hill and Avebury. Although
these two sites could be classed as more important
than the Cunningtons’ excavations, and there is
little doubt that Keiller was the better excavator,
his perfectionism was his downfall (Murray 1999,
58). Despite Keiller’s good intentions to produce
large-scale, lavishly illustrated final reports for
Windmill Hill and Avebury this failed to happen in
his lifetime (Smith 1965), somewhat negating his
insistence on modern ‘scientific’ excavation
practices. The Cunningtons’ techniques and modes
of reporting might have appeared amateur
compared with Keiller’s but their excavations were
always rapidly published.
In fact, Maud Cunnington seems to have been
very strongly committed to public awareness of
archaeology. This theme runs through all of her
work: many of her excavations were on low-key sites,
practising what can be seen as an early form of
rescue excavation, such as the pits in Battlesbury
Camp (Cunnington 1922b, 378-9), or the salvage
of the Saxon burial at RAF Netheravon
(Cunnington 1939a, 469-70). Maud also recorded
stray finds by workmen, like the Bronze Age urn
found near Marlborough (Cunnington 1922b,
378), and the skeletons uncovered near Warminster
(Cunnington 1939b, 468-9), as well as writing-up
other people’s discoveries for WANHM
(Cunnington 1927b, 490-1; 1937a, 265) and
submitting endless notes on every conceivable
archaeological subject from church wall paintings
(Cunnington 1937c, 420-1) to the ‘Horns of Urus
said to have been found in a barrow at Cherhill’
(Cunnington 1937b, 583-6). She was also involved
in bringing sites to the attention of the Ancient
Monuments Commission so that they could be
scheduled (Anon 1927, 445; 1929, 476).
The sites excavated by the Cunningtons were
open to visitors, and Maud was prepared to give
public lectures as well as publishing her work, even
though her shyness made such practices an uneasy
and uncomfortable experience (R.H. Cunnington
1954, 229; Anon 1952, 105). Nor were her
publications limited to strictly archaeological
forums: her Presidential speech for WANHS was
published in The Wiltshire Gazette (1932b), as was
her paper on ‘Some Norman Castle Sites in
Wiltshire’ (1926). Although a great deal of Maud
Cunnington’s energies were devoted to excavation
and publication she still found the time to write on
more general archaeological topics. In 1922 she and
Ben Cunnington wrote A Short Outline Guide to
the Archaeological Periods as Illustrated by the
Exhibits in the Museum, Devizes, which was
primarily aimed at children, the Guide to Avebury
(1931) catered for an adult audience, and the
popularity of An Introduction to the Archaeology
of Wiltshire was demonstrated by it running through
four editions during the 1930s and ‘40s.
There was also the museum work that the
Cunningtons undertook. Ben Cunnington took
over as the honorary curator of Devizes Museum
in 1887, and presumably soon after their marriage
Maud became involved. How they divided this work
between them is not recorded. It is, as ever, she
who is held responsible for all that was bad about
their fifty year tenure:
Her techniques were primitive, she mended pots with
sealing wax and concrete® ... the museum was like a
mausoleum, the Colt Hoare collection was in
crenellated cases full of dead flies ... there was stuff
in cigarette boxes, it was terrible. (Ken Annable pers.
comm.).
Yet even in this damning critique Ken Annable
pointed out that Maud Cunnington’s prolific work
opened up Wiltshire, and with her emphasis on
obtaining artefacts for the museum whenever
possible she was making the information available
to all who were interested. Her presentation of a
series of sherds from All Cannings Cross to other
museums can be seen as another way in which she
was actively seeking to extend knowledge of early
Iron Age archaeology to a wide audience of
56 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
researchers and curators (Paul Robinson pers.
comm.). Keiller may have had more awareness of
modern archaeological techniques and the necessity
to keep substantial records for future reference, but
Maud Cunnington seems to have paid more
attention to the immediate need to keep the public
informed. This commitment continued after her
death with her bequest of £16,000 to the Wiltshire
Society, and her expressed wish that the interest
on this sum would be used towards employing a
professional curator for the museum (Anon 1952,
220).
Differing styles of approach caused tension
between Keiller and the Cunningtons, but there
were other sources of irritation. The Cunningtons
were a formidable force in Wiltshire archaeology,
and it cannot have helped relationships between
the two camps that when Keiller decided to excavate
Windmill Hill in 1925 Harold St George Gray was
foisted upon him as a site director:
Owing to the agreement sanctioned by Crawford,
Keiller was not permitted to excavate independently
until he had proved his worth to both the Cunningtons
and the Wiltshire Archaeological Society. (Murray
1999, 39)
Unfortunately the two men were unable to agree
on excavation techniques and disagreed violently
on numerous occasions (Murray 1999, 36, 39, 41,
43, 49 and 52).
Another source of conflict was Stonehenge. The
monument had been presented to the nation by
Mr Chubb in 1918. In 1929 Keiller and the
Cunningtons were involved in raising money to buy
the surrounding land, and demolishing the
aerodrome hangers that had dominated the site
since the First World War. Keiller’s plan was to build
a museum on the site to house the finds from
Hawley’s, and previous, excavations. He was
prepared to pay for both the building and a curator.
The Cunningtons, however, felt that having
removed one set of buildings it would be perverse
to build another (Murray 1999, 48). They were not
alone in voicing their objections; O.G.S. Crawford,
amongst others, also disagreed (Murray 1999;
Chippindale 1983, 193). But it was the
Cunningtons Keiller blamed:
Keiller wrote a defiant letter to the Office of Works,
criticising the Cunningtons’ interference in his
scheme, and blamed them for ‘the agitation aroused,
themselves inspired by some form of museum
curator’s parochial jealousy’. He added that if the
Cunningtons ‘could possibly be persuaded to regard
archaeology as a science and not merely as a
personally directed local manifestation emanating
primarily and finally from Devizes, not only would
the said science of archaeology, but the general
advantage of Wiltshire as a County be considerably
advanced’ (Murray 1999, 49)
These disagreements were obvious sources of
rancour. Keiller felt that the Cunningtons were
sabotaging his plans, foisting unwanted help upon
him when he was the superior archaeologist, and
ignoring his good sense when it came to
Stonehenge. But these two events seem insufficient
to cause the deep hostility that Keiller obviously
felt towards Maud Cunnington:
It is part of AK’s childish manner that he cannot write
a letter on any archaeological matter without making
some caustic remark about Mrs Cunnington. It has
become quite a mania with him, and since it’s quite
evident he is on the borderline of insanity in this
respect, I object to his coupling my name with this
strange obsession of his... (Young, quoted in Murray
1999, 108)
Such animosity must have been provoked by
other sources of conflict that, while felt, were not
necessarily expressed. Maud and Ben
Cunnington were the established face of Wiltshire
archaeology, Alexander Keiller the brash new
incomer. Moreover, Keiller was famous for his
flamboyant lifestyle, his wealth, the fast cars,
champagne, and ambivalent sexuality (Murray
1999, 82). This cannot have endeared him to the
staid and respectable Cunningtons. If, as
Brentnall and Pugh (1953, 10) amongst others
have suggested, the Cunningtons saw their role
in Wiltshire archaeology as a memorial to their
son Edward, then although any incomer would
have been unwelcome, Keiller’s outrageous
presence must have been particularly jarring. In
later life, Peggy Guido felt it was Edward’s death
which had made Maud Cunnington so ‘difficult’
(pers. comm.).
A more general point, but one related to these
two, was the generation gap between the two camps.
Although Keiller was in his forties when he began
excavating in Wiltshire, the assistants he employed
were much younger. There was, as Stuart Piggott
recorded (1963, 1-16; 1989, 20-33), a feeling of
frustration among young archaeologists that their
profession was being controlled by hidebound
amateurs, who had to be cleared out of the way for
the good of the discipline. While Pamela Smith
(1999, 11-30) has shown that Piggott’s recollection
“THAT TERRIBLE WOMAN’: THE LIFE, WORK AND LEGACY OF MAUD CUNNINGTON 57
of the course of events that took place in
transforming the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia
into the Prehistoric Society was faulty, there can
be no question that there was a genuine feeling that
the old order should give way to the new. The
Cunningtons, with their decades of involvement in
Wiltshire archaeology, and their stranglehold on the
Devizes Museum, were certainly part of old-style
archaeology, and must have seemed frustratingly
entrenched. Piggott recorded his own irritation and
contempt in a letter to Keiller in 1933:
{Ben Cunnington] goes round squeaking and bleating
the most incredible archaeological heresies and
becoming apoplectic at the mention of Stonehenge.
You will doubtless be interested to know that neither
he nor Mrs C. (who mercifully is not here) ‘believe’
in a Neolithic period at all. I suppose their suggested
sequence would be
Palaeolithic (grudgingly recognized)
All Cannings Cross (West Kennet phase)
All Cannings Cross (Woodhenge phase)
All Cannings Cross (All Cannings phase)
and so on with Stonehenge somewhere in the Middle
Ages (probably a little later than Salisbury Cathedral).
(Alexander Keiller Museum ref. 88051524)
There was also the problem of class. It has been
suggested that Stuart Piggott’s dislike for Maud
Cunnington stemmed in part from her having
treated him as an employee, rather than as an
archaeologist in his own right (Guido pers. comm.).
While this was no doubt galling for Stuart Piggott,
to Maud Cunnington there can have seemed little
difference between W.E.V. Young - whom she and
Keiller employed as a foreman - and Stuart Piggott,
who was employed as Keiller’s assistant. Both were
paid helpers, therefore neither were gentlemen. She
seems to have had a much easier relationship with
those she considered social equals. Her letters to
Keiller are polite, if not particularly friendly, and
the exchange with Wheeler in Archaeologia
Cambrensis shows a very different side to her
personality (Cunnington 1922a, Wheeler 1923,
Cunnington 1923a).
It is also possible that Maud Cunnington’s sex
has contributed to her subsequent low sianding.
British social attitudes denied women a public voice
and the national archaeological societies were
equally hidebound in their attitudes to women. It
is clear that Maud felt this prejudice; she told Peggy
Guido not to become an archaeologist because it
was ‘far too difficult’ for a woman (pers. comm.).
It may be that Maud’s noted abruptness partly
sprang from the difficulties she encountered within
male-dominated archaeology as much as private
grief.
Maud Cunnington’s attitude to her perceived
social inferiors, her old-fashioned style of
archaeology, her emphasis on respectability, and
perhaps even her sex, alienated the next generation
of archaeologists and ensured that the very people
who might have kept her name alive and respected
were only too ready to be critical of her work and
deplore her methods.
These factors have affected her subsequent
reputation and this is most clearly shown in Pitts’
comments on Maud Cunnington’s work at the
Sanctuary, stating that she dug it too quickly and:
If she had not gone to the trouble of writing this
report, it could have been that we would know almost
nothing about what she found, for she left no field
records. On the other hand, if some other
archaeologists of the time had excavated the site we
would know a great deal more than we do. (2000,
46)
There are a number of faults in Pitts’ statement,
and it can be suggested that they all arise from the
attitude of Keiller and his contemporaries. The idea
that site records formed an archive which it was a
duty to preserve for future generations is a relatively
modern one. To someone of Maud Cunnington’s
generation the main criterion was to publish a full
report as soon as possible. Nor is it known what
happened to Maud’s papers after she died, but it is
clear from the report, with its detailed contextual
information, that she kept records. To argue that
other archaeologists would have kept better records
is misguided: James Curle, excavating at Newstead
(1911), Wilfred Hemp, at Bryn yr Hen Bobl (1936),
Sir Lindsay Scott at Pant y Saer (1933), all kept
minimal records but published quickly and,
although this has led to problems with
reinterpreting their sites, it was perfectly acceptable
procedure at the time. It was the next generation of
archaeologists, such as Wheeler and Keiller, who
believed so strongly in record keeping. It could be
argued that Pitts has been unduly influenced by
Keiller’s criticisms in castigating Maud Cunnington
when she was simply excavating in a similar manner
to others of her generation. Other archaeologists
have recognised the complexity of the site and the
quality of the work done: ‘it stands as a testimony
to Maud Cuunington that the Sanctuary
[excavations] can be re-interpreted with a
reasonable degree of confidence 60 years after the
58 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
original excavation’ (Pollard 1992, 214).When there
is such a wide divergence of opinion about the value
of Maud Cunnington’s work, it is impossible to
escape the suspicion that personal animosity from
Keiller’s time is still bearing undue influence.
CONCLUSION
It can be argued that Maud Cunnington’s current
low standing is as much due to the attitude of her
successors as the actual quality of her work. This is
not an attempt to argue that these archaeologists
were wrong and that Maud Cunnington was in fact
a sweet-natured and kindly woman. It is undeniable
that she was as difficult, abrupt, and actively
unpleasant, as she has often been portrayed. Nor is
this paper an attempt to suggest that those who
recorded her irritation and animosity towards her
should instead have concentrated solely on her work
rather than her personality. Archaeologists are not
objective, and however much we like to pretend
otherwise, personal reactions affect our
interpretations of our contemporaries, just as much
as they affect our interpretations of archaeology.
However, only one side of Maud Cunnington’s
personality has been represented, and that negative
attitude has been allowed to dominate our thinking.
Had those writing memoirs of the Cunnington family
and obituaries of Maud followed a less traditional
approach we might have a more detailed knowledge
of her life and thoughts. This information may now
be irredeemably lost, but this paper proposes that
had Maud Cunnington been well liked her
limitations would have been more easily forgiven,
and that now, with no personal involvement, we
should assess her contribution to archaeology, instead
of being swayed by unsympathetic readings of her
character to dismiss her undeniable achievements.
Maud Cunnington opened up Wiltshire archaeology.
Whilst her writing about all periods of Wiltshire
archaeology may now seem eclectic, her deliberate
decision to specialise in non-funerary archaeology
shows a premeditated research strategy rather than
general antiquarian curiosity. Her work may be
flawed but when we consider the times in which she
was writing and the difficulties she faced, the
thoroughness and detail of her work is unsurpassed.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I should like to thank Joshua Pollard for suggesting
I write this article; Mr Ken Annable for his
indispensable advice and information about the
Cunningtons; the late Prof. Stuart Piggott and
Peggy Guido for their personal recollections; and
the WANHS Museum and Dr Paul Robinson for
his valuable remarks on the initial draft. Also, thanks
are due to the staff at Avebury Museum who allowed
me access to the Keiller archive, the staff at UWCN
library for their help in tracking down books and
papers, and to all those wonderful people who read
and commented on various drafts of this paper.
Notes
1. for WANHS:
rule x ‘Candidates for admission as members,
shall be proposed by two members at any of the
general or committee meetings and the election shall
be determined by ballot at the next committee or
general meeting; three fourths of the members
present, balloting shall elect.’
rule xi ‘Ladies shall be eligible as members
without ballot, being proposed by two members and
approved by the majority of the meeting.’
2. The Society of Antiquaries of London received
subsidies from the Government and free rental of
Burlington House. Pailey Bailden advised the other
council members that one or two ‘carefully chosen’
women ‘worthy of the honour’ should be elected to
show the government that they were ‘doing
something’. This would also give them justification
for rejecting unqualified women ‘trying it on’ (Evans
1956, 388).
3. Although not spelt out in the All Cannings Cross
volume, this belief seems to stem from her idea that
burial practices were conservative: ‘...objects
ceremonially deposited may be, and not uncommonly
are, of archaic type’ (1930a, 108)
4. That Maud Cunnington was mistaken in her dating of
Woodhenge and Stonehenge was the first remark that
both Stuart Piggott and Peggy Guido made to me
when I mentioned her name.
5. It may also be that Maud Cunnington played down
the beaker evidence in the final report. Stuart Piggott
reported R. S. Newall as saying ‘..there’s Beaker
pottery there all the time and she’s keeping it quiet’
after a site visit (pers. comm.).
6. Compare for example Newall’s discussion of the date
of Stonehenge (1929, 88) and her presentation of
this discussion (Cunnington 1930a, 113).
7. From Ken Annable’s copies of Keiller’s letters.
8. Such a technique was, in fact, standard practice. In a
note on the All Cannings Cross excavations in the
Antiquaries Journal it states ‘...a large number of urns
put together with exemplary patience and dexterity
by Mrs Cunnington for the museum’ (1923, 263;
and Paul Robinson pers. comm.).
“THAT TERRIBLE WOMAN’: THE LIFE, WORK AND LEGACY OF MAUD CUNNINGTON 59
References
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WANHM 42, 152 & 474
ANON, 1927, Account of general meeting. WANHM 43,
445
ANON, 1929, Account of general meeting. WANHM 44,
476
ANON, 1934, Report on Wiltshire publications.
WANHM 46, 532-3
ANON, 1950, In memoriam Benjamin Howard
Cunnington. WANHM 53, 498-500
ANON, 1952, In memoriam Maud Edith Cunnington.
WANHM 54, 104-106
BRENTNALL, H. C. and PUGH, C. W., 1953, The
Wiltshire archaeology and natural history society
1853-1953. A centenary history. Devizes: WANHS
CHIPPINDALE, C., 1983, Stonehenge complete.
London: Thames and Hudson
CUNNINGTON, E. 1978 (Unpublished mss) History
of the Cunnington family
CUNNINGTON, M.E., 1908a, Notes on the opening
of a Bronze Age barrow at Manton, near
Marlborough. The Reliquary 13, 28-46
CUNNINGTON, M.E., 1908b, Notes on the opening
of a Bronze Age barrow at Manton, near
Marlborough. WANHM 35, 1-20
CUNNINGTON, M.E., 1908c, Oliver’s Camp, Devizes.
WANHM 35, 408-444
CUNNINGTON, M.E., 1911, Knap Hill Camp.
WANHM 37, 42-65
CUNNINGTON, M.E., 1922a, The dating of camps.
Miscellanea. Archaeologia Cambrensis 77, 390-1
CUNNINGTON, M.E., 1922b, Pits in Battlesbury
Camp, Wilts. Antiquaries Journal 2, 378-9
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Devizes: George Simpson
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CUNNINGTON, M.E., 1927a, The Pottery from the
Long Barrow at West Kennet, Wilts. Devizes: George
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CUNNINGTON, M.E., 1927b, Two Bronze Age Beaker
burials at Netheravon. WANHM 43, 490-1
CUNNINGTON, M.E., 1929, Woodhenge. A description
of the site as revealed by excavations carried out there
by Mr and Mrs B.H. Cunnington 1926-7-8; also of
4 circles in an earthwork enclosure south of
Woodhenge. Devizes: George Simpson
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date theory. Antiquaries Journal 10, 103-33
CUNNINGTON, M.E., 1930b, Romano-British
Wiltshire. WANHM 45 166-216
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invasion of Britain? Antiquaries Journal 12, 27-34
CUNNINGTON, M.E., 1932b, Presidential Address:
The Iron Age in Wiltshire. Wiltshire Gazette 28th July
CUNNINGTON, M.E., 1933a, An Introduction to the
Archaeology of Wiltshire. Devizes: George Simpson
CUNNINGTON, M.E., 1933b, Excavations in Yarnbury
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CUNNINGTON, M.E., 1937a, A Saxon burial of the
Pagan Period at Woodbridge, North Newnton.
WANHM 47, 265.
CUNNINGTON, M.E., 1937b, Horns of Urus said to
have been found in a barrow at Cherhill. WANHM
47 583-6
CUNNINGTON, M.E., 1937c, Wall paintings formerly
in Highworth Church. WANHM 47, 420-1
CUNNINGTON, M.E., 1938, An Introduction to the
Archaeology of Wiltshire (3rd ed). Devizes: Simpson
CUNNINGTON, M.E., 1939a, Saxon Burial at
Netheravon. WANHM 48, 469-70
CUNNINGTON, M.E., 1939b, Skeletons found near
Warminster. WANHM 48, 468-9
CUNNINGTON, R.H., 1935, Stonehenge and its date.
London
CUNNINGTON, R.H., 1954, The Cunningtons of
Wiltshire. WANHM 55, 211-36
CURLE J., 1911, A Roman Frontier Post and its People.
The fort of Newstead in the parish of Melrose.
Glasgow: James MacLehose & Sons.
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60 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Creation of Monuments. Neolithic Causewayed
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Thames and Hudson
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228
SMITH, I. F., 1965, Windmill Hill and Avebury:
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Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 65, 465-470
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Virago
WAINWRIGHT, G.J. and LONGWORTH, I.H. 1971,
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Society of Antiquaries
WARREN, S.H., PIGGOTT, S., CLARK, J.G.D.,
BURKITT, M.C., GODWIN, H. and M.E., 1936,
Archaeology of the submerged land surface of the
Essex coast. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society
2, 178-210
WHEELER, R.E.M., 1923, Miscellanea. Archaeologia
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WHEELER, R.E.M., 1934, An introduction to the
archaeology of Wiltshire from the earliest times to
the pagan Saxons — Review. Antiquaries Journal 14,
203-4
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Verulamium: A Belgic and two Roman cities. London:
Society of Antiquaries
Appendix 1: Main Excavations (in
order of date of commencement
with place of publication)
(1908, WANHM 35, 1-20)
(1908, WANHM 35, 408-444)
(1910, WANHM 36, 590-596)
Manton Barrow
Oliver’s Camp
Morgan’s Hill
Knap Hill
All Cannings Cross
(1911, WANHM 37, 42-65)
(1912, WANHM 37, 526-538,
and 1923 Devizes)
Casterley Camp (1913, WANHM 38, 53-105)
Lidbury Camp (1917, WANHM 40, 12-36)
Market Lavington G2 (1926, WANHM 43, 396-7)
Figsbury Rings (1925, WANHM 43, 267-284)
Woodhenge (1929 Devizes)
The Sanctuary (1931, WANHM 45, 300-335)
Yarnbury (1932, Antiquity 6, 471-4: and
1933, WANHM 406,
198-218)
Appendix 2: The Archaeclogical
Publications of Maud Cunnington
1899
‘An old English glass linen smoother from Ramsbury,
Wiltshire’ The Reliquary 5, 125-6
1908
“Notes on the Opening of a Bronze Age Barrow at Manton
near Marlborough’ The Reliquary 13, 28-46
‘Notes on the Opening of a Bronze Age Barrow at Manton
near Marlborough’ WANHM 35, 1-20
“‘Oliver’s Camp, Devizes’ WANHM 35, 408-444
1909
‘Notes on a late Celtic Rubbish Heap near Oare’
WANHM 36, 125-138
“The discovery of a chamber in the long barrow at Lanhill,
near Chippenham’ WANHM 36, 300-310
“Notes on barrows near Kings Play Down, Heddington’
WANHM 36, 311-317
1910
‘Notes on the Roman Antiquities in the Westbury
collection at the museum, Devizes’ WANHM 36, 464-
74
‘A Medieval earthwork near Morgan’s Hill’ WANHM 36,
590-598
‘A Medieval Earthwork in Wiltshire’ Man 7, 13
1911-1912
(with E.H. Goddard) Catalogue of antiquities in the
museum of the Wiltshire Archaeology and Natural
History Society at Devizes, Part 2. Devizes: WANHS
“Notes on crescent shaped object and an inscribed cinerary
urn’ Archaeologia Cambrensis 66, 147-151
‘Knap Hill Camp’ WANHM 37, 42-65
‘A late Celtic Inhabited site at All Canning Cross Farm’
WANHM 37, 526-538
‘Bronze Age Barrows on Arn Hill, Warminster’ WANHM
37, 538-541
“The removal of a Barrow on the Downs near Upavon’
WANHM 37, 603-605
‘THAT TERRIBLE WOMAN’: THE LIFE, WORK AND LEGACY OF MAUD CUNNINGTON 61
‘A Saxon Cemetery at “The Fox’ Purton’? WANHM 37,
606-608 (with E.H. Goddard)
1913
“The re-erection of two fallen stones, and discovery of an
interment with drinking cup, at Avebury. WANHM
38, 1-11
‘A Buried stone in the Kennet Avenue’ WANHM 38, 12-
14
‘Casterley Camp excavations’ WANHM 38, 53-105
‘Interment near Old Shepherd’s Shore’ WANHM 38, 106
‘Coin of Alexander the Great found at Tilshead’ WANHM
38, 106-7
1914
‘List of the long barrows of Wiltshire’ WANHM 38, 379-
414
‘Hut Circles at Old Shepherd’s Shore WANHM 38, 632-
3
“The age of the ‘cylindrical notched glass beads’ found in
Wiltshire Barrows’ WANHM 38, 643-4
1917
‘Lidbury Camp. Being an account of the excavations
carried out by Mr and Mrs B.H. Cunnington in 1914’
WANHM 40, 12-36
1920
‘Notes on Objects from an Inhabited site on the Worms
Head Glamorgan’ Archaeologia Cambrensis 75, 281-
6
1922
(with B.H. Cunnington) A short outline guide to the
archaeological periods as illustrated by the exhibits
in the museum, Devizes. Devizes: WANHS
‘The dating of camps’ Archaeologia Cambrensis 77, 390-
391
‘A village site of the Hallstatt Period in Wiltshire’
Antiquaries Journal 2, 13-19
‘Discovery of a Bronze Age cinerary urn near
Marlborough’ Antiquaries Journal 2, 378
‘Pits in Battlesbury Camp’ Antiquaries Journal 2, 378-379
1923
The Early Iron Age Inhabited Site at All Cannings Cross
Farm, Wiltshire. Devizes: George Simpson
‘On the dating of camps’ Archaeologia Cambrensis 78,
303-304
1923-1924
‘Brooches from Cold Kitchen Hill’ WANHM 42, 67-69
‘Late Bronze Age gold bracelet from Clench Common’
WANHM 42, 69-70
‘Bronze Age Cinerary Urn found at Knowle, Little
Bedwyn’ WANHM 42, 245-6
‘A spindle whorl with Cabalistic Signs’ WANHM 42, 246-
247
‘Pits in Battlesbury Camp’ WANHM 42, 368-373
“A new theory of Avebury’ WANHM 42, 591-592
“The name ‘Godsbury” WANHM 42, 592-593
‘Objects recently given to the Museum’ WANHM 42,
599-601
1925
‘Prehistoric gold in Wiltshire’ Antiquaries Journal 5, 61-
70
1926
Bronze arrow head from Wiltshire’ Antiquaries Journal
6, 182
“Cross on incense-cup’ Antiquaries Journal 6, 182-184
‘Some Norman Castle Sites in Wiltshire’ Wiltshire Gazette
4-03-26
1925-1927
‘Prehistoric Timber Circles’ Antiquity 1, 92-95
The pottery from the long barrow at West Kennet,
Wiltshire. Devizes: George Simpson
‘Figsbury Rings. An account of the excavations in 1924’
WANHM 43, 48-58
‘List of Bronze Age Drinking Cups found in Wiltshire’
WANHM 43, 267-84
‘Notes on Recent Prehistoric Finds’ WANHM 43, 395-
400
“Two Bronze Age Beaker Burials at Netheravon’ WANHM
43, 490-491
1929
Woodhenge. A description of the site as revealed by
excavations carried out there by Mr and Mrs B.H.
Cunnington 1926-7-8: also of 4 circles in an
earthwork enclosure south of Woodhenge. Devizes:
George Simpson
‘Stonehenge’ Antiquity 3, 223-226
‘Fragment of Bronze Bracelet (?) of Hallstatt age from
Cold Kitchen Hill’ WANHM 44, 141-142
1930
‘Stonehenge and the two date theory’ Antquaries Journal
10, 103-113
1931
Avebury: a guide to the circles, the church, the manor
house etc., Silbury Hull. Devizes
‘Three brooches from Wiltshire’ Antiquaries Journal 11,
160-161
‘Niedermendig lava rock near Avebury’ Antiquity 5, 233-
235
1930-1932
‘Presidential address to WANHS: The Iron Age in
Wiltshire’ Wiltshire Gazette 28/07/32
‘Was there a second Belgic invasion (represented by bead-
rim pottery)?’ Anuquaries Journal 12, 27-34
‘Yarnbury Castle’ Antiquity 6, 471-474
62 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
‘Unrecorded long barrow at Imber’ WANHM 45, 83
‘Saxon burials at Chisenbury’ WANHM 45, 84
‘Romano-British Wiltshire. Being a list of sites occupied
during the Roman period with the addition of some
pre-Roman villages’ WANHM 45, 166-216
“The ‘Sanctuary’ on Overton Hill, near Avebury. Being
an account of the excavations carried out by Mr and
Mrs B.H. Cunnington in 1930' WANHM 45, 300-
325
‘Graves found at Westbury’ WANHM 45, 483
‘Romano-British burial at Easterton’ WANHM 45, 483
‘Skeletons found at Upavon Aerodrome’ WANHM 45,
484
‘Skeleton found on Boreham Down’ WANHM 45, 484
‘Report on charcoals from “The Sanctuary’ on Overton
Hill’ WANHM 45, 484-485
‘Romano-British pot and human remains found near
Devizes’ WANHM 45, 485
‘Skeleton found at Amesbury’ WANHM 45, 485
1933
Introduction to the archaeology of Wiltshire from the
earliest times to the pagan Saxons, with chapters on
Stonehenge, Woodhenge, Avebury, Silbury Hull,
barrows, earthworks, etc. Devizes: George Simpson
‘Mineral coal in Roman Britain’ Antiquity 7, 89-90
1933-1934
Introduction to the archaeology of Wiltshire from the
earliest times to the pagan Saxons, with chapters on
Stonehenge, Woodhenge, Avebury, Silbury Hull,
barrows, earthworks, etc. 2nd edn. (revised and
enlarged) Devizes: George Simpson
(with E.H. Goddard) Catalogue of antiquities in the
museum of the Wiltshire Archaeology and Natural
History Society at Devizes. Part 2, 2nd edn. Devizes:
WANHS
‘The demolition of Chisenbury Trundle’ WANHM 46,
1-3
‘Chisbury Camp’ WANHM 46, 4-7
‘Wiltshire in pagan Saxon times’ WANHM 46, 147-175
‘Excavations in Yarnbury Castle Camp 1932’ WANHM
46, 198-213
‘Sarsen stones at Kingston Deverill’ WANHM 46, 261-
262
“Evidence of climate derived from snail shells and its bearing
on the date of Stonehenge’ WANHM 46, 350-355
1935-1937
‘A Saxon burial of the pagan period at Woodbridge, North
Newnton’ WANHM 47, 265-267
‘Note on a burial at Amesbury’ WANHM 47, 267
‘Blue stone from Boles Barrow’ WANHM 47, 267
‘Bronze dagger from Aston Keynes’ WANHM 47 281
“The straw plaiting industry in Wiltshire’ WANHM 47
281; 282; 538
Wall paintings formerly in Highworth Church’ WANHM
47, 420-421
‘Polished axe of greenish-brown stone’ WANHM 47, 537-
538
“The Roman villa at Netheravon’?’ WANHM 47, 538
‘Horns of Urus said to be found in a barrow at Cherhill’
WANHM 47, 583-586
1938
Introduction to the archaeology of Wiltshire from the
earliest times to the pagan Saxons, with chapters on
Stonehenge, Woodhenge, Avebury, Silbury Hill,
barrows, earthworks, etc. 3rd edn. Devizes: George
Simpson
1938-1939
“The Walker bequest’ [Objects from Cold Kitchen Hill,
Battlesbury Camp, Upton Lovel etc] WANHM 48,
185-90
‘A stone coffin found at Bradford-on-Avon’ WANHM 48,
415-418
‘Skeletons found near Warminster’ WANHM 48, 468-
469
‘Saxon burial at Netheravon’ WANHM 48, 469-470
1942
‘Roman brick stamped with maker’s name from
Burderope Race Course Field” WANHM 49, 117
‘An urn from Wexcombe Down’ WANHM 49, 164-5
‘A fragment of Romano-British pottery of rare type found
at Heddington’ WANHM 49, 219-220
‘Saxon burials at Foxhill, Warnborough 1941’ WANHM
49, 542-543
1944
‘Wiltshire Exhibits in Exeter museum’ WANHM 50,
289
1949
Introduction to the archaeology of Wiltshire from the
earliest times to the pagan Saxons, with chapters on
Stonehenge, Woodhenge, Avebury, Silbury Hull,
barrows, earthworks, etc. 4th edn. Devizes: George
Simpson
Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 63-68
Hedgehogs in Wiltshire, a Survey, 1999-2000
by Humphrey Kay
A decline in the number of hedgehogs in the county 1s indicated by 142 replies received from naturalists,
gardeners and garden clubs. The results are detailed and suggest that although deaths from road traffic
accidents have dropped, deaths from predation by badgers have increased. Details of seven documented
cases of hedgehog/ badger interactions are given.
There is good evidence that the population of
hedgehogs in England has declined and may be
declining further, (Tapper,1992, Morris,1994).
Morris gives a number of possible causes for the
decline but one which calls for investigation is the
increase of badgers (Wilson et al, 1997) which are
known to drive away and/or predate on hedgehogs
to the point of elimination from an area (Doncaster,
1992) In an effort to discover the situation in
Wiltshire, a survey was made in 1999 and 2000,
with additional recollections requested from
observers of previous years.
The survey, which ran from March 1999 to
December 2000, has three sources of data.
1. A questionnaire sent to known observant
naturalists, wardens of nature reserves, etc..
2. A similar request to gardening clubs and
societies throughout the county.
3. Requests to keen individual gardeners,
selected so as to represent as wide an area as possible
within the county.
The information sought was of hedgehogs killed
on the roads, live hedgehogs whether regularly or
occasionally seen (and field signs), past history of
hedgehogs in or around gardens; presence and
history of badgers in the area and any evidence of
direct badger-hedgehog interaction.
Of the replies received, 35 were from naturalists,
81 from individual gardeners and 26 from garden
clubs. These last contained various amounts of
detail but 11 had conducted surveys or votes at a
meeting — up to 70 at Devizes — and represented in
all over 300 members.
The location of gardeners and garden clubs is
shown in Map 1 indicating the geographical
60}
70 80 90 00 10 20 30 40
Negative garden club report /\
Negative gardener report 4
2 Positive garden club report ¢)
Positive gardener report @
Map 1. Hedgehog records from gardeners and garden
clubs, 1999-2000
New Mill, Milton Lilbourne, Pewsey SN9 5LD
64 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Map 2. Distribution of hedgehog deaths on all roads in
Wiltshire, 1976-85
coverage of the survey. The naturalists made many
of their observations in the field but the location of
the residences of seven has been included in the
map to indicate the extent covered by the survey.
It will be seen that the geographical coverage is
reasonably complete but there are some inevitable
gaps. One of these is the military training area of
Salisbury Plain but naturalists who know this area
well say that it has never had many hedgehogs in
recent decades except in the Avon valley (and see
Browne’s data in- Dillon 1997). Other chalk
downland areas, Cranborne Chase and
Marlborough Downs, are also relatively under-
observed except where there are villages along the
valleys and fringing escarpments. The results have
been compared so far as is possible with the survey
of Marion Browne occupying the years 1976-85
and published by WANHS 1987.
Two areas were subject to a more detailed
survey, although owing to restrictions of access due
to foot-and-mouth disease in 2001, neither was as
rigorous as intended. These were:
1. The villages of Donhead St Andrew and
Donhead St.Mary that have apparently been devoid
of hedgehogs for many decades.
2 It is established that hedgehogs are absent
from the much-studied Wytham Wood near Oxford,
Map 3. Total hedgehog road casualties, 1999-2000
but they should naturally flourish in woodlands and
a study of Savernake Forest, the largest woodland
in Wiltshire, seemed appropriate.
ROAD TRAFFIC
ACCIDENTS (RTAS)
Maps 2 and 3 indicate the locations of all RTAs in
both the 1976-85 survey and the 1999-2000 survey.
In so far as these observations are, in both surveys,
derived from random sightings by many observers
without any consistent pattern of car-journeys, they
are not a very reliable guide to the county-wide
frequency. They are underestimates in that
hedgehog carcases may disappear within 24 hours
of first observation but conversely records were
checked for duplication as a carcase can remain for
some time. The longest record was of a recognisably
bristly carapace in the middle of the road outside
Pewsey church from May to August 1999.
It is difficult to draw firm conclusions from
comparing these surveys. Both the number and
location of observers differ and the factor of time
spent travelling on the roads is unknown while the
volume of traffic has risen to any unknown degree.
HEDGEHOGS IN WILTSHIRE, A SURVEY, 1999-2000
Marion Browne received her reports from over 400
observers in the ten-year period of her survey so
the apparent decline from 1107 RTAs in ten years
to 114 in the two years of the recent survey may or
may not be significant. There is a widespread
subjective impression that there are now fewer
hedgehog corpses on the roads so the difference,
approximately a halving, may be near to reality.
There are almost certainly some real local
differences. One of these concerns the A4 from
Chippenham to Marlborough and the villages of
the Kennet valley west of Marlborough. There is a
conspicuous blank in the present survey compared
with the previous one and the likelihood that this is
real is supported by the detailed observations of
Dr. Jack Oliver at Lockeridge (see Conflict Zones,
4)
Similarly there is an apparent and probably real
difference at Warminster (ca.ST8845) and in
adjacent parts of the Wylye valley where again the
existence of a badger-hedgehog conflict zone is
confirmed by Jane Harington at Upton Lovell (see
Conflict Zones, 3) and by the evidence of the
Warminster Gardening Club - ‘no hedgehogs seen
by anyone for 2-3 years’.
The conspicuous difference around
Chippenham and to the west, on the other hand, is
Road Casualties @
Live records ©)
Non-RTA dead 4
Map 4 Total hedgehog records 1999-2000
65
probably in part an artefact since this was Marion
Browne’s most closely observed area and the
absence of RTAs is in contrast to positive reports
by the Garden Clubs at Chippenham, Corsham and
Box, although at Chippenham where hedgehogs
were regularly observed five years ago, they are now
only occasional.
One fact which emerges from the present survey
is that with very few exceptions all the road
causalities are within villages, hamlets or the
outskirts of towns. The proximity of villages in
Wiltshire is such that the stretches of road more
than one km. away from residences are limited, but
where there are such gaps on the A-roads
4,303,344,345,360, 361 and 419, etc., there is a
conspicuous scarcity of records. The absence of
carcases on the M4, noted also by Marion Browne,
is not surprising; one would expect hedgehogs to
have learned to avoid a motorway and any casualty
will quickly get flattened beyond recognition at 70
m.p.h.
One exception appeared to be RTAs on a fast,
straight section of A360 (ca.SU100390), noted in
both 1999 and 2000. This was investigated and it
was found that the nearby hamlet of Druid’s Lodge
(SU099390) and the farm buildings at Asserton
(SU085395) had gardens where hedgehogs were
common and badgers only occasional, the nearest
main sett being 3 km. away at SU 074378.
There has been a decline in RTA numbers from
61 in 1999 to 53 in 2000 which is too small to be
statistically significant, but it could reflect a real
decline as there were slightly more observers in 2000
than in 1999 and several of them have noted a
further scarcity of RTAs in 2001.
LIVE SIGHTINGS
Map 4 shows the position of all hedgehogs alive or
dead for the years 1999 and 2000. In a very few
instances the report depends on the presence of
recognisable droppings but in the majority the
hedgehogs were seen . These observations were
mostly in gardens where many keen gardeners are
fully aware of local hedgehogs ; negative records
may be due to inaccessibility (e.g. walled gardens),
the presence of dogs, lack of observation, or true
absence from the locality. Where garden clubs polled
their members, the ratio of negatives and positives,
both regular and occasional, reflects these variables
as well as actual geographical differences. In six
66 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
clubs no members had seen hedgehogs within the
last two years but at least one of these must be
counted a false negative (Woodford, SU1236) since
3RTAs were noted nearby and in the case of Calne
(SU 0071) a RTA to the east and sightings south of
the town must qualify the classification. Furthermore
at Lavington the negative experience of the Garden
Club must be set against the well-documented
account of a hedgehog being killed on the outskirts
of Lavington in 2000 (see Conflict Zones, 1), a final
elimination from this village perhaps.
The highest aggregate for a club was at
Alderbury where frequency was reported as being
regular (6), occasional (12) and absent (5), (this in
a village visited by badgers). Many clubs and
gardeners reported decreasing numbers of
hedgehogs, and some were able to put an
approximate time in years since they were last seen
as follows: 25,20,>19,19,15,>14,>10,10,9,8,7,
>5,5525,4-5,4-5,4-5,4,4,3-4,2-3,>2,2,2,and ‘few’.
In three places — West Malmesbury (see Conflict
Zones, 2) Crudwell and Ludwell — an absence of
ten years or more was greeted with surprise in 2000
by the reappearance of a single hedgehog, but
reappearances or increases in numbers have not
otherwise been noted.
THE DONHEADS
The two parishes of Donhead St Andrew and
Donhead St. Mary lie at the upper end of the Nadder
valley where the topography is one of steep-sided
valleys with abundant spring-fed streams carving a
mosaic of woods, pastures and gardens with very
little arable land. The greensand in this area contains
seams of greensand rock underneath which badgers
have dug many stable setts from which to forage in
an ideal habitat. Both gardeners and farmers are loud
in their complaints about the superabundance of
badgers, and evidence of their presence is
widespread. They must have a very high population
density; the close concentration of setts is well shown
in Beatrice Gillam’s survey of 1966 (Gillam, 1967).
Ihave questioned several farmers and over thirty
residents about hedgehogs with a universally
negative response. Many have lived there for several
decades and the ‘oldest’ inhabitant stated with
conviction that although she was familiar with
hedgehogs elsewhere she had never seen one in the
Donheads in fifty-three years. It should be noted
that this is one of the areas without hedgehog
records in Marion Browne’s survey. One cannot,
of course, argue from post hoc to propter hoc, but
there is no reason, other than badger competition/
predation, e.g. use of toxic chemicals, etc., why
hedgehogs should be absent from a habitat so well
suited to their needs.
SAVERNAKE FOREST
Although hedgehogs do not favour close-canopied
woodland as a habitat, they are found along
woodland edges and in mixed areas of pasture and
woodland. They have been shown to be absent from
Wytham Wood near Oxford on account of
competition and predation by badgers. In Wiltshire
Savernake Forest, previously an example of wood
pasture with hunting for deer as a primary purpose,
is now a mosaic of mixed forestry — roughly equal
areas of conifer and broadleaf -— with tracts of
pasture and some arable interspersed. Its soil varies
but much of it is a clay cap over chalk and, while
there are a few badger setts in the central block of
the forest, badgers have mostly preferred the chalk
escarpments along its borders.
Enquiry was directed to the scattered
inhabitants of the forest and there have been RTAs
at Durley. In summary it appears that there is a
good population of hedgehogs throughout the
southern half of the forest, roughly from Durley
and Bloxham to Great Bedwyn and Chisbury with
plenty around St. Katherine’s, but north of this
there has been a decline . They used to be seen
regularly at Timbridge, Braydon Hook, Forest Hill
and Cadley but have become scarce or absent there
in the last two years. It is curious that there have
been no RTAs on the Savernake stretch of the A4,
either in this survey or that of 1976-85.
Most of the forest is accessible to badgers from
setts in the chalk north and south and from some
around SU2467 and SU2265 but it has not been
possible, from lack of access, to plot badger setts
north of the A4. No conclusions on the decrease of
hedgehogs south of the A4 can be drawn but future
studies may reveal any possible trend.
CONFLICT ZONES
In seven areas, designated Conflict Zones, there has
been direct evidence of interaction between badgers
and hedgehogs. These are listed.
HEDGEHOGS IN WILTSHIRE, A SURVEY, 1999-2000
1. Lavington SU0254 (John Oram)
A resident for over 30 years, an experienced
gardener and naturalist, had noted many hedgehogs
in his garden and adjacent to it. But these had
declined in the last ten years or so. In April 2000 he
heard a loud noise in the garden and found a badger
attacking a large hedgehog which it had been able
to unroll. The badger was chased away but the
hedgehog was mortally wounded.. No further
hedgehogs have since been seen. There have been
increasing numbers of badgers in recent years
coming down from setts in the chalk escarpment
to the gardens of Easterton and Lavington. Note
that the Lavington Garden Club members have
seen no hedgehogs in the last two years.
2. Malmesbury ST 927873 (David and Jean Wall)
Hedgehogs are found in the gardens in Malmesbury
but they had not been noted in the Walls’ garden
on the west edge of the town for eight years. A large
one was seen on July 8th 2000 and one week later a
hedgehog skin was found there. A second skin was
found in the same garden on Sept 2nd. There is a
badger sett within 200 yards.
3. Upton Lovell ca. ST9440 (Jane Harington)
At least twenty live sightings in Upton Lovell and
at Knook East Farm from April to August 2000.
Dead hedgehogs: one killed by road verge cutter,
two RTAs, one found dead in a garden and four
found eaten leaving residual carapace,
(ST946409,946408,937417 and 945409) Main
badger sett at ST 943415 with evidence of badgers
entering village and farm.
4. Lockeridge and around (Jack Oliver)
SU149676: hedgehogs very common 1969-81. In
1981,82,83 and 84, numerous hedghog pelts (upper
jaw and spines) found , all the rest scooped out by
badgers. Since 1984 no hedgehogs seen. The last
mother hedgehog was seen moving her young from
the south to the north of our house, away from the
badger sett.
SU130679 (W.Overton): hedgehogs still present
in small fenced gardens
SU 146686,150710 and 143673: no hedgehogs
in recent years; badger setts numerous.
5. New Mill ca. SU1861 (Humphrey Kay and
Rachel Edwards)
A hamlet between the railway and the canal has
had hedgehogs regularly for many years. In 1999 a
carapace of a young hedgehog was found in a field
67
SE of the hamlet where much fresh horse dung had
been disturbed, presumably by badgers., and two
carapaces were found in a rough part of a garden
to the SW of the hamlet. (Two young hedgehog
carapaces found by the road had been partly
consumed but could have been road casualties.
The main badger sett is at SU191617 with outliers
at 186620 and other main setts further west close
to the canal. There is no positive evidence of an
increase in badger numbers but dung pits at
SU185620 and 185621 were new features in 1999
and 2000. Despite this evidence of predation
hedgehogs are still present in the hamlet in 2001.
5. Bradford-on-Avon ST818608 (Gwyneth
Yerrington)
We have lived in Bradford for almost 35 years and
hedgehogs have been very common with many visits
and sometimes hibernations beneath a hedge. Over
the last 12 years or so visits have become fewer and
it must be at least eight years since I found a prickly
skin sitting on the lawn and the same thing 14
months before that. No sign of any limbs, head or
other bits of body. I was uncertain whether the
culprit was a badger or fox but inclined to the former
as a neighbour was awakened at 5 a.m. one
summer’s day by the screams of a hedgehog which
was being attacked by a badger.
Badgers have become more and more common
visitors to our gardens locally; there are setts nearby
and badgers have been seen running along roads
close to the town centre.
Similar evidence from Joan Ward living nearby
7. Brinkworth ca. SU 0184 (Sally Russell)
Ten years ago many hedgehogs but they
disappeared 4-5 years ago at which time some
carapaces were found between Brinkworth and a
badger sett by the railway line. No hedgehogs at all
in the last two years.
DISCUSSION
There seems little doubt that there has been a
significant decline in the number of hedgehogs in
Wiltshire in the last twenty years and, to judge by
the frequency of more short-term comments, the
last two years particularly have seen many local
declines and extinctions. Hedgehogs roam widely
wherever there are fields with hedges, woodland
edges and, above all, gardens. Gardens provide a
68 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
varied supply of food and, despite the attention of
dogs and cats which are no more than a nuisance,
they give some protection from the more aggressive
predator, the badger. In Wiltshire, as elsewhere, they
appear to be the prime habitat for the hedgehog at
present.
Morris has discussed some possible causes of
the decline of hedgehogs, emphasising the changes
in farming practices — larger fields with fewer
hedges, the use of pesticides which both remove
the natural sources of the hedgehog’s food and may
indirectly affect their health. The latter may also be
a factor in garden mortality along with drowning
in ponds, entanglement in netting, incineration in
bonfires, etc. The mortality on the roads, he has
suggested, has probably accounted for 50,000 to
100,000 per year etc., and this, to judge from the
Wiltshire surveys, may, itself, be a declining figure.
The badger has been given, since the
Countryside Acts of the early eighties, almost
complete protection with the result that the
numbers have increased greatly. The two surveys
conducted by Stephen Harris in the mid-eighties
and mid-nineties (see Wilson et al.1997) showed
an overall countrywide increase of 77%, and, while
in Wiltshire it may be somewhat less — the number
of main setts in the 54 sq.km. surveyed was up from
24 to 29 (Kay,1998) — local increases were
probably up to the national average. One can hardly
doubt that the larger number of badgers is one
factor in the decline of the hedgehog but how big a
factor is difficult to determine. Locally the evidence
seems very strong, whether one is considering long-
term effects as at, say, the Donheads, or more recent
trends as around Lockeridge or Bradford-on-Avon.
To judge by the responses received in this survey,
the last two to four years have seen a particularly
steep downward trend and it will be important to
follow up these results within the next five years.
One disturbing trend that should be noted is
that as a result of both roadway casualties and
badger predation the distribution of hedgehogs is
being fragmented, and is now centred largely in
villages and urban outskirts, thus being subject to
the well-known hazards of survival for small,
isolated populations. The future of the hedgehog
needs careful study.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Iam indebted to the many contributors, individuals
and garden clubs, who sent in observations, in
particular to those mentioned in the text for detailed
dedescriptions. I have to thank Sally Scott-White
and Hilary Davies for providing the maps and for
helpful criticisms.
Bibliography
BROWNE, M., 1987, Insectivores in Wiltshire:
Hedgehog, WANHM, 81,111-122.
DILLON, P., 1997, Mammals in Wiltshire, Wilts.
Archaeol. and Nat. Hist. Soc. :
DONCASTER, C. P., 1992, Testing the role of intraguild
predation in regulating hedgehog populations, Proc.
R. Soc. Lond.(1992) 249, 113-117.
GILLAM, B., 1967, The Distribution of Badgers in
Wiltshire, 1966, WANHM, 62, 145-162.
KAY, H.E.M., 1998, Badgers, in Recording Wiltshire’s
Biodiversity, 4, 5-6.
MORRIS, P., 1994, The Hedgehog, The Mammal
Society.
TAPPER, S., 1992, Game Heritage, The Game
Conservancy, Fordingbridge.
WILSON, G., HARRIS, S., and McLAREN, G., 1997,
Changes in the British Badger Population, 1988-1997.
London: People’s Trust for Endangered Species.
Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 69-88
Agriculture in Wiltshire in the First World War
by Ivor Slocombe
The challenges which faced agriculture in Wiltshire during the First World War are examined together with
the response, in particular, to the demand for increased production especially of corn crops. Wiltshire was
a pioneer in the training of women for farm work while the introduction of mechanisation and the changes
in the pattern of land ownership had a lasting impact. Above all, the perception of agriculture and its
importance to the economy and society was enhanced by the exposure of the danger of over-reliance on
imported food.
INTRODUCTION
Food production and the food supply were major
issues throughout the First World War. At first it
was confidently expected that home agriculture
would step up production and imports would be
safeguarded through the domination of the seas by
the British navy. These expectations, however, were
upset from 1916-17 onwards by the success of the
German U-boat campaign which very seriously
reduced the import of food, especially wheat from
the New World. Indeed there was a very real risk in
1917-18 that the country would run out of staple
foods.
The first problem to arise, and indeed one which
farmers complained loudly about throughout the
war, was the lack of manpower. The efforts to solve
this involved, from time to time, the campaign to
get exemption from conscription for agricultural
workers, the early release of boys from school, the
training and use of women and the secondment of
soldiers to help on the land. Later, as imports of
wheat decreased substantially, farmers were
required, by compulsion if necessary, to plough up
permanent pasture and significantly increase the
acreage of arable crops. Although this was often
hotly opposed by farmers, the reality was that much
of this land had only been put to pasture in the
1880s when the cheap imports of grain had made
much home-grown wheat unviable.
Wiltshire was affected by all these issues. In
addition, the substantial army presence in the county
brought its own problems. The large areas taken over
for military camps and training decreased the amount
of land available for agriculture; the troops based in
those camps made large demands on local produce;
and the army’s need for much civilian labour,
especially in building the camps, competed with
agriculture for the diminished work force. Finally,
the war had a lasting impact on land ownership in
the county as many of the large estates were sold
and dispersed for both economic and family reasons.
WILTSHIRE
AGRICULTURE ON THE
OUTBREAK OF WAR
At the outbreak of the First World War, Wiltshire’s
agriculture displayed many contrasts. Within the
county, there were great differences from area to
area but, taking the county as a whole, these
differences balanced each other out and the county
appeared to be almost exactly average or typical of
the country.
11 Belcombe Place, Bradford on Avon, BA15 INA
70 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Wiltshire still followed its traditional pattern of
‘chalk and cheese’ with large arable farms in the
south and east and dairying or mixed farms in the
west and north. A return by Petty Sessional
Divisions in 1914 showed Marlborough (54%) and
Salisbury with Amesbury (52.7%) as the areas with
the largest proportion of arable while Trowbridge
(5.1%) and Melksham (5.7%) had the least.!
Mechanisation had been slow. Some steam
ploughing took place, mainly through a few large
contractors, while milking machines, although not
unknown, were very rare. Horses still provided the
main source of power and in 1914 there were 16,501
horses used for agricultural purposes in the county.
A further 9,500, mainly young and breeding stock,
also existed on farms.’
The contrasts may be illustrated by two fairly
typical farms. At the Common, Broughton Gifford
a dairy farm consisted of 150 acres of which 50
acres were arable. It had 30 milking cows, 20 young
stock, 80 pigs and 90 sheep. Before the war it
employed four men and a boy. Over to the east of
the county at Bulford, a large farmer had 4,000
acres of which 1,500 acres were arable.’
The county had not been immune from the
major trends in the 1880s when cheap imports of
grain had resulted in much arable land being put
to permanent pasture. In 1872 there were 425,777
acres of arable land in the county but this had been
reduced to 258,669 acres by 1914. Of the arable
crops, wheat accounted for about 20% (52,061
acres) followed by oats at 18% (45,628 acres) and
barley 10% (25,952 acres). Other major crops were
turnips, swedes and mangolds (40,170 acres) and
clover, sainfoin and grasses under rotation (52,161
acres). A variety of other crops included peas, beans,
and potatoes (19,137 acres). Vetches or tares were
also an important crop (12,348 acres), and 11,212
acres were bare fallow. The livestock consisted of
379,133 sheep, 130,412 cattle and 56,689 pigs.’
Wiltshire in 1914 had 717,819 acres under crops
or grass which represented 2.9% of the total for
England. If all the major aspects of agriculture,
whether it is the proportion of arable to permanent
grass, amount of wheat, number of sheep, cattle or
pigs are examined, Wiltshire’s share is in each case
between 2.5% and 3% of the total for the country
as a whole. Even production was similarly average
with the yield per acre over the period 1904-13
being, for wheat, 32 bushels per acre (compared
with 31.5 for England as a whole) and, for barley,
31.9 bushels (compared with 33.1 for England).
Hay was similar with 1.12 tons per acre in Wiltshire
compared with 1.16 for England.°
The pattern of agricultural holdings showed
similar characteristics. Of the 6,764 holdings in
Wiltshire in 1914, some 61% (4153) were of 50
acres or less compared with 66% for England.
Holdings of between 50 and 300 acres accounted
for 29% (1959) compared with 29.7% in England.
The only significant difference lay in the number
of large holdings of over 300 acres when Wiltshire
had 9.6% (652) compared with 3.8% in the rest
of England. Finally, 12% of the Wiltshire holdings
were owner-occupied compared with 11.6% for
the whole country. The Wiltshire owner-occupied
holdings covered 12% (86,120 acres) of the total
acreage under cultivation in the county and this
was almost exactly average for the country
(11%).’
MANPOWER
It is difficult to calculate the total number of men
employed in agriculture in 1914 or the number who
volunteered during the early part of the war before
conscription was introduced in 1916. The best
estimate suggests that, nationally, there were over a
million persons working on farms of whom 250,000
were full-time farmers and 700,000 were full-time
hired men. It has also been estimated that the supply
of agricultural labour fell by 7% in 1915 and by
11% in 1916. By the end of 1916 labour was
deficient by about 10% compared with the pre-war
level.’ There is no reason to believe that this trend
was anything different in Wiltshire. Certainly there
is much anecdotal evidence of volunteers. One
example is particularly poignant. Mr. Bridgeman ,
who farmed 4,000 acres at Collingbourne Ducis,
had two sons who both wanted to volunteer but
one was needed to help run the farm. The sons
tossed with the winner having the ‘privilege’ of
joining the army. He was killed in action within a
year.”
The shortage of labour was a constant and
dominating theme in Wiltshire throughout the war.
As early as November 1915 the Swindon and
District N.F.U. complained that the vigorous
activity of the army recruiting agencies was having
a detrimental effect on agricultural labour. They
wanted the government to issue specific instructions
to exempt special classes of farmers and their
workers and that they should be issued with ‘exempt
armbands’ to show they were in important work. If
this did not happen, then they considered the
AGRICULTURE IN WILTSHIRE IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR TA
amount of arable land, in particular, would
decrease.’°
When conscription was introduced in January
1916 the government did to a certain extent
recognise the importance of agriculture. The long
list of ‘certified occupations’ included a number of
agricultural trades: farmers solely occupied in the
superintendence over or personal labour on their
holdings, bailiffs and foremen, stockmen, carters,
ploughmen, shepherds, thatchers and market
gardeners. But in some of these categories
exemption was not given to single men under 25 or
30. This did not entirely preclude the technically
exempt men from being called up but the Recruiting
Officer would need to prove to the local Military
Tribunal that a particular farm had more men than
absolutely necessary. In February 1917, in order to
achieve some degree of consistency in interpretation
of what was necessary, the government issued a
scale of agricultural manpower. One skilled able-
bodied man was deemed necessary for the
following:
— each team of horses required to cultivate the land
— every 20 cows in milk when the assistance of
women or boys was available
— every 50 head of cattle of stall or yard stock when
auxiliary feeding is resorted to and the assistance
of women or boys is available
— every 200 sheep exclusive of lambs grazed on
enclosed land
— every 800 sheep running on mountain or hill
pasturage.!!
The Wiltshire tribunals also considered evidence
on the number of cows it was reasonable to expect
aman to milk. Mr. Giles of Whistley Farm, Potterne
told the tribunal that for one man to milk 15 cows
was out of the question, 12 would be the outside
number and ten would be quite enough. The figure
of 12 per man seems to have become accepted as a
local yardstick. '”
Despite this degree of protection, the military
authorities did attempt to call up agricultural
workers and their employers frequently appealed
to the tribunals. In general the tribunals seem to
have recognised the importance of local agriculture
and were sympathetic to the farming appeals. In
the Calne Rural District Council area, where
detailed statistics are available, 317 men, almost all
from agricultural occupations, applied for
exemption. Because of many temporary exemptions
followed by further appeals, they appeared in 683
cases. The tribunal gave permanent exemption on
152 occasions and temporary exemption on 404
others.!?
A contentious and sometimes acrimonious issue
was the position of farmers’ sons. A series of letters
in the local press accused farmers of making special
arrangements to protect their sons. This accusation
was even reported in The Times in June 1918:
From the neighbouring county of Wiltshire . .. many
farmers have been allowed to retain an unfair
proportion of their sons, and responsible men, even
among the farming class, comment on the number
of young farmers who apparently fail to take a serious
view of the claims of the country."
It is difficult to decide whether this was justified.
There are many examples, similar to the Bridgeman
case quoted above, of at least one of the sons joining
up leaving another to help run the farm. But there
are other examples of farmers taking deliberate
action to secure exemption. A common way of
doing this was for a farmer to lease another farm or
separate part of his own farm and put his son or
sons in charge of it. They could then claim
exemption as occupiers of land. The most notorious
case of this concerned the Godwin family of
Crudwell who managed to get five of their six sons
‘starred’ as being in reserved occupations. The local
tribunal which certainly had strong agricultural
representation within its membership gave them
short shrift: “We are going to unstar all the men.
We do so because we think it really a scandal that a
Wiltshire farmer should have six sons doing nothing
for the Army and we think it our duty to this country
that this should be done.”!? At another tribunal a
farm worker, Alfred Fishlock, applied for exemption
but surprisingly received no support from his
employer, Mr. Notton of Grafton. Fishlock
commented: “I suppose he is looking after his own
son instead of looking after me.”'°
Farmers attempted to compensate for the lack
of male workers in a number of ways. There was
particularly strong pressure from the agricultural
organisations to obtain the early release of boys from
school. The Local Education Authority allowed
children to leave school and go into a job at 12 if
they passed the ‘labour examination’. They could,
alternatively, leave at 13 to go to a job in agriculture
without passing the examination. Farmers
demanded that all boys should be allowed to leave
as of right at 12 (or even at 11) without any
constraints. This was strongly supported by Mr.
Peto, one of the county’s M.P.s, and the local press,
especially the Wiltshire Times, which always
72 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
favoured the agricultural interest. The local debate
on this matter rumbled on throughout 1915 and
continued even until 1917. At one stage the Bishop
of Salisbury ventured an opinion. He was opposed
to boys working in agriculture unless the labour
market was totally exhausted. Then an adequate
wage should be offered and there should be proper
supervision, physical and moral, of the children.
The Education Committee was not
unsympathetic to the farmers. They would not agree
a blanket provision for all boys to leave at 12 but
were prepared to consider individual applications.
In March 1916 this scheme was extended to girls
who were allowed to be absent from school to enable
their mothers to undertake agricultural work.
Altogether 1,155 boys and 76 girls were released in
Wiltshire during the course of the war.
The part played by boys in agriculture at this
period was highlighted in a report by Mr. Pullinger,
the Director of Education, in August 1915. He
showed that very many boys in Wiltshire went into
agriculture when they left school but when they
reached adulthood there was no job for them and
there was a shortage of accommodation. Many then
left agriculture for other jobs often in the towns.
He concluded that of the yearly output of about
1,200 boys from rural schools in Wiltshire about
600 started agricultural work but only half of them
stayed in agriculture permanently. He used these
statistics to back his case that all children needed a
good education despite the view of the farmers who
argued that farm labourers required only a
minimum of educational achievement. !’
After boys, the second important element was
the attempt to bring more women into agricultural
work. Before the First World War only a relatively
few women were employed in agriculture in
Wiltshire. It was estimated that 1027 women were
employed, many part-time, on 590 farms.'*® In
particular it seems that, although women worked
in the dairy, there was no tradition in Wiltshire of
women milking. It was in this area of agricultural
work that a particular shortage of labour occurred
as the war progressed.
Wiltshire was a pioneer in recruiting women into
agriculture and its activities were one of the factors
which led eventually to the establishment of the
Women’s Land Army. In January 1916 the county’s
War Agricultural Committee formed a Ladies Sub-
Committee under the chairmanship of Lady
Pembroke with Edith Olivier as secretary for the
south of the county and Miss Warrender in the
north. The first action was to create a county register
of village women who were willing to work on farms.
A voluntary correspondent was to be found in each
village to do a local canvass and report. By July
1916 they reported that they had 3,154 women on
the register of whom 2,656 were actually employed
on 1,027 farms. This was double the number at the
beginning of the war. A further report in August
1917 showed 2,590 employed - 863 full-time and
1727 part-time.!”
The main problem was the shortage of trained
milkers. To help solve this, it was decided to establish
a residential training school. In March 1916 Arthur
Stratton had offered the use, rent free, of Shaw
Farmhouse at Manningford near Marlborough.
With a grant from the Ministry of Agriculture, this
school was opened in May 1916. This was closely
followed by a second school at Woodford in a
furnished cottage lent by Louis Grenville and with
facilities for teaching on his farm. They hoped to
turn out 10 trained girls every three to four weeks.
By the end of the war further schools had been
opened at Longford (Lady Radnor), Wilton (Lady
Pembroke), Patney and Berwick St. Leonard
(Berwick House lent by Hugh Morrison). This
activity seems to have been a mixed success. The
total numbers were never large. The Manningford
school, for example, had by September 1917 trained
38 girls; 26 of these were still on farms, 4 were
waiting for employment, 2 were doing other
National Service work, 4 had been discharged on
health grounds, 1 had to live at home and 1 was
unsatisfactory. When trained, the girls had to be
‘placed’ on farms and to achieve this it was
necessary to overcome the prejudices of many
farmers. Edith Olivier was very actively engaged in
running the schools and in meeting the farmers.
She recalled one meeting where her intention was
‘to disarm suspicion and make ‘em say what they
thought women could do’. She heard them whisper
“scare-crow’ to each other. But she ends by saying
that ‘they were really friendly and full of sensible
suggestions.’””
A more positive attitude came from Mr. A. J.
Legg whose whole family had been long employed
by Arthur Stratton to run his dairy farms. He much
preferred women milkers: “You can trust them better
.. . besides cows prefer women. They are more
tender in the touch, they are less prone to apply the
milking stool to an improper purpose and are more
affectionately disposed towards the cows.’ Perhaps
surprisingly, he said he preferred town girls to
country girls: “They are less timid of the cattle.
Strange as it may seem, country children who are
AGRICULTURE IN WILTSHIRE IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR @
always being frightened by being told that “cows
will have them” are more nervous than the girls
from the towns.””!
Undoubtedly Edith Olivier and other members
of the committee looked to recruit ‘the better sort
of girls’ from the towns. Of the first group of six
girls at Manningford, three came from London, two
from Bournemouth and one from Essex. Of the
London girls, one had been employed making
bandoliers for soldiers and another had been
destined for the stage. All these girls were under 20
and, because of their youth and attitudes at the time,
it was expected that those running the scheme
would keep close pastoral care of the girls even when
they had gone off to farms. Edith Olivier, in her
diaries, recalls the countless problems she had to
deal with. She was dismayed when a new batch of
recruits arrived and did not match her expectations:
‘the new ones are awful, not “educated” at all but
real dirty slum girls or so we thought’. On another
occasion she talks of ‘A funny lot of girls. One awful
fat married woman exactly like Falstaff and the
Spackmans say she is very coarse and drinks and
smokes and takes God’s name in vain’. On a
number of occasions she had to retrieve girls from
their work placements because they had proved
unsatisfactory or, in a case at Edington, in response
to a letter from the farmer’s wife saying that her
husband had formed a liaison with one of the
milkers.””
But despite these problems, there were many
success stories. In November 1917 the Swindon
Advertiser carried a long article about a Bristol girl
from Redland High School who had been trained
at Longford Castle. She then got a job on a large
farm in north Wiltshire and, despite the long hours
and the wages which were ‘by no means
overwhelming’, she enjoyed the open-air life. She
had done most jobs on the farm - manure spreading,
sack mending, milking, threshing, chaff cutting,
haymaking, harvesting, ploughing, harrowing,
planting, root cutting, hoeing and feeding animals.
She described a typical October day: up at 6.30,
breakfast and cycle to the farm before 8, special
job of feeding the calves, then get a team of horses
ready, planting wheat and beans and ploughing
them in, finish in the fields by 3.30 to 4, back to
farm to unharness horses, feed them, tea, then feed
the calves, home about 5.30, dinner at 7, bed at
9.30.°? Perhaps also the scheme could claim some
success in changing farmers’ attitudes to female
labour. At a meeting of the War Agricultural
Committee in September 1917, Mr. Combes
reported there was now an urgent need for under-
carters as many young men were being called up. It
was desirable for girls to be trained to take their
place. “From the experience some of them had had,
girls were capable of doing a great deal of work
(hear, hear) which farmers originally thought they
were incapable of.””*
The government recognised the pressures on
agriculture, especially at harvest time, in agreeing
to release soldiers to give temporary help to farmers.
Later on they formed a more permanent group of
soldiers, the Agricultural Company, to give more
regular help. In August 1916 it was decided to
release 27,000 soldiers of whom 750 were to be
allocated to Wiltshire. Farmers could apply to the
local labour exchanges for the soldiers who were
based in the Salisbury area. The following year 200
men of the Agricultural Company were located at
Devizes barracks but it was said that only 40 of
these had been accustomed to working with horses
and that kind of agricultural work. In April 1917 it
was reported that the military authorities had
provided 1,060 men of whom 800 were supposed
to be skilled ploughmen. These had originally been
made available until 15 April but their stay had now
been extended to 30 April. In November 1917 there
were 1,300 soldiers at work on the land in Wiltshire
and it seems to have stayed at this level well into
1918. Not everyone agreed that this was of great
help. In July 1916, at the start of the scheme, Arthur
Stratton complained that many of the soldiers were
no good at all and did not understand farm work.
They had simply volunteered because they wanted
a change from army life.*” The soldiers were not
cheap. Farmers had to pay 4s. a day for each soldier
or 2s. if lodgings were provided. Despite Arthur
Stratton’s misgivings, he used a number of soldiers
during April-June 1917 at a total cost for labour
and billeting of £112 6s. 2d.*°
Two categories of possible help were widely
rejected in Wiltshire. Conscientious objectors could
be exempt from call up if they got a job of national
importance which included farm work. But farmers
were unwilling to take them on: “We find great
difficulty in placing them. We try but they are refused
everywhere.””’ There was a similar response to the
offer of German prisoners of war after Spring 1917.
The Wiltshire War Agricultural Committee thought
they would be better used in road work, forestry
and spade work on derelict land being brought into
cultivation. The practical problem was that they
were to be based in local centres in groups of 75
with 35 guards. This was of little use to the smaller
74 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
A party of soldiers helping with threshing (?) at Downton (Photograph in WANHS Library)
farms which could only make use of much smaller
groups. Later the group size was reduced to 40 and,
towards the end of the war, smaller groups of plough
teams were being sent out to farms with very few
guards. There are references to five prisoner of war
camps in the county, the principal ones being at
Devizes, Wootton Bassett and Chippenham. In June
1918 it was reported that 200 prisoners were being
employed in Wiltshire.** A plough team of 30
prisoners was being used in February 1918 by Mr.
Wilson of Ramsbury.’” An inquest was held in
August on the death of two German prisoners of
war on the farm of Mr. Greenhill of Great Cheverell.
Whey for the pigs was piped from the dairy to an
underground tank eight feet deep and from there it
was pumped to the piggeries. When this pump
failed, the men attempted to go down a ladder and
collect the whey in buckets but they were overcome
by the fumes.*” Apart from these references, there
is no evidence of any widespread use of prisoners
of war in Wiltshire.
THE ARMY PRESENCE IN
WILTSHIRE
The large army presence in Wiltshire had a
significant impact on agriculture in the county. The
army had long used parts of Salisbury Plain for
training and in 1897 started to purchase large tracts
of land. By 1900 they had acquired 42,000 acres in
the area roughly bounded by Market Lavington,
Orcheston, Amesbury, Ludgershall and Upavon.
Further land was added in the next few years,
including the extension of the West Down artillery
ranges westward.*! During the war, a number of
farms were also taken over. At the beginning of the
war Wiltshire had 717,819 acres of land under
cultivation either arable or permanent pasture but
by 1918 this had decreased to 690,781 acres. Some
of this can be explained by the re-classification of
some land from permanent pasture to mountain
or heath grazing but undoubtedly a substantial part
of the decrease must be attributable to the army
expansion.
AGRICULTURE IN WILTSHIRE IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR 75
The large body of soldiers, said to be 252,000
plus their horses in late 1914, had to be fed and it
was expected that most of their needs would be
met from local supplies. In October 1914 a Farm
Produce County Committee was established to
make such local purchases and to fix the prices to
be paid. Allan Young, the Chairman, wrote to the
local press to try to gain the support of local farmers.
He said they needed each day 70 tons of hay, 500
bags of potatoes and quantities of straw, oats and
vegetables. By May 1915 they had bought 20,735
tons of hay, 5,118 tons of straw and 960 tons of
bran. They would, in particular, need large
quantities of palliasse straw shortly.*” The evidence
suggests that this arrangement worked well and the
threat of requisitioning supplies was not resorted
to although there was at least an informal embargo
on sending hay out of the county. The main problem
was the late payment from the army and in July
1915 some £17,000 was said to be overdue.*?
The camps with their horses produced masses
of manure and this was used by local farmers on
their arable fields. The arrangements both for
payment and carriage seems to have been left to
local agreements between the farmers and their
nearest camps. In May 1916, in giving evidence to
the military tribunal on behalf of one of his
employees, Henry Young of Bulford said he had
during the previous year taken 20,000 tons of army
manure.™*
There were many other problems associated
with the army presence. Some of these are related
in Arthur Street’s The Gentleman of the Party which
chronicles the development of the fictional (but
closely based on real life) ‘Sutton Manor farm’ from
the 1870s to the 1920s. There were also difficulties
in obtaining compensation from the Army for the
damage they did to crops and to livestock. The
Salisbury Journal in 1917-18 reported a number of
cases involving claims before the Defence of the
Realm Losses Committee. In November 1917 Mr.
C. E. Notley of Manor House, Upton Lovell
claimed £2,400 in compensation for the military
occupation of part of his farm, 287 acres arable
and 124 acres down between Michaelmas 1914 and
Michaelmas 1916. He estimated the land as having
-a rentable value of £450 but the military were
prepared to offer only £150 a year for the arable
and £30 for the down. There was also discussion
about loss of profit from 204 ewes which Notley
had had to sell. The Commission eventually
awarded Notley £1,044 13s. plus £12 12s. towards
costs.” At Boscombe, Mr. W. C. Thomas claimed
£433 6s. 6d. for loss and damage through the
military occupation of part of his farm plus £120 a
year on account of rent. He was tenant of a farm of
1,637 acres, largely hill land, of which the War Office
had previously taken 590 acres. The present claim
concerned a further 176 acres (126 acres pasture
and 50 acres down). Thomas had become the tenant
at Michaelmas 1916 and the army moved in during
December 1916. There was a particular dispute over
16 acres of turnips for which he had paid, on
valuation, £6 3s. 6d. an acre but which had largely
gone rotten because the army had not allowed him
to crop them. The Commission awarded the
claimant £250 16s. 6d. in damages plus £120 a
year in rent exclusive of rates. Mr. Targett of
Birdlymes Farm, Porton claimed for a list of items
including £50 for the lessened number of rabbits
killed in the year to Michaelmas 1917 - 1,000 rabbits
at 1s. each. He received his claim in full.*°
PLOUGH CAMPAIGN
From the beginning of the war farmers were being
encouraged to plough more land and to grow more
wheat. However, there was very little economic
incentive for them to do this and the amount of
arable in Wiltshire changed very little between 1914
and 1917. One of the problems was that many
tenanted farms had a clause in their lease which
prevented the break up of pasture. Some patriotic
owners were prepared to waive this restriction. For
example, Lord Lansdowne’s agent wrote to his
tenants in September 1915:
There is general agreement as to the undesirability
of ploughing up valuable old pasture but there is
probably in most parts of the country a certain
amount of inferior land that has either been badly
laid down or has ‘thrown itself down’ to grass and
which might be with advantage broken up in present
circumstances.
Lord Lansdowne desires me to inform you that
if you consider that you have any land on your farm
that can be used more profitably for national purposes
than at present used, he will be quite willing to waive
any restrictive covenants in your agreement which
might stand in the way.
I shall be pleased to look into the matter with
you if you will communicate with me at your
convenience. *”
The failure of a voluntary attempt to increase the
amount of arable land led to the government
76 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
decision in 1916-17 that large areas of grassland
should be ploughed up, by compulsion if necessary.
The reasons behind this started with the problems
with the 1916 harvest. But the real impetus came
with a very poor American harvest and the impact
of the renewed and very successful German
submarine campaign which seriously affected
imports. The campaign was to be spearheaded by
new local Agricultural Executive Committees which
were given the task of achieving local targets set by
central government. They were empowered to
compel farmers to plough up grassland and they
were able, as a last resort, to take over poorly run
farms. Some protection was given to farmers by
minimum guaranteed prices for grain.
In Wiltshire the Executive Committee was
established by the War Agricultural Committee in
December 1916, although its minutes exist only
from 1 January 1918. At that time the membership
was: A.R.White (Chairman), R.Butler, E.Coward,
R.E.Macan, E.Pritchard. F.R.Rogers, J.W.Spencer,
J.B.Stevens, A.Stratton and E.G.Warren. The
officers were: W.T.Howes (Executive Officer),
E.C.Skurray (District Organiser for Ploughing),
W.S.Oram (Machinery Officer) and James Welch
(Horse Officer). The committee established its own
local sub-committees of local farmers who knew
the area and the land well. The original target for
Wiltshire was to plough up an additional 85,000
acres, approximately half the grassland which had
been laid down in the previous 45 years. In 1872
Wiltshire had 425,777 acres of arable and this had
been reduced to 258,927 acres by 1913. After
various protests and representations the Wiltshire
target was reduced to 48,000 acres. The aim also
was that 65% of the arable should be set to corn.**
The committee did not find it easy to work
towards the targets it had been set. In many parts
of Wiltshire dairy farming was well established and
particularly profitable. Farmers were reluctant to
lose good pasture land, often of heavy soils, which
they maintained would not be suitable for
ploughing. A fairly typical reaction came from Mr.
Horton at a meeting of the Swindon N.F.U. He
said that in 1879 his father had a lot of heavy land
and it used to grow pretty well everything that was
bad. The land was laid down in 1882 and now it
had got into really good turf and his brother was
milking 120 or 130 cows on it. This opinion was
reflected in the formal resolution of the Swindon
N.E.U. in June 1917:
That this meeting of members of the Swindon Branch
of the National Farmers Union while realising their
responsibility as food producers and willing to meet
the views of the Board of Agriculture to the best of
their ability, in finding suitable grass land for
cultivation, views with concern the Government
proposals to order the ploughing up of grass land
and is of the opinion that if every effort were made to
thoroughly and systematically cultivate the land now
under the plough and make satisfactory arrangements
for the distribution of all available artificial manures,
much more would be done for the national good than
by adding to the already appalling amount of foul
land and doing away with valuable turf which in view
of the predicted shortage of feeding stuffs, would
produce hay or grass to maintain the supply of meat
39
and keep up the ever decreasing supply of milk.
A more jaundiced but probably realistic view
was reported by the Tisbury sub-committee: “Every
farmer had great sympathy with the movement -
over the hedge! He would tell of thousands of acres
which ought to be broken up and gave them the
actual history and dates when his neighbour’s land
was sown down but he generally had some special
reason why his own land should not be touched.”
The Tisbury chairman explained that in his area
6,547 acres had been laid down since 1872 and
they had identified 3,304 acres to be broken up. In
general they had applied the 50% rule to each farm
but in some cases they found that land which had
previously carried 12 sacks of wheat an acre had
deteriorated into something inferior to good
downland and in these cases the committee had
hardened their hearts and scheduled more than
50%. They considered they had achieved their task
without disturbing one milking cow.*”
In March 1917 the government proposed
minimum prices for grain over the next five years
in order to give farmers some security:
Table 1 Proposed guaranteed prices for grain
per quarter
Wheat Oats
1917 60s. Od. 38s. 6d
1918-19 55s. Od. 32s. Od.
1920-22 45s. Od. 24s. Od.
Source: Devizes Gazette 1 March 1917.
This did not seem a sufficient incentive to
encourage many Wiltshire farmers to plough up
_ Mirwood Field:
AGRICULTURE IN WILTSHIRE IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR 77
grassland. Part of the problem was that this was
linked to a minimum wage of 25s. a week for farm
labourers. Gordon Redman of Collingbourne
Kingston argued that the proposed prices for 1920
were too low. He calculated that his profit would
reduce from £958 a year to £723:
Table 2. Estimated profit on farm at Collingbourne
Kingston
Average for years 1910-1913: ve
521 qrs of wheat grown and sold for 888
744 qrs oats 719
1607
20 labourers (17 men, 3 boys) 649
Profit 958
Estimate for 1920-2
521 qrs wheat IA
744 qrs oats 849
2021
Labour bill 1298
Profit 723
Source: Devizes Gazette 8 March 1917.
A similar calculation was nicely put by E. Pritchard
of the Swindon N.F.U. He said that the price of
corn in three or four years time would be 22s. 6d.a
sack while the minimum wage for labour was to be
25s. a week. His father used to say that no corn
would be produced if the farm labourer carried away
a sack every Saturday night!?!
Although many areas were identified for
ploughing agreement, the local sub-committees
found it difficult to achieve their target. It was at
that stage that the Executive Committee resorted
to its compulsory powers. By February 1919 the
committee had issued nearly 3,000 ploughing
orders although probably a number of these were
technical in the sense that if the farmer was ordered
to plough up a particular piece of land it
strengthened his hand in any later claim if the crop
failed. The orders were very precise in identifying
not only the particular field but exactly how it
should be cultivated and the crop to be sown. For
example, an order was issued in March 1918 to
Carrol Ansdell, tenant, for the cultivation of
Rowden and Cowesfield Farms in Whiteparish.On
a smaller scale, Albert Scull of West End, Westbury,
was ordered to summer fallow, clean and plant to
autumn wheat 6.415 acres of land near to the
cemetery and adjoining the Rifle Range path at
Westbury. Orders could involve not only ploughing
but other aspects of good husbandry. F.H.Seymour
of West Park Farm, Market Lavington, for example,
was ordered to cut and lay hedges and clean ditches
in two fields.”
Most farmers seemed to have responded to the
orders of the Executive Committee at least when
legal proceedings were started. But some cases did
Table 3
Rowdens Farm
Partridge Close:
Bucklebury:
16.951 acres.
11.461 acres.
21.313 acres.
17.215 acres.
Big Stoney Dean:
Pamula:
Cowesfield Farm
Big Barn Croft:
Fifteen Acres:
Forty Acre Field:
8.752 acres.
15.654 acres.
41.710 acres.
Crop rotation ordered for farms at Whiteparish, 1918
Fallow after barley, to be sown to Spring oats.
Roots fed, to be sown oats.
Ploughed after oats, to be sown to barley.
To be planted to oats after wheat.
Roots fed, to be sown to barley.
Ploughed after wheat stubble, to be sown to oats.
8 acres swedes and kale, to be sown to barley. 12 acres
ploughed after barley, to be sown to oats.
59.617 acres
Great Homefield: 34.079 acres
13 acres 2 roods fallow after roots fed, to be sown to oats.
16 acres after oats and peas, to be sown to barley. 8 acres
fallow after wheat, to be sown to oats.
Middle Broadfield:
Newly broken up field:
12.394 acres.
15 acres.
Fallow after wheat, to be sown to oats.
To be sown to oats.
Source: Minutes, Wiltshire Agricultural Executive Committee, 6 March 1918.
78 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
get to court and fines were levied. In November
1918, for example, it was reported to the committee
that Mark Jeans had been convicted of failing to
plough up 27 acres of land on King Hall Farm,
Milton, Pewsey. He was fined £5 with 5 guineas
costs.’? Perhaps the most notable case involved John
Ashby of Steeple Ashton who was not only a well-
known farmer but also a magistrate and chairman
of the Trowbridge branch of the N.F.U. The
Executive Committee had used a formula requiring
each farmer to put to the plough 40% of the land
put down to grass since 1872. Strictly this required
31% acres from Ashby but the committee had
reduced this to 23. He agreed to plough 10 acres
and eventually did so but he resolutely refused to
plough the rest claiming it was too heavy soil. He
also refused to nominate a more suitable area of
his farm. In court it was said that he was stubborn
and obstinate and all the coaxing and consideration
would not change him. He was found guilty and
fined 10 guineas with £5 15s. 6d. costs.”
A more serious step was to take over a farm or
pieces of land if the committee thought it was not
being cultivated efficiently. The minutes of the
Executive Committee, for example, record the
decision in March 1918 to take possession of two
pieces of land belonging to Sir Frederick Banbury,
M.P. of Warneford Place, Highworth. There was
also a threat to take over Horwood Farm, Ansty,
belonging to Lady Arundell as it was not being
cultivated to increase as far as practicable the food
supply of the country. This was later altered to an
order to plough a field of 40 acres on the farm.”
The committee was more perplexed by
Malmesbury Common. By January 1918 the area
was still some 1,200 acres short of its target. A
meeting of farmers from the area was called and
various pledges were made but these amounted to
only 200 acres. It was then suggested that
Malmesbury Common should be taken over and
ploughed up. This consisted of about 200 acres in
150 allotments. Many of these had not been
cultivated and had ‘tumbled down’ in the last 40
years. Many were owned by old people and aged
widows who could not afford to have the land
ploughed. The committee was concerned that the
common might be protected by charter and therefore
could not be taken over.*°
The largest farm taken over by the Executive
Committee was Foxley Farm in Malmesbury
Without consisting of 719 acres and belonging to
Colonel Wyatt William Turnor of Pinkney Park,
Malmesbury. Having taken possession of the farm,
the committee then leased 650 acres to Mr. Sidney
Maundrell at a rental of £550 a year. He was to be
allowed £100 spread over the next four years to
meet the expense of repairing live fences, cleaning
water courses and erecting new post and wire fences.
An inspection a year later found the farm to be in
much better condition generally.*’
Despite the gloomy predictions by farmers, the
yield of grain from the newly-ploughed land across
the country was not substantially inferior to that
on existing tillage except perhaps in barley. There
was, however, wide variation from farm to farm
depending largely on the different processes of
cultivation which had been used. In August-
September 1917, representatives of the Board of
Agriculture inspected 2,300 acres of newly
ploughed land in the eastern part of Wiltshire.
Their report covered 18 separate pieces of land.
Of these 12 were considered to have been
successful, 2 had been failures and the others
doubtful. The contrasts can be seen from the
following examples:
1,000 acres oats, chiefly Black Tartarian sown from
February to May on medium loam overlying the
chalk at 300-400 feet above sea level. Broken up
from January to April by steam ploughs and tractors
to depth of about 4-5 inches and then pressed. Seed
broadcasted, harrowed in and rolled several times
with heavy rollers. Two rollers drawn by tractors
were started immediately after sowing and worked
continuously so long as it was possible to roll the
corn. On the whole, the crop was successful
especially in the case of oats sown in February and
March on a moist seed bed. Those on a dry seed
bed in April and May were attacked by wireworm.
Sulphate of ammonia was applied to parts of the
crop.
Table 4 Areas under Crops and Grass (‘000 acres)
500
400
1917 1918 1949
HB Arable Pasture
AGRICULTURE IN WILTSHIRE IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR 79
Table 5 Arable Crops (‘000 acres)
140 acres oats sown March 15 to April 21 on loam
soil overlying chalk 500-660 feet above sea level. Land
had been grass for 18 years. Ploughed by tractor
plough to depth of 4 inches, harrowed 3 to 4 times
with Parmitter’s harrow and rolled twice with a heavy
Cambridge roller. 100 acres received 1 cwt. sulphate
of ammonia and 1'/4 cwt. basic phosphate per acre.
Rest not manured. Crop party successful and partly
a failure. Good results on land ploughed 1 March to
7 April. Wireworm destroyed crop on land ploughed
before March.
300 acres oats, chiefly Tartarian. Sown March-April
on good loam overlying chalk. Had been grassland
for 17 years. Ploughed in February-April by steam
plough to depth of 8 inches, pressed, harrowed four
to six times and rolled. Many parts of the crop failed
and, on the whole, would hardly pay costs of
cultivation. Soil not so firmly compacted. Problems
with dry weather and with fruit fly and wireworm.
The most common problem was that of wire-
worm. Experience from the first year suggested
that this was particularly present on loose land
and it could be overcome if the land was
consolidated by several rollings - as many as ten
times in some instances.**
When the Executive Committee was disbanded
in February 1919 it claimed that approximately an
additional 45,000 acres had been brought into
cultivation compared with the target of 48,000
acres.*? In fact, the returns to the Board of
Agriculture showed that the targets were not nearly
reached. The increase in arable land between 1916
and 1918 was only 36,168 acres and the proportion
of the arable sown to grain (wheat, oats and barley)
increased from 48% to only 56% compared with
the target of 65%.”
MECHANISATION
On the outbreak of war, mechanisation in Wiltshire
agriculture was very limited. But the demand for
substantial areas of land to be ploughed up after
1916 could be achieved only by the use of tractors
and mechanical ploughs especially in view of the
shortage of labour.
Some steam ploughing was certainly taking
place on the larger farms and steam ploughmen
were being given exemption from call-up because
of the importance of their work. Arthur Stratton of
Alton Priors, for example, had five sets of steam
ploughs complete with instruments and vans. He
kept one for his own farm and the other four he
used for contract work on other farms:
Class B.B. compound Engine. New in early Spring
1914 with implements, etc. Nos. 14344 and
14345
Compound 9 years old with implements. Nos. 12032
and 12033.
12 H.P. (old type) about 46 years old with
implements.
Odd set. One 12 H.P. Engine about 46 years old.
One 14 H.P. (new type) 40 years old.
Old horizontal converted Engine about 56 years old
with implements complete.’!
Steam ploughs were cumbersome to use and
especially to move from farm to farm making it
difficult to get full use from them. In January 1918
the Agricultural Executive Committee enquired
into the use of the steam ploughing tackle belonging
to Messrs. Rawlings and Sons of Chiseldon and to
Mr. R.W. Eavis of Woodborough. The committee
was not satisfied that the machines were being used
efficiently and there was no guarantee that they
would be offered to other farms. It was
recommended therefore that they should be taken
over by the government.”
Some tractors were also available. In September
1915 T.H.White Ltd. of Devizes held a
demonstration at West Park Farm, Market
Lavington, of new agricultural machinery, especially
two types of oil tractor from the International
Harvester Co. The larger tractor of 25 H.P. weighed
only 4 tons and so was said to leave no impression
on the ground. It required one man in charge of
the tractor and one who sat on the plough steering
from his seat by means of a lever close at hand and
a similar convenient means of increasing or reducing
the depth. It ploughed an acre in just 1% hours.
80 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
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WILLIS & SON,
THE CENTRAL GARAGE, DEVIZES.
Advertisement for the ‘Oventiene® tractor, published in
Devizes Gazette, 16 May 1918
The smaller 16 H.P. tractor, the “Kid-Kangaroo’,
weighed 2% tons and was demonstrated with a three
furrow plough. It took 1% to 2 hours to plough an
acres:
Milking machines also existed and their
numbers increased during the war. But they were
still relatively rare and only economic on the larger
farms. There was some prejudice against them by
some farmers such as Samuel Tucker of Holt who,
although he used a machine, claimed that the cheese
was not so good as from hand milking.** In
February 1915 White’s of Devizes were advertising
Lister milking machines and one was bought by
Arthur Stratton for £146 4s.*? Another
advertisement for the Wallace milking machine
included testimonials from W.G. Willis of Overtown
House, Wroughton, and T. Edwards of Barton
Farm, Marlborough. Other satisfied owners were
said to be: W.Gauntlett of Grafton, H.Horton of
Costow Farm, Wroughton, H.D.Cole of
Broomsgrove, Pewsey, E.Maidment of Oare and
B. Davis of St. Martin, Zeals.*°
The large-scale introduction of tractors in 1917-
18 was organised by central government and was
run locally by the Agricultural Executive
Committees. Over this period the government
ordered £4.7 million worth of tractors, mainly from
America including 6,000 Fordson tractors, 3,750
Oliver ploughs and 2,632 Titan tractors
(International Harvester Co.). There were particular
problems in getting delivery of the Fordsons which
did not come in any quantity until 1918. The
government started mainly with Titans and Moguls.
But by the end of the war 26 models were on the
market, although the government concentrated on
just six: Titan, Overtime, Clayton and Shuttleworth
(caterpillar), Saunderson, 25 H.P. Mogul and
Fordson. The Executive Committees also recruited
skilled drivers and ploughmen so that complete
teams could be deployed across the county. The
committees could also take over and use privately
owned tractors although it was agreed that these
would be returned to the owners by 1 May for their
own use.”’ A trial of the 16 H.P. Mogul pulling a
Canadian Cockshutt 3-furrow plough was reported.
It ran at a speed of 3 m.p.h. and used 2% gallons of
paraffin per acre. Normally it could plough 5 acres
a day but in ideal conditions it could manage *4
acre per hour. Three caterpillar ploughs, lent by the
Russian government, were also tried in Wiltshire
but these proved to be unsuccessful and were
returned. Much better was the Bullock Creeping
Grip tractor (a type of caterpillar) which had come
from America.”*
The organisation of the Wiltshire teams was
undertaken by Ernest Willis of the Central Garage,
Devizes who was about to take up a commission in
the tractor company of the A.S.C. but who was
diverted to this new task. In March 1917
advertisements were placed in the local press for
drivers of motor tractors for ploughing, either full-
time or part-time, working 8-hour shifts. The first
sign of the arrival of the government tractors in
Wiltshire was a report to the War Agricultural
Committee in February 1917 that two motor
THE “Wi
Royal Medal Milking Machines
THE BEST BRITISH-MADE MACHINE ON! THE MARKET.
The Cupa do not ‘
fall off. We chal! be
=e pleased to motor
IT CANNOT
OVERMILK Intending customers
to eee any plant
PLANTB INSTALLED
UPon THE
SHORTROT BOTICE.
at work
Over 100 Machines sold i in Wiltshire since October, 1914.
Advertisement for the ‘Wallace’ milking machine,
published in Devizes Gazette, 18 Feb 1915
AGRICULTURE IN WILTSHIRE IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR 81
Illustration from advertisement for the Lister milking machine, published in Devizes Gazette, 11 Feb 1915
ploughs were available - one at Dean Station and
the other at Dinton Station. After that a steady
stream of different sorts of tractors arrived so that
by November 1917 there were 64 in the county.
Throughout 1918 there were regular reports to
the Agricultural Executive Committee of the arrival
of new tractors and of their deployment. For
example, in January 1918 a batch of 10 Titan
tractors with Cockshutt ploughs arrived; 2 went to
Chippenham, 2 to Pewsey, 5 to Tetbury and 1 to
Swindon. Titans continued to dominate, although
the government did buy one Overtime from
Skurray’s in Swindon. In February there was a
delivery of 10 Parrett tractors for Warminster and
Salisbury followed by 10 Saundersons. The first
Ford tractors seem to have come in April together
with 2-furrow Oliver pioughs. They went to
Swindon, Chippenham, Warminster and Salisbury.
At the end of April 1918, 93 tractors were in use in
the county. During the month they had ploughed
5,442 acres and Wiltshire was second in the national
league table for the average number of acres
ploughed per tractor. The Fordsons were reported
as being particularly successful.*” By the end of
1918 tractors seem to have been much more readily
available and advertisements appeared in the local
press for Titan and Overtime tractors for private
buyers. The Strattons, for example, bought a Titan
tractor in 1918 from T-H.White’s for £465 14s. This
compares with the £2,425 they paid for a complete
steam ploughing set and tackle in 1915.° There
seems little doubt that the ploughing campaign
could not have been undertaken without this
injection of new motor tractors. Also this crash
programme was the start of a mechanisation of
agriculture which continued after 1918.
MANOR FARM, LITTLE
BEDWYN AND PEARL
FARM, CHOLDERTON
ESTATE
It is instructive to look at some particular farms
and to see what changes took place on them and
the extent to which they followed the general trends.
Manor Farm, at Little Bedwyn near the Berkshire
border, was run by Samuel Farmer and consisted
of 1,181 acres, 691 acres of which he owned and
the remainder he leased. About a third of the farm
was arable; it had a substantial sheep flock and also
a dairy herd.°*! Pearl Farm, by contrast, was situated
further south on downland. It formed part of the
large Cholderton estate owned by H. C. Stevens
and had been brought in hand immediately before
82 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
1900. It was smaller at 308 acres with
predominantly sheep. It grew fodder crops but,
before the war, virtually no grain.”
At Manor Farm the pattern of the changing
proportions of arable and grass land followed fairly
closely the county trend. In 1914 there were 404
acres of arable but this had decreased to 359 acres
by 1917.Then considerable ploughing up took place
so that in 1918 the arable had increased to 499 acres
and to 508 in 1919. In March 1918 he reported
that he had ploughed up 176 acres since June 1917.
The proportion devoted to wheat increased
significantly from 75 acres in 1914 to 128 acres in
1918 and to 192 acres in 1919. This was offset by a
decrease in oats from 190 acres in 1914 to 62 acres
in 1919. Barley was not grown at all until 1917 when
36 acres were planted.
For the county as a whole the number of sheep
gradually decreased each year. At Manor Farm the
flock actually increased from 726 in 1914 to 957 in
1917. There was then a quite dramatic drop in
numbers in 1918 to 715. The number of cattle
remained fairly constant at around 250 of which
about 60% were cows in milk. Production of milk
was still a major aspect of the farm. In June 1918
there were 168 cows in milk and they were
producing about 2,000 gallons a week. Almost all
of this was sold wholesale and only 17 gallons
retained for household use (butter and cheese) and
for the employees.
Although the farm’s list of employees included
three steam ploughmen, there was no mention of
such implements in the farm’s inventory in April
1917. Then they still had five horse ploughs, three
horse cultivators and 12 harrows. The farm must
have relied heavily on its horses for throughout the
war the number of horses on the farm remained at
about 30. Half of these were heavy horses used in
agriculture, 8 or 10 were young, unbroken horses
and the remainder were lighter horses used for
pulling carts, vans and carriages.
The labour force had been affected by
recruitment into the army. In November 1916 the
farm had 25 men and 2 women. By that time 9 had
left to join the army and 5 had been moved to work
on the Great Western Railway. Of the men left, only
8 were of military age (i.e under 41). Of these, 4
had been given temporary exemption and 2 were
medically unfit. The employees comprised 3 carters,
11 milkers, 3 steam ploughmen, one shepherd, a
blacksmith and the remainder general labourers.
Although the farm followed the county trends
in general, a higher proportion of its grassland was
ploughed up than might have been expected.
Clearly it was this ploughing up of the permanent
pasture which led to the sudden decrease in the
size of the sheep flock. Also, although its total labour
force may have remained about the same in number,
the youngest and fittest men had left. The average
age of the workers thus increased significantly with
7 between 50 and 60 and 4 over 60.
Pearl Farm was divided into 11 fields each of
24 acres with 44 acres of homestead, woods and
roads. The rotation of crops shows only a limited
Table 6: Pearl Farm, Cholderton Estate: Crop Rotation
Field Oct 1915-Oct 1916 Oct 1916-Oct 1917
41 Pasture Pasture Pasture Pasture
42 Pasture Pasture Pasture Pasture
43 Pasture Pasture Pasture Pasture
44 Pasture Pasture Pasture Pasture
45 Pasture Pasture Pasture Pasture
46 Fallow Cabbage Cabbage Cabbage
47 Cabbage Winter Mustard Winter
barley barley
48 Winter Winter Winter Cabbage
barley oats oats
49 Pasture Pasture Pasture Pasture
50 Oats Cabbage Cabbage Mangolds
5] Fallow Cabbage Mustard Winter
Oct 1917-Oct 1918
Oct 1918 -Oct 1919
Pasture Pasture Pasture Pasture
Pasture Pasture Pasture Pasture
Pasture Pasture Pasture Pasture
Pasture Pasture Pasture Pasture
Pasture Pasture Pasture Pasture
Cabbage Rape and Turnips Winter
turnips and rape oats
Winter Broccoli Broccoli Rape
barley
Cabbage Rape and Kale ae
turnips
Pasture Oats Oats Barley
Mangolds Wheat Wheat Kale and
turnips
Winter Winter Winter Lucerne
barley barley barley barley
Source: W.R.O. 1894/7, Cholderton Estate Farm Accounts.
AGRICULTURE IN WILTSHIRE IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR 83
response to the war time demands, especially the
ploughing up campaign. Five fields, almost half the
farm, remained in permanent pasture throughout
the period. It was used mainly for grazing sheep
although cattle and horses are mentioned -
Highland cows in 1915-16. The root crops and
cabbage were also used for grazing sheep in folds.
One field, 49, which had been used mainly for hay,
was ploughed up in 1917-18 and sown to oats and
then barley. There was also a change in field 50
when wheat was grown for the first time on the
farm. This field produced 90 quarters of wheat
which, at a yield of 30 bushels per acre, was very
close to the county average.
OUTPUT
The success of the government’s policy and the
changes in agriculture must be measured by the
extent to which the country’s need for food was
met.°? The most important issue, especially as the
war progessed, was the production of grain,
especially wheat. The total output of wheat, oats
and barley in Wiltshire increased slowly between
1914 and 1917. It then increased very significantly
in 1918 with a total of 699,000 quarters compared
with 510,958 quarters the previous year. It then
dropped back in 1919 to 563,000 quarters but was
still 10% higher than in 1914.
There was, however, considerable variation in
the proportions of wheat, oats and barley within
the total output of grain. In 1914, wheat represented
39% of the total, oats 41% and barley 20%. By 1917
the proportion of wheat had declined to 37% and
oats had increased to 46%. The ploughing campaign
of 1917 was reflected in the huge increase in grain
in the 1918 harvest. The output of wheat, oats and
barley all increased but the most significant change
was in wheat when production increased from
191,000 quarters to 295,000 quarters, 42% of the
total grain harvest.
The output of grain depended, of course, not
only on the acreage under cultivation but also the
yield. The first few years of the war saw reasonably
good harvests although the yields tended to be lower
than for the ten-year average before the war. In 1917
the harvests were poor and this was an added
incentive to plough up more land. The following
year saw not only the effects of the increased amount
of land under cultivation but also good yields, even
from the newly ploughed grass land.
Table 7 Wiltshire grain yields 1905-1919
Yield in bushels per acre
Wheat Oats Barley
Av.1905-14 32.0 42.8 31.9
1914 29.8 35:3 29.8
1915 29.6 35.9 Dilek
1916 29.6 40.9 S32
1917 28.4 36.0 29.0
1918 32:5 41.3 30.9
1919 28.0 26.4 26.0
Source: Agricultural Statistics 1914-1919 (Parliamentary
Papers Vols. XLIV to LIV)
But, if more attention was being paid to arable
and the production of grain, then something else
had to suffer and that was some livestock. The
number of cattle actually remained almost the same
throughout the war and the proportion of these
being cows in milk stayed consistently at about half.
The demand for fresh milk remained constant and,
as this was not a product which could be imported,
the problem of shipping did not affect it. Milk was
also one of the most profitable of the agricultural
products and this again persuaded farmers to
maintain production at the pre-war level.
The major impact, however, was in the decline
in the number of sheep and pigs. The number of
sheep in Wiltshire decreased steadily each year
throughout the war. In 1914 there had been 379,133
sheep in Wiltshire but by 1919 this was only
241,237. The change was largely attributable to the
decrease in pasture, the shortage of feed and, above
all, the shortage of skilled shepherds. The decline
in pigs was even more marked from 56,189 in 1914
Table 8 Production of Grain (‘000 quarters)
3007
GH Wheat Oats Barley
84 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Table 9 Production of Root Crops and Hay (‘000 tons)
EB Root Crops 2 Hay
Table 10 Livestock (‘000)
490,
100
1917
HE Cows in Milk
BE Sheep
2: Other Cattle Pigs
to 28,781 in 1919 (i.e. less than half). Again the
main cause was said to be the shortage of feeding
stuffs. Milling offals, barley meal and maize meal
had been widely used but these came to be in short
supply and more expensive as they were increasingly
used for human consumption. The decrease in
sheep and pigs was more marked in Wiltshire than
in England as a whole. By the end of the war,
Wiltshire had 2.03% of the country’s sheep
compared with 2.78% in 1914; the share of pigs
also decreased from 2.51% to 1.77%.
The overall decrease in livestock was perhaps
the reason for a similar decrease in the production
of root crops (turnips, swedes and mangolds). The
output of 713,036 tons in 1914 must be compared
with the very much smaller one of only 299,000
tons in 1919. But the area devoted to potatoes,
although only small, doubled during the war and
the output increased from 14,197 tons to 32,000
tons. This probably reflected the fact that potatoes
were relatively easy to grow and were likely to
produce high yields of foodstuff.
REGULATION
The First World War saw the regulation of industry
and many aspects of everyday life on a quite
unprecedented scale. Conscription into the armed
forces and the compulsory ploughing of grass land
were, perhaps, the most significant items affecting
agriculture but there was a host of other minor
regulations with which farmers had to contend.
The shortage of wheat after 1916-17 was met
by aset of rules on the production and sale of bread
which must be seen alongside the increase in arable
land. The most important of the changes was to
increase the extraction rate of flour from wheat.
Before the war it had normally been about 70%; in
1916 it was raised to 81% and later it went as high
as 90%. Bread had to contain at least 10% and not
more than 25% of flour made from cereals other
than wheat. These cereals were barley, maize, oats,
rye and beans. Soya bean flour could also be used
but it was limited to 5%. This resulted in a ‘grey’
loaf which was unpopular and subject to constant
complaints. However, it has been argued that this
resulted in a greater contribution to the nation’s
food supply (an additional 1.8 billion calories in
1917 and 3.7 billion in 1918) than the ploughing
campaign achieved.” The regulations also said that
bread must not be sold until at least 12 hours after
it had been made and some Wiltshire bakers were
successfully prosecuted for breaches of this rule.
Presumably one was likely to eat less bread if it was
stale than if it was new; also, perhaps, new bread is
very difficult to slice thinly and this would mean
greater consumption.”
At the beginning of the war, the army
commandeered a large number of horses from local
farms. The army’s need for a continuing supply of
horses was also the reason given for the support of
hunting during the war. In 1915, for example, the
Director of Remounts was urging the military
tribunals to look sympathetically on hunt employees
as hunting was a means of continuing the breeding
and raising of light horses suitable for cavalry
work. In fact the whole trade in horses was closely
regulated throughout the war. In 1917 David Cutler
was summonsed for selling a horse to Herbert Hill.
Cutler had obtained a licence to sell the horse at
Salisbury market but only to someone who
occupied an agricultural holding. Hill used the
horse for carting road materials. Despite claiming
AGRICULTURE IN WILTSHIRE IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR 85
that the horse was an old crock and ought to have
been killed, Cutler was fined 10s. and Hill £1.°" At
the end of the war there were large sales of army
horses. In December 1918 the Swindon Advertiser
reported a local auction of 99 horses, 2 of which
made 49 guineas each while the others ranged down
to 10 guineas.®*
Another contentious issue was the Daylight
Saving Bill, i.e. the introduction of British Summer
Time. This was opposed by a large number of
farmers and a lively debate ensued in the local press.
Mr. Perrett, for example, maintained: “You cannot
alter the sun time. In many cases, especially towards
autumn, when they had some barley to set, if they
got up an hour earlier they would only be able to
look at it until the afternoon and then it was nearly
time to go to bed.” There was also some difference
of opinion about the impact on dairy farmers
especially those who relied upon their milk catching
the special trains to London. It was said that the
morning’s milk had to arrive in London by 10.30-
11.30. It was then pasteurised and cooled before
leaving for the afternoon delivery at 12.0-1.0. The
evening’s milk was sent overnight in time for
breakfast in London. It seems unlikely that the
change in the clocks had any significant impact on
these arrangements.”
A further break with tradition came in March
1917 when it was decided to work on Sundays to
try to ensure that the land was ploughed and crops
sown. The season had been particularly late with
especially hard frosts in February. The workers of
Mr. Maton of Enford, for example, volunteered to
work on four Sundays. As a result 280 extra acres
were ploughed. There were many, however, who
objected. Mr. A.W.Perren of Stanton Mill, Pewsey
maintained that God promised seed time and
harvest and he had not failed yet - provided we as a
nation did not walk contrary to him. Mr. E.A.
Rawlence, a Sabbatarian from Salisbury, also
claimed that the Church should have called
churches to special prayers for a favourable seed
time and a prosperous harvest instead of sending
men and horses to extra labour. If they had done
this, he had faith to believe that we should not have
had this particularly bad weather. However, the
Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of
Salisbury had agreed that the exceptional
circumstances warranted this Sunday working.
There was some compromise at Enford when an
open air service was held in the field. It was
conducted by the Rev. W.H.Banford, vicar of
Enford, and the Rev. P. Dale, rector of Fittleton,
with a sermon on the text: “The Sabbath was made
for man and not man for the Sabbath.” It was said
that this service was the first of its kind in England.”
Finally the increasing mechanisation of farming,
with more milking machines, stationary engines and
motor tractors, could only be sustained if there was
a sufficient supply of petrol. But petrol was rationed
or, at least, subject to specific allocation by the
government. Already by 1916 the farmers were
claiming that the allocations were insufficient and
they were often getting only half of what they had
requested. Mr. Blanchard of the Devizes N.F.U.,
for example, said he had to run a milking machine
which used about six gallons a week and he also
had to pump water for two farms, a house and
cottages. He was only allowed seven gallons whereas
he had asked for 12.7!
CHANGES IN LAND
OWNERSHIP
It has been estimated that a quarter of agricultural
land in England changed hands in the first few years
after the war. Many estates began to be broken up
and sold from the end of 1917 onwards. In general,
this resulted in increasing pressure on large
landowners and reduced profitability of land.
During the war there had been restraints on the
increase of rent but the cost of maintenance, repairs
and labour had increased sharply. Income tax on
rent was also increased; before 1914, on the Wilton
and Savernake estates, income tax was 4% of gross
rents but by 1919 it was over 25%.”
In some cases the break up of an estate was
directly related to the death of the owner or his heir
during the war. In July 1915 the Amesbury Abbey
estates were sold. Sir Edmond Antrobus’ son was
killed in the war and Sir Edmond died shortly
afterwards. The auctioneer regretted that the estate
which had been in the hands of one family for so
long would have to be sold and he hoped someone
would buy the lot. He was disappointed and it had
to be disposed of in 75 lots with many different
purchasers although much was bought by what was
described as the ‘Salisbury Syndicate’.”
In its report on the sale of the Rushall estate in
July 1917, the Devizes Gazette said this was “part
of the movement which has for some years been
going on in all narts of the country, the change of
ownership of property from noble and old county
families that have held it for generations, maybe
for centuries, to members of the old yeoman stock
86 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Table 11 Agricultural holdings in Wiltshire 1914 and 1919
Number of Agricultural Holdings (acres)
1-5 5-20 20-50
1914 1483 1649 1021 770
1919 1271 1513 1029 807
50-100
100-150 150-300 over 300
475 714 652
499 745 568
Source: Agricultural Statistics 1914 and 1919 (Parliamentary Papers Vols. XLIX and LIV)
or tenants who have been in occupation.”’? Other
land being sold at this time included the Meux
estate in north Wiltshire, Walter Long’s Rood
Ashton property, outlying tracts belonging to the
Earl of Radnor and parts of the estate of the Earl of
Pembroke. Rider Haggard, writing in 1918,
commented that “now-a-days the ownership of land
is nothing but one constant worry and expense,
especially if it be burdened and repairs are needed
while (the landlord) is loaded with abuse, pelted
with ‘orders’ and hunted by perpetual demands for
money.”” Yet, despite this, land did sell very well
when it was put on the market and, in 1917, some
auctioneers said they had never been so busy.
The sale of the Rushall estate is a good example
of the break-up of a large tract of land stretching to
4,600 acres. At auction, the estate was offered as a
whole and bidding reached £69,750 when it was
withdrawn. The estate was then offered as 78
separate lots; 70 of which were then sold at the
auction and the remainder privately. Some of the
farms were bought by the sitting tenant but others
were clearly bought as an investment rather than as
owner-occupied. One lot, for example consisted of
Manor Farm and the Dairy Farm at Manningford
Bohune. Together they comprised 1,133 acres with
a farmhouse, 14 cottages and spacious farm
buildings. There was spirited bidding between the
tenant, Frank Stratton, and William Rawlings of
Appleshaw who eventually won with a bid of
£19,200. By 1920 the occupier of these farms was
Charles Wookey and it seems most likely that he
was there as the tenant. On the other hand,
Beechingstoke Farm and Bottle Farm with five
cottages and 305 acres was bought by the tenant,
Mr. R. Eavis for £6,650. The largest buyers were
Mr. A. Haynes of Burley, Ringwood, Mr. E. H.
Jellett of London and Mr. W. Rawlings of
Appleshaw, Andover. Many of the farms made over
50 years purchase which was considerably higher
than would have been expected before the war.’”°
A rather similar pattern can be seen in the sale
of the Monkton Estate at Winterbourne Monkton,
the property of Nathaniel Young, and comprising
2,040 acres. Again the estate as a whole failed to
find a successful bidder (it was withdrawn at
£30,000) and it was then sold in individual lots.
West Farm, Winterbourne Monkton, consisting of
794 acres with a farm house, farm buildings and
15 cottages was bought by Henry Horton of Eysey,
near Cricklade for £11,750. The occupier in 1915
was James Peak-Garland and, in 1920, it was
William Tucker. It would seem therefore that this
was and continued to be a tenanted farm. However,
Middle Farm, Winterbourne Monkton, of 565 acres
with eight cottages went to Mr. F. Greader, farmer,
of Horton for £7,000. In 1915 the occupier was
Harry Greader and he was still there in 1920. It is
probably safe to assume that the ownership of this
farm had at least passed to the family of the tenant.””
The main impact of this change in land
ownership would not be felt until some years after
the end of the war as estates continued to be sold.
But some significant changes had taken place by
1919. Compared with 1914, the total number of
holdings had fallen from 6,764 to 6,432. As might
Table 12 Owner-occupied holdings in Wiltshire 1914 and 1919
Number of Owner-Occupied Holdings (acres)
1-5 5-20
1914 241 205 86
1919 187 197 111
20-50
50-100 100-150 150-300 over 300
66 55 81 82
105 90 119 102
Source: Agricultural Statistics 1914 and 1919 (Parliamentary Papers Vols. XLIX and LIV)
AGRICULTURE IN WILTSHIRE IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR 87
be expected, the number of large holdings of over
300 acres had fallen from 652 to 568 half of these
disappearing between 1918 and 1919. Perhaps
surprisingly, the greatest change was the decrease
in the number of the smallholdings between 1 and
5 acres. Their number had fallen by 212 and it is
not obvious why this had happened. Most had been
tenants rather than owners and their land could
have been taken into larger holdings. The largest
annual decrease was between 1916 and 1917. This
was the period of great pressure on army
recruitment and, maybe, as they did not qualify for
exemption from the armed forces, many were called
up.
The number of owner-occupied holdings
increased from 816 to 911. This was complicated
by the decrease in the number of very small holdings
which were owner-occupied but a significant
increase in the number of such holdings over 50
acres. This explains why, although the percentage
of owner-occupied holdings increased by about 2%,
the acreage of owner-occupied land increased by
5% from 12% to 17%.
CONCLUSION
At the beginning of the war Wiltshire’s agriculture
was very typical of the country as a whole. In the
same way, during the course of the war, the changes
in Wiltshire which occurred largely as a result of
government intervention very much echoed the
general trends elsewhere. There is very little in
Wiltshire which was atypical during that period.
The loudest and continuing complaint was about
the shortage of labour. Wiltshire was a pioneer in
training women especially as milkers but there is
little evidence that this was the start of a continuing
and widespread involvement of women in
agriculture after the war. It is, in fact, very difficult
to see lasting changes in Wiltshire’s agriculture
which came about because of the war. Much of the
newly ploughed land was allowed to revert to
pasture and agriculture became once again much
more influenced by economic and market forces
than by government control. The two aspects which
did see lasting changes were in mechanisation and
land ownership. The introduction, in particular, of
motor tractors continued and expanded after the
war and has continued to do so. In land ownership,
some of the larger estates were broken up and this
led to a much greater number of owner-occupiers.
Finally, it has been shown that by increasing
production and changing its crops, the agricultural
industry compensated for the significant decline in
imports and ensured that the food supply during
the war was at least adequate. It has been calculated,
for example, that the average calorie intake of aman
in 1919 was still 97% of that in 1914. There can be
little doubt that agriculture in Wiltshire made its
contribution to this achievement and largely
reached the targets it had been set.
Notes
' Agricultural Statistics 1914 (Parliamentary Papers,
1915) Vol. XLIV Table 5.
? Agricultural Statistics 1914 Table 3.
> 1.M.Slocombe, First World War Tribunals in Wiltshire
(Wiltshire Family History Society, 1997), pp. 14, 160.
4 Devizes Gazette 17 May 1917.
> Agricultural Statistics 1914 Table 3.
® Agricultural Statistics 1914 Tables 28, 29, 30, 37.
? Agricultural Statistics 1914 Tables 12, 13.
8 P.E.Dewey British Agriculture in the First World War
(Routledge, 1989), pp. 36,46.
° Slocombe, First World War Tribunals p.22.
0 Swindon Advertiser 12 November 1915.
'’ Government circular to tribunals (R.117) List of
Certified Occupations (1917) Appendix B.
'2 Slocombe, First World War Tribunals p.59.
'5 T.M.Slocombe, ‘Military Tribunals in Wiltshire 1915-
1918’, The Local Historian, Vol.30 no.2_ (May 2000)
p.110.
‘| The Times 12 June 1918. Quoted in Pamela Horn Rural
Life in England in the First World War (London,
1984).
‘5 Slocombe, First World War Tribunals, pp. 60-61.
'© Slocombe, First World War Tribunals, p.53.
'7 Bor a fuller account of the release of children from
school, see I.M.Slocombe, ‘Education and the First
World War in Wiltshire’ WANHM 90 (1997), pp. 126-
129.
18W7R.O. F1/100/23, Minutes, Wiltshire War Agricultural
Committee 13 October 1916.
19 Minutes, Wiltshire War Agricultural Committee.
20 W.R.O. 982/24, Diary of Edith Olivier.
21 Devizes Gazette, 20 July 1916.
22 W.R.O. 982/24, Diary of Edith Olivier.
23 Swindon Advertiser 23 November 1917.
*4 Devizes Gazette 20 September 1917.
25 Devizes Gazette 20 July 1916.
26 W.R.O. 853/1, A.G.Stratton, Summary Receipts and
Farm Accounts.
27 Salisbury Journal 12 August 1916.
28 Salisbury Journal 22 June 1918.
29 W.R.O. F1/100/24, Minutes, Wiltshire Agricultural
Executive Committee.
30 Salisbury Journal 24 August 1918.
31'T.§.Crawford Wiltshire and the Great War: Training
88 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
the Empire’s Soldiers (DPF Publishing 1999)
*? Devizes Gazette 26 November 1914, 6 May 1915.
> Devizes Gazette 31 July 1915.
*4 Slocombe, First World War Tribunals, pp. 160-161.
> Salisbury Journal 10 November 1917.
°° Salisbury Journal 23 March 1918.
*? Salisbury Journal 2 October 1915.
*® Minutes, Wiltshire Agricultural Executive Committee.
*° Swindon Advertiser 29 June 1917.
4 Salisbury Journal 16 June 1917.
4! Swindon Advertiser 29 June 1917.
* Minutes, Wiltshire Agricultural Executive Committee,
6 March 1918, 3 April 1918.
® Minutes, Wiltshire Agricultural Executive Committee,
13 November 1918.
“ Salisbury Journal 2 November 1918.
® Minutes, Wiltshire Agricultural Executive Committee,
13 March 1918.
+ Devizes Gazette 24 January 1918.
Minutes, Wiltshire Agricultural Executive Committee,
3 April 1918, 10 April 1918, 25 June 1919.
48 Devizes Gazette 6 September 1917.
* Swindon Advertser 21 February 1919.
°° Agricultural Statistics, Parliamentary Papers.
>-IW.R.O. 853/41, A.G.Stratton, Farm contract accounts.
»? Minutes, Wiltshire Agricultural Executive Committee
9 January 1918.
> Devizes Gazette 16 September 1915.
4 Slocombe, First World War Tribunals p.146.
»° Devizes Gazette 25 February 1915.
°° Devizes Gazette 11 March 1915.
*’ Dewey op.cit. pp. 148-155.
*’ Devizes Gazette, 3 May 1917.
°° Salisbury Journal 20 April 1918.
°° W.R.O. 853/1, A.G.Stratton, Farm Accounts.
°'W.R.O. 2640/1, Returns to Board of Agriculture
© V.C.H. Wiltshire vol.15, p.75.
© For all statistics used in this section, see: Agricultural
Statistics (Parliamentary Papers), 1915 vol.XLIX,
1916 vol. L, 1917 vol. LI, 1918 vol. LI, 1919 vol.
LIII, 1920 vol. LIV.
°* Dewey op. cit. pp. 225-226.
© Food Controller’s Orders, May 1917.
°° Notes on the administration of the Group System issued
by the Director General of Recruiting, December 1915.
°’ Salisbury Journal 22 December 1917.
°§ Swindon Advertiser 20 December 1918.
© Devizes Gazette 18 May 1916.
” Salisbury Journal 21 April 1917, 28 April 1917, 5 May
1917. Devizes Gazette, 15 March 1917, 12 April
1917.
“! Devizes Gazette 19 August 1916.
” Pamela Horn, Rural Life in England in the First World
War, p.198.
® Salisbury Journal 25 September 1915.
™ Devizes Gazette, 26 July 1917
”™ Pamela Horn, Rural Life in England in the First World
War, p.199.
7 Devizes Gazette 26 July 1917.
™ Swindon Adveruser 3 August 1917.
Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 89-92
A Missing Drawing and an Overlooked Text:
Silbury Hill Archive Finds
by Brian Edwards
Response to the collapse in May 2000 of the vertical shaft mined into Silbury Hill at the behest of the Duke
of Northumberland in 1776 has resulted in extensive documentary research being carried out. Amongst
other material of interest, this research has brought to light a drawing, thought lost for seventy years, and
a hitherto overlooked eye-witness account to the mining of the shaft.
A MISSING DRAWING
A section of Silbury Hill by William Collings Lukis,
made on 6th August 1849 during the digging of a
tunnel by the Archaeological Institute, was thought
to be lost, having been missing since 1929. A
postcard noting the loss was left on file in the then
Lukis Museum, Guernsey, and now attached to one
of W.C. Lukis’ notebooks on ‘Unchambered and
Chambered Barrows’ in the Guernsey Museums
& Galleries, St. Peter Port. The postcard from
V.C.C. Collum states that when she examined the
book in 1929 a large number of pages were missing.
The index to this archive indicates that notes
relating to Silbury Hill are amongst the 59 missing
pages, and feature more than once.
A copy of the Lukis drawing made by Canon
Jackson in 1922 is in the Society’s library at Devizes
(DD14), but there was no certainty as to the
accuracy of this copy, or that certain details had
not been added or overlooked. Using a photograph
of Jackson’s copy and encouraged by the possible
importance of the missing drawing, due to the
urgent situation that has befallen Silbury, the
Guernsey Museum continued to search and after
many months of investigation had almost reached
the end of the very large mass of Lukis material
when a recheck of a French volume revealed the
Silbury drawing among loose material in the back
of the book. It is a watercolour sketch with pencil
lines, 42cm wide and 25cm in depth (Figure 1). It
remains in fair condition although there is an
impression of a paperclip in a particularly
inconvenient position. Horizontally extending into
the body of Silbury from the southern slope of the
hill, the mark left by the paperclip could be mistaken
for another tunnel.
The Rev. W.C. Lukis is of course known for his
recording of detail, and despite the related notes
remaining missing, the drawing does not disappoint.
The plan dissects Silbury on a south — north line,
the road thus appearing on the extreme left of the
drawing. Coloured areas are used to highlight
differing layers of chalk and turf, with dotted lines
deployed to signify hidden detail.
Lukis records that he visited the site with Dr
Mereweather [sic] Dean of Hereford on the 6th
August 1849, and that the tunnel had reached 88
yards in length. Above the tunnel and coloured
sections Lukis has drawn a dotted line in the shape
of an inner mound, outlining what he suggests as
the ‘probable site of deposit’. This ‘probability’ may
have been suggested to the visitors by Merewether,
for on the day Lukis visited Merewether recorded
the workmen reporting that from 72 yards onward
the roof of the tunnel had sounded very hollow.
Mount Pleasant, The Cartway, Wedhampton, Devizes, SN10 3QD
90 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
According to Merewether (1851) ‘it was impossible
not to be impressed with the idea that there must
be a cavity above’. Merewether went on to state
that this phenomenon was later investigated, but
nothing was found. This detail may have been
recorded by Lukis in the missing notes, but it seems
more likely that as a visitor Lukis had left the site
before the absence of this deposit was discovered.
The drawing was perhaps then left in Guernsey,
when Lukis returned to Wiltshire to take up his post
as vicar of Great Bedwyn.
Of topical interest is a dotted line Lukis had
drawn in the top of Silbury, indicating that the
entrance to the 1776 shaft was open in 1849 to a
depth equivalent in scale to that which opened up
in May 2000. The suggestion of the entrance to the
shaft remaining open at this time is reinforced by
an anonymous late 19th century drawing showing
what appears to be an open hole adjacent to a large
spoil heap (Figure 2). According to Merewether,
mounds of spoil still remained on top of the hill in
1849 that the miners of the 1776-7 shaft had not
bothered to throw back in. The view of Silbury
included by Sir Richard Colt Hoare in Ancient
Wiltshire also shows a large spoil heap atop the hill,
although it could represent an abandoned smaller
excavation (Figure 3).
Added to air photographs taken throughout the
1930s by Major Allen, and now in a collection in
the Ashmolean Museum (Figure 4), the dotted line
adjoining the summit in the Lukis drawing indicates
Fig. 1. The Lukis section of Silbury Hill, 6th August 1849 (Guernsey Museum)
that the ‘hole’ in the top of Silbury has remained
present to varying levels since 1777, and was finally
filled-in to near surface level in 1936. This material
subsequently began to disappear, and in 1963
Silbury was capped with chicken wire to prevent
what was thought of as rabbit damage. Ironically it
was this wire, which it seems was topped with soil
and reseeded, that prevented electrical surveys by
oS PW ee =
Fig. 2. Silbury Hill in an anonymous late 19th century
drawing, showing spoil heap on the summit
A MISSING DRAWING AND AN OVERLOOKED TEXT: SILBURY HILL ARCHIVE FINDS 91
ae <=.
Fig. 3. Silbury Hill, from Sir Richard Colt Hoare’s Ancient
Wiltshire (1821)
Atkinson’s team that may have indicated the
problem was not due to rabbits. The capping that
covered the hole has now disappeared from view,
possibly due to a migrating collapse above the
Archaeological Institute tunnel that had broken into
the 1776 shaft at the level Lukis recorded it being
in 1849.
AN OVERLOOKED TEXT
Henry Browne, who produced and sold guides and
archaeological models as the first ‘official’ custodian
of Stonehenge, relates a hitherto overlooked eye-
witness account of the 1776 dig in An Illustration
of Stonehenge and Abury, published in 1823:
In reference to this hill, the work I apprehend of the
builder of the Serpent and Temple, I will now relate
an interesting fact, communicated to me by a
gentleman of Abury, a Mr Hickley, if I am right in
the recollection of his name. This elderly gentleman,
when a youth, was at Silbury Hill on the occasion of
some miners sinking a large hole or well down the
centre of it to the ground on which it began to be
raised. In doing this they found a piece of timber*
continued down the whole way, evidently for a centre
from whence to take the measurement of the hill in
working it upwards.
* It is the property of almost all things buried in chalk
and retired from the operation of the air, to be very
little subject to decay.
The validity of this eye-witness account as
reliable is suggested by the mention of neither
treasure nor skeletons. Dean Merewether recorded
in the Archaeological Institute report that when
interviewing two men in 1849, who claimed to have
intimate knowledge of the 1776 dig, he doubted
their suggestion that ‘a man’ (skeleton) had been
found on the basis the men had reported ‘what they
deem likely than the positive fact’.
Unlike a skeleton, a central top to bottom timber
core is not something to be dreamed up as ‘likely’.
A central timber top to bottom deposit was not
made clear by James Douglas in his Nenia
Britannica of 1793, the only account published prior
to the interview with Henry Browne. Nor was it
further discussed until the Rev. Duke published The
Druidical Temples of Wiltshire in 1846, although
he interestingly ‘had no doubt’ that the slip of oak
reported found in 1777 ‘was the ultimate remains
Fig. 4. 1933 Detail of aerial photograph by Major Allen
showing the ‘hole’ and adjacent spoil (Ashmolean
Museum)
of an upright log, placed as a centre, around which
this aspiring mound was raised’. The testimony of
‘Mr Hickley’ also offers a new interpretation of the
reaction of the Duke of Northumberland’s foreman,
Colonel Drax, to James Douglas demonstrating that
the only find of 1777 was a slip of timber and not
whalebone as had been thought (Douglas 1793,
161).
Upon this demonstration Douglas records that
Drax ‘had a fancy that this hill had been raised over
a Druid oak, and he thought the remains of it were
discovered in the excavation’ (Douglas 1793, 161).
This could be interpreted as Drax construing the
timber found at the base of the shaft to be the
92 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
remains of a tree, but this could also be taken as an
indication of Drax believing a timber core to be
something more than a constructional detail.
Whether the Rev. Duke had read Henry
Browne’s booklet we cannot be sure, but in the light
of Mr Hickley’s account further attention is required
of Duke’s opinion that ‘A slip of oak is produced,
which, I have no doubt, was the ultimate remains
of an upright log, placed as a centre, around which
this aspiring mound was raised... the remains of
wood in barrows, and that heart of oak, immured
in chalk, is almost imperishable. Yet here, I believe
it to have been the remains of one entire log’ (Duke
1846, 41-2).
Richard Atkinson, leader of the BBC dig into
Silbury Hill during the late 1960s, expressed on
numerous occasions the opinion that the 1776-7
shaft probably destroyed a central deposit at the
base of the mound (Atkinson 1967, 1974, 1978).
This may also have been the fate of any material
that stood vertically at the core, as any surviving
evidence is now perhaps residing in spoil distributed
on the slopes or returned as infill, although the
possibility remains that traces may perhaps still be
found on the faces of the shaft.
Further details of Silbury since 1776 may still
come to light from the notes and sketches of
enthusiasts such as Henry Browne. Stuart Piggott
referred to some drawings made by Henry Browne
now held in Haslemere Museum (Piggott 1946,
470), that have yet to be investigated. The museum
has no record of anything by Browne, and there is
no connection with Wiltshire evident in their
catalogue other than two early guides to Avebury.
A physical search of their art collection was not
possible in 2001 due to extensive building work.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
My thanks to David Field for his comments and
assistance in preparing the text.
Published Sources
ATKINSON, R., 1967, Silbury Hill. Anaquity 41, 259-62
ATKINSON, R., 1974, ‘Neolithic Science and
Technology’, in F.R.Hodson (ed), The Place of
Astronomy in the Ancient World. London
ATKINSON, R., 1978, ‘Silbury Hill’, in R. Sutcliffe (ed.),
Chronicle, 159-73. London: BBC Television
BROWNE, H., 1823, An Illustration of Stonehenge and
Abury. Salisbury: Brodie and Dowding
DOUGLAS, J., 1793, Nenia Britannica. London
DUKE, REV., 1846, The Druidical Temples of Wiltshire.
Salisbury: Brodie
McAVOY, F., 2000, Silbury Hill Shaft, Evaluations
Report. English Heritage Centre for Archaeology,
Project 661
MEREWETHER, J., 1851, Diary of a Dean. London
PIGGOTT, S., 1946, ‘The destruction of “The
Sanctuary” on Overton Hill’, WANHM 51, 470-1
TUCKER, C., 1849, ‘Report of the Examination of
Silbury Hill’, in Memoirs Illustrative of the History
and Antiquities of Wiltshire and the City of Salisbury,
297-303. London: George Bell/Archaeological
Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
WHITTLE, A., 1997, Sacred Mound, Holy Rings.
Silbury Hill and the West Kennet Palisade Enclosures:
a Later Neolithic Complex in North Wiltshire.
Oxford: Oxbow Books
See also: :
EDWARDS, B., 2001, The ‘Hole’ Story. VISION 1(1)
Archive sources
Major Allen Archive (Ashmolean Museum)
Richard Atkinson, Interview, Cardiff, 21 September 1988
(Alexander Keiller Museum)
‘Eye-Witness Accounts of the Silbury Tunnel 1915-1923’
(Alexander Keiller Museum)
W.C. Lukis, Silbury Hill, GMAG 7485a (Guernsey
Museum and Gallery)
‘Silbury Hill Site Diary’, 1969 (Alexander Keiller
Museum)
‘Silbury Hill Report on Environmental Investigation’,
1986 (Alexander Keiller Museum)
Ministry of Public Building and Works File No AA 71721/
3 Part 1, 2, & 3 (PRO)
Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 93-99
The Life and Turbulent Times of Sir Roger
Tocotes, 14302 — 1492, Sheriff of Wiltshire and
Royal Servant: a Fifteenth-Century Survivor
by Raymond J Skinner
Sir Roger Tocotes survived unscathed throughout that period of unrest and lawlessness which pervaded
the second half of the fifteenth century. His story 1s an ever-present thread in a tapestry that embraces
many of the principal characters involved in the county of Wiltshire, and countrywide, who were in the
forefront of affairs during the reigns of Edward IV, Richard III, and Henry VII. To survive as a royal servant
during these times required an uncommon perspicacity and ingenuity, together with a large measure of
good fortune. As three times Sheriff of Wiltshire, Comptroller of the Households to two such disparate
figures as George, Duke of Clarence and Henry VII, he must have been not only an able administrator, but
also a discreetly pragmatic character. Born into a Lancastrian/ Neville affinity, he yet achieved important
office under the Yorkist king, Edward IV, survived the troublous times of Richard III, and ended his career
with high office under the first Tudor monarch.
With average expectancy a medieval lifespan might
have encompassed that period of unrest and
dynastic lawlessness which is usually known today
as the Wars of the Roses; there were, however, many
during this period whose natural span was
shortened or brought to abrupt end by death in
battle, by execution, or otherwise ruined through
imprisonment or attainder and confiscation of their
goods and estates. From the events leading up to
the first battle of St Albans in 1455, to the final
spasm of the wars in 1497 — the defeat of Pretender
Perkin Warbeck at Blackheath — it was an
exceedingly fortunate or clever individual who
managed to preserve his life, property and status
during this period of disintegration in the rule of
law. The second half of the fifteenth century
witnessed, in England, the death of three kings —
one in battle, one murdered in the Tower of London,
and one prematurely. In addition, three princes of
the blood royal suffered similar fates, and numerous
figures from the top echelons of the peerage,
including dukes, a marquis, and earls perished in
battle or afterwards by the axe. Such a catalogue
takes no account of the many members of the
minor aristocracy and gentry who also succumbed,
for this was a conflict where the common soldier
perhaps stood a greater chance of survival than
his leader.
Fortunate, then, the man who managed to
negotiate this minefield unscathed, and emerged
to die peacefully in his bed. Such an individual was
Sir Roger Tocotes of Bromham, near Devizes, whose
ancestors — a northern family — derived their name
from the township of Tockets in the parish of
Guisborough, North Yorkshire. Tocotes first appears
in Wiltshire at about the time when open war flared
up between the Lancastrian supporters of Henry
VI and his queen, Margaret, and the rival claimants
to the throne, the Yorkist/ Neville party. Near this
time Tocotes, a comparatively penniless suitor, in
time-honoured fashion married a rich widow, the
Lady Elizabeth, daughter of Gerald Braybrooke,
who had become the heiress to the Barony of St
Amand as the widow of Sir William Beauchamp in
‘Whitnal’, Post Office Lane, Broad Hinton, Swindon SN4 9PB
94 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
1457. Tocotes gained the manor of Roche in
Bromham in right of his wife, and this became the
centre of his power in the ensuing years.'
‘Tocotes was first appointed Sheriff of Wiltshire
in 1464, when the new king Edward IV was
establishing Yorkist ascendancy after the heavy
Lancastrian defeat at Towton.’ Earlier of
Lancastrian leanings, Tocotes seems to have
changed allegiance after his marriage and to have
allied himself with George, duke of Clarence, the
king’s malcontent and fickle brother. When
Clarence took the part of Richard Neville, the
‘Kingmaker’ earl of Warwick, in the latter’s rebellion
against Edward IV, Tocotes became involved in the
rapid shifts of fortune which beset both sides in the
years 1469-71, and was indicted for treason with
his master, Clarence.
Warwick and Clarence first forced Edward IV
to flee to Bruges with his loyal brother, Richard of
Gloucester, but when the king was able to return
later at the head of a small force ‘false, fleeting
Clarence’ changed sides again. The resulting battle
at Barnet saw Warwick’s defeat and death and the
fall of the house of Neville. These events presaged
Margaret of Anjou’s landing near Weymouth with
her army, and the resulting watershed battle at
Tewkesbury in May 1471. Here Edward IV was
once again victorious, destroying in the process the
Lancastrian army, together with their heir to Henry
VI’s throne, Prince Edward, killed either in the
battle or shortly afterwards. This was followed by
the probable murder of the poor semi-mad Henry
VI in the Tower of London — the Lancastrian party
as a potent force had now ceased to exist. Tocotes
was pardoned and fought as a knight banneret at
Tewkesbury, with Clarence, and was rewarded by
the grant of two manors in Staffordshire.’ Before
the battle he had been one of the commissioners of
array to raise forces in Wiltshire, together with Sir
William Stourton, Sir George Darell and Sir
Laurence Raynsford.* The year 1471 was also the
second occasion of Tocotes’ tenure as sheriff of
Wiltshire. In successive following years he was again
named as a commissioner, in August 1473 for oyer
and terminer, with John Cheney of Falstone, who,
like Tocotes, was later to rebel against Richard HI
at the time of Buckingham’s rebellion ten years
later.” Throughout the 1470s Tocotes was very
actively involved in the administration of his
adopted county.° Under Clarence he served as a
commissioner of enquiry into alienations in
mortmain, and was granted Devizes castle by the
Crown.’
Perhaps his most significant appointment,
however, in these years was to the Duke of Clarence’s
Council in 1475, when he became comptroller of
the duke’s household — an office which was to have
far-reaching repercussions in Tocotes’ life.* Clarence,
always restless and greedy to increase his power and
possessions, had, on the premature death of his
duchess, Isabel, in December 1476, or possibly even
before, determined to marry Mary, the rich daughter
and heiress to the Duke of Burgundy. This was an
alliance which would have made Clarence even more
powerful than his brother, the king, and was not a
scheme which Edward IV would have either
approved or sanctioned.
Tocotes, in charge of the duke’s household, now
became involved in the notorious case of Ankarette
Twynyho, a widow who had been an intimate
servant to the duchess. The latter’s death, probably
as a result of long-standing tuberculosis, was
however blamed by Clarence upon ‘a venomous
drink of ale mixed with poison’, which was said to
have been administered by Ankarette and her
accomplice, John Thuresby. Surprisingly, the
indictment which lists these supposed crimes also
named Roger Tocotes as ‘abetting’ in the affair.°
The poison was evidently a slow-acting draught,
for the duchess had sickened in October, but did
not die until shortly before Christmas! A further
time elapsed until April of the following year when
the duke sent his man Richard Hyde ‘accompanied
with divers riotous and misgoverned persons in
manner of war and insurrection’ to seize the
innocent Ankarette. They arrived at Lower Keyford
near Frome, where the lady lived, and without any
legal authority broke and entered her house ‘with
great fury and woodenesse’, carrying her off to Bath
en route to Warwick where the duke resided. The
unfortunate lady was imprisoned until the next
morning when she was then brought up before the
justices at the Guildhall and charged with poisoning.
She vehemently protested her innocence, but a jury
suborned, or under Clarence’s compulsion,
condemned her. She was sentenced, drawn to the
gallows, and hanged all within three hours, such
being the contempt for normal legality engendered
by the contemporary general lawlessness. Some of
the jury asked for her forgiveness, declaring that
they had given their verdict under compulsion and
fearing for their lives.
Tocotes was able to refute the charge against
him and prove his innocence. Clarence had
seemingly decided that his comptroller was
expendable, but it proved a more difficult matter
THE LIFE AND TURBULENT TIMES OF SIR ROGER TOCOTES 95
to make such a charge stick against a man of
Tocotes’ standing. It may also have been that he
had the backing of the Beauchamp bishop of
Salisbury and possibly that of the king himself.
Edward IV, in any case, was incensed against his
brother, Clarence, for the latter’s abrogation and
perversion of the king’s justice in such a high-
handed way, and perhaps intervened on Tocotes’
behalf. On this occasion Clarence had tried his
brother’s patience once too often.
Edward IV had never completely trusted his
brother after the troubles of 1469-70, and the
Twynyho episode, together with Clarence’s
proposed alliance with Mary of Burgundy and his
constant plotting, led to his attainder on the charge
of high treason for which, after much soul-searching
by the king, he was privately executed in the Tower.
By what method, however, is not known. Neither
are Clarence’s reasons known for having Tocotes
indicted, for he seems always to have been a loyal
supporter of the duke, even to the extent of risking
a charge of treason by supporting Clarence and
Warwick during their insurrection in 1469.
Apparently Tocotes suffered the penalty of
happening to be in charge of Clarence’s household
when the alleged poisoning took place, but the
ensuing trumped-up charges merely underlined the
duke’s willingness to sacrifice any individual to the
maw of his ambition.
When Edward IV, not yet 41 years of age, died
unexpectedly in April 1483, the whole court and
country were thrown into a state of flux. The young
heirs to the throne were in the care of their uncle,
Anthony Woodville, earl Rivers, but Richard of
Gloucester, the king’s brother, had been appointed
Protector by Edward’s will. Gloucester had to act
swiftly to secure the persons of the princes, and he
subsequently seems to have been persuaded that
he himself should make a bid for the crown. There
was, anyway, a general fear that another minority
rule would cause the same problems as had
occurred during the early years of Henry VI about
sixty years before: ‘Woe to the land whose ruler is a
child’. This fear seems to have been the explanation
why Richard of Gloucester’s sudden usurpation of
the throne was at first accepted without too much
demur — apart, that is, from the Woodville family,
who saw their influence on future events, and their
status, in much jeopardy.
Richard III was crowned king in a magnificent
coronation on 6 July 1483. The most gorgeous
crowning ceremony which had ever been witnessed,
it was attended by almost the entire peerage of
England. Richard II had ample cause for thinking
that his realm had accepted him with good heart,
but it was less than two weeks later that four
Londoners — Robert Busse, a serjeant, William
Davy, a pardoner of Hounslow, John Smith, a groom
of the stirrup to Edward IV, and Stephen Ireland,
wardrober of the Tower — were executed for their
part in a plot to free the princes from their prison.
These four conspirators were probably ‘the certain
personnes .. . as of late had taken upon theym the
fact of an entreprise’, as Richard’s letter to his
chancellor stated. The four were, however,
comparatively unimportant figures in the plot.
Rather was it the influential men behind them, and
here can be seen the Wiltshire involvement, for John
Cheyney, master of the horse under Edward IV,
was the aforesaid Smith’s head of department.!° He
lost his post under Richard III and was henceforth
treated with great suspicion. Cheyney’s friends and
neighbours in Wiltshire, Sir Roger Tocotes, Richard
Beauchamp Lord St. Amand, and Walter Hungerford
of Heytesbury at first continued in favour with the
king, but were soon to rebel in the autumn.!!
Richard III made no attempt to produce the
persons of the heirs to the throne, and this led to
unrest and proliferations of ugly rumours regarding
their fate, and eventually to a full-scale rebellion in
October 1483. It became apparent that there were
four main centres of revolt, but the principal ones
were in Wiltshire and the West Country centred on
Exeter. In Wiltshire alone about 33 of the nobility
and gentry were involved.'* In addition to those
mentioned above, other notables were Humphrey
Cheney and William Bampton of Falstone, Robert
Cheyney of Wodehay, Thomas and John Milborne
of Laverstock, William Hall and Michael Skilling
of New Salisbury, William Basket of Lydiard
Millicent, and others. These were all attainted,
forfeiting their possessions in the Parliament called
three months later. The rebellion failed, however.
Buckingham, its titular head, was captured and
summarily executed in Salisbury market place — no
coincidence this, for Richard III was desperate to
stamp his authority on the county. Buckingham’s
execution was intended as a dire warning against
further insurrection. As has been observed:
the involvement (in the rebellion) of men whose
loyalty Richard had taken for granted was a profound
shock, and there is a distinct note of hysteria in the
royal order that the land and goods of all household
men and gentry in Wiltshire and Hampshire should
be seized.'?
96 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
More fortunate than the Duke of Buckingham
and the notorious William Colyngbourne were
several of the other principal figures concerned in
this rebellion. Men like Richard Beauchamp Lord
St. Amand, Thomas West Lord de la Warre, Sir
Robert Willoughby and John Cheyney and his two
brothers are known to have escaped to Brittany to
take refuge with Henry Tudor, the last hope of the
Lancastrian cause. Roger Tocotes was probably also
of their party, although he is not specifically
mentioned in the group of such refugees from
Richard III. There were also many other important
escapees from the West Country, including Thomas
Grey marquis of Dorset, Peter Courtenay bishop
of Exeter, and Giles Daubeney, later said to have
fought with exceptional valour at Bosworth. The
absence of such figures denuded the area of those
who would normally have filled positions of power
and influence in the southern counties, and the king
was consequently forced to import men from his
northern affinity to fill the vacancies in order to
reassert royal power and control. These, of course,
were unpopular measures creating a vicious circle,
and exacerbating the hostility and suspicion with
which he was regarded by southerners; it also
provided further ammunition for those who wished
to destabilize his regime.
Richard III, now critically short of able men,
had to reimpose control almost from scratch after
the rebellion. Five outsiders were given places on
the commission of peace as a direct result of royal
initiative in Hampshire, which had been linked with
Wiltshire as the county where Richard II was least
confident of the local gentry. Henry Braythwaite,
for example, a northern yeoman of the crown, was
made customer of Southampton; he was a
predecessor of Thomas Woodshawe in this post — a
man about whom more will follow later in this
paper. As for Roger Tocotes — relieved of his
positions after the rebellion, his place was taken by
Thomas Stafford, younger brother of Humphrey
Stafford of Grafton. Stafford also received a lion’s
share of Tocotes’ lands in Wiltshire within a month
of the rebellion, being then described as ‘of
Bromham’, Tocotes’ home. Stafford followed this
with an impressive collection of local offices, largely
those forfeited by Tocotes, but with one or two extras
from elsewhere, including Colyngbourne’s
parkership of Ludgershall."
From Wiltshire, of course, came the most
notorious of the rebels, William Colyngbourne of
Lydiard, who was responsible for the seditious
rhymes which, with other traitorous symbols, were
prevalent at the time. In July 1484 he pinned his
scurrilous verse to the door of St Paul’s, which read:
The crock-back’d boar the way hath found
To root out our roses from the ground;
But flower and bud will he confound,
Till King of Beasts the swine be crown’d,
And then the dog, the cat, the rat,
Shall in his trough feed, and be fat,
The Cat, the Rat, and Lovell our dog
Rule all England under an Hog.”
Apart from the king and the assumed fate of the
princes, this mocking doggerel alluded to William
Catesby, Sir Richard Ratcliffe and Francis, viscount
Lovell, Richard’s closest councillors, while the
epithet applied to Lovell referred to his heraldic
crest which featured a silver hound. It seems likely
that Colyngbourne had experienced some
unpleasant evidence of Lovell’s growing power as
the king’s friend, for the Lovells held the manor of
Elcombe and Uffcott, which bordered some of
Colyngbourne’s own lands at Quidhampton and
Shawe. It was not only, or even principally for his
rhyme, that Colyngbourne suffered his painful
death, for he had been more seriously involved with
John Turbyvyle, a Dorset shipowner, in a plot to
encourage Henry Tudor, the Lancastrian claimant
to the throne, to invade England.!°
A noteworthy example of a member of the
Wiltshire gentry who lost status and possessions, if
not his life, under Richard III exists in the case of
the Thomas Woodshawe mentioned above. He had
acquired the manor of Standlynch, near Downton,
in right of his wife, who before her marriage was
Grace Hugyns, a member of a well known Somerset
family.'’ The small manor was held under Richard
Beauchamp Lord St Amand, and when he was
forced to flee after the rebellion, the king
appropriated Standlynch and gave it to Nicholas
Rigby a supporter, then of Bruton.'* This situation,
which was replicated in many parts of Wiltshire and
the West, seems the primary and more telling reason
for the strong support of Henry Tudor at the ensuing
battle of Bosworth. There, a measure of Henry
Tudor’s backing would be drawn not only from
disaffected Yorkists, but also from Lancastrian
supporters in Wiltshire and the surrounding
counties — a remnant of those who had borne the
brunt of the devastating defeat at Tewkesbury
fourteen years before.'° At Bosworth revenge would
be very much in the air. Tudor support was probably
due less to any moral indignation regarding the
supposed fate of the princes, than to the more
THE LIFE AND TURBULENT TIMES OF SIR ROGER TOCOTES 97
homely and pressing concerns about a restitution
of status and personal fortunes appropriated by
Richard III in the aftermath of the 1483 rebellion.
An indication of the widespread feeling in the
county may be seen in the following extract from
unpublished notes on the parish of Berwick St John,
collected during the 1920s. Of Berwick Farm it was
observed:
An interesting relic left by a 15th-century tenant was
found in the Manor garden a few years ago. What
appeared to be a tarnished silver coin, about as large
as a sixpence, was dug up. On being cleaned it was
found to be of latten plated with silver leaf. It was
sent to the British Museum for verification and the
verdict was that the object was not a medieval coin
but a jeton or teston, that is a counter used in
calculating accounts, or as a marker for games of
cards. The reverse was copied from a floral design
borne on many of the groats of Edward II and III,
the obverse bore an abbreviated legend of ‘Henry VI,
King of England, France and Ireland’. But instead of
the usual design on groats, a large boar appeared with
the superscription engaged in trampling a royal crown.
From below the boar’s paunch a little crowned
king was emerging and lifting the boar off the large
crown. Significance: Henry VII was wresting the
crown from Richard III, whose badge was the white
boar... the owner of Berwick Manor under the abbess
of Wilton was a strong Lancastrian, and an intimate
friend of Robert Willoughby (later Lord Willoughby
de Broke). Did the jeton come from one or the other?””
The verdict of Bosworth in August 1485
resulted in the death on the field of battle of Richard
III and the nemesis of the House of York, chiefly
because Richard’s support among the peerage had
shrunk to a dangerously low level. Further treachery
and betrayal by the Stanleys and the Earl of
Northumberland made his position untenable.
What had started as a minor rebellion by the
Wiltshire and southern gentry had spread like
wildfire and ended in the complete collapse of
Yorkist power which only a few years before had
seemed so secure in the person of Edward IV.
It is perhaps poetic justice that the ultimate coup
de grace at Bosworth was said to have been
administered by a Wiltshireman who had lost his
land and home to a supporter of Richard III, and
had, like many others, made his way to Bosworth
with vengeance in his heart. Sir Robert Willoughby,
himself at Bosworth, was accompanied by one of
his servants, a man-at-arms, Henry Ley, who
asserted that:
he [Ley] was a man at Armes, on the part of the
Earle against the Kinge, and was neere about the
Earles person. At such time as the Kinge was slaine
by one Thomas Woodshawe.”!
Whoever killed Richard at Bosworth, and whether
it was the act of a single person or the result of
concerted action, it would be expected that those
involved in removing a king considered by many to
be a usurper, would receive some official recognition
from a grateful Tudor. In Woodshawe’s case this
happened. Less than a month after the battle, in
September 1485, he was rewarded with the post of
bailiff and keeper of the park of Berkswell,
Warwickshire, for life.*’ The significance of this grant
may be judged by the fact that it was one of the
first rewards to a supporter at the outset of Henry
VII’s reign, sharing this primacy with members of
the Savage family. Further recognition of
Woodshawe was to ensue throughout the reign, with
his eventual rise to become a gentleman usher to
the king.”
There is an interesting document contained in
the manuscripts of the Dean and Chapter of Wells
Cathedral which shows that Roger Tocotes was
associated with the eventual restitution of the manor
and lands of Standlynch to Thomas Woodshawe
after Bosworth. The manuscript itself is dated 1505,
but refers back to a deed of forty years earlier
(1465), which attempts to confirm possession of
Standlynch to Henry and Elizabeth Hugyns, the
parents of Woodshawe’s wife, from whom it
eventually passed to Thomas and Grace
Woodshawe. In 1505 there appears to have been a
lawsuit in progress in London, such litigation being
an inevitable consequence of conflicting claims on
the manor which arose after Bosworth and the
change of government. During this lawsuit the
original deed of 1465 was produced in which Roger
‘Tocotes was mentioned as a lessee of the Standlynch
lands from Richard Beauchamp, bishop of
Salisbury.”*
After Bosworth, Tocotes was restored to favour
by Henry VII and immediately became sheriff of
Wiltshire for the third time and knight of the body
to the king. He also became comptroller of the
household, this time to Henry Tudor himself. Now
an elderly man by medieval standards, he continued
to serve as a commissioner of array, as a crown
steward, and was granted the constableship of
Devizes Castle for life.” His thoughts would now
inevitably have turned to making plans for the
repose of his own soul and giving thanks for his
98 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
fortuitous survival in such turbulent times. He
consequently caused to be erected the fine Lady
Chapel in Bromham church, and probably also that
of St John’s, Devizes — the parish church of his
castle. He obtained licence to found a perpetual
chantry in Bromham, the chaplain to celebrate
divine service daily for himself and his wife as
founders, for his wife’s first husband, William
Beauchamp Lord St Amand, and for his father and
mother, James and Elizabeth Tocotes. Lands and
annuities were to be granted for the maintenance
of the chantry. But Sir Roger Tocotes did not live
to see the completion of his foundation, for he died
on 2 November 1492. A later licence was granted
to Sir Richard Beauchamp Lord St Amand, his son-
in-law, and Anne his wife, to assign to the chaplain
property in the county to the annual value of £10.7°
Even in the last few months of his life Tocotes
was appointed an escheator for the counties of
Bedford, Buckingham, Hertford and Huntingdon,
but it is not known whether on this occasion he
was able to carry out these duties, for his will is
dated 2 September 1492.” In this he desired burial
in ‘the middle aisle of Our Lady’s chapel at
Bromham’. He died two months later and was
buried in a tomb of Purbeck marble with his life-
sized effigy, sculpted in alabaster and represented
in contemporary armour, wearing the Lancastrian
collar of S.S., from which is suspended a rose, his
headpiece supported by two angels and at his feet
a lion reguardant. Round the tomb were shields of
arms which have now disappeared, together with
only a part remaining of a brass inscription which,
according to a note on the fly-leaf of the earliest
parish register, once read [in translation]:
Here lyeth Roger Tocotes, knight, husband of Lady
Elizabeth, Lady St Amand, and Knight of the Body
of Henry the Seventh, King of England, and
Comptroller of the Household. On whose soul may
God have mercy. Amen.”
Tocotes, then, had lived and largely prospered,
through the reigns of three of this country’s most
memorable monarchs. First there was Edward IV,
a charismatic and dominating figure, whose prowess
on the battlefield was second to none. His forces
never lost a battle in four of the fiercest engagements
in the Roses conflict. Second his brother Richard
III, whose short reign has stimulated more
difference of opinion and fierce partisanship than
perhaps any ruler before or since. On the one hand
are those who view him as a much-maligned and
misunderstood figure, while others see him as a
medieval gangster whose life best became him in
the leaving of it. Certainly his most enduring
monument is his brave end on Bosworth field,
‘fighting manfully in the thickest press of his
enemies’. The manner of his exit has undoubtedly
predisposed posterity to view him in a more
sympathetic light, and left a potent memory for all
who come after. Lastly Roger Tocotes lived into the
reign of Henry VII, one of the most successful of
medieval kings, who shrewdly and single-mindedly
left his Exchequer with full coffers. He was fortunate
in his able administrators and in many aspects
pointed the way forward into the modern age.
Tocotes, as a high official in his government, must
be accorded his own measure of credit for this
success.
Notes
1 VCH Wilts, 7, 103, manor of Shaw.
Jackson, J E, 1857, ‘Sheriffs of Wiltshire’, WANHM
3, 189-235.
3 Calendar of Patent Rolls (hereafter CPR), 1467-77,
346 (1 July 1472); see also WANHM 51, 1947, 265.
4 CPR 1467-77, 284; see also WANHM 3, 1857, 207
(26 April 1471).
5 Ibid. 408 (17 Sep 1473).
6 Ibid. 218: commission to John Roggers and Tocotes
to seize all castles, lordships, manors, lands and
possessions of George, duke of Clarence, 25 April
1470. Ibid. 247: commission to enquire into felonies,
murders, etc. to Tocotes and others in Wiltshire, 27
Oct 1470. Ibid. 351: commission of array to Clarence,
Gloucester, Tocotes and others in Wiltshire, 7 Mar
1472. Ibid. 406: commission to enquire, Tocotes and
others, including William Colyngbourne, John
Whittocksmede, Thomas Tropnell, John Hygons, John
Heron, and sheriff of Wilts, etc, 18 Aug 1473. Ibid.
517: licence to George Duke of Clarence to enfeoff
Roger Tocotes and others whilst the duke is away on
the king’s service, 1 May 1475. Ibid. 573: commission
to the king’s brothers to enquire into treasons,
lollardries, heresies, etc in Dorset and Wiltshire, also
names Tocotes and others, 7 Dec 1475. Ibid. 597:
licence to Duke of Clarence, Tocotes, William Catesby
and Thomas Bishop of Lincoln to found a fraternity
in the church of St Mary, Asshewell [sic], Herts., 26
Aug 1476.
7 Ibid. 428: commission to Roger Tocotes, John
Cheyney of Falstone, Henry Longe, John
Whittocksmede and others re alienations in mortmain
without licence, 7 Dec 1473; see also WANHM 11,
1865, 306.
8 WANHM 51, 1947, 265.
9 PRO Third report of the Deputy Keeper, app 2, 214:
indictment against Ankarette Twynyho, Roger Tocotes
iw)
THE LIFE AND TURBULENT TIMES OF SIR ROGER TOCOTES 99
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
esq, and John Thuresby for poisoning Isabell, duchess
of Clarence, QS Warwicks, 17 Edw IV, 1477.
PRO C81/1392/1. See also Horrox, R, 1989, Richard
IIT: a study in service.
Horrox, 1989, 155 cites PRO E207/21/16/12
regarding the file of returned writs carried by a servant
of the sheriff of Cornwall, who was waylaid by Walter
Hungerford and others at Warminster and had his
documents stolen.
Rotuli Parliamentorum, 6, C3, 244-9 gives names of
the rebels concerned in the 1483 rebellion at
Newbury, Salisbury and Exeter.
Horrox, 1989, 181; see also ibid. 155: ‘At the
beginning of November . . . the king, then at Salisbury,
issued commissions to seize the goods of armed
rebels.’
Horrox, 1989, 193-5.
The whole verse, as given here, is in Proc. Somerset
Arch. Soc., 7, 1856-7, 97.
Fabyan, R, 1811, The new chronicles of England and
France, 672.
VCH Wilts, 11, 69-70. See also Skinner, R J, 1993,
“Thomas Woodshawe, “Grasious and Regicide”’, The
Ricardian 9 (121).
VCH Wilts, 11, 69. See also BL Harl. MS. 433,
f.138b, which records a ‘Commission to Nicholas
Rigby, steward of the monastery and bailiff of the
towne of Bruton’, 4 Jan 1484.
Waylen, J, 1839, History of Devizes ...,92:°...
partisans of the exiled Queen Margaret (of Anjou)
were particularly numerous in the West. Her last army,
that namely which fought at Tewkesbury, was
altogether gathered from this district.’ Waylen also
cites as authority John Britton: ‘great numbers of the
20
2
22
23
24
715)
26
27
28
29
people of Wiltshire were present at the battle of
Tewskesbury and bore the brunt of that fateful day.’
WANHS Library, Box 17: unpublished notes on
Berwick St John by W M Goodchild, rector, 1899-
1929.
Skinner, 1993, 418.
CPR 1485-94, 4. Berkswell is in the Staffs./Warwicks.
area where Woodshawe had earlier been domiciled.
Skinner, 1993, 420-1.
HMC Report 12 (Wells), pt 2, 189. Although dated
Nov 1505 this is an extract from the chapter act book
commencing Sept 1486.
Campbell, William (ed.) 1873, Materials for a history
of the reign of Henry VII, pt. 1, 32: ‘Grant, for life, to
Roger Tocotes, kt., of the office of constable of the
castle of Devizes, steward of the manors and lordship
of Marleburgh, Devizes and Rowde, co. Wilts; steward
of all possessions parcel of the earldoms of Warwick,
Salisbury, or in anywise annexed to the said earldoms,
in the co. of Wilts, and steward of the lordships and
manors of Sudbury, Faireford, Whitington and
Chelworth, co. Glouc, 22 Sept 1485.
Kite, Edward, 1941, “The two “Beauchamp” chapels
in the churches of St John, Devizes, and St Nicholas,
Bromham’, WANHM 49, 283-7; Bradby, Edward,
1985, The book of Devizes, 32.
Calendar of Fine Rolls, 1485-1509, no. 444.
PRO PCC 20 Dogett, 2 Sept 1492, desires burial ‘ in
the middle aisle of Our Lady’s chapel at Bromham’,
and appoints as executors Master Walter Gudeby, Dr
W Gudeby, William Gill, John Lambe and Robert
Tocotes, with Lord St Amand and Richard Pudsey,
his cousins, as overseers.
Kite, 1941, 285.
100 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
183 184 185
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183 184 185
Digital Ordnance Survey data
reproduced under licence
Fig. 1. The site and its situation
Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 100-6
A Possible Outer Bailey Ditch to Marlborough
Castle: Excavations at Marlborough College
Pool
by Michael Heaton' and Bill Moffat’
with a contribution by Lorraine Mepham
A watching brief and limited archaeological investigation within Marlborough College precinct revealed a
ditch, pits, a robber trench and other features, all datable to the 12th-14th centuries from ceramic evidence,
primarily sherds of Kennet Valley coarsewares. The ditch was interpreted as defensive, perhaps that of a
possible second bailey of Marlborough Castle. The pits were probably cess pits dug in the backland of a
medieval burgage fronting the High Street. A preliminary evaluation had failed to identify stratified deposits.
INTRODUCTION
The authors were commissioned by Marlborough
College to maintain a watching brief during
groundworks arising from the construction of a new
swimming pool on the northern edge of the college
precincts, on the edge of the Kennet floodplain,
centred on NGR: SU1840 6875 (Figure 1). The
work was subsequent to an archaeological
evaluation (Asi 1999) carried out in the winter of
1999 by the authors, which recovered large
quantities of medieval pottery but failed to identify
stratified deposits or features. Nonetheless, the
County Archaeological Service recommended, on
the basis of the artefactual data alone, that
groundworks be observed. That decision was
proved to be wholly justified.
At the time of the works, the site, which lay just
above the terrace edge of the floodplain, comprised
an expanse of level lawn within an area of heavily
landscaped sports fields, bordered on its south and
east sides by college buildings set into deep terraces.
The work comprised supervision of topsoil
stripping, observation and recording of deposits
revealed, and limited archaeological investigations
of selected deposits. The full planning report (ASI
3168) has been deposited with the SMR, and will
also be posted at the authors’ website:
www.archaeology.demon.co.uk.
The known archaeological and historical
development of Marlborough, though not yet fully
understood, has been summarised by Haslam
(1978) and is not repeated here. However, two
related features of the town’s historical morphology
are pertinent to the present work: the proximity of
the site to the motte and bailey of the Norman
castle, generally accepted as being represented by
the college Mound (cf. Creighton 2000, Field et
al. 2001), and the alignment of Bridewell Street;
and historical allusions to a second (outer) bailey
added to the north-east side of the castle precincts
but not represented topographically now (Bradley
et al. 1923, Haslam 1978).
RESULTS
Stratigraphic data
Overburden and modern disturbances comprised
localised topsoils, a concrete path, numerous high
' ASI, Furlong House, 61 East Street, Warminster BA12 9BZ ? Pathfinders, 25 The Hollows, Lower Woodford, Salisbury SP4 6NJ
102 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
m6
4 Presta einai
w a ee Sanatorium
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i
Fig. 2. Principal archaeological features and evaluation trenches showing ditches 1022 and 1023
voltage cables, and a heavily disturbed subsoil. Over
much of the area the subsoil showed extensive
modern and recent disturbance, particularly an
extensive pattern of wheel-ruts, and contained
modern materials throughout.
Archaeological deposits comprised a broad ‘V’-
shaped ditch, 11 columnar pits, a robber trench,
and isolated smaller linear features and postholes,
from which a large assemblage of medieval pottery
was recovered (Figure 2).
A broad ‘V’ -shaped ditch 1037, 7m wide and
4m deep, aligned WSW-ENE was revealed cutting
across the northern corner of the site. It was filled
with two groups of deposits: an upper group (1024
— 1035) of artefact-rich dumps heavily disturbed
by two re-cuts, 1022 and 1023; sealing largely sterile
primary fills 1036 (Figure 3). The re-cuts broadly
followed the alignment of the main ditch, although
1022 diverged slightly from it running more to the
SW.
South of the ditch were 11 similar pits, each
roughly square and approximately two metres
across. They were aligned in two groups: a line of
four running SW-NE diverging away from ditch
1037, six metres at its closest point and fourteen
metres at furthest remove; and a more loosely
scattered group of seven south of that. Of the linear
group, 1020 was investigated in detail. This was
1.40m deep and containing at its base deposits of
dark artefact-rich loam (cf. 1004) from which
medieval pottery was recovered, together with an
iron buckle (SF1) and a piece of iron strapping
(SF2). Of the southern group, two were investigated
in detail, 1010 and 1012. Both were nearly four
metres deep. 1010 contained deep layers of cess
and silt (1003, 1006-1009) under a thick layer of
backfill (1005), while 1012 contained only
undifferentiated backfill (1011) (Figure 4).
South of the pit group, a square-profiled feature,
1014, was revealed, 0.90m wide and Im deep,
A POSSIBLE OUTER BAILEY DITCH TO MARLBOROUGH CASTLE 103
describing the corner of a rectangular plan.
Containing a single deposit of coarse flint rubble
within a sticky chalky matrix, this feature is
interpreted as a ‘robbed-out’ wall foundation.
The remaining features consisted of single
postholes and smaller linear gullies. They formed
no readily discernible pattern and, though planned
and photographed, were not further investigated.
Artefactual data
Mediaeval pottery was recovered from four deposits,
1001-1004, within the ditch and pit groups;
together with a bone object (SF3), a knife handle,
an iron buckle (SF2) and a piece of iron strapping
(SF3) from the overburden layers. The latter,
unstratified objects, are not further described but
have been curated appropriately.
Pottery
A total of 85 sherds (2094g) from four separate
contexts was examined. Apart from a single residual
Romano-British sherd, and one post-medieval sherd
(both from context 1000), all the pottery is medieval.
Sherds from context 1000 are abraded, but the
remainder are, on the whole, markedly unabraded,
with crisp fractures and unworn surfaces.
The pottery has been quantified by fabric type
within each context. All fabric types identified are
known local and regional wares, and form an
Fig. 3. Northwest facing section of Ditch 1037 showing Ditches 1022 and 1023 plus overburden
assemblage composed of locally produced
coarsewares supplemented by finewares from
different, more distant sources. The medieval
assemblage has a potential date range of 12th to
early 14th century, although the majority would fit
with a more restricted date range of mid to late
13th century.
Three coarseware types were identified, two of
which are likely to derive from a single source,
almost certainly local. These are the “Kennet Valley’
wares, flint-tempered and chalk-tempered, first
defined at Newbury in west Berkshire (Vince 1997,
fabric groups A and B respectively) and
subsequently renamed following the discovery of a
production site outside Newbury (Mepham 2000).
These two wares form part of a ‘ware tradition’
found along the Kennet Valley from Newbury to
Devizes, and were probably produced at a number
of different centres within this wide distribution
area; one potential source has been identified on
the basis of place-name evidence near Marlborough,
in Savernake Forest (Vince 1997, 65). Only two
rims are present here — one jar rim and one bowl
rim. The tripod foot from context 1001 is not from
a tripod pitcher (such vessels are not known in
Kennet Valley wares) but probably from a cauldron
(e.g. Mepham 2000, fig. 17, 52). Kennet Valley
wares were long-lived (12th to 14th century), but
the vessel forms seen here would fit with the date
range of mid to late 13th century which is suggested
by the finewares.
Era)
104 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
1 Metres
Se es
Bah, Oo
(: 8 }
; ae Vi re | _
co) Kr 2 fo) &
a i \ lta
is) Z2E@
5 | o5 23
© nWoao
Go ee
oO @ Ooese
a fe £F_o
\ 45} oO i -)
oD io cog £0
& } oe = 0
8 | 32568
& if GS OCG
Bay LE Re TG
n Ls
oO
Lu)
ao
coo)
Se se
Sones
aG Fo
Oa,
eNes
Ges OO i
cA? (me
kay pagers
a Ooh % 2
ies eo 2s ;
EER; = 0
1 d fens
West facing section of Pit 1010
Fig. 4. Sections through other investigate
Oy
B 1g oe
A POSSIBLE OUTER BAILEY DITCH TO MARLBOROUGH CASTLE 105
The third coarseware, represented by a single
sherd, is a Laverstock type from the Salisbury area,
again probably 13th century. This is also the source
of the dominant fineware type, a fine whiteware
found here in glazed jug forms, decorated with
incised or red-slipped motifs. Comparable jugs were
found during the excavation of the Laverstock kilns,
which have an archaeomagnetic date of 1240-75
(Musty et al. 1969), although production here (or
elsewhere in the immediate vicinity of Salisbury) is
likely to have been longer-lived.
Two other glazed wares were identified. One is
calcareous (tempered with oolitic limestone), of a
type found in north Wiltshire, for example
associated with the Minety production centre; two
of the three sherds have combed decoration, which
can be characteristic of 12th century tripod pitchers,
although could equally well be later. The second
type is sandy and is not particularly distinctive.
Medium-grained sandy wares such as these are
widespread across central southern England and,
like the Kennet Valley wares, are likely to have
several different sources — one known kiln source is
at Ashampstead in west Berkshire (Mepham and
Heaton 1995).
CONCLUSIONS
Archaeological Interpretation
Two broad groups of archaeological deposits have
been revealed at this site: a broad ditch of defensive
proportions, the upper backfills of which had been
cut into by two smaller ditches containing 13th
century pottery; and a group of pits and smaller
features to the south of it, redolent of domestic
functions, some of which contained 13th century
pottery in their lower fills. Of these, the latter are
more readily interpretable.
In form and fill characteristics, pits 1010 and
1020 are similar to features identified as cess pits
at many urban archaeological sites. Pit 1012 is rather
more enigmatic, being of similar form and
dimensions to 1010, but having apparently been
backfilled immediately after its excavation.
Furthermore, their linear alignment follows the
patterns identified at many urban sites, in which
cess pits invariably indicate both the orientation and
extent of individual burgages (cf. Schofield and
Vince 1995), though the orientation of these
features is contrary to that presumed on the basis
of the present property layout in the town (cf.
Haslam 1978, fig 11) in being at an angle of
approximately 60 degrees to the High Street.
Feature 1014, being square in profile and plan
form, containing flint rubble in a chalky matrix, is
likely to have been a building foundation that has
been robbed of its larger masonry units and mortar.
Though undated, the absence of brick and the
purity of its matrix suggests a medieval rather than
Roman or. post-Medieval date, whilst
stratigraphically the deposits pre-date the southern
pit group. The absence of domestic materials such
as charcoal or animal bone from the immediate
vicinity of the feature suggests a non-domestic
function.
The other features, comprising isolated post
holes and smaller linear gullies, are of a form and
spatial density that might be anticipated on the
margins of a medieval settlement, and potentially
relate to a wide variety of domestic and other
functions. Though undated here, there is no reason
to preclude contemporaneity with the other
medieval deposits on the site.
It would be reasonable to conclude, therefore,
that the above represent the backland of a burgage
fronting on to the southern end of the High Street,
established during the 12th — 14th centuries and
demarcated on its northern side by the pair of
smaller ditches cutting into the upper backfills of
ditch 1037. This much, at least, is unremarkable.
Ditch 1037, however, is slightly more enigmatic.
Material from the two upper ‘recuts’ indicates that
1037 had fallen out of use by the late 13th century
and must therefore have been cut and initially silted
at an earlier date. Its steep-sided ‘V’ -shaped profile,
and considerable depth, are indicative of a defensive
function, rather than a simple boundary or quarry.
Though it is situated outside the accepted extent
of the Norman castle earthworks (cf. Haslam 1978),
the length observed within this site appears to be
broadly concentric with the western end of
Bridewell Street, an urban feature accepted as
respecting the alignment of the castle defences. If
we accept the assertion of Bradley et al. (1923) that
a second bailey was added to the north-eastern edge
of the Norman castle earthworks, and that the
medieval name for St Peter parish was “The Bailey
ward’ (Bradley et al. 1923), it is possible that 1037
represents the outer edge of the later bailey and
that it is likely to extend as an archaeological feature
across the southern end of the High Street,
containing SS Peter and Paul. Its steep profile and
lack of the broader base characteristic of Norman
106 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
defences allude to a relatively short duration as an
open topographic feature, which possibly explains
the historical ambiguity attached to the second
bailey.
Methodology
The requirement for an archaeological watching
brief during the major groundworks associated
with this development project has been justified
by the results obtained. In addition to recovering
significant archaeological data pertaining to the
development of the castle and the earlier medieval
settlement, the disparity between the results of the
evaluation and the subsequent watching brief
remind us of the inherent fallibility of the
techniques currently available for field evaluation.
In this instance, relocation of the evaluation
trenches to avoid known live services and active
thoroughfares, inadvertently avoided significant
archaeological deposits, the identification of which
would have had a significant affect on determination
of planning permission. A wider scatter of shorter
trenches might have uncovered the larger
archaeological features, but there remains even
amongst the rich seam of archaeology exposed in
the watching brief a great deal of blank ground into
which shorter trenches could as easily have fitted.
If there is a conclusion to be drawn, it is that
consideration of archaeological evaluations should
be based on artefactual as well as stratigraphic
results irrespective of any apparent lack of
relationship between the two data sets; the large
unabraded pottery sherds recovered in the
evaluation, though undoubtedly residual in the
overburden layers, were correctly interpreted by
the County Archaeological Service as indicating
proximate in situ deposits.
References
ASI 1999, Marlborough College Pool: Archaeological
Evaluation, December 1999. Non-publication
planning report No. ASI 3106
BRADLEY, A.G., CHAMPREYS, A.C., BAINES, J.W.,
1923, A History of Marlborough College. London:
John Murray
CREIGHTON, O.H., 2000, Early Castles in the Medieval
Landscape of Wiltshire. WANHM 93, 105-19
FIELD, D., BROWN, G. and CROCKETT, A., 2001,
The Marlborough Mount revisited. WANHM 94,
195-204
HASLAM, J., 1976, Wiltshire Towns: the archaeological
potential. Devizes: WANHS
MEPHAM, L., 2000, ‘Enborne Street and Wheatlands
Lane: medieval pottery’, in M.J. Allen et al., Technical
Reports supporting V. Birbeck, Archaeological
Investigations on the A34 Newbury Bypass,
Berkshire/Hampshire, 1991-7, 52-66. Wessex
Archaeology
MEPHAM, L. and HEATON, M., 1995, A medieval
pottery kiln at Ashampstead, Berkshire. Medieval
Ceramics 19, 29-43
MUSTY, J., ALGAR, D.J. and EWENCE, P.F., 1969,
The medieval pottery kilns at Laverstock, near
Salisbury, Wiltshire. Archaeologia 102, 83-150
SCHOFIELD, J. and VINCE, A., 1995, Medieval Towns.
Leicester UP
VINCE, A.G., 1997, ‘Excavations at 143-5 Bartholomew
Street, 1979’, in A.G. Vince, S.J. Lobb, J.C. Richards
and L. Mepham, Excavations in Newbury 1979-
1990, 6-85. Salisbury: Wessex Archaeology
VCH 1986. Victoria County History of Wiltshire, Vol. XII,
The Borough of Marlborough. London
Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 107-15
Sawfly (Hymenoptera: Symphyta) recording in
Wiltshire 1947-2000
by John Grearson
The characteristics of sawflies are described together with a brief account of their biology and the plants
with which they are associated. A list is then provided of all the sawfly records entered on the database of
the Biological Records Centre. These consist of records from Sir Christopher Andrewes, who collected in
the Salisbury area between 1947 and 1978, and from the author and others throughout the county between
1980 and 2000. Comments on some of the rarer species follow.
INTRODUCTION
Sawflies have never been a popular group with
entomologists and to the public they are largely
unfamiliar. The reason is probably because many
of the species are difficult to identify and the
literature is unhelpful. I have included, therefore, a
descriptive section intended to assist readers to
recognise sawflies, some of which may be
encountered frequently as garden pests.
Notwithstanding their anti-social habits, many of
the adults are quite striking in appearance and well
worth a second glance.
The primary purpose of this paper is to consider
the records held on the Wiltshire sawfly database at
Fig. 1. Adult female Tenthredo thompsoni
the end of the twentieth century. Because very few
observers have been involved, the total is only 961
records, of which more than half date from after
1997. In spite of this low number, 219 of the 501
species on the British List are represented. Records
published in the Report of the Marlborough College
Natural History Society between 1900 and 1934,
which will be added to the database in the future,
may help to swell further the number of species
found in the county before 2000 .
SAWFLY DESCRIPTION
The Symphyta form a sub-order of the insect order
Hymenoptera, which also includes bees, wasps and
ants. In common with most hymenopterans sawflies
have two pairs of wings but can be distinguished
by the lack of a narrow constriction between the
thorax and the abdomen. Female sawflies are
responsible for the common name of the group
because most possess saws as part of their genitalia
which they use to cut into plant tissue in order to
deposit their eggs. An exception to this are the ‘wood
wasps’ of the family Siricidae which have a needle-
like ovipositor used to penetrate the bark of trees
so that eggs can be laid in the softer sapwood. All
adult sawflies, with the exception of those in the
family Cephidae, possess a pair of small
10 Eastfield, Ashton Keynes, Swindon SN6 6PR. [author is the Wiltshire county sawfly recorder]
108 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
protruberances near the apex of the thorax known
as cenchri. The cenchri contact a rough area on the
underside of the forewings when the insect is at
rest, holding the wings in place. The Cephidae or
stem-sawflies are proportionately more slender
insects without cenchri but the abdomen is still
joined to the thorax without a narrow constriction.
All of these characters can be seen in Fig.1 which
illustrates a pinned female Tenthredo thompsoni.
Some species of sawflies are as small as 4mm in
length whilst the largest can be up to 40mm. There
is much variation in the shape, proportions and
colour. Black, yellow, green and red in various
combinations are all quite common. Many adult
sawflies visit flowers where they feed on pollen,
nectar or parts of the flowers. Others are
carnivorous and catch insects including other
sawflies in their powerful jaws. Sawflies cannot sting
but the larger species are capable of inflicting a bite
when handled.
The larvae of all the British sawflies feed on plant
material including horsetails, ferns, grasses, sedges,
herbaceous plants and many trees. Feeding mostly
takes place in the open on leaves but some groups
feed in other ways such as leaf mining, leaf rolling
or even by inducing gall formation. The wood-
feeding activities of the Siricidae have already been
mentioned and another group of species have larvae
which feed within the stems of plants. The larvae
of the species which feed in the open are seen most
commonly. Some of these feed singly and usually
have cryptic coloration whilst others feed
gregariously. This latter type are often brightly
coloured with striking markings and when disturbed
assume an alarm posture by lifting their tails to
form a rigid ‘s’-shape. There is some evidence that
some species may also employ chemical defence
substances. Individual species of sawflies are usually
very specific in their choice of host plant which is
an important aid to identification. The grey larvae
with black heads found on cultivated and wild
Solomon’s Seal, for example, are always of the
species Phymatocera aterrima.
The larvae of species feeding on leaves all have
three pairs of thoracic legs, like caterpillars of
Lepidoptera. They can be separated from that group
immediately, however, by the larger number of
abdominal pro-legs, usually six or seven pairs,
whereas lepidopteran caterpillars never have more
than five pairs. The larvae of sawflies which feed in
stems or in wood do not have well developed pro-
legs like the external feeders, but these larvae are
seldom seen.
Fig.2. Adult female Arge pagana ovipositing in a
stem of cultivated Rosa
Fig.2 shows a female Arge pagana ovipositing
in a stem of cultivated Rosa, and a group of the
gregarious larvae of this species is shown in Fig.3.
The eggs of most species hatch within a few days
and the larvae then commence to feed. The newly-
hatched larvae of some species feed within the cavity
created by the saw of the female for several days
before eating their way to the external surface of
the leaf. There is considerable variation in the length
of time spent in the larval stage. Many species have
just a single generation in a year and others several
generations. Any larva alive at the end of the
summer spends the winter as a pre-pupa either in a
cocoon or in the litter beneath the food-plant. The
pre-pupa looks like a frozen waxy form of the larva
and this winter suspension of activity is known as
Fig.3. Group of larvae of Arge pagana
SAWFLY (HYMENOPTERA: SYMPHYTA) RECORDING IN WILTSHIRE 1947-2000 109
diapause. In the spring the pre-pupa casts its skin
and metamorphoses into a pupa. This has external
antennae and legs and often moves. It is frequently
pale in colour but darkens prior to the emergence
of the adult which usually takes place within a few
days. In the case of the multi-brooded species, which
are usually small, the whole cycle takes takes place
in a matter of a few weeks. As a general rule the
smaller the species the quicker metamorphosis
occurs. This is, of course, only a generalised
description of the early stages, many species exhibit
individual variations which are dependent on a
variety of factors.
WILTSHIRE SAWFLY
RECORDS
In the list that follows species names are taken from
A Working Checklist of the British Symphyta
(November 2000) compiled by Dr D.A.Sheppard
of English Nature who is one of the leading
authorities on the group. The National Statuses
indicated are taken from English Nature’s
environmental recording software package Recorder
2000, but it should be noted that no review has
taken place since the late 1980s, and even at that
time many species of sawflies were listed as
“Unknown”.
The Records column shows two figures
separated by a plus sign. The first figure is the
number of records made by Sir Christopher
Andrewes (1896-1988) between approximately
1947 and 1978. Sir Christopher, who was one of
the discoverers of the influenza virus and Director
of the Common Cold Research Unit, was also an
eminent entomologist and lodged 395 records of
200 species of Wiltshire sawflies mostly from the
Salisbury district near his home. His main interests
were in Diptera and Hemiptera, and only to a lesser
degree in Hymenoptera , which explains the small
number of records. The bulk of his collections,
which amounted to more than 18,000 insects, were
acquired by the British Museum (Natural History)
with the residue being distributed between several
provincial collections. No attempt has been made
to validate Sir Christopher’s determinations.
The second figure in the Records column is for
the records from 1980 onwards of which there are
566. During this period occasional visits were made
to Wiltshire by professional entomologists and in
1998 the author and several others observers began
to record sawflies more widely across the county.
All recent records have been either referred to
experts for determination or compared with
reference specimens.
The final column indicates distribution
according to 10Km squares of the National Grid.
A map of the Wiltshire 10km squares is included
below (Fig.4) to assist in interpretation.
st79 | ST89 synhaoes xed Abr lane SU39
ST78 fe fore Suos |su18 Bag | SU38
a 1
sT77¥} st87 |st97 |suo7 |su17 |SuU27 S
a a Bea) Ete su16 |su26 Nee |
a
st75 Eger ere SUOs puie la ee
ST74 irae suo4 | su14 bd SU34
sts3 |stT93 |suo3 |su13 aby Be
Ak eae heap
Z\
ST81 oe Sut Pia
ST72
A
ST71
ae
National Status Records 10Km Squares
up to
31.12.00
Family PAMPHILIIDAE
Pamphilius fumipennis (Curtis, 1831) pRDB3 1+0 SU23
Pamphilius hortorum (Klug, 1808) Unknown 1+0 SU03
Pamphilius sylvaticus (Linnaeus, 1758) Unknown 2+0 SU02 SU22
Family ARGIDAE
Arge ciliaris (L.,1767) Local 3+0 ST93 SU02 SU22
Arge cyanocrocea (Forster, 1771) Unknown 1+4 SU02 SU08 SU09 SU18
110 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Arge enodis (L., 1767)
Arge fuscipes (Fallen, 1808)
Arge gracilicornis (Klug, 1814)
Arge melanochroa (Gmelin in Linnaeus, 1790)
Arge ochropa (Gmelin in Linnaeus, 1790)
Arge pagana stephensiu (Leach, 1817)
Arge ustulata (L., 1758)
Family CIMBICIDAE
Zaraea fasciata (L., 1758)
Abia sericea (L., 1767)
Cimbex connatus (Schrank, 1776)
Cimbex femoratus (L., 1758)
Family DIPRIONIDAE
Gilpinia hercyniae (Hartig, 1837)
Family TENTHREDINIDAE
Sub-family Selandriinae
Dulophanes morio (Fabricius, 1781)
Brachythops flavens (Klug, 1816)
Brachythops wuestnei (Konow, 1885)
Selandria serva (Fabricius, 1793)
Selandria sixi1 Vollenhoven, 1858
Strombocerina delicatulus (Fallen, 1808)
Strongylogaster lineata (Christ, 1791)
Aneugmenus padi (L., 1761)
Birka cinereipes (Klug, 1816)
Sub-family Dolerinae
Dolerus aericeps Thompson, 1871
pRDB1
Unknown
Common
Local
Unknown
Local
Common
Local
Local
Unknown
Unknown
Naturalised
Common
Notable/Nb
pRDB3
Common
Local
Common
Unknown
Common
Common
Common
Dolerus bimaculatus (Geoffroy in Fourcroy, 1785) pRDB3
Dolerus cothurnatus Lepeletier, 1823
Dolerus germanicus (Fabricius, 1775)
Dolerus ferrugatus Lepeletier, 1823
Dolerus madidus (Klug, 1818)
Dolerus triplicatus (Klug, 1818)
Dolerus vestigialis (Klug, 1818)
Dolerus aeneus Hartig, 1837
Dolerus gonager (Fabricius, 1781)
Dolerus haematodes Schrank, 1781
Dolerus megapterus Cameron, 1881
Dolerus niger (L., 1767)
Dolerus nigratus (Muller, 1776)
Dolerus picipes (Klug, 1818)
Dolerus planatus Hartig, 1837
Dolerus possilensis Cameron, 1882
Dolerus puncticollis Thomson, 1871
Dolerus sanguinicollis (Klug, 1818)
Dolerus varispinus Hartig, 1837
Local
Local
Unknown
Unknown
Local
Unknown
Common
Unknown
Unknown
pRDB3
Common
Common
Common
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Common
Unknown
1+0
1+0
5+2
1+8
2+0
3+18
2+2
1+0
3+8
O+1
0+1
1+0
2+0
1+0
1+0
0+27
0+2
12
5+2
5+0
1+0
2+2
O+1
0+2
1+1
142
1+0
1+0
1+1
4+6
2+0
Sa32,
O+1
2+0
2+20
1+17
1+0
1+0
1+4
3+5
7a ro)
SU02
SU22
ST92 SU08 SU09 SU12 SU16 SU22
SU02 SU03 SU06 SU12 SU14 SU17
SU26
SU12
ST87 ST93 SU03 SU04 SU06 SU08
SU13 SU14 SU16 SU22 SU24
ST92 SU02 SU14 SU22
$U22
ST94 SU02 SU04 SU08 SU12 SU14
SU15 SU22
SU03
SU21
SU03
SU02 SU22
SU12
$U12
ST85 ST86 ST96 ST99 SU02 SU03
SU08 SU09 SU14 SU18 SU26
ST98 SU03
SU16 SU22 SU26
ST82 ST95 ST98 SU02 SU22
SU02 SU03 SU12 SU22 SU23
SU12
SU03 SU12
SU16
SU03 SU08
SU09 SU12
ST97 ST98 SU22
SU22
SU22
SU06 SU12
SU02 SU03 SU09 SU16 SU22 SU26
SU12
SU09 SU12 SU22
SU16
SU12
ST98 SU02 SU08 SU09 SU12
ST94 ST98 SU02 SU06 SU08 SU09
SU12 SU14 SU18 SU24 SU27
$U12
SU12
SU09 SU12
ST82 ST97 SU03 SU06 SU09 SU12
SU16 SU22
SU02 SU03 SU08 SU09
SAWFLY (HYMENOPTERA: SYMPHYTA) RECORDING IN WILTSHIRE 1947-2000 111
Sub-family Allantinae
Athalia bicolor Lepeletier, 1823
Athalia circularis (Klug,1815)
Athalia cordata Lepeletier, 1823
Athalia glabricollis Thomson, 1870
Athalia liberta (Klug, 1815)
Athalia lugens (Klug, 1815)
Athalia rosae (L., 1758)
Athalia scutellariae Cameron, 1880
Empria alector Benson, 1938
Empria baltica Conde, 1937
Empria immersa (Klug, 1818)
Empria klugu (Stephens, 1835)
Empria liturata (Gmelin in L., 1790)
Empria tridens (Konow, 1885)
Ametastegia albipes (Thomson, 1861)
Ametastegia equiset1 (Fallen, 1808)
Ametastegia glabrata (Fallen, 1808)
Ametastegia carpini (Hartig, 1837)
Ametastegia pallipes (Spinola, 1808)
Allantus calceatus (Klug, 1818)
Allantus cinctus (L., 1758)
Allantus cingulatus (Scopoli, 1763)
Allantus rufocinctus (Retzius in DeGeer, 1783)
Allantus truncatus (Klug, 1818)
Apethymus filiformis (Klug, 1818)
Caliroa annulipes (Klug, 1816)
Caliroa ceras1 (L., 1758)
Caliroa varipes (Klug, 1816)
Endelomyia aethiops (Fabricius, 1781)
Heterarthrus aceris (Kaltenbach, 1856)
Heterarthrus microcephalus (Klug, 1818)
Heterarthrus ochropodus (Klug, 1818)
Sub-family Blennocampinae
Tomostethus nigritus (Fabricius, 1805)
Eutomostethus ephippium (Panzer, 1798)
Eutomostethus lJuteiventris (Klug, 1816)
Eutomostethus punctatus (Konow, 1837)
Stethomostus fuliginosus (Schrank, 1781)
Phymatocera aterrima (Klug, 1818)
Paracharactus gracilicornis (Zaddach, 1859)
Monophadnus pallescens (Gmelin in L., 1790)
Periclista albida (Klug, 1816)
Periclista lineolata (Klug, 1816)
Ardis brunniventris (Hartig, 1837)
Pareophora pruni (L., 1758)
Blennocampa phyllocolpa
(Viitasaari & Vikberg, 1985)
Monophadnoides ruficruris (Brulle, 1832)
Monophadnoides tenuicornis (Klug, 1816)
Monophadnoides waldheimi (Gimmerthal, 1847)
Halidamia affinis (Fallen, 1807)
Unknown
Common
Common
Common
Unknown
Common
Local
Unknown
Unknown
Common
Unknown
Unknown
Notable/Nb
Unknown
Local
Local
Local
Unknown
Common
Common
Unknown
Unknown
Common
Local
Unknown
Unknown
Common
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Common
Common
Local
Common
Unknown
pRDB3
Unknown
Unknown
Common
Local
Unknown
Common
Unknown
pRDB3
Unknown
3+11
B22,
3+39
2+2
14+11
2+0
1+6
Atl
2+0
343
1+0
4+3
3+0
3+0
1+0
2+0
2+0
0+3
0+1
1+5
Dated)
2+0
3+1
4+0
1+0
3+1
LEZ
1+0
2+0
O+1
1+0
1+0
3+0
6+0
3+6
1+0
3+5
0+8
1+0
DtD,
1+0
1+0
1+0
2+0
1+2
1+0
O+1
1+0
52.
SU02 SU03 SU09 SU12 SU14 SU22
SU27
ST82 ST85 SU02 SU06 SU08 SU09
SU12 SU22 SU24
ST85 ST97 SU03 SU08 SU09 SU12
SU14 SU15 SU16 SU17 SU22 SU23
SU26 SU27 SU35
SU09 SU22
SU02 SU08 SU09 SU15 SU16
SU12 SU22
SU08 SU09 SU12
ST96 SU12
SU12 SU21
SU03 SU08 SU09 SU12 SU22
SU22
ST92 SU02 SU06 SU22 SU23 SU27
SU12 SU22
SU02 SU12 SU22
$U22
SU02 SU12
SU12
ST85 SU09
SU03
SU03 SU08 SU09 SU12 SU14
SU08 SU12 SU22
SU02 SU03
ST85 SU03 SU12 SU22
SU02 SU12 SU22
SU02
SU03 SU09 SU22
ST94 SU12 SU13
SU22
SU02 SU23
ST94
SU22
SU22
SU02 SU12
ST92 SU02 SU12 SU22
SU03 SU08 SU09 SU12 SU16 SU22
SU22
ST97 SU02 SU03 SU08 SU12 SU16
ST85 ST97 ST98 SU03 SU18 SU23
SU24
SU02
SU02 SU09 SU12
SU22
SU22
SU03
SU12
SU03 SU04 SU12
SU22
SU09
SU02
ST82 ST92 SU02 SU06 SU12 SU13
SU26
112 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Metallus pumilus (Klug, 1814)
Scolioneura betuleti (Klug, 1816)
Profenusa pygmaea (Klug, 1816)
Fenusa dohrni (Tischbein, 1846)
Fenusa pumila Leach, 1817
Kaliofenusa ulmi (Sundevail, 1847)
Sub-family Tenthredininae
Eriocampa ovata (L., 1761)
Zonuledo amoena Gravenhorst, 1807
Zonuledo distinguenda (Stein,R., 1885)
Aglaostigma aucupariae (Klug, 1817)
Aglaostigma fulvipes (Scopoli, 1763)
Tenthredopsis coqueberti (Klug, 1817)
Tenthredopsis excisa (Thomson, 1870)
Tenthredopsis litterata
(Geoffroy in Fourcroy, 1785)
Tenthredopsis nassata (L., 1767)
Cytisogaster chambers1 Benson, 1947
Cytisogaster genistae (Benson, 1947)
Rhogogaster scalaris (Klug, 1817)
Rhogogaster punctulata (Klug, 1817)
Rhogogaster viridis (L., 1758)
Tenthredo mesomelas L., 1758
Tenthredo maculata
(Geoffroy in Fourcroy, 1785)
Tenthredo olivacea Klug, 1817
Tenthredo celtica Benson, 1953
Tenthredo atra L., 1758
Tenthredo balteata Klug, 1817
Tenthredo colon Klug, 1817
Tenthredo ferruginea Schrank, 1776
Tenthredo livida L., 1758
Tenthredo arcuata Forster, 1771
Tenthredo brevicornis (Konow, 1886)
Tenthredo notha Klug, 1817
Tenthredo schaeffer1 Klug, 1817
Tenthredo scrophulariae L., 1758
Tenthredo thompson (Curtis, 1839)
Tenthredo zona Klug, 1817
Macrophya albicincta (Schrank, 1776)
Macrophya annulata
(Geoffroy in Fourcroy, 1785)
pRDB3
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Common
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Vagrant/Accidental
Unknown
Common
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Common
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Common
Common
Local
Unknown
Unknown
Local
Unknown
Common
Common
Common
Common
Unknown
Unknown
Local
Unknown
Unknown
Notable/Nb
Common
1+0
1+0
2+0
1+0
1+0
2+0
2+0
2+11
1+1
5+6
1+11
1+0
3st
0+6
3+13
2+0
1+0
1+4
1+1
3+4
B27
3+0
2+0
44+17
4+0
1+0
3+0
4+0
Dit
24+15
2+20
2+14
1+7
1+11
3+10
1+0
2+0
4+6
SU12
SU12
SU02 SU22
SU13
S$U22
SU03 SU12
SU12 SU13
ST94 SU02 SU03 SU04 SU12 SU14
SU15 SU22 SU26
SU02 SU14
SU02 SU03 SU08 SU09 SU12 SU14
SU15 SU22
ST85 ST87 ST92 SU02 SU03 SU09
SU16 SU18
SU12
SU02 SU03 SU12 SU16
ST85 SU08 SU09 SU14 SU17
ST94 ST95 SU02 SU04 SU06 SU08
SU09 SU12 SU14 SU22 SU27
$U22
SU12
ST94 SU08 SU12 SU18
SU12 SU22
ST85 ST87 SU02 SU09 SU22 SU23
SU24
ST85 ST87 ST94 ST98 ST99 SU02
SU04 SU06 SU08 SU09 SU12 SU14
SU16 SU22 SU24
SU02 SU03
ST92 SU22
ST85 ST87 ST94 SU02 SU03 SU08
SU09 SU12 SU22
SU02 SU12 SU22
SU03
SU02 SU22
SU03 SU12 SU22 SU23
SU02 SU03 SU08 SU09 SU27
ST94 ST95 ST98 SU03 SU04 SU05
SU06 SU12 SU15 SU16 SU22 SU25
ST94 ST95 ST98 SU02 SU04 SU06
SU08 SU12 SU13 SU15 SU18 SU25
SU35 SU36
ST94 ST95 ST98 SU02 SU04 SU06
SU09 SU12 SU014 SU15 SU22
ST94 SU12 SU14 SU25
ST98 SU03 SU04 SU05 SU08 SU09
SU12 SU16 SU26
SU02 SU03 SU04 SU09 SU12 SU13
SU14 SU15 SU23 SU25
SU02
SU02 SU22
ST98 SU02 SU03 SU04 SU06 SU08
SU12 SU22 SU27
i
|
|
SAWFLY (HYMENOPTERA: SYMPHYTA) RECORDING IN WILTSHIRE 1947-2000
Macrophya duodecimpunctata (L., 1758)
Macrophya punctumalbum (L., 1767)
Macrophya ribis (L., 1758)
Macrophya rufipes (L., 1758)
Pachyprotasis antennata (Klug, 1817)
Pachyprotasis rapae (L., 1767)
Sub-family Nematinae
Cladius pectinicornis
(Geoffroy in Fourcroy, 1785)
Priophorus morio (Lepeletier, 1823)
Priophorus pallipes (Lepeletier, 1823)
Priophorus pilicornis (Curtis, 1833)
Priophorus ulmi (L., 1758)
Mesoneura opaca (Klug, 1819)
Nematinus Juteus (Panzer, 1805)
Dineura stilata (Klug, 1816)
Dineura viridorsata (Tetzius in Degeer, 1783)
Hemichroa australis (Lepeletier, 1823)
Hoplocampa alpina (Zetterstedt, 1838)
Hoplocampa ariae Benson, 1933
Hoplocampa chrysorrhoea (Klug, 1816)
Hoplocampa crataegi (Klug, 1816)
Hoplocampa pectoralis Thomson, 1871
Hoplocampa fulvicornis (Panzer, 1801)
Pristiphora abietina (Christ, 1791)
Pristiphora biscalis (Foerster, 1854)
Pristiphora monogyniae (Hartig, 1840)
Pristiphora laricis (Hartig, 1837)
Pristiphora aquilegiae (Vollenhoven, 1866)
Pristiphora armata (Thomson, 1862)
Pristiphora geniculata (Hartig, 1840)
Pristiphora melanocarpa (Hartig, 1840)
Pristiphora pallidiventris (Fallen, 1808)
Pristiphora punctifrons (Thomson, 1871)
Pristiphora rufipes (Lepeletier, 1823)
Pristiphora subbifida (Thomson, 1871)
Pristiphora testacea (Jurine, 1807)
Sharliphora nigella (Foerster, 1854)
Amauronematus histrio (Lepeletier, 1823)
Amauronematus humeralis (Lepeletier, 1823)
Decanematus leucolenus (Zaddach, 1862)
Decanematus malaisei (Hellen, 1970)
Decanematus viduatus (Zetterstedt, 1838)
Euura atra (Jurine, 1807)
Euura mucronata (Hartig, 1837)
Pontania bridgmanii (Cameron, 1883)
Pontania proxima (Lepeletier, 1823)
Pontania tuberculata (Benson, 1953)
Pontania pedunculi (Hartig, 1837)
Pontania viminalis (L., 1758)
Craesus latipes (Villaret, 1832)
Craesus septentrionalis (L., 1758)
Nematus lucidus (Panzer, 1801)
Nematus bergmanni Dahlbom, 1835
Nematus bipartitus Lepeletier, 1823
Nematus fagi Zaddach, 1875
Nematus flavescens Stephens, 1835
Unknown
Local
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Common
Common
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Local
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
pRDB3
Unknown
pRDB3
Unknown
Common
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
pRDB3
Unknown
Unknown
Common
Unknown
Unknown
pRDB3
Local
Common
Unknown
Unknown
Common
Common
Common
Unknown
Local
25
4+]
Die,
2+3
Shu |
Shir)
6+0
Zt
2+3
4+2
2+0
Sil
2+0
3+0
3+0
2+0
1+0
1+0
1+0
1+0
2+0
2+0
1+0
2+0
4+0
2+0
O+1
5+4
2+1
1+0
5+0
2+0
2+0
1+1
2+0
1+0
1+0
1+0
1+0
1+0
1+0
1+0
1+0
2+0
1+0
2+0
2+0
1+0
1+1
1+2
243
2+0
0+1
2+1
1+0
ST92 SU03 SU08 SU09 SU12 SU16
ST92 SU02 SU12 SU14 SU22
ST85 SU06 SU12
SU06 SU12 SU14
SU02 SU03 SU16
ST94 ST97 SU02 SU09 SU12 SU22
$U25
SU03 SU12 SU22
ST94 SU03 SU08 SU22
SU04 SU12 SU14 SU22 SU25
ST94 ST95 SU03 SU12 SU22
SU03 SU12
ST94 SU02 SU12
SU13 SU22
ST92 SU02 SU12
SU02 SU03 SU23
SU22
ST82
SU22
SU12
SU12
ST82 SU12
SU12
SU12
SU12 SU22
SU03 SU12 SU22
ST84 SU12
SU04
ST94 ST95 SU12 SU13 SU22
$U22
SU02
SU02 SU03 SU22
SU02
SU12
ST92 SU09
ST92 SU12
SU22
SU12
SU22
SU22
SU03
$U22
SU12
SU12
SU02 SU22
SU12
$U22
SU12
SU12
SU08 SU13
SU03 SU13 SU22
ST99 SU09 SU12
SU12
SU09
SU02 SU16 SU22
SU12
113
114 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Nematus hypoxanthus Foerster, 1854 Unknown 1+0 SU22
Nematus incompletus Foerster, 1854 Unknown 1+0 SU12
Nematus leucotrochus Hartig, 1831 Unknown 2+0 SU02 SU12
Nematus melanaspis Hartig, 1840 Common 1+0 SU22
Nematus myosotodis (Fabricius, 1804) Common 34+3 SU02 SU04 SU08 SU09 SU12 SU22
Nematus pavidus Lepeletier, 1823 Unknown 1+0 SU02
Nematus poecilonotus
Zaddach in Brischke & Zaddach, 1875 Unknown 1+0 SU03
Nematus ribesi1 (Scopoli, 1763) Common 1+2 SU03 SU08 SU12
Nematus salicis (L., 1758) Unknown 1+0 SU12
Nematus spiraeae Zaddach, 1882 Naturalised O+1 SU04
Nematus umbratus Thomson, 1871 Unknown 1+0 SU02
Nematus viridis Stephens, 1835 Unknown 2+0 SU02
Pachynematus extensicornis (Norton, 1861) Common 1+2 SU09 SU12 SU24
Pachynematus kirby1 (Dahlborn, 1835) Common 1+1 SU08 SU12
Pachynematus lichtwardti Konow, 1904 Unknown 1+0 SU03
Pachynematus moerens (Foerster, 1854) Unknown 1+0 SU12
Pachynematus obductus (Hartig, 1837) Common 2+1 SU02 SU12 SU25
Pachynematus trisignatus (Foerster, 1854) Unknown 2+1 SU02 SU14 SU23
Pachynematus vagus (Fabricius, 1781) Common 1+1 SU02 SU03
Pachynematus xanthocarpus (Hartig, 1840) pRDB3 1+0 SU02
Pachynematus albipennis (Hartig, 1837) Local O+1 SU09
Pikonema impertectus
(Zaddach & Brischke, 1875) Naturalised 1+0 SU03
Family SIRICIDAE
Urocerus gigas (L., 1758) Local O+7 ST84 ST85 ST92 ST98 SU06 SU22
SU23
Family CEPHIDAE
Hartigia linearis (Schrank, 1781) Unknown 2+0 SU02 SU22
Hartigia xanthostoma (Eversmann, 1847) pRDB3 1+4 SU03 SU08 SU09 SU12 SU18
Cephus cultratus Eversmann, 1847 Unknown 1+12 ST85 ST98 SU02 SU03
SU08 SU09 SU12 SU18 SU27
Cephus nigrinus Thomson, 1871 Local 1+0 SU02
Cephus pygmeus (L., 1766) Unknown 1+9 SU02 SU03 SU12 SU13 SU26 SU27
Trachelus tabidus (Fabricius, 1775) Unknown 1+0 SU12
Calameuta filiformis (Eversmann, 1847) Unknown 0+3 SU08
Calameuta pallipes (Klug, 1803) Common 443 ST87 ST98 SU02 SU12 SU22 SU23
DISCUSSION
SU27
There were 219 species of sawflies recorded in
Wiltshire between 1947 and December 2000. This
figure represents 43.7% of the British total of 501
species (although 9 of these are thought to be
extinct) . Sir Christopher Andrewes recorded 200
species in the first period and 104 species were
recorded in the second. 115 of the species seen in
the first period were not recorded in the second
and 19 species from the second period were not
recorded in the first.
The extrapolation of information about faunal
changes from the comparison of such small data
sets is liable to be misleading. It is expected that
the continuation of recording will produce records
of some of the additional species seen by Sir
Christopher, but perhaps not all. It would be
surprising if modern methods of managing the
countryside and climate change have not affected
sawflies as they have other taxa such as butterflies.
Some of the species recorded in the second
period deserve special comment. The Cimbex
connatus found by Henry Edmunds near Compton
Chamberlayne in July 1997 was the first British
record for many decades (Edmunds, H.A. &
Springate, N.D. 1998). The former pest species
Athalia rosae (Turnip Sawfly), now considered rare,
SAWFLY (HYMENOPTERA: SYMPHYTA) RECORDING IN WILTSHIRE 1947-2000 115
was found in 1999 and 2000 in a number of marshy
sites in the north of the county. It has not been
established whether these were migrants from the
continent or a local indigenous population. Two rare
Dolerus sawflies were found at Jones’s Mill in 2000,
D.bimaculatus and D.megapterus, both species with
only a handful of other British records, mainly from
further north. Another species which is rated
nationally as pRDB3 is the spectacular stem-sawfly
Hartigia xanthostoma. This has been found at a
number of sites in Wiltshire where the larval host
plant Filipendula ulmaria (Meadowsweet) is
prolific. I have begun to expect this species to turn
up at such sites and it is possibly not as rare as its
national status suggests. One of the commonest
species which can be found in any damp situation
is Selandria serva and it is strange that it was not
recorded in the first period. Perhaps it was much
scarcer in Wiltshire at that time. Further work in
the future, both in the field and on the pre-1947
Marlborough records, will help, I hope, not only to
solve this problem but also to enable the much wider
assessment which these fascinating insects so clearly
deserve.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to thank Dr David A. Sheppard for his advice
on all matters sawfly, for leading a sawfly workshop
in Wiltshire and for reading a draft of this article.
Most of the more difficult determinations of the
recent Wiltshire records have been carried out by
Andrew J. Halstead, Senior Entomologist, Royal
Horticultural Society, Wisley. Iam most grateful to
David and Andrew for their enthusiastic support
and guidance while I have been on my learning
curve. Thanks also to the growing band of people
who have submitted records to me. Finally, much
of the descriptive material has been taken from
Wright, A., 1990.
Bibliography
EDMUNDS, H.A. & SPRINGATE, N.D., 1998. Cimbex
connatus (Schrank) (Hymenoptera: Cimbicidae): a
rare Species in the British Isles, British Journal of
Entomology and Natural History, 10, 65-67.
WRIGHT, A., 1990. British Sawflies (Hymenoptera:
Symphyta) A key to adults of the genera occurring
in Britain. Reprinted from Field Studies. 7, 531-
593. Aidgap, Field Studies Council.
116 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
a ERLE STOKE
DETENTION
CENTRE a 4
¢ | :)
® Inhumafion
6] 25 50
EE a
metres
CUTTING
/ B
Gy:
&
° BSS VG “ORS cormne it
EXTENSION 4 CUTTING
N.W. zx
£7t CUTTING III
t /nhumation
Fig. 1. Location of the excavation, and plans of Areas A and B, based on D. Grant King’s original plans
Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 116-24
The 1963 Excavations at Erlestoke Detention
Centre
by A.M. Foster' and D. Roddham/?
with contributions by Paul Robinson’ and Robert Hopkins‘
Small-scale excavations at Erlestoke Detention Centre (now H.M. Prison) by Denis Grant King in 1963
recovered a quantity of Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Romano-Britsh pottery and small finds. Four inhumation
burials were also excavated. Grant King did not complete a final report on this material which 1s now in the
Wiltshire Heritage Museum, Devizes. His excavations and finds are summarised below; they indicate a
small cemetery of probable Roman date, and a midden area. Any associated settlement was not found.
INTRODUCTION
In September 1963, following the discovery of a
number of Romano-British sherds in the grounds
of Erlestoke Detention Centre (ST 96975391), now
H.M. Prison, Erlestoke, Denis Grant King was
- invited to undertake a small-scale examination of
the area over one week. No final report was prepared
and the pottery, small finds, and excavation
notebooks were deposited in what is now the
Wiltshire Heritage Museum, Devizes after Grant
King’s death in 1994. A detailed account of the
excavation, including a list of small finds, is
deposited with the archaeological archive at the
_ Museum. The following is a summary of that report.
BACKGROUND
The Detention Centre lies within the grounds of
the former Manor of Erlestoke in an area of upper
| greensand overlying gault clay to the north. To the
south is the chalk of Salisbury Plain. Grant King
reported ‘light brown soil’ to a depth of between
| 0.46-0.76m on the site.
Despite extensive tree planting in the 1780s and
| the demolition and replacement of the old Manor
House between 1786 and 1791, little of
archaeological interest had been reported in the area
prior to 1963 and nothing on the site itself.
Subsequently, in 1982/83, a Romano-British
settlement was reported at Brounker’s Court and
White Gates Farms approximately 1km to the west
of the Detention Centre (Anon 1982, 160). The
former has yielded a collection of early 3rd-late 4th
century coins as well as fibulae of Langton Down
and Hod Hill type. At White Gates Farm a lion’s
head mount of mid Ist century AD and 3rd and
4th century coins have been found. Both sites
produced Romano-British potsherds.
THE EXCAVATIONS
Using the enthusiastic but untrained young inmates
as his labour force, Grant King excavated a series
of small cuttings in an area of the Centre he called
the ‘North Front’ (Fig. 1, Area A). This area had
been much disturbed by previous digging (not
excavation) by the prisoners. Consequently, the
majority of finds from this area are unstratified.
Grant King also examined a small area
approximately 66m to the south of those cuttings
which he called the ‘Southwest’ (Fig. 1, Area B).
' Springfield, Bath Road, Devizes, SN10 1PH ? 67a Hill Corner Road, Chippenham SN15 1DR
>The Museum, 41 Long Street,
Devizes, SN10 INS 419 Rawlings Road, Llandybie, Ammanford SA18 3YD
118 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Within Area A he identified two features, the
first of which he described as a cluster of 54 stones,
some burnt, in the north-east corner of Cutting
IVD (Fig. 1, Fl). This feature was associated with
numerous animal bones (cattle, sheep/goat, horse).
About 1m southwest of these stones he recorded a
‘saucepan type’ pot, now missing, filled with
charcoal, lying 1m deep in a dark charcoal layer.
‘Twelve metres south of the southwest corner of IVD
was a skull fragment from an adult male.
In Cutting IVD, Extension Northwest D (Fig.
1, F2), a possible ditch approximately 1.8m deep
and 1.8m wide was excavated. The ditch appeared
to run SW/NE but was not excavated beyond the
boundaries of the cutting. Finds from the ditch
include remains of cattle, a clay loom-weight, a bone
handle, and an iron rod (probably post-mediaeval).
Pottery from the ditch is sparse; among the finds
are two fragments of a Gallo-Belgic beaker of the
mid 1st century AD, sherds of Savernake ware, and
small sherds of miscellaneous Romano-British
coarse wares. Grant King also reported a sherd of
2nd century samian ‘near the top’ of the ditch.
Within Area B (Fig. 1) Grant King described a
series of irregular ‘white stone blocks’ capped by
‘cob’ (not further defined). These formed a feature
roughly 5.8m long and 0.6-1.5m wide with a right
angle end ‘wall’ at the eastern end. Within the first
section were two cavities 2.44m apart and 0.76m
deep. To the south, east, and west were more
irregularly shaped ‘blocks’. Immediately to the
north of the main feature was an inhumation (no.
2); to the south was a pit (F3) filled with animal
bone, none of which survives.
Small finds from within Area B include a
fragmentary bone comb of Roman type, a bone
spindle whorl, 74% of the iron nails found on the
site and three (and probably a further three) of the
seven large but fragmentary clay weights found.
Fragments of two quern stones and a whetstone
were also recovered.
Burials
Eight inhumations (Fig. 1) have been recorded
within the Detention Centre. Four (nos. 1, 2, 3, 5)
were excavated by Grant King with a further two
(nos. 4 and 8) noted in his excavation papers from
information supplied by prison staff. Two more
(nos.6 and 7) were subsequently reported during
construction at the prison in 1981 and 1988. Four
have been identified as male, one as female. Three
had not been sexed at the time of discovery and are
now missing. All those examined are adult. There
is no consistent orientation of the burials.
Inhumation | was supine with the head to the west;
inhumation 2 was also supine but with the head to
the north-east, and inhumation 3 was flexed with
the head to the north. The position of the other
inhumations is not recorded. With the possible
exception of inhumation 2, where 20 nails are
recorded ‘near’ the grave, none have coffins. Only
inhumation 6 had any grave goods (in this case
hobnailed footwear), although two others (nos. 2
and 3) were associated with small sherds of
Romano-British pottery. A bone comb was
recovered ‘near’ inhumation 2. Inhumation 1 was
found boxed with two possible polishing bones and
a third human ulna. Dating of most of the skeletons
is therefore ambiguous. A detailed description of
the graves and skeletons is in the archive.
THE FINDS
Pre-Roman Pottery
by Paul Robinson
A not insubstantial assemblage of over 260
potsherds and other items of later prehistoric date
were also recovered from the site by Mr Grant King.
The greater proportion of the sherds date from the
first half of the 1st millennium BC, with a few sherds
which may be identified as from vessels in the
Middle Iron Age ‘saucepan’ tradition. There is no
evidence for a continuous sequence of pottery
throughout the latter part of the millennium
suggesting that there was probably a break in the
habitation sequence between the Middle Iron Age
and the late Iron Age/earliest Romano-British
phase. None of the pottery is stratified and only a
proportion is marked with its location. If these
marked sherds are indeed representative of the
whole collection, then it would appear that nearly
all of this later prehistoric pottery derives from Area
A. There is certainly a concentration of potsherds
from the vicinity of feature 1 (the hearth), which
may imply that this feature is perhaps from a
building of later prehistoric date. A few marked
sherds are associated with feature 2 (the ditch):
these may be contemporary with it or may be
residual.
Seven main fabric types are represented:
1. Flint gritted fabrics (10 sherds). The identifiable
forms which are chronologically early in date are a small
THE 1963 EXCAVATIONS AT ERLESTOKE DETENTION CENTRE 119
cup shaped vessel, perhaps a crucible (Fig. 2: 1), and
body sherds from a wide mouthed bowl decorated with
fingertip impressions. A sherd from a wheel-turned jar
with a swollen rim close to a bead rim is of Late Iron Age
or Early Roman date.
2. Oolite grit tempered wares (143 sherds). In
quantity these constitute the principal fabric type on the
site. Most of the sherds derive from large jars with plain
rims (Fig. 2: 2), although one has a flattened rim with
shallow fingertip decoration beneath it. One body sherd
from a carinated bowl has spaced fingertip decoration.
Another similar sherd is decorated with oblique parallel
lines around the upper zone of the vessel (Fig. 2: 3).
3. Sandy fabrics (70 sherds). The sherds come from
a wide range of vessel forms including wide mouthed
storage jars (Fig. 2: 4) and carinated bowls. Some of the
rim sherds are plain or turned slightly upwards with a
swollen rim akin to a bead rim. Four rim sherds have
fingertip decoration around the rim while other body sherds
have finger impressions around the shoulder (Fig. 2:5). A
few sherds have All Cannings Cross type incised decoration.
One small body sherd has a pattern of stamped concentric
circles which were possibly originally infilled with a white
paste (Fig. 2: 6). One shows a pattern of ‘concentric’
diamonds (Fig. 2: 7) and is similar to a ‘waster’ with the
same pattern found at Cold Kitchen Hill in Brixton
Deverill. A sherd from a carinated vessel is decorated with
a pattern of oblique lines or triangles (Fig. 2: 8).
4. Fine, red-finished wares (10 sherds). The
proportion of fine wares in the assemblage is small. They
include a single body-sherd from a scratched-cordoned
bowl (Fig. 2: 9) and four sherds from shallow, wide-
mouthed furrowed bowls (Fig. 2: 10-12). One sherd has
a partially smoothed edge where an attempt has begun,
perhaps in Roman times, to make it into a counter or
similar object (Fig. 2: 13).
5. Glauconitic sand gritted ware (1 sherd). A single,
well-finished body sherd (Fig. 2: 14) has glauconitic sand
in the temper and comes from a jar with small, neat
fingertip impressions around the body of the vessel.
6. Shell-tempered fabrics (23 sherds). Sherds with
temper of shell and finely ground limestone constitute a
major element in the assemblage. Most are very well
finished. The rim sherd from a shallow wide-mouthed
bowl (Fig. 2: 15) may alternatively have been a steep-
sided lid or cover. A small rim sherd (Fig. 2: 16) has a
broad but shallow groove under the rim.
7. ‘Saucepan’ forms. Two rim sherds are from
straight-sided vessels in the ‘saucepan’ tradition of the
Middle Iron Age. One has a simple bead rim created by a
shallow groove under the rim, and is tempered with crushed
flint (Fig. 2: 17). The other has a rim in a similar form but
is made from a smoother, more sandy mix (Fig. 2: 18).
Romano-British Pottery
The Romano-British pottery from Erlestoke
consists of 3150 sherds (69.5kg) the majority of
which are unsourced Romano-British grey ware
body sherds. Many are quite large, over 5cm. Over
75% of the sherds cannot be assigned to any area
or feature, having only a general site identification
number. There does not appear to be a
concentration of any single fabric within a specific
area.
Early forms include several sherds of Gallo-
Belgic derived platters. Savernake wares are the
most common of the fabrics from known sources
numbering 14% (26% by weight) of the total
assemblage. These wares have been analysed by
Robert Hopkins who reports that the majority of
the vessels are grey wares. Although there is a
minimum of 50 vessels represented, the forms are
almost exclusively restricted to small, medium, and
large storage jars, the exception being a butt beaker.
The full report is in the archive.
Black-burnished products (plain-rimmed
dishes, conical flanged bowls, and cooking pots) of
the mid 2nd through the 4th century account for
4% of the total sherds. There is a mid-late 2nd
century sherd from the kilns at Caerleon and two
sherds of South-west white-slipped ware, both from
different mortaria. Three sherds of ‘Rhenish’ ware
represent three different vessels.
Third-4th century products of the Oxford kilns
include mortaria, and sherds from several colour-
coated bowls. New Forest wares are few, seven
sherds from 3rd-4th century flagons and beakers.
There are a few late 4th century grey wares.
As a whole, the Romano-British assemblage
indicates activity at Erlestoke Detention Centre
from perhaps the immediately pre-conquest period
through to the late 4th century. The quality of the
pottery does not suggest anything other than a
comparatively low status rural site. The number of
Savernake vessels may reflect intensity of use in the
lst-2nd centuries AD.
Samian Ware
by Robert Hopkins
The samian assemblage from Erlestoke is relatively
small (23 sherds) with only two mid-late 1st century
vessels, one Hadrianic, while the bulk of the vessels
reaching the site were made c.AD 140-200. The
120 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Fig. 2. Pre-Roman pottery. Scale 1:4
commonest 2nd century plain forms are usually
platters of the 18/31-31 range, as here (8=40%);
however there is a larger number of form 38
(3=17%) than is normal. The ratio of almost 4:1 in
favour of plain ware over decorated is in keeping
with other civilian sites. There are no east Gaulish
examples; whether this is demonstrative of a decline
in the economy of the site during the very late 2nd—
early 3rd century or simply the absence of ‘East
Gaulish traders’ in central Wiltshire must remain
unanswered until further work on the marketing of
samian in this area is undertaken.
SAMIAN STAMPS
There were four stamped samian sherds, kindly
identified by Dr. Brenda Dickinson.
1. DRAVCI, on form 31, AD 150-180.
2. QVINTIO, on form 27g, AD 60-85.
THE 1963 EXCAVATIONS AT ERLESTOKE DETENTION CENTRE 121
cae fe-,, itt, iy
Pees
Vili " Sad if ii
‘i gil }
A tiilie tL ‘lon
10 cm
Fig. 3. Objects of Iron Age date: bone, nos 19 and 20; ceramic, no. 21. Objects of Roman date: bone and iron, no. 22;
ceramic, nos 23-25. Scale 1:2
122 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
3. CVCCI(LLD, on form 31, AD 150-180.
4. VEGETI.(M), on form 37, AD 120-140/50.
Small Finds: Neolithic
FLINT
The 11 pieces of worked flint from the site were
examined by Philip Harding who reported that all
were likely to be residual. The material may
represent several periods of activity, the earliest of
which probably dates to the early Neolithic. The
Neolithic phase is represented by two blades and a
scraper.
Small Finds: Iron Age
Six items of worked bone were recovered including
a bone handle (Fig. 3, 19) from the ditch and a
spindle whorl (Fig. 3, 20) from Area B. A scoop
and rib knife are known only from Grant King’s
notes; their find spots are not recorded. Two
polishing bones were found boxed with inhumation
1 from Area A.
A ceramic weight in the shape of a ring (Fig. 3,
21) with an external diameter of approximately
13cm was recovered, although its find spot was not
recorded. A similar quoit-like object was found at
Potterne (Hall 2000, fig. 65.22).
At least six and probably seven individual clay
weights are represented by seven fragments. Six of
these are of a light grey-pinky fabric. All come from
triangular weights, the fragments ranging from 475-
2600g, the latter almost complete. Such large
weights are often referred to as thatch weights
(Poole 1991, 375). Three of the six are from Area B
near inhumation 2.’ The remaining three, although
unmarked, almost certainly are as well (Grant King
notes). The remaining weight, from the ditch, is
almost complete at 550g and is of a grey-buff fabric
with large chalk inclusions clearly visible on the
surface. It is roughly trapezoidal; a type usually
associated with early Iron Age sites.
Small Finds: Roman
A single coin, an As of Nero (AD 54-66), was a
surface find in Area A. It was identified by Paul
Robinson:
Obv. (NER)O.CAESAR,AVG GER P MTR P IMP, bare
bust right
Rev. Victory advancing left holding buckler inscribed
S.P.Q.R.
Ref. M & S 319.
Thirty-one items of worked iron were found;
among them a knife (Manning 1985, 55.Q46) from
Area B near inhumation 2, and a small hook,
possibly a reaping hook, from Cutting IVB. Twenty-
six nails or nail fragments, most of Manning type
1, were recovered, 20 of them ‘near’ inhumation 2.
It is not recorded whether any of these nails are
actually from the burial where they could have
indicated a coffin.
A bone comb (Fig. 3, 22) from ‘near’
inhumation 2 has a ring and dot pattern and is
paralleled by a late Roman example from Colchester
(Crummy 1983, fig. 59.1860). Bone combs are
sometimes found with Romano-British burials
(Philpott 1991, fig. 32); 13 examples similar to the
Erlestoke comb were excavated at Lankhills (Clarke
1979, 246-248). The only other recorded example
from Wiltshire, however, is the bone comb from
the inhumation cemetery at Boscombe Down West
(Richardson 1952, 133). It is unfortunately now
missing.
Thirty-two fragments of clay plates representing
at least 11 plates were also found (Fig. 3, 23-25).
Only two of 32 have recorded find spots, one in the
‘SE’, and the other in Area B. Although none is
complete, seven are from circular plates with
estimated diameters ranging from 18-26cm. The
thickness varies between 1.7-3.0cm. Three
fragments are from rectangular plates with rounded
corners. It is not now possible to determine their
original dimensions; thickness ranges from 1.4-
1.9cm. The basic fabric of the plates is sandy, pinky-
buff to red throughout with varying amounts of
grog, chalk, flint, and ironstone. The fabric is poorly
mixed giving a very striated appearance in breaks.
Some of the fragments appear to have been burnt.
Although often cited as kiln furniture (Swan 1984,
41) similar circular plates have been found in
Wiltshire on non-kiln sites; e.g. Maddington Farm
(Seager Smith 1996, 58) and Figheldean (Mepham
1991, 34). Rectangular plates are also often
identified as kiln furniture but appear on sites
apparently without kilns; e.g. Baldock (Rigby and
Foster 1986, 185-88) and King Harry Lane. At the
latter it is suggested that they might have been used
as salt licks for cattle (Rigby 1989, 52)
Other ceramics include three pottery counters,
one from Cutting IVC, one from Area B, and a
|
|
THE 1963 EXCAVATIONS AT ERLESTOKE DETENTION CENTRE
third with an unspecified find spot. All are made
from Romano-British coarse wares.
Two fragments of limestone approximately 7cm
across are remnants of roof tiles. No find spot is
specified. A whetstone fragment and the lower stone
from a rotary quern, now missing, were found ‘near’
inhumation 2.
ANIMAL BONE
Although bones of sheep/goat, cattle, horse, deer
and bird (unspecified) were kept, much of the
material mentioned in Grant King’s notes is now
missing. It is therefore difficult to determine any
distribution of bone over the site or to associate it
with dateable pottery. The majority of the labelled
bone comes from Cutting IVC.
DISCUSSION
The pottery evidence form Erlestoke Detention
Centre suggests use of the area over a long period
beginning sometime in the Bronze Age. A hiatus
following the middle Iron Age was followed by
activity on the site in the late Iron Age and
throughout almost the whole of the Roman period.
The quantity of Savernake wares perhaps reflects
most intensive use in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD.
It is probable that this area was on the fringe of
a farmstead or small rural settlement where
marginal land unsuitable for agricultural or light
industrial purposes would have been used for
domestic rubbish, perhaps in pits (hence the large
size of many of the sherds). Such ‘waste ground’
would also have been used for adult burials, not
normally allowed within a settlement during the
Roman period. The cluster of inhumations in Area
B, at least three of which are associated with
Romano-British material, may represent some of
the members of such a community.
The incomplete recording of many such small
(<10 burials) rural Romano-British cemeteries in
Wiltshire has made it difficult to detect patterns in
burial practices of this period. Nevertheless,
Erlestoke is in keeping with other more recently
excavated cemeteries of this type where, for
example, a mixture of flexed, crouched, and
extended burials is recorded (e.g. Figheldean and
Maddington Farm). Similarly, although grave goods
occur in roughly a third overall of burials in such
cemeteries, this proportion can vary greatly from
cemetery to cemetery: at Eyewell Farm two of a
123
possible eight burials contain hobnails, while at
Figheldean hobnails are included in eight of nine
burials. Hobnails, as in these two examples and at
Erlestoke, are the most frequent inclusion. However
the sparseness of securely dateable artefacts within
many of the burials in these and larger cemeteries
makes it difficult to trace use of these cemeteries
over time and some of the burials at Erlestoke may
well be Iron Age.
As the area within the Detention Centre is now
almost entirely built over, there will be in future
very little scope for further examination of the site.
Any conclusions about its use in previous periods
must therefore remain tantalising speculation.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors are most grateful for the specialist
contributions of Philip Harding (flints), Dr. Paul
Robinson (Iron Age pottery), Robert Hopkins
(Savernake and samian wares), Dr. Brenda
Dickinson (samian stamps), Dr. Kay Hartley
(mortaria), Dr. Colin Pardoe (human remains) and
Dr. I.W. Young FRCS (animal bone). We should
also like to thank Mr Michael Cook, and Mr Adrian
Mills, former governors of Erlestoke Prison, for their
assistance. Mr Nicholas Griffiths kindly produced
all the drawings. Finally we would like to thank Mrs
Marian Geeves for her help in compiling the archive.
Bibliography
ANON. 1982, Brounkers Court Farm and White Gates
Farm (Wiltshire Archaeological Register for 1981,
nos. 41 & 46). WANHM 77, 160
CLARKE 1979, The Roman cemetery at Lankhills. Oxford
CRUMMY, N., 1983, The Roman Small Finds from
Excavations in Colchester 1971-9. Colchester:
Colchester Archaeological Trust
FITZPATRICK, A.P., and CROCKETT, A.D., 1998, A
Romano-British Settlement and Inhumation
Cemetery at Eyewell Farm, Chilmark. WANHM 91,
11-35
GRAHAM, A., and NEWMAN, C., 1993, Recent
Excavations of Iron Age and Romano-British
Enclosures in the Avon Valley, Wiltshire: Site A:
Figheldean. WANHM 86, 10-52
HALL, K., 2000, ‘Fired Clay’, in A. Lawson, Potterne
1982-5. Salisbury: Wessex Archaeology
MANNING, W.H., 1985, Catalogue of the Romano-
British Iron Tools, Fittings, and Weapons in the British
Museum. London: British Museum
McKINLEY, J. and HEATON, M., 1996, A Romano-
British Farmstead and Associated Burials at
124 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Maddington Farm, Shrewton. WANHM 89, 44-72
MEPHAM, L.M., 1993, “The Fired Clay’, in A. Graham
and C. Newman, ‘Recent Excavations of Iron Age
and Romano-British Enclosures in the Avon Valley,
Wiltshire’. WANHM 86, 34-35
PHILPOTT, R., 1991, Burial Practices in Roman Britain.
Oxford: British Archaeological Reports
POOLE. C., 1991, ‘Objects of Baked Clay’, in B. Cunliffe
and C. Poole, Danebury Vol 5, 370-382. Oxford:
Oxford University Committee for Archaeology
RICHARDSON, K.M. 1952,The Excavation of Iron Age
Villages on Boscombe Down West. WANHM 54, 123-
168
RIGBY, V. and FOSTER, J., 1986, ‘Building Materials’,
in I.M. Stead andV. Rigby, Baldock, 185-88. London:
Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
RIGBY, V., 1989, ‘Clay Slabs or Tiles (Fig. 28)’, in I.M.
Stead andV. Rigby, Verulamium: The King Harry Lane
Site, 57. London: English Heritage
SEAGER SMITH, R., 1996, ‘Pottery’, in J. McKinley
and M. Heaton, ‘A Romano-British Farmstead and
Associated Burials at Maddington Farm, Shrewton’.
WANHM 89, 58
SWAN. V., 1984, The Pottery Kilns of Roman Britain.
London: RCHME
!
Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 125-30
A Preliminary Account of the Ladybirds of
Wiltshire (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) including
a previously overlooked record of the five spot
(Coccinella quinquepunctata L.)
by Michael Darby
All of the British species of ladybird except four are shown to have been recorded in the county and the
records are listed. Two, however, published in the Report of the Marlborough College Natural History
Society, are doubtful, and the reasons explained. These include a previously overlooked record of the five
spot, Britain’s rarest ladybird.
INTRODUCTION
Ladybirds are surely the most popular British
beetles. The bright colours of many species appeal
aesthetically and their diet of plant pests such as
aphids is well regarded by farmers and gardeners.
Although the work of the Cambridge Ladybird
Survey since its establishment in 1984 has done
much to increase our scientific knowledge and to
help our understanding of national distribution
patterns, nothing has been written specifically about
the status of ladybirds in Wiltshire. This article aims
to redress the balance. It is a preliminary account
as the title makes clear and includes all the records
currently held on the database of the Biological
Records Office. Until such time as a systematic
county survey has been completed (like those
carried out for plants and butterflies) I have not
thought it worthwhile to produce distribution maps
for individual species or to attempt a detailed
analysis of the data.
Should others be stimulated to become
interested by reading this, as I hope, the volume by
Majerus, M. and Keans, P., 1989, and also that by
Majerus, M., 1994 are recommended. The former,
in particular, includes simple keys and illustrations
to help in identification, and is inexpensive.
Ladybirds belong to the beetle family
Coccinellidae of which forty two species are listed
as British. Of these, eighteen in the genera
Coccidula, Rhizobius, Clitostethus, Stethorus,
Scymnus, Nephus, Hyperaspis and Platynapsis are
not popularly considered as ladybirds (most are
small and of a uniform brown or similar
colouration) and have not been included here.
Because long lists of records occupy valuable
space and do not make for enjoyable reading, I have
tried to be as concise as possible by omitting map
references, methods of capture, etc. . . Dates have
been included, however, so as to give an idea of the
time scales when adults are to be found. Generally
speaking the ladybird life cycle lasts approximately
one year and gives rise to a single generation. Eggs
are laid in the spring and the larvae hatch after four
days. There are then three further instars until
pupation occurs between one and two months later.
After emergence from the pupa the adults usually
feed for a period of several weeks before dispersing
to their overwintering sites, prior to mating in April/
May.
All the British ladybirds pass the winter as adults
so that this is an important time for them. Severe
winters can cause high mortality rates which in turn
affect numbers the following year. Large
The Old Malthouse, Sutton Mandeville, Salisbury, SP3 5LZ
126 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
aggregations of overwintering ladybirds involving
hundreds of specimens, sometimes of more than
one species, have been reported in habitats such as
grass tussocks and under bark, but these are
unusual. Most spend the winter either in small
groups or as individuals. Interestingly, the favoured
overwintering sites of half the British ladybirds still
remain to be discovered, including those of our two
largest species, the eyed ladybird and the striped
ladybird, both of which live on conifers.
It is well known that ladybirds feed on aphids
but this is not the case for all species several of which
are not carnivorous. The twenty four spot feeds
exclusively on leaves and the sixteen spot, twenty
two spot and orange ladybirds on mildews.
Furthermore, many ladybirds will eat a wide range
of other foods when aphids are not available
including red meat, other insects, and even pollen
and nectar, although these diets affect their ability
to reproduce.
Ladybirds are to be found in most terrestrial
situations though some species are very specific in
their habitat choice. The preference of the eyed and
the striped ladybirds for conifers has already been
mentioned, and this is also the favoured habitat for
the pine, larch, cream-streaked and eighteen spot
ladybirds. The water ladybird, as its name suggests,
lives exclusively in wetland sites, and the equally
specific requirements of the heather, scarce seven
spot and five spot ladybirds are detailed below. As
far as national distribution patterns are concerned
the majority of ladybirds are widespread in the
south and become rarer the further north one
travels. Within Wiltshire, the paucity of records for
some species undoubtedly reflects these habitat
requirements, and more focussed recording in the
future will certainly increase site numbers.
A word is necessary about variation in numbers
of spots and colour patterns, which in some species
is very extensive and can make identification
difficult. The two and ten spot ladybirds, for
example, include many varieties from almost black
to almost yellow, whereas the seven spot varies
hardly at all. A two-year study of the Adonis
ladybird, which normally has either seven or nine
spots, recorded numbers ranging from three to
fifteen. Those who are interested are recommended
to study the volumes mentioned, which discuss
variation in detail and include many illustrations. I
have sometimes heard it said that numbers of spots
are an indication of age but this is not the case.
Like all beetles, ladybirds remain the same size and
colour throughout most of their adult lives.
THE RECORDS
Subcoccinella viginuiquattuorpunctata (L.). Twenty four
spot ladybird.
Boscombe Down (SP., 14 May 1992; 23 Jun 1993);
Chickengrove Bottom (PM., Apr 1992; MD., 17 Jul
1995); Compton Wood (SP., 21 Apr 1993); Dinton (SP.,
28 Apr 1993); Manwood Copse (SP., 28 Apr 1990);
Marlborough area (Anon 1939. Three specimens appear
over this name in the College collection, none with data);
Martin Down NNR (RB., 21 Aug. 1989); Middleton
Down (PM., 26 May 1992; 8 May 1995); Oysters
Coppice (SP., 18 Apr 1993); Wardour (MD., 5 Jun 1996).
Chilocorus bipustulatus (L.). Heather ladybird.
Marlborough area (Anon., 1939. A single specimen
without data appears over this name in the College
collection but may not be the specimen referred to. See
below).
Chilocorus renipustulatus (Rossi). Kidney spot ladybird.
Bentley Wood (PM., 18 Mar 1990; 29 Jul 1990); Clouts
Wood (PM., 29 Dec 1989); Compton Wood (SP., 28 Apr
1991); Dinton (SP., 1989-1993); Great Ridge Wood
(MD., 14 Jun 1996); Green Lane Wood (WANHS
members, 7 Jun 1995); Gurston Down, Broadchalke
(MD., 13 Aug 1995); Langley Wood and Homerton’s
Copse (DN., 1974 — 1986); Little Durnford Down (PM.,
19 Jul 1990; 25 Mar 1991); Marlborough area (Anon
1939. Two in College collection without data); Morgan’s
Hill (PM., 28 Mar 1996); Vernditch Chase (SP., 5 Jun
1990).
Exochomus quadripustulatus (L.). Pine ladybird.
Alton Down (SP., 23 May 1993); Bentley Wood (PM.,
28 Jun 1990; 13 Mar 1991); Little Durnford Down (PM.,
25 Mar 1991); Pepperbox Hill SNCI (PM., 9 May 1993).
Anisosticta novemdecimpunctata (L.). Water ladybird.
Charlton-All-Saints (MS., 9 Aug 1995); Dinton (SP.,
n.d.); Marlborough area (Anon 1939. Three examples in
College collection without data).
Aphidecta obliterata (L.). Larch ladybird.
Langley Wood (DN., 1974-1986); Marlborough area
(Anon 1939. Six examples in the College collection, one
labelled Marlborough 17.7.02).
Maicraspis (Tytthaspis) sedecimpunctata (L.). Sixteen spot
ladybird.
Bentley Wood (MD., 27 May 1997); Boscombe Down
(MD., 9 Oct 1994. SP., 9 and 12 Aug 1991; 16 Jul 1992);
Chiselbury Camp (SP., 14 Jun 1992); Cockey Down
(PM., 10 Apr 1991); Dinton (SP., 20 May and 29 Jun
1991); Fovant Down (SP., Jun 1993); Grovely Wood (SP.,
6 May 1992); Landford Bog (PM., 18 Jul 1990);
Marlborough area (Anon 1939. Three specimens in
A PRELIMINARY ACCOUNT OF THE LADYBIRDS OF WILTSHIRE 127
College collection without data); Martin Down NNR
(RB., 21 Aug 1989); Porton Down (JN.); Orcheston
Down (SP., 6 May 1991); Salisbury Plain SSSI (SP., 28
Jul 1991; 15 Aug 1992).
Adalia bipunctata (L.). Two spot ladybird.
All Cannings Down (BG., 1 Oct 2000); Bentley Wood
(PM., 23 Jul 1990); Berwick St. John (MD., 26 May
1997); Boscombe Down (SP., 1986 —n 1993); Calstone
(BG., 9 Jun 1999; 2 Jul 2000); Cockey Down (PM., 7
Aug 1992); Compton Down (30 May 1990); Cranborne
Chase SSSI (MS., 24 Apr 1997); Dinton (SP., 1987 —
1993); Fonthill (SP., 30 Jun 1991); Fovant (MD., 25 Apr
1995); Hannington (MN., 26 May 1997; 31 Jul 1995;
26 Jul 1995); Highworth (MN., 15 May 1999); Horseshoe
Wood (SP., 13 Oct 1991); Jones’s Mill (MS., 11 Jun
1997); Langley Wood and Homan’s Copse (DN., 1974 —
1986); Lockeridge JO., 1994); Marlborough area (Anon
1939. Five examples in College collection without data);
North Draycot Park (MD., 22 May 2000); Salisbury
(PM., 1996; MD., 1 May 2000); Salisbury (SP., 13 Jun
1991); Salisbury, Old Sarum (MS., 31 May 1997);
Salisbury Plain SSSI (SP., 30 Dec 1990; 27 Aug 1993);
Stockton Wood (PH., 28 Sep 1995).
Adalia decempunctata (L.). Ten spot ladybird.
Boscombe Down (SP., 1991-1993); Chilmark (SP., 30
Jul 1990); Cockey Down (PM., 1 May 1990); Cranborne
Chase SSSI (EN., 16 Jun 1980; MD., 22 Jun 1999);
Dinton (SP., 30 Jul 1990-1992); Fovant (SP., 18 Sep
1993); Great Ridge Wood (MD., 14 Jun 1996); Green
Lane Wood (PM., 8 Jul 1992); Gutch Common (SP., 28
Sep 1993); Langley Wood and Homan’s Copse (DN.,
1974 — 1986); Longleat (AD., 31 Mar 1985);
Marlborough area (Anon 1939. Nine examples in College
collection without data); Salisbury (MS., Apr 2000);
Salisbury Plain SSSI (SP., 30 Dec 1990); Savernake
Forest (EN., 31 May 1995;5 Oct 1995. AF, 22 Jun 1990);
Shrewton Folly (SP., 29 May 1994); Stockton Wood (PH.,
28 Sep 1995); Porton Down (JN); Wardour (MD., 5 Jun
1996).
Coccinella magnifica (Redtenbacher). Scarce seven spot
ladybird. Notable A.
Marlborough area (Anon 1939. No specimen appears
over this name in the College collection and this record
must, therefore, be considered as doubtful, particularly
since no colonies of the wood ant Formica rufa are known
at the present time in that area) Whaddon Common,
Salisbury (DN., 22 July 1973). See below.
Coccinella quinquepunctata L.. Five spot ladybird. Rare
RDB3.
Marlborough College (Anon 1939. A single specimen
without data, captured between 1873 and 1895 according
to the Handlist, appears over this name in the College
collection but may not be the specimen referred to). See
below.
Coccinella septempunctata L.. Seven spot ladybird.
Avis Meadow (BG., 5 Jul 1998); Bentley Wood (PM., 25
Mar 1990; JN., 1997; MD., 31 May 1996); Bishopstone
(MD., 7 May 1989); Biss Wood (BG., 15 Aug 2000);
Blackmoor Copse (BG., 2 Jun 1986. MD., 31 May 1996);
Boscombe Down (MD., 9 Oct 1994); Bromham (BG., 7
Jun 1986); Calstone Down (BG., 2 Jul 2000); Chisenbury
Warren, Salisbury Plain (BG., 21 Jun 1986); Cockey
Down (PM., 1 May 1990); Coombe Bissett Down (MD.,
1 APR 1997); Cranborne Chase SSSI (EN., 16 Jun 1980)
Dinton (MD., 21 Jul 1995); Distillery Meadows (SP., 9
Jun 1991); Fonthill (MD., 19 Jul 1995); Great Ridge Wood
(MD., 4 May 2000); Green Lane Wood (MD., 7 Jun 1995;
PM., 8 Jul 1992); Hannington (MN., 26 May 1997; 26
and 31 Jul 1995); Imber, Salisbury Plain (BG., 6 May
2000); Landford Bog (SP., 1991); Langley Wood and
Homan’s Copse (DN., 1974 — 1986); Little Durnford
Down (PM., 1990); Lockeridge (JO., 1994); Longleat,
Nockett’s Coppice (PM., 1993); Marlborough (Anon,
1935. Five specimens in College collection none with data.
JO., 1994); Middleton Down (BL., 24 Apr 1989; 24 Apr
1990; 23 May 1994. MD., 21 May 1995); Oyster’s
Coppice (SP., 1993); Parsonage Down (BG., 26 May
1986; 30 Aug 1998); Pepperbox Hill SNCI (PM., 9 May
1993); Pewsey Downs SSSI (AF., 22 Jun 1990); Porton
Down (JN.); Salisbury (MD., 13 Apr 2000); Roundway
(BG., May 1986; 5 May 2000); Rowdeford (BG., 22 May
1986); Savernake Forest (EN., 31 May 1995; 27 Oct
1995; AF., 22 Jun 1990); Stanton St. Bernard (BG., 19
Jun 1986); Stockton Wood (PH., 28 Sep 1995); Sutton
Mandeville (MD., 7 Jul 1996); Wardour (MD., 5 Jun
1996); Wilton (MD., 12 May 1997). In addition there
are 30 records from SP. with map references only.
Coccinella undecimpunctata L.. Eleven spot ladybird.
Boscombe Down (M.Stone, 8 Feb 1993); Marlborough
area (Anon 1939. Six specimens in College collection none
with data); Martin Down NNR (RB., 21 Aug 1989);
Roundway Camp (FB., Jul 1940); Salisbury (PM., 24
Jul 1992); Stockton Wood (PH., Sep 1995); Winterslow
(PM., 19 Aug 1990).
Harmonia quadripunctata (Pontoppidan). Cream-
streaked ladybird.
Boscombe Down (M. Stone, 20 Jul 1990); Little Durnford
Down (PM., 18 Mar 1991).
Propylea quattuordecimpunctata (L.). Fourteen spot
ladybird.
Bentley Wood (PM., 25 Mar 1990; 28 Jun 1990; 1 AUG
1990. MD., 31 MAY 1996. SP., 1991); Broadchalke (BL.,
23 May 1994); Chickengrove Bottom (MD., 17 Jul 1995.
PM., 21 May 1993); Cockey Down (PM., 1 May 1990);
Cranborne Chase SSSI (MS., 24 Apr 1997); Devizes
(BG., 6 May 2000); Dinton (MD., 21 Jul 1995); Fonthill
(MD., 19 Jul 1995); Great Ridger Wood (MD., 14 Jun
1996); Green Lane Wood (MD., 7 Jun 1995. PM., 8 JUL
1992); Grovely Wood (MD., 11 and 12 Jun 2000. MS.,
128 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
19 Aug 1995); Hannington (MN., 26 and 31 Jul 1995;
26 May 1997); Landford Bog (SP., 1991); Langley Wood
and Homans Copse (DN., 1974 — 1986); Little Durnford
Down (PM., 1990); Lockeridge (JO., 1994); Longleat,
Nockatt’s Coppice (PM., 1993); Marlborough (JO.,
1994); Marlborough area (Anon 1939. Five specimens
in College collection one labelled Ramsbury 2.9.02 and
one Sav[ernake] For[est] 21.6.02); Middleton Down
(BL., 1 Aug 1992; 23 May 1994. MD., 21 May 1995);
Pepperbox Hill SNCI (PM., 9 May 1993); Red Lodge
Plantation (BG., 9 May 2000); Roundway (BG., 13 May
2000); Salisbury (MD., 1 Jun 2000); Savernake Forest
(AF., 22 Jun 1990); Stockton Wood (PH., 28 Sep 1995);
Sutton Mandeville (MD., 7 Jul 1996); Vernditch Chase
(MD., 17 Jul 1995); Wardour (MS., 5 Jun 1996. MD., 5
Jun 1996); Wilton (MD., 12 May 1997). In addition there
are 17 records from SP. with map references alone.
Anatis ocellata (L.). Eyed ladybird.
Bentley Wood (PM., 3 Sep 1990. MD., 31 May 1996; 27
May 1997); Cranborne Chase SSSI (EN., 16 Jun 1980);
Dinton (24 Aug 1990); Hursley Bottom (IG., 8 Sep 1999
and in previous years); Longleat, Centre Parks (PM.,
1995; 8 Jun 1996); Marlborough area (Anon 1939. Two
specimens in College collection one labelled Sav[ernake]
EEM 18.4.05); Oysters Coppice (LB., 9 Jan 1993);
Roundway (BG., 27 Apr 2000); Sutton Mandeville (MD.,
21 May 1998).
Calvia quattuordecimguttata (L.) Cream-spot ladybird.
Alderbury (SP., 15 Oct 1993); Asserton (BL., 4 May
1998); Bentley Wood (PM., 28 Jun 1990); Blackmoor
Copse (PM., 10 Nov 1992); Boscombe Down (MD., 9
Oct 1994); Chickengrove Bottom (PM., APR 1992);
Cranborne Chase (MS., 24 Apr 1997. EN., 16 Jun 1980);
Dinton (MD.,9 Jul 1995. SP., 18 Apr 1990; 8 Aug 1991);
Figsbury Ring (PM., 28 Apr 1991) Great Ridge Wood
(MD., 2 May 2000); Green Lane Wood (PM., 8 Jul 1992);
Grovely Wopod (SP., 22 May 1991); Jones’s Mill (MS.,
11 Jun 1997); Marlborough area (Anon 1939. Two
specimens in College collection without data); Middleton
Down (MD., 21 May 1995); Salisbury, Old Sarum (MS.,
31 May 1997); Porton Down (J.Walker 1993).
Myrrha octodecimguttata (L.). Eighteen spot ladybird.
Bedwyn Brail (Anon 1939. Two specimens in College
collection without data); Boscombe Down (SP., 4 May
1990)
Myzia oblongoguttata (L.) Striped ladybird.
Tidcombe (Anon 1939. One specimen in College
collection with data: Tidcombe, HWD, 24.5.02).
Halyzia sedecimguttata (L.). Orange ladybird.
Bentley Wood (SP., 21 Jul 1990. PM., 25 Mar 1990; 1
Aug 1990; 27 Mar 1991); Blackmoor Copse SSSI (PM.,
31 May 1993); Boscombe Down (MD., 9 Oct 1994);
Devizes (BG., 10 Jun 1999); Dinton (SP., 1990-1993);
Franchises Wood (MS., 3 May 1995); Great Ridge Wood
(MD., 16 May 2000); Green Lane Wood (WANHS., 7
Jun 1995); Grovely Wood (SP., 24 Jun 1988, 12 Oct 1990);
Jones’s Mill (MD., 21 Jun 1997); Langley Wood and Hom
(DN., 1974 — 1986); Little Durnford Down (PM., 19
Jul 1990; 25 Mar 1991); Little Langford (PM., 3 Jul
1991. SP., 4 Jul 1991); Longleat, Centre Parks (SP., 30
Jun 1993); Longleat, Nockatt’s Coppice (PM., 1993);
Marlborough area (Anon 1939. Three specimens in
College collection without data); Porton Down (PM., 20
Aug 1994. PP., 3 Jul 1999. JN.); Roundway (BG., 16
Dec 1994; 7 Aug 1996); Salisbury Plain SSSI (SP., 9 Oct
1993); Wardour (MD., 5 Jun 1996; MS., 5 Jun 1996);
Winterslow (PM., 13 Jul 1990).
Psyllobora vigintiduopunctata (L.). Twenty two spot
ladybird
Boscombe Down (SP., 1990-1992); Broadchalke (SP.,
19 Sep 1991);Cockey Down (PM., 1988); Dinton (SP.,
14 Apr 1987; 20 Ju71 1990, 1991); Hannington (MN.,
26 Jul 1995); Keevil (BG., 6 Oct 2000); Lockeridge (JO.,
1994); Marlborough area including Hat Gate(Anon 1939.
Seven specimens in College collection without data);
Salisbury Plain SSSI (SP., 11 Aug 1990; 27 May 1991;
31 May 1992; 27 Aug 1993; 4 Sep 1993); Salisbury (MD.,
1 Jun 2000); Winterslow (PM., 2 Sep 1990).
Indications of rarity are taken from Hyman, P.S. and
Parsons, M.S. (1992,1994).
Abbreviations: Anon, 1939 (see bibliography); LB: Leslie
Balf; RB: Roger Booth; FB: F. Buck; MD: Michael Darby;
AD: Andrew Duff; AF: Adrian Fowles; BG: Beatrice
Gillam; IG: Ian Gray; PH: Peter Hodge; BL: Barbara
Last; PM: Piers Mobsby; DN: David Nash; EN: English
Nature; MN: Michael New; JN: John Notman; JO: Jack
Oliver; SP: Stephen Palmer; PP: P.M.Pavett; MS: Michael
Salmon.
Note: Stephen Palmer’s records are those submitted to
the National Ladybird Survey.
SPECIES NOT RECORDED
FROM WILTSHIRE
Hippodamia tredecimpunctata (L). Thirteen spot
ladybird. An immigrant from the continent, and most
records, all of which are old, have been close to the south
coast. Majerus, M.N., Forge, H., and Walker, L., 1990,
express the view that although the beetle was probably
extinct in Britain at the time they were writing, it might
very well establish itself here in the future.
Coccinella hieroglyphica L.. Hieroglyphic ladybird.
Confined to heather heathland and only likely to be found,
if at all, in the far south of the county.
A PRELIMINARY ACCOUNT OF THE LADYBIRDS OF WILTSHIRE 129
Adonia variegata (Goeze). Adonis ladybird. Mainly a
coastal species but also occurs inland on well drained,
often sandy soils and may exist in Wiltshire. It has been
found on a variety of plants in heathland, grassland,
parkland, riverbanks and waste ground. Notable B. See
comment above on variation in spot numbers.
In addition to these are several other species which
have been found from time to time in Britain but
are not thought to be breeding here. Most form
part of the large body of continental ladybirds some
of which may well establish themselves in the future
as a result of climate change.
STATUS OF THE
HEATHER AND FIVE
SPOT LADYBIRD
RECORDS
The presence of the heather and five spot ladybirds
in the county list rests solely on their inclusion in
the accounts of Coleoptera published in the annual
Report of the Marlborough College Natural History
Society (summarised in Anon., 1939). The heather
ladybird first appears in 1874 and the five spot in
1895. No data are given with the first but the second
is attributed to ‘A.G.J[ebb] 1 on nettles, Pewsey
Road’ (no date is given).
Both ladybirds also have very specific habitat
requirements: heather heathland and unstable river
shingle respectively. Given the absence of these, too,
in the Marlborough area at the present time, and
the ease of confusing both species with other, more
common, ladybirds, it was assumed that these
records resulted from misidentifications. The fact
that the record of the five spot would have been, in
1895, one of the first for England, but that this was
not mentioned in the Report, further indicated a
lack of knowledge about the species. Inspection of
both specimens in the College collection, however,
showed them to be correctly identified although
neither had any data attached.
Further searching in the collection revealed the
presence of singleton specimens without any
_ attached data representing a further eight species
of Coccinellidae, including the hieroglyphic
ladybird, not published in the Reports (together
with a large number of other species in different
families), and these omissions were presumed to
result from the specimens not having been found
in the Marlborough area. The distinctive setting
style of the insects concerned, utilising small cards
and short pins, is very similar to that of the heather
and five spot ladybirds. Furthermore, it was noted
that many are rare and some, like those in the
Coccinellid genus Scymnus and others among the
small Staphylinidae, for example, very difficult for
the amateur to identify.
It is known that the College collection was
supplemented from other sources, and that one of
the donors of specimens was Edward Caldwell Rye
(1832-1885), the well known London-based
Coleopterist. Rye’s expertise was considerable. He
not only wrote a book, British Beetles, 1863
(republished in 1890 after bringing up to date by
W.W.Fowler) but also published more than two
hundred articles on the British fauna, many
bringing forward new species in ‘difficult’ groups.
It is possible, therefore, that these singleton
specimens were his.
Against this argument, at least in the case of the
five spot, is the fact that none of Rye’s publications
mention its capture. Enquiries at the Bolton
Museum, where his collection is housed (as part of
the Philip Mason Collection), have failed to locate
any further specimens (or any information relating
to the Marlborough material although building
works, which will not be completed for some time,
have prevented a complete search). Of course, if
the insect was taken in one of its recorded Scottish
habitats, he may not have considered publication
worthwhile anyway.
Additionally, one must also bear in mind that
although the five spot has only been recorded in
numbers from Wales and Scotland, there have been
three records in recent years of singletons from
South Dorset, Warwickshire and Cornwall, all now
thought to be vagrants. (Majerus, M.E.N., and
Fowles, A.P., 1989).
Many of these remarks referring to Rye’s
possible involvement, also apply to the heather
ladybird, the status of which must be considered
doubtful, too, until further specimens have been
found. In this case a search of the heather heathland
in the south of the county could well prove fruitful.
ACKOWLEDGEMENTS
I am very grateful to Dr Jack Oliver for advice about
the absence of wood ants in the Marlborough area;
Dee Adcock for finding a copy of Majerus, M.E.N.,
1994, for me; and to the authorities at Marlborough
130 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
College for permitting me to borrow the collection
of Coleoptera for study.
Bibliography
ANON., 1939. Handlist of the Coleoptera of the
Marlborough District, Report of the Marlborough
College Natural History Society, 87, 54-86.
HYMAN,P.S. and PARSONS,M.S., 1992,1994. A
review of the scarce and threatened Coleoptera of
Great Britain, Joint Nature Conservation Council,
Peterborough.
MAJERUS,M.E.N., 1989. Coccinella magnifica
(Redtenbacher): a myrmecophilous ladybird, British
Journal of Entomology and Natural History 2, 97-106.
MAJERUS,M.E.N., FORGE,H., and WALKER,L.,
1900. The Geographical distribution of Ladybirds in
Britain (1984-89), British Journal of Entomology and
Natural History, 3(4), 153-165.
MAJERUS,M.E.N. and FOWLES,A.P., 1989. The
rediscovery of the 5 spot ladybird in Britain,
Entomologist’s monthly Magazine, 125: 177-181.
MAJERUS,M.E.N. and KEANS,P., 1990. Ladybirds,
Richmond Publishing Co. Ltd., PO Box 963, Slough,
SL23RS. No 10 in the series Naturalists’ Handbooks.
MAJERUS,M.E.N., 1994. Ladybirds. Harper Collins,
one of the New Naturalist series.
NASH, D.R., 1981, Coccinella distincta Falderman (Col.
Coccinellidae) in Wiltshire, Entomologist’s monthly
Magazine, 117: 214
Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 131-46
An Anglo-Saxon Decapitation and Burial at
Stonehenge
by Mike Pitts', Alex Bayliss?, Jacqueline McKinley’, Anthea
Boylston’, Paul Budd’, Jane Evans®, Carolyn Chenery’, Andrew
Reynolds’ and Sarah Semple®
Most of a human skeleton excavated at Stonehenge in 1923, believed destroyed in the London bombing of
1941, was re-located in 1999. New study of the bones shows them to represent a man of Anglo-Saxon era
(not Neolithic or Roman as previously suggested) aged 28-32, born in central southern England. He had
been beheaded, probably with a sword. The historical context for this incident 1s discussed.
The re-discovery in 1999 and preliminary ex-
amination of a human skeleton from Stonehenge
were reported widely in the media, following a press
conference at English Heritage’s London
headquarters on 9th June 2000, and a further press
release (at. which the first of two radiocarbon dates
was announced) on 14th July. The background to
these events, and the making of a television film,
are described elsewhere (Pitts 2001). Here we put
on record full details of the research.
ARCHAEOLOGY
by Mike Pitts
Skeleton 4.10.4 (the number allocated in 1938 by
the Royal College of Surgeons of England) was
recovered by William Hawley. He came across the
grave by chance during the course of the largest
excavation programme at Stonehenge, conducted
between 1919 and 1926 (Cleal et al. 1995). It is
one of three more or less complete human skeletons
found by Hawley at Stonehenge (Figure 1). All three
were thought lost. The first (found March 1922 in
the ring ditch) was discarded by the excavator, who
felt (on debatable evidence) that ‘obviously it was a
modern interment’ (Hawley 1923, 18). 4.10.4,
found November 1923 and the third, inside the
stone circles on the central axis, in August 1926,
were taken to the Royal College of Surgeons,
London. The College was bombed in 1941, and its
contents, including many human remains recovered
in British excavations, were believed (at least by
archaeologists) totally destroyed (Pitts 1999).
Human remains are common at Stonehenge:
77 find contexts are definitely prehistoric (Phases
1-3); 67 may be more recent (‘Phase 3 or later’ or
unphased) (McKinley 1995, Tables 57-8). In
addition, a human tarsal was found near the
Heelstone in a context containing a medieval sherd
(Pitts 1982, 90). Many prehistoric cremation burials
have also been excavated, mostly in or close to the
ring ditch. Perhaps as many as 50 of these are now
reburied in Aubrey Hole 7 (Pitts 2001, xii and
chapter 15).
But only one other articulated skeleton has been
found, in the ditch in 1978 (Figure 1). The man
‘125 High St, Marlborough, SN8 1LU;? English Heritage, 23 Savile Row, London, W1X 2HE; ’ Wessex Archaeology, Portway House,
Old Sarum Park, Salisbury, SP4 6EB; * Department of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford, Bradford, BD7 1DP;° Department
of Archaeology, University of Durham, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE; ° NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratory, British Geological
Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham, NG12 5GG;7 Department of Archaeology, King Alfred’s College, Winchester, S022 4NR; * Institute of
Archaeology, University of Oxford, 36 Beaumont Street, Oxford, OX1 2PG
THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
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apparently died from the impact of at least four
flint-tipped arrows, around 2300 cal BC (Evans et
al. 1984; Pitts 2001, chapter 14). This was the only
directly dated human bone from Stonehenge, apart
from a cremation burial shown to pre-date 2000
cal BC in an early analysis (Cleal et al. 1995, 519).
The 1926 skeleton remains unlocated (it may have
been returned to Hawley: Pitts 2001, 302 and
footnote 638), and the 1922 one is presumably
somewhere in the ground.
Received date
In 1999 burial 4.10.4 was thought Neolithic, or
possibly Roman. Hawley initially believed it
ated human skeletons, with their year of excavation. The
Neolithic, because the grave fill, which he ‘sifted’,
contained no artefacts or stone fragments. He had
identified a ‘Stonehenge Layer’ of debris from
megalith dressing which blanketed most of the site.
Anything found beneath this ‘layer’ he ascribed to
a pre-Stonehenge date (Hawley 1920-26, 2-3
November).
Arthur Keith (Royal College of Surgeons)
proposed the burial was Roman, ‘or more probably
[from] the centuries immediately preceding’ this
era, on the evidence of skull shape. Hawley accepted
this judgement without comment (Hawley 1925,
31-3), as he did Keith’s identification of the
individual as male: Hawley had earlier written in
the diary (until the rediscovery, the most complete
AN ANGLO-SAXON DECAPITATION AND BURIAL AT STONEHENGE 133
description) that it was female. Keith’s full report
(perhaps no more than a letter) does not appear to
have survived.
Richard Atkinson, whose book was the key
published source for Stonehenge archaeology in the
second half of the last century, favoured a later date.
He was influenced by the nature of the grave: ‘the
[body’s] extended attitude (if such it was) and the
somewhat perfunctory disposal ... point to a date
not earlier than the Romano-British period’
(Atkinson 1979, 62). In the recent detailed
Stonehenge report, the authors reverted to Hawley’s
original argument. The lack of debris in the grave
fill pointed to an early date in the site’s history,
‘before the interior became littered with stone
fragments’ (Cleal et al. 1995, 267-8).
Rediscovery
Pursuing a trail created by Wessex Archaeology
(who had prepared the recent monograph: Cleal et
al. 1995), I found that much of the Royal College
of Surgeons’ ancient human remains collection
(from perhaps as many as 800 individuals) had
survived the 1941 bombing. Recovered items had
been driven out to country houses around London.
After the war they had come back, eventually to be
sorted and, in the case of the archaeological human
bones, given to the Natural History Museum
(4.10.4’s post-cranial remains in 1948, the skull in
1955). There are many other items of interest to
archaeology in this collection, not least the medieval
‘barber-surgeon’ from Avebury (Pitts 2001,
chapters 16 and 30).
Unknown to archaeologists, skeleton 4.10.4 had
already been ‘discovered’ in 1975. Wystan Peach, a
Welsh dentist who believed the remains were of
King Arthur, paid for a radiocarbon date (see
below). Some of the details of this date emerged
during the production of the television film, when
we interviewed Penrhyn Peach about his late father’s
work.
W. Peach submitted a paper to Antiquity in
August 1977 (4.10.4 had been dated the year
before). We have not been able to find a copy of
this paper, which was rejected by the editor. Peach
had earlier described his ideas in a privately
_ published booklet (Peach 1961). He believed
Arthur, the architect of Stonehenge, was alive in
1800 BC (then thought to be the construction date).
This suggestion derived from an eccentric reading
of the Mabinogion, a collection of medieval Welsh
tales (Pitts 2001, chapter 30).
I brought Jacqueline McKinley, who had
recently completed an analysis of all surviving
human remains from Stonehenge (McKinley 1995),
to see the skeleton. She identified the lesions in the
cervical vertebra. Anthea Boylston kindly later
conducted a fuller examination. (The full sequence
of events from excavation to examination is
described at www.hengeworld.co.uk/news.htm ).
The grave
Hawley and assistant Robert Newall left both a
written description of the excavation and a section
drawing of the pit, making 4.10.4’s grave one of
the better recorded Stonehenge features (Figure 2).
_ The published report (Hawley 1925, 31-3) briefly
summarises the field diary (1920-26, November 2-
3, 6).
Hawley found the grave with a workman named
Player on a Friday, and it was excavated by Hawley
and Newall the next day. Much of the diary entry
is devoted to the bones (confirming identification
of 4.10.4 with the skeleton in this grave). The pit
‘was very roughly cut and only sufficiently cut in
the solid chalk [26 inches/66 cm ‘below ground
level’] to contain the trunk of the body’. It was also
‘insufficiently long [64 inches/1.63 m] so that the
neck and shoulders had to be forced into a curve
and pressure seems to have been exerted upon the
pictoral [sic] portion as all the ribs were contracted
and forced together and all were in a broken state
with the exception of two’. The skull, too, was in
poor condition, ‘from being near the surface [16
inches/40 cm ‘below ground level’] and also from
pressure exerted upon it’. Measurement of the
skeleton (see below) confirms that the man was
probably slightly too tall to fit comfortably in the
pit.
Other measurements recorded are the pit’s
‘width at upper end’ (24 inches/61 cm) and ‘at lower
end’ (17 inches/43 cm), probably the ends
containing head and feet, respectively. The ‘direction
of the grave was towards ENE’, which might imply
that the head was at the easterly end. The grave fill
is described as ‘earthy chalk ... much compacted
by pressure and of quite a different nature to the
loose stuff filling the [adjacent] post holes’, and
‘hardened chalk ... returned to the grave’. This fill
‘contained nothing’; a footnote in the diary states
that ‘contents of grave [were] sifted without any
result’. Over the fill (‘upon the hardened upper
surface’) was ‘loose chalky earth of a later period
which contained 3 pieces of rhyolite and 1 of
134 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
quartzite and there were several large natural flints
about .. . The grave was so shallow that . . . the
Stonehenge stratum was only 1% inch [4 cm] above
{the skull] ending at 14% inch BGL [37 cm ‘below
ground level’]’. These measurements fit the
observation (above) that the skull was 16 inches
‘below ground level’. The latter is thought to be
the modern turf level (Cleal et al. 1995, 16).
As noted above, Hawley and Cleal et al. argued
from the absence of stone fragments in the pit, and
the overlying ‘Stonehenge layer’ (albeit apparently
containing only four stone pieces) that the grave
was ‘pre-Stonehenge’. The simplest way of
accommodating this with the much later
radiocarbon date for the skeleton, is to note that
the grave fill seems to have been almost pure chalk,
presumably thrown straight back into the pit at the
time of its creation: there is no necessary reason for
any extraneous material to have joined the backfill.
The grave was close to Early Bronze Age Y Hole
9, but apparently not intersecting it (Figure 2).
There were also post holes in the area, two with
direct relationships with the grave pit.
Unfortunately, it is not now possible to be certain
what those were, although Hawley apparently
thought grave succeeded post holes. The pit ‘was
cut between 2 post holes which were included in it
and their circular sides remain at the ends of the
grave’. This is held to explain the short length of
the grave, the excavators being ‘unwilling to extend
it beyond the limits of the post holes’. A further
somewhat ambiguous remark seems to corroborate
this: “Those who dug the post hole came upon a
very large flint at the top end and as they [excavators
of post hole or grave?] were unable to remove it by
battering it they [grave diggers] left the grave shorter
than they otherwise would have done’.
From other diary entries, it appears that
Hawley’s notions of stratigraphic sequences, and
his use of a word like ‘cut’ (as in one feature cutting
through another) were quite flexible. He gives no
clear evidence for relationships between post holes
and pit. However, by itself the plan suggests these
features might have been contemporary, and it is
possible the grave was marked by a small post at
each end. The pit is aligned with a row of post holes
to the east (Figure 2): this, too, could be post-Roman
Table 1. Radiocarbon dates for skeleton 4.10.4
Laboratory Radiocarbon s13C sl15N
Number Age (BP) (%o) (%o)
OxA-9361 1359+38 -19.7 7.6
OxA-9921 1490+60 -19.5 8.1
in date, not Neolithic, as conventionally assumed in
the absence of dating evidence. Re-excavation of the
area might throw further light on this.
In summary, the man was buried, in what
appears to have been an isolated incident, in a
shallow pit not quite long enough to accommodate
his unconstrained corpse. The pit was aligned east
north-east/west south-west (approximately
tangential to the stone circles at that point), with
the head probably at the easterly end. The grave
was sited on the south-east side of the stone circles,
facing Amesbury (invisible behind the downs).There
is no record of which way up the body lay, but it can
be assumed that had it been prone (face down) this
would have been noted. The grave fill consisted of
the excavated chalk, packed down hard over the body.
There may have been a post standing at each end.
No artefacts were found with the skeleton.
RADIOCARBON DATES
by Alex Bayliss
In 1975 two leg bone shafts were sent to Harwell
A.E.R.E. for radiocarbon analysis. Peach’s
manuscripts record the result as 1190+80 BP, but
no further data are available (such as laboratory
number). Peach noted ‘it was felt that insufficient
bone was submitted and the bone had been treated.
No further bone was submitted and the bone
sample was used’ (undated lecture typescript). This
result cannot now be used for dating purposes.
New samples (10 gm each) were processed as
outlined in Bronk Ramsey et al. 2000 and measured
using accelerator mass spectrometry (Bronk
Ramsey and Hedges 1997). The two measurements
are not statistically significantly different (T’=3.4;
T’(5%)=3.8; v=1) and so a weighted mean can be
taken before calibration (Ward and Wilson 1978).
The results are expressed as conventional
radiocarbon ages (Stuiver and Polach 1977).
The calibrated date range for the weighted mean
has been calculated using OxCal v3.5 (Bronk
Ramsey 1995), the maximum intercept method of
Stuiver and Reimer (1986), and the dataset of
Stuiver et al. (1998). The range has been rounded
outwards to 10 years.
C:N Weighted Calibrated range
Ratio Mean (BP) (2s)
3.2 1397+32 cal AD 600-690
3.3
AN ANGLO-SAXON DECAPITATION AND BURIAL AT STONEHENGE 135
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=) os, Oo OC % Grave
Be 0 O
Fig. 2. Newall’s schematic section drawing of the grave pit (top) and the surrounding area as planned by the Office of
Works (redrawn from originals). Comments by Hawley suggest that not all excavated post holes were recorded (Pitts
2001, footnote 259). See Figure 1 for plan iocation.
The stable isotope values are consistent with a very preservation was sufficiently good to have
largely terrestrial diet, with only a minor component confidence in the radiocarbon determinations
of marine protein (Chisholm et al. 1982; Mays (Masters 1987; Tuross et al. 1988).
2000). The C:N ratios suggest that bone
136 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Stonehenge
R_Combine 4.10.4 (df=1 T=3.4(5% 3.8))
OxA-9361 1359+38BP
OxA-9921 1490+60BP
R_Combine 4.10.4
300cal AD 400cal AD 500cal AD
600cal AD
enneen © knees eee
700cal AD 800cal AD
Calibrated date
Fig. 3. Probability distribution for date of Stonehenge skeleton 4.10.4.
THE SKELETON
by Jacqueline I. McKinley and
Anthea Boylston
The initial identification of the traumatic spinal
lesions was made by Jacqueline McKinley during
informal examination of the skeletal remains, a full
examination later being undertaken by Anthea
Boylston (see above). The results presented here
were compiled by the former from the data collected
by the latter and observations made by both writers.
Methods
Age was assessed from the stage of skeletal and tooth
development (Beek 1983; McMinn and Hutchings
1985) and the general degree of age-related changes
to the bone (Brooks and Suchey 1990; Buikstra and
Ubelaker 1994). Sex was ascertained from the
sexually dimorphic traits of the skeleton (Buikstra
and Ubelaker 1994). Cranial index was calculated
according to Brothwell (1972), stature estimations
according to Trotter and Gleser (1952; 1958).
Results
The bone was in good condition, though there had
been some damage — with subsequent recon-
struction — to the skull and the pelvic bones, and
all the bone had been coated with some form of
varnish. The mid-shaft region of the right tibia and
left femur had been removed for radiocarbon dating
in 1975 and replaced by plaster casts.
About 90% of the skeleton was present for
examination (hand and foot bones, and the ribs
were missing), the remains representing those of
an adult male of about 28-32 years. The stature of
the individual was estimated at 1.65m (c. 5ft 4 1/2
inches). This places him within the range, but below
the average, observed within a number of Romano-
British and Early Anglo-Saxon phase cemeteries in
the south-west region: averages include 1.66m at
Poundbury (Molleson 1993, 167-168), 1.69 at
‘Tolpuddle Ball (McKinley 1999) and 1.71 at Ulwell
(Waldron 1988) all in Dorset, and 1.67 at
Boscombe Down, Wiltshire (McKinley
forthcoming). The cranial index is 72.7, which is
within the dolichocranial (long-headed) range.
Whilst it has been observed that there was an
increasing trend towards long-headedness within
the Anglo-Saxon period (Marlow 1992); c. 42% of
the individuals from the Romano-British cemetery
at Boscombe Down, Amesbury, about 2km to the
east, also fell within this range, though the mean
index was higher at 76.
The man had slight osteophytes (marginal new
bone) in the 7th-10th thoracic vertebrae and
Schmorl’s nodes (defects in the vertebral body
surface resulting from disc damage) in the 8th-9th
thoracic, a not unusual observation at a time when
most individuals endured physically active lives. The
muscle insertions for upper limb - pectoralis major,
latissimus dorsi — indicate strong attachments and
possible minor strains, again suggestive of strong
physical activity involving the upper body. There is
anterior curvature in the right femur and both
fibulae have curved medial shafts with flattened
distal ends at different angle to shafts. Slight
AN ANGLO-SAXON DECAPITATION AND BURIAL AT STONEHENGE 37
periosteal new bone on the posterior surface of the
right femur and medial surface of the right tibia is
indicative of non-specific infection in the membranes
covering the bone. The mandible was squared at the
angles and mental protuberance (chin), and the
individual had a pronounced overbite.
The decapitation
The man had been decapitated, the head apparently
being removed via a single blow from the rear-right
side, cutting through the fourth cervical vertebra
(Figure 4) and clipping the left mandible in the
inferior-posterior aspect of the ramus (i.e. the part
Fig. 4. Fourth cervical (neck) vertebra from 4.10.4,
showing cut surfaces exposing spongy interior. Photo
copyright Natural History Museum.
of the mandible nearest the neck, where it angles-
up to articulate with the rest of the skull: Figure 5).
The single, clean cut must have been made with a
sharp, narrow but relatively robust blade, cutting
through the right superior portion of the dorsal part
of the C4 (the spine of the vertebra), the superior
portion of the right articular process and the
Fig. 5. Right mandibular ramus of 4.10.4 (i.e. back angle
of lower jaw). Photo copyright Natural History Museum.
margins of the right lateral-dorsal portion of the
body, clipping the left superior articular process and
body margins of the superior surface.
The assailant must have been standing behind
the victim. Although vertebrae between the second
cervical to the first thoracic have been recorded as
points of severance in decapitations, the mid-cervical
region — as in this case — appears to have been the
most common, with occasional trauma to the
mandible or occipital vault (back of the head) also
being observed. It has been noted that the use of a
‘block’ — which would help direct the aim, keep the
neck straight and limit the movement of the victim’s
body when struck - invariably leads to a cut at the
mid-neck level (Manchester 1983). However, one
would not expect to see damage to the mandible in
such cases. Variations in methods of execution also
include the victim kneeling with the head up, which
may also allow for a good aim at the neck but could
potentially result in damage to the mandible if the
victim dropped the head slightly or they moved
forward a little on being struck.
Decapitation has been observed in numerous
cemeteries of this date (e.g. Harman er al. 1981;
McKinley 1993; Boylston 2000) and the reasons
suggested for its use have included both execution
of defeated enemies or criminals and sacrificial ritual
(Wilson 1992). There are several Anglo-Saxon
cemeteries which seem likely to have functioned as
execution sites — including significantly high
percentages of decapitations and prone burials - such
as Wor Barrow and Roche Court Down (Harman et
al. 1981), and South Acre, Norfolk (McKinley 1996),
the latter being one of those associated with a Bronze
Age barrow (Wymer 1996).
It cannot be assumed that this male was an ethnic
Anglo-Saxon. West Wiltshire lay on the margins of
Anglo-Saxon occupation at this time (Eagles 2001)
and the individual may have been a native Briton.
LOCATING THE EARLY
CHILDHOOD RESIDENCE
OF THE INDIVIDUAL
by Paul Budd, Jane Evans and
Carolyn Chenery
A tooth from skeleton 4.10.4 was analysed to see if
the man’s origins could be pinpointed, using a new
technique that considers traces of oxygen, lead and
strontium.
138 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Principles
The reconstruction of residential mobility from the
analysis of dental enamel is based on systematic
natural variations between localities of the isotopes
of a number of elements. Lead, strontium and
oxygen all have isotopes which vary in this way and
can be used for this purpose (Budd et al. 1999; in
press a; in press c; Montgomery et al. 2000).
Elements with isotope ratios characteristic of
specific environments become incorporated into
enamel during tooth formation in childhood. The
enamel is highly resistant to change after death and
hence retains this early life isotopic ‘signature’
(Budd et al. 2000a).
Strontium has four isotopes, one of which, 87Sr,
is derived from the radioactive decay of rubidium
over geological time. The concentration of this
isotope, measured as a ratio to its non-radiogenic
sister 86Sr, depends on both the rubidium content
and age of the rock in which it is found. Strontium
is taken up by biological systems, but the relative
proportions of its isotopes remain unaltered in the
process (Blum et al. 2000). As a result, soil, plant
and ultimately human enamel strontium isotope
ratios all remain closely related to (although not
necessarily exactly the same as) those of the
hydrology and underlying geology of the region in
which the individual lived when the tissue was
formed: early childhood in the case of permanent
human teeth.
Lead has four stable isotopes, but in this case
three (206Pb, 207Pb and 208Pb) are formed by
radioactive decay (of uranium and thorium).
Therefore geological concentrations of these three
isotopes, expressed as ratios to the only non-
radiogenic lead isotope, 204Pb, depend on both
the parent uranium and thorium contents of the
rock or mineralising fluid, and the time since
deposition. In pre-metallurgical societies the main
source of lead in the diet, like strontium, was from
the underlying geology via the food chain. In such
cases it is possible to use the lead isotope
composition of tooth enamel to comment on place
of origin in a manner directly analogous to that of
strontium. Later however, and especially in the
Roman and medieval periods, ore-derived lead
becomes dominant as the source of human
exposure as a result of the use of lead metal, its
alloys and products (Budd et al. 2000b).
Oxygen isotopes are highly complementary in
producing information related to place of childhood
residence, but by virtue of climatic rather than
geological variation. Unlike lead and strontium, the
much lighter isotopes of oxygen are readily altered
by biological processes. Fortunately however,
mammalian tooth and bone are composed of
biological apatite and organic material formed at
constant temperature (37 'C) so that the oxygen
isotope ratio of skeletal phosphate directly relates
to that of body fluids and local, meteoric, drinking
water (Fricke et al. 1995; Levinson et al. 1987). A
simple calibration is all that is required.
Analysis
The Natural History Museum removed the upper
left first premolar and replaced it with a cast. A
clean core enamel sample was then extracted for
analysis using the methods described by Budd et
al. (in press a; c). Lead and strontium isotope ratio
analyses and concentration analysis using the
isotope dilution method were performed at NIGL
by Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometry (TIMS)
using a Finnegan Mat 262 multi-collector mass
spectrometer. Errors (all 2s) were calculated from
repeat measurements of the international standard
for strontium (NBS 987, n=10) and lead (NBS 981,
n=16) during the period of analysis. Oxygen isotope
sample preparation was carried out at NIGL using
the laser fluorination method described by Budd
et al. (in press b; c). AV. G. Isotech Optima dual
inlet isotope ratio mass spectrometer operating
Micromass DI2.47 software was used to determine
the enamel oxygen isotope composition d180O.
Errors (2s) were calculated by reference to repeat
measurements of phosphate mineral standards,
NBS 120b (n=6) and NBS 120c (n=2). O-isotope
data were calibrated using Levinson et al. (1987).
Results appear in Table 2.
Table 2. Analysis of tooth from skeleton 4.10.4
Tooth enamel 206Pb/204Pb isotope ratio: 18.62 + 0.02
Tooth enamel 207Pb/204Pb isotope ratio: 15.82 + 0.02
Tooth enamel 208Pb/204Pb isotope ratio: 39.06 + 0.05
Lead concentration of enamel: 2.2 + 0.3 ppm
Tooth enamel 87Sr/86Sr isotope ratio: 0.70837 + 0.00003
Strontium concentration: 55 + 5 ppm
Aqueous leachate of soil from near burial site 87Sr/86Sr
isotope ratio: 0.70794
Childhood drinking water d18O value: —7.8 to —7.3%o
AN ANGLO-SAXON DECAPITATION AND BURIAL AT STONEHENGE 139
The lead isotope values obtained are typical of UK
lead ores and suggest, as suspected, that this
individual’s lead exposure was dominated by ore-
derived lead, presumably from manufactured
products. This is confirmed by the relatively high
(although not extreme) enamel lead concentration
which is broadly comparable to those of modern
people, but an order of magnitude higher than
prehistoric people living in the same area (Budd et
al. 2000b). The lead data are therefore not
diagnostic with respect to place of origin, but do
suggest that the individual had childhood access to
lead-bearing metals or products. The oxygen isotope
composition of the enamel is typical of meteoric
water falling on the UK, but defines specific parts
of it. The oxygen isotope composition of rainwater
is normally principally related to latitude, but is
distorted into a west to east pattern by Britain’s
maritime climate and prevailing winds. The values
obtained map out a broad band of possible locations
running down the centre of the country (Figure 6)
(Darling et al. 1999).
The Sr data allow us to refine this picture
considerably. The soil strontium isotope
measurement is consistent with previously reported
data for Cretaceous chalk geology from southern
England (Budd et al. in press c; Montgomery et al.
2000). The low tooth enamel 87Sr/86Sr ratio is
within a range (<0.7085) more-or-less restricted
in the UK ‘to areas of Cretaceous chalk geology of
which the main outcrops occur in southern England
and the Yorkshire Wolds (Figure 6). Combining the
oxygen and strontium data, the zone of overlap
defines the only area to meet both criteria. Parts of
this are local to Stonehenge although it extends
primarily to the north and east of the monument.
We conclude that this area (dark shaded in Figure
6) is the most likely place of early childhood
residence for this individual.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
by Andrew Reynolds and Sarah
Semple
Central southern England in the 7th century is
characterised by dynamic political activity in terms
~ of the formation of the kingdom of Wessex (Yorke
1995, 52-93). Christianity became established
during the course of the 7th century and a series of
further cultural transformations relating to burial
practices, settlement patterns and types, and social
a tty fa 4 j Pings tp §
% i rg
7 > ,
7 Sesto x a
rere
i ny — itil oe
< i
? puting, J
igh
ae
Fig. 6. Map of the UK with isobaric contours showing
the range of oxygen isotope composition for modern
meteoric water (after Darling et al. 1999). The broad
shaded band shows the area over which present day
meteoric water has an O-isotope composition (dO... iy)
in the range -7.8%o and -7.3%bo. This is the composition
of childhood drinking water for the individual investigated,
calculated from the tooth enamel composition. The map
also shows (light shading) the approximate extent of
surface geology yielding °’Sr/*’Sr values of less than
0.7084. This is essentially confined to the Cretaceous
chalk of southern England and eastern Yorkshire. The area
of overlap, represented by dark shading to the north and
east of Stonehenge, is the most likely area of childhood
residency for 4.10.4.
organisation can be observed. Overall, the
archaeological and historical records bear witness
to the emergence of ruling élites and an increasingly
hierarchical ordering of society as a whole.
The Stonehenge burial makes a further
contribution to our understanding of early medieval
political and administrative history, particularly the
development of liminal burial for the socially
excluded. Before the conversion of the Anglo-
Saxons to Christianity during the 7th to early 8th
centuries AD, peculiar burials, often prone or
140 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
decapitated, are found almost without exception
in communal burial grounds (Reynolds in
preparation). A survey of Early Anglo-Saxon burials
from Wiltshire reveals only one prone burial, from
the Blacknall Field cemetery near Pewsey (B. Eagles
pers. comm.), whilst, apart from the Stonehenge
example, decapitations are not recorded from the
county between the 5th and 7th centuries.
The rarity of deviant burials in Wiltshire may
be partly a function of the limited number of
excavated 5th-7th century AD cemeteries. In
regions where more Early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries
are known, the figures rise accordingly. In adjoining
counties there are three prone burials from
Abingdon (Oxon), one from Frilford (Oxon), four
from Lechlade (Gloucestershire), one from
Droxford and two from Worthy Park (Hampshire)
and three from Camerton (Somerset) (Leeds and
Harden 1936, 31, 36, 40-1; Rolleston 1869, 437,
477; Boyle et al. 1998, Aldsworth 1979, 114;
Hawkes and Wells 1975, 118; Horne 1933, 55, 63).
Decapitations from adjoining counties are limited
to four examples from Hampshire, one each from
Alton and Andover (Portway) and two from Winnall
(Evison 1988, 29; Cooke and Dacre 1985, 29, 56;
Meaney and Hawkes 1970, 12, 14). The scarcity of
decapitation relative to prone burial can be seen
nationally: eighty-eight prone burials contrast with
forty-four examples of decapitation (Reynolds in
prep.). Where dateable, both prone and decapitation
burials in Early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries are
overwhelmingly of the 6th or 7th centuries AD. The
Stonehenge decapitation, then, should be viewed
in a context of pre-existing practice, apparently part
of an increasing desire to mark deviant status
through burial rite leading up to and during the
conversion period.
Throughout the 7th century single burials are
mostly rare high-status interments in mounds, as
at Taplow, Buckinghamshire, Asthall, Oxfordshire
and Roundway Down and Swallowcliffe Down,
Wiltshire (Geake 1997, 146; Dickinson and Speake
1992; Semple and Williams 2001; Speake 1989).
These barrow burials are seen to reflect the
emergence of powerful élites and the formation of
kingdoms with their geographical isolation
emphasising a new social order (Welch 1992, 90).
Isolated flat graves of late 6th to 7th century date
include those of the smith from Tattershall Thorpe,
Lincolnshire and the high-status female from
Winthorpe Road, Newark, Nottinghamshire
(Hinton 2000; Samuels and Russell 1998). These
two burials are unusual in their own right, and serve
to underline the range and peculiarity encountered
in 7th century funerary practice (Geake 1992, 89).
The Stonehenge find, however, is one of a very few
clearly ‘deviant’ burials of 7th century date. Other
comparable examples vary in character, and include
the mutilated skeleton ‘Q1’ found buried in the
Neolithic bank barrow inside Maiden Castle,
Dorset, dated by radiocarbon to the first half of the
7th century, and the body of a woman found in a
well at the Roman town of Mildenhall (Cunetio)
in 1949 dated to the 6th century (Brothwell 1971;
Meaney 1964, 271-2). Spatial ‘otherness’ was
apparently not limited to those at the very top of
the social scale, although it should be remembered
that two other skeletons found at Stonehenge
remain undated.
Early medieval burial at prehistoric stone
settings is unusual but not unprecedented.
Cremations and inhumations have been found at
Little Rollright, Oxon, (Meaney 1964, 260;
Lambrick 1988, figure 9), and a radially-arranged
group of inhumations was found at a small stone
circle at Yeavering, Northumberland (Hope-Taylor
1977, 95-118). Much more frequent, however, are
early medieval burials at prehistoric barrows,
hillforts, ring-works and linear ditches (Williams
1997; Semple 1998). Burial at Bronze Age round
barrows clearly predominates and sites range from
large inhumation cemeteries of the 6th century (e.g.
Uncleby, East Yorkshire) to isolated single burials
of late 7th century date (e.g. Swallowcliffe Down
and Roundway Down).
As well as the stone circles, Stonehenge consists
of a circular earthen bank and ditch, single
megaliths and mounds. Perhaps the complexity of
the monument attracted burial in the 7th century,
with the ‘barrows’ diametrically opposed within the
henge providing an additional appeal. It is common
for early medieval burial to occur at complexes with
a range of prehistoric monuments (e.g. Stanton
Harcourt and Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxford-
shire).
The reuse of prehistoric monuments for
funerary purposes is found as early as the 5th
century, becoming widespread by the 7th century.
However, despite 9th or even 10th century AD
occurrences (e.g. Ogbourne St. Andrew, Wiltshire),
the practice is very rare beyond the late 7th and
early 8th centuries, with the exception of the formal
execution cemeteries of 8th-12th century date
(Reynolds 1999, 105-10).
From the 8th century, texts and place-names
assist study of changes in funerary practice. Of
AN ANGLO-SAXON DECAPITATION AND BURIAL AT STONEHENGE 141
particular interest is the emergence of the motif of
the burial mound as a haunted place (Semple 1998).
In Old English poetic and prose sources, prehistoric
monuments are often associated with supernatural
entities, such as the god Woden and other monsters,
demons and elves. The development of political and
mortuary practices between the 8th and 10th
centuries involved the use of prehistoric
monuments, barrows in particular, as places of
execution and disposal of executed criminals.
Certain prehistoric monuments thus changed from
performing a positive social role, to a negative one,
paralleling the move from pre-Christian mortuary
practice to Christian burial.
Decapitation and burial
The absence of finds might indicate that the
Stonehenge corpse was stripped before burial,
although metal dress fittings were apparently not
ubiquitous during the 7th century when changes
in burial customs led to a marked decline in grave
finds in comparison to the 6th century (Owen
Crocker 1986, 107). Burial took place in a shallow
grave that was too short and with the head placed
in on top. The position of the hands is not recorded,
but only 20 per cent of decapitations from later
Anglo-Saxon execution cemeteries have the hands
tied, either behind the back or to the front (Reynolds
1998, 161-2). The forcing of bodies into cramped
graves suggests outcast status, with a lack of effort
and a degree of contempt evident in the whole
process.
Postholes at either end of the grave would be
difficult to explain, but it is just possible they held
a gallows of two uprights and a cross-beam similar
to that depicted in an early 11th century manuscript
(BL MS Cotton Claudius BIV, f. 59). Pairs of
postholes, presumably gallows settings, have been
recognised from middle to late Anglo-Saxon
execution cemeteries at South Acre, Norfolk,
Stockbridge Down, Hampshire and Sutton Hoo,
Suffolk (Wymer 1996; Hill 1937; Carver 1998).
Hawley’s comment that the circular sides of each
“of the postholes could be seen at either end of the
grave brings to mind comparable features from early
Anglo-Saxon (5th-7th century) cemeteries, notably
St Peter’s, Broadstairs, Kent (Hogarth 1973).
Execution by decapitation was rare in the later
Anglo-Saxon period. Beheaded skeletons might be
unusual at execution cemeteries (4-12 per cent of
all bodies) or, in a minority of cemeteries, the
dominant occurrence (56-80 per cent) (Reynolds
1998, 457-8, table 113). The earliest West Saxon
laws of King Ine of Wessex (688-725)
(Attenborough 1922) prescribe hanging and the
striking off of hands and feet for various offences (I
18, 24 and 37). A further clause (I 20) notes that a
person ‘travelling off the highway’ might be slain
(OE sleanne); a terminology suited rather better to
the sword than the gallows. The earliest explicit
reference to decapitation, however, is to be found
in the 10th century laws of Edgar (959-975) as a
punishment for swearing falsely that livestock were
bought in front of witnesses (IV Edgar 11). A series
of drawings from Late Anglo-Saxon manuscripts
show decapitation scenes and in each case the
instrument used is a sword (BL MS Cotton
Claudius BIV, f. 38; BL MS Cotton Cleopatra
CVIII, f. 16v; BL MS Harley 603, ff, 7v, 19,59 and
75v).
Archaeology of execution
The Stonehenge execution burial is of especial
importance as one of the earliest known located
both at a prehistoric monument and in a boundary
zone. The execution burials at Sutton Hoo have
7th century origins (Carver 1998), but their
relationship to prehistoric remains there is
uncertain. Maiden Castle, however, the burial place
of the mutilated man noted above, is located on
the boundary between the Dorset Domesday
Hundreds of Cullifordtree and St George. About
thirty execution cemeteries of Middle and Late
Anglo-Saxon date are now recognised, and virtually
all of these re-use earlier monuments located on
hundred or shire boundaries (Reynolds 1999, 108).
The hundred itself was a self-contained judicial
territory that maintained the various agencies
necessary to uphold the law (prisons, courts, places
of judicial ordeal, execution sites), at least by the
later Anglo-Saxon period.
Other probable execution victims from 8th and
Oth century contexts include the two women, one
perhaps staked out, found on the Thames foreshore,
London, and the woman from Yarnton, Oxfordshire,
buried face-down in a ditch close to a contemporary
family burial plot (Wroe-Brown 1999, 13; Hey pers.
comm.). Execution cemeteries dated from about
AD 800 by radiocarbon occur at several sites
including Staines, Surrey, and Cambridge (Poulton
pers. comm.; Mortimer pers. comm.). A more local
example is provided by the bounds of a remarkably
detailed land charter of AD 778 for an estate at
Little Bedwyn, 30 km north-east of Stonehenge
142 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Fig. 7. Stonehenge in relation to boundaries of the Domesday Hundreds of south-east Wiltshire. Black dots show valley-
based Domesday settlement pattern.
(Sawyer 1968, cat. no. 264). The Latin boundary
clause records the northern edge of the estate (and
also that of the Domesday Hundred of
Kinwardstone): ‘in longum valli progressa 1n ila
antiqua monumenta in locum ubi a ruricolis dicitur.
zt 0am holen stypbum. Sicque ad illos gabulos. In
longum gemzrweges. to wadbeorge...’ (and so
along the dyke to those ancient monuments to the
place the natives call ‘at the holly stumps’. and so
to the gallows. along boundary way. to
woadbarrow...). This early boundary clause thus
encapsulates the characteristics of the excavated
cemeteries noted above. Between the mid 9th and
the 11th centuries, 15 sets of charter bounds record
the locations of 12 named burials, demonstrating
the continuation of isolated burial from the 7th to
the 11th century (Reynolds in press, cat. nos. 52-
66).
Landscape context of 4.10.4
The territorial context is of particular interest.
Stonehenge lies 800m north of the boundary
between the Domesday (1086), and potentially
much earlier, hundreds of Amesbury and
Underditch (Figure 7). One might suggest a 7th-
century date for the origins of what became
hundreds here by or at about the time of the
AN ANGLO-SAXON DECAPITATION AND BURIAL AT STONEHENGE 143
Stonehenge execution. Indeed, the shire and
hundredal units of Wessex are generally considered
to represent an administrative and political
landscape whose origins lie in the 7th century
(Yorke 1995, 89-90, 125-6). The eastern boundary
of the Domesday Hundred of Underditch is hard
to define (Darlington 1955, 180; Jones 1865, 188;
Pitt 1999, figure 3; Thorn and Thorn 1979, map;
RCHME 1980, xxix). Nevertheless, the various
attempts at reconstruction of the hundredal pattern
of the region all agree over the position of the
hundred’s northern boundary with that of
Amesbury.
It might be suggested, then, that the Stonehenge
execution and burial took place not only at a highly
visible place, but also close to the edge of a
contemporary territory in a landscape characterised
by a range of earlier monuments. Indeed, many of
the Bronze Age barrows and linear earthworks
around Stonehenge are incorporated into the
boundaries of Anglo-Saxon estates and hundredal
units. Whether the hundredal units reflect a post-
Roman tribal landscape of so-called ‘micro-
kingdoms’, or an administrative structure planned
on a grander scale as early as the 7th century is
difficult to judge, but either model allows for the
Stonehenge burial to be placed in the context of
locally, and probably regionally, recognised political
geography.
CONCLUSION
There was nothing in the archaeology or folklore
of Stonehenge to suggest that anything like the
incident documented here had taken place (Pitts
2001, 308-9; Grinsell 1976). Geoffrey of
Monmouth’s story, recorded about 1136, that
Stonehenge was a memorial to native soldiers killed
by Saxon invader Hengist, and subsequently the
burial site of Aurelius Ambrosius and
Utherpendragon, has been regarded as myth rather
than history (Piggott 1941); neither of the last two
‘men is said to have been decapitated.
This is, then, a dramatic case of an apparently
simple archaeological find raising important
historical questions. It is the oldest indication we
have that Stonehenge had significance in recent
centuries, at least 440 years before the first written
references by Henry of Huntingdon and Geoffrey
of Monmouth in the 1130s. Previously only the
name itself (one possible derivation being from Old
English for stone gallows) testified to earlier interest
(Chippindale 1994, chapter 1). Equally it is clear
that archaeological information will be instrumental
in any further understanding of the man’s death,
both from judicial or sacrificial execution grounds
and other burial locations, and from Stonehenge
itself. It is remarkable that conclusive evidence for
a decapitation and burial at Stonehenge in the 7th
century AD should have survived nearly 80 years
only now to have been recognised. There could
hardly be greater indication of the importance of
excavation archives.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Pitts would like to thank all other contributors,
whose work was only partly compensated by
television fees or himself, and the Natural History
Museum for their support of this project, including
the photos reproduced as Figures 4 and 5. The
radiocarbon dating was kindly funded by English
Heritage. Reynolds and Semple thank Alex
Langlands for Figure 7.
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Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 147-213
Excavations in 1999 on Land Adjacent to
Wayside Farm, Nursteed Road, Devizes
by John Valentin and Stephen Robinson!
with contributions by Jane Bircher,? Kate Brayne,*? H.E.M. Cool,* Mark
Corney,’ Claire Ingrem,’ M. Laidlaw,' Jo Mills°’ and Roger Tomlin’
During excavations ahead of residential development on land adjacent to Wayside Farm, Nursteed Road,
Devizes, evidence for later Iron Age and early Romano-British settlement and 4th-to 5th-century Romano-
British activity was identified. The later Iron Age and early Romano-British activity is confined to the
northern portion of the site where a cluster of storage-type pits, flanking ditches for an east to west aligned
trackway and other features indicative of settlement were identified. The 4th to 5th century deposits comprised
an extensive midden, a pit containing large quantities of artefacts and at least three inhumation burials. The
nature of some of the objects recovered (e.g. coins, cattle skulls, iron objects, a lead curse and a bronze
garment collar) indicates that Wayside Farm may lie close to a site or building with a more specialised
function such as a temple or a shrine, as it 1s not unusual for such places to have associated pit or midden
deposits. Other late Romano-British deposits more typical of settlement-based activity were also present
on the site. The results from the excavation indicates that there 1s still some considerable archaeological
potential for the area surrounding Wayside Farm.
INTRODUCTION ARCHAEOLOGICAL
BACKGROUND
An archaeological excavation of a late Iron Age and
Romano-British site on land adjacent to Wayside
Farm, Nursteed Road, Devizes (centred on
SU016603), was carried out by AC archaeology
during November and December 1999. The site is
located to the southeast of Devizes on the outskirts
of the now expanded town (Figure 1). Prior to
residential development the site was pasture, on
land which is generally level but slopes gently down
to the south. The development area is bounded to
-the north by the Nursteed Industrial Estate, to the
east is the A342 Devizes to Andover road, to the
south is open farmland and to the west a prominent
linear bank of a now dismantled railway. The site
lies on Upper Greensand at around 120mOD.
Prior to a preliminary archaeological evaluation of
the site (see below), there was no direct evidence
for settlement of Romano-British date in this area.
However, a number of artefacts have been
discovered close by. These include several finds of
Romano-British material to the north and west of
the site, including coins, pottery, box flue tile and
several burials. Neolithic flint axes have also been
found to the north.
The site has been the subject of a previous
evaluation by means of machine-excavated trenches
(Valentin 1999), Work initially comprised the
digging of 15 trenches, each 30 x 2m, followed by
the excavation of a further 90m? of contingency
' AC archaeology, Manor Farm Stables, Chicklade, Hindon, Salisbury SP3 5SU * School House, Church Street, Norton St Philip BA2
7LU ° The Rudyard Consultancy, 2 Green Lane, Codford St Peter, Warminster BA12 ONY “16 Lady Bay Road, West Bridgford,
Nottingham NG2 5BJ * Centre for Human Ecology and Environment, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ
“Fl Prospect Place, Dark Lane, Seavington St Mary, Ilminster TA19 0QW "Wolfson College, University of Oxford, Linton Road, Oxford
OX2 6UD
148 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
3, Malmesbury
Swindon
P Devizes
| Trowbridge
Warminster Sy
eS N Tidworth
Fig. 1 : Site Location
trenching as a result of the presence in the western
portion of the site of extensive evidence for Iron
Age and Romano-British occupation.
The evaluation results suggested limits to the
main area of activity, with subsoil features and finds
absent from the eastern parts of the site. Evidence
for Romano-British activity extended across c.2.8ha
of the western portion of the site, with indications
that more intensive settlement was likely to cover a
zone of c.0.80ha in the northern part of this area.
This latter area became the location for the
subsequent full excavation (Figure 2).
EXCAVATION
METHODOLOGY
Initial excavation involved the machine-removal of
topsoil and soil overburden on to the top of intact
structures, archaeological soil deposits or natural,
whichever was encountered first. All further
excavation was carried out by hand.
i Park. wie
W753 f
Y (ems 0
Agen as
1c aad! ae
(ty | Hs
ie
» ron
x (OS
Ha “Be ; %)
“\ DEVIZES &
Y>
AREA EXCAVATION
The main excavation was situated at the northern
end of the development site, in two blocks adjacent
to the northern boundary of the site (Area 1 and
Area 2 on Figure 2). Area 1 extended to c.2000m/?
and Area 2 covered over c.4200m°’. Following the
initial clearance of the site, two areas totaling 480m?
were identified in the southwest corner of Area 2
where clarification of deposits by means of further
machine-excavation was necessary.
All spoil heaps were scanned both visually and
using a metal detector for the recovery of displaced
pre-modern artefacts. In addition, a metal detector
was also used to scan across Areas 1 and 2; the
whole of the midden area in Area 2 was detected in
detail, and all metal finds located and collected.
TRENCH EXCAVATION
Part of the archaeological brief by Wiltshire County
Council Archaeology Service provided for the
excavation of a sequence of linear trenches radiating
to the east and south of the main excavation area.
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 149
These are shown on Figure 2 as Trenches 19 and
21 to 24. The principal aim of these trenches was
to attempt to determine the extent, nature and
function of the Romano-British buried soil horizons
identified during the evaluation and to establish
whether they sealed evidence for structural or cut
archaeological features.
EXCAVATION OF AREA 2
MIDDEN
An extensive midden deposit (overall nos. 4255,
4293) was present, extending over a large part of
Area 2. The surface area of this deposit (c.1150m7/)
was initially cleaned by hand to define its extent
and then sub-divided into 2m _ squares
corresponding with divisions of the existing site grid.
All squares (including those not excavated) were
allocated individual context numbers, and were
hand-excavated alternately.
; ea
:
A
f
B
Trench 21
Trench 22
Fig. 2 : Plan of all features
EXCAVATION RESULTS
AREA 1
A plan of all features for this area is given as Figure
3. The overlying layer sequence in this area is shown
on Figure 4a and comprised topsoil (context 3000)
of between 0.25-0.40m thickness, generally
overlying a 0.15m thick layer of mixed clayey sand
subsoil (3031).The natural subsoil (3015) consisted
of greensand and clay with outcrops of greensand
bedrock. Within this area of the site two broad
phases are identified:
PHASE 1: LATE IRON AGE TO
EARLY ROMANO-BRITISH
Linear features
Two parallel ditches 7m apart (F3034 and F3099
on Figure 3), likely to be the flanking drainage
modern field
boundary
i ~ Key
88831 Ovens
NN \Midden
> [Archaeological
[features
AL Archaeological
features obscured by
midden deposit
Trench 23 Trench 24
150 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
ditches for a track or droveway, crossed the northern
portion of the site. They followed an approximate
east to west alignment, continuing beyond the
excavation limits. Each of these linears was recut
on at least one occasion, evidence for which was
clearly visible in a number of the excavated segments
(Figure 4a, b and d). Both had similar dimensions
and profiles; generally 2m in width, with steeply
sloping sides and a depth varying between 0.4-0.6m.
The multiple fills consisted of dark greyish-brown
sandy clays or silts, and appear to represent gradual
silting rather than deliberate infill. Between the
ditches and on the outside of F3034 was a 0.3mm
(at its maximum) thick deposit of disturbed natural
subsoil (3098)(Figure 4b). This material may
represent both upcast from when the ditches were
Seg 3029 ox
See : y Seg 3040
tbe ny Seg 3042 i
Seg 30!
™S.. Seg 3052
~._ 3098
F3008 F3004'
cut and mixed trampled horizons formed when the
probable trackway was in use.
A poorly-defined north to south aligned gully
(F3044) was present in Area 1. Its north terminal
was within the excavation area and it did not
continue into Area 2 to the south. F3044 (section
on Figure 4c) had an average width of 0.6m with a
gentle sloping profile and depth of 0.2m. The gully
had been recut on at least one occasion.
Two short lengths of gully or slot-like features
within Area | (F3139 and F3066) are of uncertain
function. Each was c.3m in length with an average
depth of c.0.3m. Each had a single fill composed of
a dark brown sandy clay. A north to south aligned
gully (F3117 on Figure 3 and 4e) clearly cut F3034
and may be a drainage gully.
Seg 3156
Seg 3010
Seg 3107
be Biot
oy
@F3027 ~---._
LTseg 3045
- Seg 3089 = F3091
F3054
@
F3087,
Fig. 3 : Plan of Area 1
F311
Seg 3148
"7py z,
ie Ms
Seg 3121°%Y/
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 151
F3044/
Seg 3052. d
F3099/
F3099/Seg 3029
F3044/Seg 3107
F3099/Seg 3042
Seg 3040
Fig. 4 : Selected sections of linear features Area 1
Discrete features
A cluster of eight probable Iron Age pits was present
in the northwest portion of this area (Figure 3). All
were approximately circular in plan, up to a
maximum diameter of 1.4m.The excavated profiles
(Figure 5) were either vertically cut or ‘bell-like’,
on to a flat base with a maximum depth of 0.7m.
With the exception of F3006, the fills varied only
slightly, generally composed of mottled greenish-
brown or sometimes orange-brown sandy silts, with
sparse chert and charcoal coarse components. The
fill of F3006 (context 3007 on Figure 5) was much
more humic in composition, a dark brown sandy-
silt with more frequent components of burnt
greensand and charcoal. Only two of these pits were
intercutting, which indicates that the majority may
be considered to be broadly contemporaneous. The
presence of charred grain from some of these
features (see below) might suggest that at least some
may have originated as storage pits.
Other less substantial and more irregularly
spaced pits or features were located in Area 1. Some
of these (e.g. F3020, F3024 F3058) may be storage
Plate 1 : Initial cleaning of Area I (view from southwest)
152 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Fig. 5 : Selected sections of pits Area 1
pits but the profiles and depths appear to be too
shallow, whilst others (e.g. F3054 and F3058) are
more likely to be post holes.
PHASE 2: LATER ROMANO-
BRITISH
Inhumations
Within Area 1, these were the only feature type
securely dated to this phase. These comprised three
closely-spaced grave cuts, and one uncertain grave
(no human bones were present), all located towards
the northwest corner of the site (Figures 3 and 6).
All graves were aligned approximately east to west
with varying dimensions and profiles. The survival
and condition of the bone was generally poor. All
individuals were laid out in an extended supine
position.
F3136 was located within this cluster of burials,
but no human bone was present. The feature was
1.3.x 0.8m in plan, with a maximum depth of 0.3m.
The profile was almost verticaliy sided and steep
sloping at either end onto a broad flat base. A group
of hobnails (SF169) was present at the western end
of the cut and one coffin nail (SF170) at the east
end.
INH 1 - F3129. The grave cut was 2.6 x 1.1m in
plan, with a maximum depth of 0.15m. The profile
was near vertically-sided onto a broad flat base,
although the edge was less steep at either end. It
contained the remains of an adult, probably male
skeleton, the presence of nails indicating that the
individual had been interred in a coffin. The main
characteristic of this burial was that the head had
been removed and was placed towards the foot end
of the grave, and a complete pottery vessel (SF147)
placed next to it. A cluster of hobnails (SF119
covers all) was also present at the foot end of the
grave.
INH 2 - F3131. The grave cut was 2.1 x 0.8m in
plan (the west end of the grave cut truncated by
modern field drain), with a maximum depth of
0.35m. The profile was generally vertically sided,
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 153
hob nails
coffin nails A
Inhumation 1
Inhumation 2
tN Po ag Pe
vessel e coin
Fig. 6 : Detailed plan of Area 1 inhumations
154 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
but the east end was steep-sloping then stepped
onto a flat base. The grave contained the remains
of an adult skeleton (Plate 2), some bones only
apparent as staining within the surrounding subsoil.
This individual had again been interred in a coffin.
A complete pottery vessel (SF201) was found next
to the skull, a bronze coin (SF195) placed close to
the right hand and an iron spoon next to the lower
left leg.
INH 3 - F3134. The grave cut was 1.75 x 0.70m in
plan, with a maximum depth of 0.15m. The profile
was almost vertically sided, but moderately sloping
at either end onto a broad flat base. This grave
contained the remains of an adult skeleton. The
condition of the bone was generally poor with many
of the smaller bones absent. A cluster of hobnails
was present at the foot end of the grave.
AREA 2
INTRODUCTION
A plan of all features in this area is given in Figure
7. The overlying layer sequence can be seen on
Figure 8f, and in this area comprised topsoil
(4000) varying between 0.25-0.40m thick, at its
shallowest above intact midden deposits (see
below). The greatest depths of topsoil were
recorded in the north and east portions of the site,
where a localised deposit of pale brown silty sand
subsoil (4077), 0.15m thick, was present. Artefacts
recovered from this layer suggest a Romano-British
date for its formation. Below this was a surviving
buried soil horizon, its extent covering most of
the western half of the excavation area and
probably representing a buried former land surface
(4206, 4089). This layer varied from 0.5-0.3m
thick and comprised a mottled greyish-brown
sandy silt. Where this layer was present towards
the northern part of Area 2 it was partly sealed by
the midden. A deeper subsoil (4074, see Figure
8b) was only present at the east and west of the
area, away from the main concentration of
archaeological activity. The natural subsoil
(context 4090) consisted of greensand and clay
with outcrops of greensand bedrock.
With the exception of a single north to south
aligned ditch (shown as a modern field boundary
on Figure 2) the remaining deposits and features
in this area were of later Romano-British date.
Plate 2 : Inhumation 2 (view from east)
PHASE 2: LATE ROMANO-
BRITISH
Linear features
The area was crossed by a series of linear features
aligned both north to south and east to west, of
which three of these were partly sealed by midden
deposits and terminated to the south within the
limits of the excavation. The three main north-south
ditches (F4261, F4288 and F4254 on Figure 7)
were partly sealed by the midden deposit and the
upper fills contained midden-type soils. The largest
of these (F4261) continued beyond the excavation
limits to the north and had a maximum width of
2m, and variable steep-sloping profile with an
average depth of 0.8m. Segments excavated through
ditch F4261 (e.g. Seg. 4072, Figure 8f) showed fills
of varying sandy clays and silts, with some primary
fills (context 4085, etc) with evidence for gleying.
The two remaining north to south aligned linear
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 155
features F4288 and F4254 were sealed by midden
deposits and were poorly-defined in plan. F4288,
broadly parallel with F4261, also continued beyond
the northern excavation limits but terminated 15m
to the south of the northern baulk. It had a
maximum width of 2m with a steeply sloping profile
and flat base at a depth of 0.75m (Seg. 4095 on
Figure 9c). The fills comprised mixed silty sands
and clay silts, with very few coarse components.
The function of these features is unclear, although
they may have served to demarcate the extent of
the midden deposit.
Ditch F4254 (Seg. 4256, Figure 8e) became
progressively shallower to the north until it
disappeared within the limits of the excavation with
no defined terminal evident. Dimensions varied
from 0.6-1.6m in width, with a maximum depth of
0.4m. The profile was consistent, however, being
moderately sloping on to a flat base. The fills
comprised mixed clayey silts with few coarse
components evident.
The east to west aligned ditches in this area
(F4200, F4294 and F4295) were poorly-defined
F4081
(r)
an @ F4078 Seg 4072 FF
U7
in both plan and profile, but F4294 and F4200
appeared to terminate within the limits of the
excavation. The linear feature most clearly defined,
F4200, had an average width of 1.2m and average
depth of 0.6m. The excavated segments of F4200
(Seg. 4207 on Figure 8d) revealed a distinct stepped
profile on one side. The fills were generally
composed of dark greenish-brown clay sands not
dissimilar to the surrounding natural subsoil.
Ditches F4294 and F4295 were less well-
defined both in plan and profile, with fills similar
in composition to the surrounding natural subsoil.
Both were less substantial than the other ditches
on the site with maximum widths of 1.4m and
sloping profiles to a depth of 0.35m (Segs. 4070,
4075, 4291 and 4266 on Figures 8b, c and 9a, b).
The fills were generally composed of dark greenish-
brown clay sands. Both these ditches may represent
former field boundaries.
Discrete features
Six pits varying in size and profile were present in
Area 2. The largest of these, F4225 (section on
“4011
40
Seg 4198
QQ
Fig. 7 : Plan of western portion of Area 2
156 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Seg 4070
F4294/Seg 4075 d
F4200/Seg 4207
F4261/Seg 4072
Fig. 8 : Selected ditch sections Area 2
Figure 10d), was partly sealed by midden deposits, uppermost fills (4226) and (4239) were composed
measuring 2.5m in diameter with a steep profile of material similar to the surrounding midden
and broad flat base at a depth of 1.6m. The deposit and appeared to be a deliberate infill. Both
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES SY
F4294/Seg 4266
Fig. 9 : Selected ditch sections Area 2
these fills contained large quantities of artefacts,
including animal bone, pottery, metal objects and
ceramic building material and a fragment of human
femur, with the lowermost fill (4248) also
containing large fragments of building stone and
other artefacts. This pit, possibly with some ritual
significance, is discussed more fully in the Finds
and Discussion section of this report.
Two features, F4078 and F4081 (sections on
Figure 10a and b) were located towards the north
west corner of the site and are likely to be post-pits.
Both had similar plan dimensions: 0.8m in
diameter, although their depths were 0.2m and
0.4m respectively. F4078 had a rounded profile,
with F4081 showing as steep-sloping onto a flat
base. Fills of both these features were charcoal-rich
in composition, with F4078 also having evidence
for a post pipe represented by charcoal fill (4079
on Figure 10a).
Pit F4210 (section on Figure 10c) was sealed
by 0.25m thick midden soils (context 4136). 1.20m
in plan diameter, it had a near vertical profile and
broad flat base at a depth of 0.4m. This feature
contained a single fill (context 4211) not dissimilar
to the surrounding midden soils, composed of a
humic sandy clay.
F4234 (section on Figure 10e) was situated in
the southwest corner. 1.15m in diameter, the profile
F4288/Seg 4095
was steep-sloping onto an irregular base at a depth
of 0.4m. This feature contained evidence of burning
within its fills, which may represent some
association with adjacent oven structure F4214 (see
below) situated immediately to the south of this
feature.
Pit F4240 (section Figure 10f) was situated
against the northern excavation limits. 1.0m in
diameter, the profile showed as steep-sided onto a
concave base at a depth of 0.45m. It contained a
single fill (context 4241) composed of a dark
greyish-brown clay sand containing frequent
charcoal and pottery.
Structures
Two structures, F4007 and F4214, are shown in
both plan and section on Figure 11. Structure
F4007 (Plate 3), situated close to the northern limits
of the excavation, measured 3.2 x 1.25m. This
feature, aligned east-west, comprised a flue and
associated probable stoking pit F4237. The flue
comprised two courses of roughly hewn sandstone
blocks, up to 0.2m in size, with a single course of
sandstone slabs as part of the floor (4231). The
upper course of the flue and floor had been
subjected to intense burning. Both the lower course
of this structure and the flooring were set into a
chalky clay mortar (4232). The single line of stone
158 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
F4210
Fig. 10 : Selected sections of pits Area 2
slabs forming a floor were not present throughout 0.8m, thus forming a platform. The absence of floor
the base of the structure but continued beyond the slabs at the eastern end of the flue appeared
entrance to the flue into pit F4237 for approximately deliberate, with only a thick band of chalky clay
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 159
Plate 3 : Oven structure F4007 (view from west)
mortar (4228) evident, which possibly represents
mortar bonding for a floor at a higher level which
may have been present. The reason for the floor
slabs continuing outside the flue cannot be
determined, although it is considered that these may
have been constructed to help make the cleaning
out of the flue more efficient. Without this platform
acting as a solid base within the stoke pit, the depth
of the stoke pit may have constantly increased by
the raking out the flue due to the soft subsoil at the
base of this feature. A sequence of fills from both
the flue and stoke pit appear to represent mainly
infill, including collapsed material from the
structure, with little evidence for in situ deposits.
The lowest fill (4230) within the stoking pit appears
to represent burning of the natural greensand. The
‘uppermost fill (4221) of this feature may represent
infill and collapse of the structure, and produced a
single coin of AD 364-78 (see below), giving a
reasonably secure date for when this structure went
out of use.
F4214 (Plan and section Figure 11lc and d)
comprised a small roughly circular structure,
aligned on an approximate east-west axis and
situated towards the southwest corner of the site.
1.2 x 0.7m, it was composed almost entirely of burnt
or scorched sandstone with occasional chalk pieces,
most of which appeared to be collapse with only
one course appearing to survive in situ. The fills of
this feature were mostly composed of either
deliberate infill or collapse, but included a thick
band of burnt chalk (4246) possibly representing a
former lining. It is possible that this feature is the
remnants of a former structure such as a small oven,
but this could not be determined. Although little
of this possible structure survives in situ, quantities
of loose stone, including some burnt, were present
on the surface close by.
Buried soils
Areas of a probable buried former land surface were
present in the southwest corner (context 4206 on
Figure 7) and towards the northern excavation
limits (context 4089). Context 4206 comprised a
mottled greyish-brown sandy silt with few coarse
components. Three slots were excavated through
this deposit, which was between 0.2-0.3m thick.
Context 4089 comprised the same soil matrix and
had a maximum depth of 0.2m. Artefacts retrieved
from these layers were principally of Romano-
Plate 4 ; Excavation of Area 2 midden (view from
southeast)
ANS
Plate 5 : Extent of Area 2 midden (view from north)
160 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Sandstone
Burnt sandstone
Burnt chalk
is)
WS
Heat reddened earth
Clay
>>
Fy
v
Bone
Fig. 11 : Plans and sections of Area 2 oven structures
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 161
British date, although a number of pieces of
prehistoric worked flint was also present.
The midden
Across a large part of the central portion of Area 2,
and in parts sealing the buried soils described above,
was an extensive deposit interpreted as a midden
(overall contexts 4255 and 4293). The extent of
the deposit can be seen on Figure 7 and it is also
shown on Plates 4 and 5. The midden was on a
broadly north to south alignment, covering an area
of c.1150m’*. The material comprised an
homogenous dark brown/black humic sandy clay,
undulating across the area with a depth varying
between 0.3m towards the centre and 0.1m on its
fringes (overall average was 0.15m). It is likely that
the midden was formed as a result of a single episode
of dumping, as identical soils (and indeed conjoining
pottery sherds) were present in the adjacent ditches
and pit F4225. The deposit contained the vast
majority of artefacts recovered from the site, most
of which are of late Romano-British date. The
southern extent of this deposit was located within
the excavation area, although it was not fully revealed
to the north. The midden soils appear to widen
towards its southern end, following the area defined
the two ditches (F4261 and F4254) which also
become further apart at this point.
PHASE 3: POST-MEDIEVAL
A single ditch can be allocated to this phase. F4004
(‘modern field boundary’ on Figure 2; section on
Figure 8a) was aligned approximately north-south
with a steep-sided profile. Its alignment suggests a
former continuation of an existing boundary. Nine
pieces of blue transfer-printed wares, white
finewares and stonewares of 1 9th-and 20th-century
date were recovered from the fill (context 4005).
Four clay pipe stems and a fragment of modern
clear window glass were also present within the fill.
“TRENCH RESULTS
Five trenches were excavated, radiating to the east
and south of the main excavation Area 2 (shown
on Figure 2 as Trenches 19, 21-24). Trenches 19,
21 and 22 contained evidence for archaeological
activity. Despite scanning of all spoil heaps adjacent
to the negative trenches there was a complete
absence of artefacts of any date.
Trench 19 revealed evidence for the
continuation of ditch 4075. This was visible only
below subsoil layer (4074) although this relationship
was unclear due to the similarity of the fill with the
overlying layer.
A surviving buried soil horizon (2105), 0.15m
thick, was encountered in the northern half of
Trench 21, and appeared to be identical to buried
soil (4206) encountered in the main excavation area.
This soil horizon (2105) was cut by a single
archaeological feature, F2109, comprising a
northeast-southwest aligned short, irregular linear,
of which c.6m was exposed. 0.5m wide, becoming
wider at its terminal, and 0.15m deep, late Romano-
British pottery was recovered from its fill. The ditch
terminated at its northeast end within the trench.
A single cut feature was present in Trench 22
(F2202 on Figure 2) which was cutting a deep
subsoil (context 4074) present elsewhere on the site.
F2202 was a north-south aligned probable ditch,
with a width of 1.50m and steep profile to a depth
of 0.5m. This feature probably terminates
immediately to the north, as it did not appear in
the main excavation area. No artefacts were
recovered.
THE FINDS
THE IRON AGE AND ROMAN
COINS
by Mark Corney
48 coins were submitted for identification, dating
and comment. With the notable exception of SF233,
a late Iron Age silver unit from a late Roman context
(4205), all are Roman and, bar one late 3rd-century
piece, (SF249) all are of 4th-century date.
Coin SF233, context 4205, is a fragmentary late
Iron Age uninscribed silver unit (VA 1042-1) of a
general type Robinson (1977) has described as ‘sub-
Dobunnic’, but now regarded as part of the main
Dobunnic series (van Arsdell 1989; 1994). Its
presence is of considerable intrinsic interest as it is
close to the current southern limit of the known
distribution of the type.
For meaningful statistical analysis, the
assemblage has been treated in accordance with the
methodology established by Casey (1974) and
Reece (1991, 1995). When expressed as per mills
totals (Table 1) the Wayside Farm group shows
162 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Table 1: The Roman coins as absolute numbers and per mills
Period 13 260-275. 15 296-317 —-:16 317-30 17 330-348 18 348-364 19 364-378 21 388-402. = TOTAL
No. of coins 1 3 3 8 5 23 4 47
Per mills 21.27 63.81 63.81 170.23 106.37 489.41 85.10 1000
trends that underscore the very late Roman date Corio Head Type VA 1042-1
for activity on the site and complements the ceramic
and other evidence.
The figures as expressed per mills show a
Class B. c30-15BC.0.95gm.
See discussion.
4016 249 AX Antoninianus Tetricus I
number of trends that can be directly related to Oby. Radiate head right.
Wiltshire sites where there are exceptionally large IMP CT[ETRICVS PF AVG] _ RIC 87
numbers of Valentinianic and later issues. The eee we ee?
assemblages from the county have been the subject ,
of a major review by Moorhead (2001) and full Area 2 203 ® Follis Constantius I RIC 16
details will be found there. The high Valentinianic ext. Obv. Head right. AD 297-305
(489.41 per mills) figure is part of a trend seen CONSTANTIVS NOB €
across the west of Britain (ibid), where the Wiltshire oe a
average is 218.2 per mulls against the national Minumarkoablankoatebuteduerlvonden
average of 118 per mills. The Theodosian issues, at
85.10 per mills, are well above the British average 4255 263 A’3 Constantine I As RIC 15
of 50.25. There can be little doubt that Wayside cs Ree noe rae iad ice a
Farm was still actively attracting coinage, and using Revs Sol ceandin glenn
it, into the early 5th century — an observation backed [SOLI INVICTO C]OMITI
by the ceramics and other finds. Mint mark: legible
The character of the coin use and loss is a little ;
F é 4073 215 A® 3 Constantine I Not in RIC
more difficult to assess and the dominance of the Oby. Head tizhe CAD 316-7
Valentinianic phase is exceptionally high, even by CONSTANTINVS AVG
Wiltshire standards (Moorhead 2001, 90-5). Issues Rev. Sol standing left.
of the preceding periods 17-18 score 276.6 per SOLI INVICTO
mills, a figure very close to the Wiltshire average of Mine maaie Enc
280.5 per mills (ibid, 90). The higher values for the 4955 264) 23 >Crispus cAD 318-24
Valentinianic issues can, in general terms, be Heavily encrusted.
compared with a number of local sites where a Obv. Head right.
religious function is known or suspected. These [ ] NOB[]
include Colerne Mounds, Silbury Ditch, Castle Sw Tere Pe
Combe and Urchfont (ibid, table 2, 91). However, EDIT Cetus
substantial rural settlements where a religious 4023. 270 3 Constantine Il as Caesar RIC 145
function has not been demonstrated also show high Oby. Head right. AD318
figures, including Butterfield Down, Euridge and FL CL CONSTANTINVS IVN NC
Charlton Down (ibid). Given the evidence of the ee oe
other artefacts it is possible that the Wayside Farm Rice ane PN orden
assemblage represents a religious deposit but this
cannot be confirmed purely on numismatic Area 2 205 AS 3 Constantine I HK 12
grounds. ext. Obv. Head right. : AD 324-30
CONSTANTINVS AVG
Camp gate.
THE CATALOGUE PROVIDENTIAE AVGG
Mint mark: PTR Trier
Con- SF Coin description Ref. and mint 4006 185 At 3. Obv. Helmeted bust
period. of Roma left. HK 355
Se vis: VRBS ROMA AD 330-5
Rev. Wolf suckling twins.
4205 233 AR Iron Age coin. Fragmentary. Mint mark: SCONS* Arles.
Robinson 1977.
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES
4239
3130
4019
4073
4017
4032
4241
Area 2
ext.
MD
4026
277
218
261
224
254
247
275
252
7S 3 Obv. Helmeted bust
of Roma left. HK 51
[VRBS] ROMA AD 330-5
Rev. Wolf suckling twins.
Mint mark: TRS Trier.
AF4 House of Constantine As HK 87
Obv. Head right AD335-40
Illegible
Rey. Legionary Standard (1 standard).
[GLORIA EXERCITVS]
Mint mark: illegible
7 4. House of Constantine As HK 87
Obv. Illegible AD 335-40
Rev. Legionary Standard (1 standard).
(GLOR]JIA EXER[CITVS]
Mint mark; illegible
7& 4 Constantius II
Obvy. Head right.
FL IVL CONSTANTIVS AVG
Rev. Legionary Standard (1 standard).
GLORIA EXERCITVS
Mint mark: TRP Trier
HK 100
AD 337-40
As HK 137
AD340-8.
72 4. Constantius II.
Obvy. Head right.
CONSTANTIVS PF [AVG]
Rev. Two victories facing each other.
VICTORIAE DD AVGG Q NN
Mint mark: TR[ ] Trier
7 4. Constantius IT
Obv. Head right.
CONSTANT[IVS PF AVG]
Rev. Two victories facing each other.
([VICTORIAE DD AVGG Q NN]
Mint mark: Illegible
As HK 137
AD 340-8
7& 4 Constans
Obv. Head right.
[CONST]ANS P[F AVG]
Rev. Two victories facing each other.
(VICTORIAE DD AVGG Q NN]
Mint mark: Illegible
As HK 138
AD 340-48
AR Siliqua Constantius II. RIC 210
Obv. Head right. AD 360
CONSTANTIVS PF AVG
Rev. Victory advancing left
VICTORIA DD NN AVG
Mint mark: LVG Lyons
72 2 Decentius CK 218
Head right AD 351-53
[DN DEC]JENTIVS NOB CAES
Rev. 2 victories holding shield
inscribed VOT V MVL X.
VICTORIAE DD NN AVG ET CAE
Mint mark: RPLG Lyons.
Copy as RIC
316
7% 3. Copy of Magnentius
4255
Area 2
ext
4239
4044
4032
4030
4039
4241
MD
206
196
274
Oby. Bare head right. cAD 350-3
Rev. Two victories holding shield.
7® 3 Constanuus I CK 252
Obv. Head right. AD 354-61
[DN CONSTAN]TIVS PF AVG
Rev. Soldier spearing fallen horseman.
FEL TEMP [REPARATIO]
Mint mark: CPLG Lyons
7 4 Barbarous copy.
Fallen horseman type. cAD355-65
7® 3 Valens
Obv. Head right.
DN VALENS PF AVG
Rev. Victory advancing left.
SECVRITAS REIPVBLICAE
Mint mark: SCON*
CK 504
AD 364-78
7S 3 Valens
Obv. Head right.
DN VALENS PF AVG
Rev. Victory advancing left.
[SECVRITAS] REIPVBLICAE
Mint mark: OF I
C[ ] Arles
CK 483
AD 364-78
7 3. Valens
Obv. Head right.
[DN VALEN]S PF AVG
Rey. Victory advancing left.
SECVRITAS [REIPVBLICAE]
Mint mark: OF I
LVG[ ] Lyons
As CK 303
AD 364-78
72 3. Valens
Obv. Head right.
[DN VJALEN[S PF ] AVG
Rev. Victory advancing left.
SECVRI[TAS REIPVBLICAE]
Mint mark: RSECVND Rome
CK 713
AD 364-78
CK 1015
AD 364-78
72 3. Valens
Oby. Head right.
[DN VALEN]S PF AVG
Rev. Victory advancing left.
SECVRITAS [REIPVBLICAE]
Mint mark: SMAQ[ ] Aquilea
As CK 303
AD 364-78
7® 3 Valens
Oby. Head right.
[DN VALEN]S P[F AVG]
Rev. Victory advancing left.
[SECVRITAS REIPVBLICAE]
Mint mark: Ilegible, OF I in field.
7® 3 Valens
Obv. Head right.
[DN VALEN]S PF AVG
Rev. Emperor dragging captive.
[GLORIA ROMANORVM]
Mint mark: Illegible
As CK 317
AD 364-75
163
164
4136
4038
4239
4241
MD
4031
4026
4033
4033
269
273
210
THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
7S 3 Valentinian I
Obv. Head right.
[DN VJALENTIANVS PF AVG
CK 527
AD 364-78
Rey. Victory advancing left.
([SE]CVRITAS REIPVB[LICAE]
Mint mark: SCON Arles
7 3. Valentinian I
Obvy. Head right.
DN VALENTI[ANVS PF AVG]
As CK 1302
AD 364-78
Rev. Victory advancing left.
SECV[RITAS] REIPVBLICAE
Mint mark: [ JSC[ ] Siscia
7S 3 Valentinian I
Obv. Head right.
[DN VALENT]JIANVS PF AVG
As CK 96
AD 364-78
Rev. Victory advancing left.
SECVRIT[AS REIPVBLICAE]
Mint mark: Illegible
AS 3 Valentinian I
Oby. Head right.
[DN VALENTIJANVS PF AVG
AS CK 96
AD 364-78
Rev. Victory advancing left.
SECVRITAS RE[IPVBLICAE]
Mint mark: Illegible
7® 3 Valentinian I
Oby. Head right.
DN VALENTINIANVS PF AVG
Rev. Emperor dragging captive.
GLORIA ROMANORVM
Mint mark: OF II
LVGS Lyons
CK 317
AD 364-75
“® 3. Valentinian I As CK 92
Obv. Head right. AD 364-75
DN VALENT[INIANVS PF AVG]
Rev. Emperor dragging captive.
GLORI[A ROMANORVM]
Mint mark: illegible
As CK 96
AD364-78
72 3 House of Valentinian
Oby. Illegible.
Rev. Victory advancing left.
[SECVRITAS [REIPVBLICAE]
Mint mark: Illegible
As CK 96
AD 364-78
/® 3. House of Valentinian
Obv. Head right.
Rev. Victory advancing left.
SECV[RITAS REIPVBLICAE]
Mint mark: Illegible
7 3. House of Valentinian
Obv. Head right.
Rev. Illegible
Mint mark: Illegible
AD 364-78
MD
4136
4026
4159
4018
281
246
241
235
7® 3 House of Valentinian
Obv. Head right. AD 364-78
Rev. Illegible
Mint mark: Illegible
7® 3. Gratian. As CK 503
Obv. Head right. AD 367-75
[DN]GRATIA[NVS AVGG AVG]
Rev. Emperor dragging captive.
GLORIA N[OVI SAECVL]]
Mint mark: [ CJON[ ] Arles
7X 3 Gratian.
Obv. Head right.
DN GRATIA[NVS AVGG AVG]
Rev. Emperor dragging captive.
[GLORIA NOVI] SAECVLI
Mint mark: OF II
CON{[ J Arles
CK 517
AD 367-75
7B 3 Gratian.
Obv. Head right.
DN GRATIANVS [AVGG AVG]
Rev. Emperor dragging captive.
[GLORIA] NOVI SAECVLI
Mint mark: [ ]CON Arles
CK 529
AD 367-75
7B 3 Gratian.
Obv. Head right.
DN GRATIANVS AVGG AVG
Rev. Emperor dragging captive.
GLORIA NOVI SAECVLI
Mint mark: [ ]CON Arles
CK 529
AD 367-75
7® 3 Gratian
Obv. Head right.
DN GRATIANVS PF AVG
Rey. Victory advancing left.
SECVRITAS REIPVBLICAE
Mint mark: illegible
As CK 98
AD 367-78
7S 3. Gratian
Obv. Head right.
DN GR[ATIANVS PF AVG]
Rey. Emperor dragging captive.
[GLORIA ROMANORVM]
Mint mark: illegible
As CK 95
AD 367-78
7 4 Theodosius.
Obv. Head right.
DN TH[EODOSIVS PF AVG]
Rev. Victory advancing left.
SAL[VS REIPVBLICAE]
Mint mark: Ilegible
As CK 797
AD 388-92
7& 4. House of Theodosius
Obv. Head right.
Illegible.
Rev. Victory advancing left.
[SALVS REIPVBLICAE]
Mint mark: illegible
As CK 796
AD388-402
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 165
4077 220 A® 4 House of Theodosius As CK 796
Obv. Head right. AD388-402
legible.
Rev. Victory advancing left.
([SALVS REIPVBLICAE]
Mint mark: illegible
4239 276 A 4 Arcadius. HK 571
Obv. Head right. AD 395-402
DN ARCADIVS P[F AVG]
Rev. Victory advancing left.
VICTO[RIA AVGGG]
Mint mark: TCON Arles
THE NON-FERROUS AND
MISCELLANEOUS SMALL
FINDS
by Jane Bircher
This is a relatively small assemblage of 28 artefacts.
There are eight items for adornment or personal
use; a brooch (Object No.1), three bracelets (2-3,
28), a finger ring (4), a strap-end (5), a toilet
implement (6) and two components of a composite
garment (9-10). Four items have a primarily
everyday domestic use; two spoons (7-8), a die (14)
and a box fitting (27). The strap-end, garment
components and box fitting are items of quality if
not luxury. Scraps form a relatively high proportion
of the lead finds and may be associated with a
manufacturing process on or near the site (19-26).
The area of Late Iron Age/early Roman
occupation, Area 1, produced a single find - the
Nauheim derivative brooch (1). Its mid- 1st century
AD date is consistent with its context. All the other
identifiable artefacts derive from the Area 2 midden
or the pit (F4225), which it partially seals. The
ceramic and numismatic evidence suggests a date
of AD370-420+ for these deposits and there is
nothing to indicate that the small finds do not fit
comfortably within the same date range. The copper
alloy bracelets (2-3), strap-end (5), spoons (7-8)
and bone mount (22) are all diagnostically 4th
-century types. Parallels from other sites suggest a
4th-century date for the finger ring (4) and die (14).
The stamped sheet objects (9-10) appear to derive
from late Antique dress. It is especially useful to
see an example of a late Roman strap-end (5) in a
securely stratified context.
The assemblage is too small to indicate a site-
type with any certainty. However it has some
unusual features which support the evidence of
ritual or religious activity provided by the other
finds, in particular the lead curse tablet (below).
The highly unusual stamped decorative sheets, if
originally attached to garments, could have
constituted priestly or special regalia. The manner
of their deposition is especially intriguing. The collar
(9) has been intentionally folded prior to deposition
and must have been detached from any garment at
the time. The preservation of the curvilinear profile
of the thin metal epaulette (10) suggests that this
too was detached and very carefully deposited. Both
items derive from pit F4225. It could be suggested
that rather than simply being thrown away, these
items were intentionally (?ritually) discarded.
Although by no means conclusive, the presence of
other personal items and, in particular, the two
spoons could also indicate religious practice.
Spoons, particularly in the late Roman period
clearly have some liturgical as well as domestic
function (cf the inscribed silver spoons from the
Thetford hoard; Johns and Potter 1983). They are
also a common class of votive object at temple sites
(cf Lydney, Nettleton, etc. as discussed in
Woodward and Leach 1993, 332-334). Small
personal objects such as bracelets and strap-ends
occur on all classes of 4th-century site but where
they occur at temples can clearly be assigned a votive
nature (ibid for bracelets. Lydney; Wheeler and
Wheeler 1932, 84, no. 82, fig. 19, Maiden Castle,
Wheeler 1943, 288, nos. 14-15, fig. 96 for strap-
ends).
In the absence of any clear recognisable
structure within the excavated area, a more precise
interpretation is difficult. When the cumulative
evidence of the small finds and the unusual
composition of the ceramics is viewed together, a
non-domestic assemblage becomes a strong
possibility and a religious context appears attractive.
CATALOGUE OF COPPER
ALLOY OBJECTS
Illustrated
Fig. 12.1. (Object No. 2). Area 2, midden seg. 4027,
SF212. Approximately one third survives of a well-made
bracelet of D-shaped section decorated with lozenge-
shaped panels separated by groups of 4 (5 at the terminal)
transverse grooves. The bracelet closed with a hook-and-
eye fastening with part of the eye terminal extant. A 3rd-
century date is given for a similar bracelet from a later
4th century context at Greyhound Yard, Dorchester
166 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
ramet 2 aa
Fig. 12: Miscellaneous small finds
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 167
(Henig 1993a, 117, no. 18, fig. 60). However, a date after
AD350 is usually suggested for this type and its more
commonly found heavier form (Orton Hall Farm;
Macreth 1996, 98, no. 57, fig. 62 with further examples
given). Restored 78mm, section 3 x 2mm.
Fig. 12.2. (4). Area 2, midden seg. 4136, SF234.
Delicate finger ring made of rolled sheet metal. The hoop
of square section is slightly carinated at the shoulders
and closed by a lap joint opposite the bezel. At the bezel
the rolled sheet splits and expands to form an elliptical
opening for the setting which 1s now missing. No parallels
have been found for this ring which appears to be a late
Roman type (cfButt Road cemetery, Colchester; Crummy
1983, 49, nos. 1789-90, fig. 52 from graves dated c.
AD320-c.450). A similar ring with a green glass setting
came from a post-Roman context at Uley (Henig 1993b,
171, no. 8, fig. 132). A gold ring of late 4th-century type
from Bowerchalke, Wilts. has a bezel fashioned in a similar
way (pers. comm. Nick Griffiths). External © 19mm,
internal © 16mm, height of bezel 3mm.
Fig. 12.3. (6). Area 2, midden seg. 4120, SF227.
Hair pin or toilet implement with a round-sectioned shank
(now distorted) tapering to a point. Between the shank
and the missing top are two raised and finely cross-hatched
zones. If this is a pin, it belongs to an unusual and
unidentified type. It does not fit comfortably into any of
Cool’s groups although several (Groups 5,9,11,20)
incorporate cross-hatched areas, none as wide as this
(Cool 1990). Alternatively, the cross-hatching would
provide a good finger-grip for a small toilet implement
such as the Jigula from the Bancroft villa (Hylton 1994,
314, no 121, fig. 146) or ear-probe from King Harry Lane
(Stead and Rigby 1989, 23-4, no. 88, fig. 14). Roman.
Restored length 90mm, maximum © 3mm.
Fig. 13.1. (10). Pit F4225, context 4226, SF238.
Tapering strip of decorated sheet metal fragment, possibly
torn across a bend at the wider end and definitely
incomplete at the narrow end. The sheet is curved
longitudinally and to a lesser extent laterally. It is damaged
along one long side with a section torn away at the wider
end. The margins of the long sides have been punched
from the underside with circles en repoussé. The pressure
of the punch was unevenly applied so that most of the
circles appear as raised or even stamped out crescents.
The same punch was used to stamp out a circular hole
away from the edge at the wider end and to make three
further holes along the undamaged edge (similar
perforations would be disguised by the damage on the
opposite side). These holes were presumably for
attachment. A decorative six-petalled rosette has been
incompletely stamped out of the centre of the object.
Length 105m, maximum extant width 46mm, thickness
<0.5mm.
Fig. 13.2. (1). Area 1, layer 3056, SF102 Brooch.
Simple one-piece brooch of Nauheim derivative type. The
bow is triangular in section with punched decoration along
the apex. The 4-coil spring has an internal chord. The
pin and catch-plate are complete. The bow section,
internal chord and solid catch-plate suggest a date of c.
AD40-75, significantly earlier than any other dateable
small finds from this site. Length 60mm.
Fig. 13.3. (5). Area 2, midden seg. 4039, SF202.
Strap-end of hybrid amphora/heart-shaped form with a
central decorative double ring-and-dot motif. Part of the
component which originally linked the strap-end to its
belt survives in situ. This particular form of strap-end
can be dated to c. AD370 — 400+ and belongs to a well-
documented class of late Roman belt-fittings (cfSimpson
1976 and Clarke 1979, 264-291). Length 46mm, width
24mm.
Fig. 13.4. (7). Area 2, Pit F4225, context 4239.
Incomplete spoon comprising the stem and a small part
of the bowl, now torn, which was originally large and
oval. The sub-round-sectioned stem tapers to a point and
near the bowl it widens to a rectangular section with two
small notches on the upper face marking the change of
section. It is joined to the bowl by an offset volute. The
stem is now distorted into a serpentine shape that, perhaps
not by chance, is extremely comfortable to hold between
the thumb and forefinger with the bowl facing up. AD
4th century. Length 91mm.
Fig. 14.2. (9). Area 2, Pit F4225, context 4226,
SF268. Six conjoining fragments of decorated sheet metal
strip. Together they form a complete flat, oval, penannular
object decorated with punched dots along the outer edge.
A larger hole has been punched in the outer corner of
each terminal. This object was folded up before deposition
and has fragmented along the folds. Maximum external
© 165mm, maximum internal © 140mm, gap c. 80mm,
width 13mm.
Objects 9 and 10 (Fig. 13.1 and 14.2) are very similar
in material, manufacture and style. As they also come
from the same context it is likely that they are components
of one larger object. Although no parallels for either object
have been found, it is suggested here that 9 is a collar,
perhaps originally attached to the neck of a garment such
as a tunic, and that the two larger holes originally held a
cord or ribbon tied at the back of the wearer’s neck.. If
object 9 is a collar, 10 could also be a decorative appliqué
for a garment and it is the right shape and size for an
epaulette. Decorative stamped sheets are published as box
or furniture fittings (cf Uley; Woodward and Leach 1993,
207, notably nos.1,8 and 20, fig. 153) but also occur in
religious contexts as votive plaques (cfUley; Henig 1983c,
104-8, nos. 9-10, fig. 92; nos. 2 and 10, fig. 93) and have
been discussed as sceptre mounts (King Harry Lane;
Stead and Rigby, 27-9, nos. 146-7, fig. 17). It is tempting
to see 9 and 10 as items of regalia, perhaps of a priestly
nature. Stylistically these objects belong in the late Roman
period.
Not illustrated
Object 3. Area 2, midden seg. 4024, SF221. Fragment of
a heavily corroded bracelet of upright rectangular section
with a notched top. Strip bracelets with a variety of incised
168 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
on
C/O
Sem
Fig 13 : Miscellaneous small finds
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 169
aes
Fig. 14 : Miscellaneous small finds
170 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
decoration where the bracelet is widest from front-to-back
rather than side-to-side, belongs to a type discussed in
Webster 1992, 45, nos. 274-7. Late AD3rd -4th century.
Length 40 mm, section 2 x 1mm.
Object 8. Area 2, midden seg. 4238, SF231. Six
fragments of a spoon with traces of white metal plating,
probably of the same type and date as 7 above. There are
five fragments from around the rim of the bowl. The other
piece comprise a trace of the bowl, the offset volute and
perhaps a third of the original length of the stem. The
offset may originally have been a pierced disc rather than
an open volute but is now too corroded for identification.
Largest bowl fragment 22 x 17mm, length of stem 42mm.
Object 11. Area 2, midden seg. 4026, SF250. Ring
of facetted section. External © 25mm, internal © 19mm.
Object 12. Area 2, Pit F4225, context 4226, SF237.
Sub-round disc cut from sheet metal and pierced with
central hole. It is probably a washer but could be part of
a larger object (such as the suspension loop of a toilet
implement or the terminal for attachment of a small
handle). 9.5 x 8.5mm.
Object 13. Area 2, Ditch F4294, seg. 4075. Tapering
strip of sheet metal, bent at 45° angle, with solder on
both faces of the wider end. Possibly a pointer (cf
Canterbury Marlowe Car Park; Garrard et al 1995; 1036,
no. 455, fig. 441). Maximum width 7mm, overall 28 x
24mm.
CATALOGUE OF LEAD
Illustrated
Fig. 12.4. (Object 15). Area 2, midden seg. 4016, SF312.
Irregular off-cut from a moulded object. 37 x 17 x 9mm.
Fig. 12.6. (14). midden seg. 4022, SF245 Die. Cube
with chamfered edges and the numbers marked by
punched dots. The face of the number one has been
gouged out. The numbers on opposing sides add up to 7
in the typical Roman fashion, still in use today, although
less common in the medieval period. The configuration
is type Aii (Brown 1990, 692-4). Two Roman lead dice,
one of 4th-century date, came from the Bancroft villa
(Bird 1994, 347, no 311, fig. 174 and Williams and
Zeepvat 1987, 146, no. 203, fig. 47). 16 x 16 x 16 mm.
Not illustrated
Object 16. Area 2, midden seg. 4018, SF315. Two
conjoining fragments of an object, possibly a pot rivet.
26x 17x5 mm and 24x11x8 mm.
Object 17. Area 2, midden seg. 4055, SF197. Two
conjoining fragments of an object, possibly a pot rivet.
23 x 19mm, maximum thickness 4 mm.
Object 18. Area 2, Pit F4225, context 4239, SF379.
Leaf-shaped fragment, probably an off-cut. One curved
edge appears to be original. 58 x 30 x 8mm.
Object 19. Area 2, midden seg. 4016, SF248. Irregular
off-cut of triangular section. Length 74mm, maximum
section 17 x 9mm.
Object 20. Area 2, midden seg. 4016, SF311.
Irregular, slightly twisted off-cut. 57 x 16 x 15mm.
Object 21. Area 2, layer 4091, SF258. Irregular off-
cut of thick, L-shaped section. 34 x 27 x 18mm.
Object 22. Area 2, midden seg. 4039, SF199. Splash
of molten metal, poured onto an uneven surface such as
stone. The upper face is smooth and the edges rounded.
The edges have been roughly nicked. 60 x 22 x 6mm.
Object 23. Area 2, midden seg. 4027, SF209. Thick,
irregular and slightly domed lump. Possibly formed when
the molten metal was poured into a rough vessel or
crucible. © 65 mm, height 18 mm.
Object 24. Area 2, midden 4255, SF265. Splash. 57
x 45 x 8mm.
Object 25. Area 2, midden seg. 4020, SF316. Splash.
26x 17x3mm.
Object 26. Area 2, midden seg. 4022, SF322. Small
lump. 21 x 18 x 12 mm.
CATALOGUE OF WORKED
BONE
Fig. 12.5. (Object 27). Area 2, Pit F4225, context 4239,
SF267. Two conjoining fragments of a decorated bone
strip for inlay on a box or similar. The flat strip is incised
with a row of double ring-and-dot motifs bordered by
two parallel grooves along each edge. The inner groove
on one edge has regularly spaced diagonal slashes cut
across it. One end is mitred and the other is broken. There
are no holes for attachment. This type of mount occurs
in contexts from the 4th century (Richborough;
Henderson 1949, 152, no.276, pl. LVI and Wilson 1968,
106, no. 225, pls. LXI-LXID) onwards into the medieval
period (cfYork Minster; MacGregor 1995, 419-20, nos.
11.6-14, fig. 158 for 12th-century and earlier examples).
Length 46mm, width 21mm.
Plate 6. The inscribed lead fragment (maximum width
78mm). By permission of Wiltshire County Council
Libraries and Heritage.
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 171
CATALOGUE OF SHALE
OBJECTS
Object 28. Area 2, midden 4255, SF323. Small fragment
of a shale armlet of plain oval section with a residual ridge
around the inner face. This was an above average size
armlet with an original internal diameter of 60-80mm
(Lawson 1976, 248). Roman. Section 6 x 3mm, length
of fragment 12mm.
THE INSCRIBED LEAD
FRAGMENT
by R. S. O. Tomlin
An irregular fragment of crumpled lead sheet (Plate
6), 78 by 60 mm, c. 1 mm thick, was recovered
from midden context 4055. Its surface is thickly
patinated with corrosion products, presumably lead
oxide and lead carbonate. The edges are all broken
except for the top left-hand corner, the top right-
hand corner, and part of the right-hand edge, which
are original. To judge by this top right-hand corner,
the fragment is part of an irregular rectangle with
rounded corners trimmed from a piece of
hammered lead sheet. There is a possible nail hole
in the bottom edge, but unlike most ‘curse tablets’
it has not been deliberately rolled or folded.
Otherwise it resembles a ‘curse tablet’, since both
faces are inscribed with Roman cursive letters, the
whole of one with 12-13 lines of closely-packed
writing, and the top of the other with 2-3 lines
(actually two lines of cursive, with 2-3 more letters
resembling IVM, inscribed with a finer point below
the end of the second line.)
The text is difficult to transcribe. The letters
are somewhat crude and angular, they tend to
overlap other letters above and below, they are
shallowly incised and often damaged by corrosion.
In consequence there is no run of more than 3-4
intact letters at a time, and there are no obvious
“curse tablet’ formulas as an aid to restoration. The
letters are often ambiguous or illegible, but there is
-enough variety in their forms to exclude the
possibility that this is a pseudo-inscription, nor does
it seem to be an encrypted text with letters in
mirror-image, for example, or in reverse sequence.
Whatever its content, it gives the strong impression
of being a 4th-century text: there are examples of
what seem to be the 4th-century forms of A, E, M,
N, R and S; and the forms of letters which seem to
be L, Q and V are all consistent with this dating.
There is also a well-preserved sequence in line 4 of
TER, in which the letter-forms and the ligature of
T and E are typically 4th-century. There is also a
corresponding absence of the earlier forms of all
these letters. Two letters helpful for dating have not
yet been identified, B and P, both of which change
markedly between the 3rd and 4th centuries.
Single letters and pairs of letters can often be
read, but not yet whole words which would
guarantee the reading. There is the sequence TER
already mentioned; the previous letter, if any, has
been lost in damage; the letters are followed by what
seems to be another R. At the beginning of line 6
there is a sequence which can be read as QVI[.]OC,
presumably qui [h]oc. It would suggest the formula
qui hoc involavit (‘the person who stole this’), but
this cannot be read.
Further study is thus required. For the moment
it can only be said that the tablet seems to be a
fluent but poorly-written Latin text of 4th-century
date, a ‘curse tablet’? presumably. In Britain these
messages to the gods are mostly found at temple-
sites in Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Somerset.
For a large and representative sample see those from
Bath, published in B. Cunliffe (1988). Work to
decipher the text is still ongoing and a separate note
will be published in due course.
THE IRON AGE AND
ROMANO-BRITISH IRON
OBJECTS
by J. M. Mills
INTRODUCTION
The excavations yielded 279 objects of which four
are of Iron Age date or type: a knife and a large nail
from infilled Iron Age pits on Area 1 and two mid-
late Iron Age pins with scrolled heads from the Area
2 midden. In general iron objects are not easily
dated and consequently the late date for the midden
deposits shown by coin and pottery dates cannot
be corroborated. Equally other objects from the
midden may be residual but none are
characteristically Iron Age in form. The extensive
midden deposits of Area 2 produced a total of 130
ferrous items of Romano-British date. Of these 92
are nails and 38 are objects, including nine tools.
The other deposits encountered on Area 2 produced
24 iron objects including 18 nails and a single
identifiable object (Fig.16.1), a hasp. A small group
72. THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Fig. 15 : Ferrous objects
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 173
Fig. 16 : Ferrous objects
THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
174
Ferrous objects
ig, 17:
Fi
* IGHN- HODGSON: Of
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 175
of four burials in Area 1 produced coffin nails
(Object No. 78) and hobnails (41) and a single
object, which is probably a spoon (Fig.16.06).
The group of material from the midden is
exceptional for its high proportion of objects. Many
of the objects from the midden derive from
buildings (Structural and building metalwork Cat
nos. 23-32), whilst others - tools, styli, the
hipposandal and possible lock fragment and key
fragment - may indicate a sophisticated settlement
or other high-status activity site.
THE IRON AGE OBJECTS
The Iron Age Ironwork from Area 1
Only two iron objects were recovered, both derive
from the infilling of later Iron Age storage pits. Pit
F3037 yielded a small curved knife with a nailed/
rivetted tang (Figure 15.1). The tang has slight
traces of flanging along one side. This type of knife
is referred to as a Class 3 knife at Danebury
(Selwood 1984, 349). The majority of knives from
Danebury are dated to ceramic phases 7-8 (c.1st
century BC).
The solitary iron find from Pit 3016 was a nail
with a square, flat head; apparently chisel-ended,
although the shank may be incomplete (Figure
15.4). Iron nails are not common Iron Age finds
and presumably their use was specialised.
The Iron Age Ironwork from the Midden
Just two iron objects recovered from the midden
deposit excavated on Area 2 were identified as being
potentially Iron Age in date. Both are pins with
scrolled heads (Figure 15.2 and 15.3), the former
being more carefully finished than the latter. Both
compare well with mid- late Iron Age pins from
Gussage All Saints (Wainwright 1979) and iron pins
from the Devizes Museum collections from
Broadbury Banks, Wilsford and Stockton
earthworks.
Catalogue of Iron Age Objects
Fig. 15.1. (Object 1). Area 1, Pit F3037, SF100. A small
curved knife with a nailed/rivetted tang. The tang has slight
traces of flanging along one side. Danebury Class 3 knife
(Selwood 1984, 349), compare with examples excavated
at Danebury (Selwood 1984, fig.7.10, 2.34 and Selwood
1991, fig 7.11, 2.234). Length 112mm.
Fig. 15.2. (4). Area 2, midden seg. 4047, SF344.
Pin with circular-sectioned shank showing almost no taper
at all, The scrolled head is formed from an expanded strip,
but does not appear to be as carefully finished as 3. above.
Length c.87mm.
Fig. 15.3. (3). Area 2, midden. context 209, SF2.
Finely wrought pin with straight shank and delicately
scrolled head. Length 86mm. Similar iron pins of Iron
Age date are held in the Devizes Museum Collection (N.
Griffiths pers. comm.).
Fig. 15.4. (2). Area 1, Pit 3016, SF101. Nail with a
square, flat head; apparently chisel-ended, although the
shank may be incomplete. Length 105mm.
THE ROMANO-BRITISH
IRONWORK
The Romano-British Ironwork from Area 1
Area 1 yielded two iron objects, one, a hobnail, from
ditch F3101 the other probably a fragment of oval-
linked chain comprising at least two links from the
buried soil 3098 (SF109). The other ironwork was
recovered from the four inhumations excavated in
the northwestern corner of the site. With the
exception of one spoon (Figure 16.6), the
assemblage from the graves consisted exclusively
of timber nails from coffins and hobnails. The low
frequency of ferrous objects and the presence of
inhumations in Area 1 is notable and may reflect
the distance from the settlement or activity focus.
Catalogue of Objects from Area 1
Object 5. Layer 3098, SF109. In very poor condition with
little or no solid iron remaining. Appears to be at least
two oval links. The poor condition precludes
measurement.
The Iron from the late Romano-British
Inhumations
The three graves containing human all aligned
produced ironwork assumed to be associated with
burials. A fourth feature (F3136) within this cluster
yielded only a group of hobnails and a single timber
nail. The timber nails from the inhumations are all
flat-headed nails. No iron coffin fittings or grave
goods with the exception of hobnails from boots or
shoes and a spoon from Inhumation 2 (Cat no. 6,
Fig. 16.6). Spoons from burials are very rare, and
iron spoons from funerary contexts are even less
common. It is possible that this is a unique find
and until other examples are recognised it is not
possible to make further comment. However, there
are often Christian associations with spoons which
cannot be dismissed.
This small group of burials appear to have many
176 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
of the characteristics of late Romano-British burials.
Of the four, two were contained within nailed
wooden structures, probably purpose- made coffins.
All were accompanied by grave goods, objects
deliberately placed with the burials which to aid
the deceased during the journey to the next world
or in the afterlife.
Inhumation 1
The central of a small group of burials, the grave
cut contained the remains of an extended adult
burial. A minimum of 25 timber nails (based on
head count) were recorded. In addition, nine nail
shank fragments were present, some of these, if not
all, undoubtedly belong to the fragments with heads
and probably do not represent further nails. The
site plan (Figure 6) shows a pattern which may be
interpreted as having nails at the corners of the
‘coffin’ and four diagonal lines of nails in an
approximately zig-zagged pattern. This arrangement
is suggestive of braces nailed diagonally across the
planks somewhat in the manner of a braced door.
A minimum total of 25 nails is higher than average
for a nailed coffin if compared with burials of a
similar date from Poundbury, Dorset (Farwell and
Mollesson 1993) where the sample number is large.
In fact the late Roman burials of Site C at
Poundbury averaged only 12 nails per coffin. The
nail plan mirroring the grave pit, tapers from one
end to the other, the eastern end being the widest.
It seems that the body had been decapitated,
although it cannot be known if this was after death
or was the cause of death; the severed head was
placed to the south of the feet within the ‘coffin’
along with a complete pot. The foot bones do not
survive, but on or close to the feet was a group of
hobnails, which are undoubtedly the remains of
boots provided for the afterlife. The feet were at the
west end of the grave. It is possible that the coffin
was mistakenly placed in the grave the ‘wrong way’
round, but this presumes that the deceased were
Christian. Given that the coffin appears taper
making the ‘head’ and ‘foot’ end distinguishable
from each other, and that the burial is also a
decapitation it is likely that the intention was to
place the corpse with its feet to the east.
Inhumation 2
A grave containing an extended adult burial to the
south of Inhumation 1. The grave had been
disturbed at the southwestern corner by the later
insertion of a land drain. It is probable that the land
drain has disturbed to southwest corner of the coffin
and consequently nails may be missing from this
part of the grave. A minimum of 34 nails (based on
head count) were recorded. In addition eight nail
shank fragments were present, some of these, if not
all, undoubtedly belong to the fragments with heads
and probably do not represent further nails. The
grave plan, although disturbed at the head end,
seems to suggest a different style of construction
from the ‘coffin’ for Inhumation 1. This example is
heavily nailed at the head and foot end of the ‘coffin’
with at least 23 of the nails planned at the head or
foot of the grave. The remaining nails which lie
between the extremes of the coffin form no distinct
pattern. A group of four seem to delineate the
northern edge of the coffin, with another set
grouped loosely in the centre of the southern side.
Again there is no indication that any were used to
secure a lid or top to the structure. The number of
nails used in the construction of the coffin is again
higher than the average, at least at Poundbury. This
burial was accompanied by a complete pot, again
close to the head, and a single coin below or in the
left hand (see above), but no hobnails. At
Poundbury, Dorset Dr Ellison notes a mutual
exclusivity between coins and hobnails (Ellison in
Farwell and Mollesson 1993).
A possible third object accompanying the body
was recognised during the writing of this report. The
object (Cat. No 6, Figure 16.6) appears, from the
X-radiographs, to be an iron spoon. It was located
close to the lower left leg. The object is in two pieces.
Inhumation 3
The northern most of the three rectilinear grave
pits. This burial was apparently uncoffined as no
timber nails were recovered, although jointed,
pegged and/or glued construction methods are of
course possible but archaeologically undetectable.
The burial was accompanied by two groups of
hobnails. The first (SF187), a group of 21 hobnails
on or by the feet as Inhumation 1; the second a
smaller group (SF163) of four hobnails close by
the left elbow. Given that this burial appears to have
been provided with a pair of boots, perhaps worn,
it seems possible that this small group represents
another, otherwise undetectable, object. Again at
Poundbury hobnails were found in the vicinity of
the arms, but whether those represented boots or
another artefact type is unknown.
F3136
A small sub-circular cut located between
Inhumations 1 and 3.The only items recovered from
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 177
this feature were a single timber nail and a group of
14 hobnails (SF169) close to the northern edge of
the cut.
Catalogue of Iron objects from
Inhumations
Fig. 16.6. (Object 6). 3030, SF150. Probable fragmentary
spoon comprising bowl and probable cranked shank
fragment. The ‘bowl’ is oval, approximately 40mm long
and 25mm wide. The ‘handle’ shank is bent and probably
incomplete, with a C-shaped cranked section of stem
where it joins the bowl.
THE ROMANO-BRITISH
IRONWORK FROM AREA 2
The ironwork from non-midden contexts
The quantity of ironwork and the range of objects
from the features underlying the midden and in the
surrounding stripped area of Area 2 is very limited.
Of the 24 pieces recovered 18 are nails or nail
fragments, with the remainder comprising a group
of three miscellaneous lumps or fragments, an
incomplete small strip fitting fragment and a large,
curving link or hasp (Figure 16.1). The object types
and provenance by feature are summarised in Table
2 below. The group as a whole sheds very little light
on the nature of the site, and as with Area 1, it seems
that the ditches and other features are some distance
from the main focus of the activity with which they
are undoubtedly associated.
Catalogue of iron objects from Area 2
(non-midden)
Fig. 16.1. (Object 45). Area 2, F4288, 4096, SF
230. A fairly substantial iron link formed from an
approximately rectangular sectioned iron bar 14mm
Table 2: Object type and provenance - ironwork
from Area 2 (non-midden material)
Feature (Area 2) Ironwork
‘Clearance: 1 nail
Pit F4225: 2 x rod/nail shanks, 1 nail
Oven 4007 and
associated stone spreads: 3 nails
Buried soils: 1 strip ?waste iron, | nail
Ditch F4200: 1 strip/fitting frag, 1 rod/nail shank
Ditch F4261: 4 nails, 2 rod/nail shanks
Ditch F4294: 3 misc lumps
Ditch F4288: 1 triple-looped hasp/link, 1 nail,
1 rod/nail shank
Ditch F4254: 1 nail
deep and 7mm wide and joined with a lapped ?weld
along one side of the central part. The link has
been formed into a triple-looped link with the two
end cells being smaller and approximately circular
whilst the central cell is considerably longer. The
link is strongly curved with the two end cells
projecting almost at 90a from the U-shaped central
portion probably a more complex form of the usual
figure-of-eight hasp. Length c.134mm.
The Ironwork from the midden contexts
A total of 132 iron objects and fragments was
recovered from surface of the midden and the
excavated quadrants of the midden deposit. Two of
these objects have been discussed above (Nos. 3
and 4) as probable Iron Age pins. Of the remaining
130 pieces 77 are nails, 15 are rods or nail shank
fragments, and 38 are objects or probable object
fragments. The proportion of objects to nails and
nail fragments (c.1:2.5) is high, as nails usually out-
number other items by a much greater ratio than
this.
Tools
The tool assemblage is large for the size of the
overall assemblage and includes a possible hammer
head (Object no. 7); three socketed tools (nos. 10-
12) one of which is a ‘pruning’ hook and one
possibly a socket-handled knife; two paring chisels
(nos. 8, 9), one tanged and one socketed; a possible
drill or auger bit (no. 13), a small ?leather- workers
awl (no. 15) and a possible tool with a grooved end
(no. 14), which is in poor condition and
comparatively small.
Styli
Two incomplete styli, both with triangular erasers
were recovered (nos. 16, 17) from the northeast
area of the midden. One stylus (no. 17) seems, from
the radiograph to have an ornate, moulded, shank.
The presence of styli indicates some sophistication
and literacy.
Pins
Two of the pins recovered from the midden are of
probable Iron Age date (see above). A single brooch
or buckle pin (no. 18.) of probable Romano-British
date was recovered from the midden overlying Ditch
F4254.
Items associated with transport
A single, complete hipposandal (no. 19) was
178 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
recovered from the northern end of the site.
Hipposandals are not a common find in Wiltshire,
another complete example from Cunetio is in
Devizes museum (from Annable’s excavations at
Cunetio, cutting Z). They are usually thought to
have been used when horses or mules were taken
onto metalled roads.
Possible 1ron-working waste/bar iron
Despite the small quantity of iron-working slags
recovered from the site three fragments of possible
bar iron (nos 20-22) have been identified one of
which is illustrated (Figure 16.2).
Structural ironwork
A total of six items in this category are strip or sheet
fragments which may be fragments of bindings or
similar (nos. 25-30). Timber dogs/clamps account
for a further two objects (nos. 23, 24). A single small
corner bracket, perhaps from a box or casket (Figure
16.3), and a large strap hinge or bracket fragment
were also recorded (no. 32).
Miscellaneous and unidentified objects
A total of ten objects fall into this category and
include single examples of shoe cleat, ring, washer
or rove, featureless fragment, a possible lock
fragment (Figure 15.6) and a possible padlock key
fragment (Figure 15.05). The remaining three
objects (nos. 39-41) are long narrow rods the largest
two are over 200mm long, a single example is
illustrated (Figure 16.4). It is possible that these
are iron-working evidence, but may have a specific
function which has not been identified.
Few of the objects can be dated with any
certainty to the Romano-British period although
styli and hipposandals are obvious exceptions.
Several objects do have close parallels from dated
Romano-British sites. These include many of the
tools including the hammer and paring chisels and
the other tools with socketed handles. The shoe cleat
and large strap hinge fragment also have dated
parallels. The condition of the ironwork, heavily
corroded with a thick concreted layer of sand/soil
surrounding them has hampered identification in
some instances as has the lack of solid iron core
noted in many objects which were cleaned. Some
objects, the possible lock fragment (Figure 15.6)
for example are too fragmentary for certain
identification. The range of object type and the
quality of many of the objects, the paring chisels
(Figures 17.01 and 17.2) for example are
noteworthy, and the presence of tools, styli, the
hipposandal and possible lock fragment and key
fragment indicate a relatively sophisticated site.
Catalogue of Iron objects from the
midden
Fig. 15.5. (Object 44). Area 2, midden seg. 4087, SF327.
Strip object fragment. Tapering strip incomplete at both
ends, possibly part of a barrel padlock key. Length
c.70mm.
Fig. 15.6. (43). Area 2, midden seg. 4039, SF378.
Object fragment comprising a strip or sheet of iron with
a curving element at 90a. Reminiscent of lock cases.
Compare with tumbler lock from Verulamium (Manning
1972, fig. 67, 66).
Fig. 15.7. (18). Area 2, midden seg. 4017, SF389.
Brooch/buckle pin? Small pin with hooked end. Length
43mm.
Fig. 15.8. (17). Area 2, midden seg. 4033, SF351.A
fairly ornate stylus, possibly of Manning’s Type 2 (1985,
85-7). The tip is missing, but the point is clearly separated
from the stem by a distinct shoulder. The radiograph
indicates that there is a simple moulding at the junction
of tip and stem, and if this is the case this example should
be assigned to Type 4. The eraser is a short, broad triangle,
and appears to be ornamented. Extant length 58mm.
Fig. 15.9. (16). Area 2, midden seg. 4017, SF225.
Incomplete stylus with broad triangular eraser as 17
(below). Shank appears to be simple tapering, circular in
cross-section. Compare with Manning’s Type la (1985,
fig. 24) which Manning suggests may be of first or early
second century AD date. Whether this example has an
eraser broad enough to be classed as Type la rather than
Type 1 is debatable. Extant length 83mm.
Fig. 16.2. (22). Area 2, midden seg. 4139, SF345.
Waisted rod or bar. Rectangular-sectioned the bar tapers
along its length . Each end appears complete, although
there is some uncertainty. Furthermore, each end appears
to taper into a blunt point when viewed from the side.
The radiograph, however suggests that the ends are
irregular and split, and shows the central part of the bar
to be narrowed or waisted. The irregularities, splits etc
suggest that this may be a scrap of bar iron . Length
101mm.
Fig. 16.3. (31). Area 2, midden seg. 4233, SF239.
Corner bracket with one rounded terminal and one plain.
Length of arms 33 and 51mm, width 29mm. Probably
from a small box or casket.
Fig. 16.4. (41). Area 2, midden seg. 4017. Long rod
of almost even thickness, square in x-section. Length
210mm, section c. 7 x 6mm.
Fig. 16.5. (19). Area 2, midden seg. 4031, SF219.
Complete hipposandal. A Type 1 hipposandal as defined
by Aubert (1929), a classification continued by Manning
(1985, 63-65). There is no evidence for grooving on the
sole plate. This type of hipposandal is the most commonly
found in Britain, ranging in date from the AD Ist to 4th
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 179
century. Most hipposandals are found on town sites.
Overall length: 214mm.
Fig. 17.1. (8). Area 2, midden seg. 4175, SF243.
Paring chisel with socketed handle. The socket retains
some mineral-preserved wood. Socketed handles are
unusual for paring chisels but are normal on chisels which
were used for heavier work. The thinness of the blade
(3.5mm) confirms that this is a paring chisel. Length
187mm, diameter of socket 20mm, width of blade 10mm.
Fig. 17.2. (9). Area 2, midden seg. 4167, SF262.
Long rod or bar beaten out at one end to form a thin
strip comparable in dimension to the blade of the paring
chisel from Hod Hill (Manning 1985, B30). The tang of
this example is more slight than that from Hod Hill.
Length 205mm, shank c. 6 x 6mm, ‘blade’ c. 12 x 3mm.
Fig. 17.3. (13). Area 2, midden seg. 4067, SF186.
Large drill bit or auger with pyramidal tang. The shank
below the tang shoulders is cigar-shaped. The end is
broken and has been incompletely cleaned. The original
form of the tool is unknown, but the pyramidal head
indicates the general type of tool. The swollen shaft is
unusual and may have a special function. Length 166mm,
max. diameter c. 14mm.
Fig. 17.4. (14). Area 2, layer 4001, SF352. Tool, in
very poor condition, the main body of the tool is heavily
fissured and splitting although the tang end is in
comparatively good condition.. Tapers to both ends,
cleaning appears to show one end to have a U-shaped
cross-section in the manner of spoon bits or gouges. This
object, however, is almost half the size of tools of this
type, so some doubt to its true shape, and function must
remain. Length 76mm.
Fig. 17.5. (11). Area 2, layer 4001, SF232. Probable
pruning hook, with open socket for handle, probably of
Manning’s Type 1 (1985, F44/45), that is with the blade
set at right angles to the socket. This example is broken at
the point where the blade bends. Functionally these small
hooks would have served many uses in an agricultural or
horticultural setting, from pruning to leaf cutting or even
as small reaping hooks. Extant length 126mm.
Fig. 17.6. (10). Area 2, layer 4001, SF106.
Incomplete socketed tool. The socket is open, the
‘business’ end is incomplete, but appears to be triangular
in cross-section suggesting that this is a socketed knife.
Although uncommon, similar knives are well documented.
Compare with illustrated examples from the British
Museum collections (Manning 1985, Q62-Q65) three of
which are from London. Extant length 69mm.
Fig. 17.7. (7). Area 2, layer 4001, SF103. Large
object, possible hammer head broken across eye. Romano-
British hammers are not common, but large, sledge-
hammer type hammer heads have been found.
Excavations at Ickham, Kent produced a large, 4th-
century hammer (N. Griffiths pers. comm.) and Manning
lists three (1985, 5) which he suggested were smiths’ tools.
This example is from the clearance layer (4001) at the
top of the midden deposit. It may be post-Roman, even
post-medieval, but in association with other artefacts
recovered from this layer, there is a strong possibility that
this is a Roman hammer head. Extant length 65mm,
diameter of face c. 44 x 42mm.
Object 12. Area 2, midden seg. 4031, SF412.
Socketed tool - socket only extant. The socket is an open
one, and pierced by a single nail hole. The object is broken
in such a way that it is not possible to determine what
kind of tool this was. There appears to be mineral-
preserved wood from the handle within the socket. Extant
length 80mm, diameter of socket 17mm.
Object 15. Area 2, midden seg. 4024, SF341. ?Awl,
double tapering. Of the type of small awl, fitted into
wooden handles which would have been used by leather-
workers for piercing holes. Would possibly also work as a
carpenter’s bradawl. Length 40mm.
Object 20. Area 2, midden seg 4024, SF340. Tapering
bar, incomplete at both ends. Could be a tool fragment
or a fragment of bar iron. Length 81mm. Max cross
section 7.5 x 7mm, min cross-section 6 x 3.5mm.
Object 21.Area 2, midden seg 4114, SF422. Bar,
possible bar iron. Angled/irregular ends may indicate cut
and torn when hot with a chisel. Maximum size c. 80 x
20 x 20mm.
Object 23. Area 2, layer 4001, SF105. Ferrule-
binding/timber clamp bent into approximate square. No
nail holes evident. The ends over-lap. Made from a strip
c.197 x9 x 4mm.
Object 24. Area 2, midden seg. 4039, SF200. Clamp
or timber dog. Central portion c. 89 x 9 x 3mm. Only
one complete arm clenched over at tip, length 46mm.
Object 25. Area 2, layer 4001, SF360. Narrow,
featureless strip. Length 62mm, width 5mm.
Object 26. Area 2, layer 4017, SF223. Sheet fragment
38 x 49mm (max).
Object 27. Area 2, midden seg. 4033, SF421. Two
strip fragments, probably from same object; one bent at
right angles at one end otherwise featureless. Lengths
44mm and 36mm, both 15 mm wide.
Object 28. Area 2, midden seg. 4047, SF386.
Fragment which looks like a knife fragment on the
radiograph, an identification which was neither confirmed
or refuted on cleaning. Maximum dimension from
radiograph 34 x 24mm.
Object 29. Area 2, midden seg. 4216, SF384. Sheet/
strip fragment. Max dimensions 42 x 40mm.
Object 30. Area 2, midden seg. 4220, SF423. Strip/
binding fragment, bent at 90a. Extant length 52mm, width
c. 15mm.
Object 32. Area 2, midden seg. 4017, SF228. Strap
hinge or bracket fragment with ornate terminal perforated
by a single nail hole. Similar to straps and bracket
frequently found in domestic and funerary contexts (see
Cunliffe, 1971, fig. 62, 61, Mills 1991, fig. 87, etc) . Extant
length 130mm, width of strap c.23mm.
Object 33. Area 2, layer 4001, SF112. Possibly a nail
or, because of ‘shank’ being curved to form a circle, a
swivel. Compare with Manning 1985, S4. Dimensions
40 x 25mm.
180 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Object 34. Area 2, midden seg. 4006, SF184. Ring.
A common find with a variety of uses (cf Manning 1985,
140). 38mm diameter.
Object 35. Area 2, midden seg. 4065, 426, Double
tapering rod with curled end in the manner which nail
shank tips sometimes curl over. However, if this were a
nail the shank would not taper towards the head end. It is
probable, therefore, that this is part of a more complex
object, The double tapering nature suggests awl, but awl
ends are usually clenched, not curled over, if they protrude
from the handle. Length 88mm.
Object 36. Area 2, midden seg. 4017, SF222. Square
strip fragment or possible washer/rove, with central,
circular perforation. 27 x 32mm, perforation c.9mm
diameter. May not be Romano-British.
Object 37. Area 2, midden seg. 4021, SF403. Oval
shoe cleat of common Romano-British type. Overall
length c.50mm.
Object 38. Area 2, midden seg. 4028. Strip/bar,
featureless. Appears modern rather than Romano-British.
Dimensions 58 x 37 x 10mm.
Object 39. Area 2, layer 4001, SF104. Long rod,
cross-section unknown. Approximately even thickness.
Length 206mm. Thickness c.5mm (from radiograph).
Object 40. Area 2, layer 4001, SF113. Long tapering
rod, cross-section rectangular at greatest end, but more
rounded at finer end. Incomplete at both ends. Extant
length 117mm, cross section tapers from 5 x 4mm to 2.5
x 2.5mm.
Object 42. Area 2, midden seg. 4033, SF385.
Fragment in very poor condition. Cleaning revealed no
clear form or structure. Maximum dimensions from
radiograph 41 x 35mm.
ROMAN GLASS
by H.E.M. Cool
Three fragments of Roman glass were found both
in the typical greenish bubbly glass of the 4th
century AD. Only object 1 can be attributed to a
form. It is the rim of a large funnel-mouthed jug or
cylindrical bottle (see Price and Cottam 1998, 163,
fig. 72 and 204 fig. 93). The fragment does not retain
sufficient diagnostic features to attribute it to a
precise form. The presence of a jug or bottle at
Wayside Farm is of some interest as it is another
example of the apparent preference rural sites seem
to show for closed glass vessels in the fourth century
(Cool and Baxter 1999, 89)
Fig. 14.1. (Object 1). Area 2, SF440. Rim
fragment, jug or bottle. Funnel mouth, rim edge
fire-rounded. Thick trail applied below rim edge.
Rim diameter c. 75mm.
Object 2. Area 1, layer 3249, SF441. Two body
fragments.
IRONWORKING SLAGS
by J.M. Mills
Forty-four fragments weighing c.2kg were
recovered. The assemblage comprised smithing slag,
plano-convex ‘hearth bottom’ fragments, hearth
lining, fuel ash slag and clinker. These are similar
to those commonly found on sites of Romano-
British date and are probably contemporaneous
with the other artefacts recovered from deposits on
the site. This relatively small quantity may be seen
as a background scatter, given that 50% of the slag
appears to have been imported to the site and
deposited within the midden.
THE LATE IRON AGE AND
ROMANO-BRITISH POTTERY
by Mark Corney
INTRODUCTION
The Iron Age and Romano-British pottery
assemblage from the site totalled 3080 sherds
(52,404g). Of this total 246 sherds can be ascribed
to the later Iron Age to early Roman period, the
remainder being of later Romano-British date. All
of the sherds have been examined for this report
and grouped according to fabric and form.
At an early stage of the examination it became
clear that the assemblage falls into two distinct
chronological groups. An early phase, probably
falling between the 3rd century BC to the mid-late
lst century AD and a very late Roman group
probably deposited during the first quarter of the
5th century. Both chronological groups are also
indicated in the dating of the non-ferrous metalwork
and coin assemblages. The large quantity of late
Roman fine wares are dominated by products of
the Oxfordshire Industry (Young 1977),
supplemented by a smaller amount of New Forest
Ware (Fulford 1975a) and provide a firm
chronological series. As a consequence, the fine
wares are dealt with in some detail to provide a
dateable sequence and to allow the coarse wares to
be developed into a regional late Roman type series.
Although many of the contexts are actually
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 181
components of a single deposit, interpreted as a
‘midden’, particular attention has been paid to the
fine wares to test whether the assemblage had the
potential to indicate a chronology for the depositional
sequence. Full details of all ceramic categories are
presented in the tables within the archive report;
detailed quantifications of material in the early pit
groups (Table 3), early linears (Table 4) and the later
midden (Table 6) are included with this publication.
METHODOLOGY
Examination of the ceramics concentrated on
identifying the following characteristics: fabric,
form, colour, surface treatment, decoration, sherd
size and degree of abrasion, general condition and
residues. Quantification is based on sherd count,
weight and eves. The pottery was initially sorted
according to fabric groups with a x10 hand lens
supplemented by the use of a binocular microscope
using a magnification of x20. Where applicable the
fabrics have been coded according to the National
Roman Fabric Reference Collection (Tomber and
Dore 1998).
Where possible vessel forms have been identified
and cross-referenced to other published regional
and national type series.
THE LATER PREHISTORIC
AND EARLY ROMANO-BRITISH
MATERIAL
2460g (246 Sherds) of later Iron Age and early
Romano-British ceramics were recovered. All are
in generally poor condition, being fragmented and
featuring few diagnostic sherds providing evidence
of form. No complete profiles are present. Grog-
tempered Savernake Ware is present in very small
quantities and is associated with otherwise clear
later Iron Age material. Due to the highly
fragmentary nature of the assemblage quantification
is restricted to weight and number of sherds by
fabric group (Tables 3 and 4).
The Fabrics
A) Later Prehistoric and Early Roman (c.
300BC-AD200).
Later prehistoric coarse wares. All of the later
prehistoric fabrics at Wayside Farm can all be
equated with the fabric series constructed by
Timby for the adjacent site at Brickley Lane
(Timby 2001a). For ease of cross-reference the
Brickley Lane fabric numbers are retained here:
CP2 being later prehistoric and CP3 being later
prehistoric to early Roman. For Romano-British
fabrics the National Roman Fabric Reference
Collection codes (Tomber and Dore 1998) are
used and the reader is referred to this work for
full descriptions.
Later Prehistoric. CP2
S1 A fine and dense sandy ware, black or dark brown.
S2 Orange glauconitic sandy ware.
L2 Red-brown or grey with moderate spherical voids and
red iron. Scatter of ill-sorted rounded, polished quartz.
G1 Light grey/brown finely micaceous with sparse grog.
Late Iron Age-Early Roman. CP3
SAV GT Savernake Ware (Tomber and Dore 1998, 191).
Early Roman Fine Wares: Samian
LEZ SA 2 Central Gaulish Samian (Lezoux) Tomber
and Dore 1998, 32-3.
The Forms
The later prehistoric forms, where discernible,
comprise saucepan and related forms (Figure 18,
1), ovoid jars (Figure 18, 2) and globular bowls
(Figure 18, 3). A number of the sherds display
burnishing on the external surfaces (mainly
confined to vessels in fabric $1). No other form of
decoration was noted on any the material and no
residues were observed.
Context
The ceramic material from CP2-3 is derived from
pits and ditches with no discernible difference in
the material from either type of feature or deposit.
Pits
Fourteen pits produced ceramics of CP 2 (below,
Table 3).
Ditches and linear features
Five ditches/linear features produced ceramics
indicating a later prehistoric — early Romano-British
date. Details of these are presented in Table 4.
Date and Discussion
The date range of the later prehistoric ceramics falls
between the period of the 3rd century BC to the
middle of the Ist century AD. This has been
grouped here into Ceramic Phases 2-3. Material
182 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Table 3: Later Prehistoric —Early Romano-British pit groups.
CONTEXT FABRIC
F. No Layer Si S2 Gl re BB1 SAV GT
No. We. No. Wr No We No Wr No Wt No Wt
3002 3003 il 8 1 10
3012 1 Ze 20
3006 3007 12 310 5 45 2 25)
3008 3009 1 3) 5 9
3016 3017 12 186
3018 2 34
3020 3021 15 170 1 6 4 24
3022 3023 13 54
3024 3025 3 4 1 2
3026 2 4
3027 3028 2D 194
3037 3038 1 3 3) 3}
3039 20 105 21 110 1 15
3058 3059 2 64
3066 3067 34 356
3091 3092 13 64
3125 SZ 6 164
3141 3142 1 10
TOTAL 109 1069 8 62 4 34 85 806 D, 25 2 2
Table 4: Later Prehistoric and Early Romano-British — Linear features.
CONTEXT FABRIC
Sl $2 Gl [2 BBI SAV GT LEZ SA 2
F. No L.No No Wt No Wt No Wt No Wt No Wt No Wt No Wt
3044 3090 1 z
3050 3051 6 67 3 46 2 11
3052 3053 5 6l 2 28 1 9
3071 3072 3 56 1 48
3073 i 6 1 12 1% 4
3099 3019 g} By?) 2 34 1 10
3107 3108 2 4 1 2
TOTAL 16 184 9 126 4 48 3 20 2 22 1 48 1 4
*This is a chip and may be intrusive in this context
ascribed to CP2 will include the saucepans, ovoid
jars and globular bowls can all be paralleled at the
adjacent site at Brickley Lane (Timby 2001a) and
are well known across Wessex (cf Cunliffe 1991,
81; 151-2). The recognition of the fabric categorised
as DOR BBI probably represents ceramics from
the Poole Harbour region (generally known as
‘Durotrigian’, Cunliffe 1991, 165-6) reaching the
area in the last half of the 1st century BC and into
the Ist century AD. This dating is supported by the
other, non ceramic finds, notably the silver Iron
Age coin SF233, from context 4205 and the
Nauheim Derivative brooch SF102, from context
3056 (associated with one sherd of Savernake Ware).
A recent reappraisal of Savernake Ware (Hopkins
1998) makes a pre-Roman origin for this industry,
probably commencing c. 1OBC-AD20, a certainty.
This material, along with the Savernake products,
mark CP2, a phase that in all likelihood spans the
late 1st century BC into the post-Roman conquest
period. Although the incidence is low, the presence
of Savernake Ware also supports Timby’s
observations for a pre-conquest origin of this
industry (Timby 2001b). There is no reason from
the ceramic viewpoint to see any hiatus between
CP2 and CP3. The overall proportions of the CP2
and 3 fabrics are in general accordance with those
observed by Timby at Brickley Lane (ibid.). The
overall CP2 and 3 fabric totals for Wayside Farm
are presented on Table 5. Apart from the chip of
Central Gaulish samian from 3073 there is nothing
in the ceramic assemblage that need be later than
the later 1st century AD.
There are very few ceramic indicators for
intensive Roman activity during the later 1st or 2nd
centuries AD. A small quantity of samian (19
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 183
Table 5: Overall quantification of CP2 and CP3.
S1 S2 Gl L2
No. Wt. No. Wr No. Wr. No.
125 1253 it7/ 188 8 82 88
DOR BB SAV GT LEZ SA 2
Wt. No. Wt. No. Wt. No. Wt.
826 4 47 3 60 1 4
Fig. 18 : Later Iron Age pottery.
sherds), mostly Central Gaulish of 2nd century date
from general layers implies activity in the vicinity
but it is quite conceivable that much of this could
have been deposited in the 3rd century.
Catalogue of illustrated later Iron Age
sherds.
Fig.18.1. Context 3019. Fabric S1. Saucepan pot.
Fig.18.2. Context 3039 (fill of pit F3037). Fabric
L2. Ovoid jar.
Fig. 18.3. Context 3031 (fill of pit F3020). Fabric
S1. Saucepan pot.
Fig. 18.4. Context 3072 (fill of linear F3071). Fabric
SAV GT. Globular bowl/jar with bead rim.
THE LATER ROMANO-BRITISH
ASSEMBLAGE (CP 4)
The late Roman ceramics are derived from two
principle types of context: 1) the midden, an
extensive deposit that was sampled on a grid basis,
and 2) ditches, pits and graves. This report
concentrates on the material from these two types
of deposit as they reveal potentially significant
patterns on the nature of discard and status of the
excavated area. Material from general layers is also
present and details of the latter will be found in the
excavation archive, although reference is made here
to significant sherds of intrinsic value and interest.
The Fabrics
Late Roman Coarse Wares
ALH RE Alice Holt/Farnham reduced ware (Tomber
and Dore 1998,138; Lyne and Jeffries 1979).
DOR BBI South-east Dorset Black Burnished Ware
(Tomber and Dore 1998,127).
G S1 Sandy paste, well sorted with occasional rounded
to sub-angular fine quartz.
G S2 Sandy paste with occasional mica flecks.
(GS1 and 2 are grouped together in the publication for
quantification purposes, for detailed analysis the reader
is referred to the archive report).
HAR SH Alias South Midlands Shell-tempered Ware
(Tomber and Dore 1998,115).
OVH WH Overwey White Ware (Tomber and Dore
1998,146).
OXF WH. Used exclusively for mortaria (Tomber and
Dore 1998, 174-5).
OXID S1 As GS 1, but oxidised. Possibly from same
(unlocated) source.
OXID S 2 As OXID S2, but less well sorted and a more
‘granular’ surface.
Late Roman Fine Wares
NFO CC New Forest (Metallic) Colour-coated Ware
(Tomber and Dore 1998, 141).
NFO RS 2 New Forest (fine) red-slipped Ware 2
(Tomber and Dore 1998, 144).
OXF RS Oxford Red-slipped Ware (Tomber and Dore
1998,176).
OXF PA Oxford Parchment Ware (Tomber and Dore
1998,174-5).
184 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
CONDITION
The later Roman ceramics (CP4) are in a generally
good condition with many sherds exhibiting fresh
breaks and little sign of abrasion prior to deposition.
Numerous cases of conjoining sherds were
encountered although no significant spatial
patterning was observed. The only exception being
F4225, a pit sealed by and including midden
material. This pit produced a significant and
regionally important group of very late Roman
ceramics (see below) with conjoining sherd present
both within the pit and from adjacent midden
sample areas. This pit is also partially sealed by
midden deposits, and contained a coin of Arcadius,
(SF 276; AD392-402 (see coin report) and is
therefore of prime importance in dating the overall
late Roman assemblage and the site.
The Oxford colour coat wares are generally in a
good condition although some have lost much of
their colour coat. As a consequence it is likely that a
number of vessels may have had white-painted
decoration that has not survived. This will have some
chronological implications as the use of this medium
is largely encountered after c.AD325-350 (Young
1977, 133) and on certain forms present at Wayside
Farm, only after c.AD350. This is discussed further
below in conjunction with the association with
significant quantities of rosette stamped vessels.
All of the coarse grey ware sherds in fabrics GS1
and GS2 are also in a fresh condition and would
suggest a relatively short period of deposition. An
observation confirmed by other artefact groups.
THE LATER ROMAN FINE AND
NON-LOCAL WARES
The Fine Wares
This is undoubtedly the most important component
of the Wayside Farm assemblage and it has
implications for the understanding of early 5th
century Romano-British ceramics in Wiltshire. The
homogeneous nature of the midden deposit and
the internal consistency of the non-ceramic
artefactual data in pointing to an early 5th century
deposition date make this a group of great regional
significance. The non-local products include a
substantial proportion of Oxfordshire colour coated
fine wares that, when viewed with the coarse wares
Gncluding Alice Holt and South Midlands shell-
tempered wares), provide a further insight to a
ceramic supply pattern that is drawing upon
relatively distant production centres to the east and
north-east. The surprisingly low proportion of New
Forest products in comparison to other late sites in
Wiltshire underscores this geographical bias in the
late Roman supply pattern to the region. It may
also have a chronological implication.
The fine wares are dominated by products of
the Oxford industry (Young 1977; 2000) and of the
identifiable forms, those that post-date c.AD340/350
form a substantial component of the assemblage.
Of especial interest are the hemispherical vessels
decorated with rosette and demi-rosette stamps.
These vessels, Young (1977) forms C78-9, C83 and
C85 only become common after c.AD350 (ibid, 166-
170) and the necked bowl of the C75 series is later
than c.AD325. The condition of the colour-coat
surface on the Oxford products from Wayside Farm
is not good and it is highly probable that further
chronological details, such as applied white paint
decoration, will have been lost. On those forms where
it was identified, notably C50 and C52, the traces of
decoration were faint and fragmentary. This is
unfortunate, as, in common with the stamped vessels,
this is a trait that only becomes common after the
middle of the 4th century.
The New Forest products, although not as
common as those from the Oxford region, also
display typologically late characteristics where the
form can be attributed. The majority of the
identifiable New Forest forms are of Fulford type
27, the basic indented beaker form dated c.270-400
(Fulford 1975; 2000), but are too fragmentary to
allow identification of more diagnostic sub-types.
However of the other confirmed forms, types 11/12,
c.300/350+; 30, c.300/25-400+4; 41, c.300-400+ and
50-52, c.320/50+ are present. In terms of the vessel
forms, the New Forest examples are all closed forms,
being either beakers or flagons/flasks. Fulford (1975)
has made a strong case for the decline of the New
Forest industry in the late 4th century. The low
proportion of New Forest products at Wayside Farm
can be interpreted as further evidence in support of
an early 5th century date for the midden group.
The non-local coarse wares
These comprise 24.5% of the assemblage by weight
and 17.37% by sherd number.
Oxfordshire White-ware mortaria (OX WH)
The Oxford White-ware mortaria forms, where
identifiable, are all of Young type M22, including
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 185
variant M22.16 (Young 1977, 76) a form that
dominates the 4th century mortaria production
(ibid. 68).
Black-burnished Ware (DOR BBI)
The Black Burnished wares represent 16.58% by
weight of the pottery total from the midden deposit.
This compares with 21% from all of the other
contexts. The forms represented are all quite
comfortable in a late Roman context and include
(using the Greyhound Yard, Dorchester type series):
type 3, developed everted rim jars (68%), type 9,
handled jars with beaded rims (2%), type 20,
straight-sided and plain-rim dishes (8%), type 22,
flat-rimmed bowls/dishes (2%), type 25, dropped-
flange bowls/dishes (18%) and type 28, indented
beakers (2%). Of these forms, the type 3 everted
rim jars, type 20 and type 25 bowls/dishes dominate.
In Dorchester, several of the above forms, types 3,
9, 25 and 28 are current into the early 5th century
(Woodward et al. 1993 229-83; Andrews,
forthcoming).
South Midland Shell-tempered Wares (HAR SH)
Although only two vessels of this ware are present
(13 sherds, 475g), its presence is deemed to be a
further significant chronological indicator. There
appears to be a general trend in which this
distinctive fabric type (along with the Overwey/
Tilford products — see below) occurs further from
the point of manufacture towards the very end of
the Romano-British period. This point is discussed
further in the general discussion on supply and
marketing patterns.
Overwey/Tilford Wares. (OVH WH)
Like the shell-tempered wares, these products are
present in small quantities (7 sherds weighing 360g
and representing four vessels). The forms
represented are also late chronological indicators
and include the classic late Roman hooked-rim jars
of Lyne and Jeffries (1979) type 3C.11, production
of which is estimated to have continued into the
early 5th century (ibid. fig. 29). The fabric is
equivalent to Portchester “D’ ware a fabric that first
appears at Portchester after c. AD325 and only
increases in frequency after c. AD345 (Fultord
1975b).
Alice Holt Reduced Ware (AH RE)
In common with the above two fabrics, (HAR SH
and OVH WH) confirmed products of the Alice
Table 6: Midden deposits (including pit F4225).
Fabric Weight Weight No.of % by ‘Types/ Forms eve eve % Comments/ references.
(gm) % sherds _ no. of sherds
Samian 282 1.12 19 1.14 Drag. 30; 18/31; N/A N/A Residual
(CG & EG) 31; 37; 38; Lud. Tg.
OXF RS, PH 7348 29.30 441 22.86 C8, 20, 22-3,45, 50-52, 75, 59.6 40.7 For forms, Young 1977.
78-9, 81, 83-85, 97, 100. P24-5.
NFO CC, RS 868 3.46 53 2.74 11/12, 27, 30, 41. 15.3 10.5 For forms, Fulford 1975.
Total fine wares 8498 33.88 513 26.74 74.9 51.2
OXF WH 589 2.34 20 1.03 M22, 22.16 3.8 2.65 For forms, Young 1977.
DOR BB1 4158 16.58 276 TAO" 9 2535:9..205225.255, 20. Peg 14.85 For forms, Woodward
(Greyhound Yard series). et al 1993.
GS 1&2 5732 23.00 690 35,7925 3520525 28.9 19.75
OXID S1 2970 11.87 323 16.74 3,20, 25 5.8 4.05
OXID S2 656 2.61 56 2.90 By Pe) 2.4 1.64
HAR SH 475 1.89 13 0.67 3 1.8 1.23 For basic forms,
Tyers 1996, 193.
SAV GT 1040 4.14 9 0.46 Large storage jar 0.6 0.19 ? Residual
AH RE 381 1.51 20 1.03 3B, 5B. 2.4 1.64 For basic forms,
Lyne & Jeffries, 1979.
OVW WH 360 1.43 fl, 0.35 3C. 3.8 2.61 For basic forms,
(alias ‘Portchester D’). Lyne & Jeffries, 1979.
AMPH 190 0.75 2 0.10 Class 27 0.3 0.19 Peacock & Williams
1986, 142-3.
Total coarse 16551 66.12 1416 73.26 71.5 48.8
wares
GRAND 25049 100 1929 100 146.4 100
TOTAL
186 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Holt/Farnham industry are rare but of significance
in dating and marketing patterns at Wayside Farm.
20 sherds, weighing 429g and representing three
vessels have been recognised, including material
from contexts other than the midden. The two
identifiable forms, 3B and 5B are part of the late
Roman repertoire at this production centre (Lyne
and Jeffries 1979) and have the characteristic white
slip over the upper part of the vessel in the case of
the everted rim jar, type 3B and a dark grey slip on
the bowl, type 5B. These types, when taken in
conjunction with the shell-tempered wares and the
Overwey/Tilford products, form a distinctive late
Roman cluster where these products occur some
considerable distance from their source (see
discussion below).
LOCAL WARES
These comprise 36.10% of the assemblage by
weight and 62.2% by sherd number.
The Grey Wares
Two grey sandy fabrics, GS 1 and GS 2 dominate
the local wares. Of these, GS 1, the finer of the two
fabrics, is by far the most prevalent, comprising of
just over 80% of the grey wares and everted-rim
jars and drop-flange bowls dominate the forms
(52% and 34% respectively). For ease of
convenience, the form numbers used here for these
products are the same as the BBI series from
Greyhound Yard, Dorchester. An additional form,
a simple pedestal-base beaker, is known in this
fabric and occurs in ‘midden’ deposits and in
association with the late Roman inhumations
(below, Fig. C, nos. x-x). The source of the grey
wares is uncertain, but may be in the Swindon area.
The Oxidised Wares
‘Two oxidised sandy fabrics, OXID S1 and S2 have
been noted. Neither occurs in particularly large
quantities and fabric S2 is only present in midden
context 4017 where two vessels, a drop-flange bowl
and a cavetto or hooked-rim jar with body rilling
are present. As with the grey-wares, the source is
unknown but presumed to be local.
FORMS
‘The identifiable forms from the midden and other
late Roman contexts are, in the case of the coarse
wares, dominated by jars and bowls. The fine ware
assemblage shows greater preference for bowls with
only a small number of closed forms such as beakers
or flagons.
Fine Wares
The fine ware assemblage is dominated by products
of the Oxford industry. This centre supplied over
85% of the late Roman fine wares at Wayside Farm,
the remainder being supplied by the New Forest
industry. The forms represented are presented
below in Table 7.
It is clear that bowls dominate the assemblage
with closed forms such as flagons and beakers
making a notably small proportion of the overall
totals. Of the bowls, the forms are relatively evenly
divided between the hemispherical bowls such as
Young types C51, C75, C78-9, C83 and C85 and
the shallow bowls of the C45 series. Of the latter
class, many of the rims are noticeably thickened, a
feature that Young has classified as a separate class,
C46 (Young 1977, 158) and dates to after c.AD340
(bid.). Of the bowls present the majority (91%)
are in the standard Oxford red-slipped fabric (OXF
RH) with remaining 9% being ‘Parchment Ware’
(OXF PH) with red-paint decoration. A very
noticeable feature of the fine wares is the preference
for New Forest products for the supply of flagons
and beakers. All of these are in the purple gloss or
darker colour coat variants. No New Forest red-
slipped products are present.
Decoration
The decorative motifs found on the fine wares have
already been mentioned above. They are of standard
types discussed by Fulford (1975) and Young (1977)
and range from white or red paint to impressed stamps
of rosette or demi-rosette type. No unusual variants
of these decorative styles were noted. Attention
however should again be drawn to the large number
of OXF RS bowls with impressed rosette and demi-
rosette stamps, as this is a clear chronological
benchmark for late 4th to early 5th century groups.
Mortaria
Mortaria form a very small percentage (4.3% eve)
of the late Roman assemblage and all of these are
from the Oxford region. The colour-coated types
C97 and C100 (6.2 eve) dominate this small
category, with a smaller number (2.4 eve) of the
white ware (OXF WH) products. Of the latter all,
where the form can be identified, belong to Young
type M22, the most common and widespread 4th
to early 5th century mortarium product.
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 187
Table 7: Fine ware forms expressed as EVE’s
Flagons Beakers Bowls Platters
EVE 3 12.2 TED: 2.8
EVE % 32 13.6 79.8 3a
Table 8: Coarse ware forms expressed as EVE’s
Jars Bowls/dishes Beakers Miscellaneous
EVE 82.8 18.8 3.4 6.2
EVE % 74.4 16.9 3711 5.6
Coarse Wares
The coarse wares are dominated by jars, mainly
everted-rim types with a smaller number of hooked-
rim types, followed by bowls/dishes of a restricted
range of types. The forms for the coarse wares have
been related to the Greyhound Yard type series
(Woodward et al. 1993). Although devised for the
DOR BBI fabrics, this type series encompasses all
of the forms identified at Wayside Farm as is used
here for convenience and to avoid an unnecessary
duplication of a typology seriation.
Jars
Everted-rim jars (Greyhound Yard type 3) dominate
this category (61.2% by EVE). These occur in
fabrics DOR BBI, GS 1, GS 2 and OXID S1.There
is a general tendency for the rims to be typologically
late in profile, with the rim diameter being equal to
or larger than the maximum diameter of the vessel
body and have a generally flattened appearance.
Hooked-rim jars represent 21.6% by EVE of
the total coarse ware assemblage. Occurring in
fabrics AH RE, OVW WH and HAR SH, these are
all recognisable very late Roman forms with fine
horizontal rilling over the body of the vessel. None
of the vessels of this type in fabrics GS 1 and GS 2
have the body rilling, although the feature is present
on the single vessel of this form in fabric OXID S2.
Bowls/dishes
This category is represented by two principle forms;
deep bowls with drop-flange rims (Greyhound Yard
type 25) and shallow plain-rim dishes of type 20.
Vessels of type 25 form 11.9% by EVE and type 20
5.0% by EVE. Type 25 is present in fabrics DOR
BBI, GS 1, GS 2, OXID S1, OXID S2 and AH
RE, with many examples having markedly well-
developed and low flange — a feature noted as a late
characteristic at Greyhound Yard (Woodward et al.
1993) — although the great variation seen in this
very common late Roman form means that caution
should be exercised in making too much of this
particular trait. The occurrence of type 20 is more
restricted, appearing in fabric groups DOR BB1,
GS 1, GS 2 with one example in OXID S1.
Pedestal-base Beakers
This is a rare form, comprising only 3.1% by EVE
of the coarse ware assemblage. It occurs only in
fabric GS 1 and two complete examples were
recovered from late Roman inhumation burials
F3129 (Inhumation 1) and F3131 (Inhumation 2).
The type is crudely made and has a large pedestal-
base, a wide, straight-sided body, and a rim of
diameter similar to the base (Figure 22, 34-35). The
form appears to be loosely based on beaker forms
produced at late Roman fine-ware production
centres such the New Forest form 27sp and Oxford
forms C20, although lacking the indentations so
characteristic of the fine ware prototypes.
Miscellaneous forms
In this category (5.6% by EVE) are flagons in GS
1, probably copying a well-known form produced
at anumber of late Roman production centres such
as Alice Holt and the New Forest (Lyne and Jeffries,
1979, type 8.10-11; Fulford 1975, type 20); two
handled tankards of Greyhound Yard type 9 in DOR
BBI; an indented beaker of type 28 in DOR BB1
and one colander in GS1.
Discussion of the Fine and Coarse Ware Forms
The late Roman assemblage from Wayside Farm is
not easy to interpret on the basis of the forms
represented. The very high percentage of fine wares
and general rarity of vessels such as mortaria, large
storage vessels and colanders etc. would appear to
suggest an atypical assemblage where forms
normally associated with ordinary domestic
activities are largely absent. This pattern and
observation must be of significance in the overall
interpretation of the excavated areas and is
examined in more detail in the concluding
discussion.
188 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Table 9: Comparative figures for midden and non-midden groups expressed as a percentage of total EVE’s
OXF NF CC OXFWH DORBBI GS1&2 OXID AH RE OVWWH HARSH
RS,PH S1 & 82
Midden 40.7 10.5 2.6 14.8 19.7 5.6 1.6 2.6 12
Non-midden 27.5 2.5 1.8 20.8 41.3 5.6 0.4 - -
Decoration apparent that nearly 75% of the pottery deposited
Decoration on the coarse wares is largely restricted
to burnished obtuse lattice on the central body zone
of type 3 jars; rilling on the central body zone of
hooked-rim jars in fabrics OVH WH, HAR SH and
OXID S2; white or dark grey slip over the rim of
jars in fabric AH RE and random curvilinear
burnished patterning on the base of bowls/dishes
in forms 20 and 25 in DOR BBI.
MARKETING AND POTTERY
SUPPLY AT WAYSIDE FARM IN
THE LATER FOURTH AND
EARLY FIFTH CENTURIES
The late Roman pottery assemblage from Wayside
Farm can be confidently dated to the early 5th
century (see below), and as such provides a rare
insight into regional ceramic supply patterns at the
very end of the Romano-British period. The
character of the site is somewhat problematic given
that the excavation examined only part (and
probably only the periphery) of a much more
extensive complex.
The most immediate pattern is the very large
proportion of Oxford fine wares present. On the
midden site these represent over 40% of the EVE
total (Figure 23) and almost 30% by weight (Table
9). Added to this are the small number of shell-
tempered products from the South Midlands
(1.23% of the EVE total), Alice Holt/Overwey kilns
(2.61% of the EVE total, see Figure 23) and Oxford
white-ware mortaria (2.6% by EVE). Taken
together, production centres over 50km to the
north-east and east of Wayside Farm were supplying
almost 49% by EVE of the ceramics to the site.
Local supplies, exclusively coarse wares with grey
sandy products dominating, account for 25.5% by
EVE of the supplies. The remaining ceramic
categories (25.3% by EVE) can be sourced to
production centres over 50km to the south of
Wayside Farm in the New Forest and the Poole
Harbour region (Figure 23). It is immediately
in the midden at Wayside Farm had travelled a
considerable distance to the site.
The patterns for non-midden deposits are
slightly different, with a higher percentage by EVE
of local coarse wares (46.9%) although the strong
links to the north-east (Oxford region) and south
(New Forest and Poole Harbour area) are still
marked. The higher percentage in local supplies in
non-midden deposits may be chronological, or,
functional (see below). The variation between
midden and non-midden supplies is presented
above in Table 9.
Detailed understanding of these patterns is
hampered by the lack of comparable, well-excavated
and quantified assemblages from nearby rural sites
and the local ‘small towns’ that must have acted as
marketing centres. The nearest known ‘small towns’
are at Cunetio-Mildenhall (Corney 1997, 2001),
some 20km to the east, and Verlucio-Sandy Lane,
some 9km to the north-west. No Roman road link
to either site is known in the Devizes area although
such may reasonably be expected.
The pattern as discussed shows a very high
proportion of pottery supply over 50km from the
site. This pattern is beginning to recognised over a
wide area of lowland Roman Britain, and is seen as
indicative of a few production centres continuing
to supply pottery after the collapse of local industries
in the late 4th and early 5th century. The matter is
discussed further below.
DISCUSSION, DATE AND
CONCLUSIONS
The late Roman pottery assemblage from Wayside
Farm is an important group for the region. The high
proportion of fine wares from the Oxford region that
can be relatively closely dated demonstrate that
accumulation and deposition must have occurred
after c.AD350/360. Indeed the number of distinctive
late decorated hemispherical bowls with rosette and
demi-rosette decoration may indicate a post AD370
date and the presence of such forms in association
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 189
with scattered coin hoard of post AD370 date from
Cunetio adds weight to this (Moorhead 1997). The
presence of products from the Alice Holt/Overwey
kiln complex and the South Midlands, probably
Harrold in Bedfordshire, may indicate an even later
date, quite possibly into the first quarter of the 5th
century. Certainly there is growing evidence for the
longevity of the late Roman repertoire from the Alice
Holt and South Midlands production centres with
products reaching increasingly distant centres (cf
Going 1988, 70-71, in discussing changing trends
in coarse ware production and supply in early 5th-
century Great Dunmow, Essex). Further and
ongoing work in Essex and other parts of the country
(Lyne pers. comm.) is beginning to show certain
trends where the occurrence of Oxford colour coat
products in association with Alice Holt/Overwey and
shell-tempered wares may be a significant indicator
of 5th century activity. It is argued that the coarse
wares in such assemblages begin to occur further
from their source as the established local suppliers
begin to decline (SGRP, Newsletter 29). The highly
regional nature of late Roman Britain makes direct
comparisons with eastern sites tentative, however the
general similarity of the pattern described with
Wayside Farm is significant and, in the absence of
comparable assemblages nearby, is noted here as of
considerable potential importance. The numismatic
and other special finds evidence from Wayside Farm
supports an early 5th-century date for the midden
deposits. Sixteen coins were recovered from the
midden and associated pit, F4255. All are 4th-
century in date and include six Valentinianic issues
of AD 364-78 and a moderately worn issue of
Arcadius, minted AD392-402. It is argued that the
overall composition of the late Roman assemblage
is quantifiably internally consistent and that activity
and deposition is restricted to a date range of
c.AD370-420+.The ceramic group from the midden
pit F4255 (Figures 19-21) is of especial note,
containing the latest dateable coarse wares from the
South Midlands, Oxfordshire and the Alice Holt/
Farnham region.
The non-midden deposits, as noted above, show
slightly differing clusterings and proportions of
fabric types. Overall these differences do not appear
to be statistically significant and the main focus of
late Roman activity in these deposits is still unlikely
to have commenced before the middle of the 4th
century. The higher proportions of fine wares in
the midden deposit are more likely to indicate
specific functional and status differences in the
discard patterns on the site.
Other recently excavated and published late
Romano-British assemblages from Wiltshire show
strikingly different patterns. At the extensive rural
settlement on Butterfield Down, between Amesbury
and Boscombe Down Airfield (Rawlings and
Fitzpatrick 1996), late fine wares only accounted
for 5.2% (by weight) of the total ceramic
assemblage, these being almost evenly divided
between Oxford and New Forest products.
At Figheldean, a probable villa and associated
settlement (Graham and Newman 1993), the
proportions are similar to those on Butterfield
Down. Late fine wares represent only 5.2% (by
weight) of the ceramic assemblage with Oxford
products slightly better represented than those from
the New Forest.
Whilst the late date of the Wayside Farm
assemblage appears secure, the character of the site
is more problematic. The absence of significant
quantities of mortaria could, on its own, be seen as
a chronological trait and support a very late date.
However, the further absence of large storage jars
and other ‘everyday’ domestic type vessels such as
colanders, coupled with the high percentage of fine
wares may also indicate a more specialised activity
on or near the site. The unusual nature of many of
the deposits recovered from pit F4255 (cf Bircher;
Mills this volume) may be of a ritual character and
it is conceivable that the excavated area is adjacent
to a more specialised focus, perhaps a shrine. The
true nature of the whole site can only be ascertained
through further fieldwork. The ceramic assemblage
however is of undeniable regional importance and
the dating evidence of ceramics, coins and other
special finds clearly marks the deposit as one that
belongs to the very end of the Romano-British
period.
Catalogue of illustrated late Romano-
British pottery
Fig. 19.1. Context 4226 (fill of pit F4225). Fabric HAR
SH. Hooked rim jar with horizontal rilling over body of
vessel.
Fig. 19.2. Context 4226 (fill of pit F4225). Fabric
OVW WH. Hooked rim jar with horizontal rilling over
body of vessel and pale cream slip over external surface.
Lyne and Jeffries form 3C.
Fig. 19.3. Context 4226 (fill of pit F4225). Fabric
OVW WH. Hooked rim jar with horizontal rilling over
body of vessei and pale cream slip over external surface.
Lyne and Jeffries form 3C.
Fig. 19.4. Context 4239 (fill of pit F4225). Fabric
GS1. Lid.
Fig. 19.5. Context 4226 (fill of pit F4225). Fabric
190 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
11
Fig. 19 : Late Roman coarse pottery from the midden and related contexts.
GS1. Pedestal base.
Fig. 19.6. Context 4226 (fill of pit F4225). Fabric
GS1. Pedestal base.
Fig. 19.7. Context 4226 (fill of pit F4225). Fabric
DOR BBI. Everted rim jar (Greyhound Yard type 3) with
burnished lattice decoration.
Fig. 19.8. Context 4226 (fill of pit F4225). Fabric
GS1. Drop flange bowl.
Fig. 19.9. Context 4226 (fill of pit F4225). Fabric
DOR BBI. Handled jar (Greyhound Yard type 9).
Fig. 19.10. Context 4255 (midden quadrant) Fabric
OX WH. Mortarium, Young M22.
Fig. 19.11. Context 4226 (fill of pit F4225). Fabric
DOR BBL. Straight sided dish (Greyhound Yard type 20)
with burnished decoration of intersecting arcs.
Fig. 20.12. Context 4239 (fill of pit F4225). Fabric
OX RS. Hemispherical bowl with flange. Young C51.
Fig. 20.13. Context 4220 (midden quadrant). Fabric
OX RS. Hemispherical bowl with flange. Young C51.
Fig. 20.14. Context 4226 (fill of pit F4225). Fabric
OX RS. Hemispherical bowl with flange. Young C51.
Fig. 20.15. Context 4240 (fill of pit F4225). Fabric
OX RS. Hemispherical bowl with flange. Young C51.
Fig. 20.16. Context 4239 (fill of pit F4225). Fabric
OX RS. Hemispherical bow] with flange. Flange decorated
with white paint scrollwork and vertical strokes. Young
52.
Fig. 20.17. Context 4239 (fill of pit F4225). Fabric
OX RS. Necked bowl with full curved body decorated
with white paint scrollwork. Young C77.
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 191
Fig. 20.18. Context 4239 (fill of pit F4225). Fabric
OX RS. Necked bow! with full curved body. The necked
is ridged and rouletted. Young C75sp.
Fig. 20.19. Context 4255 (midden quadrant). Fabric
OX RS. Necked bowl with full curved body decorated
with vertical rows of impressed demi-rosette stamps.
Young C78.
Fig. 20.20. Context 4239 (fill of pit F4225). Fabric
OX RS. Wall-sided, bead-rim, carinated bowl. Rouletted
below the rim and at the carination. A crude cross type
graffito has been incised on the vessel. Young C81.
12
14
Fig. 20.21. Context 4226 (fill of pit F4225). Fabric
OX RS. Necked bow! with full curved body. The lower
part of the rim and the body are rouletted. Young C75.
Fig. 20.22. Context 4226 (fill of pit F4225). Fabric
OX RS. Wall-sided, carinated bowl with a pair of cordons
mid-way down the wall. The lower wall panel is decorated
with impressed crescents. Young C84/85.
Fig. 20.23. Context 4001 (general midden
clearance). Fabric OX RS. Wall-sided, carinated bowl with
a pair of cordons mid-way down the wall and one (or
more) handle. The upper panel is decorated with
13
LEA A a
(MO
Fig. 20: Late Roman fine wares from the midden and related contexts.
192 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
24
25
= Sh gr
26
4
Fig.21:Late Roman fine wares from the midden and related contexts.
impressed roundel. Young C85.
Fig. 21.24. Context 4139 (midden quadrant). Fabric
OX RS. Shallow bowl with out-turned rim with white
paint scrollwork decoration. Young C50.
Fig. 21.25. Context 4226 (fill of pit F4225). Fabric
OX RS. Shallow bowl copying samian form Dr31. Young
C45.
Fig. 21.26. Context 4017 (midden quadrant). Fabric
OX RS. Shallow bowl copying samian form Dr31. Young
C45.
Fig. 21.27. Context 4239 (fill of pit F4225). Fabric
OX RS. Shallow bowl copying samian form Dr31. Young
C45.
Fig. 21.28. Context 4089 (buried soil). Fabric OX
RS. Flanged neck from flagon. Young C8.
Fig. 21.29. Context 4085 (ditch fill F4072). Fabric
OX PH. Wall-sided bowl with moulded rim and carination,
both decorated with red paint. Young P24.
Fig. 21.30. Context 4239 (fill of pit F4225). Fabric
OX RS. Wall-sided mortarium. Young C97.
Fig. 21.31. Context 4226 (fill of pit F4225). Fabric
OX RS. Wall-sided mortarium. Young C97.
Fig. 21.32. Context 4226 (fill of pit F4225). Fabric
OX RS. Mortarium with upright rim and angular flange.
Young C100.
Fig. 21.33. Context 4239 (fill of pit F4225). Fabric
OX RS. Mortarium with upright rim and angular flange.
The flange is rouletted. Young C100.
Fig. 22.34. Grave fill 3128 (F3129). Fabric OX RS.
Miniature bulbous beaker, Young C102. Dated to 390-
400+.
Fig. 22.35. Grave fill 3130 (F3131). Fabric GS1.
Miniature bulbous beaker, copying Young C102. Dated
to 390-400+.
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 193
i
Fig. 22 : Late Roman miniature bulbous beakers from
graves
CERAMIC BUILDING
MATERIAL, DAUB AND FIRED
CLAY
by Stephen Robinson
The excavation produced 164 pieces weighing
6.926 kg, these totals including 88 pieces of daub
and baked clay weighing 1.090kg. All the material
has been quantified, sorted into fabrics and types,
measurements have been taken where possible and
diagnostic attributes such as decoration and
impressions have been recorded. This information
is held in archive.
Ceramic Building Material types recovered are
those characteristic of sophisticated Romanised
buildings. Types recovered include tegulae and
imbrex roof tile; pilae (brick) and box flue tile used
in underfloor heating systems. However, no
structural evidence for buildings was present in the
excavated area. Of the material, 53.2% by weight
was recovered from midden contexts.
All of the daub and clay is fragmentary with no
vestige or shape. Only the remains of a smooth
surface or a possible single wattle impression on
some fragments was present. It is considered that
the lack of insufficient characteristics on any of the
pieces means it is difficult to indicate their function
or use.
WORKED FLINT AND CHERT
by John Valentin
Thirty-four pieces weighing 2810g were examined.
Most of the material is greensand derived chert,
reasonably fresh in appearance. Within the
assemblage there are 26 pieces (31%) which
pad
Caw “)
GS182 55;
OXID S182 : :
Ge RE,
Fig.23 : Sources of pottery at Wayside Farm c370-
400+. Proportions expressed as percentage of the EVE
totals
seemingly derive from the preparation of flint/chert
for walling. The remaining pieces are from the
preparation and manufacture of tools during the
prehistoric periods. The waste material generally
consists of broad, heavy flakes, appearing crudely
struck showing little initial preparation. A large
quantity of the waste material was prepared using
a hard hammer technique.
A single chert blade was recovered from pit fill
context (4239) in Area 2, indicating an earlier,
although obviously limited, Mesolithic component
to the site. There are three diagnostic tools present,
and one piece categorised as a retouched flake.
These comprise two chert scrapers on flakes, a chert
‘horseshoe’ type scraper on flake, with neat, closely-
set steep end retouch and a chert retouched flake.
The diagnostic elements within the assemblage
are characteristic of prehistoric flint and chert
production. The scrapers are likely to derive from
the latter part of the Neolithic period or later. Waste
flakes and cores are also indicative of later
prehistoric production. Pieces show little
preparation and most are broad and heavy flakes,
suggesting a Bronze Age or later date for most
pieces.
STONE
by M. Laidlaw
INTRODUCTION
The stone retained from the site comprises non-
local stone, burnt stone and stone classified as
portable objects. A total of 194 fragments weighing
194 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
c.35kg was recovered, and with the exception of
five burnt fragments recovered from an Iron Age
pit, the remaining pieces were retrieved from
Roman deposits, particularly from the midden
layers in Area 2 (127 fragments).
QUERNS
22 fragments are derived from quern stones
including three fragments of saddle querns and
three fragments derived from rotary querns, the
remaining fragments are too small or lack diagnostic
features to attribute them with certainty to a specific
form of quern. The quern stone fragments all have
at least one worn and smoothed surface or roughly
hewn outer edge, and are in a hard, micaceous
ferruginous sandstone ranging in thickness from
16mm to 32mm. Two of the saddle quern fragments
have both faces smoothed. The fragments of rotary
quern include one lower stone (70mm thick) and
one upper fragment (80 mm thick).
Thirteen quern fragments including two saddle
fragments and one rotary quern fragment were
recovered from the midden deposits. The remaining
fragments were recovered from pit F4225, the stone
structure F4007 and ditches F4261 and F4288.
STONE ROOF TILE
124 stone fragments derived from stone roofing tiles
were recovered. With the exception of two
greensand tile fragments the remainder of fragments
are in a hard, micaceous ferruginous sandstone (Old
Red Sandstone), the nearest source being the
Mendip Hills approximately 30km south-west of
Devizes.
There are no complete examples present,
although a single large fragment has a surviving nail
fixing hole with a diameter of 8mm. This piece has
two roughly hewn sides surviving, suggesting a
typical lozenge shape. The tile fragments range in
thickness from 8mm to 30mm, with an average of
16mm.
The bulk of the tile fragments was recovered
from midden deposits (102 fragments). The
remaining fragments were dispersed in small
quantities mainly within pits and ditches of Area 2,
and slight concentrations were found in ditch F4261
and pit F4225 (5 and 7 fragments respectively).
OTHER STONE
The other stone fragments comprise one rubber
and three possible utilised objects, 42 burnt
fragments and one unworked fragment of lias
limestone. The rubber from ditch segments 3040/
3042 in Area 1 is circular in shape and in a fine
grained sandstone. The possible utilised objects
comprise a smoothed pebble from ditch F2109, one
domed greensand fragment from layer 2102 in
Trench 21, and one unidentified sandstone object
with two parallel grooves, possibly a whetstone,
from ditch segment 4072 in F4261.The burnt stone
consists of unworked fragments in greensand (19),
sandstone (18) and limestone (5) and was mainly
recovered in very small quantities from Area 1 pits
and linears, slight concentrations were also
recovered from pit F4234 and within the midden
of Area 2.
BURNT FLINT
A small quantity of burnt flint was recovered from
the site (19 fragments weighing 260 grammes) and
although intrinsically undatable burnt flint is often
associated with prehistoric artefacts and taken as
an indicator of prehistoric activity. The fragments
were dispersed in very small quantities within a
number of mainly Iron Age features in Area 1 (only
three fragments were recovered from the late
Romano-British midden).
THE HUMAN SKELETAL
ASSEMBLAGE
by Kate Brayne
INTRODUCTION
Three skeletons of Romano-British date were
recovered. In addition, three stray human bone
fragments were recovered, comprising an adult
humerus fragment from pit F4225, and a tibia and
neonatal tibia from the midden. No skeleton was
complete from the graves and all three individuals
were poorly preserved. Those bones which did
survive were in fragmentary condition, invariably
exhibiting almost total exfoliation of the periosteum
In each individual the long bones were the best
preserved, with the axial skeleton (ribs, vertebrae
and pelvis) almost entirely absent. Additionally, only
the shafts of the long bones survived, again because
the epiphyses consist largely of trabecular bone. In
Inhumations 1 and 2 the skull vaults survived,
although in fragmentary condition, but the delicate
facial bones were not preserved. In Inhumation 3
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 195
the bones of the skull completely disintegrated. In
all three inhumations the bones of the hands and
feet were not preserved, except for two metacarpal
shafts in Inhumation 2. The teeth were the best
preserved feature of all three individuals, although
most of the teeth were only present as enamel
crowns, as the roots had not been preserved. This
general poor state of preservation has implications
for the degree of osteological and palaeo-
pathological information which could be gleaned
from the assemblage.
OSTEOLOGY
Each skeleton was laid out individually with the
bones in anatomical position and each individual
was assessed for sex, age, stature, pathology and
morphological anomalies.
Owing to the poor state of preservation of these
inhumations, insufficient sexually dimorphic
features were preserved to assign a firm sex to any
individual. A proportion of the mandible of
Inhumation 1 was preserved, displaying a typically
male-shaped mental protuberance (the ‘square jaw’
so beloved by writers of romantic fiction). Although
inadequate as a means of assigning a definite sex to
this individual, as the only sexually dimorphic
feature present on any of the inhumations, this
individual has been assigned as a tentative male. It
was not possible to sex inhumations 2 and 3, and
they are therefore recorded as indeterminate.
Inhumation 1 was possibly a middle adult, aged
between 35 and 45. This individual was the
youngest of the three. Inhumation 2 was possibly a
mature adult, aged between 45-60 and Inhumation
3 was possibly also a mature adult, aged between
45-60.
Because there were no intact long bones on
these three skeletons, no estimation of stature was
possible.
As the individuals were so poorly preserved nc
morphological anomalies were observed.
PATHOLOGY
Only dental pathologies could be identified as the
state of preservation of these inhumations was so
poor. None of these three individuals presented with
caries, which suggests a diet low in sugars.
Periodontal disease is a term used to describe
inflammatory changes in the alveolar bone of the
gums, caused by accumulation of mineralised
bacterial plaque (‘calculus’) on the teeth when oral
hygiene is inadequate. Eventually, the alveolar bone
begins to recede and the teeth loosen in their sockets
and ultimately are lost. Inhumation 1 presented with
periodontal disease. The absence of caries and
periodontal disease in Inhumations 2 and 3 may
indicate a high level of dental hygiene.
Enamel hypoplasia is a defect in enamel matrix
formation caused by severe nutritional deficiency
or disease during the first few years of life, when
the permanent teeth are forming. If enamel
hypoplasia is present in the deciduous teeth this
indicates that the stress occurred when the child
was in utero, owing, for example, to maternal
rubella infection or congenital syphilis. It appears
as grooving or pitting on the crowns of the teeth.
Inhumation 1 presented with a generalised
distribution of enamel hypoplasia.
ECONOMY AND
ENVIRONMENT
THE ANIMAL BONE
by Claire Ingrem
INTRODUCTION
Sixty-one animal bone fragments were recovered
from Phase 1, Late Iron Age to early Romano-
British deposits and 3,230 fragments from Phase
2, late Romano-British contexts. Only six Phase 1
pieces are identifiable to species, all sheep/goat.
Of the Phase 2 animal bone (Table 10), the
majority (70%) came from the extensive midden
with smaller amounts from pits, ditches, buried soils
and other features. The identifiable assemblage
(Table 11) is dominated by the remains of cattle
(83%), with horse and sheep/goat present in almost
equal proportions (8% and 7%), pig and dog are
both present but they constitute only a small
proportion of the assemblage (2% in total).
Similarly, large mammal fragments are decidedly
more numerous than medium mammal fragments.
The only evidence for wild species is a piece of
worked red deer (Cervus elaphus) antler and the
first and second mandibular molars belonging to
fox (Vulpes vulpes). Bird was represented by a single
unidentifiable fragment.
The calculation of minimum number of
individuals (hereafter MNI) suggests that cattle
196
THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Table 10: Species representation according to feature type(NISP)- Later Romano-British
Midden Pit Ditch
Cattle 786 148 59
Sheep 4 4
Sheep/goat 54 11 8
Pig 13 4 2
Horse 79 11 6
Dog 2 3 1
Red deer 1
Fox 2
Large mammal 879 121 102
Medium mammal 11 14 1
Unidentifiable bird 1
Unidentifiable 426 55 129
Total 2257 Sh) 308
% 70 Ty 10
Buried soil Other Total %
49 30 1072 33
8 <1
1 4 78 2
2 2 1
1 3 10 3
6 <1
1 <1
2 <1
Sil: 23 1176 36
1 27 1
1 75%) (King 1978, 225).
The majority of cattle from Wayside Farm were
slaughtered between the ages of two and six years,
according to Maltby (1981), ‘the heaviest
concentrations of adult cattle have so far appeared
only on urban and military sites’ and are believed
to reflect the organised marketing of cattle needed
to supply such centres with meat. At Portchester
Castle, Hampshire (Grant 1975) most of the cattle
were aged over 5 years at the time of slaughter. At
Vindolanda (Hodgson 1977, 12), the majority of
cattle mandibles had the third molar in wear
(according to Legge (1982) wear commences at
around 26 months), and at Exeter (Maltby 1979;
155-156) the majority belonged to animals over 26
months. In contrast, the higher proportion of
immature animals found at rural and other
settlements is believed to reflect their self-sufficiency
and the availability of animals surplus to breeding,
traction and redistribution requirements (Maltby
1981). Ageing data from the cattle at Wayside Farm
suggest that cattle husbandry was geared toward
the production of meat, possibly to supply an urban
centre although adult cattle would no doubt have
provided milk and traction prior to their slaughter.
A distinctive pattern of refuse disposal is also
noted by King (1978:225) at certain military sites,
for example at Little Chester pits were filled with
extremely fragmented cattle longbones. It has been
suggested by Van Mensch (in King 1978) that these
result from bones being smashed and boiled to
make broth and extract grease or marrow. The
fragmentary nature of the Wayside Farm material
suggests that many of the long bones may have been
treated in a similar way.
Horse and dog generally constitute a minor
component of Romano-British assemblages. By
modern day standards the equid remains from
Wayside Farm belong to small ponies, this type of
horse was common in the Iron Age and Romano-
British period (Luff 1982). The majority of horses
202 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
recovered from Romano-British contexts are older
animals, probably kept as pack animals or for riding.
At Dorchester By-pass (Bullock n.d.) and
Winklebury (Jones 1977), tooth eruption and
epiphyseal fusion data from individual elements
revealed that most of the horses represented were
also adult. Butchery marks have been recorded on
horse bones from contemporary sites including
Farmoor (Wilson 1979) and Dorchester By-pass
(Bullock n.d.) suggesting that horses were utilised
for their meat and skins.
A small proportion of wild species is also usual
for sites of this period. King (1978: 216) notes that
where cervid bones are found, they most often
belong to red deer and explains this as being due to
their preferred size.
CONCLUSION
‘The Wayside Farm site probably lies on the
periphery of a settlement that appears to have been
engaged in the keeping of cattle specifically for the
production of beef. Other animals seem to have
played a relatively minor role in the economy. The
size of the midden and predominance of primary
butchery waste in all feature types suggests that
cattle butchery was an important function of the
site; this is supported by the pattern of butchery
and bone fragmentation suggesting intensive
processing of the carcasses. Anomalies in anatomical
representation, which cannot be explained solely
by density mediated taphonomy, also suggest that
some surplus joints of beef may have been exported
from the site and it is likely that if surplus meat was
produced then both carcasses and filleted joints may
also have been exported. Evidence of the species
exploited, their mortality profiles and butchery all
point toward a settlement strongly influenced by
Romanisation.
THE CHARRED AND
MINERALISED PLANT
REMAINS
by Wendy J. Carruthers
INTRODUCTION AND
METHODS
A total of sixteen samples was submitted for
analysis. These comprised six samples from late Iron
Age/early Roman periods (Phase 1) storage pits and
a linear feature in Area 1. Late Romano-British
(Phase 2) samples analysed for this report include
one from a grave in Area 1, two from possible corn-
drying ovens, three from the midden, two post-hole
fills and a pit fill, all in Area 2. Three of these (the
grave fill and the two post-hole fills) produced no
archaeobotanical remains.
The samples were processed by AC archaeology
staff using standard methods of flotation. A
minimum mesh of 500 microns was used to retain
the flots and a 1mm mesh was used for the residues.
The flots were fully sorted under a binocular
microscope by the author, and all of the residues
were scanned. Where mineralised plant remains
were observed in the flots, the residues were fully
sorted. In addition, all of the midden residues were
fully sorted. Microscopic sorting of the residues was
considered necessary in view of extensive
mineralisation found on the nearby Late Bronze
Age site at Potterne (Carruthers 2000). As at
Wayside Farm, Potterne was also located on Upper
Greensand and consisted of a vast deposit of
midden-type material containing high
concentrations of mineralised plant remains.
RESULTS
‘Table 16 lists the charred and mineralised plant
remains recovered from the samples. Nomenclature
and the habitat information follow Stace (1991).
DISCUSSION
The Mineralised Plant Remains
Calcium phosphate-replaced plant remains were
present in low concentrations in three of the sixteen
samples examined for this report. This type of
preservation occurs in deposits that are rich in
nutrients and have a high moisture content (Green
1979; Carruthers 2000). It is likely that the parent
soil type is also important, although this factor needs
further investigation. Despite the widespread
occurrence of mineralised plant remains in the
midden at Potterne (Carruthers ibid), the Phase 2
Romano-British midden at Wayside Farm did not
produce many mineralised seeds. Bone, however,
was frequent and well preserved in two of the
samples (11 and 12). It is also notable that a
fragment of probable cereal grain was one of the
taxa recovered from the midden, as well as a small-
seeded arable weed, corn spurrey (Spergula
arvensis). These remains probably originated in
faecal waste or some other type of domestic waste.
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES
Table 16 : The Plant Remains
Key: [ ] = mineralised remains; no brackets = charred; f = fragment; + = <1
Phases: Phase 1 = Middle Iron Age to Early Roman; Phase 2.-= Later Romano-British;
Feature types: L = linear feature; M = midden; O = oven; P = pit
203
Habitat key: A = arable; C = cultivated; D = disturbed/waste; E = heath; G = grassland; H = hedgerow; M = marsh; P = ponds/
ditches; S = scrub; W = woods; a = acidic; c = calcareous; d = damp; n = nutrient-rich; o = open
Phase and Feature type
Context
Feature
Sample no.
TAXA
Cereals
Triticum dicoccum/spelta
(emmer/spelt grain)
Triticum cf. aestivocompactum
(bread-type wheat grain)
Triticum sp.
(indeterminate wheat grain)
Hordeum vulgare
(hulled barley grain)
cf. Hordeum sp. (cf. barley grain)
cf. Avena sp. (cf. oat grain)
Indeterminate grains
Chaff
Triticum dicoccum (emmer glume base)
T. cf. dicoccum (cf. emmer glume bases)
T: spelta ( spelt glume base)
T. dicoccum/spelta (emmer/spelt
glume bases)
T: dicoccunyspelta (emmer/spelt
spikelet forks)
T. dicoccum/spelta (emmer/spelt
rachis frag.)
Hordeum sp. (barley rachis)
Cereal-type culm nodes
Cereal-type culm base
Weeds
Arrhenatherum elatius var. bulbosum
(onion couch) AG
Brassica/Sinapis sp. (mustard,
charlock etc.) CD
Bromus sect. Bromus (chess) CG
Chenopodium album L. (fat hen) CDn
Chenopodiaceae CD
Cirsium/Carduus sp. (thistle) DG
Corylus avellana (hazelnut shell
_ frag.) HSW
Daucus carota L. (carrot) GDc
Eleocharis subg. Palustres (spike-rush)
PMd
Fallopia convolvulus (L.)A.Love
(black bindweed) AD
Galeopsis tetrahit L. (common
hemp-nettle) ADd
Galium aparine L. (cleavers) DH
Galium cruciata (L.)Scop. (crosswort)
DGHce
Galium sp. (cleavers frag.) DH
ie)
ine)
noe bv
LP
3021
3020
31
[8]
11
uP
3018
3016
18
86
137
bo
ee
3023
3022
i)
44
LP
3005
3004
20
i)
wo
19
94
IE, 20 20
3007 4247 4221
3006 4214 4007
ie)
2M 2P
4016, 4235
4038,
4066
mid- 4234
den
11, 24
2513
bo
214]
204
1P
3039
1 &
3068
LP
3021
Phase and Feature type
Context
Feature 3037 3083 3020
Sample no. 1 2}
TAXA
Medicago sp. (medick) DGH 5 1
Monta fontana ssp. minor (blinks) Gd
Persicaria maculosa Gray (redshank)
CDo
Plantago lanceolata L. (ribwort
plantain) Go
Poaceae (indeterminate grass
caryopsis) CDG
Polygonum aviculare L. (knotgrass)
CDo
Ranunculus acris/bulbosus/repens
(buttercup) CDG
Rumex acetosella L. (sheep’s sorrel)
CEGa
Rumex sp. (dock) CDG 3
Sambucus nigra L. (elder) DHSWn
Sherardia arvensis L. (field madder) AD
Spergula arvensis (corn spurrey) Aa
Trifolium/Lotus sp. (clover/trefoil) DG = 2
Tripleurospermuminodorum (L.)
Schultz-Bip. (Scentless mayweed) CD
Vicia cf. cracca L. (cf. tufted vetch) GH 1
Vicia/Lathyrus sp. (small-seeded vetch/tare) CDG 6
tw
TOTAL 124 9
Sample volume (litres) 1 1
Frags per litre 124 9
Ratio of Grain : Chaff : Weeds 1:4:2
82 [9]
10
8 [1]
52321
THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
1P 1;P PP. 1P 20 20 2M 2P
3018 3023 3005 3007 4247 4221 4016,4235
4038,
4066
3016 3022 3004 3006 4214 4007 mid- 4234
den
18 19 20 21 8 10 Ll 24
12,13
1 2) 1 1
1 1
1 2
1
9 1 1
1
1
il 5 5 4
1
1
(1]
3 3
1 1
1 3 8 13
416 316 273: 268 [3] 1 2 8(2] 1
10 10 10 10 1 1 30 10
42 32 27 27 [+] 1 2 +[(+]> +
Oe Weis 2) 4532125221
Whole cereal grains are not frequently preserved
by mineralisation, so this single record 1s significant,
considering the small quantities of soil examined.
Three other types of plant remains were
recovered from two of the Phase 1 storage pits in
Area 1; Brassica/Sinapis sp, Chenopodiaceae
embryo and dock (Rumex sp.). The three taxa are
all commonly preserved by mineralisation,
particularly Brassica/Sinapis sp. embryos. They
often occur as sporadic finds in samples dating from
the Late Bronze Age onwards. They appear to be
fairly commonly found in Iron Age pits on
calcareous soils, e.g. Maiden Castle (Jones 1984);
Lains Farm (Carruthers 1991); Brighton Hill
South, Basingstoke (Carruthers 1995) This could
indicate the deposition of faecal waste in storage
pits that had fallen out of use, or represent
background waste such as animal dung that was
being trodden around the site. All of the taxa are
common weeds of waste grounds and cultivated
land, particularly nutrient-rich soils. Brassica/
Sinapis sp. seeds can also be used as a spice (e.g.
mustard) and for their oil.
The Charred Plant Remains
Charred plant remains were scarce in all of the Phase
2 Romano-British samples, including the two oven
backfills. A few cereal grains, a single emmer/spelt
wheat chaff fragment (glume base), a couple of
hazelnut shell fragments and a few weeds seeds were
recorded from the 6 samples. This scant evidence
confirms the cultivation of emmer/spelt wheat and
possibly a bread-type wheat (the grain was poorly
preserved) during this later phase of occupation.
Romano-British samples are often very rich in
charred crop processing waste, therefore, taking into
account the fact that the sample sizes and number
of samples were fairly small, the cereal-related
activities during this phase cannot have been very
intensive to have left such a small amount of waste.
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 205
Out of the Phase 1 samples, only the Iron Age
pits were productive. The six pits that were sampled
for plant macrofossil analysis all produced fairly
large quantities of charred plant remains, ranging
in concentration from 8 fragments per litre to 124
frags per litre (see the bottom of Table 16). The
assemblages were broadly similar in character,
consisting of emmer/spelt wheat (Triticum
dicoccum/spelta) and hulied barley (Hordeum
vulgare) grain and chaff, with a similar range of
weed seeds to each other. The ratios of grain to
chaff and weed seeds did differ to some extent, with
two pits being dominated by chaff and weed seeds
(F3037 and F3022), but the remaining four pits
containing more grain and fewer weed seeds. The
two chaff and weed-rich pits are towards the centre
of the cluster in close proximity to each other, but
it is difficult to detect any other particular
similarities between the assemblages. It is likely that
all of the pits were being filled with a similar type of
material, consisting primarily of burnt crop
processing waste.
Based on the proportions of glume bases that
were identifiable to species level, spelt wheat
(Triticum spelta) appears to have been the
predominant cereal represented by the burnt waste,
followed by hulled barley with small amounts of
emmer (T° dicoccum). As is noted below, these
cereals are very typical of Iron Age sites in southern
England. In addition, the weed assemblages are also
very similar, indicating that crop husbandry
practices were remarkably uniform at this time.
Chess (Bromus sect. Bromus) was the dominant
weed in the Iron Age pits at Wayside Farm, as is the
case in many storage pits. Cleavers (Galium
aparine), dock (Rumex sp.) and small-seeded weed
vetches ( Vicia/Lathyrus sp.) were also frequent, and
are common in other assemblages from this period.
Other weed seeds were recovered less frequently,
but include indicators of more calcareous soils
(Galium cruciata, Sherardia arvensis) as well as
acidic ones (Rumex acetosella, Spergula arvensis).
Blinks (Montia fontana ssp. minor) is characteristic
of soils that are often waterlogged during the winter.
_ The presence of several onion couch tubers
(Arrhenatherum elatius var. bulbosum; four in pit
3022) and eleven fragments of hazelnut shell
(Corylus avellana) in pit F3020 indicates that other
types of burnt waste were also present. These
remains may represent fuel or tinder used to start a
fire, particularly since one of the most likely
explanations for the presence of charred crop
processing waste in the base of Iron Age storage
pits is that the remains represent fuel used to start
a fire in order to sterilise the pit (Monk 1991, 106).
Other explanations include the use of burnt waste
to seal the base of the pit, or the charred remains of
material used to close the top of the pit (ibid).
Whichever explanation applies, burnt crop
processing waste 1s so characteristic of the primary
fills of Iron Age storage pits that deliberate use of
this type of material is implied.
COMPARISONS WITH OTHER
IRON AGE SITES IN
SOUTHERN ENGLAND
The combination of primarily spelt wheat chaff with
barley and some emmer chaff has been recorded
from Iron Age grain storage pits across southern
England. In some cases weed seeds were more
frequent than chaff fragments (e.g. Brighton Hill
South, Carruthers 1995), but this may be the result
of differential preservation. In all cases, burnt crop
processing waste was present in the base of the
storage pits. These sites include Danebury
(Campbell 2000), Lains Farm (Carruthers 1991),
Old Down Farm (Green 1981), Easton Lane
(Carruthers 1989), Brighton Hill South
(Carruthers 1995) and Winnall Down (Monk
1985). The recovery of stored grain from Iron Age
pits is much less common, although a mixed deposit
of emmer and spelt wheat still in spikelet form was
recovered from an Early Iron Age storage pit at
Sturminster Marshall (Carruthers, in Valentin
forthcoming). Only one pit at Danebury produced
evidence of a stored crop, consisting of spelt with
some barley (Jones 1984). These two cases suggest
the deliberate burning of a stored crop, perhaps due
to spoilage, or an accidental fire. Such events are
less likely to occur than pits simply falling into
disuse. Any stored grain remaining in the pit at the
time of abandonment would rot away leaving no
trace, but the charred lining would be preserved,
particularly if the pit was backfilled within a short
space of time. These primary deposits are a valuable
source of information about the arable economy in
the Iron Age, whether or not they contain evidence
of stored crops.
DISCUSSION
This excavation at Wayside Farm has established
two main phases for the site; late Iron Age - c. 3rd
206 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
century BC to Ist century AD and late Romano-
British - 4th to 5th century AD.
PHASE 1: IRON AGE TO EARLY
ROMAN
The later Iron Age and early Romano-British
activity is confined to Area 1 where a cluster of
storage-type pits, flanking ditches for an east to west
aligned trackway and other features indicative of
settlement during this period were identified.
The probable trackway in Area 1 is represented
by two east-west aligned flanking drainage ditches.
Based on the number of recuts present within the
excavated profile and the date of the pottery
recovered, it is likely that the trackway was utilised
for an extended period. The ceramic evidence
suggests that the trackway was originally in use at
around the same time as the other Iron Age features
on the site, indeed the cluster of storage pits (see
below and Figure 3) appear to have been
deliberately positioned just to the south of its
ditches. The trackway was seemingly finally
abandoned during the early Romano-British period.
At Area 1 Brickley Lane (Poore et al. 2002) a
trackway of similar form and alignment was
investigated, with the dating evidence also indicating
a similar timespan. The Brickley Lane trackway was
also located adjacent to evidence for later Iron Age
settlement.
The storage pits at Wayside Farm are unlikely
to have comprised the totality of the settlement
evidence, and it can be assumed that further activity
related to these features must lie close by, probably
either to the north or west. Deposits of similar date,
type and character were also identified at Area 1
Brickley Lane (Poore et al. this volume), but the
distance involved (approximately 800m to the
north) might indicate that the sites at Wayside Farm
and Brickley Lane are unlikely to be part of the
same complex. Nevertheless, useful comparisons
on the layout and function at both sites can be made.
At Wayside Farm, the cluster of storage pits in the
northeast corner of the site suggests a defined
functional zone, with different activities taking place
in separate areas of the site. This was also the case
in Area 1| at Brickley Lane (Poore et al. 2002, Figure
3), where a pit group of similar type and function
was located immediately to the west of the main
penannular structure. The pits at both sites
produced similar types of plant and mineralised
remains. Cereals comprised spelt wheat, hulled
barley and emmer which are commonly found on
sites of this date throughout southern England.
Mineralised remains included the finding of
Brassica/Sinapis sp from pits on both sites, which
can be used as a spice and for their oil (see
Carruthers, above). Only small quantities of animal
bone were recovered from Iron Age deposits at
Wayside Farm, although this does not necessarily
suggest that domestic animals played only minor
role in the economy, as further evidence associated
with this site still awaits discovery. The identifiable
pieces at Wayside Farm consist entirely of sheep or
goat and although the quantity of bone recovered
was far greater at Brickley Lane Area 1, where the
assemblage is again dominated by these species.
Other feature types of this phase at Wayside
Farm included possible drainage gully (F3091),
some small pits of indeterminate function and a
number of post holes. With the latter feature type
no structural pattern could be defined.
The later Iron Age features, artefacts and
environmental evidence from Wayside Farm
suggests that the site is on the eastern or southern
fringes of a small, almost certainly unenclosed
farmstead, with the limited evidence indicating that
the site’s economy may have been based on mixed
farming. This has also been suggested for the Iron
Age deposits at Area 1, Brickley Lane, perhaps
indicating that the pattern of settlement within the
area at this time was for such small-scale units,
possibly linked by a network of rural trackways.
PHASE 2 : LATER ROMANO-
BRITISH
Romano-British deposits and artefacts formed the
bulk of the material recovered from the site. Analysis
of this evidence has identified a date for this phase
of activity towards the end of the Roman period in
Britain — late 4th century into the early 5th century.
Despite the non-identification of a structure of
this date on the site, the demonstrably very late
Romano-British date for the main period of activity
at Wayside Farm indicates that the site fits in to
part of a growing pattern in Wiltshire and
neighbouring areas of western Britain (Corney pers.
comm.) and is therefore of some importance.
Recent work indicates that there is clearly a
considerable amount of late Roman activity in the
region, but the sites have yet to be investigated by
formal excavation, or using modern archaeological
techniques. Wayside Farm is located only 5km south
of the discovery of a hoard of 5th-century bronze
coins associated with bullion, bronze vessels and a
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 207
belt fitting at Bishops Canning (Guest et al. 1997)
and 11km west of an early 5th-century hoard of
gold, silver and bronze coins at Stanchester near
Pewsey (Paul Robinson in CBA Wessex News,
October 2001, 18).
There appear to be two types of deposits present
on the site; first, those which on the basis of the
material evidence and by association are or may be
of religious or funerary character (e.g. the midden,
pit F4225, the burials, the north to south flanking
ditches), and secondly; those which may be linked
to the above deposits but are more likely to represent
evidence for settlement-based activity (the ovens,
ditches and the remaining cut features).
Deposits of religious or funerary
character
The type and quality of some of the artefacts
recovered from these deposits taken as a group are
more characteristic of ritual or religious beliefs and
could be considered as votive offerings rather than
the typical range of material recovered from
settlement sites of this date. Specific objects would
in particular include the curse tablet (Plate 6) and
the garment collar (Figure 14.02). Many of the
contributors to this report have highlighted aspects
of the finds assemblages which may be atypical of
the range or composition of collections from
unequivocally domestic sites. In addition to the
coins, the high proportion of iron objects to nails
and the presence of items such as an iron spoon,
stylus and hipposandal indicate a site of some status
and possibly specialised (ritual) function. In this
context, the high proportion of pottery fine wares
and animal bone butchery waste, including skulls,
may also be indicators of non-domestic activity.
Wayside Farm may lie close to a site or building
with a more specialised function such as a temple
or a shrine, as it is not unusual for such places to
have associated pit or midden deposits. However,
although no structure of this date was identified at
Wayside Farm, evidence for late Roman buildings
can be notoriously elusive despite abundant finds
(Mudd et al. 1999, 148). It cannot be discounted,
therefore, that a building of this date may once have
been present within the excavated area which did
not survive in the archaeological record. This,
however, is considered unlikely, with a specialised
Roman building immediately to the north of Area
2 seeming more probable.
The midden deposit at Wayside Farm appears
to have been demarcated by the north to south
aligned ditches F4261, F4288 and F4254, the upper
fills of each containing midden soils. The majority
of the midden deposit was identified within the
excavation area, with just a small area seemingly
continuing beyond the northern excavation limit.
The midden covered an area of c.1150m/’, with an
average thickness of 0.15m; therefore in terms of
volume c.170m? of material was present. On the
basis of the homogeneous nature of the deposit,
the probability that material from the midden was
incorporated within the upper fills of ditches F4261,
F4288 and F4254 and pit F4225 (see below) and
the presence of conjoining pottery from the pit fill
and the midden, it is likely that the midden was
formed as a result of dumping or spreading over a
relatively short space of time; the latest coin from
the deposit dates to between AD388-402. This also
appears to have been the case at a possible late
Romano-British midden site at Colerne Park
(Mellor 1954, 337), where the deposit is also
described as homogenous.
Late Roman midden deposits are rare but not
unknown in Wiltshire and the surrounding regions
either as settlement ‘rubbish heaps’ or as
repositories for votives and other material. Evidence
for the former type of deposit has been identified
recently during excavations at Weaver’s Bridge, near
Cricklade (Mudd et al. 1999), where the quantity
and quality of the artefacts recovered was far lower.
Middens as religious deposits are thought to
be present and partly excavated at Cold Kitchen
Hill, near Maiden Bradley (Goddard 1893, Nan
Kivell 1925), and at Colerne Park (Mellor 1954).
The midden at Cold Kitchen Hill was located
adjacent to a probable Bronze Age burial mound,
but significant quantities of Romano-British
artefacts were recovered which are comparable in
terms of type, quality and date to the Wayside Farm
assemblage, although the longevity of that site was
far greater. Further afield, there are also cases of
Bronze Age burial mounds being used as
repositories for votives and other material during
the Roman period, for example at the Roman
temple on Brean Down, Somerset (ApSimon
1966). The Colerne Park investigation was far more
systematic than that at Cold Kitchen Hill and the
material recovered was again similar to that from
Wayside Farm. As with the current site, no in situ
evidence for an associated structure has so far been
identified at either Cold Kitchen Hill or Colerne
Park.
Pit F4225 was partly filled with midden material
and is a likely component of the probable religious
site. Pits within and associated with Romano-British
208 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
temples sites have been found on other sites in
Britain (e.g. Uley, Woodward and Leach 1993). The
pit at Wayside Farm appears to have been the focus
for the more ‘specialised’ votive offerings, including
the deliberately crumpled garment collar
(Fig.14.02), the bronze spoon (Figure 13.04), and
the curse tablet (Plate 6), although this object was
found within the midden immediately overlying the
pit. Large quantities of pottery and animal bone
(including complete ox skulls), as well as human
bone fragments were also recovered.
The midden soils, the fills of pit F4225 and the
artefacts recovered may represent evidence for the
periodic clearance of offerings, feasts, and so forth
that may have taken place within a temenos precinct
of a temple and given a specified ‘resting place’,
the deposit itself subsequently regarded as ‘special’
in character (Corney pers. comm.). The range of
everyday artefacts recovered from these deposits,
including animal bone, pottery and iron tools,
possibly present as votives, 1s not unusual for
religious sites, as similar finds were recovered from
both Cold Kitchen Hill and Colerne Park. These
objects may have been present as a result of feasting
or sacrifice, or at the time had symbolic reference,
the meaning of which is now unknown (Robinson
2001). The type of objects present on the site may
also relate to a specific deity or particular groups of
worshippers (Allason-Jones 2001).
The deposit clearly represents evidence for
pagan beliefs and traditions right at the end of the
Romano-British period, and testifies to a
continuation of ritual practices undertaken in
Britain from the later prehistoric period onwards.
It is possible that such deposits can be regarded as
the Romano-British successors to the structured
ritual deposits discussed by Hill (1995).
In Britain the majority of lead tablets have been
recovered from temple sites, e.g. Uley (Woodward
and Leach 1993) and Bath (Cunliffe 1988),
suggesting further that Wayside Farm has religious
affiliations. There is an indication from the legible
portion of the text (see Tomlin above), that the
‘curse’ relates to a theft. At both Uley and Bath the
majority of curses related to this act.
Despite the above evidence for native British
and Roman religious practices, the burials excavated
in Area 1 have attributes which have both pagan
and Christian associations, and may provide
evidence for a Christian influence on the site. All
the burials were laid out on east to west alignments,
which can either pagan or Christian, although one
of which (nhumation 2, Figure 16.6) contained
an iron spoon (see Mills above). Spoons of this date
are found with Christian associations, but this iron
example is extremely rare, if not unique.
Grave goods which normally have pagan
affiliations were present in all three graves. These
comprised a coin, hobnails denoting footwear, and
pottery vessels. Based on the two miniature
pedestal-base beakers found with Inhumations 1
and 2, the burials can be broadly considered to be
contemporaneous with the material recovered from
the extensive midden deposit, although the coin
found within Inhumation 2 dates to between
AD335-340. This coin may already have been old
when placed in the hand of the individual. Another
example of a rarely identified pagan burial custom
in Wiltshire custom is decapitation. The head of
the individual Inhumation 1 was placed next to the
feet. Mills (above) indicates that it cannot be known
if this was after death, or the cause of death.
However there are a few instances of graves in
Wiltshire where it suggested that the head was
decapitated following death (Foster 2001), for
example at Winterbourne and Manton Down
Ubid.). It has been suggested by Philpott (1980,
88) that the purpose of this was as part of a
regeneration ritual to ensure well-being of the
individual in the afterlife.
The presence of both burials and midden
deposits on late Romano-British sites of religious
type is not unknown, although the evidence is
somewhat limited. Human remains were found at
Cold Kitchen Hill (Goddard 1893) with indications
that the two graves here were also on east to west
alignments.
Evidence for late Romano-British
settlement-based activity
Deposits described under this heading do not fit
into the normal pattern of ‘ritual activity’ and based
on the present evidence it must be assumed that
some other settlement-based activity was taking
place on the site at the same time.
The principal evidence for activity of this type
comprises the two oven features F4007 and F4214;
although stone ovens were present on the temple
site at Uley (Woodward and Leach 1993). The
function of structure F4007 is unclear. There is little
or no evidence from elsewhere on the site, or from
the structure itself to suggest an industrial use such
as iron smelting; only 2kg of various slag types
including clinker were recovered from the entire
excavation. However, it is possible that the function
EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 209
of this structure was for malting or the drying of
grain, although analysis of the charred and
mineralised plant remains (see Carruthers, this
report) does not corroborate this. Similarly, the
function of oven F4214 is not known.
Other features include ditches which may have
acted as field divisions or for drainage and small
numbers of pits and post holes with no obvious
function or structural pattern. Quantities of
artefacts from all this features was low when
compared with the midden and its associated
deposits. However, on a site such as this is difficult
to distinguish between those features and deposits
which represent evidence for domestic activity and
those which are now known to have religious
connotations.
CONCLUSIONS
Throughout the above discussion it has been
emphasised that the deposits relating to both phases
at Wayside Farm represent only part of a more
extensive Iron Age settlement or farmstead and later
Romano-British complex. It is clear that that further
evidence for both phases either still await discovery
or have already been destroyed by recent
development in the area. Of particular note is that
sporadic finds of Romano-British material have
been found during construction work at the
Nursteed Road Industrial Estate and as far north
as “The Green’. Residents along Nursteed Road
have also reported finds of this date from their
gardens. This would suggest that evidence for
Romano-British activity would extend over a
considerable area, as “The Green’ is located c.800m
northwest of Wayside Farm. The character of the
late Romano-British site at Wayside Farm has, based
on the artefact evidence, mostly been established,
but the nature and importance of Romano-British
material beyond the site cannot, at this stage be
determined. There is still some considerable
archaeological potential for the area surrounding
Wayside Farm.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The project was commissioned and funded by
Bryant Homes Southwest Ltd and we are
particularly grateful for the co-operation of their
Regional Architect, Andy Godden.
The fieldwork was directed by Stephen
Robinson, assisted by Joe Whelan (supervisor) and
Sarah Cottam (finds). Professional staff comprised
Charlie Bosworth, Brigid Gallagher, Charlotte
Kimber, Emma Markiewicz, John Hodgson,
Stephen Leach, Ginette Radcliffe and Samantha
Worrall. Illustrations for this report were prepared
by Astrid Hudson, John Hodgson and Mark
Corney.
The work and helpful comments of all the
specialist contributors to this report are greatly
appreciated. Particular thanks must go to Mark
Corney for his advice and observations on the
character and significance of the site.
Jo Mills wishes to thank Paul Robinson of
Devizes Museum and Nick Griffiths FSA for their
help and comments.
The collaborative role of Duncan Coe, former
Assistant Archaeologist at Wiltshire County
Archaeology Service is duly acknowledged.
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Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 214-39
Iron Age Settlement and Roman Activity at
Brickley Lane, Devizes, Wiltshire, 1999
by Daniel Poore, Dave Thomason and Adam Brossler'
with contributions by Kate Atherton, Bethan Charles, Hugo Lamdin-
Whymark, Ruth Pelling and Jane Timby
An excavation covering three separate sites on land to the east of modern Devizes found modest evidence
of occupation and activity ranging from the Neolithic period to the 13th century. The principal evidence
was found on the northern site and included a solitary Neolithic pit containing Peterborough ware, and a
middle-late Iron Age farmstead, with some structural evidence and associated pits and small paddocks.
Close to the farmstead was a Ist-2nd century AD trackway, which may have had an Iron Age predecessor.
Slight evidence of Anglo-Saxon activity was also recovered. Finds from the site included two iron agricultural
tools of Iron Age date, and a Ist century AD catapult bolt-head. The environmental samples from the Iron
Age features produced a large quantity of mineralised Brassica seeds. The two southern sites located parts
of both Roman and medieval field boundary-ditch systems. A concurrent excavation by AC archaeology on
Wayside Farm, south-west of Brickley Lane, found further Late Iron Age and Roman remains. This is fully
reported elsewhere 1n this volume.
Greensand which overlies a calcareous clay turning
to chalk bedrock. The overlying deposits consist
of grey brown sandy silt colluvium which appears
as a slightly browner version of the natural sand
below.
The works undertaken concentrated on three
of the four areas of potential highlighted by the
evaluation carried out by Thames Valley
Archaeological Services during the summer of 1999
(TVAS 1999a). Area 1 was situated at the north-.
eastern end of Brickley Lane and occupied a low
crest at the base of Jump Hill (Figure 2). The land
slopes away to the south and to the west, with
marshland to the east, leading to open fields. Area
INTRODUCTION
An archaeological excavation was undertaken by
Oxford Archaeological Unit (OAU) on land to the
east of Brickley Lane, Devizes, between November
1999 and January 2000. The work was contracted
by Broadway Malyan Planning (Town Planning
Consultants) on behalf of the building consortium
of Bloor Services Ltd., Persimmon Homes Wessex
Ltd., and Swan Hill Homes. The excavation was
carried out in advance of the building of houses
and an access road on the site.
PROJECT BACKGROUND
The development site is located on the eastern
outskirts of Devizes on Brickley Lane (SU 0195
6090), and occupies an area of 16ha in total
(Figure 1). The geology of the area is mainly Upper
2 lay further south in a gently undulating arable
field, with Area 4 located to the west of Brickley
Lane in flat pasture. The TVAS designated Area 3
was considered to be outside the development
impact area and was therefore not investigated
further.
' Oxford Archaeological Unit, Janus House, Osney Mead, Oxford, OX2 OES
IRON AGE SETTLEMENT AND ROMAN ACTIVITY AT BRICKLEY LANE, DEVIZES 215
Fig. 1. Site location
ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND
HISTORICAL
BACKGROUND
Although Devizes is situated within an area of great
archaeological interest, there is little evidence of pre-
medieval activity in the town. The area of Devizes
is fairly fertile but the lack of a natural watercourse
in the town (VCH x, 225) may be the cause of the
limited evidence of prehistoric activity (Haslam
1976, 19). The ploughed-out remains of three
probable round barrows, in the form of three ring
ditches, have been seen on land to the east of the
Brickley Lane site (SMR Nos SU06SW 612, 617
and 635).
There have, however, been various indications
of Romano-British settlement in the vicinity,
ranging from a hoard of imperial coins contained
in a pottery vessel found in 1699 (SMR No.
SO06SW 315), and a find of 21 penates (miniature
images of household gods and Celtic deities), eight
of which survive in the British Museum (Henig
1984, 65-6)), to several burials and artefacts to the
south and east of the town (SMR Nos SU06SW
308-314, 316, 321, 322, 328, 329, 330).
Although there is no mention of the town in
Domesday, the building of the castle by Bishop
Roger of Salisbury in AD 1120 (replacing another
thought to have burned down in 1113), signified
its growing importance in the medieval period.
Roger was one of Queen Matilda’s strongest
supporters and played a part in the civilwar between
Matilda and King Stephen that spread across
Wessex (Aston and Lewis 1994, 7). The town was
granted a Borough Charter in the mid-12th century,
by Empress Matilda when at Devizes Castle in 1141
(Haslam 1976, 19). The town developed throughout
the 12th century as a system of planned streets and
burgage plots radiating out from the line of the castle
bailey defence (Haslam 1976). Further medieval
settlement is known at Nursteed Farm, to the south-
east of the development area (TVAS 1999a, SMR
No. SU06SW 452).
EXCAVATION
METHODOLOGY
The areas of investigation were mechanically
stripped of topsoil and ploughsoil. Area 1 measured
8500m?’, Area 2 1200m? and Area 4 800m’. The
216 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Jump sil N
Development
Area
Nursteed
Farm
Wayside Farm ;
Development Area 2 | Excavation area
0 100
Fig. 2 Plan of excavations
IRON AGE SETTLEMENT AND ROMAN ACTIVITY AT BRICKLEY LANE, DEVIZES
overburden of Areas 1 and 2 measured 0.30m and
0.55m deep respectively; however, that of Area 4
was 0.90m deep, twice that predicted by the
evaluation report. This appeared to be the result of
colluvial deposition.
It was originally intended that all discrete
features would be half-sectioned. However, it
became necessary to re-evaluate the intended
methodology with the agreement of the County
Archaeological Officer, as heavy rain and snow had
caused the site to be waterlogged from the outset
of fieldwork.
Ultimately 75% of discrete features were
examined, with a representative sample of all sizes
(in plan) targeted. Ditches and gullies were
excavated to a degree sufficient to establish the
extent, character and date of each. All features were
excavated by hand, and all archaeological recording
217
conformed to standard OAU practice (Wilkinson
1992). A total of. 12 samples were taken for
environmental analysis from selectea pit and ditch
fills and buried soil horizons.
RESULTS (Figures 3, 4, 5 and 6)
Area 1
Late Neolithic activity
Pit 19 was the only feature dating from this period.
The pit measured 1.30m in diameter and 0.16m in
depth, the sides sloping gently to a flat base. It
contained two fills, both silty clays. The primary fill
(21) was rich in charcoal and contained 17 sherds
of Peterborough Ware, probably from a single vessel.
Area 1
_ — wheel ruts
ditches obscured
|
| ‘
hollow- fill > section 2
ISX byihollow-way, fi bs section 3 ° conjectural\
(osx ° 8 / wallline \
| SP ees (e) Be NY ° \
| ge 216 Ce aa ‘JL Gul
eee Gull y
wheel ruts ——+~ 7 fae » 220, 3% oe Gully euan ie 20. |
(aa | 98 ed
Le / ° fae ° & * midden or Se ee ss la =
trackway obscured ind i 2150) oi & 1. A trample \H/ 1 134
i Upp cap ® +0195 i
by post-medieval | Viera, 6 ey ( a |
make-up laye a @
Se a | Ba Fence-line _| d & °
Poy Ditch Nya |
RY RE EN 308 Pas N
See etm ay cates ec ° 163 Bo Oud?
\ (6) ° a 2 eo |
\ 153—oO G185 °
2° 157
| & 0
| o
tS al Neolithic features | l
Saxon features
| Oo
fo}
Roman and Iron Age features ies ol
20 0 60 m
Fig. 3. Excavation area 1
218 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Middle-late Iron Age activity
The linear features
A complex of shallow ditches was identified,
interpreted as the footprint of a roundhouse and
associated fences and paddocks.
Gully 210 was situated at the east end of this
complex. 37m long, 0.44m wide and 0.22m deep,
it curved to form a semi-circle with an internal
diameter of c.19m. It had a rounded flat base,
sloping sides, and was filled with a friable mid-
grey brown silt clay (see Figure 6, section 3).
Middle-late Iron Age pottery was recovered from
the fills.
Gully 151 was aligned north-south and
measured c.12m in length, 0.45m in width and was
0.22-0.35m deep, with a ‘U’-shaped profile. It was
filled by two deposits of friable grey-brown clay silt,
but no datable artefacts were recovered.
Gully 220, aligned east-west, was located to the
west of 151. 3.1m long, 0.5m wide and c.0.1m deep,
its sides sloped evenly onto a flat base. Fill 219 was
a silty sand containing six sheep mandibles and 22
sherds of late Iron Age pottery.
An inter-cutting line of seven post-holes (304),
aligned north-south, appeared to represent a fence
line. All the post-holes were circular in plan with
an average diameter of 0.8m and a maximum depth
of 0.42m. All of those recorded contained a single
fill of friable mid grey brown clay silt, and in total
contained over 20 sherds of late-Iron Age pottery,
along with an iron socketed hooked blade (sf 21,
Figure. 8, no.1). Post-hole 15, located c.1 m to the
north of group 304, also appears to have been part
of the fenceline. Finds recovered from this feature
included an iron brooch pin (sf 9) and 19 sherds of
late-Iron Age pottery.
Ditch 308, orientated north-east to south-west,
was 38m in length, 1.7m wide and up to 0.56m
deep. The sides sloped gently to a concave base and
contained two fills of dark greyish green silty sand
with some charcoal and limestone flecks, as well as
late-Iron Age pottery.
A deposit of heavily disturbed natural sub-soil
(133) up to 0.20 m thick was seen at two locations
within the enclosure complex (Figure 3), and was
interpreted as trample or possibly midden material.
Deposit 133 contained large quantities of late Iron
Age pottery.
Further post-holes were also identified in the
area, and may represent additional light structural
elements. They are marked (Figure 3) but are not
described in detail here.
;—_|___ buried ?medieval
i 4 ploughsoils
' J \
ge
Lae? V
MEE x
i
WZ i]
i)
} 501 i
\ 1
1
v T
1
1
fee Soe a eer
——_|&z
Fig. 4. Excavation areas 2 and 4
The pits
Of the 70 pits identified in Area 1, only three
appeared not to date to this period. The majority
of the pits were shallow and bowl-shaped and
unremarkable. Only those of notable size or shape,
or with significant finds assemblages are described
below.
Pits 153, 155, 157, 163
The four pits were located to the south of the
enclosure and appeared to form a coherent group
defining an approximate square. Pits 155 and 157
were circular in plan, measuring 1.1m in diameter
and 0.25-0.28m deep, with steep sides and flat
bases. The sole fill (156) of pit 155 contained three
sherds of late-Iron Age pottery. Fill 158 of pit 157
contained two sherds of pottery of the same date,
along with a single sherd of early prehistoric pottery.
Both were friable dark grey clay silts.
Pits 153 and 163 were sub-circular in plan,
measuring 1.15-1.30m in diameter and 0.12-0.50m
deep, both with a flat base and near vertical sides.
Secondary fill 161, of pit 163, a moderately
compacted dark grey sandy silt, contained 10 sherds
of late-Iron Age pottery, as well as environmental
IRON AGE SETTLEMENT AND ROMAN ACTIVITY AT BRICKLEY LANE, DEVIZES 219
b= 002 Zz
057-040
055
Fig. 5. Section 1: profile of trackway and ditches
evidence such as charred remains of cereal grains
and chaff. Fill 154, of pit 153, was a similar deposit
and contained a single sherd of pottery of the same
date.
Pits 177, 181 and 186
The pits were located to the south of the central
enclosure group, and a short distance to the north-
east of pit group 153, 155, 157 and 163 (Figure 3),
and were grouped due to their similar size and
profile and their proximity to one another.
Pit 177 was sub-circular in plan, 1.02m in
diameter and 0.25m in depth, with a bell-shaped
profile. The sole fill (188), a dark grey-green sandy
silt, contained occasional charcoal flecking and three
sherds of late Iron Age pottery. Pit 181 was ovoid
in plan, 1.75 m in length, 1.20m in width, and
0.45m in depth. The sides sloped sharply to a flat
base. The upper of the two fills (183) contained
four sherds of Late Iron Age pottery.
Pit 186 was circular in plan, 1.65m in diameter
and 0.35m in depth, with vertical sides and a flat
base. The secondary (?dumped) fill (187)
contained five sherds of late Iron Age pottery, along
with fragments of animal bone, charcoal and
limestone.
Pits 88, 98 and 106
Pits 88, 98 and 106 were aligned north-south,
located c.5m to the west of gully 151. Again, they
were grouped due to similar profiles and
dimensions, and proximity to each other. All were
filled by green or grey-brown silty clays with
moderate to high charcoal content.
Pit 88 was a sub-circular cut with a bell-shaped
profile and a flat base, 1.04m in diameter and 0.52m
deep (Figure 6, section 2). Both the primary (89)
and the tertiary (90) fills contained pottery, with
nine and 20 sherds of Late Iron Age date being
recovered respectively.
Pit 98 was ovoid in plan with an undercut bell-
shaped profile and a flat base, 1.5m long, 0.80m
wide and 0.5m deep. Primary fill 99 contained some
charcoal, five sherds of late Iron Age pottery and
fragments of animal bone. Secondary fill 100
contained charcoal and 12 sherds of Iron Age
pottery, some of which were decorated.
Pit 92 was sub-circular in plan, 1.16m in
diameter and 0.85m deep, with vertical sides and a
flat base. It truncated pit 98, and was filled with
deposits of green-brown silty clay. A sample was
taken from the primary fill (93) of the feature
because of the high frequency of charcoal. The
results of the sample indicated the presence of
mineralised Brassica seeds, in addition to charred
cereal grain and chaff. Secondary fill 94 contained
one sherd of late Iron Age pottery.
Section 2
Section 3
N S 125.04
wl
282
Fig. 6 Sections across Pit 88 and Gully 210
Pit 106 was the most northerly of the group of
the three possible storage pits. Sub-circular in plan
with a bell-shaped profile and a flat base, it
measured 1.17m in diameter and was 0.52m deep.
Pottery dating to the late Iron Age was found in
secondary fill (108). Environmental samples were
taken from fills 100 and 108 (of pits 98 and 106
respectively) which indicated the presence of cereal
chaff and grain, as well as charcoal and hazelnut
shells. Fill 100 also contained very high quantities
of mineralised Brassica seeds.
220 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Pit 215 was the largest of the Iron Age pits to
be found on this site, and was situated at the
western extremity of the spread of contemporary
features (see Fig 3). It was circular, 3.2m in
diameter and 0.5m in depth, with steep sides and
a slightly concave base. Primary fill 214 contained
five sherds of late Iron Age pottery along with
animal bone. Upper fill 213 contained occasional
charcoal flecks and 11 sherds of late Iron Age
pottery.
Roman activity
The trackway (Figures 3 & 5)
A ditched trackway (37) ran NNE-SSW across the
northern extent of Area 1. The feature measured
c.125m in length and was 11m wide at its widest
point. The flanking ditches (39 and 54) measured
1.5-2.0m wide and 0.65m deep, with ‘U’-shaped
profiles. The distance between the ditches measured
c.5-7 m, and formed a ‘hollow’ trackway displaying
wheel ruts cut into the natural, overlain by up to
0.3 m of dark grey-brown clay silt, which also filled
the upper levels of the two ditches. Pottery dating
to the 2nd to 4th century AD was recovered from
within the ditch fills, as well as late Roman and
Saxon pottery from the deposits (40) filling the
hollowed trackway.
Saxon activity
The Saxon activity comprised two pits (63 and 134).
Pit 63 cut the northern edge of the trackway. The
pit was 1.8m in diameter and 0.29m deep. Fill 64
contained two sherds of Saxon pottery and a large
quantity of animal bone. Upper fill 65 contained
one sherd of Saxon pottery. Pit 134 was situated
against the south-eastern edge of the site, cutting
the arc of the Iron Age gully 210. The pit was sub-
circular in plan, measuring 3.88 x 2.56m and 0.48m
deep, with steep sloping sides and a flat base. The
primary fill (160) contained seven sherds of Saxon
pottery, residual Roman pottery, animal bone and
a late Roman copper alloy coin (sf 18). The final fill
135 contained 14 sherds of Saxon pottery, animal
bone and a late Roman catapult bolt-head (sf 19,
Figure 8, no.3).
Area 2 (Figure 4)
Only a minimal amount of activity was identified
in this area, consisting of three ditches, and a spread
of buried medieval ploughsoil.
All three of the ditches were cut into the natural
(510). Ditches 505 and 512 were both sealed by a
medieval plough soil (501/515). Ditch 505,
orientated north-east to south-west, was 33m long,
1.34m wide and 0.26m deep. The sole fill (504)
contained one sherd of 10-12th century pottery.
Ditch 512, orientated north-south, was c.4 m long,
0.6m wide and 0.1m deep, with gradually sloping
sides and a rounded base. A terminus was identified
at its northern end. No datable material was
recovered from the single fill. Ditch 517, orientated
north-south, was 24m in length, 1.0m wide and
0.26m deep. A terminus was identified at the
southern end of the feature. No datable material
was recovered from the single fill.
From the ploughsoil (501/515) a total of six
sherds of pottery of 10-12th century date were
recovered. An environmental sample taken from the
deposit identified the presence of free-threshing
cereal grains.
Area 4 (Figure 4)
Ten intercutting ditches were identified across Area
4. 0.8-2.4m in width, and 0.1-0.6m deep, all had
steep sides and concave bases. All of the features
were sealed by a probable medieval ploughsoil
(702). The pottery from the features indicates a late
Iron Age-early Roman date.
THE FINDS
The Pottery
by Jane Timby
A moderately large assemblage of some 901 sherds
(9.5kg) of pottery was recovered. Although the
group largely comprises sherds of middle-late Iron
Age date, a diverse chronological history of activity
of the area is indicated by the presence of late
Neolithic, >Bronze Age, Roman, Saxon, medieval
and post-medieval ceramic material.
Pottery was recovered from a total of 101
contexts, mainly from Area 1. Area 2 produced just
nine sherds and Area 4, 34 pieces. The majority of
the groups are quite small, 72% of the contexts
having 10 sherds or less. Only seven contexts yielded
between 21-50 sherds and just one context (133 -
the layer of trample or midden deposit within
enclosure 309) produced in excess of 50 sherds.
The overall average sherd size at 10.6g is
|
|
IRON AGE SETTLEMENT AND ROMAN ACTIVITY AT BRICKLEY LANE, DEVIZES
moderately good considering that much of the
material is handmade and not very robust. The
sherd preservation is typical of non-primary rubbish
deposits. There are no complete vessels although
there are a few apparent ancient joins within
contexts, and at least one profile can be
reconstructed. Surface preservation is generally
quite good and surface finishes such as burnishing
could be identified on many sherds.
Methodology
The material was sorted into broad fabric groups,
based on the macroscopically visible inclusions
present in the pastes, and coded accordingly. Sub-
divisions were made, aided with a x20 binocular
microscope, based on the size and frequency of the
inclusions. For the Roman material use was made
of the national Roman reference codes where
relevant (Tomber and Dore 1998). A quantification
by sherd count and weight for each recorded context
was made and the data entered as an Excel
spreadsheet. Table 1 summarises the quantities of
each defined fabric. Table 2 summarises the main
distinguishing fabric characteristics and associated
forms based on featured sherds. Table 3 details the
pottery recovered from the environmental samples.
The contexts were grouped into ceramic phases
on the basis of the pottery present and these form
the basis of the following report.
Ceramic phase 1: early Prehistoric
The earliest recognisable material present consists
of 17 very fragmentary sherds, probably from a
single vessel (Figure 7.1) from pit 19. The sherds
had spalled, probably as the result of heat. The paste
(fabric EP1) is very fine with no visible filler. One
fragmentary rim sherd and joining bodysherd show
the vessel to have been decorated on both the
interior and exterior surfaces with twisted-cord
impressions. The rim is internally concave. This type
of vessel and decoration is typical of Peterborough
style dating to the later Neolithic.
Three other sherds were noted which also
appear to date to the earlier prehistoric period
although in all cases theses were redeposited in later
contexts. A single large coarse, calcined flint-
tempered sherd (fabric EP2), perhaps urn, was
redeposited in a ditch in Area 4. A small scrap of
sandy ware with flint-tempering (fabric EP3) came
from the fill of rut in the trackway and a small grog-
tempered sherd (fabric EP4) typical of early Bronze
Age technology came from an Area 1 pit.
bo
i)
—
Ceramic phase 2: middle-late Iron Age
Most of the assemblage, some 703 sherds (78%),
is typical of the middle to later Iron Age of this
area. The group as a whole is remarkably
homogeneous both in terms of fabric and form.
Sandy fabrics (fabrics S1 and $2) dominate the
group, the latter having a typical glauconitic paste
suggestive of a source from the local Lower
Greensand deposits. The vessels appear to mainly
comprise plain, burnished saucepan pots (Figure
7.2-3) or vessels developed from the saucepan-style
and slightly more ovoid jars (Figure 7.4-6) and
globular bowls (Figure 7.7). Only three saucepan
pots are decorated: a sherd from an Area | pit has
a tooled arc (Figure 7.3); whilst sherds from pits
88 and 98 have a burnished lattice design (Figure
7.2). A fine, shelly limestone fabric (L1) was also
used to make saucepan pots.
Some sherds contain carbonised residue on the
internal surfaces or external sooting. Other sherds
had calcareous furring on the interior from
containing or heating water.
The saucepan pots generally date the
assemblage to the middle or later Iron Age (400-
100 BC). The type is well known across the Wessex
region with comparable examples from sites in
Wiltshire, typified by Cunliffe (1991, 81) as the
Yarnbury-Highfield style. Examples similar to those
at Devizes also occur further afield at Hengistbury
Head (Brown 1987, ill. 180) where the type appears
to continue into the later Iron Age period (Brown
1987, 305).
In addition to the pottery there were three
joining pieces of a perforated slab or vessel (Figure
7.9) from an Area | pit whose purpose or function
is unknown. The fabric is the same as that used for
the saucepan pots.
Ceramic phase 3: Late Iron Age - early Roman
The presence of a number of handmade grog-
tempered sherds which show some broad
semblance to the later Savernake pottery (Annable
1961, 142-55), along with some bead-rimmed
vessels, suggest continued activity in the area in the
Ist century AD. Early Roman pottery is represented
by grog-tempered sherds from the local Savernake
industry, again mainly bead-rimmed jars. Of
particular note is the presence of a single imported
South Gaulish samian dish (Drag form 15/17) of
pre-Flavian date. This sherd occurred in a ditch in
Area 4 alongside Savernake ware. Odd imported
wares noted at other Ist century sites in Wiltshire
such as Oare (Cunnington 1909; Swan 1975),
222
Table 1 Summary of the pottery
Period
EARLY
PREHISTORIC
Sub-total
IRON AGE
Sub-total
LIA/ERO
Sub-total
ROMAN
Sub-total
SAXON
Sub-total
MEDIEVAL
Sub-total
POST-MED
Date unknown
TOTAL
THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Fabric
EP1
EP2
EP3
EP4
Sl
$2
Ll
L2
1L3
SI,
MISC
Gl
G2
G3
G4
SG/CGSAM
DOR BB 1
OXF RS
OXF WH
OXF PA
NFO CC
SOW OX
SOW WS
GREY
OXID
SXORGI
SXORG2
SXORG3
MED 1
MED2
MED3
MED4
MED5
MEDo
MED7
UNID
Description
very fine paste
coarse flint-tempered
sandy with flint
grog-tempered
fine sandy
orange sandy with iron
micaceous, frequent limestone
oolitic limestone
sandy with sparse limestone
sandy with rare oolitic limestone
other
sandy with sparse grog
Savernake variant
Savernake ware proper (SAV GT)
Savernake variant
South/Central Gaulish samian
Dorset black burnished ware
Oxfordshire colour-coated ware
Oxfordshire whiteware
Oxfordshire parchment ware
New Forest colour-coat
South-west oxidised ware
South-west white-slipped
grey sandy wares
various oxidised sandy wares
sandy. organic-tempered
finely micaceous organic-tempered
organic-tempered
Savernake/Braydon Forest
sandy with rare limestone
finely micaceous. flint, calcareous
coarse sandy ware
sand with rare calcareous
sandy with voids (calcareous)
oxidised sandy
various
no
291
== eee Se eS
901
356
237
9523
Syriey SnSet=)
Onooqooonwo uu
373
TRON AGE SETTLEMENT AND ROMAN ACTIVITY AT BRICKLEY LANE, DEVIZES
Table 2: Pottery fabrics and associated forms
Fabric
EP1
EP2
ERS
EP4
Misc
G4
SGSAM
CGSAM
DOR BB1
OXF RS
OXF WH
OXF PA.
NFO CC
SOW OX
SOW WS
GREY
OXID
SXORG1
SXORG2
SXORG3
MEDI
MED2
MED3
MED4
MEDS5
MED6
MED7
| PMED
Descriptions/Reference
very fine paste, no inclusions. Twisted cord decoration.
Oxidised thickwalled (Amm) with coarse, calcined flint
temper
sandy with flint
grog-tempered
Black or brown, dense fine sandy ware, occasional iron.
Orange glauconitic sandy ware.
Micaceous, moderate frequency of very fine shell and limestone.
Red-brown or grey with moderate-common spherical voids
and red iron. Scatter of ill-sorted rounded, polished quartz.
sandy with sparse limestone
Sandy paste, finely micaceous with rare oolitic limestone
other
Light grey/brown finely micaceous. Sparse light coloured
grog/clay. At x20 paste finely speckled with brown iron.
Dark grey/brown/orange fabric. Very soapy feel. Sparse to
moderate sub-ang War-rounded grog/clay pellets.
Savernake ware proper SAV GT (Tomber & Dore 1998, 191)
Savernake variant
South Gaulish samian
Central Gaulish samian
Dorset black burnished ware (Tomber & Dore 1998, 127)
Oxfordshire colour-coated ware (Tomber & Dore 1998, 174)
Oxfordshire whiteware (Tomber & Dore 1998, 174)
Oxfordshire parchment ware (Tomber & Dore 1998, 173)
New Forest colour-coat (Tomber & Dore 1998, 141)
South-west oxidised ware
South-west white-slipped (Tomber & Dore 1998, 192)
grey sandy wheelmade wares
various oxidised sandy wheelmade wares
Sandy paste, well-sorted rounded to sub-angular fine quartz
sand. Sparse to moderate frequency coarse organic temper.
Micaceous, very fine smooth paste with moderate to common
frequency of organic-temper.
Glauconitic sandy paste, generally orange surface with sparse
to moderate organic temper.
Savernake/Braydon Forest (Oxford type OXAQ, Mellor
1994, 100)
Finely micaceous with a moderate frequency of well-sorted
rounded polished quartz sand, some iron stained.
Finely micaceous with a sparse coarse rounded quartz and
rare. flint. East Wiltshire/Kennet Valley type.
coarse sandy ware
sand with rare calcareous
Orange to grey sandy fabric. Well-sorted sparse rounded,
polished ferruginous sand and sparse voids (calcareous).
Orange fabric. Common frequency fine well-sorted round to
sub-angular quartz sand, iron stained. Rare limestone and
iron. Glaze.
glazed red earthenware, china, German stoneware,
iron-glazed ware
Featured sherds
bowl (Fig 7.1)
223
Date
late Neolithic
?Bronze Age
Early Prehist
?Bronze Age
saucepan pot, ovoid jars, globular
bowls (Fig 7.2-4,7-9)
M-LIA
saucepan pot, jars (Fig 7.6) M-LIA
saucepan pot, jar (Fig 7.5) M-LIA
Jar
Beaded rim and everted rim
jars
Beaded run jars
Drag. 15/17
Drag. 37
Jar
M-LIA
M-LIA
M-LIA
M-LIA
LIA-early RO
LIA-early RO
LIA-early RO
LIA-early RO
pre-Flavian
C2nd
C3rd-4th
Mortaria (Young 1977, C97) C3rd-4th
Mortaria
Everted rim jar
Jars (Fig 7.10-11)
Jar (Fig 7.12-14)
Jar
Jar
Jar (Fig 7.15)
Jar
Jar (Fig 7.16)
Jug
C3rd
C4th
C4th
late C2-C3
C2-C3
Roman
Saxon
Saxon
Saxon
C12-14th
C12-14th
C12-14th
C12-14th
C12-14th
C12-14th
C12-14th
C18-20th
224 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Table 3: Pottery recovered from environmental
samples
Context Sample No Date Wt No
39 4 LIA-early RO 4 1
93 11 M-LIA 1 1
100 8 M-LIA 27 5
108 12 M-LIA 25 8
161 7 M-LIA 31 9
199 9 M-LIA 305 44
227 10 M-LIA 6
515 5 MED 128 4
702 6 PMED 4 5
Total 531 79
Boscombe Down West (Richardson 1951) and
Casterley Camp (Cunnington and Cunnington
1913) may be the result of pre-or early post-
conquest trade or contact from the Hengistbury
Head - Poole Harbour coastal sites where imports
are relatively common.
Ceramic phase 4: Roman
Roman wares proper only account for 6.5% of the
assemblage, some 59 sherds. These appear to fall
into two chronological groups: 2nd century and
later 3rd-4th century. With such a small collection
it is impossible to say whether there is continuity of
use of the site throughout the Roman period. Sherds
of local south-west white-slipped ware and oxidised
ware along with Central Gaulish samian could
suggest later 2nd to 3rd century activity. Most of
the 2nd century wares, some 38 sherds, are
associated with the Area 1 trackway. Sherds include
local Wiltshire type grey and oxidised sandy wares,
a Dorset black-burnished jar, two small pieces of
samian and Savernake ware. A layer (40) that filled
the hollowed trackway contained the base of a New
Forest colour-coated beaker dating to the later
Roman period. Other late Roman wares, including
several products of the Oxfordshire industry, were
recovered from pit 134, one of the trackway ditches
and the trackway fill. Some of the late Roman
sherds, including an Oxfordshire red-slipped
mortaria, are redeposited in Saxon contexts. This
is a recurrent phenomenon, possibly suggesting
deliberate curation or continued use of Roman
specialist wares in the immediate post-Roman
period (see Young 1977).
Ceramic phase 4: Saxon
‘The assemblage contains 59 sherds (6.5% by count)
of organic-tempered ware typical of the Saxon
period. At least three fabric variants are present;
SXORGI-3. Featured sherds are sparse but include
two rimsherds from unstratified material (Figure
7.10-11). There are no decorated wares. Organic-
tempered Saxon wares are traditionally dated to
the early Saxon period (5/6th-7/8th) but recent work
from a settlement at Collingbourne Ducis,
Wiltshire, supported by radiocarbon dates, suggests
the tradition 1s perhaps quite long-lived, lasting well
into the middle Saxon period (8th/9th century)
(Timby in prep). The group here is too small for
detailed work and in the absence of independent
dating the wares could date anywhere from 5th-
9th centuries.
Ceramic phase 5: Medieval
At least 10 sherds of medieval pottery were
recovered, mainly from handmade, plain jars and
at least one handled glazed jug/pitcher. Six of the
sherds are rims, five from sharply everted jars from
layer 501/515 and ditch/gully 505 (Figure 7.12-15).
The style of these vessels suggests these could be
quite early in the medieval sequence. The sixth rim
(Figure 7.16) came from a ditch in Area 4 and the
jug handle came from the Area 4 ploughsoil. Most
of the fabrics appear to be types local to East
Wiltshire with postulated sources along the Kennet
Valley. Fabric MED 1 equates with Mellor (1994,
100 ff) fabric OXAQ, which is thought to come
from the Savernake/Braydon Forest area. It was a
long-lived industry, first documented from the early
12th century and continuing into the 15th century.
Ceramic phase 6: Post-medieval/modern
Sixteen sherds of post-medieval material are
present, mainly recovered from the ploughsoil and
sub-soil layers. Sherds include glazed red
earthenwares, black iron glazed kitchenware,
industrial white earthenware, and a single sherd of
imported German stoneware.
Catalogue of illustrated sherds (Fig. 7)
Late Neolithic
1. Decorated bowl, Peterborough style. Fabric EP1.
(pit 19, fill 21)
Iron Age
2. Saucepan pot decorated with a burnished lattice.
Fabric S1. (pit 98, fill 100)
IRON AGE SETTLEMENT AND ROMAN ACTIVITY AT BRICKLEY LANE, DEVIZES 225
‘Fig. 7. Sherds from excavations
3. Saucepan pot with tooled decoration. Fabric SI.
(pit 168, fill 170)
4. Saucepan pot with a burnished finish. Fabric S1.
(pit 271, fill 286)
5. Saucepan pot in a fine limestone paste. Fabric
LI. (pit 195, fill 201)
6. Saucepan pot with diagonal scratch-lines made
in antiquity. Fabric S2. (pit 117, fill 118)
7. Globular-bodied bowl with a burnished exterior.
Fabric S1. (ditch 280, fill 281)
8. Ovoid jar with a slightly thickened rim. Fabric S
1. (pit 216, fill 217)
226 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
9. Vessel or fired clay object. Two holes of different
size made before firing. Slight thickening at lip.
Fabric S1. (pit 127, fill 128)
Saxon
10. Rim and bodysherd from a simple, everted
handmade jar. Black in colour. Fabric SXORGI.
Unstratified (context 7).
11. Jar with a slightly thickened rim. Black in colour.
Fabric SXKORGI1. Unstratified (context 7).
Medieval
12-14. Handmade jars with plain, sharply everted
rims. Fabric MED1. (layer 515).
15. Thin-walled plain jar with an everted rim. Fabric
MED4. (ditch 505, fill 504)
16. Handmade jar with an inturned rim. Fabric
MED6. (ditch 755, fill 756)
Conclusion
The pottery recovered from the archaeological work
is quite diverse chronologically with material of
Neolithic, Iron Age, Roman, Saxon, Medieval and
post-Medieval date. The group is really too small
to determine whether there is complete continuity
of occupation from the middle Iron Age through
to the late Saxon/early Medieval period or whether
occupation/use of the area has been intermittent
through time.
Excavated settlement sites of the middle-late
Iron Age are quite poorly documented from the
Wiltshire area, most of the sites of similar date
having been investigated earlier this century.
Similarly evidence of Saxon domestic occupation
is quite sparse making the pottery here a valuable
addition to the known assemblages from the area.
The struck flint
by Hugo Lamdin-Whymark
Forty-one pieces of struck flint and a single piece
of burnt unworked flint were recovered from twenty
contexts. All the flint from site is residual, mainly
originating from the topsoil, although a few pieces
were found in Iron Age contexts. The flintwork
appears to be early Neolithic to Bronze Age in date.
‘The artefacts were catalogued according to broad
artefact/debitage type; general condition was noted
and dating attempted where possible. Unworked
burnt flint was quantified and weighed.
Raw material and condition
All the raw material used for lithics on site was flint.
Much of the flint appears to be derived from river
gravels. One distinct flint type was noted several
times in the assemblage. This is a dark grey colour
with many small light grey inclusions and a thick
slightly weathered grey cortex. It is possible that
the source of this flint is close to the chalk, although
not directly from it.
The majority of the flint from site is
uncorticated, although a few pieces exhibit either a
light cortication or a heavy white cortication. A total
of 10 flints (25% of the assemblage) were either
rolled or exhibited some form of post-depositional
damage. This degree of post-depositional damage
and the distribution across a wide variety of contexts
suggests that possibly the entire assemblage is
residual.
The assemblage
The composition of the flint assemblage is shown
in Table 4. It is dominated by a mixture of soft- and
hard-hammer struck flakes. Several of these are
clearly utilised and one has had the edge rounded
through use. It has been suggested that this form
of use-wear results from the scraping of animal hides
(Tringham et al. 1974, 187-189).
A fragment of a late Neolithic or Early Bronze
Age plano-convex knife represents the only datable
artefact present in the assemblage. Technological
traits do however assist in further dating the
assemblage. A Levallois core is datable to the later
Neolithic, whereas the three blade cores would
appear to be earlier Neolithic. These three cores all
Table 4: All flint by category.
CATEGORY TYPE No. of flints
Flake 28
Blade-like
Irregular waste
Core single platform blade core
Other blade core
Single platform flake core
Multiplatform flake core
Levallois core
Plano-convex knife fragment
Retouched flake
Grand Total
i)
we ON
IRON AGE SETTLEMENT AND ROMAN ACTIVITY AT BRICKLEY LANE, DEVIZES 227
Fig. 8 Iron Age and Roman objects
exhibit fine blade scars, platform abrasion and one
clearly has had a rejuvenation tablet removed. The
presence of blade cores, yet absence of blades in
the assemblage, is peculiar, although the small
assemblage size, and the possibility of inadvertent
collection bias may be distorting the picture
somewhat. A total of 11 flints were broken and five
flints were burnt.
Metal objects
by Kate Atherton
38 metal objects, all in a poor and fragmentary
condition, were recovered from the excavation. With
the exception of a Roman coin, all were iron. The
greater part of the assemblage comprises a
collection of 24 fragmentary nails which were
mainly recovered from late post-medieval layers. A
further five objects were small undiagnostic pieces
of sheet or strip which are fully described in the
archive catalogue and are not further considered in
this report. Similarly an undiagnostic broken hook
or holdfast found in a late post-medieval context is
also catalogued in the archive report.
The remaining eight objects relate to occupation
of the site during the Iron Age and Romano-British
periods. The Iron Age objects comprise an iron
(2
en
——
@
0 100mm
brooch pin, a pick head and a curved hooked blade.
The Roman objects consist of a coin, a catapult
bolt-head, a hobnail and two possible cleats from a
Roman boot.
The Iron Age objects
The iron brooch pin (sf 9) was found in an Iron
Age post-hole (15) and would have been part of a
La Teéne brooch. These brooches were commonly
made from iron or copper alloy throughout the Iron
Age. The pin is 60mm long and expands at the head
to form part of the spring. However, it is in a heavily
deteriorated condition and even the x-radiograph
does not aid identification or closer dating.
Tools are comparatively rare finds from Iron Age
contexts. The socketed hooked blade and handle
(sf 21, Figure 8.1) was found in three pieces in an
Iron Age post-hole in Area 1 (fill 299 of posthole
298). The curved blade is approximately 90mm
long, with a span of 125mm, and the handle socket
has a rectangular section and an open V-shaped slot
down the centre. The end of the socket is damaged
but the x-radiograph suggests that the handle may
have been secured with a rivet. Similar implements
have been found from other Iron Age and Roman
sites, including Thornhill Farm, Fairford,
Gloucestershire (Boyle forthcoming, no. 76) and
228 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Danebury (Sellwood 1984, 346-349). Curved
blades are found in numerous shapes and sizes
which suggest a variety of functions. The relatively
shallow curve of the blade might suggest that it was
double-edged, although it was not possible to verify
this from the surviving fragments. Such blades were
interpreted at Danebury as reaping hooks although
the small size of the tool casts doubt on its use as a
scythe. It is possible that it was used to strip twigs
and foliage from poles during the manufacture of
wattle or for preparing fodder (Sellwood 1984, 349).
The fragmentary head of a small pick with a
chisel blade (sf 20, Figure 8.2) was found in an
Iron Age pit (224 - fill of 223, not illustrated) in
Area 1. The blade is rectangular, 30mm wide
throughout its length. The end is slightly curled over,
possibly through use. The socket of the tool is
fragmentary but the socket appears to be
rectangular or oval in section. The x-radiography
shows the beginnings of another point on the other
side of the socket, suggesting it was a double-
pointed tool that would probably have been used
in stone working, although it is possible that it was
used for woodworking. The pick is most similar in
size and shape to the double-pointed type 2 pick
found at Hod Hill, Dorset, which had a chisel at
one end and a spike-blade on the other (Manning
1989, 30, fig. 6, no. 2). The chisel end is a similar
size to the fragment from Devizes.
The Roman objects
Five Roman objects were recovered, three from
Roman deposits, and two from Anglo-Saxon
contexts. Three items probably relate to Roman
footwear and were found in Roman contexts.
Deposits filling the hollowed trackway produced a
hobnail fragment and two fragmentary strips with
turned-up ends which were probably cleats used
on the soles or heels of boots. One cleat is formed
from a rectangular strip (Manning 1989, pl. 61,59)
and the other is smaller and leaf-shaped (Manning
1989, pl. 61, no. 58). Both appear too small to have
been used to hold wood together. However, the
condition of both is poor.
The two residual Roman items include a Valens
coin (sf 18, from Anglo-Saxon pit 134) which was
probably minted in Trier and dated from 364-378
AD. The other object (sf 19, Figure 8.3) is a near-
complete catapult bolt-head that probably dates
from the mid-1st century and was also found in pit
134. The shape of the object is typical with a
pyramidal head and a conical socket, which was
broken. The length of the bolt-head at 71mm is
also typical and the diameter of the socket (10mm)
is standard. Similar bolt-heads were classified as
type 1 at Hod Hill, Dorset, and were dated to the
mid-1Ist century (Manning 1989, pl. 78,V185).
Conclusion
The Iron Age tools are both rare from Iron Age
contexts, and the pick head in particular is an
unusual find. Both objects hint at activities at the
site during this period, such as preparing materials
for the construction of houses or fences, and a pick
for working stone or wood for structures or for tools.
Post-Iron Age presence in the area is signalled by
an early Roman catapult bolt-head and Roman
footwear components and continues with the find
of a late 4th-century coin in an Anglo-Saxon
deposit.
ENVIRONMENTAL
EVIDENCE
Animal bone
by Bethan Charles
1151 fragments of bone were retrieved by hand from
the site (Table 5), of which only 21% could be
identified to species due to the poor and fragmentary
Table 5: © Number of hand-collected bone by species and period.
PERIOD HORSE CATTLE SHEEP PIG DOG CAT UNIDENTIFIED
3rd - lst BC 6 53 91 10 1 0 629
LIA/ER 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Roman 0 10 4 0 0 0 19
Saxon 0 21 3 2 0 1 135
Medieval 0 3 0 0 0) 0) WA
Post Medieval 0 15 0 0 0 0) 44
Undated 4 7 8 1 0 0 71
Total 10 109 106 ile} 1 1 911
IRON AGE SETTLEMENT AND ROMAN ACTIVITY AT BRICKLEY LANE, DEVIZES
Table 6: Number of sieved bone by species and period.
PERIOD SHEEP PIG SMALL FROG UNIDEN-
RODENT TIFIED
3-1st BC Al 1 1 4 42
Post Med 2 0) 0 0 272
Undated 5 0 0 0 9
TOTAL 28 1 1 + 323
condition of many of the bones. In addition to this
357 fragments of bone were retrieved from sieving
of environmental samples through a mesh of
>10mm, 10 - 4mm and 4 - 2mm (Table 6).
Methodology
The calculation of the species recovered from the
site was done through the use of the total fragment
method. All fragments of bone were counted
including elements from the vertebral centrum, ribs
and long bone shafts. Sheep and goat bones were
separated using the criteria of Boessneck (1969),
and Prummel and Frisch (1986). The ageing of the
domestic animals for the assessment was based on
tooth eruption and epiphyseal fusion of the bone.
Tooth eruption and wear were measured using a
combination of the tables of Payne (1973), Grant
(1982) and Halstead (1985). Silver’s (1969) tables
were used to give timing of epiphyseal closure for
cattle and sheep, since there were not enough
indicative elements from the other domestic species
(Tables 8-11).
Condition
The condition of the bone was graded from 1 to 5
using the criteria stipulated by Lyman (1996), grade
1 being the best preserved bone and grade 5
indicating that the bone had suffered such structural
and attritional damage as to make it unrecognisable.
The majority of the bones were in medium to poor
condition, around grade 3 to 4. It can be seen from
229
Table 7 that a large number of the bones had fresh
breaks. This is almost certainly due to the fragile
condition of many of the bones, which would also
have affected the number of bones identified. It is
also likely that some of the butchery and gnaw
marks were not visible due to damage to the surfaces
of the bones.
Species Representation
Cattle appeared to be the most dominant species
found through all but the Iron Age periods.
However, due to the bad condition of the bone, it
is likely that cattle bones are over represented in
the assemblage due to better preservation than the
smaller, more porous bones of the sheep and pigs.
There were no identified fragments of cattle bone
found in the sieved material, again indicating that
sheep may have been more numerous during the
Iron Age occupation of the site.
There were no articulated remains found at the
site. Part of a cattle skull was found in Saxon pit
63. However, it is uncertain if this was a ‘deliberate’
deposit or butchery waste.
Although there were few indicative elements
showing the age at death of the cattle, it does appear
from the tooth wear stages (Table 8) and the
epiphyseal fusion of the bones (Table 9) that the
majority of the cattle from the Iron Age features
were likely to have been killed at more than 2 to 2.5
years of age. Similarly the few mandibles from the
Saxon features indicate that the majority of the
animals were over 2 years of age at death, although
it must be borne in mind that the poor condition
of many of the bones may have affected the
preservation of the more fragile juvenile bones.
It can be seen from results of the analysis of
tooth wear stages in Table 10 that age at death of
all the sheep from the Iron Age features was 1-2
years or less. This also appears to be mirrored in
the results of analysis of the epiphyseal fusion of
the bones (Table 11).
Table 7: Condition of hand-collected and sieved bones.
PERIOD BUTCHERY BURNT
Hand Sieved Hand
3 - 1st BC 13 1 3
LIA/ER 0 0 0
Roman 0) 0 2;
Saxon 5 0 0
Medieval 1 0 0)
Post Medieval 0) 0 0
Undated 2 0 0
GNAW FRESH BREAK
Sieved Hand Sieved Hand Sieved
5 2 1 437 28
0 0 0 1 (0)
0) 0) 0) 18 0
0 0 0 133 0)
0 0 0 3 0
0) 0 0) 23 6
4 0 0 100 0)
230 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Table 8: Tooth wear stages of the cattle after Grant
(1982) and Halstead (1985)
SUGGESTED STAGE 3RD - SAXON
AGE 1ST BC
14 - 21 months D 0 0
21 - 27 months E 0 1
27 - 36 months F 0) 0
Adult G 2 1
old aduit Fit 0 1
bone were found in Iron Age pits in Area 1. It is
probable that these are non-anthropogenic, and
likely to represent natural fatalities.
Pathology
A horse metatarsal from an Iron Age pit on Area 1
had signs of eburnation on its proximal articulation.
The bone also had a cut mark on the shaft,
Only a few pig bones were identified from the
assemblage, the majority of which were from Iron
Age deposits. Both bones from the Saxon deposits
were from immature animals. It 1s possible that the
pig bones may have been under represented since
the less mature bones are fragile and less likely to
survive. Other domestic species included a small
number of horse bones (mostly teeth), a dog tooth,
and part of a cat mandible from a Saxon deposit.
Only a few wild species were found amongst
the bones, all of which was from the sieved material.
One small rodent incisor and four fragments of frog
Table 9: Epiphyseal fusion of cattle bones after Silver
(1969)
AGE ELEMENT 3RD - 1ST BC
F UF
10 mo. Scapula D 2 0
18 mo. Humerus D 1 0
Radius P 2) 0
22D yrs Metacarpal D 1 0
Tibia D 1 0)
Metatarsal D 0 0)
3.5 yrs Calcaneum P 0 0)
Femur P 1 1
3.5 —4 yrs Humerus P 0 0
Radius D 1 0
Ulna P 0 0
Femur D 0 0
Tibia P 0 0
Table 11: Epiphyseal fusion of sheep bones
AGE ELEMENT 3RD - 1ST BC
F UF
10 mo. Humerus D 1 2
Radius P 2 0
Scapula D 0 0
15-—16mo. Tibia D 0 1
Metacarpal D 0 0
Metatarsal D 0 0
2 Oye Calcaneum 0 0
Radius D 0 Z
Femur P 0 1
3 — 3.5 yrs. Humerus P 0 0
Femur D 0 0
Tibia P 1 1
indicating that the horse may have been butchered
for human consumption. A cattle femur, from the
same pit, had signs of eburnation around the head
of the bone.
Discussion
The majority of the animal bones come from the
Iron Age deposits, reflecting the fact that the main
period of activity on the site was during this period.
There were no particularly dense deposits of bone,
although Iron Age gully 220 contained six sheep
mandibles and a high number of loose teeth.
The majority of the cattle from the Iron Age
deposits were mature animals and it is probable
Table 10: Tooth wear stages of the sheep according to period after Grant (1982) and Payne (1973).
SUGGESTED AGE STAGE 3RD- 1ST BC ROMAN SAXON POST MEDIEVAL
6 - 12 months G 4 0) 0 0)
] - 2 years D 4 1 0 0)
2 - 3 years E 0 0 1 1
IRON AGE SETTLEMENT AND ROMAN ACTIVITY AT BRICKLEY LANE, DEVIZES 231
that the emphasis at this site was on the use of cattle
for traction purposes or as milk cows, rather than
solely for their meat. It is, however, possible that
young cattle may have been killed elsewhere or that
their remains have not been preserved. A cattle
femur with eburnation around the head, possibly
caused by osteoarthritis, may have belonged to a
working animal. In contrast to this nearly all the
sheep bones from the Iron Age deposits appeared
to belong to young individuals less than two years
of age, indicating that sheep may have provided the
majority of the meat during this period. The older
sheep would have been kept for breeding and for
their wool and dung. The few measurable bones
from the cattle and sheep suggest that the animals
were average size for the period.
Pigs do not appear to have been bred extensively
at the site. However, since pigs were usually killed
at a young age, their bones may not have survived
as well as those of the older animals. The few horse
bones found in the assemblage suggest that only a
few were kept at the site during the Iron Age. Horses
would have added little to the economy of the site
and would have been kept for transportation or as
a symbol of status.
The animal bone assemblage from the Iron Age
deposits does not appear to represent deposits from
a high status site, and is likely to be domestic refuse.
Very little other information can be gleaned from
the later phases of the site other than the presence
of the animals on the site.
Charred and mineralised plant
remains
by Ruth Pelling
12 samples of deposit were taken during excavation
for the extraction of charred plant remains. Samples
of 10 to 40 litres, but usually 40 litres, were
processed using a modified Siraf-type flotation
machine and the flots collected onto a 250um mesh.
Given the proximity of the site to the Bronze Age
midden at Potterne (Carruthers 1991, 2000) which
is also on the Greensand soils and produced large
quantities of mineralised remains, residues were
collected onto a 500,1m mesh and retained. Useful
charred remains were recorded in 6 samples and
good amounts of mineralised seeds were indeed
present in three of those samples. All six samples
were of 40 litres and were taken from pit deposits
on Area | dated to the 3rd - Ist century BC.
Methodology
Samples were sorted under a binocular microscope
at x10 to x20 magnification for seeds and chaff.
Three samples (samples 8, 10 and 11) contained
occasional calcium phosphate replaced mineralised
seeds. The residues of these samples were shown to
contain considerable quantities of mineralised
seeds. Samples 8 and 10 were very rich so only one
tenth of the flot and residue was sorted for
mineralised remains. Charred remains were
extracted from 100% of the flot and residue. Sample
11 produced fewer mineralised seeds so the
complete residue and flot were sorted for both
charred and mineralised remains.
Identification of seeds and chaff was based on
morphological criteria and by comparison with
modern reference collection held at the Oxford
University Museum of Natural History. The results
are recorded in Tables 12 and 13 in taxonomic order
for weeds following Clapham et al. (1989).
Results
All six samples analysed contained charred remains
of cereal grain and chaff. Cereal species identified
were Triticum spelta (spelt wheat), Hordeum
vulgare (hulled barely) and Avena sp. (oats). As no
Triticum dicoccum (emmer wheat) was identified
it is assumed that the less well preserved hulled
wheats recorded as Triticum spelta/dicoccum are
also of Triticum spelta. Asymmetric grains of
Hordeum vulgare attest to the presence of the six-
rowed variety. It was not possible to establish if the
Avena sp. was a wild or cultivated variety.
Occasional hexaploid Triticum rachis internodes are
interpreted as being of Triticum spelta. In terms of
grain Triticum spelta or Triticum spelta/dicoccum
slightly outnumbers Hordeum vulgare while Avena
sp. is uncommon. Glume bases of the hulled wheats
dominate the chaff element, forming approximately
90% of the assemblages.
Weed seeds were present in each sample. The
species represented are mostly characteristic of
arable of ruderal habitats. Valerianella dentata
(narrow fruited corn-salad) is particularly associated
with arable fields, while other species could grow
in ruderal habitats also. Corylus avellana (hazel)
nut shell and Crataegus monogyna (hawthorn) are
not arable weeds, but must have come from more
scrubby vegetation. The Corylus avellana may
represent food debris. The leguminous weeds ( Vicia/
Lathyrus sp. and the Medicago/Trifolium/Lotus sp.)
232 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Table 12: The Charred Plant Remains (all original volumes are 40 litres)
Cereal Grains
Triticum spelta
Triticum spelta/dicoccum
Triticum sp.
Hordeum vulgare
Hordeum vulgare
Horedum vulgare
Avena sp.
Cerealia indet
Cereal Chaff
Triticum spelta
Triticum cf. spelta
Triticum spelta/dicoccum
Triticum sp.
Hordeum vulgare
Avena sp.
Cerealia indet
Weed Seeds
Ranunculus sugben Ranunculus
Ranunculus parviflorus
Brassica cf. nigra
Brassica/Sinapis sp.
Stellaria media type
Caryophyllaceae
Chenopodium sp.
Chenopodium album
Atriplex sp.
Chenopodiaceae
Vicia/Lathyrus sp.
Medicago/Trifolium/Lotus sp.
Crataegus monogyna
Umbelliferae
Polygonum aviculare
Fallopia convolvulus
Rumex sp.
Polygonaceae
Corylus avellana
cf. Anagallis tpye
Odontites verna/Euphrasia sp.
Plantago lanceolata/media
Galium aparine
Valerianella dentata
Tripleurospermum inodorum
Eleocharis palustris
Carex sp.
Lolium perenne type
Poa annua type
Bromus subsect Eubromus
Arrhenatherum elatius
Gramineae
Gramineae
Indet
Sample
Context
Spelt wheat grain
Spelt/Emmer wheat grain
Wheat grain
Barley, hulled assymmetric grain
Barley, hulled grain
Barley
Oats
Indeterminate grain
Total grain
Spelt wheat glume base
Spelt wheat glume base
Spelt/Emmer wheat glume base
Hexaploid wheat rachis
Barley rachis
Oats, awn fragments
Cereal basal rachis node
Total chaff
Buttercup
Small Flowered Buttercup
cf. Black Mustard
Brassica/Mustard etc
Chick Weed
Goosefoot/Fat Hen
Fat Hen
Orache
Vetch/Vetchling/Tare
Medick/Clover/Trefoil
Hawthorn
Knotgrass
Black Bindweed
Docks
Hazel nut shell fragments
Pimpernel type
Red Barstia/Eyebright
Plantain
Goosegrass
Narrow Fruited Corn Salad
Scentless Mayweed
Common Spikerush
Sedges
Rye-grass
Annual Meadow-grass
Brome grass
False Oat-grass
Grass, small seeded
Grass, large seeded
Weed seed
Total Weeds
Seeds/nutlets etc unless otherwise stated
—_ ~)
bo
W oO
11
93
ew bd
161
IRON AGE SETTLEMENT AND ROMAN ACTIVITY AT BRICKLEY LANE, DEVIZES 233
Table 13: Mineralized Remains
Sample 8 10 11
Context 100 220i 93
Fraction sorted 10% 10%
Brassica/Sinapis sp. Brassica/Mustard etc 1000+ 422 19
cf. Cruciferae 1 - -
cf. Ranunculus subgen Ranunculus Buttercup - - i
cf. Caryophyllaceae - 4 29
Chenopodiaceae 1 4 108
Medicago/Trifolium/Lotus sp. Medick/Clover/Trefoil - - 1
Aphanes arvensis Parsley-piert - - 20
Aphanes arvensis/Urtica dioica Parsley-pier/Common Nettle - - 5
cf. Malus sylvestris cf. Apple pip . - 1
Umbelliferae - - 10
Torilis japonica Upright Hedge-parsley - -
Polygonaceae 14 38 22,
cf. Urtica dioica Common Nettle - - 2D
Anagalis type 1 1 14
Lithospermum arvense Corn Gromwell 1 3 6
Labiatae Small seeded labiate 2 - 3
Sambucus nigra Elderberry - . 1
cf. Sambucus nigra Elderberry - 1 3
Gramineae Grass, small seeded - - 1
Gramineae Grass, large seeded 1 - -
Indet 16 49 176
Sphaeroceridae Sewage Fly puparia - - 4
Indet Fly puparia - - 16
Other Fish verterae 1 - -
Seeds/nutlets etc. unless otherwise stated
are more typically grassland species although they
do occur in association with cereal remains.
Eleocharis palustris (common spikerush) is
characteristic of seasonally wet ground, and when
found in association with cereal remains tends to
be interpreted as derived from wetter parts of arable
fields.
The mineralised remains in samples 8 and 9
are dominated by seeds of Brassica/Sinapis sp.
(turnip/cabbage/mustard etc.). In sample 8, some
1000 seeds were counted while many more
remained. The full sample must have contained in
excess of 10,000 seeds in 40 litres. The seeds were
more or less spherical in shape. They were too
small for Sinapis alba (white mustard). The seeds
could therefore be identified as Brassica sp. or
Sinapis arvensis (charlock). The surface structure
on the seeds was that of an internal calcium
phosphate cast of the testa and did not show the
external cell pattern of the seed. In the absence of
any original surface structure it was not possible
to identify to seeds further. One charred seed was
identified as Brassica cf. nigra (black mustard) so
it is possible that further Brassica nigra seeds are
included.
Mineralised seeds of weed species were also
recovered from the samples. While in samples 8 and
10 weed seeds were quite rare in relation to the
brassicas, sample 11 was dominated by weed seeds
with only few brassicas. A large number of seeds in
this sample were poorly preserved and recorded as
indeterminate. Of the better preserved seeds, most
were from ruderal or arable species. In particular,
seeds of indeterminate Chenopodiaceae were
numerous. Other ruderal or arable species include
Aphanes arvensis, Urtica dioica, Torilis japonica and
the Polygonaceae. Lithospermum arvense is more
characteristic of arable fields. All these samples
could have been derived from cereal processing
waste. A ruderal species which might also have been
eaten, Sambucus nigra, would not have grown as
an arable weed so can not have entered the deposit
as a waste product of cereal processing. This sample
also contained several fly puparia including 4
identifiable to the family level as Sphaeroceridae.
Weed seeds identified from the other samples are
of similar species though in much small numbers.
A possible Malus sylvestris (crab apple) pip was
recovered from sample 11. A fish vertebrae was
present in sample 8.
234 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Discussion
The charred assemblages
The charred remains are typical of sites at which a
cereal economy based on spelt wheat and hulled
barley is represented. These are the principal cereal
crops recovered from much of southern Britain,
including the Hampshire and Wiltshire area, during
the Iron Age, and formed the staple of the cereal
economy until the end of the Roman period (Grieg
1991; Campbell 2000). The presence of large
quantities of spelt wheat glume bases suggests that
the deposits sampled contain the by-product of
cereal processing. Glume bases tend to survive
charring less readily than cereal grains (Boardman
and Jones 1990), hence the dominance of glumes
over grain must indicate the presence of loose chaff
as opposed to whole unprocessed spikelets. The
large number of weed seeds are likely to have derived
from arable weeds extracted from the cereal by
sieving. The deposits therefore contain a mixture
of cereal product (the grain) perhaps spoilt during
processing, accidentally lost or deliberately
discarded, with cereal processing by-products (the
weeds and chaff). These remains might have been
deliberately burnt on fires as waste or as fuel, or
accidentally lost.
The mineralised assemblages
Mineralisation occurs when the organic component
of a seed or plant item is replaced by inorganic
deposits, usually calctum phosphate (Green 1981;
Carruthers 1991). Medieval examples are well
attested and indicate that the process most
commonly occurs in cesspits or garderobes where
phosphate particularly, and also calcium, both
derived from faecal material would be present in
solution in high concentrations. Animal bones might
also provide a source of calcium phosphate, as might
some plant material. It is also likely that particular
soil types, most obviously chalk, would be a
contributory factor in the mineralisation process.
Iron Age examples are less well documented,
although examples do exist from the Devizes area
and more widely in Wiltshire and in Hampshire. In
particular a large deposit of mineralised material
was recovered from a midden at Potterne
(Carruthers 1991, 2000). The plant remains
recovered from Potterne were almost entirely weeds
from waste-ground type habitats. Furthermore
there was large-scale mineralisation throughout an
extensive 1m deep layer with a distinct mineral-
concreted layer beneath which only rootlets were
preserved and almost no seeds. The deposits were
interpreted as representing in situ mineralised
preservation and demonstrate that the process can
occur in a greater range of conditions and contexts
than previously thought.
Unlike characteristic medieval cesspit deposits,
the Brickley Lane assemblages contain few potential
food items other than the brassica seeds with only
one fruit seed (the possible apple) and no bran
fragments, and there are no mineralised concretions.
The overall volume of mineralised material is
actually very small despite the number of actual
seeds being high. The sewage fly identified would
live in sewage material, accumulations of animal
dung or other decaying organic matter. The brassica,
and perhaps the Sambucus nigra seeds identified
in the samples could be derived from human faecal
material, while the arable weeds, particularly
Lithospermum arvense could have been eaten with
contaminated bread. As only intact seeds tend to
become mineralised the absence of mineralised
cereal grains in a cesspit is unsurprising. Some
human sewage may therefore be present in the
sample. Some of the ruderal species may have been
growing within or on a midden. Equally some
animal dung may be represented although there are
no grasses characteristic of grazed land. So, while
some human sewage might be present, the pit does
not have the characteristics of a cesspit. It is more
likely that the backfill of the pit contained some
sewage and/or manure/midden type material as well
as other re-deposited refuse including the charred
cereal processing by-products.
Similar material was recovered from middle-late
Iron Age deposits recovered from beehive pits at
Lains Farm in Hampshire (Carruthers 1992). In
the Danebury Environs project (Campbell 2000)
mineralised remains were recovered from several
features of early to mid-Iron Age date but were
absent from Late Iron Age deposits. Campbell
(2000, 58) suggests that in the Early Iron Age faecal
and other waste was being disposed of in pits rather
than being deposited on middens, as at Bronze Age
Potterne. She speculated that by the late Iron Age
the need to manure the fields resulted in the material
going straight out on to the land. The Brickley Lane
material is late in date however, so would suggest
that such material was still being disposed of in pits
in the area. It is possible that the occurrence of
prehistoric mineralised material in the area from
the late Bronze Age onwards is itself because of a
necessity to collect manure. The occurrence of such
material in the region in the Late Bronze Age and
IRON AGE SETTLEMENT AND ROMAN ACTIVITY AT BRICKLEY LANE, DEVIZES 235
Iron Age may be more to do with density of
occupation and intensity of agricultural production
as well as the need to dispose of waste, as much as
it is to do with soil types.
The mineralised deposits were dominated by
seeds of Brassica/Sinapis sp. Large deposits of
charred seeds of brassica, generally Brassica nigra
if identified, have been recovered from a number of
Iron Age sites in southern Britain. A deposit of
nearly 500 seeds were recovered from an Iron Age
pit at Balksbury Camp (de Moulins 1996, table 23)
and another pure assemblage was found adhering
to the inside of a pot base from Old Down Farm
(Murphy 1977, pl. 14 and 74-5; Green 1981). A
very large almost pure assemblage of over 2000
seeds was recovered from a pit at Biddenham Loop
in Bedfordshire (Pelling, forthcoming). There does
seem to be good evidence therefore that brassicas
were being cultivated as a crop during the Iron Age,
possibly over quite a wide area. Furthermore the
large seed assemblages would suggest that the seeds
themselves were harvested, either as an oil crop or
to be eaten as intact seeds. (All species of Brassica
and Sinapis have oily seeds with a mustard flavour.)
Conclusions
While the environmental sampling has only
produced limited botanical samples, it has produced
very useful data. The charred remains are typical of
the period. The dominance of cereal waste products
suggests that cereal processing activities were taking
place at the site. The cereal species represented, spelt
wheat and barley, are known to form the basis of
cereal agriculture in the region throughout the Iron
Age. The mineralised remains provide additional
data that is only rarely recovered. The presence of
such remains was predicted given the proximity to
the Bronze Age midden at Potterne, also on the
Greensand soils. Certainly the growing number of
sites with mineralised seeds from the area suggests
some common contributory factor. This might be
to do with the soils, although it might also be to do
with intensity of cereal agriculture and the need to
collect manure. The large number of brassica seeds
also adds to a growing body of evidence which
suggests they were being cultivated at this time,
possibly for oil.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Wendy Carruthers, Vanessa Straker and Mark
Robinson provided useful information and advice
concerning mineralised remains on the Greensand
soils in Wiltshire. I wish to thank them and
particularly Wendy Carruthers for allowing me to
cite as yet unpublished work. Mark Robinson also
kindly provided comments on an earlier version of
this report and identified the fly puparia.
DISCUSSION
Area 1
Late Neolithic
The only feature associated with this period was a
pit containing 17 sherds of Peterborough Ware. This
pottery was decorated on both the interior and
exterior faces and appears to be from a single vessel.
No other features appear to have been associated
with the pit, but the presence of a plano-convex knife
and other pieces of worked flint of a broadly similar
period add to the evidence for low-level Neolithic
and possibly Bronze Age activity in the area.
Iron Age
Settlement structure
The distribution of the features suggests a focus of
activity on the slight scarp overlooking the lower
ground to the west and south and south-east, with
the spread of features clearly related to the
topography. It is possibly significant that the
northern limit of feature distribution also seems to
echo the line of the later Roman trackway. It is
tempting to suggest, therefore, that there may have
been a trackway or droveway on this line in the Iron
Age, and a continuance of its use into the Roman
period, although no direct archaeological evidence
was found to support this contention.
The core of activity is represented by a 18.5m
diameter penannular gully, its open west side facing
a spread of pits, postholes and short shallow gullies.
To the south west of the penannular gully lay a
further small concentration of pits and postholes.
While the penannular gully (210) could
represent part of a ditched enclosure, the curvature
of the gully seems unnecessarily precise for such a
function; it has much more in common with the
eaves drip gully of a roofed building. Typical Iron
Age round houses are commonly identified by rings
of structural postholes; however, it is accepted that,
under particular conditions of their construction
or archaeological preservation, they may only be
236 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
identified by the shallow drainage gully surrounding
the structure itself. In this scenario, the walls of the
building are made of turf blocks or cob (mud)
plastered to a wattle screen. In either case, there is
no need for a series of substantial structural
postholes, and therefore it is quite possible that very
little archaeological trace of the structure will remain
other than the drainage gully, which would serve to
channel water running from the overhanging eaves.
Buildings identified in this way are fairly common;
many examples are known from settlements through
the South Midlands, such as Farmoor (Lambrick
and Robinson 1979, 14, fig. 6), Larkwhistle Farm
(Hardy and Cropper 1999, 4-5, figs 4 and 5) and
Pennyland (Williams 1993, 20, fig.12).
The gully’s position relative to the walls of the
structure would depend upon the roof angle and
the height of the walls, but an approximate diameter
of the building can be estimated at 13-14m. This
would put the building at the upper end of the range
for contemporary structures, which are more
typically between 8-11m in diameter (see Cunliffe
1991, 242-6).
None of the postholes within the hypothetical
wall line of the building could definitely be identified
as structural elements by their position; indeed, they
may not be associated with the building at all.
To the west (the ‘front’) of the building, lay a
scatter of pits, and short lengths of gully, which
appear to represent fence lines of paddocks or small
screens. The pits showed some variation in size
which may relate to their original function. It is likely
that the bell-shaped pits were originally dug for
storage and later used as rubbish pits.
To the south of the main focus of activity there
was a further small concentration of pits and
postholes. The group of four pits appears to define
the large postholes of a ‘4-post structure’. Their
interpretation as elevated stores — possibly for grain
(Cunliffe 1991, 376) — is generally accepted, and
in this case the interpretation is supported by the
presence of cereal grains and chaff in the posthole
fills. The other pits and postholes in the vicinity
possibly represent further small structures.
Settlement character and chronology
The artefactual and environmental evidence both
point to a modest farmstead, practising a mixed
farming regime. The presence of two iron
implements (Figure 8.1-2), both agricultural tools,
is unusual, as such implements would be valuable
and not likely to be routinely discarded. It could be
suggested from this that the site was abandoned
suddenly, although there is no other evidence to
support this hypothesis.
The pottery assemblage also confirmed the
modest status of the settkement, with most of the
assemblage deriving from typical lst and 2nd
century BC domestic forms, all locally made. The
presence of 29 sherds of Late Iron Age/early Roman
pottery is notable, but by its distribution appeared
to imply a continuance of activity along the possible
precursor to the Roman trackway (see above), rather
than a continuance of occupation of the farmstead.
The environmental remains indicate an arable
regime based on spelt wheat and hulled barley, with
the notable addition, especially from pit 98, of
Brassica, or mustard. As Pelling argues, the
mineralisation of these seeds may be a factor of the
local soil types, but could also suggest that some
pits were being used either as ad hoc latrines or
were being backfilled with midden material
containing faecal material or manure.
The bone assemblage supports the conclusions
drawn from the environmental evidence, that the
character of the settlement appears to be that of a
small mixed farmstead of unremarkable status.
Cattle and sheep predominated, the former
probably used for traction or milk production, the
latter providing a meat source.
Settlement context
There is little evidence to indicate whether this
farmstead was isolated, or formed part of a larger
settlement. The clear western limit of the pit activity
corresponds with the margin of the lower wetter
ground, so it seems likely that no further occupation
was sited to the west and south. It is possible that
further occupation could be sited to the immediate
north and east, although the proximity of the
relatively steep slopes of Jump Hill would suggest
that any such occupation would not be widespread
or intense.
A much smaller cluster of pits of a similar type
and date to those identified here was recorded at
the north-eastern limit of the excavations at Wayside
Farm (Valentin and Robinson 2002). This may
suggest that such scattered and unfocussed
settlement was characteristic of the locality in the
Iron Age.
As has been suggested, the Roman trackway to
the north of the Iron Age occupation may have had
an Iron Age antecedent, which may have carried
on over the south-east shoulder of Jump Hill. The
record of ploughed-out barrows to the east of
Brickley Lane suggests that the high ground to the
TRON AGE SETTLEMENT AND ROMAN ACTIVITY AT BRICKLEY LANE, DEVIZES 237
east of the site was significant. Thus it is possible
that the occupation revealed may represent the limit
of western encroachment, along an existing
trackway, of an upland settlement to the east.
Roman activity
No evidence was found to suggest a continuation of
the occupation into the Roman period, although the
trackway itself, and the small assemblage of Roman
finds, clearly point to the continuing use of the area
as a thoroughfare, perhaps for both civil and military
use, although the lack of metalling suggests that it
was never more than a modest local route. However,
it is worth noting that a comparable ditched trackway
of similar date ran east-west across the excavation
area at Wayside Farm (Valentin and Robinson 2002).
If the line of both trackways were extrapolated
westwards they would appear likely to meet at a point
within the area shown by the number of SMR entries
to indicate fairly concentrated Roman activity,
including settlement and burials. The evidence from
both sites that the origins of the respective trackways
may lie in the late Iron Age invites the suggestion
that such an occupation focus may also have an Iron
Age predecessor.
Saxon activity
Only two pits were dated to the Saxon period. The
larger of the two features (pit 134) contained a
moderately-sized collection of Saxon pottery, along
with residual Roman pottery, a late Roman coin
and a catapult bolt head of early Romano-British
date. While this material presumably represents re-
deposited detritus lying in the vicinity of the
apparently disused trackway, and could have found
its way into the pit circumstantially, the possibility
remains that it could have been deliberately curated.
The second pit which cuts the northern ditch of
the trackway was found to contain a sizeable sample
of animal bone including a cattle skull (which was
badly fragmented) and several cattle horn cores.
_ Although both these features are isolated, they
do hint at Anglo-Saxon occupation, possibly to the
north or north-east, on the shoulder of Jump Hill.
Area 2
Medieval activity
The features found within Area 2 consisted
principally of three gullies (Figure 4), which are
interpreted as elements of a 10th-11th century field
system. These gullies are overlain by a possible
buried ploughsoil that is dated to the same period.
The environmental evidence from the ploughsoil
indicated the presence of large amounts of
carbonised material, which included free threshing
grains and fragments of rye. The charcoal residues
present in the sample were mostly of alder and hazel.
These layers may represent redeposited cereal
processing debris (manuring?) or could be the result
of stubble burning. Whether this activity relates to
the known medieval settlement at Nursteed Farm
some 300m to the east of the area of investigation
(TVAS, 1999b), or to a closer farmstead, cannot
be ascertained.
Area 4
Early Roman
Area 4 was found to contain linear features,
interpreted as being part of a Romano-British field
system (Figure 4). The excavation appears to have
located the intersection of two frequently re-cut
boundaries, apparently defining the corners of up
to four fields. The nearby concurrent excavations
at Wayside Farm by AC archaeology also found
ditches, along with evidence of occupation and
indications of a ritual focus (Valentin and Robinson
2002 [this volume]). While the Area 4 field
boundaries could relate to the Wayside Farm focus,
the lack of a common alignment among the linears
should be noted. The ritual focus at Wayside Farm,
and the lack of Roman settlement at Brickley Lane
supports the possibility of a contemporary
occupation to the west.
ARCHIVE
The archive has been deposited at Devizes Museum
and a microfilm copy of the archive has been
deposited with the National Monuments Record.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank Bloor Services
Ltd., Persimmon Homes Wessex Ltd., and Swan
Hill Homes who funded the excavation and
publication. Thanks are also offered to Duncan Coe,
Assistant County Archaeological Officer. The
authors would like to express their appreciation for
the sterling efforts of the site team, who persevered
through often foul weather conditions.
238 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
The illustrations were produced by Luke Adams
and the text was edited by Alan Hardy.
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240 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
149000 TIDWORTH
148000
WILTSHIRE iad
Tidworth }
Salisbury
®
422000 423000 425000 426000
QO
a
_ gp EI
149200
149100
149000
Matthew
148900 Estate
148800
148700
148600
Excavation Area
| | MR Block/Trench
148500. Evaluation Area
4 100 m
4
42350 423600 423700 423800 423900 424000 424100 424200 424300 424400
Fig. 1. Location map and trench plan
Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 240-8
Excavation of Saxon pits at Tidworth, 1999
by David Godden, Sheila Hamilton-Dyer, Moira Laidlaw and
Lorraine Mepham
Evaluation followed by excavation in advance of housing redevelopment at Tidworth in 1999 revealed pits
of early and middle Saxon date containing pottery, animal bone, a dog skeleton, worked stone, bone and
other artefacts. Although no structure was discovered the pits contained material of domestic origin, and
provide evidence for a Saxon farmstead or other settlement nearby.
INTRODUCTION
A proposal to redevelop parts of the Matthew
Housing Estate at Tidworth led to an archaeological
evaluation (Wessex Archaeology 1999). This was
followed by targeted excavation of five housing
blocks ‘and their gardens, undertaken by Wessex
Archaeology in autumn 1999. Although no previous
finds had been made of archaeological material in
the 16.24 ha area of the existing estate, Tidworth
lies within the archaeologically-rich landscape of
Salisbury Plain and the possibility was recognised
of uncovering significant remains.
The site (centred on SU 240 490) is situated in
the east of Tidworth (Figure 1) on a generally gentle
west-facing slope falling from approximately 150m
aOD down to the edge of the floodplain of the River
Bourne at approximately 110m aOD. The
underlying solid geology is Upper Chalk. The
evaluation trenches showed evidence of colluviation
into the valley bottom and many parts of the estate
have been heavily landscaped in the past, resulting
in some areas presenting the potential for buried
archaeological material and other areas where chalk
lies directly below the modern turf/topsoil.
The evaluation comprised 20 machine trenches
and 31 hand-dug test-pits and identified a small
number of features including two pits, one
containing an articulated dog tail and the other
sealed below colluvium, and a few undated, but
possibly modern, stakeholes. Small quantities of
Middle and Late Bronze Age, Roman and post-
Roman pottery, ceramic building material, animal
bone and worked flint were recovered. A buried soil
was identified. It produced three sherds of organic-
tempered early/middle Saxon pottery and sealed
the pit containing the dog remains.
Two areas of archaeological potential were
recognised and targeted for excavation. Area 1
comprised three housing blocks (Figure 1, Blocks
1-3) in the area containing the Saxon pottery and
pit; and Area 2 comprised two housing blocks
(Figure 1, Blocks 4 and 5) in the area where the
second pit occurred and six sherds of a Middle
Bronze Age Globular Urn had been recovered. The
housing blocks were demolished to ground level
before the start of the excavation leaving the
concrete ground slabs and drains in situ. These were
removed by machine as was the modern topsoil in
the gardens down to the level where archaeological
features showed. The area was then cleaned by
hand, discrete features were half-sectioned and
representative sections were excavated through
linear features such as ditches.
AREA 1
An irregular linear feature (212) aligned roughly
north to south at the eastern end of Block 2 in Area
Wessex Archaeology, Portway House, Old Sarum Park, Salisbury, SP4 6EB
242 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Block 1
1
1 Layer 106
Block 2
— Pad
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eee ee ee ee
Block 3
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es ee .
=
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.
Pit 328
Pit 319 pit Sey rit soe :
; Pit 330 Pit 310 ee;
| Pit 329 Pit 314 |
. PIL S28 rig ei ae i ee ie !
: 10 20m
ff ima ae] inna a
Fig. 2. Plan of Block 3 Scale 1:400
1 (Figure 2) produced a handful of struck flints
and three small abraded sherds of early-middle
Saxon pottery in a sandy fabric (fabric Q400: see
‘Table 1 for fabric descriptions). The feature varied
considerably in width (1.0-2.5 m) and depth (0.15-
1.0m) and appeared to include several tree-throw
hollows. It is interpreted as a natural drainage
channel resulting from the removal of an irregular
line of trees/shrubs, presumably a former
hedgeline.
EXCAVATION OF SAXON PITS AT TIDWORTH, 1999
Western pit group
The pit containing the articulated dog bones
recorded in the evaluation proved to be one of a
cluster of pits in the area of Block 3 (Figure 2).
Two groups of intercutting pits lay approximately
10m apart. The western group consisted of four
pits, 306, 329, 330 and 331, typically 2m in diameter
and 0.5m deep with irregularly sloping sides and
fairly flat bases and filled with brown clay loam. Pit
319, a more regular circular feature of 0.8m
diameter and 0.4m depth, was just to the west of
the group and did not intercut with them.
Pits 319 and 329 produced sherds of organic-
tempered Saxon pottery (V400) characteristic of
early to middle Saxon ceramic traditions. Organic-
tempered fabrics are generally dated from the 5th-
8th centuries, although indications that this tradition
continued later into the middle Saxon period in
Wiltshire are provided by small groups of sherds from
the early 9th century metalworking site at Ramsbury
(Haslam 1980) and from contexts pre-dating the
Alfredian defences at Cricklade (Jope 1972).
Within this group, only Pit 319 produced animal
bone (Table 2): the skeleton of a dog and a gnawed
cattle metatarsus from the main fill (320), and a
cattle jaw and a sheep metatarsal fragment from
the upper fill. The dog skeleton was found lying on
its right side, with the backbone round the outer
curve of the pit and was almost complete though
most of the toes were missing, possibly lost during
excavation. The animal could be positively identified
as male from the presence of a baculum (os penis).
All of the bones had fused epiphyses and the teeth
were very heavily worn, indeed the canines had filed
sides where they had worn against each other and
the lower left was reduced to a stump. Although
several pathologies were present the spine and joints
were not arthritic and this animal, though aged,
would have still been quite mobile. The dog had
suffered three broken ribs, probably from a fall or
kick, that were almost healed at the time of death
and the right tibia and corresponding calcaneum
were markedly abnormal. It is not clear whether
this was the result of disease or fracture, though
there is some suggestion of a clean fracture, and
the bone remodelling and extra foramina that were
apparent could indicate infection, perhaps from a
wound that occurred at the time of the break.
Length measurements were taken on most of the
bones and derived shoulder heights calculated. The
heights are consistent and indicate an animal of
about 0.57m at the shoulder. This height, and the
243
skull, indicate an animal of similar size and build to
a modern Rottweiler with a broad, heavy built head
and jaws, but with lighter limbs.
Five sheep-size fragments were also recovered
among the dog bones, all ‘digested’ (i.e. with the
sharp edges and destroyed surfaces characteristic
of canid digestion). It is highly likely that these
represent the gut contents of the dog.
Eastern pit group
The five pits, 308, 310, 314, 323 and 328 in the
eastern group were more varied in size. Pits 308
and 323 were of similar size to those of the western
group, whereas pits 310, 314 and 328 were typically
3-4m in diameter and 1m deep with steeply sloping
or vertical sides and flat irregular bases. Pit 323
appeared to be the earliest on stratigraphic grounds
and it produced the only other organic-tempered
Saxon sherd from the site, together with a small
group of animal bones (Table 2), including a pair
of neonatal pig tibiae and a cattle-sized shaft
fragment that had been dog-gnawed. Limestone-/
chalk-tempered Saxon pottery (C400, C401) was
recovered from pits 310 and 314, including one rim
(Figure 3, No. 1) and one rounded basal angle.
These fabrics would suit a middle Saxon date (8th-
10th century), although parallels within the county
are extremely scarce, and calcareous fabrics are not
unknown earlier: for example, a handful of chalk-
tempered sherds are known from an early Saxon
(5th-7th century) sunken-featured building at
Collingbourne Ducis (Timby 2001). A vessel of
comparable form in a calcareous fabric is known
from a possible middle Saxon context at Market
Lavington (Mepham forthcoming), and other
examples come from Malmesbury (Mepham
unpubl.) and West Kennet near Avebury (Wessex
Archaeology 1997); none of these is securely dated.
Pit 310 was by far the most productive. It
contained a quantity of stone fragments, mostly of
lava quernstone of continental origin, and a fragment
of a whetstone, together with two bone objects (a
double-ended pin beater and a needle (Figure 3, Nos.
3, 4)), two copper alloy objects (a globular-headed
pin (Figure 3, No. 2) and a piece of twisted wire)
and two iron objects (an iron pin shank and an iron
‘collar’ or ferrule). The pin beater is similar to other
‘cigar-shaped’ beaters which are frequently found in
Saxon contexts though they occur from the Romano-
British to early medieval periods (MacGregor 1985,
fig 101, no. 15). Also from pit 310 came ironworking
debris comprising three fragments of possible hearth
244 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Table 1: pottery totals by fabric
Fabric Nos Weight (g)
Roman 1 1
Saxon
Q400 3 9
C400 2 8
C401 8 128
V400 10 91
Total 23 236
Medieval
E421 1 2
E441 2 8
E442 2 8
Q401 1 4
Total 6 DD}
Post-medieval 6 20
Overall Total 36 279
key to fabric types:
Saxon
Sandy fabric
Q400 Hard, fine fabric containing moderate, well-
sorted, rounded quartz 1 - 3 - - - -
3105312" 2 29 44 8 1 26 60
314 315 - ID} th - - 1 Z
314 316 1 8 6 - - 2
319 320 - 1 - - - - 5)
319 5603 - 1 1 - = = -
323 324 - - 2 3 - 1 1
402 403 - 1 - - - - 1
402 404 - - - - = 3 =
402 405 - 1 1 - - - -
Total3 46 64 11 i 33 73
percent yeas | 17:3 ~~ 24.4 4.1 0.4 12.4
% cattle, sheep, pig 38 52:9 9.1
THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
sheep- dog fowl goose bird amph- Total
size frags ibian
= - - - 4
1 8 2 15 2 197
- - - - - 15
Z “= : 2 2 21
1 (118) - - - 6 13 (130)
2 = z 7
- . - - - 2
- - - - - 3
- - - - . 2
2) (119) 8 2 15 8 266 (383)
27.4 0.8 3 0.8 5.6 3
(numbers in brackets refer to total number of fragments which comprise one individual dog)
AREA 2
The only certain archaeological feature recorded
in Area 2 was a ditch (402) running north-west to
south-east in the central part of Block 4, of which a
4m long section was excavated. This ditch was 2.7m
wide and 1.2m deep with a steep, V-shaped profile.
The brown clay loam fills contained 15 undiagnostic
struck flints, fragments of burnt flint and seven
fragments of animal-bone. All of the bone was from
domestic species and included a distal humerus
fragment from a neonatal calf with dog gnaw marks.
No further Bronze Age pottery was recovered from
this area.
DISCUSSION
These two groups of Saxon pits are the first
recorded from Tidworth. The original function of
the pits is unclear though it is likely that, with the
possible exception of pit 319, they were simple chalk
quarries, the chalk most probably being used for
building purposes. Although no settlement
structures were recorded during the excavation the
material incorporated into the pits is clearly of
domestic origin including small quantities of
pottery, stone, metalworking debris, butchered and
fragmentary animal bone and some small metal and
stone objects. Much of the bone appears to represent
butchery waste deliberately dumped into the pits
and quickly covered over.
The position of early-middle Saxon rural sites
in river valleys in Wessex is well known (see, for
instance Eagles 1994, 14-15, fig. 1.1; Hinton 1994;
Cunliffe 1993, chapter 9) and early Saxon sites in
the Bourne Valley are recorded at Collingbourne
Ducis (settlement and cemetery: Pine 2001) and
Winterbourne Gunner (cemetery: Musty and
Stratton 1964) with further finds around
Collingbourne Kingston (Eagles 1994) and a pagan
Saxon burial reported from Perham Down to the
east of Tidworth (VCH Wilts xv, 155).
The pottery evidence suggests that the
settlement or farmstead from which this material
derived persisted over several generations. Clearly
at least two episodes of pit-digging are evident. The
western group of pits, together with pit 329 in the
eastern group, contained exclusively organic-
tempered sherds of probable 5th-8th century date,
while the remaining pits in the eastern group
contained only limestone/chalk-tempered wares
which would suit an 8th-10th century date. That
the area was settled and farmed in the 11th century
at least can be deduced from the fact that a large
estate called Tidworth is recorded as having been
fragmented in 1066 (VCH Hants iv, 391; VCH Wilts
xv, 153). By Domesday North Tidworth had land
for 6% ploughteams with 6% hides in demesne and
EXCAVATION OF SAXON PITS AT TIDWORTH, 1999
pastures measuring 12, 6, and 2 square furlongs
(VCH Wilts xv, 159).
The date range for the pottery accords well with
the evidence from Cadley Road, Collingbourne
Ducis, c. 5km up the Bourne valley, where sandy
and both organic- and chalk-tempered wares were
also present, associated with ten sunken-featured
buildings (SFBs) (Timby 2001). Radiocarbon dates
for the SFBs provide a date range of AD 430-990
(Pine 2001). That site also produced a range of
domestic items including bone pin beaters, combs
and pins, together with clay spindlewhorls, and
loomweights, hones and quernstones in various
types of rock and some metalworking debris.
The animal bone, in particular that from Pit
310, has some interesting similarities with material
from Collingbourne Ducis (Hamilton-Dyer 2001).
The bone is in good condition and of a wide variety.
Sheep/goat is unusually dominant, cattle
numerically secondary, with pig very much a minor
component. The bias in favour of sheep could be
related to the local environment; the chalk slopes
are ideal for sheep pasture, but pigs and cattle could
also be easily accommodated in woods and pasture
along the Bourne. In terms of meat in the diet, beef
would probably have been at least as important as
sheep; although more numerous these are quite
small animals in comparison to cattle. However,
the few ageable sheep jaws are of prime meat
animals and compare favourably with
Collingbourne Ducis.
Roe was clearly a frequently hunted animal in
this area, as the bones from Collingbourne Ducis
indicate, but why a single shed antler was discarded
into Pit 310 is less clear. The occurrence of a similar
find in Bedford may not be pure chance; they may
have been deliberately collected, perhaps for folk
medicine or other use that has left no mark, and
then discarded.
The dog in Pit 319 lived to a good age. It was a
strong and robust animal that had suffered and
survived at least one, possibly two, traumatic injuries
during its life. It was clearly held in some regard —
whether as a hunting dog, a stock herding/guarding
animal, a fighting/baiting dog or simply as a pet —
being deliberately buried in one of the quarry pits
rather than left for scavengers.
Overall, the excavation provides only a
fragmentary glimpse of what is presumably much
more extensive evidence for a Saxon farmstead or
settlement in Tidworth. The two small groups of
pits have together provided a small assemblage of
material that, although limited in range and
247
quantity, indicates at least two episodes of activity
and adds significantly to a growing body of evidence
for the location and economic basis of early to
middle Saxon settlement in the Bourne Valley.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This report was compiled by Julie Gardiner, based
on field notes and a preliminary draft by David
Godden, with analysis of and contributions on the
pottery by Lorraine Mepham, the animal bone by
Sheila Hamilton-Dyer and the other artefacts by
Moira Laidlaw. The illustrations are by S.E. James
and Karen Nichols. Full reports on all the finds
and animal bone assemblages are held in the archive
that will, in due course, be deposited with the
appropriate museum.
The fieldwork was commissioned by the
Defence Housing Executive (DHE) through the
Defence Estate Organisation (DEO). The
collaborative roles of the DEO Archaeologist, Ian
Barnes, and the Wiltshire County Archaeological
Service, particularly Duncan Coe, are gratefully
acknowledged. We also thank Steve Ford of Thames
Valley Archaeological Services for providing us with
a copy of the draft paper on Cadley Road,
Collingbourne Ducis. The fieldwork was supervised
by David Godden with additional test pitting by
Julie Lovell and James Wright. The project was
managed on behalf of Wessex Archaeology by
Roland J C. Smith and Mick Rawlings.
Bibliography
CUNLIFFE, B.W., 1993, Wessex to AD 1000, Harlow:
Longman
EAGLES, B., 1994, ‘The archaeological evidence for
settlement in the fifth to seventh centuries AD’, in
M. Aston and C. Lewis (eds), The Medieval
Landscape of Wessex, 13-32. Oxford: Oxbow Books
HAMILTON-DYER, S., 2001, ‘Animal Bone’, in J. Pine,
‘The excavation of a Saxon settlement at Cadley
Road, Collingbourne Ducis, Wiltshire’, WANHM 94,
88-117
HASLAM, J., 1980, ‘A Middle Saxon smelting site at
Ramsbury, Wiltshire’, Medieval Archaeology 24, 1-
68
HINTON, D.A., 1994, “The archaeology of eighth- to
eleventh-century Wessex’, in M. Aston and C. Lewis
(eds), The Medieval Landscape of Wessex, 33-46.
Oxford, Oxbow Books
JOPE, E.M., 1972, ‘Pre-conquest pottery’, in C.A. Ralegh
Radford, ‘Excavations at Cricklade: 1948-1963’,
248 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
WANHM 67, 90-2
MACGREGOR, A., 1985, Bone, Antler, Ivory and Horn:
The Technology of Skeletal Materials since the Roman
Period. London: Croom Helm
MEPHAM,, L., 2000a, ‘Enborne Street and Wheatlands
Lane: medieval pottery’, in M.J. Allen et al., 52-66
(Technical Reports supporting V. Birbeck,
Archaeological Investigations on the A34 Newbury
Bypass, Berkshire/Hampshire, 1991-7, Wessex
Archaeology)
MEPHAM,, L., 2000b, ‘Pottery’, in M. Rawlings,
“Excavations at Ivy Street and Brown Street, Salisbury,
1994’, WANHM 93, 29-37
MEPHAM, L., forthcoming, “The pottery’, in P. Williams
and R. Newman, Excavations at Grove Farm, Market
Lavington, Wiltshire, 1986-1990, The Development
of a Roman, Saxon and Medieval Settlement.
Salisbury: Wessex Archaeology Monograph
MUSTY, J. and STRATTON, J.E.D., 1964, ‘A Saxon
cemetery at Winterbourne Gunner, near Salisbury,
Wiltshire’, WANHM 59, 86-109
PINE, J., 2001, “The excavation of a Saxon settlement at
Cadley Road, Collingbourne Ducis, Wiltshire’,
WANHM 94, 88-117
TIMBY, J., 2001, ‘Pottery’, in J. Pine, “The excavation of
a Saxon settlement at Cadley Road, Collingbourne
Ducis, Wiltshire’, WANHM 94, 88-117
VINCE, A.G., 1997, ‘Excavations at Nos. 143-5
Bartholomew Street, 1979’, in A.G. Vince, S.J. Lobb,
J.C. Richards and L. Mepham, Excavations in
Newbury 1979-1990, 7-85. Salisbury: Wessex
Archaeology Monograph 13
WESSEX ARCHAEOLOGY, 1997, West Kennett
Farmhouse, Wiltshire: summary report of 1997
excavations and assessment document. Unpublished
client report ref. 42982a
WESSEX ARCHAEOLOGY, 1999, Matthew Housing
Estate, Tidworth, Wiltshire: archaeological evaluation.
Unpublished client report ref. 46136.1
Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 249-58
Excavations at the Beckhampton Enclosure,
Avenue and Cove, Avebury: an interim report
on the 2000 season
by Mark Gillings', Joshua Pollard? and David Wheatley’
Following the discovery in 1999 of an unsuspected Neolithic enclosure and the line of the putative
Beckhampton Avenue, excavations undertaken in 2000 sought to investigate these features further and also
shed light upon William Stukeley’s so-called Beckhampton ‘Cove’. Using a combination of surviving features
and local accounts of recent stone destruction episodes, Stukeley had suggested that an open box-like
setting of huge sarsen stones (similar in form to the cove within the northern inner circle of Avebury) had
stood mid-way along the length of the Beckhampton Avenue. Excavations confirmed not only the existence
of the Cove, but have served to shed important light upon the precise form and phasing of this monumental
feature.
BACKGROUND TO THE
PROJECT AND THE 1999
EXCAVATIONS
Excavations undertaken in 1999 at Beckhampton,
to the west of Avebury, Wiltshire, led to the discovery
of the remains of a second megalithic avenue leading
from the western entrance of the henge monument,
and an unusual late Neolithic earthwork enclosure.
The existence of this second avenue (the so-called
Beckhampton Avenue) had been mooted by the
18th-century antiquary William Stukeley (Stukeley
1743), though severe doubts about its existence had
subsequently been raised. Excavation revealed a
total of six stone settings along the line of the
Avenue. These were defined by buried stones and
post-medieval stone destruction pits, together with
original stone sockets. First spotted from the air in
1997, the enclosure is oval and up to 140m across.
Consisting of a shallow, semi-segmented ditch
broken by a wide eastern entrance, it pre-dates the
avenue (Gillings et al. 2000a; 2000b).
THE 2000 EXCAVATIONS
Further excavations were undertaken over a four
week period during late July and August 2000. The
principal aims of the 2000 season were threefold:
to investigate more of the later Neolithic enclosure
identified and sampled during 1999; to establish
the course and character of the Beckhampton
Avenue as it continued to the south-west of the area
investigated in 1999; and to ground-truth Stukeley’s
observations of the Beckhampton ‘Cove’, a setting
of three massive sarsens midway along the course
of his Avenue, of which one solitary stone (‘Adam’)
remains. The work was also directed towards
recovering additional environmental and
chronological detail that would place the monument
complex within a broader regional framework of
Neolithic developments (cf. Whittle 1993). As with
the 1999 excavations, the work was guided by a
detailed pre-excavation geophysical survey
undertaken by the Ancient Monuments Laboratory
of English Heritage.
' School of Archaeological Studies, University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH * Dept. of Humanities & Science (Archaeology),
University of Wales College Newport, PO Box 179, Newport, NP18 3YG ° Dept. of Archaeology, University of Southampton,
Southampton, SO17 1BJ
250 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Longstones Field
Beckhampton
Fig. 1. Longstones field, Beckhampton: plan of the 2000 excavations. Trenches shown in stipple outline relate to the
1999 season.
Seven trenches were opened by machine: two
within the interior of the enclosure (Trenches 20
and 21); two across the northern part of the
enclosure ditch circuit (25 and 26); and three large
areas along the line of the Avenue and southern
ditch circuit (22 and 23), including the area around
and to the south-west of the Cove (24) (Figure 1).
Though the enclosure ditch was exposed in
Trenches 25 and 26, it was not dug. With the
exception of traces of medieval and later cultivation,
no features were observed within Trenches 20 and
21, nor were any lithic artefacts recovered from the
ploughsoil overlying these trenches.
The Enclosure
The main excavation of the enclosure ditch took
place in Trench 23. Originally intended as a 5 x
10m area centred upon the predicted position of
the south terminal flanking the main enclosure
entrance, the trench was considerably extended
following the realisation that the ditch continued
for a further 30m to the east. In fact, the ditch
extended into the area of Trench 10 of 1999, its
course not being recognised at the time due to a
combination of its very chalky upper fill and the
extremely dry conditions of that year. In total, 35m
of the ditch (an entire segment) was exposed and
26m of its length excavated.
The cut of the ditch was noticeably irregular.
Though gently curving in plan, the segment appears
to have been made up of three conjoined lengths of
straight ditch, each length itself being formed
through the digging of inter-cutting elongated pits.
It varied between 0.7 to 0.85m deep and 1.5 to 2m
wide with sides moderately steep to near vertical,
and the base flat (Figure 2).
The sequence of fills was identical to those
encountered in the ditch sections dug in 1999.
There was a primary fill of loose chalk rubble,
EXCAVATIONS AT THE BECKHAMPTON ENCLOSURE, AVENUE AND COVE, AVEBURY 251
Fig. 2. View from the terminal south-west along the length
of the enclosure ditch excavated in Trench 23.
succeeded in places by a thick, compacted
secondary silt. Some sections of the ditch displayed
bands of finer material interlaced with coarser
rubble on the western (inner) side of the feature,
possibly indicating short periods of stabilization or
preserved annual banding, as noted at the Overton
Down experimental earthwork (Bell et al. 1996).
Above this was a well developed soil horizon,
thickest in the centre and only occasionally
interrupted. The upper fill was of compact chalk
rubble within a clay loam. Some of the chalk
fragments were large and irregular and lay at a
variety of angles indicating rapid backfilling.
A number of discrete deposits of brown loam,
some with charcoal or associated finds of animal
bone, pottery or flint, were discovered on the base
of the ditch. In the northern terminal was a fairly
extensive lens of loam and charcoal associated with
a spread of bone that included a cattle mandible,
rib and vertebra, a piece of burned sarsen and three
small sherds of highly decorated Grooved Ware.
Nearby was a deposit comprising three scapula (of
pig or ovicaprid), an antler, a flint blade and
horncore. Further deposits of ‘fresh’ bone occurred
throughout the length of the exposed ditch (Figure
3).
The same pattern of fills and overall morphology
was noted in the segments of enclosure ditch
excavated in trenches 22 and 24. Here narrow,
undug causeways were recorded between pit
segments, and in each case finds of antler were made
at the base of the final backfill material, most likely
placed deposits.
The Avenue
‘Trench 22 was located to investigate the intervening
pair of Avenue stone holes between those excavated
in 1999 (Trench 10) and the one remaining standing
Avenue stone, ‘Eve’. This corresponded to a pair of
stones that had been marked by Stukeley upon his
1724 drawing of the Cove as ‘thrown down and
half buryed’ (Ucko et al. 1991, pl. 60). Although
no geophysical anomalies could be identified in this
area on the pre-excavation survey, upon removal of
e@ Animal bone
@ 3+ animal bones
4 Pottery
Fig. 3. The enclosure ditch and primary deposits in Trench 23.
252 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
the topsoil the original positions of the Avenue stone
pair were clearly indicated by two post-medieval
stone destruction pits, F.61 (northern) and 62
(southern). Oval, sub-rectangular, and somewhat
irregular in plan and profile, both were similar in
form to those excavated to the east in 1999, Fol
was relatively minuscule, only 2.0 x 1.5m across
and 0.2m deep, the pit taking the form of a shallow
sub-circular dish (Figure 4). It contained a burning
deposit comprising a layer of carbonised straw and
sarsen flakes.
Fig. 4. Spread of burnt sarsen and displaced packing
stones in stone destruction pit F.61.
F.62 was altogether more substantial, up to
4.0m in diameter. The base was stepped, being
deepest on the south, where a distinct sub-
rectangular area could be identified cut to a depth
of 0.6m below the surface of the chalk. This could
reflect an earlier episode of deliberate stone burial
(‘half buryed’) prior to the subsequent burning and
destruction. A thick layer of stone destruction debris
lay across the base of this zone, in turn sealed by
ploughsoil.
In each instance traces of the original stone
sockets survived. In the case of the southernmost
setting, the socket (F. 96) had been severely
truncated by the digging of the sub-rectangular
burial/destruction pit on the north-western side of
the stone, cutting into its northern side and base.
To the north the shallow destruction pit had been
cut directly adjacent to the socket (F.82), which
was largely intact. The suggestion here is that the
stone fell or had been toppled at some point prior
to the destruction episode. In each case the
maximum diameter of the socket was in the order
of 1.7m and depths of 0.7m (F.96) and 0.5m (F.82).
Portions of compact chalk rubble survived in both,
along with in situ and displaced sarsen packing
stones. With the exception of small quantities of
lithic debitage, no artefactual material was present
in their fills.
Although a considerable area had been
excavated to the southwest of the Cove (T.24), there
was no evidence for any continuation of the
Beckhampton Avenue, suggesting either a
termination or a break in the regular spacing of
stone pairs at this point (see below).
The Cove and original Avenue
terminal
An area of just over 1850m? was stripped around
and to the west of the one remaining Cove stone,
‘Adam’, in order to explore the features of the Cove
and assess the possibility of a continuation of the
Avenue to the south-west. Geophysical survey had
identified three substantial anomalies adjacent to
‘Adam’. Upon removal of the ploughsoil, these were
revealed as sizeable stone destruction pits (F.71,
52 and 53) marking the locations of stones recorded
by Stukeley in 1722-4 as recently removed (F.52
and 53) and lying recumbent (F.71). Along with
‘Adam’, the stones that originally stood here formed
a rectilinear setting c.15 x 10m, aligned north-west
— south-east, with splayed sides, ‘opening’ to the
south-east (Figure 5). The size of the destruction
pits and remaining portions of the original stone
sockets ((F.50/72 on the north-west, F.81 on the
south-west and F.87 on the south-east) indicate the
former existence of sarsen blocks equivalent in size
to ‘Adam’ (i.e. standing 3-4m above ground and,
accepting Cunnington’s calculation of the weight
of Adam following the re-erection of the stone in
1912, weighing more than 60 tons (Cunnington
1913: 6)).
In each instance destruction pits had extensively
disturbed, though not totally eradicated, the original
stone sockets. On the northern side, little remained
of socket F.50/72, most of the feature having been
removed by the destruction pit F.71. This may
anyway have been extensively disturbed when the
stone originally fell. Only the extreme ends of the
pit remained, but these suggest the socket was
c.3.5m in length and up to 1.0m deep. In the
disturbed fill were sherds of medieval pottery and
abundant quantities of flint debitage. A large
weathering cone had formed around the socket after
the stone had fallen, and had partially silted by the
time the destruction pit was dug.
F87 survived on the north-western edge of
destruction pit F.53, much of it having been
truncated by the latter which had been dug directly
EXCAVATIONS AT THE BECKHAMPTON ENCLOSURE, AVENUE AND COVE, AVEBURY 253
<<
| Trench 24
Fig. 5. Principal features in Trench 24. ‘Adam’, stone sockets and a section
up to the base of the stone on its southern side.
Form and dimensions are difficult to gauge,
especially since only half of the feature was
excavated, but the socket would appear to have been
oval, set east-west, around 3.0m in length and 0.8m
deep. The base was clearly compacted by the weight
of the stone.
The socket of the western side stone of the Cove
(the pair to ‘Adam’), F.81, remained reasonably
intact although extensive animal burrowing had
destroyed much of the upper profile. Forming a
flattened oval, 4.5 x 2.0m and 1.0m deep, it was
well cut, with steep sides on all but the west, and a
stepped base (caused by compression from the
254 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Fig. 6. Spread of sarsen packing boulders in F'81.
stone in the centre of the socket). A line of anti-
friction stake holes ran along the eastern edge of
the pit, indicating that the stone had been set into
the socket from the south-west. The fill was
particularly compact towards the centre where the
stone had been bedded, and contained deposits of
freshly flaked flint and animal bone. Around 80
small sarsen packing boulders were present,
concentrated mainly to the south (Figure 6). The
configuration of the packing boulders and the
pattern of compression suggest that the stone had
been set on one corner (if originally of squared form
like ‘Adam’, standing above ground as a lozenge).
All three stones were destroyed in the early 18th
century. F.52 and 53 were fairly typical post-medieval
destruction pits (though considerably larger than
those excavated to the east). They were roughly oval
in shape, up to 6.0m across and 0.8m deep,
somewhat irregular and expediently dug. Their lower
fills contained spreads of charcoal-rich soil, burnt
straw and fragmented and burnt sarsen. Such was
the intensity of burning within F.52 that some of the
sarsen had been reddened and reduced to sand.
Several thousand pieces of worked flint were
recovered from both of these features along with
small quantities of bone. From the re-deposited chalk
and soil fill of F.52 came, somewhat unexpectedly,
numerous fragments of iron, including a small Anglo-
Saxon spearhead, pieces of shield fitting and a part
of a knife blade. These are almost certainly from a
disturbed pagan Saxon inhumation burial or a
weapon deposit, probably of 7th-century date
(Andrew Reynolds pers comm.).
F.71 was the largest of the destruction pits so
far encountered, and morphologically unusual. This
was a multi-lobate pit, 6.5 x 6.0+m across, with
very steep to vertical sides and a flat base set on
several levels. The portion of the pit excavated
comprised two deep shafts on the north-east and
Fig. 7. The ‘furnace’ (F:71) originally quarried into the
chalk beneath the recumbent back-stone of the Cove.
south-west, c.3.0m across and over 2.0m deep,
separated by a narrow causeway (Figure 7). On the
north side a 1.0m deep extension cut through the
original stone socket. The shafts appear to have been
dug to create sufficient working space to enable a
horizontal ‘gallery’ to be excavated through the
chalk beneath the stone, leaving the recumbent
sarsen supported at the corners by pillars of undug
chalk. Once a sufficient void had been created the
shafts were then deliberately backfilled with chalk
rubble up to the level of the floor of the north
extension, creating a level surface across the whole
of the pit. A thick layer of charcoal-rich soil with
sarsen fragments lay over this, the product of fire-
setting (from which most of the sarsen fragments
had been raked out). The pit had then been
backfilled to the surface with chalk rubble and soil.
Finds from the backfill of the destruction pit
included several sherds of worn samian and
Romano-British pottery.
This unusual pit represents the technological
response to dealing with a large recumbent stone.
Too bulky to lever up and fire-set in the conventional
manner, it was necessary to sink shafts around the
stone, then tunnel underneath, creating a void in
which the fire could be set — in effect constructing
a furnace. The scale of the process shows it was
both well-organised and well-planned, involving a
considerable expenditure of labour. With the stone
left supported on spurs of un-dug chalk, it must
also have represented a considerable risk to those
taking part in the operation.
The Beacock Holes
Two stone holes were unexpectedly revealed on the
north-eastern side of the area, one (F.54) just to
the north-west of F.71, and the second (F.83) 15m
EXCAVATIONS AT THE BECKHAMPTON ENCLOSURE, AVENUE AND COVE, AVEBURY 255
to the south-east of F.53 (Figure 5). It is argued
that these, along with F.87, form part of an original
terminal to the Avenue. They are set 40m apart on
a line that bisects F.87 at its mid point. They were
termed ‘Beacock Holes’ after the student excavator
of the first of these features.
Both features were distinct from the other
excavated stone sockets by virtue of their pure chalk
rubble fills, making them difficult to detect on the
surface (F.83 only appearing after a period of
weathering). Both were very similar in morphology
and fill; c.3.0 x 2.0m in extent and 0.5-0.7m deep,
with moderately steep sides and flattish bases.
Deeper, sloping linear recesses on the south sides
of both bases are possibly leverage points to facilitate
the erection or removal of the stones, and slight
hollows along the northern edge of F.54 could
represent settings for anti-friction stakes. The base
of F.54, and to a lesser extent that of F.83, were
extremely compacted and smoothed, consistent
with compression from having held large stones.
However, the stones could not have stood long, and
seem to have been deliberately removed soon after
erection, the pits then being backfilled with clean
chalk rubble.
Stakeholes
Once the surface of the chalk had had time to
weather, numerous stakeholes were observed,
particularly in the northern half of the area. Where
possible, these were base-planned, thorough
investigation being confined to a 10 x 10m area in
the west corner of the trench. Over 200 stakeholes
were revealed in this one area, a number being
sealed by the fill of the ridge-and-furrow, indicating
a pre-late medieval, and most probably prehistoric,
date for most (cf. similar concentrations of such on
later Neolithic sites at Coneybury (Richards 1990,
138) and Down Farm (Green 2000, 73)). Though
no discernible structural patterns could be
recognised within these, their distribution is non-
random and several sets appear to describe short
arcs. They could easily represent a palimpsest of
temporary dwellings, fence lines and compounds.
DISCUSSION
The enclosure
Sufficient of the enclosure has now been excavated
to be certain of its character. In all of the sections
examined the ditch is narrow, shallow, flat-bottomed
and dug as a series of intersecting pits. Its segmented
form was perfectly displayed in the long lengths of
ditch exposed during the 2000 season. Small
causeways, some too narrow to have acted as points
of entry into the monument, were discovered in
three locations (Trenches 22, 23 and 24). With
minor variations, the sequence of filling is identical
in all the excavated sections: primary chalk rubble,
followed by the formation of a thin secondary silt
and intermittent soil, and then a uniform backfill
deposit of chalk rubble (almost certainly re-
deposited bank material pushed from the inner
side). Whilst localised scoops may have been dug
to receive ‘decommissioning’ deposits prior to the
episode of levelling, there is no evidence for re-
cutting. Preliminary analysis of molluscan samples
taken in 1999 suggests conditions of grazed
grassland throughout the life of the enclosure. A
certain amount of depositional activity followed
immediately on from the digging of the ditch,
involving placed spreads of butchered animal bone
(cattle and pig), soil, and small amounts of Grooved
Ware and worked flint. This is particularly ‘event
like’ (limited to a specific horizon) and largely
limited to the area closest to the main eastern
entrance. Despite investigation, no indications have
been found of contemporary activity within the
interior of the enclosure — it is remarkably ‘clean’.
Radiocarbon determinations obtained on bone
recovered during the 1999 excavations suggest the
enclosure ditch was dug, began to silt and was finally
backfilled and levelled within a short period of time.
The span of dates runs between 2885-2200 cal BC,
though Bayesian calibration of these narrows the
range to 2650/2500-2510/2300 cal BC. These mid-
3rd millennium BC dates are supported by sherds
of Grooved Ware since recovered from the base of
the ditch.
There is no doubt that this is an unusual
monument, and one that was rather ‘out of time’.
Its form is highly reminiscent of 4th millennium
BC causewayed enclosures, though it also has
affinities (in terms of scale and restricted access,
though not geometric regularity) with the earlier
Stonehenge 1 (Cleal et al. 1995) and Flagstones
enclosures (Smith et al. 1997). Yet, it must be more
or less contemporary with the Avebury henge (Pitts
and Whittle 1992). Its anachronistic form may have
been quite deliberate, making direct reference to
earlier traditions, and thus standing to some degree
in contrast or opposition to the novel values and
bodies of sacred knowledge presented by a
256 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
monument like Avebury. This said, the enclosure
might well have embodied subtly different meanings
and values from those found in earlier monuments
to which it made reference. Activity atWindmill Hill,
close to the north, was seemingly bound up with
ideas of community (real and idealised), gathering
and participation, with feasting, deposition and a host
of other activities taking place (Whittle et al. 1999).
There is little sense of this at the Beckhampton
enclosure, its diminutive size and the absence of
subsequent elaboration perhaps even reflecting
difficulties in mobilising participation in the project.
The Avenue and Cove
Nearly 200m of the Avenue have now been
investigated, providing a wealth of information on
both its original form and its later history of
piecemeal destruction. Unfortunately, there is still
no secure dating evidence from the sockets; though
we would envisage a sequence that sees the Avenue
following the enclosure, with the levelling of the
latter (around 2500-2300 cal BC) happening at a
point when the megalithic settings were erected.
The relationship of the Avenue to the enclosure
represents something of a paradox: its siting was
deliberately intended to take in the enclosure, but
required the levelling of the earlier monument as
part of the process. It is tempting to see this as an
overtly ideological act, removing the enclosure and
confining it to (a particular kind of) memory.
The full course of the Avenue remains to be
established, particularly beyond the Cove. It is
significant that no further Avenue stones were
detected to the south-west of the Cove in Trench
24, assuming that the longitudinal interval between
stone pairs remained constant, implying that
something unexpected is happening at this point.
Whilst the Cove could represent the end of the
Avenue, further pairs of stones were recorded by
Stukeley running to the south-west, at least as far
as the present Beckhampton roundabout (Stukeley
1743), and a sarsen burial pit was excavated on this
line at the side of the Calne road by the Vatchers in
the early 1970s (information from Alexander Keiller
Museum, Avebury). Assuming this westerly stretch
does exist, and given the ‘broken’ interval and a
slight change in alignment, it could very well be a
later addition. The idea of phasing/stages to the
Avenue’s construction, with the original terminal
immediately to the south-west of the enclosure, is
given support by the sequence and arrangement of
stone settings around the Cove.
The excavation of the Cove vindicates Stukeley’s
observations regarding the format of the setting,
though it is clear that his southern-most stone
(represented by socket F.87) was not as he thought
part of the southern line of the Avenue, but in fact
set within its centre. This shows that the Cove was
not an open-box arrangement of three stones, as
appears to be the case with the supposedly
analogous setting within the Northern Inner Circle
at Avebury (Smith 1965), but a ‘closed’ rectilinear
setting, still reasonably permeable, widening to the
south-east.
This was evidently not a single-phase setting.
‘Two stone holes were unexpectedly revealed to the
northwest and southeast of the Cove — the ‘Beacock
Holes’ F.54 and 83. These held stones apparently
removed soon after their setting; they were not
subject to later burial or breakage like the others,
and the sockets were carefully backfilled with clean
chalk rubble. Judging by the size of the sockets these
must have held substantial megaliths, perhaps in
the order of 3-4m high. The working hypothesis is
that they, along with the stone in F.87 (which lies
at the mid-point on a line between the two), formed
a first phase setting, 40m across, forming the
original terminal of the Avenue (Figure 8). When
the Avenue was extended to the south-west the two
outlying stones were removed, and the Cove created
on a slightly different alignment, utilising the
existing (and very substantial) megalith in F.87. The
dimensions of this complex are revealing. The 40m
span of the first phase setting is equivalent to that
of the outer stone circle of the Sanctuary at the end
of the corresponding West Kennet Avenue (Pollard
1992). The elements of the Cove itself are seemingly
set out in units equivalent to c.2.5 and 5m (though
given the bulky nature of the stones, none of these
measurements can have been retained with any
precision during construction) — thus the width of
the setting ranges from c.7.5-10m, and its length is
just over 15m. The geometric regularity of the
setting again recalls that of the Sanctuary and many
other major late Neolithic timber and stone
monuments (cf. Powell 1994).
Burl (2000, 31-3) has suggested that this and
other coves were intermediary megalithic forms
between earlier Neolithic chambered tombs and
later stone circles, in as much as they mimic the
closed format of simple megalithic chambers. The
apparent late date of that at Beckhampton takes it
out of such an evolutionary sequence, though the
location of the setting within close proximity to two
earthen long mounds lends support to Burl’s
EXCAVATIONS AT THE BECKHAMPTON ENCLOSURE, AVENUE AND COVE, AVEBURY 257
am £5.54 i
Line of Avenue
aque F.87
Phase 1
@ F383 0 A 10
Fig. 8. The original terminal of the Beckhampton Avenue? A reconstruction of the two phases of stone settings excavated
in Trench 24.
arguments. An alternative is to see the construction
of the Cove as an act that referenced and
commemorated the earlier enclosure. Both
monuments are characterised by an enclosed yet
permeable architecture; the experience of standing
inside the open form of the Cove also being quite
different from that of the dark, restricted space of a
chamber in a megalithic tomb. Almost invariably
associated with henge monuments and stone circles
(Burl 2000, 31), these enigmatic settings may in
fact have carried diverse meanings and bodies of
symbolism.
The Cove has a complex history. It became the
focus for a variety of later activities: a Beaker-
associated burial was discovered alongside Adam
when that stone was re-erected in 1912
(Cunnington 1913); sherds of Roman pottery were
found in the fills of the destruction pits; and the
iron spearhead and other metalwork recovered from
the fill of F.52 most likely relates to a pagan Saxon
burial or weapon deposit. Such later activity could
be seen in the context of attempts at appropriating
something of the myths or histories that later attached
themselves to the Cove. The setting clearly suffered
badly at the hands of the 18th century stone-breakers.
It is recorded by Stukeley that some of the stone was
carted away to build part of the present Waggon and
Horses public house on the Calne-Marlborough road
(Burl 1979, 51). The scale of the destruction work
inspires respect, particularly the hazardous operation
of undermining and fire-setting the northern Cove
stone. Whilst driven to some extent by monetary gain,
there appears a zealousness to these operations that
implies a desire on the part of certain early 18th-
century farmers to rid the Avebury landscape of a
perceived ‘pagan’ past.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Once again, we would like to thank Robin Butler
for granting permission to work on his land and for
258 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
his tolerance to the demands of the project. Gill
and Robin Swanton provided campsite support, and
Rosina Mount maintained excellent morale through
splendid cooking and campsite management. The
work was undertaken by students from Leicester,
Southampton and Newport, with supervisory
assistance from David Robinson, John Tate, and
Lesley McFadyen. Much valued additional help
came from local volunteers along with Ros Cleal,
Rosie Edwards and Mike Pitts. Thanks are also due
to Andrew David, Andrew Payne and Louise Martin
of the Ancient Monuments Laboratory (for the pre-
excavation geophysical survey), Amanda Chadburn
and Duncan Coe. The project is funded by a major
grant from the Arts and Humanities Research
Board.
References
BELL, M., FOWLER, P. and HILLSON, S., (eds) 1996.
The Experimental Earthwork Project 1960-92.
London: Council for British Archaeology
BURL, A., 1979, Prehistoric Avebury. London: Yale
University Press
BURL, A., 2000, The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland
and Brittany. New Haven and London: Yale University
Press
CLEAL, R., WALKER, K. and MONTAGUE, R., 1995,
Stonehenge in its Landscape: Twentieth Century
Excavations. London: English Heritage
Archaeological Report 10
CUNNINGTON, M.E., 1913, The Re-erection of Two
Fallen Stones and Discovery of an Interment with
Drinking Cup, at Avebury. WANHM 38, 1-11
GILLINGS, M., POLLARD, J. and WHEATLEY, D.,
2000a, The Beckhampton Avenue and a ‘new’
Neolithic enclosure near Avebury: an interim report
on the 1999 excavations’. WANHM 93, 1-8
GILLINGS, M., POLLARD, J. and WHEATLEY, D.,
2000b, ‘Avebury and the Beckhampton Avenue’.
Current Archaeology 167, 428-433.
GREEN, M., 2000, A Landscape Revealed: 10,000 years
on a chalkland farm. Stroud: Tempus
PITTS, M. and WHITTLE, A., 1992, The development
and date of Avebury. Proceedings of the Prehistoric
Society 58, 203-212
POLLARD, J., 1992, The Sanctuary, Overton Hill,
Wiltshire: A Re-examination’. Proceedings of the
Prehistoric Society 58, 213-26
POWELL, A., 1994, Newgrange — Science or
Symbolism’. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society
60, 85-96
RICHARDS, J., 1990, The Stonehenge Environs Project.
London: English Heritage
SMITH, I1.F., 1965, Windmill Hill and Avebury:
excavations by Alexander Keiller, 1925-1939. Oxford:
Clarendon Press
SMITH, R., HEALY, F., ALLEN, M, MORRIS, E.,
BARNES, I. and WOODWARD, P.J., 1997,
Excavations along the Route of the Dorchester By-
Pass, Dorset, 1986-8. Salisbury: Wessex Archaeology
STUKELEY, W., 1743, Abury: a Temple of the British
Druids. London
UCKO, P.J., HUNTER, M., CLARK, A.J., and DAVID,
A., 1991, Avebury Reconsidered: From the 1660s to
the 1990s. London: Unwin Hyman
WHITTLE, A., 1993, The Neolithic of the Avebury Area:
Sequence, Environment, Settlement and
Monuments’. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 12(1),
29-53
WHITTLE, A., POLLARD, J. and GRIGSON, C., 1999,
The Harmony of Symbols: the Windmill Hill
causewayed enclosure, Wiltshire. Oxford: Oxbow
Books
Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 259-68
A Brief History of Dauntsey’s School Natural
History Society (fl.1933—1963)
by Michael Darby
The story of Dauntsey’s School Natural History Society is traced from its origin in the early 1930s to its
dissolution in the 1960s through a recently discovered archive of material in WANHS library, supported by
additional information from two of the early members. Brief accounts are given of the main protagonists
including Ian Hamilton, the Biology master responsible for promoting and developing the Society, and the
young Desmond Morris who was an early member. Particular attention 1s paid to the Society’s ‘publications’
(which contain a wealth of information about the fauna and flora of the West Lavington area), and a list of
these 1s appended.
The discovery of an uncatalogued archive (mainly
typescripts and card indices) in WANHS library,
presented by Dauntsey’s in c.1989, provides an
opportunity not only to document the complex
history of the school’s Natural History Society, but
also to place on record several sources of
information which are not well known to Wiltshire’s
naturalists.
It is important to make clear at the outset that
Dauntsey’s was a very different organisation from
the well-known Society at nearby Marlborough
College. The Natural History Society there was
much older and wealthier, and although Dauntsey’s
had its own premises and collections, these were
not on the scale of the Marlborough museum.
Furthermore, fewer professional staff and local
enthusiasts were available to provide support, and
it did not attract the same number of well-known
personalities to lecture. The scope of the Dauntsey’s
Society, consequently, was much narrower, and the
image it presents to the contemporary historian,
more amateur.
But perhaps the most important reason why the
Dauntsey’s Society is not better known is because,
unlike Marlborough, it could not afford to produce
printed and bound reports and papers for national
distribution (surely a major incentive to visiting
speakers whose talks were often reprinted in full).
Instead, what the Society described as ‘publications’
were typed sheets which were copied - a laborious
task involving the use of stencils - in small numbers
before being stapled. Most were either sold, or given
away, to staff and pupils. Because many were
produced during, or soon after, the War, paper quality
was poor and stocks limited. (In this article
publication is used in the sense meant by the school.)
In spite of these limitations, Dauntsey’s specific
concentration on the fauna and flora within a three
mile radius (later increased to five miles) of the
school, provided the opportunity for a more
comprehensive study than that attempted at
Marlborough. Dauntsey’s aim was to catalogue and
record everything living. Although this ambitious
goal proved far beyond the knowledge and abilities
of those involved in many areas, considerable
achievements were made in others of which the
members could feel justifiably proud.
Dauntsey’s School Natural History Society,
often referred to as the School House Natural
History Society (see below), came into being in the
early 1930s shortly after a particularly dynamic
phase in the School’s history. The school, which
had been founded in 1553 had recently formalised
the process of conversion from Agricultural College
The Old Malthouse, Sutton Mandeville, Salisbury SP3 5LZ
260 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
to Public School begun in 1895; the Manor House
at Littleton Panell (a former home of the Pleydell-
Bouverie family) had been purchased as a base for
the younger boys; and the new Farmer biological
laboratories had just opened.
It is possible that a more informal society may
have existed earlier. The first number of the
Agricultural College Magazine (a precursor of the
Dauntseian), which appeared in 1904, makes
reference to the existence of a museum, and states
that ‘there has been for several years past more or
less of an entomology collection in the school, but
this fascinating branch of natural history has
scarcely received its full share of attention from the
Dauntsey naturalists’. Four years later the museum
was, on speech day at least, ‘but little patronised’,
and in entomology ‘little has been done and a falling
off in popularity has been noticeable’. By 1909 the
museum ceased to be mentioned at all.
These tantalising references to displays and
collections suggest that use of the museum may
have been optional but, given the importance of
the contents to the teaching of the curriculum, that
seems unlikely. Entomology formed a formal part
of the Agriculture Course and the Magazine
mentions that the museum display included an
‘excellent collection of Agricultural insect pests
preserved in spirit’.
According to The School House Natural
History Society, 1948, there was also ‘a vigorous
Field Club’ prior to 1930 of which the Headmaster,
G.W.Olive, was President. With the opening of the
Farmer Laboratory however, the Presidency passed
to the new Head of Biology, Ian Hamilton. Spurred
on by C.R.Rivers-Moore, one of the boys, Hamilton
quickly converted the Club into a Natural History
Society, making P.C.Savill the first President,
J.R.Baldwin, Vice President, and Rivers-Moore
Secretary. No doubt Olive, who was himself a
biologist, encouraged these developments.
Fig. 1. Building the Vivarium, Summer 1933.
Fig.2. The Vivarium in 1948 after Desmond Morris had
built pits and tunnels in It.
The first references to the new Society appear
in the Dauntseian in July 1933 and July 1934. They
mention the building of a vivarium (Figs.1,2) and
that the members had made an outing to study the
marine fauna of Poole and Sandbanks. Not
surprisingly the ingredients of sand, sea and reptiles
proved popular, and by the next term the number
of boys wanting to join was so great it became
necessary to form a junior section for Manor boys.
A second new master appointed at this time was A.
Darlington, an ornithologist. It was perhaps to be
expected, therefore, that a Bird Club would quickly
establish itself as another section of the new Society.
By 1937 Darlington appears to have left, and his
replacement as head of the Club, H.J.Moore, put
matters on a more formal footing by establishing it
in its own right as the Bird Trust. With more than
thirty members in some years, the Trust became
one of the school’s most active and successful
groups. Apart from keeping local records, the
members undertook trapping (a ringed bird from
Belgium was one of the first twenty taken) and out-
of-county field trips. They also started a ringing
programme with help from the British Trust for
Ornithology, and were delighted when one of the
first starlings ringed was recorded from the Baltic
coast of Germany, wartime conditions
notwithstanding! After Moore moved to
Clayesmore several joint meetings were held with
that school.
A second independent group which also split
off from the Natural History Society at this time
was the Meteorological Society. It was formed by
Amyan MacFadyen, a pupil who had joined the
school in 1933 and a master B.W.H.Coulson both
of whom were keen to know what effect weather
had on birds. Appropriately, the section’s first title
was the Phenological Society before being changed
in 1936. Equipment was purchased and the site was
A BRIEF HISTORY OF DAUNTSEY’S SCHOOL NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY 261
early recognised by the Air Ministry as a Recording
Station. Local forecasts were posted on the school
notice board daily and readings reported to the
Ministry every month. Five, and later nine different
sets of records were kept including the dates of
arrival and departure of bird migrants, the dates of
first appearance of certain butterflies, moths and
other insects, and the dates when certain plants first
flowered and certain trees first came into leaf. Both
the Bird Trust and the Meteorological Society
published annual reports.
In October 1938 the Dauntseian recorded that:
‘Last term a new society was started for members
of the School House who were interested in Natural
history. Activity was limited to the Dew Pond
Survey shown on Speech Day and Spiders. This
term more dew ponds are being done and a survey
of the Manor Stream. The production of a magazine
is also being considered.’ In fact, this was simply
the earlier Society under a new name, the change
being prompted, apparently, by the fact that the
efficient Manor House Boys, being geographically
separate from the main school, had formed
themselves into the Manor House Natural History
Society and produced their own magazine in 1936
and 1937. With the foundation of the School House
Society, the Manor House boys opted to collaborate
with the members on the publication of a joint
magazine in 1938. Titled the NHS Ark, it appeared
in November, with a Supplement in January 1939.
The editorial states: ‘Both sides have generously
given way to the other, and we have tried to arrange
our material from each society on alternate pages.
The truth of the matter is, that there are only two
Societies as far as dormitory accommodation goes,
because during the last two terms, members of the
one Society have visited and given papers to the
other’.
The NHS Ark, written on the one hand by boys
of various ages and, on the other, by masters
including G.W.Olive, understandably included a
diverse mix of material. The ‘Notes’ of the Manor
House Society are interesting for explaining the
constitution and that the Society not only had its
own room, of which simple sketches are reproduced,
but also a tank in the Manor yard stocked with fish
and insects. Given the age of the members, activities
involved simple tasks such as weighing mice on a
regular basis and measuring the rate of growth of
trees in the Manor grounds, as well as field trips.
Objects collected such as nests, fossils, and tree bark
were brought in and displayed, and records kept.
Articles in the NHS Ark by members of the
School House Society included a list of local
Lepidoptera giving the times of emergence and
disappearance of more than fifty species during
1938; accounts of the Vivarium and the Aquarium
(incorporated into the new Farmer Laboratory and
including both fresh water and sea water tanks);
descriptions of the biology of several individual
species including trout, water boatmen, etc.; and
two pieces devoted to dew ponds.
It was the study of the dew ponds, the editor
explained, which had been the motivating force
behind the society’s establishment: ‘One day in
October 1937, a few keen biologists made the
momentous decision to carry out a dew pond survey
throughout the following year. The following
summer the flame of the ‘School House Natural
History Society’ flared up out of the spark.’
One of the dew pond articles included a map
showing that 26 ponds had been located in the area
between West Lavington, Imber and Tilshead, and
explained that one (no 24, near Tilshead) had been
mapped and photographed regularly from October
1937, and weekly samples taken of the mud in the
bottom for examination in the laboratory. This dew
pond research, together with other surveys and
observations both earlier and later, subsequently
formed the material upon which a Report on
Investigations carried out on the Ecology of Dew
Ponds by A.Macfadyen, E.D.Le Cren, A.Gillespie,
H.J.Moore, and others. 1930-1940, was compiled,
under the editorship of E.D.Le Cren, in July 1940.
Although often referred to as one of the Society’s
publications (with the title The Dew Pond Survey)
it does not appear to have been reproduced and
distributed, so that the typescript, now in the
possession of A.Macfadyen, may be the only copy.
(Figs. 3,4)
ye
: Si ees i
Say ES Bie os |
Fig.3. Making a transect of Dew Pond 1, Summer 1937.
i)
a
bo
Fig.4. Amyan Macfadyen and David Le Cren examining
Dew Pond 2, October, 1938.
While the dew ponds may have been the direct
cause of the revitalisation of interest in natural
history in the school, it is clear that the underlying
motivation continued to come from Ian Hamilton
(nicknamed by members of the Society
‘Buttercup’). It was he who acted as the NHS Ark’s
editor, in addition to writing many of the articles
himself. He also contributed nine pages on spiders,
his special interest, illustrated with his own drawings
and including a brief list of local species, to the Ark
Supplement.
Another of Hamilton’s initiatives was to begin
the publication of an annual School House Natural
History Society Report. The first issue came out in
1939 and publication continued until at least 1956.
Forty pages of the first issue were given over to
reports on the fauna and flora of the surrounding
area. Subsequent issues were shorter, and after 1950
the number of animal groups dropped dramatically.
The wealth of information about individual species
published in the annual Reports is explained in the
first issue: ‘Last year was an important one for the
SHNHS because we have now adopted a successful
working system. Each member undertakes to study
one group of animals or plants, and makes as many
records as he can, carries out experiments and
identifies specimens that other members may
collect. In this way he endeavours to find out as
much as he can about the biology of his group in
the district surrounding the school. Each year he
writes a report of his work, and he also makes all
his records available for publication in a fauna list.’
“This report is really the more interesting and
illuminating of these records, plus any experiments
and conclusions connected with them. In addition,
we thought it might be as well to give some hints
on methods of collecting, preserving and other data
that might be used by future generations of
Dauntseians taking up any of these groups’.
THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
The 1942 Report is interesting as it contains
possibly the first article by the young Desmond
Morris, subsequently to become famous for his
broadcasts and writings on animal and human
behaviour. By the age of fourteen, Morris had taken
on responsibility for Amphibia and Reptilia. He
made more than twenty expeditions to the Manor
swamps, the Mill Stream, and the Viaduct, in the
course of which he became particularly interested
in toads (Figs.5,6). By 1944 he had also taken on
the Vivarium in which he made ‘a new organisation
of pits and tunnels’. His final year, 1945, brought
further responsibility in the form of a lecture to the
members on ‘the system of recording, card
indexing, and making records’.
Fig.5. Drawing of a toad with a puffed out side by
Desmond Morris, 1945.
Morris’s own approach is summed up in an
account he wrote of a small grass snake which he
found coiled up by the side of the road: ‘It made no
attempt to move when picked up, and stayed as
before. It was suspected that there was something
wrong with the animal, and subsequently it was
carefully inspected. Water was found to refreshen it
considerably, and there were no visible wounds, but
there was a swelling on the side of the head and
neck. It was kept under observation for some time
and the swelling appeared to go down a little. The
animal showed no desire to eat, and its general
condition of inactiveness remained the same. A
week or so later, after it had been left unobserved
for some time, its maggot-riddled carcase was found
stretched out in its tank. This condition was very
unfortunate as the corpse was rendered unfit to
dissect, and the disease — if it was a disease — was
never brought to light.’
The Dauntsey Fauna List was undoubtedly the
Society’s best known publication at this time.
Although inscribed prominently on the cover with
the dates 1920-1939, no records before 1931 are
included. A large proportion of the 236 species listed
A BRIEF HISTORY OF DAUNTSEY’S SCHOOL NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY 263
emanated from the dew pond survey (increased in
number by this time to 30), and particularly from
pond 24. The order followed the 1939 Report, ie.
the 24 Phyla of the animal kingdom starting with
the most primitive: Protozoa, Platyhelminthes,
Nematoda, Rotifera, Gastrotricha, Annelida, etc.
through all the different groups of the Arthropoda,
and finally to the Chordata embracing reptiles and
mammals. An appendix added a worm, a springtail,
and 33 beetles recorded in 1938 by D. Philpot. It
also explained that birds were not included because
they were covered separately in the Bird Trust’s
Report.
In some groups these appear to have been the
first Wiltshire lists to be made and, in many others,
they were second only to those published in the
Marlborough College Reports. In the case of spiders
(in which Marlborough appears to have taken
almost no interest) the list is second only to the
Rev. Pickard-Cambridge’s Wiltshire list of 1912.
Given the age of many of the Society’s members
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Fig.6. Diagram by Desmond Morris, 1945, showing the
movement of toads on the Market Lavington Road.
Fig.7. Lino cut by David Le Cren, 1939, used to announce
meetings of the Dauntsey’s Natural History Society.
and the lack of text books, the attributions need to
be treated with caution. The compilers, however,
were well aware of their deficiencies in this respect,
and either did not attempt putting names to species
about which they were in doubt, or determined to
genus or family only. In the case of plants they were
fortunate, for Coulson, a Fellow of the Linnean
Society, was both a good ecologist and taxonomist.
Although a list is provided of 37 boys and masters
involved in the list’s production these are not the
collectors but those responsible for making the
determinations. Four sets of initials are prominent,
those of I.T. Hamilton and B.W.H.Coulson, and of
the two boys, E.D.Le Cren and A.Macfadyen
responsible, as already noted, for the dew pond
survey and founding the Meterological Society
respectively. Fired, presumably by Hamilton’s
enthusiasm, it was Le Cren and Macfadyen who
not only ‘inspired the production’ of the list and
compiled it, but also took on the brunt of analysing
the records and managing the layout of the stencils
for copying. Le Cren also acted as the Society’s
Secretary and in this capacity was responsible for
much of the 1939 and 1940 annual Reports too.
B.W.H.Coulson arrived at Dauntsey’s in
September 1934. Because of his interest in plants
(and birds to a lesser extent) he immediately joined
the Natural History Society (the nickname given
to him by the members was ‘Beetle’, because he
had rather protruding eyes). The third publication
to appear in 1939, the Botanical Bulletin, was
almost entirely due to him. According to the
introduction, the Bulletin aimed ‘to draw attention
to botanical observations of interest’, and ‘to report
on the progress of any investigations being carried
264 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
out either by groups of boys or by individuals’. The
intention was to produce a separate plant list and
‘By publishing these longer notes here ...it is hoped
to avoid overloading the list with data’.
No copies of Coulson’s first plant list (published
in June 1941) appear to have survived, but copies
of the second edition, which included more than a
hundred additions, exist in the WANHS library
archive. Subsequently, both this list and a List of
Fungi, written by Coulson in September 1945, were
united in the Flora List published on 25 July 1952,
five years after Coulson’s departure for Oundle. The
compilation of this list was mainly the work of two
sixth formers S.B.Chapman and A.A.Hooper, who
were able to add lists of Algae and Bryophytes; more
than one hundred species of flowering plants; seven
ferns; and thirty fungi.
According to a manuscript note added by
Hamilton to the copy of the Botanical Bulletin in
the archive: ‘In 1940 Mr Coulson was called up,
and the Botanical Bulletin and other publications
for which he was responsible, passed into the hands
of the Natural History Society. Under my
editorship, the title was altered [to the Biological
Bulletin] and remained thus after Mr Coulson’s
return from the Forces.’ Only three editions of the
new Biological Bulletin appeared (in April 1941,
September 1942 and January 1947) before it was
abandoned.
Together, the four Bulletins, which are numbered
consecutively, contain almost forty articles most of
which detail experimental work and field
observations. Of those of local interest, one records
the results of an ecological survey of Druid’s Lodge
on Salisbury Plain. Others record new species to the
area including Amoeba limicola and the spider
Scytodes thoracica. Another spider, Epeira fasciata,
sent to Hamilton by a resident of Westonbirt, was
reported as having recently arrived in Britain, and
he included large scale drawings so that it could be
looked out for in the West Lavington area.
One might have expected that the fierce
commitment to research and publishing exhibited
in 1939 would have lapsed after the start of the
war, particularly given Coulson’s departure to the
front, but that was not the case. In 1941, for
example, six expeditions were mounted to local sites
in addition to those involved with the preparation
of the annual Speech Day exhibit, and the fifth and
sixth editions of the Magazine, the annual Report,
and the Biological Bulletin were all produced. Other
work involved an extensive amount of card indexing
(these cards are presumably those preserved in three
boxes in the archive), the up-dating of the species
lists, and three business meetings at which a new
constitution was agreed. That all of this was
achieved was in large part due to Hamilton, whom
G.H.Wiltshire, the new Secretary, noted had ‘typed,
reproduced, and largely written’ all the publications.
The opening paragraphs of the annual Report for
1948 attempted to do justice to Hamilton’s
achievements, but the writers had only been
involved with the Society for two terms and tacitly
admitted they had little knowledge of what had gone
on before. They do, however, pay tribute to his work
on the fauna of the area around the school, and
particularly to ‘the great effort that he made to bring
the Fauna List up to date during the Summer Term
of the last year’.
The Dauntsey Fauna List 1931-1948, being a
corrected and updated version of the earlier Fauna
List, must surely remain not just the greatest
monument to Hamilton’s labours, but to those of
the members of the Natural History Society too.
Published in parts between 31 December 1946 and
27 June 1948 (see below), it lists 879 species in
579 genera recorded by 106 observers, to which
could be added 119 birds from the Bird Trust’s list,
making a total of 998 species, 762 more than in the
first edition. Bound copies in the archive also
include the fungi list of September 1945 and the
second edition of the plant list of September 1944
which together add a further 495 species to this
total.
A study of the lists of spiders and beetles
suggests that approximately 33% of the names have
changed and approximately 8% of species have been
split into two or more species since the List’s
production. In addition, question marks hang over
the determination of some of the more difficult
species, which cannot be resolved without sight of
the original specimens. But, in spite of these
problems, there are many records which can be
accepted with confidence. Indeed, for the
contemporary biologist, struggling to understand the
nature of one of the most poorly recorded counties
in England, the list is very precious and there is good
reason to be very grateful to the members of the
Dauntsey’s Society for producing it.
Given the level of Hamilton’s input it was hardly
surprising that, after he left Dauntseys in 1947, there
was a rapid falling off in the amount of work and
number of publications produced by the Society.
Even by 1948 the expedition programme had been
reduced to two outings, one of which was to study
marine fauna and flora at Lulworth Cove.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF DAUNTSEY’S SCHOOL NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY 205
Between 1952, when a new butterfly list was
issued, and the early 1960s accounts are more
positive. In 1956, for example, more visits and
meetings were being held; in 1959 a new
Constitution was drawn up; and in 1962
‘celebrations’ were held to mark the start of the new
society and ‘the first anniversary of the old society’s
dissolution’. But, behind this fagade, membership
and interest continued to drop. No Reports or other
publications are known after 1956, and the
Dauntseian soon stopped mentioning the Society
altogether. The Society’s Magazine also ceased
production, its early mix of material having become
more and more amateur, almost frivolous, and of
little value to the serious student. In fact, it seems to
have had distribution problems even earlier.
Hamilton wrote of the 1945 edition: ‘to boost sales,
we announced that we were giving away free gifts.
The School collection of butterflies was going very
mouldy, so we broke this up and fixed a wing on to
the back of every page (a very ticklish job making it
stick), and here was our free gift! We printed about
120 magazines and there were not enough wings to
go round ... within ten minutes of issuing the
magazine a small boy had come along with a tale of
having no wing in his copy, so we gave him a complete
moth — he went away very happy. Then an irate sixth
former arrived ... to pacify him we gave him one our
biggest moths complete with pin.’ By the 1960s the
other collections were also disintegrating.
Hamilton’s key role in the establishment and
development of the Society is clear. His capacity
for hard work, his commitment to natural history
as a part of biology and, in particular, his ability to
enthuse and support the pupils in his charge are all
evident in the publications. Evident, too, is his sense
of humour — the inclusion of numerous cartoons,
the boyish jokes in his editorials, the leg pulls in
which he engaged on outings.
Amyan Macfadyen says of Hamilton: ‘he was
totally against the kind of thing that present day
education attempts; the word ‘syllabus’ was taboo
in his presence. His aim was always to raise strong
~ personal interest in his pupils and help them to think
and arrive at their own understanding and view on
subjects. He didn’t suffer fools nor tolerate laziness.
I think he was the real generator of the NHS but it
was done surreptiously and, while receiving all
possible backing from him we certainly felt it was
our show’.
The backing included ‘fighting a battle’ with
Olive to allow some members of the Society to use
bicycles to search out dew ponds all over Salisbury
Plain even when they were not in the VIth form.
Interestingly, however, it rarely extended to
accompanying members into the field himself, a
task which he left to Coulson. With regard to his
own input into the scientific work of the Society he
was modest. In referring to the recorders in the
revised Fauna List, for example, he introduced a
method of ‘valuing’ their work. Two stars were given
to those ‘specialising in one group only, and
therefore very reliable within that group. Or a
general collector who was too cautious to make any
rash claims’; and one star to ‘careful recorders, often
with a specialist knowledge of one group only, but
may not have realised that other species existed, or
a general collector associated with the school over
a number of years, whose later records are more
reliable than his earlier ones’. Macfadyen and Le
Cren are given two stars each, but he awards only
one to himself. Perhaps even more telling is a remark
by A.O Chase, the secretary in 1940, who wrote of
a lecture which Hamilton gave on 11 November in
that year: ‘Mr Hamilton gave his belated talk this
evening on spiders — belated, because it was to have
been on Wednesday after supper, but an untimely
air-raid warning occurred. However, we enjoyed it
all the same. Not being able to produce living things
at this time of year he showed us some excellent
slides, as well as some cocoons and dead specimens.
Our enjoyment would have been enhanced if he
had not been so apologetic about everything’.
Hamilton’s concern with the importance of
correct determination of species is one which all
associated with contemporary biological and
botanical recording will understand. What they will
have more difficulty in comprehending, however,
is the amount of reliance he placed on books, as
opposed to consultation with other specialists and
the use of comparative material. This was something
which Marlborough understood well, and wide use
was made there of the staff of the British Museum
(Natural History) and others to identify difficult
material. It is true that Marlborough was much
helped by the presence of internationally respected
authorities who were on the staff (such as Edward
Meyrick, the microlepidopterist) or were old boys,
and by the fact that many experts came to the school
to give lectures. But Hamilton was himself in touch
with Randall Jackson, Ted Locket and Theodore
Savory, all well known authorities, to identify his
favourite spiders, and T.T.Macan, the freshwater
ecologist, was consulted by Macfadyen over the dew
pond species, which make this omission the more
surprising.
266 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
That relatively few contacts were made amongst
specialists is the more puzzling not only in the light
of Hamilton’s clear recognition of the inadequacy
of much of the reference material in the Society’s
library, but also given his belief in the importance
of developing contacts with other schools. In their
brief eulogium the writers of the 1948 Report noted
that he was ‘a keen supporter of the Association of
School Natural History Societies and it is mainly
through his efforts that the activities of our own
society are known, we think, by other members of
the Association. ITH was a strong advocate of
meetings between the natural history societies of
different schools...’. Marlborough, with its extensive
library of up-to-date literature as well as reference
collections, was only a few miles away and it is
surprising that there was apparently no
communication between the two until 1958 when
their first joint meeting was held in the Farmer
Laboratory. Of course it is quite possible that earlier
overtures may have been made by Dauntsey’s which
were rebuffed.
While Hamilton’s departure was undoubtedly
a major factor in the sudden decline of the
Dauntsey’s Society, in another sense it could be
said to have merely hastened the inevitable. The
rise of ecology as a science, together with the growth
of interest in physiology, genetics, DNA and
biotechnology undoubtedly had a dramatic effect
on the way students were encouraged to look at
their environment. No longer was the focus so much
on individual species. At the same time, the
difficulties for the amateur in determining species
were becoming greater as techniques became more
demanding, equipment more expensive, and the
quantity of literature burgeoned. In addition, greater
attention on budgets and the broadening of the
curriculum forced a hard look at expenditure, and
the use of premises. Spaces occupied by activities
not deemed to be ‘core’ could no longer be justified.
Dauntsey’s Natural History Society was not the
only one to suffer, that of Marlborough and many
other schools also disappeared during the next two
decades.
After leaving Dauntsey’s David le Cren went
on to become Director of the Freshwater Biological
Association, and Amyan Macfadyen to be Professor
of Biology at the University of Ulster and President
of the British Ecological Society. Like Desmond
Morris and Anthony Huxley (who was a pupil at
the school in the 1930s), they clearly benefited from
the broad based teaching advocated by Hamilton
and Coulson, as well as the ‘hands on’ experience
provided by membership of the Natural History
Society. Now, the emphasis on biodiversity, and
the recognition of the destruction caused to the
environment by dubious practices and policies at
the end of the last millennium, is seeing a renewal
of interest in species recording at the local level.
The Bee Club at Dauntsey’s still survives - a small
ending, which also holds out the possibility of a
new beginning.
LIST OF TYPESCRIPT
‘PUBLICATIONS’ BY DAUNTSEY’S
SCHOOL NATURAL HISTORY
SOCIETY (Includes those by both the
School House Natural History Society
and the Manor House Natural History
Society)
Fauna Lists
(Note: Pages are un-numbered unless stated and blank
sides have not been included. Unless mentioned all items
exist in the WANHS archive)
1. Dauntsey Fauna List 1920 — 1939
(pp.27. Includes introduction, Map of the District and
description of The District around Dauntsey’s School.)
2.A Check List of the Spiders Recorded in the Immediate
Neighbourhood of Dauntsey’s School, Wilts. Revised up
to 31st Dec.1946. (pp.11 of which ten are numbered 2-
11)
3. A Check List of Harvestmen, Mites, and Water Mites
Recorded in the Immediate Neighbourhood of Dauntsey’s
School, Wilts. Revised up to 31st Dec. 1946. (pp.4
numbered 13-16)
4. A Check List of the Dragonflies and Damsel-Flies
Recorded in the Immediate Neighbourhood of Dauntsey’s
School, Wilts. Revised up to July 31st. 1947 (pp.4 three
of which are numbered 31-34)
5. A Check List of Those Animals commonly known as
“Worms” (Flatworms, Roundworms and Leeches.)
Recorded in the Immediate Neighbourhood of Dauntsey’s
School, Wilts. Revised up to July 31st. 1947. (pp.6
numbered 34-39)
6. A Check List of the Vertebrates (Excluding Birds)
Recorded in the Immediate Neighbourhood of Dauntsey’s
School, West Lavington, Wilts. Revised up to 31st
December, 1947. (pp.9 eight of which are numbered 40-
46)
A BRIEF HISTORY OF DAUNTSEY’S SCHOOL NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY 267
7. A Check List of the One-Celled Animals (Protozoa),
Coelenterates & Polyzoa, Gastrotricha, Rotifera (Wheel
Animalcules) and Mollusca Recorded in the Immediate
Neighbourhood of Dauntsey’s School, Wiltshire. Revised
up to June 16th. 1948. (pp.16 fifteen of which are
numbered 2-16)
8. A Check List of the Lower Groups of Arthropoda
(Myriapoda, Crustacea, Wingless Insects, Mayflies, Bugs)
Recorded in the Immediate Neighbourhood of Dauntsey’s
School, Wilts. Revised up to June 18th. 1948. (pp.13, six
of which are numbered 46-49,57,58)
9. A Check List of the Higher Classes of Insects (Alder
Flies, Lacewings, Scorpion Flies, Caddis Flies, Bees,
Wasps, True Flies and Mosquitoes) Recorded in the
Neighbourhood of Dauntsey’s School, Wilts. Revised up
to June 18th. 1948. (pp.18 sixteen of which are numbered
59,00,78,79,79A-e and 80-87).
Note: These pages had earlier been issued under the
incorrect title: A Check List of the Two-Winged Insects
(Flies and Mosquitoes) Recorded in the Immediate
Neighbourhood of Dauntsey’s School, Wilts. Revised up
to June 7th. 1948.
10. A Check List of the Coleoptera (Beetles) Recorded
in the Immediate Neighbourhead of Dauntsey’s School,
Wilts. Revised up to June 27th.1948. (pp.14 numbered
75,75a-k,76,77)
(Note: nos. 2-10 are titled S.H.N.H.S Publication 1947
or 1948 or 1947-48 and Dauntsey Fauna List (Revised).)
11. Dauntsey Fauna List 1931-1948. Revised 1947-48.
Includes the lists 2-10,15 and 16 some of which have
been altered and expanded, together with an Introduction
to the Second Edition by 1.T.Hamilton dated 4th July
1948, an account of The District around Dauntsey’s
School (by E. le Cren), a Map of the District (after E.D.le
Cren), a list of Initials, and two pp. of Addenda and
Corrigenda. Also includes other check lists not known to
have been separately published including a printed Bird
List (pp.114).
13. S.H.N.H.S. Publication 1953. Dauntsey Fauna List.
(Revised). A Checklist of Butterflies and Moths Recorded
in the Immediate Neighbourhood of Dauntsey’s School,
- Wilts. Revised up to July 1953. (pp.16)
Plant Lists
14. A Plant List was published in 1941 of which I have
not been able to locate a copy. The introduction by
B.W.H.Coulson, dated 21st June 1941, is reproduced in
16.
15. Dauntsey’s School Natural History Society. Plant List.
1. Angiospermae 2. Coniferae. 3. Filices. 4. Equisetaceae.
2nd Edition. September 1944. (pp.13)
16. Dauntsey’s School Natural History Society. List of
Fungi. September 1945. (pp.3)
17. The index to the annual Report for 1947 includes a
Supplementary Plant List (p.7) but this is missing from
the copies I have consulted. It may be the third edition of
the plant list referred to in 18 below.
18. Dauntsey’s School Natural History Society. Flora List.
1. Algae. 2. Fungi. 3. Bryophyta. 4. Pteridophyta. 5.
Coniferae. 6. Angiospermae. First Edition July 1952
(ncluding the Second Edition of the Fungi List & the
Third Edition of the Plant List.) (pp.21)
Magazines
19. See 20. Confirmation that a magazine was produced
in this year is provided in no 7 Editorial. The editors were
A. Pulford and S. Forsyth.
20. ‘Last year [ie, 1937] Manor House produced a
magazine for the second time.’ (21, p.1)
21. The N.H.S. Ark. November 1938. (pp.60)
22. Supplement to the NHS Ark. January 1939. (pp.22)
23-25. I have not succeeded in locating copies for years
1940,1941.
26. Natural History Society Magazine No 7. November
1942. Price 6d (pp.28)
27. I have not succeeded in locating a copy for 1943.
28. Natural History Society Magazine no 8. November
1944. Price 6d (pp.43)
29-32. I have not succeeded in locating copies for years
1945-48.
33. S.H.N.H.S Magazine 1949 (pp.45) I assume this to
be the last produced.
(A note in The School House Natural History Society,
1948, 6, states the Magazine ‘has had the longest run of
all non official School Magazines, 1936 — 46’ and refers
to a set of these years (missing no 1) having been bound
and presented to the Society by Desmond Morris, but it
is Now missing.)
Bulletins
34. Dauntsey’s School Botanical Bulletin. July 1939.
(pp. 15)
268 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
SCHOOL HOUSE
NATURAL HISTORY
SOCIETY
Fig. 8. Front cover of The School House Natural History
Society, 1948, drawn by Bruce Sandilands
35. Dauntsey’s School Biological Bulletin (Incorporating
the Botanical Bulletin.) Number 1 April 1941. (pp.27
numbered 1-26)
36. As above. Number 2 September 1942. (pp.29
numbered 27-55)
37. As above. Number 3 January 1947. (pp.26 numbered
55-80)
Annual Reports
38-55. Annual reports for the years 1939 —1956, each
titled School House Natural History Society Report for
the year or similar. Most are between 8 and 14 pp. with
the exception of the first which was 47 pp.
Miscellaneous
57. School House Natural History Society, 1948. (pp.51).
Reprinted from two articles in the Dauntesian in
September and December 1948 by the Wiltshire Gazette
Printing Works, Devizes. The name of the compiler is not
mentioned but was almost certainly I.T.Hamilton.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
At Dauntsey’s I would like thank Mrs Murray, the
Librarian, for giving me access to the school
archives, and William Corke, Head of Biology, for
information and for looking at a draft of this article.
‘To two former members of the Society, David Le
Cren and Amyan Macfadyen, I am particularly
indebted, not just for their patience in answering
my enquiries and for allowing me access to material
in their possession, but also for the careful scrutiny
which both gave to my text and the helpful
suggestions for corrections and improvements
which followed. Finally, I would like to thank Robert
Moody in the library at WANHS for bringing the
material to my attention in the first place.
Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 269-73
Spiders of the Genus Philodromus (Araneae) in
Wiltshire
by Martin Askins
Spiders of the genus Philodromus are described and information provided on the seven species occurring
in Wiltshire. This updates the data published in the Provisional Atlas of British Spiders, 2002.
Eleven species of the spider genus Philodromus are
known to occur in the UK, of which seven have
been recorded in Wiltshire, namely Philodromus
albidus, P. aureolus, P. cespitum, P. collinus, P.
dispar, P. margaritatus and P. praedatus. Whilst
contributing to the National Spider Recording
Scheme, which recently published its Provisional
Atlas of British Spiders, (Harvey,P.R., Nellist, D.R.
and Telfer, M. eds., 2002) I have been collecting
records for spiders in Wiltshire. The present note
updates the data contained in the Provisional Atlas,
reviews the status of these species and describes
their currently known distributions specifically with
respect to Wiltshire. Since the data were submitted
to the Provisional Atlas recording in the county
has continued . However, North Wiltshire has more
records at the moment than South and this should
be borne in mind when interpreting the
accompanying distribution maps.
The Philodromids are ‘crab’ spiders, so called
because the two front pairs of legs are held splayed
out sideways in an almost ‘pincer-like’ fashion.
However, though they were once included in the
‘Thomisidae, the Philodromidae are not ‘classic’
crab spiders and the front legs, though longer, are
not more robust than the rear pairs (Fig.1). The
Wiltshire Philodromids, with one slight exception,
are all foliage dwelling and are generally found in
the leaves and canopy of shrubs and trees. The
exception is P margaritatus, which is a bark dweller.
Rather than constructing webs to catch their prey,
they actively hunt or wait in ambush. All are spring
Fig. 1. Male of Philodromus cespitum
maturing, with activity generally peaking in June
when mating occurs. As with many spiders, the
males mature slightly earlier in the year than the
females. The female lays and then guards the egg
sac, though she is fairly easily disturbed, and the
spiderlings hatch and feed up over the summer
months before over-wintering as immatures.
P. albidus Kulczynski, 1911
National status: Nationally scarce, Notable B. (The
national status of the more uncommon species is
taken from Merrett, P., 1990. These may be revised
in the light of the results of the National Recording
scheme.) This species has a southern bias to its
distribution.
69 Savill Crescent, Wroughton, Swindon SN4 9JG.
270 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
— 06
ative numbers
=
Ss
92
mw vs
i) OP MAM al Un AS 3G: ND
Month
Fig. 2. P. albidus adult activity
Fig. 3. Records for P. albidus in Wiltshire. (solid symbols,
post (and including) 1980; open symbols, pre 1980;
diamonds - immatures)
Wiltshire: Common and widespread.
P.albidus may be undergoing an increase in
numbers and perhaps range. In the past it was
usually only found as single specimens. However,
in recent years several specimens have been found
together; and on one site it was the most common
Philodromid recorded! As with the more common
species, it can be beaten from a range of shrubs
and trees (hawthorn, box, holly, oak, beech hedges,
etc.) but may require less disturbed habitats than
them. For example, I have never found this species
in gardens, though it does occur in churchyards.
Only in 1989 was it established that P. albidus
occurred in Britain (Segers, H., 1989) rather than
the very similar P. rufus Walckenaer, 1926. P. rufus
is yet to be recorded in the UK and was recently
struck off the UK list (Merrett, P. and Murphy,
J.A., 2000). P.albidus is identifiable when
immature, if it is assumed that P. rufus is not
present. However, as there is the possibility of P.
rufus occurring, records for immatures are indicated
by a different symbol on the map. (The pre-1980
record in the map, made by R. B. Coleman in
Grovely Wood, has been plotted as P. albidus,
though not confirmed as such.)
The map suggests that P. albidus occurs more
frequently on clay soils rather than chalk and
limestone downs (the underlying chalk and
limestone are indicated with hatched lines in the
maps). This may be the case but it may also be
recording bias as more recording has been carried
out in this area since the apparent increase in P.
albidus numbers.
P. aureolus (Clerck, 1757)
National status: Common. Widespread.
Wiltshire: Common and widespread. The relative
lack of records in the very south of the county is
due to under-recording rather than absence of this
species.
Beaten from foliage of shrubs in woodland edges
and rides, hedges or scrub, this spider can be found
in gardens and even wanders indoors. The male
often has a purplish metallic sheen to its carapace
and abdomen. However, this is not a constant
Fig. 4. Records for P. aureolus in Wiltshire
SPIDERS OF THE GENUS PHILODROMUS (ARANEAE) IN WILTSHIRE 271
fay)
wo
—
ow
2
=
=
=
wo
=
Pa
1.
oD
oe
ee NTA MS ow ASS. ON: DB
Month
Fig. 5. P. aureolus adult activity
characteristic. Members of the aureolus group (P.
aureolus, P. cespitum, P. collinus, P. longipalpis, P.
praedatus) are difficult to distinguish, especially the
females. Field characters for P.aureolus and others
in the group are not reliable, and examination with
a microscope is generally necessary to enable
accurate identification at the species level.
P. cespitum (Walckenaer, 1802) (fig.1)
National status: Common. Widespread but more
common in the south of the country.
Wiltshire: Common and widespread.
As with P. aureolus, the relative lack of records in
the south of the county is due to under-recording
rather than absence of this species. P. cespitum is
very similar in appearance, habitat preference and
period of maturity to P. aureolus and was only
accepted as a species separate from P. aureolus in
1974 (Locket,G.H., Millidge, A.F. and Merrett,P.,
1974).
; Mivjales
Females |
Relative numbers
FMAM J JAS ON D
Month
J
Fig. 6. P. cespitum adult activity
Fig. 7. Records for P. cespitum in Wiltshire
P. collinus C. L. Koch, 1835
National status; Nationally scarce, Notable B.
Restricted to the south of the country.
Wiltshire: Restricted habitat but widespread.
This species was first notified as occurring in
Wiltshire in 1996, when a single male was beaten
from a pine sapling in Stanton Park. However, an
earlier, unreported record was made during an
invertebrate survey on Parsonage Down in 1983
(P. Harvey, pers. comm.).
P.collinus is found almost exclusively on
Fig. 8. Records for P. collinus in Wiltshire
PAPE THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
wo
o
pa]
=
a
>
a
ra
m
oD
or
AM J J
Month
Fig. 9. P. collinus adult activity
evergreens, including yew. In 2001, when much of
the countryside was under access restrictions due
to foot and mouth disease, I visited several
churchyards in order to record the spiders. This
exercise produced several interesting records (ref.
Recording Wiltshire’s Biodiversity, 2001) including
five new sites for P. collinus. In all cases the spiders
were beaten from yew or box. Crocker, J. and Daws,
J., 2001, have also noted the occurrence of P.
collinus in churchyards and parks in Leicestershire
and Rutland, which they ascribe to an expansion
of its range. However, in Wiltshire I suspect that
the examination of a previously unexplored habitat
has produced the recent increase in numbers.
Examination of further churchyards may well prove
productive.
P. dispar Walckenaer, 1826
National status: Common. Widespread, but more
common in the south of the country.
Wiltshire: Common and widespread.
This species occurs in woodlands, more often than
not in shadier areas, where it can be beaten from
bushes and shrubs. P dispar may be swept from the
undergrowth more frequently than the other
common species, P aureolus and P. cespitum. It
can also be found in gardens and sometimes
wanders indoors.
The male of this species is very distinctive, with
a black abdomen and black carapace with a narrow
white border. The female, though distinguishable
from the other species in the genus, is much more
typically marked, with a mottled pattern in shades
of brown.
=
=)
Felative numbe
Month
Fig. 10. P. dispar adult activity
Fig. 11. P. dispar records in Wiltshire
P. praedatus O. P.-Cambridge, 1871
National status: Nationally scarce, Notable B.
Widespread.
Wiltshire: Apparently very uncommon.
This species has been recorded sporadically at
widely distributed sites in the UK, but nowhere as
frequently as in Essex where it appears to be an
almost common animal. It may be that members of
the Essex Spider Group, who are an active group of
recorders, have the right ‘search image’ for the
spider’s habitat and that it is more common
nationally than appears. Peter Harvey, National
Organiser of the Spider Recording Scheme and
member of the Essex Spider Group, describes the
typical habitat, in the Provisional Atlas as: ‘mature
SPIDERS OF THE GENUS PHILODROMUS (ARANEAE) IN WILTSHIRE 273
Fig. 12. P. praedatus records in Wiltshire
oak trees in open situations, in wood pasture, at
the edge of woodland rides or in old hedgerows’.
This species was first recorded in Wiltshire in
Savernake Forest by Clive Hambler in 1978. No
further records were made until 2000, when two
males were found at Worton in June and a female
at Marden in July. At both sites the spiders were
beaten from oaks; a single tree in a hedgerow at
Marden (not far from the henge), and from a group
of oaks beside a stream at Worton. In both cases
the trees’ canopies were in easy reach, allowing a
good sample of foliage to be searched. If this spider
preferentially occupies the higher reaches of the
canopy its apparent rarity may be due to the relative
inaccessibility of its preferred habitat.
P. margaritatus (Clerck, 1757)
National status: Nationally scarce, Notable B. Very
uncommon; recorded mainly from the south of the
country but also from central Scotland.
Wiltshire: Very uncommon. There have been no
recent records. Indeed I do not know where nor
when this species was found in Wiltshire, though it
was noted as occurring here by Bristowe, 1938.
P.margaritatus is found on the bark and, to a lesser
extent, the foliage of lichen covered trees. It is very
well camouflaged against such a background and
hence may be under-recorded, especially in
comparison with other species which can also more
easily be beaten from foliage.
Species not recorded in Wiltshire
Of the other species, Philodromus histrio is unlikely
to occur in Wiltshire as it requires acid heathland
with stands of heather. P. emarginatus is also found
on heather and has a very local distribution and is
again unlikely to occur in Wiltshire. P. fallax usually
occurs on the coast, on sandy ground. P longipalpis
has only recently been identified as occurring in
the British Isles and has been found in Essex,
Somerset and Surrey (ref. Provisional Atlas). Its
habitat seems to be oak trees but immatures have
been found on heather. It may well be found in
Wiltshire. P. buxi was recently struck off the British
list (Merrett, P. and Murphy, J.A., 2000).
Bibliography
BRISTOWE, W. S., 1938. The Comity of Spiders. The
Ray Society, London.
CROCKER, J. and DAWS, J., 2001. Spiders of
Leicestershire and Rutland; Millennium Atlas. Kairos
Press, Newtown Linford.
HARVEY, P. R., NELLIST, D.R. and TELFER, M. (eds),
2002. Provisional Atlas of British Spiders (Arachnida,
Araneae), HMSO, London.
LOCKET, G.H., MILLIDGE, A.F. and MERRETT, P.,
1974. British Spiders, Volume 3, The Ray Society,
London.
MERRETT, P., 1990. A Review of the Nationally
Notable Spiders of Great Britain. NCC Report to
CSD Contract No. HF3-08-21(3).
MERRETT, P. and MURPHY, J. A., 2000. A revised
checklist of British spiders, Bulletin of the British
Arachnological Society, 11, 345-357.
SEGERS, H., 1989. A redescription of Philodromus albidus
Kulczynski, 1911 (Araneae, Philodromidae), Bulletin
of the British Arachnological Society, 8, 38-40.
Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 274-8
A Recent Geophysical Survey on the Site of the
Residence of the Medieval Bishops of Salisbury
at Potterne
by Naomi Payne
The medieval bishops of Salisbury used a number of manor houses both within and outside the diocese of
Salisbury. The episcopal manor house at Potterne does not survive, but local tradition and the place name
Courthill to the west of the main body of the village indicate its probable location. A resistivity survey of
part of Great Orchard field undertaken in October 2001 confirmed this to be the likely site of the residence
and provided a hint of the layout and size of the manor house.
INTRODUCTION
According to a list of manors belonging to the pre-
909 bishopric of Sherborne which is contained
within the 14th-century manuscript known as
Faustina A, King Offa of Mercia (757-796) gave
Potterne (Figure 1) with its appurtenances to the
bishop of Sherborne (O’Donovan 1988, xlv).
Potterne was certainly part of the endowment of
the new bishopric of Salisbury in 1086 (Thorn and
Thorn 1979, 3, 1), and therefore probably passed
to Salisbury either directly from Sherborne or via
the bishopric of Ramsbury (O’Donovan 1988, xlv).
In 1139, the manor of Potterne was seized by King
Stephen, along with Devizes Castle. Having passed
into the possession of the Empress Maud, Potterne
was returned to the bishop in 1146, after Pope
Eugenius III had recognised that the manor formed
part of the estate of Salisbury bishopric (Crittall
1953, 122, 209). McGlashan and Sandell (1974,
86, 89) suggest that these events prompted the
construction of the episcopal manor house at
Potterne, the bishop having lost the use of Devizes
Castle but still in need of a local base after Potterne
had been restored to the bishopric.
# Potterne
Fig. 1. Location of Potterne within Wiltshire
Department of Archaeology, University of Bristol, 43 Woodland Road, Clifton, Bristol, BS8 1UU
A GEOPHYSICAL SURVEY OF THE MEDIEVAL BISHOPS’ RESIDENCE AT POTTERNE 275
DOCUMENTARY
EVIDENCE FOR THE
BISHOP OF SALISBURY’S
RESIDENCE
Bishop Herbert Poore (1194-1217) signed a
document at Potterne in August 1199 (Kemp 1999,
165, no. 207) and another in July 1214 (Kemp 1999,
163, no. 205). It is therefore possible that an
episcopal manor house was in existence at Potterne
by the late-12th century. Bishop Bingham (1228-
1246) issued a document from Potterne in 1242
and in 1246, not long before his death in November
of that year, he consecrated a new abbot of
Malmesbury at Potterne church (McGlashan and
Sandell 1974, 86). St Mary’s church was used for
this purpose because the bishop was in poor health
and he was presumably staying long term in his
residence at Potterne. Bingham is also recorded to
have given benediction to the abbot of Cerne in his
chapel at Potterne, probably the chapel in his manor
house. King Henry III issued a document at Potterne
in 1255, indicating that the king may have been the
guest of Bishop William of York (1246-1256) at the
episcopal manor house (Jones 1876, 259-60).
The earliest surviving register of a bishop of
Salisbury is that of Bishop Simon of Ghent (1297-
1315). Ghent and his successors spent time at
Potterne during the 14th and 15th centuries,
judging by the dates on which documents were
signed and received there in the registers. In 1337,
Bishop Robert Wyvil (1330-75) obtained a licence
to crenellate his manor at Potterne and a number
of his other houses (Thompson 1998, 167). Forty
years later, a similar licence was issued to Bishop
Ralph Erghum (1375-1388), suggesting that the
earlier permit had not yet been acted upon. It seems
unlikely that work relating to the licences was
carried out at each of the named locations, but may
have happened at a selection, perhaps including
Potterne. The chapel at the bishop’s manor house
was mentioned several times in the registers, for
example in the register of Bishop Roger Martival
(1315-30)! and the register of Bishop Robert
Hallum (1407-17).* During the episcopate of
Bishop Chandler (1417-1426), a statement of
account reveals that an oriel window was added to
his residence at Potterne (McGlashan and Sandell
1974, 88).
It appears that Potterne was used less frequently
by the bishops from the second half of the 15th
century: Bishop Richard Beauchamp (1450-81)
seems only to have visited the village in the early
part of his episcopate and Bishop Thomas Langton
(1485-93) may not have used the residence at all,
as no document in his register was signed or
received there (Wright 1985, 123-128).* It should
be noted that the later registers contain many fewer
documents, but it seems likely that the bishops of
Salisbury did not use the residence at Potterne later
than the mid-15th century. At some point fairly
soon after this, the decision must have been taken
to lease out the house and its land: a lease of 1538
refers back to another of 1508 (McGlashan and
Sandell 1974, 88). The late-15th century Porch
House on Potterne High Street may have been built
as a result of the cessation of episcopal use of the
manor house. It would have provided a base for
the local bailiff and a venue for the manorial court
once the manor house was no longer available
(Haycock and Davey 1992, 8).
A 17th-century survey provides an indication
of the size and scale of the old episcopal manor
house, which must also reflect its general character
during the late medieval period. This description
(see McGlashan and Sandell 1974, 89), dated 1649,
states that the manor house was:
built with free stone thoroughly tiled containing seven
rooms belowe the stairs, i.e. one hall and kitchen,
one parlour, one larder, one milke house and pantry
house and one cellar, and seven rooms above ye stairs
i.e. one faire chamber over the hall, another faire
chamber over the parlour and over the kitchens and
other chambers with it and two chambers more in
the new buildings.
There was also:
a large house or building well walled and well covered
with stone for the most part of it... which contayneth
in breadth about 25 foote and in length about 80
foote which is called ye chappell now fitte for a barne.
And one faire barn containing 8 baies or rooms of
building built with free stone with timbers covered
with tyle. Wanting some reparation in the coverings.
And one orchard well stored with fruit trees containing
. the backside and yards
about the same house containing about 2 acres.
by estimation one acre . .
The estate was worth £10. A survey of the parish
from 1656 indicates that the residence was still in
existence with its dwelling house, chapel, great barn
and courts (Jones 1876, 260). The house may well
have been demolished between this date and the
early-18th century, when a new house was built to
276 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
the west of Great Orchard, the surviving Courthill
House (Pevsner 1975, 373).
THE SITE OF THE
EPISCOPAL RESIDENCE
Local tradition and the place name Courthill to
the west of Potterne village hint at the likely location
of the episcopal manor (McGlashan and Sandell
1974, 90). To the east of Courthill House lies a
field called Great Orchard (Figure 2).'There are no
earthworks within this field and no archaeological
eK. a
Jase f
(88 | O48,
48
4,
Fig. 2. Location of Great Orchard within the village,
showing 1961 excavation (A), 1974 excavation (B),
Plump Well (C) and 2001 geophysical survey (D)
features visible on the available aerial photograph
coverage. There are few early maps covering
Potterne, but those that survive reveal that Great
Orchard was formerly arable (for example seeWRO
1553/112, 1798; Potterne tithe map, 1839), which
could explain the absence of any physical evidence
above ground. In terms of the topography, Courthill
would have been a suitable location for the palace,
close to local facilities and resources, yet in a
dominating position. On the western side of the
field is a well, the ‘Plump Well’ (Figure 2, C), which
would have been a convenient source of fresh water
to the episcopal mansion. When this well was
modernised in the 1930s two large steps made from
non-local stone were removed (McGlashan and
Sandell 1974, 90-91). These were on the south-east
side of the well, facing toward the lower slopes of
Courthill.
A small area within Great Orchard field was
investigated archaeologically in 1973 by N.D.
McGlashan and R. E. Sandell (1974). This followed
a trial excavation in 1961 close to the road in the
southern part of the field (Figure 2, A), which
apparently revealed a gravel surface (McGlashan
and Sandell 1974, 91). The 1973 work consisted of
three trenches of approximately 9.0 x 0.9m, 6.8 x
1.6m and 5.0 x 0.7m (Figure 2, B). The excavators
concluded that ‘this site was one of wealth and
importance ... with clear connections with the
church’ (1974, 95), but that they had missed the
actual dwelling house itself and located part of an
ancillary structure.
The geophysical survey
A resistivity survey using a Geoscan RM15 was
undertaken at Great Orchard in October 2001 to
try to locate the site of the episcopal residence. The
twin probe configuration was employed, with a 0.5m
mobile electrode spacing. Eighteen 20m square grids
were laid out using tapes and triangulation (Figure
2, D). Readings were taken every metre along
zigzagged traverses spaced at one metre intervals.
The location of the survey area within the field was
surveyed using an EDM and the resistance readings
were downloaded into Geoplot version 3 for
Windows. Grids 16, 17 and 18 (at the north end of
the survey) were partially restricted by an area of
long grass. A shade plot of the data is shown in Figure
3 and in Figure 4 the plot has been superimposed
onto a map of Great Orchard.
The 2001 resistivity survey has confirmed that
the 1973 excavation did indeed miss the main
domestic block of the residence, which appears to
have been located slightly further to the north east,
on a knoll opposite St Mary’s church on the other
side of Potterne High Street. The site would have
afforded the bishop and his household good views
not only of the village but also to the north and
west. The geophysical plot shows clearly that there
was formerly a large stone building in the middle
of Great Orchard, centred on ST 99350 58488. A
square block measuring around twenty metres in
length and width is evident in the centre of the field
(Figure 4, A). This appears to have had some
internal divisions, but is partially shadowed, perhaps
by rubble. It is tempting to identify part of this
structure as the medieval hall, perhaps having been
divided in the late or post-medieval period. To the
north of this is another high resistance area (B),
A GEOPHYSICAL SURVEY OF THE MEDIEVAL BISHOPS’ RESIDENCE AT POTTERNE POET
Fig. 3. Shade plot of the resistance data
but this is more haphazard in appearance and could
reflect another rubbly area. East of this is a
rectangular high resistance anomaly (C); the
dimensions of this roughly match the 17th-century
survey of the ‘chappell now fitte for a barne’, which
would have been approximately 24.0 by 7.5m
(‘about 25 foote and in length about 80 foote’).
The orientation of the anomaly fits with its
suggested identification as the bishop’s chapel. To
the west of the high resistance square block is
another area on the same alignment of a similar
size where moderate resistance readings were
obtained (D). This could perhaps have formed part
of the original building, but has been more
comprehensively robbed of its foundations. To the
north of this is what could be a courtyard wall (E).
No obvious structures appear on the other sides of
this possible courtyard, suggesting that it was a
garden court. Two lines of high resistance cross the
courtyard, perhaps delineating paths leading to the
nearby well, or possibly post-medieval field drains.
- Another possible pathway leading towards the well
is located to the north of this (F). There is no
detached building in evidence that could be
identified with the great barn, although this ancillary
structure could have been situated to the north of
the square block in the more indistinct area of
moderately high resistance, or further to the east
outside the limits of the survey.
The survey has not shed any light on the
medieval access to the site. No obvious trackway
7
Courthill ie
House /
es
Fig. 4. Resistance data superimposed on to Great
Orchard (see text for explanation of letters)
has been revealed by the geophysics. Although the
road to Worton runs along the southern side of
Great Orchard and there is a marked hollow road
way to the west, Plump Lane, access connecting
the manor house to either is not forthcoming. The
bishop’s house could equally have been approached
from the village below, from the north or east, but
the survey has not revealed a possible gatehouse
278 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
structure to help shed light on this. Neither the
modern road layout nor historic maps provide a
clear answer to this question.
CONCLUSION
The recent survey has pinpointed the likely location
of the episcopal residence at Potterne, at Courthill,
to the west of the village. The complex was
apparently quite extensive, as is to be expected
because of the large household that would have
travelled with the bishops. The precise layout of the
residence and its precinct are still obscure but any
future work will have a clear focus.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am very grateful to Mr C. Pearce, the owner of
Great Orchard, for granting permission to carry out
the survey. Thanks also to Lesley Adams for her
help with the fieldwork.
Notes
l. e.g. Edwards 1959, 185 (03.03.1321), 242
(04.01.1322), 427 (29.07.1324); Reynolds 1965, 180
(09.04.1319)
. Horn 1982, 1030 (22.09.1408), 1035 (17.05.1410,
1041 (27.02.1412), 1044 (17.12.1412), 1142-3
(07.06.1412)
3. See also typescript itinerary of Bishop Beauchamp by
Dick Sandell, held at Wiltshire Record Office
bo
Bibliography
CRITTALL, E., (ed.) 1953, A History of Wiltshire,
Volume 7. London: Oxford University Press
EDWARDS, K., (ed.) 1959, The Registers of Roger
Martival, Bishop of Salisbury 1315-1330. Volume 1:
The Register of Presentations & Institutions to
Benefices. Oxford: University Press (Canterbury &
York Society, volumes LV and LVI)
HAYCOCK, L. and DAVEY, N., 1992, Porch House,
Potterne. Trowbridge: Wiltshire County Council
HORN, J.M., (ed.) 1982, The Register of Robert Hallum,
Bishop of Salisbury 1407-1417. Torquay: The
Devonshire Press (Canterbury & York Society, volume
LXXII)
JONES, W. H., 1876, Potterne. WANHM 16, 245-286
KEMP, B.R., 1999, English Episcopal Acta 18: Salisbury
1078-1217. Oxford: Oxford University Press/British
Academy
MCGLASHAN, D. and SANDELL, R.E., 1974, The
Bishop of Salisbury’s House at his Manor of Potterne.
WANHM 69, 85-96
O’DONOVAN, M.A., 1988, Charters of Sherborne.
Oxford: Oxford University (Anglo-Saxon Charters III)
PEVSNER, N., 1975, The Buildings of England:
Wiltshire. 2nd edition (revised by B. Cherry).
Harmondsworth: Penguin
REYNOLDS, S., (ed.) 1965, The Registers of Roger
Maruval, Bishop of Salisbury 1315-1330. Volume 3:
Royal Writs. Torquay: The Devonshire Press
(Canterbury & York Society, volume LIX)
THOMPSON, M., 1998, Medieval Bishops’ Houses in
England and Wales. Aldershot: Ashgate
THORN, C. and THORN, F., 1979, Domesday Book 6:
Wiltshire. Chichester: Phillimore
WRIGHT, D.P., (ed.) 1985, The Register of Thomas
Langton, bishop of Salisbury 1485-93. York
(Canterbury & York Society, volume LX XIV)
Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 279-91
Excavation and Fieldwork in Wiltshire 2000
Amesbury
Boscombe Down Airfield; Prehistoric, Roman and
modern
Eleven watching briefs were undertaken on the
airfield at Boscombe Down by DERA Archaeology
during 2000. Nine produced modern or geological
features; two however produced evidence of earlier
periods. The first, centred on SU 1730 4053,
revealed part of a linear feature of possible Bronze
Age date (SMR No SU14SE750). The feature was
badly truncated by buildings on the airfield. A
number of other features were noted, again
truncated, and without dating evidence. The second
watching brief (centred on SU 1716 4029)
produced evidence of a double linear feature of Late
Bronze Age — Early Iron Age date (SMR No
SU14SE749). One leg of the linear was investigated.
Here it was 0.9 m deep, 2.8m wide at the base and
5.0m at the top. It is possible that the surface of the
site was partially removed in modern times, as the
boundary between the topsoil and upper fill was
extremely sharp. Of note was a Ist — 2nd century
Roman nail cleaner, possibly part of a chatelaine,
from the lower fills (Figure 1). The work was carried
out by Colin Kirby, Gary Ancell and Bob Clarke.
All projects were managed by Colin Kirby for
DERA Archaeology.
Butterfield Down (SU 1675 4118); Prehistoric and
Romano-British
Archaeological observations were conducted by AC
archaeology in conjunction with groundworks to
excavate a pipe trench on land under development
for housing at Butterfield Down (Phase 3). The site
lies within an area rich in recorded archaeology,
with prehistoric and Roman funerary sites less than
1 km away to the east and south, and the extensively
investigated prehistoric and Roman site of
Butterfield Down some 100m to the west.
Approximately 200m of trench was excavated under
archaeological supervision, and a single large
undated ditch was recorded. The dimensions and
alignment of this ditch suggest that it may be related
to the Earl’s Down Farm linear, a substantial
boundary or land division of probable later Bronze
Age date.
Earl’s Close Nursery School, Boscombe Down (SU
172 408); Modern
An archaeological evaluation by Wessex
Archaeology on the proposed site of a new nursery
school and associated car park revealed only 20th-
century brick and concrete footings and service
trenches cut into the natural chalk. These features
were associated with pre-fabricated buildings that
formed Earl’s Close until their demolition in 1972.
The close spacing of these former buildings in this
area and the probable truncation of the ground
surface in association with their construction and/
or demolition suggests there is little potential for
the survival of earlier archaeological remains on this
site.
Lidl, Porton Road, Boscombe Down (SU 1678
4130); Romano-British
Wessex Archaeology undertook excavation on the
site of a proposed new retail store and car park.
The site had been stripped of topsoil in 1993 during
the development of an adjacent plot and very small
scale sample excavations were carried out. Features
identified at that stage included a ditch and two
Beaker pits, a so-called ‘linear ditch’ thought to be
of Bronze Age date, and a series of ditches of
Romano-British date. The site was cleaned and
more extensive excavation undertaken.
No further evidence for later Neolithic or Early
Bronze Age activity was discovered. Another section
was excavated through the linear ditch. No dating
evidence was recovered, but an assessment of the
land snails indicates that it lay within an open
environment. During the Romano-British period
the site lay outside the main area of late Roman
settlement known on Boscombe Down and was part
of the land farmed by that community. Part of the
280 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
site was occupied by a small ditched enclosure that
is likely to have formed part of an extensive system
of Celtic fields. The other ditches are also likely to
be of Roman date, but they did not form part of
this regular and extensive system, which suggest
that they may be either of a different date or had a
different function.
Park Farm (SU 143 417); Modern
An archaeological watching brief was undertaken
by AC archaeology at Park Farm, West Amesbury.
The stripping of topsoil was monitored within the
area designated for a new agricultural building on
the edge of the track to the rear of Park Farm
Cottages. No archaeological deposits or pre-
modern finds were present.
Proposed Amesbury Business Park, Folly Bottom
(SU 170 422 (Area 1a) and SU 170 420 (Area 1b));
Prehistoric and Romano-British
The archaeological evaluation of Area 1 of the
proposed Amesbury Business Park was conducted
by AC archaeology during June 2000. Eleven trial
trenches were excavated by machine in two areas
situated to the north (Area la) and south (Area
1b) of the A303. A total area of 1972m?’ was
evaluated, comprising a c.1% sample of the two
fields. The site lies within an area rich in
archaeological remains, although no positively
identified archaeological sites le within the
boundaries of the current work. Area 1b, as part of
a larger parcel of land allocated for development,
has been the subject of previous phases of
archaeological investigation. A combination of
hand-dug trial pits, an auger transect, fieldwalking,
and archaeological monitoring of geotechnical trial
pits, had indicated the presence of low density
prehistoric flint scatters and colluvial deposits
within the base of the dry coombe running NW-
SE across the site.
The present work identified a low level of sub-
surface archaeological deposits surviving within
Area 1. Within Area la two truncated negative
lynchets and two possible scoops lay in a cluster
towards the centre of the field. Three sherds of
Romano-British pottery and a small quantity of
worked flint were recovered from these.
Within Area 1b more archaeological deposits
were present. A number of small, undated linear
gullies and a parallel ditch and gully were dispersed
across the field. These may be remnants of a former
field system, possibly associated with the known
Iron Age and Romano-British farming settlement
at nearby Butterfield Down. A large, isolated ditch
terminal recorded within Trench 7 displayed a recut,
the upper fill of which yielded Early Bronze Age
pottery and flint-working debris, possibly indicating
in situ knapping activity.
Within both Areas, extensive colluvial deposits
were recorded in those trenches traversing the
coombe bases. These were subject to limited
investigation by hand-dug sondages, which proved
them to be shallow in nature, lying directly above
natural chalk deposits. The colluvium was removed
by machine from two trenches in Area 1b to
determine the presence of underlying archaeological
deposits - none were found, although a small
quantity of worked flint was recovered from the
surface of one of these horizons.
Proposed Amesbury Business Park (SU 174 419);
Modern
A number of geological test pits were monitored
by AC archaeology in February 2000 prior to the
commencement of development at Amesbury
Business Park. No archaeological features, deposits
or individual finds were revealed during this work.
‘The Ramblers’, Stonehenge Road (SU 146 415);
Modern
An archaeological field evaluation was carried out
on the site of a proposed new dwelling at “The
Ramblers’, Stonehenge Road, by AC archaeology.
The site lies within the southern ramparts of
Vespasian’s Camp hillfort on the west side of
Amesbury. The evaluation comprised the machine-
excavation of a single trench on the line of a
proposed footing trench for the new dwelling. The
trench proved negative, with no subsoil features or
deposits of potential archaeological interest present.
No pre-modern finds were recovered from spoil
heaps.
Ansty
Ansty Manor (ST 9558 2632); Medieval and Post-
Medieval
An archaeological watching brief was carried out
by AC archaeology during the stripping of the site
for the construction of an underground swimming
pool to the west of Ansty Manor. Finds included
13th-century pottery and a single Romano-British
sherd from a buried soil in the vicinity of the Manor
House. This may be derived from some local
occupation, or perhaps from agricultural activity
upslope from the site during this earlier period. An
EXCAVATION AND FIELDWORK IN WILTSHIRE 2000
18th-century midden deposit (including a residual
late 16th-century jetton) was also recorded. A
substantial wall of probable 18th-century date
cannot be related to any known structure; no
indications of any floors or surfaces were found,
and it is possible that the wall is part of a formal
walled garden extending beyond the surveyed area.
The ‘Hospice’, Ansty Manor (ST 967 264);
Medieval
Five hand-dug trial pits were excavated by AC
archaeology within the ‘Hospice’, a Scheduled
Ancient Monument adjacent to Ansty Manor. The
investigations were commissioned primarily to allow
the structural engineer and architect to observe the
extent and conditions of the foundations in advance
of the proposed consolidation and re-roofing of the
entire building. The investigations provide evidence
for the nature and construction of the principal
walls, and for the presence of earlier floor surfaces.
The limited extent of the investigations and a lack
of datable artefacts from the investigations limit
specific conclusions about the full chronological
sequence of the building’s development.
Avebury
High Street (SU 0980 6980); 19th Century/
Undated
Cotswold Archaeological Trust (CAT) undertook
a watching brief during groundworks associated
with the laying of a telecom cable. Two 19th century
or later dumped deposits were identified along with
two undated pits or linear features.
Avebury World Heritage Site
South Street, Avebury Trusloe (SU 0946 6954);
Medieval and Post-Medieval
Following a geophysical survey of the site, an
evaluation undertaken by CAT identified a probable
medieval ditch with subsequent re-cuts, as well as
a number of undated shallow pits and plough
furrows.
Bratton
10 Court Lane; Medieval and Post-MedievalAn
application to erect a building resulted in the cutting
by Bernard Phillips of two archaeological evaluation
pits. These revealed a stone surface and garden
cultivation layers that attest to activity from the 1 6th/
281
17th to the 19th centuries, and three residual sherds
of late medieval pottery.
Broad Town
Various; Late Iron Age, Roman, Medieval, Post-
Medieval and Undated
‘Two areas (centring on SU 0920 7790 & SU 0890
7775) of the parish were surveyed by students from
Swindon College, revealing archaeology of medieval
date. Two watching briefs were carried out by
B.T.A.P. members. The first (at SU 0915 7795) was
over an area of 72m’. A number of features were
noted, all dated by ceramic evidence to the post-
medieval period. The second (at SU 0895 7760)
revealed an undated ditch. Five hectares of
fieldwalking centred on SU 0840 8830 produced a
large spread of Late Iron Age — mid-Roman
ceramics, along with fragments of quern stones and
spindle whorls. The condition of the finds suggests
this is a manuring spread. One excavation was
carried out during 2000 by B.T.A.P. members at
SU 0955 7765. The site contained the partially
exposed remains of a human burial which had been
located by walkers. The individual was male, aged
between 35-45, and 1.70m tall. He was buried in a
shallow grave (0.25m deep), supine with head to
the south-west. Dating evidence was unfortunately
inconclusive. However, the position of the grave is
of interest, being located on a crossroads of at least
medieval date. All work was directed by Bob Clarke.
Calne
North side of Calne; Iron Age
Recently there has been extensive development for
housing on the north side of Calne. During
preparatory works for the provision of services on
one of the estates in June 2000, a sharp-eyed
foreman (“I watch Time Team with my daughter’’)
spotted a pot emerging from an area of dark soil.
The County Archaeologist was informed and Tim
Robey began the planning, recording and
excavation of the site before handing over to Gill
Swanton. At the time, only a few days were allocated
for excavation by the developers, Beazer Homes.
However, as the importance of the site emerged
this was generously increased, and excavation on
the site eventually took place over four weeks.
The bulk of the archaeological evidence
consisted of pits of varying size and shape containing
Iron Age material covering a wide date range
282 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Fig. 1. Calne: horse skull in Iron Age pit
(Figure 1). Detailed analysis has not yet taken place,
but there are indications that the inhabitants
practised a mixed farming economy, which also
included a textile industry based on wool. They had
established their dwellings on a small outcrop of
limestone brash adjacent to clay areas that would
have provided excellent grazing. There was also
evidence for cereal processing, the presence of
horses, and a predilection for collecting interesting
stones and fossils.
The site is important as it starts to ‘fill in the
gap’ between the chalk to the east and the limestone
hills to the west. That its presence was not previously
known is due to the depth of the overlying soil,
which precluded any clue through drought-induced
crop marks in the long-term grass sward. Indeed,
the existence of the limestone outcrop was not even
suspected.
The excavation was carried out by a stalwart
team of volunteers drawn from the local community
(most of whom had never dug before!), Bristol
University students and members of the Society’s
Field Group. Mark Corney kindly surveyed the site,
Mark Evans is drawing the finds and Bradford
Geophysical Surveys carried out a magnetometer
survey. The fieldwork has been followed up by two
finds processing days; the first coinciding with
National Archaeology Day in July 2000, and the
second in Calne in February 2001. The success of
the latter was largely due to the hard work put in
by Wendy Smith. Tremendous support was received
from BBC Wiltshire Sound and the local press. Nick
Mayl deserves special thanks for the long hours he
put in, his patience and his dedication to the cause.
Calne Without
Quemerford Farm (SU 010 699); Post-Medieval
Survey of earthworks at Quemerford Farm by
English Heritage revealed traces of former buildings
and closes. While earlier origins cannot be ruled
out, these may represent post-medieval
encroachment and enclosure of part of Quemerford
Common, at an important focal point and fording
position, where clothing industry based on the River
Marden is recorded in the late 16th century.
Cartographic evidence provides support for
shifting, essentially short-lived settlement
throughout the 18th-19th centuries. The former
agricultural focus of Quemerford is shown to have
been over 1km distant from the present centre,
situated on the slopes of the Chalk/Greensand
escarpment close to Cherhill. In common with
much of the surrounding low-lying area, the site
shows evidence of a sequence of drainage activities,
many of which give a corrugated ridge-and-furrow
like effect. Further details are available from the
National Monuments Record Centre, Report no.
AI/22/2000.
Cherhill, Avebury and West
Overton
A4 corridor between Yatesbury and West Overton
(SU 0564 7020 to SU 1322 6844); Undated
The archaeological monitoring of the installation
of a fibre-optic cable trench and associated works
between Yatesbury and West Overton was
conducted by AC archaeology. The monitored
works consisted of some 5.5km of trenching and
associated receptor pits sited along the verges and
carriageway of the A4. This lay wholly within the
Avebury World Heritage Site, traversed the
boundaries of two Scheduled Ancient Monuments
(SAM28131/01 and SAM28131/02) and ran
adjacent to a third (SAM21761). These monuments
comprise parts of the West Kennet Avenue and the
Sanctuary, elements of the Avebury complex.
The archaeological project comprised
monitoring of contractor’s topsoil strip and
trenches, including the excavation of regularly-
spaced receptor pits. No archaeology was revealed
within any of the receptor pits or within the greater
part of the trenches linking them. This was largely
due to the presence of extensive previous service
trenching along the route, the siting of trenches
along modern road embankments constructed to
carry the A4, and the presence of deep road cuttings,
truncating archaeological horizons.
One short (11m) section of trench cut into the
lay-by and carriageway adjacent to the scheduled
area of the Sanctuary revealed a concentration of
EXCAVATION AND FIELDWORK IN WILTSHIRE 2000
archaeological features centred on SU 1185 6805,
including an undated animal burial pit cut through
an earlier extensively burnt deposit, within which
lay two possible burnt post-holes. To the east of
these features, a large pit or ditch lay adjacent to
the well-defined hollow-way of the Ridgeway. These
features may relate to activity associated with either
the Sanctuary or the nearby barrow cemetery, but
cannot be dated on the basis of the evidence
obtained. All of these remains are well-preserved at
a relatively shallow depth below the road and
pavement metalling, and beneath the adjacent
grassed verges.
Corsham
Pockeredge Farm and Peel Circus (ST 8610 6985);
Iron Age and Romano-British
Wessex Archaeology carried out an archaeological
evaluation in connection with proposed residential
development of land immediately to the south-west
of Corsham. Desk-based assessment had
established that the site contains a small number
of known archaeological sites, including a Roman
limestone coffin burial and a nearby midden pit.
Documentary and place-name evidence indicate the
existence of a short-lived medieval deer park which
may have covered all, or part of, the site. A site visit
recorded a number of earthwork field boundaries.
Cartographic evidence showed that 19th century
quarries occur within the site.
An Iron Age post-hole was found in the north-
eastern part of the site. The presence of charred
grain and a fragment of a saddle quern in its fill
indicate arable cultivation and crop processing in
the vicinity. Nine Romano-British features were
found in the western central part of the site.
Although there were no definite structural features,
abundant evidence was collected for settlement/
domestic activity. Nearly a kilo of pottery, a
spindlewhorl, glass and cattle and sheep/goat bones
were recovered from the excavated segments of the
“nine ditches, gullies and/or pits. In addition,
evidence for crop processing was recovered from
samples of these features. However, the evaluation
demonstrated that there has been some degree of
modern disturbance to these deposits from former
wartime MOD structures. No evidence was found
for the stone coffin uncovered and recorded during
wartime construction, despite the location of one
of the evaluation trenches over its given position.
A further six undated ditches were recorded
283
within the central and eastern part of the site. No
medieval or post-medieval remains were found
within the site. In particular, no evidence was found
to support, or refute, the possible use of all or part
of the site as a deer park.
Cricklade
Land off North Wall (SU 1005 9390); Roman and
Saxon
A watching brief was undertaken by the Oxford
Archaeological Unit (OAU) during the
construction of a new vicarage. The site lay
partially within the scheduled monument of
Cricklade Town Banks (SAM: 323), including the
North Wall which formed part of the Saxon burgh
defences. Cricklade is thought to be one of the
fortified towns established by King Alfred in the
9th century. There is also evidence for Roman
activity in the area.
To the east of the site, limestone wall-footings
of a substantial structure were observed. The dating
of this feature is problematic, but is likely to be
Roman. This structure was under a gully and sub-
circular cut, both containing Roman pottery. The
sub-circular cut was partially truncated and could
represent either a cremation or a pit. At the extreme
west of the site, a deposit was identified, which,
given its proximity to the scheduled earthworks, is
possibly of ditch fill associated with the Saxon
burgh.
Proposed Biomass Power Project (SU 115 925),
Romano-British and early-mid Saxon
Wessex Archaeology carried out an archaeological
evaluation on land adjacent to the Kingshill
Recycling Centre near Cricklade. The proposed
development comprises the construction of a
small-scale power plant, fuelled by renewable wood
sources. Desk-based assessment had established
the presence of seven archaeological sites and find
spots near the evaluation area although none is
recorded for the site itself. The most significant of
these is a Roman villa (SM 31664) and Roman
road to the east of the site (the present course of
the A419). Recorded find-spots included an Iron
Age coin, Roman, Saxon and Medieval pottery,
and undated linear and rectilinear cropmarks. The
presence of these suggested there was a high
probability that the site contains archaeological
remains.
Nine machine-excavated trenches covering
284 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
810m? uncovered a partially ploughed out ridge and
furrow system. A concentration of features was
uncovered beneath the ridge and furrow in the
southern part of site, ranging from Roman to post-
medieval. The density of features increased to the
east and south-east (i.e. closer to the location of
the Roman building). Both the faunal and
environmental data suggest that the site is located
on the periphery of a settlement, presumably related
to the known Roman building. Most features were
Romano-British, inluding two — a pond and a
possible trackway — that contained a ‘dark’ fill in
which Romano-British and early-mid Saxon pottery
was found. A significant number of early-mid Saxon
features were also encountered.
Devizes
Brickley Lane (SU 0195 6090); Iron Age, Roman
and Medieval
Works undertaken by OAU concentrated on three
of the four areas of potential highlighted by the
evaluation carried out during the summer of 1999
[see above, pp.214-39]. Area 1 was situated at the
north-eastern end of Brickley Lane and occupied a
low crest at the base of Jump Hill. The land slopes
away to the south and west, with marsh land to the
east, beyond which are open fields. Area 2 lay further
south in a gently undulating arable field, with Area
4 located to the west of Brickley Lane in flat pasture.
Area 1 was found to contain a double enclosure
(the eastern end of which may in fact be the drip
gully of a roundhouse). This included gullies and
fence lines, and a pit and post-hole scatter
(including a possible four-post structure), all of
late Iron Age date. A Roman trackway was also
found, possibly on the line of an earlier drove-way
and respecting the alignment of the enclosures.
All features were concentrated on a low crest in
the eastern half of the site. Area 2 revealed two
gullies and a shallow ditch that seemed to be part
of a medieval field system. Area 4 contained ten
ditches and a gully representing a sequence of field
boundaries of probable Romano-British date.
Caen Hill Locks (ST 9900 6145); 19th Century
CAT undertook a watching brief during
groundworks associated with the excavation of a
new telecom junction box. A terrace cut and stone
revetment wall probably belonging to the
construction phase of the canal were identified.
Dilton
Northacre Business Park, Westbury (ST 8538 5204
- ST 8502 5297); Romano-British, Medieval and
Post-Medieval
An archaeological watching brief was conducted
by AC archaeology during the construction of a
new flood relief channel at Northacre Business Park.
The observations followed the line of previously
constructed channels for two-thirds of their route,
with undisturbed land encountered only in the
central third. The route of the channel passed within
100m of a Roman villa and within 0.5 km of known
medieval settlement to the south-east. The central
third also passed directly through a field containing
a previously recorded medieval ridge and furrow
system. The watching brief allowed the sketch
plotting of the ridge and furrow, showing it to be
the remains of two systems with part of an
associated droveway to the east. Two sections were
recorded across the ridge and furrow, while stray
finds of Roman, medieval and post medieval pottery
were recovered from topsoil stripping along the
route. Elements of a post-medieval drainage
channel system, probably serving water meadows,
were also noted. No Roman features or deposits
appear to have been disturbed by the development.
Hullavington
Bradfield Manor (ST 895 830); Medieval
In March 2000 CAT undertook a programme of
archaeological recording during groundworks for
the construction of a tennis court and wildlife pond
within the grounds of Bradfield Manor.
Immediately to the north of the house is an area of
earthworks interpreted as a possible medieval
village. Two sections of wall footing corresponding
to an existing earthwork were identified.
Idmiston
Manor Farm, Church Road (SU 1975 3730);
Modern
An archaeological evaluation of land at Manor
Farm, Church Road was undertaken in June 2000
by AC archaeology. The evaluation comprised the
machine-excavation of a single trial trench
measuring 30 x 1.6m, sited towards the rear of the
property. Although the site lies within the probable
Saxon and later medieval boundaries of Idmiston,
excavation revealed only modern layers overlying a
EXCAVATION AND FIELDWORK IN WILTSHIRE 2000
truncated bedrock. No archaeological features or
pre-modern finds were present.
Latton
Eysey (SU 111 941); Medieval and Post Medieval
Between July and August 2000 CAT carried out a
watching brief in advance of the cutting of a gas
pipeline from Duke’s Brake to Cricklade. In one
area, near Eysey Manor Farm, the pipeline was
planned to run through an area of earthworks
thought to belong to a medieval/post-medieval
water management system on the outskirts of the
deserted medieval village of Eysey. As a result, the
trench wayleave was restricted to a width of 2m
and was excavated prior to the pipe trench being
cut.
Several medieval pits and a hearth were
identified along with several linear features,
probably drainage ditches, of medieval and post-
medieval date. A post-medieval building was also
identified. Work on the pipeline is due to be
completed early in 2001, and will be followed by a
fuller report on the results.
Latton Lands (SU 760 680); Bronze Age
Gravel extraction by Cotswold Aggregates on both
sides of the new A419 continued to be monitored
by the OAU. Part of a ring ditch was located
adjacent to the road on the western side (PRN 625).
This had been evaluated by CAT in 1995. The
exposed area was planned and it was covered and
fenced off for in situ preservation. Two pits
containing burnt stone and charcoal and medieval
plough furrows were the only other archaeological
features found in this area.
In 2000 stripping began on the east side of the
road. Archaeological work focused on a feature
believed to be a rectangular enclosure, visible from
the air (PRN 626). An L-shaped ditch was exposed
with a gap in its north-east corner. A substantial
assemblage of middle Bronze Age pottery was
recovered from the ditch, especially at the ‘entrance’
terminals. A waterhole and several pits were located
in the ‘entrance’ area, and a circular posthole
building, 6m in diameter, lay further west near the
north ditch. Initial interpretation that this was an
enclosure at the edge of woodland, using forest
cover to form the west and south sides, is belied by
the preliminary results of pollen analysis from the
waterhole, which suggest the area was open, grazed
grassland at the time.
285
One other small circular building and several
widely scattered pits have been found in the
surrounding area during a subsequent watching
brief.
Liddington
Liddington Castle (SU 209 797); Iron Age
Analytical earthwork survey of this hillfort was
undertaken by English Heritage, as part of the
Countryside Agency’s Ridgeway Heritage Project,
in advance of repair works to erosion scars on the
ramparts. In addition to this ground survey, two
aerial photographic sorties were flown and aerial
photographic transcription of the area around the
fort was undertaken. Features of note include two
slight linear hollows, which appear to be overlain
by the counterscarp of the hillfort and might be
the remains of linear ditches. A more substantial
linear, on the western slope of the hill, can be seen
on aerial photographs to extend for a considerable
distance to the west. The fort has an eastern
entrance, and survey supports the idea that there
was also a western entrance, blocked in antiquity.
The ramparts have been badly damaged by
quarrying on the south-western side but are
otherwise generally well preserved. The interior has
been much disturbed by quarrying and other recent
activities. Though one or two possible hut circles
are visible there is little evidence of intensive
occupation. There is also little sign of subsequent
use of the site, with the exception of a possible pillow
mound on the south side, the quarries, and some
remnants of military activity in the early and mid
20th century. Further details are available from
the National Monuments Record Centre, Report
no. AI/4/2000.
Liddington Castle (SU 209 797); Iron Age
At Liddington Castle hillfort near Swindon,
weathering and the actions of grazing livestock had
caused the formation of numerous erosion scars
on the monument. Prior to their consolidation by
a specialist conservation firm, these erosion scars
were subject to archaeological recording by Wessex
Archaeology. This work provided tentative evidence
that the final phase of rampart construction
included a timber palisade, and that the preceding
phase may have contained some internal timbering.
Two sherds of prehistoric pottery were recovered
from one of the scars.
286 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Ludgershall
26 Castle Street (SU 263 512); Medieval and Post-
Medieval
Archaeological supervision by Bernard Phillips of
machine and hand cutting of a foundation trench
resulted in the discovery of a 19th-century pit and
a large 12th- or 13th-century ditch. The ditch had
seemingly been recut several times, culminating in
a much smaller ditch that produced 17th-century
pottery.
Lydiard Tregoze
Lydiard Park (SU 1027 8485); Medieval and Post-
Medieval
Investigation of the walled garden at Lydiard Park,
following an application to construct a plant
nursery, revealed that much of the Georgian garden
layout survives. Bedding trenches, paths, and a
probable tree-planting pit were amongst the features
located. Alterations and additions to the layout
culminated in a Victorian kitchen garden. Beneath
the garden a ditch, pig burial and an occupation
layer attest to late medieval settlement. The work
was undertaken by Bernard Phillips.
Marlborough
Axford to Forest Hill Watermain (SU 2200 7700/
SU 2055 6850); Prehistoric/Roman
CAT undertook a watching brief during the laying
of a pipeline. A small assemblage of struck flint was
recovered and the line of the Roman road running
north from Cunetio was identified.
Marlborough Mound (SU 1837 6866); Medieval
and Post-Medieval
Following the preparation of an archaeological desk-
based assessment, Wessex Archaeology undertook
limited archaeological investigation on the
Marlborough Mound, located within the grounds
of Marlborough College. The Royal Commission
on the Historical Monuments of England
(RCHME) was also commissioned to produce a
measured survey of the monument.
The Marlborough Mound is a Scheduled
Monument (Wiltshire No. 321) which has been well
documented from the medieval period onwards.
The mound formed the motte of a motte-and-bailey
castle from at least the middle of the 12th century
and was later incorporated into extensive garden
works in the 17th century. It has been supposed
that the construction of the brick Belvedere, on the
south-east face of the mound, dates to this period.
The archaeological works were undertaken as part
of the College’s intention, aided by a benefactor,
to consolidate and return the monument to a stable
condition.
Elevations and sections were drawn within the
Belvedere, recording the nature and current
condition of the structure. The relationship between
the Belvedere and the spiral pathway was
established through hand-excavation of a test-pit
at the front of the Belvedere. On the north-west
face of the mound, a section of an exposed scar
was drawn, recording the profile and structure of
the mound at this level. No excavation of in situ
mound material took place.
Marlborough College New Music School (SU 18
68); Medieval and Post-Medieval
The site of the new Music School lies on the south
side of the Mount, the remains of a motte-and-
bailey castle which may have had its origins as a
prehistoric monument. Both the motte and the
former base court (lower bailey) to the south were
subsequently refashioned to form a formal garden
in the 18th century. The new building occupies the
area of the former College swimming pool,
developed from a watercourse which had originally
been the castle moat, later to become an 18th-
century water garden feature. An archaeological
watching brief undertaken intermittently by AC
archaeology observed the demolition of the pool
base and associated buildings, and the excavation
of foundations and piling for the new structure. No
archaeological features or finds were observed, only
modern (disturbed) horizons surviving above the
waterlogged levels.
Waitrose Supermarket, High Street (SU 1885
6905); Post-Medieval
An archaeological watching brief was undertaken
by Wessex Archaeology during ground works
associated with the construction of an extension to
the Waitrose supermarket. The site provided an
opportunity to examine the nature of tenements
fronting on to the High Street and associated with
the medieval development of the town.
Observations recorded evidence of pits and a ditch,
showing that the site lay to the rear of the tenements
which had been laid out along a gravel terrace of
the River Kennet. The archaeological features were
probably of post-medieval date, suggesting that the
street was well developed by that time, although
EXCAVATION AND FIELDWORK IN WILTSHIRE 2000
the observations were unable to establish a date for
the initial occupation of the site. Deep soil deposits
containing post-medieval material were recorded
along the flood plain, suggesting that small-scale
cultivation probably followed the management of
the river channel in the 18th century.
Mildenhall
Former Post Office (SU 2095 6965); Post-Medieval
An archaeological field evaluation was carried out
at the former Post Office by AC archaeology during
January 2001. The evaluation comprised the
machine-excavation of two trenches within an area
of garden close to the present street frontage. No
subsoil features were present. A single sherd of post-
medieval pottery was recovered from the topsoil.
Preshute
Sharpbridge, Temple Farm, Rockley (SU 1427
7462); Modern
An archaeological field evaluation was carried out
on the site of two proposed dwellings at
Sharpbridge, Temple Farm, by AC archaeology. The
site is situated in an area of Bronze Age landscape
and within one of the many field systems associated
with small agricultural settlements of this date. The
evaluation comprised the machine-excavation of a
single trench, amounting to a c.3% sample of the
site. The trench revealed ploughsoil directly above
natural chalk, with no subsoil features or deposits
of potential archaeological interest present. No
artefacts of modern or earlier date were recovered
from the spoil heaps.
Salisbury
Belle Vue Bus Garage, Castle Street (SU 1445
3045); Post-Medieval
_ Wessex Archaeology was commissioned by the Wilts
& Dorset Bus Company to under take a watching
brief during groundworks associated with the
construction of a new workshop at the Belle Vue
Garage, Castle Street. The watching brief was
maintained during the excavation of a construction
trench for the foundations of a new 3-bay workshop.
The only potential archaeological feature identified
during the course of the watching brief was a
possible pit that contained post-medieval pottery
and brick.
287
21A Highfield Road (SU 1334 3074); Iron Age
An archaeological evaluation was undertaken by
Wessex Archaeology in connection with a planning
application to redevelop land at 21A Highfield
Road, Salisbury for residential purposes. The site
was thought to lie partially within an Iron Age
settlement which had been recognised and
investigated in the 19th century. A single machine-
excavated trench along the main axis of the
development site located the main enclosure ditch
towards the southern end. The ‘V’- shaped ditch,
which had silted naturally, measured 4.4m across
and was approximately 1.9m deep. Large quantities
of domestic refuse were found in the upper fills.
The Middle Iron Age date of the enclosure ditch
was confirmed. The ditch had been recut on a
slightly different alignment, with steep sides and a
flat base. This could have occurred during the
Romano-British period. A small number of
contemporary features were also identified within
the enclosure, probably as a result of settlement in
this area. Only one feature, a small gully, lay outside
the enclosure.
Endless Street (SU 1450 3050); Medieval and Post-
Medieval
CAT was commissioned to undertake an evaluation
at numbers 38-44, in advance of proposed
residential redevelopment of the site. The machine
excavation of the evaluation trenches identified the
walls and floors of a probable medieval building on
the Endless Street frontage. To the rear (east) of
this building deep cultivation soils were identified
together with a tenement boundary ditch,
orientated north/south. A sherd of medieval pottery
was recovered from the primary fill of this ditch.
All features were disturbed by post-medieval and
modern features.
Former Anchor Brewery Site, Gigant Street (SU
1470 2987); Medieval and Post-Medieval
Wessex Archaeology undertook the excavation of
c.180m? of land along the western side of Gigant
Street as part of a phased programme of
archaeological work undertaken in advance of
proposed residential development in this area.
The excavation produced a variety of evidence
for the occupation of the Gigant Street frontage
from the 13th century to the present day. This
included ground preparation activity associated
with the initial development of the city of Salisbury
in the 13th century, and also structures that pre-
dated the formal street frontage. The subsequent
288 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
medieval and post-medieval phases were dominated
by the construction, use and re-modelling of the
late 13th century street frontage. There is evidence
for both domestic and industrial activity,
representing an important addition to our
knowledge of the archaeology of the town.
Old Sarum Bridge, Old Sarum Castle (SU 3800
2700); Medieval and Post-Medieval
Wessex Archaeology was commissioned by English
Heritage to produce a structural record of the bridge
footings at Old Sarum Castle, in advance of
renovation work. The footings of the bridge lie on
the east facing (inner) slope of the moat that
surrounds the Norman castle. Documentary
evidence shows the bridge was excavated between
1918 and 1930, prior to the construction of the
modern footbridge. Records of this excavation do
not appear to survive, though a plan drawn up in the
1920s shows three phases of bridge footings in the
area of the existing masonry. Records also indicate
that this masonry was consolidated (and possibly
partially rebuilt) prior to display. Comparison with
the 1920s plan indicates that the structure is little
altered (at least in terms of its outline) since it was
excavated, the exception being the central part where
one section of wall is missing and another has been
partially covered over. This probably occurred during
alterations to the modern footbridge.
The remains were originally interpreted as bridge
footings. A re-evaluation of the evidence suggests
that the western section may be the base of an outer
gatehouse, built to house the drawbridge pit and
winding mechanism. The rest of the masonry is
interpreted as forming piers for the bridge.
The Bakehouse, Old Sarum Castle (SU 3800
2700); Medieval
Wessex Archaeology was commissioned by English
Heritage to undertake an archaeological
investigation of a depression within the 13th-
century bakehouse. The circular depression formed
overnight following a prolonged period of watering
and heavy rain in the summer of 1999. It measured
c.lm in diameter and 0.2m deep (from the level
ground surface), with a further 0.5m of ‘spongy’
ground immediately surrounding. Situated towards
the centre of the bakehouse, it lies to the south of
the main entrance to the inner bailey.
A single 3 x 3m trench centred on the depression
was excavated by hand. The excavation revealed a
compacted chalk layer (possibly the bakehouse
floor), several post-holes and part of a rectangular
structure, thought to be one of the ovens, all
previously recorded in 1911 by Colonel Hawley.
The floor and rectangular structure had both
partially subsided into the depression. It was
concluded that the depression may have been
caused by backfill material within an earlier well
shaft subsiding. The well shaft was excavated to a
depth of 1.2m (to the top of the consolidated fill),
and measured c.2m in diameter. An auger survey
carried out as part of the excavation revealed that
the well shaft did not exceed the original hillfort
ground surface, a depth of 5.85m from the present
ground level. The well is undated.
Shrewton
The Catherine Wheel (SU 0685 4385); Post-
Medieval and Modern
An archaeological field evaluation was carried out
on the southern side of the car park belonging to
the former Catherine Wheel public house,
Shrewton, by AC archaeology. The site is situated
near the junction of the A360 (Maddington Street)
and Shrewton High Street (SU 0685 4385), and is
considered to lie within one of the clusters of
medieval settlement which now form the modern
village of Shrewton. The evaluation comprised the
machine-excavation of two 1.6m wide trenches
totalling 15m in length. One revealed extensive
evidence for post-medieval/modern activity, whilst
the other included the foundations of a brick-built
building, also of post-medieval date, overlying river
valley deposits. No earlier finds were present.
Uplands and Sunnyside, Chalk Hill (SU 070 434);
Modern
An archaeological field evaluation was carried out
on the former site of Uplands and Sunnyside, Chalk
Hill, by AC archaeology. Evidence from early maps
show the site to lie between the settlements of
Maddington, Rollestone and Homanton. The
evaluation comprised the machine-excavation of a
single trench, amounting to a 2% sample of the
site. The trench proved negative, with no subsoil
features or deposits of potential archaeological
interest present. No pre-modern finds were
recovered from the spoil heaps.
South Marston
Primary School (SU 1942 8792); Medieval and
Post-Medieval
A large oval landscape mound in the grounds of
the school was investigated by Bernard Phillips
EXCAVATION AND FIELDWORK IN WILTSHIRE 2000
following an application to build an extension. It
was found to overlie ridge and furrow, and pottery
and building material indicate that it is of late 19th
century date.
South Newton
Camphill Reservoir (SU 1102 3365); Prehistoric
An archaeological watching brief undertaken by AC
archaeology observed the construction of a new
access road at Camphill reservoir north of Salisbury.
No archaeological features were encountered due
to the shallow ground-workings. Small quantities
of burnt flint were noted on and around the present
development but no other pre-modern finds were
present.
Steeple Langford
‘Blagdon’, Hanging Langford (SU 0340 3709);
Medieval
An archaeological watching brief was carried out
by AC archaeology during foundation trench
excavations for a new house and associated garage
at the site of ‘Blagdon’, Hanging Langford.
Inspection revealed the site to have been heavily
terraced. However excavations did reveal the
truncated remains of one sub-circular feature which
yielded six 14th century sherds. The feature was
not bottomed and was tentatively interpreted as a
well. No other archaeological features or deposits
were uncovered by the trenching.
Swindon
Abbeymeads (SU 14478960); Roman, Anglo-
Saxon and Medieval
Between September and October 2000 CAT carried
out an evaluation consisting of 31 trenches at
Abbeymeads, Groundwell West. Several trenches
- contained features, later investigated by open-area
excavation, which proved to be of geological or
natural origin. However, a trackway of possible
Romano-British date was also found, the alignment
of which suggests that it may connect the site of a
known Romano-British complex to the south of
the site with Ermin Street to the north-east.
During the Anglo-Saxon period part of the site
was used for burial. At least four (and possibly six)
graves were identified, with four different
alignments. One of the graves contained a pin, a
289
small mount inset with a gemstone, and a lace tag.
Medieval quarries were also identified.
Kingsdown Crematorium (SU 1740 8905);
Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age,
Romano-British, Medieval and Post-Medieval
Archaeological field walking was undertaken by
Bernard Phillips following an application to extend
an existing burial ground. Prehistoric occupation
is evidenced by Upper Palaeolithic, Mesolithic,
Neolithic and Bronze Age flintworking waste, flint
tools, including arrowheads, scrapers and knives,
and a few pottery sherds. Later activity is
demonstrated by Romano-British, medieval and
post-medieval sherds.
Tidworth
Tidworth Garrison Golf Club (SU 221 476); Post-
Medieval
An archaeological watching brief was undertaken
by Wessex Archaeology during topsoil stripping at
Tidworth Garrison Golf Club in advance of the
construction of a new car park. The stripped area
of 1920m/’, revealed a slot containing brick and post-
medieval pottery, which was cut into a surface of
unbedded chalk bedrock with frequent patches of
silty clay loam. It is likely that these are the natural
product of the solution of the chalk, or may result
from the removal of trees and scrub.
Tisbury
Old Wardour Castle (ST 938 263); Undated
Wessex Archaeology was commissioned by English
Heritage, South West Region, to undertake an
archaeological watching brief at Old Wardour
Castle. The watching brief was required as a
condition of Scheduled Monument consent for the
construction of a new temporary shop to replace
the old ticket office. The new temporary shop lies
to the north of the ruins within the bailey, close to
the curtain wall. The hand-excavation of six small
square foundation pad trenches and one larger
service trench, the machine-excavation of another
larger trench and ground disturbance caused by
vegetation clearance, were observed.
Mixed topsoil and overburden was found to
overlay a sandy silty clay deposit in most of the
trenches. This deposit appears to have been
introduced to raise the ground level in the bailey.
An undated, possible linear, feature was observed
290 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
in the base of one of the foundation pad trenches.
A deposit of greensand and brick rubble was
observed in the hole created when vegetation was
cleared. This rubble may have been used as hard
core for a path when the monument was
surrounded by formal gardens.
Upton Lovell
Upton Lovell G2a (ST 9586 4277); Early Bronze
Age
The Upton Lovell G2a Early Bronze Age barrow
was originally excavated by William Cunnington in
the early 1800s. The material from the grave is
currently on display in the Wiltshire Heritage
Museum. Although subsequently ploughed out, and
recently de-scheduled by English Heritage, the site
was successfully relocated in 1999 using aerial
photographs and geophysical survey. The associated
topographical survey established that the site does
survive in the landscape, however minimally. This
was confirmed by field observation.
Re-examination of a stone burnisher from the
grave group, identified by Stuart Piggott as including
a metalworker’s toolkit, had confirmed the presence
before its burial of traces of gold of a similar
composition to objects found in contemporary Early
Bronze Age barrows (Shell 2000). The purpose of
the re-excavation was to investigate whether
Cunnington had typically left the skeletal material
in the grave, and, if so, to recover it and any other
material in order to obtain radiocarbon dating
evidence and carry out chemical analysis to establish
the extent to which the individual may have been
involved in bronze metalworking.
The excavation consisted of two small trenches
and an overall surface scrape, the latter to investigate
magnetic anomalies identified in the geophysical
survey. The larger of the trenches was positioned
to investigate the grave area, the other to examine
the ditch.
Cunnington had, characteristically, left the
skeletal material in the grave pit. There was some
human bone present scattered in the lower fill,
though to which of the two skeletons recorded by
him as being present this belongs awaits the detailed
analysis. The re-examination of the grave provided
an interesting insight into Cunnington’s respect for
the human remains he investigated. In the north-
west corner of the grave he carefully placed the more
robust bones, including the skull of what we believe
from his description to be the primary burial.
Around them was built a small chalk block wall,
and the whole was covered by turves before
backfilling the grave pit.
The work was undertaken by Colin Shell
(University of Cambridge) and Gill Swanton
(Bristol University). The small field team included
WANHS Field Group members and Bristol
University Centre for the Historic Environment
students, all working with good humour in less than
desirable weather conditions. Mike Allen and Julie
Gardiner kindly took samples for palaeo-
environmental analysis, including early 19th century
turf—a perhaps rare example of a ‘captured’ insight
into the landscape 200 years ago.
The landowners, the Nevill family, gave
permission to excavate, and provided practical
support in the form of a site store/personnel
accommodation and mechanised assistance in
clearing and backfilling the site. The project is
supported by a small grant from The British
Academy.
Shell, C.A., 2000, Metalworker or Shaman: Early Bronze
Age Upton Lovell G2a burial. Antiquity 74, 271-2
Warminster
Harman Lines to Imber Clump Road (ST 9004
4674 to ST 9140 4794); Prehistoric
The archaeological monitoring of refurbishment to
1.9km of concrete road between Vedette Post 2 and
Imber Clump Weapons Effect Demonstration site
was carried out during October and November
2000 by AC archaeology. The existing roadway
overlay a previously unmetalled track which had
evidently been the subject of considerable
disturbance and truncation. The only visible
archaeological features were noted in section within
a length of cutting, comprising an undated positive
lynchet and a probable linear feature containing
fragments of later Bronze Age pottery. The
improvements formed an extension to the Southern
Range Road construction programme and will be
incorporated in the archaeological report for those
works currently under preparation.
Westbury
Former Old Clinic, Edward Street (ST 873 513);
Medieval and Post-Medieval
An archaeological field evaluation was carried out
on the former clinic site at Edward Street by AC
archaeology. Adjacent sites have previously
encountered significant evidence for medieval
EXCAVATION AND FIELDWORK IN WILTSHIRE 2000
activity. The evaluation comprised the machine-
excavation of three trenches positioned north, west
and east around the existing building, revealing
recent made ground overlying a buried soil horizon
of probable medieval date. No subsoil features were
present. A small number of artefacts of medieval
and post-medieval date, principally pottery, were
recovered from both the re-deposited layers and
buried soil horizon.
Wilton
Fountain Site, Wilton House Millennium Project
(SU 1006 3006); Post-Medieval
Wessex Archaeology carried out an archaeological
watching brief during the construction of a small
fountain and service connections within the
landscape garden of Wilton House. The garden is
Grade I Listed in English Heritage’s ‘Register of
Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in
England’. Evidence of landscaping was revealed,
along with probable foundations of 17th-century
garden features and a 20th-century wall. The
shallow depth of wall foundations, just 100mm
below the gravel of the main pathway, is suggestive
of substantial landscaping and levelling of the area,
which may relate to 18th century work to form an
open parkland style garden.
Pembroke Arms Hotel (SU 0984 3117); Post-
Medieval and Modern
An evaluation was undertaken by Wessex
Archaeology on land just to the north of the
Pembroke Arms Hotel, between two streams. It lies
within the medieval settlement of Wilton, and just
beyond the probable edge of the important Saxon
town, the site of a Royal Palace and Mint. Two 1m
wide trenches with a total length of 6m were
excavated mechanically at either end of the
proposed development site. Alluvial deposits,
approximately 1m or more in thickness, lay just over
291
1m below the present ground surface. These
deposits produced a single sherd of 13th- or early
14th-century pottery, and were sealed by made-
ground which contained finds of 17th/18th and
19th/20th century date respectively. The evidence
recovered suggests that the evaluated area was low-
lying marginal ground in medieval times and was
reclaimed by dumping soil and raising the ground
level in the late post-medieval period. No evidence
for any Saxon activity on the site was found.
Wroughton
Brimble Hill (SU 1558 8028); Saxon
Excavation by Bernard Phillips and Peter Hyams,
following metal detector finds, revealed two late 6th
century burials in a ploughed field. One grave
Oy
By,
= aN
D '
aa
1
°
Fig. 2. Wroughton: Saxon burials (scale 1m)
containing the remains of a child cut the grave of
an elderly adult male. Associated with the former
were a pair of large gilded saucer brooches and two
beads, one of amber and the other of glass. The
adult burial was accompanied by a sword, two
spears, a shield boss and a small buckle (Figure 2).
High Street (SU 1435 8025); Modern
An evaluation undertaken by CAT revealed only
modern deposits.
Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 292-99
Reviews
Ludgershall Castle: Excavations by Peter
Addyman 1964-1972. Compiled and edited by
Peter Ellis. Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural
History Society Monograph Series 2. ix + 268
pages, 235 figures and maps 7 microfiches, 19
tables. ISBN 0 947723 07 2. Price: £20.00.
This monograph presents the results of excavations
carried out on the site of the royal castle and hunting
lodge of Ludgershall between 1964 and 1972,
alongside a new survey of the site and its environs
conducted by the Royal Commission on the
Historical Monuments of England in 1998.
Bringing together these two quite different data sets
clearly presented a major challenge of synthesis. But
despite the somewhat long and tortuous process of
the report’s completion, including particularly
severe delays in the post-excavation programme, it
is to the immense credit of the editor that the final
monograph is, on the whole, comprehensive, highly
readable and attractively presented. Furthermore,
it is refreshing to see that uncertainties about the
evidence and unresolved aspects of the site’s
chronology (the twelfth-century phases are
particularly problematic) are acknowledged freely
and discussed honestly, in particular within the
conclusion. Overall, the combination of large-scale
open area excavation within the defensive perimeter
of the site and detailed topographical survey of the
zone beyond makes for fascinating reading and
highlights some interesting new ways of
understanding the place of castles within their
landscape settings.
Following an introduction, Chapter 2 contains
a useful summary of key documentary sources,
including a discussion of the building accounts of
1341-3 that are translated in full on microfiche. The
core of the excavation report is presented in Chapter
3. The emphasis of the excavation strategy was on
the sampling of the interior of the site’s northern
and southern enclosures rather than its formidable
earthworks, and the thrust of this part of the report
is on the castle’s domestic arrangements rather than
its fortifications. A centrally placed great hall,
flanked to the north by a progressively enlarged suite
of domestic structures and the great tower,
dominated the layout of the northern enclosure
from the twelfth to the fourteenth century.
Occupation within the southern enclosure was of
an entirely different character, with evidence from
various phases of a substantial limekiln, a lime
slaking pit and a building containing a large oven,
although the space appears to have been cleared
and redesigned as a small ornamental garden in
the site’s later phases. Chapter 4 by David Stocker
combines skilful analysis of above-ground evidence
and excavated remains in a study of Henry III’s
Great Hall and the ruined great tower. Chapter 5,
by Paul Everson, Graham Brown and David
Stocker, describes the results of the detailed
topographical survey of the castle earthworks and
provides a fascinating and innovative account of the
castle’s setting and its inter-relationship with the
medieval and later townscape. A detailed and well
presented finds report comprises Chapter 6 and a
final discussion and handy summary of the site’s
development Chapter 7.
A word must also be given to the superb colour
illustration by Peter Dunn that enlivens the report’s
front cover. A bird’s eye view that looks beyond
the castle’s defences to emphasise the site’s place
within its contemporary landscape, this illustration
encapsulates nicely some of the report’s main
strengths. This is far more than a report of a ‘castle
excavation’, but a study that also has an important
contribution to make to landscape studies. Of
particular significance is the fact that Ludgershall
Castle can now be added to the growing list of
castles and other élite medieval residences known
to have been accompanied by ornamental
landscapes purposefully designed for aesthetic
effect, such as Bodiam (Sussex). A crucial
difference is that the designed landscape created
around Ludgershall Castle by the end of the twelfth
REVIEWS
century did not include water features. Rather, part
of the north enclosure’s unusual outer bank appears
to have functioned as a garden walk or viewing
platform from which the surrounding parkland, into
which the castle projected, could be admired. The
castle was also closely linked to the evolving
medieval townscape. Painstaking analysis of the
town plan shows that a small borough was initially
founded and grew under the shadow of the royal
castle, until an expansion of the king’s park over
part of the settlement in the middle of the fourteenth
century prompted a major reorganisation. These
observations open up many exciting new
possibilities for understanding the settings of other
Wiltshire castle sites and, in particular, their inter-
relationships with deer parks, settlements and
garden features. For instance, while it is well
understood that the earthwork remains of Norman
castle sites such as Downton and Marlborough were
redesigned as garden features in the post-medieval
period, we may now seek to speculate whether these
or other sites were components within designed
landscapes of far earlier date.
The report will also doubtless be of interest to
readers of this journal for the contrasts it highlights
with comparable sites elsewhere within the county,
of which perhaps the most obvious is Clarendon
Palace. Particularly intriguing is the manner in
which the domestic planning of royal quarters at
Ludgershall reflected greater pressure on space due
to its massive enclosing earthworks. In addition,
the report provides a rather sobering reminder to
the fieldworker that the surviving earthwork remains
of castle sites, if examined in isolation, can give very
little idea of the complex and multi-phase nature
of occupation within defensive perimeters. At a
more general level, the report also has much to tell
us about the changing priorities of castle studies.
Envisaged in the 1960s as an excavation designed
to examine castle origins and establish a secure
sequence for the development of an earth and
timber and then stone castle, the focus of the project
_ has changed to examine the site in a far more holistic
manner. Indeed, the report provides very little
evidence for the earth and timber fortifications of
the site in its earliest phases. Unlike Trowbridge
Castle, the other prominent example of a Wiltshire
castle excavated in recent years, there is no pressing
evidence that the Norman castle at Ludgershall was
developed from an earlier Saxon manorial centre.
This is not to say, however, that Ludgershall Castle
was built on a site with no earlier occupation, as
the RCHME survey suggests that the southern
293
enclosure originated as a prehistoric hillfort whose
defences were reconditioned by the first castle
builders and to which the northern enclosure was
added. In sum, this important volume has much
to offer the reader with an interest in the medieval
landscape of Wiltshire as well as those enticed by
the subject of castles, and will certainly provide the
stimulus for new discussions and debates.
OLIVER CREIGHTON
Richard Durman. Classical Buildings of
Wiltshire and Bath. A Palladian Quest.
Millstream Books, 2000, 208 pages; 187 black and
white illustrations (line and photographic). Price
£25, hardback, ISBN 0948975601.
This is an important book which puis the
architecture of Wiltshire (and the Bath area) of the
16th to the 19th centuries in its international
context. Bath itself and the country houses of
Wiltshire have received a good measure of attention
from previous writers but it is good to see them
brought together and considered along with the
many fine town houses of our county.
Richard Durman writes lucidly. We are told
that he worked for many years as a local government
lawyer and administrator and that he was formerly
a Legal Member of the Royal Town Planning
Institute. His long interest in buildings and
architecture is evident and since retiring he has
become a Blue Badge Guide at Salisbury.
The book starts with the significance of a
number of Wiltshire great houses in the early
development of Palladianism in England. This is
followed by a series of chapters mainly covering
the developments at Bath. Finally there is a return
to more Wiltshire examples. Proportion is all
important in Classical buildings but taste and
judgment also come into play and the success of a
design is a matter of opinion. On many occasions
Mr Durman is confident enough to offer us his view.
The development of Classical architecture in this
country is closely linked with the rise of the
professional architect as distinct from the master
mason or carpenter. For most of the larger
buildings, the name of the architect is recorded.
Where the architect is not known for certain, there
is often speculation on stylistic grounds about who
might have been the designer. In this the author is
on the whole wisely cautious. He does suggest
similarities between Widcombe Manor House and
294 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
42 Cricklade Street, Swindon but a Bath school of
carving may be involved in each case. Only
historical research can finally resolve such matters.
The book’s illustrations remind us of the sheer
craftsmanship of the masons who carried out the
plans, for example when constructing The Circus
at Bath with its three tiers of double columns and
its carved frieze. The point is made that houses in
the London Road were designed to look good at
the rear as well as the front which was unusual in
the city. We are reminded too that John Wood the
Younger was designing Salisbury Infirmary in 1766-
7 at the time when the Royal Crescent was being
built at Bath. Very few mistakes occur. It is odd
perhaps to place Hartham Park near Biddestone
when it is usually associated with Corsham. On
page 168 Crittleton should be Grittleton.
This is in all a welcome and reliable guide to
local buildings in the Classical tradition, not only
houses but also buildings with a variety of functions.
It is exceptionally well illustrated and will give the
reader a permanent source of valuable pictorial
material.
PAM SLOCOMBE
Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum.
Medieval Catalogue Part 3, Edited by Peter
Saunders. Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum
2001, 272 pages, 88 figures. Price £24.93.
This is a worthy successor to parts 1 and 2 of the
Salisbury Museum Medieval Catalogue, which were
published in 1990 and 1991. It covers nine
categories of Medieval object — artefacts made from
bone, antler and ivory; glass vessels; enamels
(admittedly only two items, however); papal bullae;
cloth seals; artefacts made of lead/tin alloy, including
tokens; balances and weights; pottery, tile and brick;
and finally jettons or casting counters. The
catalogue of objects in each section is preceded by
an up-to-date and authoritative historical
introduction which is informative and helpful in
putting the objects in their general context. The
authors are leading specialists in these different
fields coming from the museum, archaeological and
numismatic worlds. It is a pleasure to note that
some of the authors such as David Algar, Rachel
Tyson and John Musty have a closer association
with Wiltshire. The volume begins with an
appreciation of the life and career of Eleanor
Saunders (1948-1992) who undertook much of the
preparatory work of the catalogue and was the co-
editor of parts 1 and 2. The illustrations are by Nick
Griffiths.
Over 1,000 objects are catalogued in the volume
and over 650 illustrated or photographed, many for
the first time. The greatest proportion come from
the city of Salisbury itself or from the major nearby
Medieval sites, notably Old Sarum and Clarendon
Palace. Together the chapters contribute to the
picture of the material culture of the city and
everyday life there in medieval times. There are
many particularly important and striking individual
items, including the Limoges crucifix from near
Mompesson House, the reliquary figure
(provenance not given) and a walrus ivory chessman
from Ivy Street, Salisbury in the form of a king on
horseback. These are among the outstanding
medieval objects to have survived from Wiltshire.
Similarly the collections of some classes of objects,
including the glass vessels (from Old Sarum,
Clarendon Palace and the Franciscan friary at
Salisbury), the cloth seals (mainly from Salisbury)
and the pottery (from a wide range of sites,
particularly Old Sarum, Clarendon Palace and
Laverstock Kiln) are of much more than local or
indeed regional importance.
There are a number of unexpected objects or
groups of objects in the catalogue. They include a
small group of medieval toys, including some
marbles from the excavations at Old Sarum and
Clarendon Palace. Marbles are extremely rare and
unusual medieval finds. As the text stresses, no
examples were found in the extensive excavations
at Winchester. A small number of buttons are
interesting and useful additions to the still thin
corpus of medieval buttons so far identified from
England. Pride of place — by no means the correct
phrase to use — must go to a group of very unusual
semi-pornographic tokens. If these could be
confirmed as locally found, they shed light on the
city and the mores of its inhabitants not revealed
from other sources.
The volume will be essential to a wide range of
users. These include local historians, for whom,
for example the chapter on cloth seals represents
essential primary evidence for the highly important
cloth industry centred on the city in the Middle
Ages. Archaeologists, whether professional or
amateur, will find many of the sections invaluable,
in particular of course that on the medieval pottery,
tile and brick. Museum curators and finds
recorders will find the authoritative identifications,
classifications and descriptions of collections such
as the chapter on jettons invaluable to them both
REVIEWS
in understanding and cataloguing their own
collections and in answering public enquiries.
Perhaps above all, however, general readers in
Wiltshire will enjoy the insight which this (with the
earlier volumes) gives into daily life in South
Wiltshire in the Middle Ages.
The volume was prepared and published with
the aid of a grant from the Designation Challenge
Fund. The size, scope and quality of the Salisbury
Museum collection and the form of its presentation
in this catalogue show that this aid was well merited.
PAUL ROBINSON
John Chandler. Marlborough and Eastern
Wiltshire: Wiltshire A History of its Landscape
and People 1. Hobnob Press, 2001, xiii, 274 pages;
illustrations, maps; Price £20.00, hardback, ISBN
0 946418 07 1
The appearance of this book, the first of a planned
series of eight, marks, to paraphrase Churchill’s
words, both the end of the beginning and the
beginning of the end of a journey of research into
the history of Wiltshire by the author which he
began in 1984. This bold project will comprise
thumbnail sketches of each modern civil parish with
a final volume being a synthesis of a ‘making of the
Wiltshire landscape’. The author’s aim is, in his own
words, to ‘explain the surroundings and humanize
the past’. Judging by the high standard of this
volume the project will be of major importance for
Wiltshire studies.
This book covers the 34 parishes comprising
the Marlborough Downs, Savernake Forest and the
Kennet and Upper Bourne valleys. From Avebury
to Buttermere and Tidworth to Aldbourne. Each
essay has an excellent illustration by Michael
Charlton capturing an impression of the place.
Furthermore each has a map based on the 1890
Ordnance Survey one inch to one mile series with
_ the particularly neat technique of highlighting by
background shading.
Landscape and topography predominate in each
essay, which is right since they are the bedrock of
local history. The origins of boundaries, settlements
and place-names and the development of routes by
water, road and rail are succinctly discussed
incorporating the latest archaeological research
drawn both from unpublished reports and
published articles. Historical research is drawn
heavily from the Wiltshire Victoria County History
295
as it should (only one parish in this book awaits
treatment by the V.C.H. and that one will appear
in the next Wiltshire volume). The reader is provided
with an excellent synthesis of current thought.
However there is much more to this book than that:
it is by no means a derivative pot-boiler but offers
much more substantial and satisfying fare. For the
text is full of original research and ideas developed
by the author over the many years of the project’s
gestation. These are expressed with such clarity,
simplicity and enthusiasm that the reader is
presented with quite sophisticated concepts which
can be easily assimilated and thereby are made
widely accessible. First and foremost John Chandler
is an excellent communicator, able to engage his
audience and hold its interest while he presents his
well reasoned thoughts on the county’s history.
He sees this series as occupying the middle
ground between the academic and excellent Victoria
County History project and the more anodyne
general and local histories. The real legacy of this
ambitious project might well be to raise the standard
of the latter works, bringing them up to the ground
occupied so securely by himself. Wiltshire historians
have never had a better example to follow and,
hopefully, will take full advantage of the opportunity
offered.
STEVEN HOBBS
Rex Sawyer. Little Imber on the Down:
Salisbury Plain’s ghost village. Hobnob Press,
2001, 168 pages; photographs, map. Price £12.50,
hardback, ISBN 0 946418 06 3
On reading Rex Sawyer’s fascinating book on Imber
I was reminded of my own first visit to the village.
In the late 1940s an aunt of mine, an Imber native,
obtained an entry pass. Most of the buildings were
then still standing, though some were missing doors,
windows or parts of roofs. The most lasting
impression on me, as an eight year old, was the
total emptiness of the place and this was the image
that the word Imber brought to mind long after.
This book has done much to dispel that image, for
the community that Rex Sawyer depicts is lively
and close knit, welded together by its relative
isolation.
Drawing on written sources and, most
importantly, the recollections of surviving
inhabitants, the author traces what is known of the
development. In particular he gives a deeply
interesting picture of the village, its inhabitants and
296 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
their lives in the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. This was not to last and the story of the
eviction and dispersal of the villagers is told with
feeling. This, however, was not the end of the story
and the last part of the book chronicles the post
war campaigns for the reinstatement of the village
and the various reunions of the surviving villagers.
The remarkable number of photographs, assembled
in the book, add faces to the names and depict the
variety of village life, its work and its leisure. The
village economy was founded on farming and most
of the working population was directly employed on
the land. Other crafts, such as the blacksmith, the
carpenter and the boot maker, were also dependent
on agriculture. An old craft, important on the downs,
was the dewpond maker. There are photographs of
school and church groups and of village celebrations
such as the coronation of George V.
It would be very easy to paint an over rosy
picture of village life. Rex Sawyer does not fall into
this trap, he shows the other side as well. He talks
about the dangers and hardships of an isolated
community; the story of the robbery of Matthew
Dean and subsequent events is well known. There
was also the continuous threat of flooding which
caused great distress in the lower parts of the village.
Another concern was the uncertain nature of
farming, in particular the agricultural depression
of the later nineteenth century meant that many
men had to leave the village to find work and this
started a decline in the population that continued
till the evacuation.
Of course the saddest parts of the book concern
the eviction and dispersal of the villagers. Given
only 47 days notice many of them left believing they
would return after the war. Perhaps their attitude
is summed up by a part of a quotation from one of
them, ‘I know that it sounds silly now that we left
so willingly, but then we thought we might be
helping win the war.’
However they were not to return. The military
authorities claimed a continuing need for the area.
This led, in the fifties and sixties to a campaign, for
the reinstatement of the village and the preservation
of rights of way, in which a leading part was played
by the late Austin Underwood. This was mainly
unsuccessful and the villagers were left only with
access to the church for an annual service.
This is a book which needed to be written while
there were still memories to draw upon. Rex Sawyer
has done a great service both to those of us whose
knowledge of Imber life came secondhand, from
older relatives, and to remind future generations,
who may not even be able to find Imber on the
map, that for over thousand years it was a living
community.
BRIAN LAWRENCE
Stephen Palmer. The Microlepidoptera of
Wiltshire. Published by the author 2001, 234 pages;
Price £15.95, paperback, ISBN 0 954057 60 0.
Baron Charles de Worms published his
Macrolepidoptera of Wiltshire in 1962, after an
intensive personal survey of the county’s larger
moths and close perusal of much the same sources
as used in this book. He lived in Surrey. In his
Introduction he recorded that Wiltshire was a rich
county for a large proportion of our
Macrolepidoptera and it was to be hoped that at
some not far distant date a work on the even greater
number of the Microlepidoptera would be
undertaken.
Now Stephen Palmer has achieved this,
although living in the county for only ten years and
using sources less substantial than de Worms. The
number of people living in Wiltshire able to identify
more than a handful of micros can be counted on
the fingers of one hand.
It is an essential handbook for anyone interested
in the moths of Wiltshire and follows in the footsteps
of many similar lists for other counties. Except for
the cover, there are no illustrations, which might
come as a surprise, but would have radically affected
the costs. There are 234 pages, the major proportion
of which is the systematic list of the species with a
series of charts at the end showing their distribution
within each 10 kilometre square. These latter
replace the more usual dot maps, which the author
rightly concludes would have very little meaning at
this early stage of recording in the county; very
common moths should be recorded in every square
and probably every tetrad in the county. Dot maps
tend to show those areas where microlepidopterists
are most active rather than the true nature of
distribution. The author’s tables demonstrate
concisely those areas where recording needs to be
concentrated.
The introduction includes a useful series of
paragraphs on conservation, species of conservation
interest in Wiltshire and a survey of the
microlepidopterists in the county. In the main text
the status of each species is listed separately under
each Vice-County heading (Wiltshire is divided into
two Watsonian Vice-counties, VC7 and VC8) using
REVIEWS
the customary terms such as common or scarce.
Local food plants noted are those recorded in
Wiltshire, and a span of years between the first
known and the last known record is given.
Of the approximately 1550 species of
micromoths in Britain, members of five families
were included in de Worms’ work, yet this book
includes records of around 880 species, a very
creditable figure for a county with a low number of
regular students of the microlepidoptera over the
years and large areas of countryside under intensive
agricultural practices.
The author writes that, although no positive data
are to hand, it is more than likely that the loss of
species, owing to changes in agriculture and urban
development, significantly outnumbers the gains
across the county. It is certainly the case that many
species are much less widespread and common than
previously, and when someone comes to update the
Macrolepidoptera of Wiltshire the same situation will
be found to have occurred, even since 1962.
Stephen Palmer lived in the county for only ten
years and brought his researches to a conclusion
and prepared his publication after leaving for
Lancashire in 1993 — a very commendable
achievement.
JOHN d@ARCY
Pamela Slocombe. Wiltshire Town Houses 1500
— 1900. Wiltshire Buildings Record, 2001, 112
pages, photographs, drawings. Price £6.00,
paperback, ISBN 1 903341 75 0.
Wiltshire is a county of small towns but is also well
known for the rich variety of its domestic
architecture and these two aspects of life in the
county are interestingly brought together in book
4 in the Wiltshire Buildings Record series. The
format for the new book follows the pattern of the
previous three and is thus instantly recognisable to
those familiar with the series. Once again, the book
is packed with detailed information, accompanied
by numerous illustrations and photographs,
providing an intriguing picture of town houses
across the county.
Town houses are often subject to change, either
from economic forces or architectural fashion, a
point which is clearly revealed in this publication.
The inclusion of an introduction to development
in towns and the layout of plots and streets provides
a much needed reminder of the significance of these
historic elements and gives meaning to features
297
which are sometimes difficult to understand. It is
not an easy task to cover the period 1500-1900,
especially as the status of settlements changes and
a number of buildings will have been replaced or
significantly altered. Indeed, it is this alteration of
the town centres that makes this book especially
valuable both for the record that it provides and for
the explanation of the historical development
process.
Within the county Salisbury contains a
remarkable cross-section of town houses and,
although information from Salisbury in this book
is relatively limited, the Further Reading list
includes reference to the two important publications
by the Royal Commission on Historical
Monuments on Salisbury City and The Close. In
this way the WBR book usefully adds to our
knowledge of the County’s’ buildings rather than
repeating information from other published sources.
Further study on the subject is encouraged by the
reading list and the useful references to other
organisations involved in historic building
conservation.
Both the student and the visitor will find much
to interest them in the Wiltshire towns and their
knowledge and enjoyment will be enhanced by the
information provided in this book. The Buildings
Record and the author, Pamela Slocombe, are to
be commended for the efforts which have clearly
been made to provide a wide ranging and very
detailed picture of Wiltshire town houses. The
addition of a full index covering books 1-4 makes it
easier for those who wish to learn more about the
buildings of Wiltshire to understand the full range
and depth of the architecture of the county.
Wiltshire is particularly fortunate to have an
enlightened and enthusiastic Buildings Record
which now provides a remarkable resource for the
researcher and, in its publications, enjoyment for
the casual reader.
COLIN JOHNS
A MILLENNIUM MIXTURE
PART I
In Volume 94 we considered thirty books which had
been published to mark the end of the second
millennium. We were aware that others were about
to be published and a further ten have now appeared
and these will be considered below. It is interesting
298 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
to note how many of these projects have changed
in content, scope and form during the evolution of
the work. I was present at the conception, birth or
weaning of many of the forty and in every case have
seen them grow out of all recognition from the
original idea. Most have grown so much that the
group may not have started them had they known
what the eventual amount of work would be.
Graham Greener and Joanna Clothier. Brinkworth
with Grittenham. Brinkworth Heritage Society, 2000,
130 pages; black and white photographs, maps. Price
£9.50, paperback, ISBN 0 9539146 0 7.
To some eyes this may seem to be a book of photographs
with more text than is usual but this book is much more
than that. There are the usual range of subjects but there
is also an extensive section on the environment and natural
history and an interesting account of footpaths and walks
in the parish accompanied by descriptive maps. The book
is particularly strong in 20th-century material and greatly
adds to our information on two villages which are not
well known outside north west Wiltshire.
David Brewer, compiler. Images of a Wiltshire
Downland Village: the Parish of Broad Hinton; a
collection of photographs from 1900 to 2000. David
Brewer, 2000, 195 pages; black and white and colour
photographs, map. Price £12.50, paperback.
This is a well produced book of photographs with good
and helpful captions which contain useful historical
information. The series of pictures on farming is
particularly well co-ordinated and to a great extent follow
the farming year. Other noteworthy sections include an
extensive collection of village houses and a wide range of
residents, past and present. Among the houses was the
locally named “Tea Cosy Cottage’ which name perhaps
should have been used by a resident of Tea Pot Street in
Wylye. In all a welcome addition to the collection of old
photograph books on Wiltshire parishes.
Calstone Wellington Millennium Project. Calstone
Wellington: our village past and present. Calstone
Wellington Millennium Project, 2000, 99 pages:
photographs, facsimiles, maps. Price £8.00, paperback.
This is the result of two years work by a number of
villagers and much of the material used was included in a
village history exhibition that the villagers held in March
2000. Although they say that it is not a finished piece of
work and that they hope that more information will
become available that can be included in a new edition
they can be proud of what they have researched and
published so far. Besides accounts of the main village
themes there is a section on horses, oral history from
some of the older inhabitants and a list of houses with
origins, comments and photographs.
Victoria Hutchings and Dennis Barnard. Crocodiles
and Chicken Chasers: the villages of Corsley and
Chapmanslade. Corsley and Chapmanslade Millennium
Book Committee, 2000, 92 pages: photographs, drawings,
maps. Price £7.50, paperback.
The first Wiltshire millennium book written about and
by two civil parishes has an intriguing title. The names
were bestowed upon each other in past village rivalries of
which there are several examples in the county. For the
uninitiated Corsley contained the crocodiles and
Chapmanslade the chicken chasers. Corsley we know from
Life in an English Village by Maud Davies and Victoria
Hutchings builds on this valuable source and is
deliberately strong on the inter war years and the 1950s.
Surveys seem to have been popular in the village for in
1944 the schoolchildren conducted one on the number
of cows milked; this included 12 at the Post Office and
85 at Manor Farm. This was one of the few Wiltshire
villages hit by bombs and 5 people were killed and 12
houses damaged in April 1944. A topical note was found
with the community being affected by a local epidemic of
foot and mouth in 1958. Sadly the farmers found that it
took three years to rebuild their stock and five years to
return to normal.
Chapmanslade gets off to a bad start by displaying a
lack of research in printed works and at the Record Office.
A myth of the village being settled by Flemish weavers is
perpetuated while a statement that no one knows when
the village was first called by its name evokes the answer
to look in Place-names of Wiltshire. This section of the
book soon redeems itself and there is good twentieth
century material and some useful oral history. The
Chapmanslade Arrow was printed and published by
Harold Dyer, the postmaster and grocer, who built his
printing works in the village in 1934; his son has only
recently ceased to run the business.
In all this is a very useful book on one village about which
we already know a fair amount and another one about
which we have previously known little.
Peter Meers. Ebbesbourne Wake Through the Ages.
Dial Cottage Press, 2000, 140, xx pages; maps, tables.
Price £9.50, paperback.
The author says that there is scanty information about
the village so he has set what there is in a broader context
of English history and he invites others to make their
own judgement on this. The initial reaction is ‘Good’,
local history should never be viewed in isolation but set
in its regional, national and even international setting.
The book begins with a helpful geographical section but
then moves to a chronology in which the only
Ebbesbourne Wake material seems to be local
archaeological sites. A very good section follows this on
people and places that really needs to be set in the
REVIEWS
chronology. Useful material on the village but research
on archival material and some editing would have
improved it.
Dorothy Robertson. Etchilhampton: a village portrait.
Etchilhampton Village Project, 2001, 64 pages; black
and white and colour photographs, maps. No price,
paperback.
This a handsome production, which is well designed and
surprisingly contains many colour photographs. The
history and activities are mainly from the twentieth century
and interesting comparisons are made with the village as
it appeared in the 1891 census. Typical of most of our
villages today only 21 people were born in the parish and
there are no resident farm workers. There are interesting
sidelights such as the fact that electricity and street lighting
only arrived in 1950 and there is some emphasis on
current village activities. As a boon for future historians
there is a survey of all village properties and a list of their
owners.
Arnold Lewis and Neil Mattingly. Limpley Stoke: its
church and its people. 2000, 50 pages; illustrations (black
and white and colour), facsimiles, maps. Price £6.99,
paperback.
This is a highly polished production with good integration
of text and illustrations and excellent use of colour
throughout. Each page has the appearance of a well
designed web page only instead of having to click for more
information or illustrations they are already there. The
book is an outcome of the exhibition, ‘A Thousand Years
of St. Mary’s and its People’, which itself was the result
of some years research by the two men. There is much
information about families connected with the village
while later centuries are covered by maps and census
information. Good use has been made of sources in the
Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office.
Mere Papers; A Millennial Miscellany compiled by
M. F. Tighe. The Friends of the Church of St. Michael
the Archangel, Mere, 2001, 33 pages. Price £2.00,
paperback.
This is Michael Tighe’s fourteenth volume of Mere Papers
in only five years, much of the corpus has been reviewed
in WAM 93. It is a compilation of those interesting
snippets of information, which we all find when
researching a different subject, and which often lie around
gathering dust for many years. With the laudable aim of
not wishing to waste good material these have been put
together for a volume celebrating the year of the true
millennium, following the example of the good vicar of
299
Mere who welcomed the new century in his parish
magazine in January 1901. Here you can read of Mere
hairdressers from 1673, the local Dorcas society of the
19th century and the location and use of the fives court
among many other pieces of interesting local history.
Roger Crisp (compiler). Newton Tony: a Wiltshire
village at the millennium. Wessex Books for Roger.Crisp,
2001, 174 pages, photographs, drawings, facsimiles. No
price, hardback, ISBN 1 903035 031.
Interestingly each chapter covers a month of the year of
1999 and the events therein which are linked to
happenings and photographs from the past. Thus there
is a description and picture of the River Bourne, which
was three feet deep in January but which had not been
seen previously since 1996. Earlier accounts of the river
are accompanied by a photograph of the flooding in the
1870s. This is a good idea and the presentation works
well but where there are themes running through the year,
such as farms or the countryside, one has to look in twelve
different places if that is one’s subject interest. An amusing
section is the comments from schoolchildren in 1999 of
what they expect the next thousand years to bring.
Urchfont Parish Millennium Group. Urchfont by any
other name. The Urchfont Parish Millennium Group,
2001, 213 pages, photographs, plans, facsimiles, maps.
Price £9.00, hardback, ISBN 0 9540851 0 8.
The title of the book comes from the fact that the authors,
in the course of their researches, found that the village
name had been recorded in 111 different ways over the
centuries. It is a very substantial book in a fairly traditional
format, well researched with good use made of both
primary and secondary sources. The material, which was
collected but not used, has been deposited in the Wiltshire
and Swindon Record Office for the use of future
researchers. There is a great deal in this book that will be
useful to students of other villages particularly for
comparative purposes. A good example is the chapter,
‘Earning a Living’, which shows the range of occupations
in the village over the years. In the 1570s there was a
resident minstrel and storyteller, a ‘coalfinder’ is
mentioned in 1655 while other less usual trades were
waywardens, a mealman, a salter and a smuggler. There
is much modern information recorded for future local
historians and a survey of activities in the parish in the
year 2000. Tucked into the rear cover is a leaflet containing
the two colour heritage maps on Wedhampton and
Urchfont.
MICHAEL MARSHMAN
Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 300-3
Obituaries
Maurice Gilbert Rathbone, archivist, died 26
March 2001. He was born 17 January 1917.
Maurice was born in Birmingham, and after a
grammar school education joined the staff of
Birmingham Public Libraries in 1934. In the
following year he was appointed to the Manuscripts
Section at the Central Reference Library under
Cecil H. Thompson.
During the Second World War he served as a
clerk in Bomber Command at various stations in
East Anglia from 1941 to 1946. He returned to
Birmingham briefly, then on 1 January 1947 he
became the first County Archivist of Wiltshire,
starting so entirely from scratch that, as he would
recount, he was on his first morning shown into a
room completely empty except for a perpetual
calendar, the same one still used in the main search-
room today. He remained in Wiltshire until his
retirement in 1981, probably the longest serving
county archivist in one post.
During that long period he handled with tact
and enthusiasm the many challenges which faced
archivists in developing their services. He
established links with the dioceses, setting up for
Salisbury a separate office in the city, subsequently
closed on the removal of the records to Trowbridge.
In 1971 accommodation at County Hall had
become inadequate, and the records were moved
to a converted factory nearby, with search-rooms
sufficient for 50 readers at once. This was just in
time for the avalanche of records after the changes
of 1974; the setting-up of records management
systems for both the county and the new district
councils followed soon after. An unusual activity
which he began was to exercise the powers given to
county councils to inspect and supervise the way
in which the records of civil parishes were cared
for. He compiled a printed Guide to the county’s
fine series of Quarter Sessions records.
He was a founder member of the south-west
region of the Society of Local Archivists, and was
long associated with the work of the Wiltshire
Record Society, for which he edited a volume on
borough records. He sat on the Society’s Council
for many years. His staff valued him both as an
efficient archivist and as a friendly and considerate
chief. He had a long and happy married life; he
leaves a daughter and a son and four grandchildren.
KENNETH ROGERS
Alison Mary Borthwick, archaeological con-
sultant, died about 21 April 2001. She was born 8
September 1951.
Alison was born in Chester, and spent her childhood
at Tarvin, near Chester, Send near Guildford, and
later at Box in north Wiltshire. Her parents had
met at art school, but the war intervening they had
not pursued careers as artists, and her father John
(who predeceased her by less than a month) was in
business, latterly as a director of the Bath and
Portland Stone Firms. At Stonar School she was
inspired by an outstanding teacher, Philip Curnow,
to begin her lifelong enthusiasm for archaeology,
and she and a friend Richard (now Professor
Richard) Hodges, with wonderful teenage
precociousness, founded the Box Archaeological
and Natural History Society. The society still
flourishes more than thirty years on, with her its
much-loved president at the time of her death.
From school she went to Birmingham and later
to Cardiff University to read archaeology. She dug
on the famous BBC excavation at Silbury Hill under
the direction of the late Richard Atkinson, and later
worked for Brian Philp’s Kent Archaeological
Research Unit based in Dover. At the start of 1975
she returned to Wiltshire, as assistant to Roy
Canham, to develop and run the county council’s
archaeology service. Nowadays local authorities’
archaeological functions are taken somewhat for
granted, but then it was all quite new, and for a
dozen years she directed excavations, went on aerial
photography sorties, helped to create the
OBITUARIES
computerized Wiltshire sites and monuments
record, contributed to planning policy documents,
mounted exhibitions, and employed her
considerable negotiating skills on hapless planners,
developers, and road engineers. It was during these
years too that, with her Trowbridge neighbour Cyril
Jones, she hatched the idea of residential courses
on archaeology for the visually handicapped. The
concept was taken up by Mick Aston at Bristol
University, and has subsequently ramified, and
enriched many lives.
In 1986 she decided to leave the relative security
of local government and embark on a freelance
career. She became an archaeological consultant,
liaising between planners, developers, local
authority archaeologists and excavation units. There
are many such consultants now, but fifteen years
ago this was a pioneering new direction to move in,
and she demonstrated not only what a valuable
function such people could perform, but also how
superbly good she was at it. Unswervingly her first
loyalty was to the archaeology itself, and she would
defend it with all the vehemence at her disposal.
Her work ranged far beyond Wiltshire, to Essex and
Kent, the midlands, London, the west country, and
into Wales where, near Magor on the Gwent Levels,
she was instrumental in arranging for the recovery
of a Roman boat discovered during the building of
a supermarket warehouse. Among the hundreds of
projects with which she was involved were
supermarkets, housing estates and road schemes,
and some important large-scale surveys, especially
301
in Hampshire. Her papers as a consultant have now
been deposited as a business archive in the Wiltshire
and Swindon Record Office.
Away from her business she served on this
Society’s council from 1993 to 1997, and played
an influential role in developing its policy. She was
also a committee member and sometime newsletter
editor of the Wessex regional group of the Council
for British Archaeology, and active in many local
societies. Each year she organized a coach outing
(the President’s outing) for the Box Archaeological
and Natural History Society, and they were always
memorable and fun.
Despite poor health (diabetes dogged her from
teenage) Alison was a tireless achiever, and always
exhilarating and hilarious company, sociable and
larger than life. But her bubbly exterior belied a
deep, thoughtful and caring humanity. On many
issues she held the strongest beliefs and campaigned
tirelessly, enduring hostility from opponents and
long nights tapping away at her computer. She was
absolutely sincere and loyal. Her care and love for
her parents and family, especially for her mother
during the dark months of her father’s final illness,
was unstinting.
She married in 1986 John Chandler, and they
lived first at Gastard and from 1991 at East Knoyle,
where she was to make many close friendships.
Among many other village activities she created a
pictorial map of East Knoyle in 1994 in aid of the
church (she was a talented artist). She and John
separated in 1998 but Alison continued to live in
the village, in the converted Sunday School where
she also carried on her consultancy. It was there
that she died, aged 49, the result of diabetic coma.
She is buried in East Knoyle churchyard extension.
She had no children, and is succeeded by her
mother, brother, one nephew and one niece.
JOHN CHANDLER
Graham Webster, archaeologist and authority on
Roman Britain and the Roman army, died at
Swindon 21 May 2001. He was born 31 May 1913.
Dr Graham Webster was the best loved, and
probably the greatest, scholar in post-war Romano-
British archaeology. Born at. Stamford,
Lincolnshire, he was educated at Stamford School
where his life-long interest in antiquity began.
However he trained after school as a civil engineer
acquiring a rigorous practical discipline which was
of the greatest use as he became involved in
302 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
excavation work, at first in the ruins of Canterbury
during the Blitz, where bombing was revealing
vestiges of the Roman city. His long association with
ceramic studies likewise began here where he
catalogued the samian ware in the museum. After
war service with the Air Ministry in Scotland,
constructing aerodromes (and also, incidentally,
excavating a late Bronze Age urnfield, a rare
excursion into prehistoric archaeology), he turned
to Roman military archaeology, making over the
years a unique contribution to the subject. In 1946,
in a relatively small excavation at Lincoln, he
discovered for the first time parts of the remains of
the Roman legionary fortress. It was at Lincoln that
he met Ian (later Professor Sir Ian) Richmond who
was so impressed by him that he was engaged to
work at the Roman forts at Newstead in Scotland
and Hod Hill in Dorset. Recognition of his status
within the subject was marked by his election in
1947 to the Fellowship of the Society of Antiquaries
of London.
In 1948 he was appointed to the first full-time
curatorship of the Grosvenor Museum, Chester
where the Roman Gallery is now named after him.
He set about reorganising the internationally
important collection of sculptures and inscriptions
that had for many years been rather neglected. He
was to record that he ‘not only transformed the
museum but excavated parts of the legionary
fortress every year’. He involved the local
community as much as possible and with the aid of
models of the fortress and of Roman soldiers he
attempted to present as good an impression as
possible of life in Roman times. It was at Chester
that he wrote two important booklets. The first was
A Short Guide to the Roman Inscriptions and
Sculptured Stones in the Grosvenor Museum,
Chester (1950), appearing fifteen years before the
national corpus of inscriptions was published. The
second, The Roman Army, (1956) was the genesis
of his most significant general work, The Roman
Imperial Army This book did not appear until 1969,
but as has been recently stated by Professor John
Wilkes, it was a major milestone in Roman
archaeology, the first serious study in English of
this important subject, which went through four
editions and remains in print to this day.
He found time to work for an MA at Manchester
University under his friend, Donald Atkinson,
Professor of Ancient History, and he was to follow
Atkinson as excavator of the Roman civitas capital
of Wroxeter, Shropshire. At this time too he became
an inspirational extra-mural teacher both in the
classroom and in the field, starting with the Field
School he ran with Philip Corder at Great
Casterton, Rutland.
In 1954 he became Extra-Mural Tutor in
Archaeology at Birmingham University, eventually
rising by the time of his retirement in 1980 to
Reader in Romano-British Archaeology. During his
years at Birmingham he carried out a major project
on the Fosse Way frontier which resulted in the
award of a PhD which was published as “The
Roman military advance under Ostorius Scapula’
in the Archaeological Journal (1960). The university
provided facilities for his excavations including the
fort at Waddon Hill, Dorset and the villa at Barnsley
Park, Gloucestershire. At the latter he met Diana
Bonakis, an archaeological illustrator and writer,
who came to work with her first husband, the BBC
producer and archaeological writer and broadcaster,
Leonard Cottrell. The pair separated and Graham
married Diana, in what was to become a long and
happy partnership.
His work at Barnsley Park (1961-79) provided
the first-hand background and evidence required
in his timely rethinking of the place of the farming
villa in the Romano-British landscape and economy,
best expressed in such seminal papers as The Future
of Villa Studies (1969). To many, Graham’s fame
will rest in large part on the great series of summer
excavations at Wroxeter which he initiated as a
training school over thirty annual seasons (1955-
85). Thousands of students passed through his
hands and they, both as professional and amateur
practitioners, owe him a considerable debt. These
excavations are at last being fully published, the first
volume written by him and edited by Peter Ellis
came out in December 2000 and the second volume
is currently in the press. He not only cast a great
deal of light on the Roman town but for the first
time sampled the deeply stratified layers of the
fortress. It was at Wroxeter also, that he engaged in
a fruitful collaboration with another great excavator,
Philip Barker, and they remained close friends for
the rest of their lives.
Graham’s interest in the early years of Roman
Britain led to the publication with Donald Dudley
of The Rebellion of Boudica (1962) and The Roman
Conquest of Britain (1965). These later developed
into what has become the classic account of the
subject, Boudica (1978), The Roman Invasion of
Britain (1980) and Rome Against Caratacus (1981).
Later he was to take a particular interest in Romano-
Celtic religion and his book, The British Celts and
their Gods under Rome (1986) shows his empathy
OBITUARIES
for the native peoples of the Province. In some ways
this later period of his life was his most fertile and
revolutionary. The Cotswold region and its vicinity
were central to his thinking. He wondered whether
some of the great so-called ‘villa’ complexes such as
at Chedworth near Cirencester and Box, Wiltshire,
were conventional residences or were in fact parts of
religious sanctuaries. He was for instance specially
impressed by the great relief of a hunter-god from
Box and other items from the latter site including a
votive eye. One of us, writing on religion and art in
Roman Britain under his tutelage, for he was
academic editor of the Batsford Archaeological
Series, found his comments on the originality of the
Britons under Rome an inspiration. He pointed to
the splendid plaque depicting Minerva from
Lavington, Wiltshire, as a key work in demonstrating
how ‘the Celts imparted new life and vigour in the
process of copying’ and placed it on the cover of his
own book. When urging the purchase of the
reproduction available in Devizes Museum, he said
“You won’t find anything more beautiful from the
Province’.
While all these books are of continuing value to
ancient historians and academic archaeologists,
Graham’s handbook, Practical Archaeology (1963)
is a clear guide to students of archaeological method.
He went on to create the Roman Pottery Studies
Research Group and his contribution to this field
was recognised by his Festschrift, published in 1981
Roman Pottery Research in Britain and North-West
Europe. He was also instrumental in founding the
Council for British Archaeology Air Photography
Committee, which from the 1950s propagated
archaeological knowledge derived from this
expanding discipline and led ultimately to the
establishment of the Air Photographs Unit and
Library of the National Monuments Record, initially
under the English Royal Commission on Historical
Monuments. In the early 1990s the Unit and Library
moved from London to its new home at Swindon,
Wiltshire, and is now under the aegis of English
Heritage. Graham’s interests were apparently
limitless. Always very anxious to help others to share
his enthusiasm, he encouraged students not only in
his own branches of the subject but with rare empathy
anyone with something to contribute. Countless
numbers of former students and those who sought
his advice became devoted friends. To them he would
expound his new (and sometimes revolutionary
ideas) about Roman Britain, pointing out how much
more there was to know about everything.
303
As Archaeological Advisor to Batsford he was
instrumental in commissioning a prodigious list of
works, most especially in Roman studies, reading
each volume meticulously in typescript and making
numerous pertinent comments in his distinctive
hand. Writing a book for Graham was a privilege,
an education in itself. In his letters as when one
met him erudition was combined with warmth .. .
but one had to meet him to experience his rich
laughter and the twinkle in his eyes. Batsford
published his last book, Archaeologist at Large
(1991), a collection of fascinatingly varied papers
and a bibliography of nearly three hundred of his
works.
Graham took a close interest in the excavations
of the spectacular Roman villa in Littlecote Park
on the Wiltshire border. When the Roman Research
Trust was founded as a result of this project he was
a natural choice as Trustee but when that
organisation broke into two factions he offered his
services to the former Friends which had reformed
itself as the Association for Roman Archaeology,
and he became its first President. Other honours
included the OBE in 1982, election as
Corresponding Member of the Deutschen
Archaologischen Instituts in 1965, and the degree
of DLitt in 1987. Beyond his own academic studies
he was an assiduous reader especially in
anthropology (Sir James Frazer being a favourite)
and psychology (and he was especially versed in
the writings of Jung). He was a sensitive connoisseur
of the fine arts as well as of the applied arts, notably
majolica and jade.
Even in the 1990s he loved sharing his knowledge
in day and weekend schools at numerous venues
including Devizes, and visiting Roman sites and
excavations such as those at Blunsdon and
Chiseldon, near Swindon, for by this time he had
retired from Chesterton, Warwickshire to the
tranquillity of the Wiltshire village of Sevenhampton.
In his last illness he was cared for by his wife, ably
assisted by Luigi Thompson, the archaeological
illustrator who shared their home. His funeral took
place in the theatrical atmosphere he so loved,
accompanied by six Roman soldiers and the sound
of Roman cornu trumpets. The laurel wreaths placed
on the coffin of the great scholar, saluted as the ‘Last
of the Romans’ provided a fitting end for a man who
from first to last gave pleasure to so many people.
May he rest in peace. He is survived by Diana his
wife and by two sons from his first marriage.
MARTIN HENIG and GRAHAME SOFFE
Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 304-14
Index
by Philip Aslett
NOTE: Wiltshire places are indexed or referenced under civil parish
Abercromby classification, 54
Abingdon (Oxon), 140
ABMAP (Animal Bone Metrical Archive
Project), 199
AC archaeology: evaluations, 7, 280, 284—
5, 286, 287, 288, 290-1; excavations,
147-213, 214, 237, 281; watching briefs,
279, 280-1, 282-3, 284, 289
accelerator mass spectrometry, 134
Adalia bipunctata (two spot ladybird), 127
Adalia decempunctata (ten spot ladybird),
127
Addyman, Peter, 292-3
Adonia variegata (Adonis ladybird), 129
aerial photography, 2, 12—13, 14, 16, 54, 249,
300; Latton, 285; Liddington, 285;
Potterne, 276; Upton Lovell, 290
Agricultural Company, 73
Agricultural Executive Committees, 76, 77,
78, 80, 81; disbandment, 79
agricultural holdings, 70, 85-7
agricultural labour: and recruitment, 70-1,
82; volunteers, 70; wages, 77
agriculture: boys in, 71-2; employment, 69,
70-4; girls in, 72—3; and land ownership,
69, 85-7; mechanisation, 69, 70, 79-81,
85; output, 83-4; ploughing, 69, 75-9;
regulation, 84—5; women in, 69, 72-3; in
World War I, 69-88
Air Ministry, 261, 302
Albert, Prince, 40, 41
Aldbourne, 295
Alderbury, hedgehogs, 66
Alfred, King, 243, 283
Algar, David J., 8, 294; note on excavations
and finds in Stratford-sub-Castle, 17-23
Alice Holt (Hants), 183, 184, 185-6, 187,
188, 189
Allantinae (sawflies), 111
All Cannings, All Cannings Cross, 47, 48,
49, 52, 55,57, 119
Allen, Jack, 48
Allen, Major, 90, 91
Allen, Mike, 290
Allington, 22
allotments, 78
Alton: Alton Priors, 79; Knap Hill, 49, 52;
Stanchester, 207
Alton (Hants), 140
America: tractors, 80; wheat imports from,
69
Amesbury, 74, 134; agriculture, 70;
Amesbury Abbey estates, 85; Amesbury
Business Park, 280; Boscombe, 75;
Boscombe Down, 15, 136, 279-80;
Boscombe Down Airfield, 189, 279;
Boscombe Down West, 122, 224;
Butterfield Down, 15, 16, 162, 189, 201,
279, 280; Coneybury, 255; Earl’s Close
Nursery School, 279; Earl’s Down Farm,
279; Folly Bottom, 280; Park Farm, 280;
Porton Road, 279-80; Stonehenge Road,
280; Vespasian’s Camp, 280, see also
Stonehenge; Woodhenge
Amesbury Hundred, 142-3
Amoeba limicola (amoeba), 264
amphibians, 262; bones, 244
amphitheatres, 15
amphorae: ?Roman, 11-12; Romano-
British, 1, 8, 20; Late Romano-British,
167
Anatis ocellata (eyed ladybird), 128
Ancell, Gary, 279
Ancient Monuments Commission, 55
Ancient Monuments Laboratory, 249
Andernach (Germany), 3
Andover (Hants), 86, 147; Old Down Farm,
205, 235; Portway, 140
Andrewes, Sir Christopher, 107, 109, 114
Anglesey see Bryn yr Hen Bobl; Pant y Saer
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 16
Anglo-Saxons, 54, 131-46
animal bone see bone, animal
Animal Bone Metrical Archive Project
(ABMAP), 199
animal burial pits, 283
Anisosticta novemdecimpunctata (water
ladybird), 126
Anjou, Margaret of, 94
Annable, F. K., 50, 55, 178
Anne, Queen, 38
Ansdell, Carrol, 77
Ansty: Ansty Manor House, 280-1;
Horwood Farm, 78
Antiquaries Journal, 54
Antiquity, 49, 133
antlers, 197, 244, 247, 251; worked, 195,
294
Antonine Itinerary, 1
antoniniani (coins), 7, 8
Antoninianus Tetricus I, coins, 162
Antoninus Pius, 22
Antrobus, Sir Edmond, 85
ants, 129
Aphanes arvensis (parsley-piert), 233
Aphidecta obliterata (larch ladybird), 126
aphids, 125, 126
Appleshaw (Hants), 86
Araneae (spiders), 269-73
Arcadius, coins, 165, 184, 189
Archaeologia Cambrensis, 49, 57
Archaeological Institute, 89, 91
Archaeological Journal, 49, 302
Archaeological Review, 8
archaeology, public awareness, 55
Arge pagana (sawfly), 108
Argidae (sawflies), 109-10
armies, Roman, 301, 302
armlets: Roman, 3; shale, 171
Army: recruitment, 70-1, 82; in Wiltshire,
69, 74-5
Arrhenatherum elatius var. bulbosum
(onion couch), 205
arrowheads, flint, 132, 289
Arthur, King, 133
Art Journal, The, 42
Arundell, Lady, 78
Ashampstead (Berks), kilns, 105
Ashby, John, 78
Askins, Martin, paper on Philodromus
spiders in Wiltshire, 269-73
asses (coins), 19, 22, 122
Association for Roman Archaeology, 303
Association of School Natural History
Societies, 266
Asthall (Oxon), 140
Aston, Mick, 301
Athalia rosae (turnip sawfly), 114-15
Atherton, Kate, note on metal objects from
Brickley Lane, Devizes, 227-8
Atkinson, Donald, 302
Atkinson, Richard John Copland, 91, 92,
133, 300
Atomic Weapons Research Establishment
(AWRE) (Harwell, Oxon), 134
Atworth, Stonar School, 300
Augustus, 22
Aurelius Ambrosius, 143
Australia, 37
Avebury, 50, 55, 295; Alexander Keiller
Museum, 48, 256; Avebury Trussloe, 281;
Beacock Holes, 254-5, 25165
Beckhampton, 256-7; Beckhampton
Avenue, 249-58; Beckhampton Cove,
249-58; Beckhampton Enclosure, 249—
58; Beckhampton roundabout, 256;
Calne—Marlborough Road, 257; Calne
Road, 256; guides, 92; henge monument,
255-6; High Street, 281; inhumations,
133; Neolithic enclosure, 249-58;
Sanctuary, 47, 49, 53, 54, 55, 57-8, 256,
282-3; Silbury Ditch, 162; Silbury Hill,
50, 89-92, 300; South Street, 281; stone
circle, 249; Wagon and Horses, 257; West
Kennet, 57, 243; West Kennet Avenue,
256, 282; West Kennet long barrow, 49;
Windmill Hill, 55, 56, 256
Avebury World Heritage Site, 281, 282
Avena spp. (oats), charred grains, 231
Avon see Bath; Bristol; Camerton;
Westonbirt
Avon, River (South), 1, 2, 8,11, 15, 19; Avon
Valley, 201; flood plain, 17; hedgehogs,
64; Tadpole Island, 17-18
awls, Late Romano-British, 177, 179
AWRE (Atomic Weapons Research
Establishment) (Harwell, Oxon), 134
axes, Neolithic, 147
bacterial plaque, 195
Badbury Rings (Dorset), 8, 12
badgers, and hedgehog mortality, 63, 65,
66-8
baileys, medieval, 105-6, 289-90
balances, medieval, 294
Baldock (Herts), 122
Baldwin, J. R., 260
Balksbury Camp (Hants), 235
Bampton, William, 95
Banbury, Sir Frederick, 78
Banford, W. H., 85
bangles, bronze, 12
bar iron, Late Romano-British, 178, 179
Barker, Philip, 302
barley: flour, 84; production, 70, 82; yields,
70, 83
Barnard, Dennis, work reviewed, 298
Barnsley Park (Glos), 302
barrows, 55, 283; prehistoric, 140, 141;
Neolithic, 140; Bronze Age, 137, 140,
143; Early Bronze Age, 50-2, 290; Anglo-
Saxon, 140; bank, 140; disc, 52; round,
140, 215, 236-7
Basingstoke (Hants), Brighton Hill South,
INDEX
204, 205
Basket, William, 95
bas-reliefs, 35
Bath (Avon), 94, 171, 208; buildings, 293—
4; Circus, 294; London Road, 294; Royal
Crescent, 294; Widcombe Manor House,
293-4
Bath and Portland Stone Firms, 300
baths, 15
Batsford Archaeological Series, 303
Bayliss, Alex, note on radiocarbon dates for
inhumation at Stonehenge, 134-6
BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation),
92, 282
beads: Saxon, 291; amber, 291; glass, 291
beakers: Romano-British, 20, 119, 224; Late
Romano-British, 185, 186, 187
beans, 84; production, 70
Beauchamp, Anne, 98
Beauchamp, Richard, Bishop of Salisbury,
275
Beauchamp, Richard, Lord St Amand, 95,
96, 97, 98
Beauchamp, William, Lord St Amand, 93—
4,95, 98
Beccafumi, Domenico, 35-6
Bedford, 244, 247
Bedfordshire, 98, see also Biddenham Loop;
Harrold
Beechingstoke: Beechingstoke Farm, 86;
Bottle Farm, 86
beetles, 125-30, 264
Beezer Homes, 281
Belgic invasions, 54
Belgium, 42, 260, see also Bruges
Belliniccus (potter), 19
belt fittings, 207
belt-links, Late Iron Age/Early Romano-
British, 3
belvederes, 286
Benett-Stanford, Jack, 12
Berkshire, 81, 245, see also Ashampstead;
Brimpton; Eton College; Newbury; West
Woodhay; Windsor Castle
Berkswell (Warwickshire), 97
Bersu, Gerhard, 54
Berwick St James: Asserton, 65; Druid’s
Lodge, 65, 264; Yarnbury, 49, 54
Berwick St John: Berwick Farm, 97; Berwick
Manor, 97
Berwick St Leonard, Berwick House, 72
Biddenham Loop (Bedfordshire), 235
Biddestone, 294
Biddulph, Sir Thomas, 40-1
Bingham, Robert de, Bishop of Salisbury,
275
Biological Records Centre, 107, 125
Biomass Power Project, 283-4
Bircher, Jane, note on finds from Wayside
Farm, Devizes, 165-71
birds, bones, 244
Birmingham (West Midlands): Birmingham
Public Libraries, 300; Central Reference
Library, 300; University, 300, 302
Bishops Cannings, 207; Horton, 86;
Morgan’s Hill, 47
blades: Neolithic, 251; Early Neolithic, 226—
7; Iron Age, 227-8; Middle/Late Iron
Age, 218; Anglo-Saxon, 254; chert, 193
Blanchard, Mr, 85
Blennocampinae (sawflies), 111-12
Bloor Services Ltd., 214
Blunsdon St Andrew, 303; Groundwell
Farm, 201
Board of Agriculture, 76, 78, 79
boats, Roman, 301
Bodiam (East Sussex), 292
Boehm, Joseph Edgar, 38
Boessneck, J., 229
Bolton Museum (Lancashire), Philip Mason
Collection, 129
Bomber Command, 300
Bonakis, Diana, 302, 303
bone: animal, 11, 18, 118, 123, 207, 208,
218, 228-31 (Neolithic, 251, 254, 255;
Late Iron Age, 219, 220; Late Iron Age/
Early Romano-British, 147, 157, 195-
202; Roman, 220; Romano-British, 283;
Late Romano-British, 147, 157, 195-202;
Saxon, 220, 229, 230, 237, 241, 243, 244,
246, 247; ageing, 229; taphonomy, 198—
9); human, 55, 118, 208 (Late Romano-
British, 152-4, 157, 194-5); polishing,
118, 122; worked (Late Romano-British),
170
bone mounts, Late Romano-British, 165
bone objects, 118; Iron Age, 121, 122;
Roman, 121; Saxon, 243; medieval, 103;
medieval, 294
boots: Roman, 227, 228; Late Romano-
British, 175, 176
Borthwick, Alison Mary, obituary, 300-1
Borthwick, John, 300
Bosworth (Leicestershire), 96, 97, 98
bottles, glass, 180
Boudica, 302
Bournemouth (Dorset), 73
Bourne, River, 241, 247, 299
Bourne Valley, 246, 247
Bower Chalke, 167
bowls: Late Neolithic, 224; Middle/Late
Iron Age, 221, 225; Late Iron Age/Early
Romano-British, 181, 182, 183; pre-
Roman, 119; Roman, 7; Romano-British,
20, 119; Late Romano-British, 184, 185,
186, 187, 188, 190-2; medieval, 103;
functional analyses, 15
Box, 300, 303; hedgehogs, 65
Box Archaeological and Natural History
Society, 300, 301
Boylston, Anthea, 133; note on inhumation
at Stonehenge, 136-7
boys, in agriculture, 71—2
bracelets, Late Romano-British, 165-70
brackets, Late Romano-British, 178
Bradford Geophysical Surveys, 282
Bradford-on-Avon: badgers, 67; hedgehogs,
67, 68
Bradley, A. G., 105
Brassica spp., 204, 206, 236; seeds, 214, 219,
233, 234, 235
Brassica nigra (black mustard), seeds, 233,
235
Bratton, Court Lane, 281
Braybrooke, Gerald, 93
Brayne, Kate, note on skeletons from
Wayside Farm, Devizes, 194-5
Braythwaite, Henry, 96
bread, 84
Brean Down (Somerset), 207
Brentnall, H. C., 56
Breuil, Abbé Henri Edouard Prosper, 49
Brewer, David, work reviewed, 298
brick: Roman, 3; Romano-British, 11, 193;
medieval, 294; post-medieval, 287
Bridgeman, Mr, 70, 71
bridges, medieval, 288
Brimpton (Berks), Larkwhistle Farm, 236
Brinkworth: badgers, 67; hedgehogs, 67;
millennium book, 298
Bristol (Avon): Redland High School, 73;
University, 282, 290, 301
Bristowe, W. S., 273
British Academy, 290
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 92
British Ecological Society, 266
British Summer Time, 85
British Trust for Ornithology, 260
Britons, 137
Brittany (France), 96
Brixton Deverill, Cold Kitchen Hill, 119,
207, 208
Broad Hinton: millennium book, 298;
Uffcott, 96
Broadstairs (Kent), St Peter’s cemetery, 141
Broad Town, 281
Broad Town Archaeological Project (BTAP),
281
Broadway Malyan Planning, 214
Bromham, 93, 96; church, 98; Roche manor,
305
94
Bromus spp. (brome-grass), 205
Bronk Ramsey, C., 134
bronze objects, Late Romano-British, 147
brooches: Late Iron Age/Early Romano-
British, 3, 165, 167; ?>Romano-British,
177, 178; Saxon, 291; La Téne, 227;
Nauheim derivatives, 165, 167, 182, see
also fibulae
brooch pins, Middle/Late Iron Age, 218, 227
Brossler, Adam, report on excavations at
Brickley Lane, Devizes, 214-39
Brothwell, D., 136
Broughton Gifford, agriculture, 70
Browne, Henry, 91, 92
Browne, Marion, 64, 65, 66
Brown, Graham, 292
Bruges (Belgium), 94
Bruton (Somerset), 96
Bryn yr Hen Bob! (Anglesey), 57
BTAP (Broad Town Archaeological Project),
281
buckets, mounts, 11
Buckingham, Duke of, 94, 95-6
Buckinghamshire, 98, see also Milton
Keynes; Taplow
buckles: Saxon, 291; ?>medieval, 102, 103
Budd, Paul, note on inhumation at
Stonehenge, 137-9
building materials, 241; Romano-British, 2,
3, 10, 15; Late Romano-British, 157, 193;
medieval, 18; 19th century, 289; chalk
blocks, 3; wattle, 228, see also brick; tiles
buildings: Iron Age, 235-6; Middle/Late
Tron Age, 218; Romano-British, 2, 8-9,
11, 16-17, 18, 19, 20-1; Late Romano-
British, 147, 157-9, 207; Saxon, 243;
?medieval, 287; medieval, 274-8, 281,
287-8; post-medieval, 276, 282, 285,
287-8; 18th century, 19; Classical, 293—
4; town houses, 297, see also sunken-
featured buildings (SFBs); villas; walls
Bulford, 75; agriculture, 70
Bullock Creeping Grip tractors, 80
Burbage, Durley, 66
burgages, 105, 215
Burgundy, Duke of, 94
burials see cremation burials; inhumations
Burl, Aubrey, 256-7
Burley (Hants), 86
Busse, Robert, 95
butchery, 20, 200-1, 207, 229; Saxon, 244,
246; marks, 198
Butler, R., 76
butterflies, 265
Buttermere, 295
buttons, medieval, 294
Caerleon (Gwent), kilns, 119
calctum phosphate, 234
Calne, 28, 31, 281-2; hedgehogs, 66
Calne Rural District Council, 71
Calne Without: Quemerford Common, 282;
Quemerford Farm, 282; Sandy Lane, 188
Calstone Wellington, millennium book, 298
Calvia quattuordecimguttata (cream-spot
ladybird), 128
Cambridge, 141; University, 290
Cambridge Ladybird Survey, 125
Cambridge rollers, 79
Cambridgeshire see Durobrivae; Orton Hall
Farm
Camerton (Avon), 140
Campbell, G., 234
Canada, 80
canals, 284
Canham, Roy, 300
Canterbury, Archbishop of, 85
Canterbury (Kent): Blitz, 302; Marlowe Car
Park, 170
Caratacus, 302
Cardiff University, 300
caries, 195
Carruthers, Wendy J., note on plant remains
from Wayside Farm, Devizes, 202-5
306 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
Casey, J., 161
Castle Combe, 162
castles, Norman, 1, 3, 100—6, 215, 288, 292—
3
catapult bolt-heads, Roman, 214, 220, 227,
228
CAT (Cotswold Archaeological Trust), 281,
284, 285, 286, 287, 289, 291
caterpillars, 108
Catesby, William, 96
cathedrals, Norman, 1
cats: bones, 228, 229, 244; and hedgehogs,
68
cattle, 82, 236; bones, 118, 195-202, 228—
31, 237, 243, 244, 247, 251, 283;
Highland, 83; salt licks, 122; in Wiltshire,
70
cauldrons, medieval, 103
Celts, 302-3
cemeteries: ?Roman, 117; Romano-British,
123, 136; Anglo-Saxon, 137, 141; Early
Anglo-Saxon, 140; Saxon, 246, see also
execution cemeteries; inhumations
cenchri, 108
cenotaphs, 41
Central News Agency, 50
Centre for Human _ Ecology and
Environment (CHEB), 199
Cephidae (stem-sawflies), 107-8, 114
ceramics see pottery
cereals, charred, 231-5, 237
Cerne, Abbot of, 275
Cervus elaphus (red deer), 195
cesspits, 234; medieval, 105
chains, oval-linked, 175
chalk blocks, 3
chalk quarries, 246
Chandler, Bishop of Salisbury, 275
Chandler, John, 301; obituary by, 300-1;
work reviewed, 295
Channel Islands see Guernsey
Chapmanslade: millennium book, 298;
printing works, 298
Chapmanslade Arrow, 298
charcoal, 151, 157, 217, 218, 219, 220, 237,
251, 285
Charles, Bethan, note on animal bone from
Brickley Lane, Devizes, 228-31
Charlton, Charlton Down, 162
Charlton, Michael, 295
Chase, A. O., 265
Chedworth (Glos), 303
CHEE (Centre for Human Ecology and
Environment), 199
Cheltenham Ladies College (Glos), 48
Chenery, Carolyn, note on inhumation at
Stonehenge, 137-9
Cheney, Humphrey, 95
Chenopodiaceae (goosefoots), seeds, 233
Cherhill, 282; gravestones, 27-33; Horns of
Urus, 55; Yatesbury, 282-3
chert, worked, 193
Cheshire see Tarvin
chessmen, 294
Chester, 300; Grosvenor Museum, 302
Chesterton (Warwickshire), 303
Cheyney, John, 94, 95, 96
Cheyney, Robert, 95
Chilmark: Eyewell Farm, 123; stone, 3, 20
Chilocorus bipustulatus (heather ladybird),
126, 129, 130
Chilocorus renipustulatus (kidney spot
ladybird), 126
Chippenham, 81; hedgehogs, 65; prisoner
of war camps, 74
Chippenham Without, Lanhill Long Barrow,
47
Chiseldon, 79, 303
chisels: Iron Age, 228; Late Romano-
British, 177, 178, 179
Cholderton, Pearl Farm, 81-3
Christianity, establishment, 139-40
Chubb, Mr, 56
Churchill, Winston Leonard Spencer, 295
Cimbex connatus (sawfly), 114
Cimbicidae (sawflies), 110
Cirencester (Glos), 303
clamps, Late Romano-British, 178, 179
Clarence, Duke of, 93, 94-5
Clarendon Park, Clarendon Palace, 293, 294
Clarke, Bob, 279, 281
Claudius, 22
clay, fired, 193
Clayesmore School (Dorset), 260
clay pipes, 161
Clayton tractors, 80
Cleal, Rosamund M. J., 134
cleats, Roman, 227, 228
Clifford, Catharine, 31
Clifford, Peter, 31
Clitostethus spp. (beetles), 125
Clothier, Joanna, work reviewed, 298
cloth seals, medieval, 294
cloth trade, Salisbury, 294
clover, production, 70
Coccidula spp. (beetles), 125
Coccinella hieroglyphica (hieroglyphic
ladybird), 128, 129
Coccinella magnifica (Redtenbacher)
(scarce seven spot ladybird), 127, 129
Coccinella quinquepunctata (five spot
ladybird), 125, 127, 129, 130
Coccinella septempunctata (seven spot
ladybird), 127
Coccinella undecimpunctata (eleven spot
ladybird), 127
Coccinellidae (ladybirds), 125-30
Cockshutt ploughs, 80, 81
coffins, 122, 152, 154, 175-6; limestone, 283
coin loss analysis, 14, 15, 16, 162
coins, 12; Iron Age, 283; Late Iron Age, 161—
2, 182; Roman, 3;.7,:8;. 11; 19,21, 22-3,
117, 122, 220, 227, 228; Romano-British,
215, 237; Late Romano-British, 147, 154,
159, 161-5, 176, 189, 208; medieval, 97;
15th century, 97; Dobunnic, 161; hoards,
215
Colchester (Essex), 122; Butt Road, 167
Cole, H. D., 80
Cole, M. A., 23
Coleman, R. B., 270
Coleoptera: Coccinellidae (ladybirds), 125—
30
Colerne: Colerne Mound, 162; Colerne
Park, 207, 208; Euridge, 162
Collingbourne Ducis, 224, 247; agriculture,
70; Cadley Road, 247; pottery, 243;
Saxon settlement, 246
Collingbourne Kingston, 77, 246
Collum, V. C. C., 89
Colnagi’s (London), 38
Colyngbourne, William, 96
Combes, Mr, 73
combs: Roman, 118, 122; bone, 118, 122,
245, 247
commemorations (memorials), 28
Commodus, 8, 19
Common Cold Research Unit, 109
Compton Chamberlayne, 114
conduits, stone, 19
conscientious objectors, in agriculture, 73
conscription, 71, 84
Constans, coins, 163
Constantine I, 23
Constantine, House of, coins, 163
Constantine I, coins, 162
Constantine II, coins, 162
Constantinian coins, 3
Constantinopolis (coins), 21, 23
Constantius II, coins, 163
Cool, H. E. M., 167; note on Roman glass
from Wayside Farm, Devizes, 180
copper alloy objects, 165-70; Saxon, 243
Corder, Philip, 302
cores: flint, 226-7; Levallois, 226, see also
flintwork
corn see grain
Corney, Mark, 2, 13, 16, 282; note on coins
from Wayside Farm, Devizes, 161—5; note
on pottery from Wayside Farm, Devizes,
180-93
Cornwall, ladybirds, 130
Corsham: Gastard, 301; Hartham Park, 294;
hedgehogs, 65; Peel Circus, 283;
Pockeredge Farm, 283
Corsley: Manor Farm, 298; millennium
book, 298; Post Office, 298
Corylus avellana (hazel), 205, 231, 237
Cotswold Aggregates, 285
Cotswold Archaeological Trust (CAT):
evaluations, 281, 287, 289, 291; watching
briefs, 281, 284, 285, 286
Cotswolds, 303
Cottrell, Leonard, 302
Coulson, B. W. H., 260, 263-4, 265, 266
Council for British Archaeology, 8, 301; Air
Photography Committee, 303
counters, 122-3
Countryside Agency, Ridgeway Heritage
Project, 285
Courtenay, Peter, Bishop of Exeter, 96
coves, Neolithic, 249-58
Coward, E., 76
crab spiders, 269-73
crafts, 296
Cranborne Chase, 64
Cranford (Middlesex), 37
cranial index, 136
Crataegus monogyna (hawthorn), 231
Crawford Collection, 12
Crawford, O. G. S., 53, 56
Creighton, Oliver, review by, 292-3
cremation burials, 283; prehistoric, 131, 132;
medieval, 140
Cresimus (potter), 19
Cricklade, 86, 285; Biomass Power Project,
283-4; Cricklade Town Banks, 283;
defences, 243; Kingshill Recycling
Centre, 283-4; North Wall, 283; Weaver’s
Bridge, 207
criminals, execution, 141
Crisp, Roger, work reviewed, 299
Crispus, coins, 162
cromlechs, 50
cropmarks, 283
crops: processing, 283; production, 70;
rotation, 77
crosses, cast iron, 29
crucibles, pre-Roman, 119
crucifixes, medieval, 294
Crudwell, 71; hedgehogs, 66
crypts, 27
Cullifordtree Hundred (Dorset), 141
cultivation: medieval, 250; arable, 283
Cunetio, 2, 140, 178, 188, 189, 286
Cunliffe, B. W., 171, 182, 221
Cunnington, Ben, 47, 48-9, 50, 54, 55, 56—
7
Cunnington, Edward, 49, 52, 56
Cunnington family, 48, 56
Cunnington, Henry, 48
Cunnington, Maud Edith, 1, 46-62, 252;
biographical notes, 48—9; criticisms, 48;
legacies, 54-8; publications, 49, 54, 55,
60-2; work, 49-54, 60
Cunnington, Robert Henry, 47, 50
Cunnington, William, 48, 290
Curle, James, 57
Curnow, Philip, 300
curse tablets, lead, 165, 171, 207, 208
Cutler, David, 84-5
Dale, P3385
Danebury (Hants), 175, 205, 228, 234
Daniel, G. E., 54
Darby, Elisabeth, paper on Henri de
Triqueti’s panel in Teffont Evias church,
34-45
Darby, Michael: paper on Dauntsey’s School
Natural History Society, 259-68; paper
on ladybirds of Wiltshire, 125-30
d’Arcy, John, review by, 296-7
Darell, Sir George, 94
Darlington, A., 260
daub, Late Romano-British, 193
INDEX
Daubeney, Giles, 96
Dauntseian, 260, 261, 265
Dauntsey’s School, 259-68; Bee Club, 266;
Bird Club, 260; Bird Trust, 260, 261, 263,
264; Farmer Laboratory, 260, 261, 266;
Manor House Natural History Society,
261; Meteorological Society, 260-1, 263;
Phenological Society, 260; School House
Natural History Society, 261, 262
Dauntsey’s School Natural History Society:
Botanical Bulletin, 263—4; collections,
265; Dauntsey Fauna List, 262-3, 264,
265, 266-8; history, 259-68; museum,
259, 260; NHS Ark, 261, 262; plant lists,
267; publications, 259, 261, 262-4, 265,
266-8; reports, 263, 264-5, 266, 268;
vivarium, 260, 262
Davies, Maud, 298
Davis, B., 80
Davy, William, 95
Dawley Court (Middlesex), 37
Daylight Saving Bill, 85
Dean, Matthew, 296
decapitations: Late Romano-British, 152,
176; Anglo-Saxon, 131-46; methods, 137
Decentius, coins, 163
deer: antlers, 195, 197; bones, 195, 244, 247
deer parks, 283, 293
Defence Evaluation and Research Agency
(DERA) Archaeology, 279
Defence of the Realm Losses Committee,
75
defences: Saxon, 243, 283; Norman, 3, 105—
6
DERA (Defence Evaluation and Research
Agency) Archaeology, 279
Derbyshire see Little Chester
De Salis family, 37
De Salis, Jerome, 4th Count, 37
De Salis, Peter, Ist Count, 38
Designation Challenge Fund, 295
Destréez, Jules C., 42
Deutschen Archaologischen Instituts, 303
Devizes, 56, 63, 79, 80, 85, 93, 303; barracks,
73; Borough Charter, 215; Brickley Lane,
181, 182, 206, 214-39, 284; burgage
plots, 215; Caen Hill Locks, 284; Castle,
48, 94, 97, 215, 274; Central Garage, 80;
development, 215;The Green, 209; Jump
Hill, 214, 236, 237, 284; Long Street, 50;
Nursteed Farm, 215, 237; Nursteed
Industrial Estate, 147, 209; Nursteed
Road, 147-213; pottery, 103; prisoner of
war camps, 74; St John’s church, 98;
streets, 215; Wayside Farm, 147-213,
214, 236, 237
Devizes Gazette, 85
Devizes Museum see Wiltshire Heritage
Museum (WHM)
Devon see Exeter
dew ponds, 261-2, 263, 265, 296
diapause, 109
dies, Late Romano-British, 165, 170
Dilton Marsh, Northacre Business Park, 284
Dinton, Station, 81
Diprionidae (sawflies), 110
Diptera (flies), 109
dishes: Romano-British, 20, 119; Late
Romano-British, 185, 187, 188;
functional analyses, 15
ditches: Neolithic, 250-1, 255; Bronze Age,
279; Middle Bronze Age, 285; Iron Age,
235; Middle Iron Age, 218; Middle/Late
Iron Age, 218; Late Iron Age/Early
Romano-British, 7, 147, 149-50, 181,
207; Roman, 19, 214; Romano-British,
279; Late Romano-British, 154-5, 207;
Saxon, 220, 246; medieval, 100-6, 214,
237, 281, 285; post-medieval, 161; ring,
215, see also gullies; pits
dogs: bones, 195, 196, 228-31, 241, 243,
244, 247; teeth, 243
dogs (clamps), Late Romano-British, 178,
179
Dolerinae (sawflies), 110
Dolerus spp. (sawflies), 115
Dolerus bimaculatus (sawfly), 115
Dolerus megapterus (sawfly), 115
Domesday Book, 215; hundreds, 141, 142—
3; North Tidworth, 246-7
Domitian, 19, 22
Donhead St Andrew, hedgehogs, 64, 66, 68
Donhead St Mary: hedgehogs, 64, 66, 68;
Ludwell, 66
Dorchester (Dorset), 2, 16, 17; Dorchester
By-pass, 202; Flagstones, 255;
Greyhound Yard, 165, 185, 186, 187, see
also Durnovaria
Dorchester-on-Thames (Oxon), 140
Dorset, 96; Black Burnished ware, 15, 183,
185, 224; ladybirds, 130, see also
Badbury Rings; Bournemouth;
Clayesmore School; Cullifordtree
Hundred; Dorchester; Gussage All
Saints; Hod Hill; Lulworth Cove; Maiden
Castle; Poole; Poole Harbour;
Poundbury; Purbeck; St George
Hundred; Sandbanks; Sherborne;
Sixpenny Handley; Sturminster
Marshall; Tolpuddle Ball; Ulwell; Waddon
Hill; Weymouth; Wor Barrow
Douglas, James, 91
Dover (Kent), 300
Downton: Castle, 293; Standlynch, 96, 97
Drax, Colonel, 91—2
drills, Late Romano-British, 177, 179
droveways, 284
Droxford (Hants), 140
Dudley, Donald, 302
Duke, Rev, 91, 92
Dunning, G. C., 54
Dunn, Peter, 292
Durant, Susan, 41
Durman, Richard, work reviewed, 293-4
Durnovaria, 17, see also Dorchester
(Dorset)
Durobrivae (Cambridgeshire), 16
Durocornovium, 2
Dyer, Harold, 298
earthworks, 52; Early Iron Age, 3; medieval,
284, 293; medieval/post-medieval, 285;
post-medieval, 282; ringworks, 140, see
also ditches; hillforts; motte and bailey;
mounds
East Anglia, 300
Easterton, 67
East Knoyle, 301
East Sussex see Bodiam
Eatwell, James, 29
Eavis, R., 86
Eavis, R. W., 79
Ebbesbourne Wake, millennium book, 298—
9
Edgar, King, 141
Edington, 73
Edmunds, Henry, 114
Education Committee, 72
Edward II, King, 97
Edward III, King, 97
Edward IV, King, 93, 94, 95, 97, 98
Edward, Prince, 94
Edwards, Brian, paper on Silbury Hill, 89—
92
Edwards, Rachel, 67
Edwards, T., 80
Eleocharis palustris spp. (common spike-
rush), 233
Ellison, Ann, 176
Ellis, Peter, 302; Roman Wiltshire and After,
2; work reviewed, 292-3
employment, in agriculture, 69, 70-4
enamel hypoplasia, 195
enamels, medieval, 294
enclosures: Neolithic, 249-58; Middle Iron
Age, 218; Middle/Late Iron Age, 218;
Romano-British, 280; causewayed, 52,
255, see also hillforts; settlements
Enford, 85; Lidbury Camp, 47
Engleheart, George H., 53
307
English Heritage, 12, 131, 249, 282, 285,
288, 289, 290, 291, 303
English Nature, 109
entomology, collections, 260
Epeira fasciata (spider), 264
Erghum, Ralph, Bishop of Salisbury, 275
Erlestoke: Brounker’s Court Farm, 117;
Erlestoke Manor, 117; Manor House,
117; prison, 116-24; White Gates Farm,
sLaky/
Erlestoke Detention Centre, excavations,
116-24
Ermine Street, 16, 289
Essex, 73, 272, 273, 301, see also
Colchester; Great Dunmow
Essex Spider Group, 272
Etchilhampton, millennium book, 299
Eton College (Berks), 37
Eugenius II, Pope, 274
Evans, Jane, note on inhumation at
Stonehenge, 137-9
Evans, John, 49
Evans, Mark, 282
Everson, Paul, 292
excreta: Late Bronze Age, 234-5; Early Iron
Age, 234; Late Iron Age, 234; medieval,
234; animal, 234
execution cemeteries, 137, 140, 141; Early
Anglo-Saxon, 141; Middle Anglo-Saxon,
141-2
execution methods, 137, 141
Exeter (Devon), 95
Exochomus quadripustulatus
ladybird), 126
Exposiuon Universelle de I’industrie et des
beaux-arts (Paris), 40
(pine
faeces see excreta
Fairford (Glos), Thornhill Farm, 227
Falstone (Northumberland), 94, 95
Fane De Salis, Emily Harriette (née Mayne),
35, 37-8, 40-1
Fane De Salis, William, 37-8
Farley, Mr, 29
farmers: employment, 70; sons, 71
Farmer, Samuel, 81
Farmoor (Oxon), 202, 236
Farm Produce County Committee, 75
farms: Iron Age, 280; Middle/Late Iron Age,
214, 218-20, 235-7; Romano-British,
280; Saxon, 241, 246, 247; accounts, 77,
82-3; arable, 70, 76, 79, 82; dairy, 70,
76, 85; mixed, 70; size, 70
Farnham (Surrey), pottery, 183, 186, 189
Faustina A, 274
Faustina I, 22
fencelines, Late Iron Age, 284
fences, Middle/Late Iron Age, 218
ferrules, Saxon, 243
fibulae, Roman, 117
field boundaries, 161, 214, 237, 283;
?Romano-British, 284
fields, Celtic, 280
field systems: Romano-British, 237;
medieval, 284
Figheldean, 122, 123, 189, 201
Filipendula ulmaria (meadowsweet), 115
First World War see World War I
Fishlock, Alfred, 71
Fittleton, 85
five spot ladybird (Coccinella
quinquepunctata), 125, 127, 129, 130
flagons: Romano-British, 20, 119; Late
Romano-British, 186
flakes, flint, 226, see also flintwork
flies: puparia, 233; sewage, 234
flint building materials, 3
flints, 11; burnt, 7, 194, 226, 227, 243, 244,
289; debitage, 252; flaked, 254; knapped,
8, 18, 19, 280; mortared, 20-1; nodules,
10; raw materials, 226; rolled, 18, 19;
scattered, 280; struck, 226-7, 242, 286
flint tools, Neclithic, 147
flintwork, 244, 280; Palaeolithic, 289;
Mesolithic, 289; Neolithic, 122, 251, 254,
308 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
255, 289; Early Neolithic, 226; Late
Neolithic, 193, 235; Bronze Age, 193,
226, 235, 289; Early Bronze Age, 280;
Middle Bronze Age, 241; Late Bronze
Age, 241; Iron Age, 226; Late Romano-
British, 193; waste, 289, see also
arrowheads; awls; axes; blades; cores;
flakes, flint; knives; scrapers; tools
floors: Roman, 13; chalk, 8, 19
Florentine mosaic, 42
flour, production, 84
Flower, Sarah, 31
Flower, William, 31
flues, 157-9
Follis Constantius I, coins, 162
food: production, 69; supplies, 69
foot-and-mouth disease, 64, 272
footwear, 208; hobnailed, 118, 228
Fordson tractors, 80, 81
Ford tractors, 81
Formica rufa (wood ant), 129
forts: Roman, 13, 15-16, 302; coin-loss
profiles, 14
Fosse Way, 302
Foster, A. M., paper on 1963 excavations at
Erlestoke Detention Centre, 116—24
fowl, bones, 244
Fowler, Charles, 37
Fowler, W. W., 129
foxes: bones, 195-202; teeth, 197
France, 42; frescos, 36, see also Brittany;
Lezoux; Limoges; Loiret; Montans;
Neuilly-sur-Seine; Paris; Poissy
Franco-Prussian War, 41
Frazer, Sir James, 303
frescos, 36
Freshwater Biological Association, 266
Frilford (Oxon), 140
Frisch, H. J., 229
frogs, bones, 229, 230
Frome (Somerset), Lower Keyford, 94
Fulford, M. G., 184, 186
functional analyses, pottery, 15
funerary artefacts, 207-8
funerary monuments, 140-1
furnaces, 21
Galium aparine (goose grass), 205
Galium cruciata (crosswort), 205
Gallienus, 23
gallows, 142; Anglo-Saxon, 141; stone, 143
gardens: formal, 286, 290; Georgian, 286;
listed, 291; ornamental, 292, 293
garderobes, 234
Gardiner, Julie, 290
garment collars, bronze, 147, 207, 208
Gaul, pottery trade, 120
Gauntlett, W., 80
geese, bones, 244
gemstones, 289
Geoffrey of Monmouth, 143
geophysics: Avebury, 249, 252; Bishopdown,
7; Calne, 282; Potterne, 274-8; Upton
Lovell, 290
George V, King, 296
Germanicus, 22
Germany: Baltic coast, 260; stonewares,
224; U-boats, 69, 76, see also Andernach;
Trier
Giles, Mr, 71
Gillam, Beatrice, 66
Gillespie, A., 261
Gillings, Mark, report on excavations at
Beckhampton Avenue, 249-58
girls, in agriculture, 72-3
glass: Roman, 8; Romano-British, 20, 283;
Late Romano-British, 180; post-
medieval, 161
glass vessels, medieval, 294
Gleser, G., 136
Gloucester, Richard of see Richard II, King
Gloucestershire, 171, see also Barnsley Park;
Chedworth; Cheltenham Ladies College;
Cirencester; Fairford; Lechlade; Tetbury;
‘Tewkesbury; Uley
glumes, 234
goats, bones, 195-202, 244, 247, 283
Godden, David, report on excavations at
Tidworth, 240-8
Godwin family, 71
gold, 290
Gordian III, 8, 21, 22-3
Grafton, 71, 80, 96
grain, 219, 220; charred, 204—5, 209, 219,
231-5, 237, 283; imports, 69, 70;
mineralised, 202—4, 209, 231-5; prices,
76; production, 69; yields, 70, 76, 78-9,
83, see also barley; oats; rye; wheat
granaries, 15
Grant, A., 229
grasses, production, 70
Gratian, coins, 164
gravestones: medieval, 28; nineteenth-
century re-use, 27—33
Gray, Harold St. George, 54, 56
Greader, F., 86
Greader, Harry, 86
Grearson, John, paper on sawfly recording
in Wiltshire, 107-15
Great Bedwyn, 90; Bloxham, 66; hedgehogs,
66
Great Casterton (Rutland), 302
Great Cheverell, 74
Great Dunmow (Essex), 189
Great War see World War I
Great Western Railway Company, 82
Great Wishford, Grovely Wood, 270
Greece, 42
Greener, Graham, work reviewed, 298
Greenhill, Mr, 74
greensand, 8, 19
Grenville, Louis, 72
greyhounds, 199
Grey, Thomas, Marquis of Dorset, 96
Griffiths, Nick, 294
Grison family, 37, 38
Grittenham, millennium book, 298
Grittleton, 294
Grote, George, History of Greece, 39
Guernsey, St Peter Port, 89
Guernsey Museums and Galleries, 89
Guido, Peggy, 48, 56, 57
Guildford (Surrey), 300
Guisborough (North Yorkshire), 93
gullies, 280; Late Iron Age, 284; medieval,
214, 237, see also ditches
Gussage All Saints (Dorset), 175
Guthrie, Canon, 29
Gwent see Caerleon; Magor
Haggard, Rider, 86
hair pins, Late Romano-British, 167
Hallum, Robert, Bishop of Salisbury, 275
Hall, William, 95
Halstead, P., 229
Halyzia sedecimguttata (orange ladybird),
128
Hambler, Clive, 273
Hamilton-Dyer, Sheila, report on
excavations at Tidworth, 240-8
Hamilton, Ian T., 259, 260, 262, 263, 264,
265-6
hammers, Late Romano-British, 177, 178,
179
Hampshire, 95, 96, 234, 301; decapitations,
140, see also Alice Holt; Alton; Andover;
Appleshaw; Balksbury Camp;
Basingstoke; Burley; Danebury;
Droxford; New Forest; Portchester;
Quarley; Ringwood; _ Silchester;
Southampton; Stockbridge Down;
Winchester; Winklebury; Worthy Park
handles, bone, 118, 122
hanging, 141
Harding, Philip, 122
Hare, Charles J., 42
Harington, Jane, 65, 67
Harlington (Middlesex), 37
Harmondsworth (Middlesex), 37
Harmonia quadripunctata (cream-streaked
ladybird), 127
Harris, Stephen, 68
Harrold (Bedfordshire), 189
harrows, 82; Parmitter’s, 79
Hartigia xanthostoma (sawfly), 115
Harvey, Peter, 272-3
Harwell (Oxon), 134
Haslam, J., 101
Haslemere Museum (Surrey), 92
hasps, Late Romano-British, 171, 177
Haverfield, F., 1, 3
Hawkes, C. F. C., 1, 53, 54
Hawley, William, 1, 3, 53, 56, 131, 132-3,
134, 135, 141, 288
hay: production, 70; yields, 70
Haynes, A., 86
hazelnuts, shells, 219
headstones see gravestones
hearths, 21; medieval, 285; linings, 243-4
heather ladybird (Chilocorus bipustulatus),
126, 129, 130
Heaton, Michael, report on excavations at
Marlborough College, 100-6
hedgehogs: and badgers, 63, 65, 66-8; and
cats, 68; live sightings, 65-6; population
decline, 63, 68; road traffic accidents, 63,
64—5, 66, 68; survey, 63-8
Hemiptera (true bugs), 109
Hemp, Wilfred, 57
henge monuments, 140, 249, 255, 257;
timber, 256
Hengist, 143
Hengistbury Head (Dorset), 221, 224
Henig, Martin, obituary by, 301-3
Henry II, King, 275, 292
Henry VI, King, 93, 94, 95
Henry VII, King, 93, 96-7, 98
Henry of Huntingdon, 143
Hereford, Dean of, 89, 91
Hertfordshire, 98, see also Baldock; St
Albans; Verulamium
Heytesbury, 95
Hickley, Mr, 91, 92
Highworth: Sevenhampton, 303; Warneford
Place, 78
hillforts, 140, 293; Iron Age, 3, 26, 50-2,
54, 280, 285, see also enclosures; specific
sites
Hill, George, 22
Hill, Herbert, 84-5
Hill, J. D., 208
Hippodamia tredecimpunctata (thirteen
spot ladybird), 128
hipposandals, Late Romano-Pritish, 175,
177-9, 207
Hoare, Sir Richard Colt, 48, 90, 91;
collection, 55
Hobbs, Steven, review by, 295
Hodges, Richard, 300
Hod Hill (Dorset), 117, 179, 228, 302
holdings, agricultural, 70, 85-7
Holt, 80
Homer, 39-40
hooks: Roman, 122; post-medieval, 227
Hopkins, Robert, note on Samian Ware from
Erlestoke Detention Centre, 119-22
Hordeum vulgare (barley), 236; charred
grains, 205, 231, 234
horn, 237
horncores, 244; Neolithic, 251
horses, 282; in agriculture, 70, 73, 82; bones,
195-202, 228-31; military, 75, 84—5;
supply, 84—5; withers height, 199
Horton, H., 80
Horton, Henry, 86
Horton, Mr, 76
Hounslow (Middlesex), 95
Howes, W. T., 76
Hugyns, Elizabeth, 97
Hugyns, Grace, 96
Hugyns, Henry, 97
Hullavington, Bradfield Manor, 284
Humberside see Uncleby
Hungerford, Walter, 95
hunting, 84
INDEX
Huntungdonshire, 98
Hutchings, Victoria, work reviewed, 298
Huxley, Anthony, 266
Hyams, Peter, 291
Hyde, Richard, 94
Hymenoptera: Symphyta (sawflies), 107-15
Hyperaspis spp. (beetles), 125
hypocaust systems, 10
Ickham (Kent), 179
Idmiston: Church Road, 284; Manor Farm,
284; Porton, (Birdlymes Farm), 75
Imber, 295-6; dew ponds, 261
imbrices, 8; Romano-British, 20
income tax, on rents, 85
industrial sites, 15
Ine, King, 141
influenza virus, 109
Ingrem, Claire, note on animal bone from
Wayside Farm, Devizes, 195-202
inhumations, 27, 281; prehistoric, 279;
Beaker, 257; Bronze Age, 207; Early
Bronze Age, 290; Iron Age, 123; 7Roman,
117, 118, 122, 123; Roman, 11, 279, 283;
Romano-British, 122, 237; Late
Romano-British, 147, 152—4, 175-7, 186,
187, 194-5, 208; Anglo-Saxon, 131-46,
289; Early Anglo-Saxon, 140; Saxon, 55,
254, 291; medieval, 133, 140; prone vs.
decapitation, 140
inscriptions (memorials), 27—8
Institute of British Architects (London), 38
International Congress on Prehistoric and
Protohistoric Sciences (1932), 54
International Exhibition (1862), 36, 38, 42
International Harvester Co., 79-80
Ireland see University of Ulster
Treland, Stephen, 95
iron objects: Iron Age, 171-5, 227-8;
Middle/Late Iron Age, 218; Roman, 121,
122, 227, 228; Romano-British, 18, 19,
20; Late Romano-British, 147, 171-80;
Saxon, 243; ?medieval, 102, 103; ?post-
medieval, 118
iron ore, 244
iron slag, 243-4; Late Romano-British, 178,
180
ironwork, structural, 178
isotopes, in tooth analyses, 138-9
Italy, 42; marble pavements, 35—6, see also
Rome; Siena Cathedral
ivory objects, medieval, 294
Jack Russell terriers, 199
Jackson, Canon, 89
Jackson, Randall, 265
James, David J., paper on Sorviodunum, 1—
26
jars: Middle/Late Iron Age, 221, 225; Late
Iron Age/Early Romano-British, 119,
181, 182, 183, 221; pre-Roman, 119;
Roman, 7; Romano-British, 20, 119, 224;
Late Romano-British, 185, 186, 187, 188,
189-92; Saxon, 226; medieval, 103, 224,
226; functional analyses, 15
Jeans, Mark, 78
Jebb, A. G., 129
Jeffries, R., 185
Jellett, E. H., 86
jettons: medieval, 294; 16th century, 281
jewellery see beads; brooches; rings
Johns, Colin, review by, 297
Jones, Cyril, 301
jugs: Romano-British, 20; medieval, 105,
224; glass, 180
Jung, Carl Gustav, 303
Kay, Humphrey, survey of hedgehogs in
Wiltshire, 63-8
Keans, P., 125
Keiller, Alexander, 48, 54-5, 56-7, 58
Keith, Arthur, 132-3
Kendrick, T. D., 53
Kennet, River, 286; floodplain, 101
Kennet Valley, 295; hedgehogs, 65; pottery,
101, 103, 105, 224
Kent, 301, see also Broadstairs; Canterbury;
Dover; Ickham; Richborough
Kent Archaeological Research Unit, 300
keys, Late Romano-British, 175, 178
Kiesewalter, 199
kiln furniture, 122
kilns: Romano-British, 119; Late Romano-
British, 189; medieval, 105
King, A., 201
King, Denis Grant, 117-18, 123
Kinwardstone Hundred, 142
Kirby, Colin, 279
kitchen gardens, Victorian, 286
knife handles, ?medieval, 103
knives: Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age,
226, 235; Iron Age, 171, 175; Late Iron
Age/Early Romano-British, 175; Roman,
122; Late Romano-British, 177, 179;
Anglo-Saxon, 254; bone, 122; flint, 289
lace tags, 289
ladybirds: characteristics, 125-6; in
Wiltshire, 125-30
Laidlaw, Moira: note on stone from Wayside
Farm, Devizes, 193-4; report on
excavations at Tidworth, 240-8
Lamdin-Whymark, Hugo, note on struck
flint from Brickley Lane, Devizes, 226-7
Lancashire, 297, see also Bolton Museum
Lancastrians, 93, 94, 96-7, 98
land ownership, and agriculture, 69, 85-7
landscapes, 295; ornamental, 292-3
Langton Down type fibulae, 117
Langton, Thomas, Bishop of Salisbury, 275
Lansdown, Lord, 75
larvae, 108
Lathyrus spp. (vetches), 205, 231
Latton: Duke’s Brake, 285; Eysey (deserted
village), 86, 285; Eysey Manor Farm, 285;
Latton Lands, 285
lava objects, 243
Laverstock, 95; Bishopdown, 2, 7, 11, 14,
15, 16, 17; kilns, 105, 294; pottery, 105,
245
Lavington Garden Club, 67
Lawrence, Brian, review by, 295-6
Leach, Catherine, 48
Leach, R. V., 48
lead, 15
lead isotopes, 138-9
lead objects, Late Romano-British, 147, 170,
171
lead ores, 138, 139
lead—tin alloy objects, medieval, 294
leather, Roman, 15
Lechlade (Glos), 140
Le Cren, E. David, 261, 262, 263, 265, 266
Leeds, E. T., 54
Legge, A. J., 72
Leicestershire, 272, see also Bosworth
Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies), 108,
261
Levinson, A., 138
Lewis, Arnold, work reviewed, 299
Ley, Henry, 97
Lezoux (France), 10, 19, 181
Liddington, Liddington Castle, 285
limekilns, 292
limestone, 123, 219, 282
Limoges (France), crucifix, 294
Limpley Stoke, millennium book, 299
Lincoln, 302
Lincolnshire see Stamford; Tattershall
Thorpe
linears, 241—2, 283; prehistoric, 140;
?Bronze Age, 279; Bronze Age, 143; ?Late
Bronze Age, 279; Late Bronze Age/Early
Iron Age, 279; Iron Age, 285; Middle/
Late Iron Age, 218; Late Iron Age/Early
Romano-British, 149-50, 181; Late
Romano-British, 154-5; medieval, 285,
see also ditches
lingulae, Roman, 167
links, iron, 177
309
Linnean Society, 263
Lister milking machines, 80
Lithospermum arvense (field gromwell),
seeds, 233, 234
Little Bedwyn: Chisbury, 66; execution
cemeteries, 141—2; Manor Farm, 81-3
Little Chester (Derbyshire), 201
Little Rollright (Oxon), 140
Locket, Ted, 265
locks, Late Romano-British, 175, 178
Loiret (France), 20
Lollius (potter), 10
London, 15, 16, 49, 73, 86, 97, 129, 301,
303; Albert Memorial, 40; Barnet, 94;
Bedford College, 48; Blackheath, 93;
bombing, 131; British Museum, 97, 179,
215; Colnagi’s, 38; executions, 141;
Institute of British Architects, 38;
International Exhibition (1862), 36, 38,
42; Kensington Gardens, 40; milk
supplies, 85; Museum of Construction
and Building Materials, 37; Natural
History Museum, 109, 133, 138, 265;
Royal College of Surgeons, 131, 133; St
Paul’s Cathedral, 37, 96; South
Kensington Museum, 37, 38, 42; The
Temple, 37; Tower of London, 93, 94, 95;
University College, 39-40; University
College Hospital, 42; Victoria & Albert
Museum, 36, 37
Long, Walter, 86
loomweights, clay, 118, 247
Lotus spp. (trefoils), 231
Lovell family, 96
Lovell, Francis, Viscount Lovell, 96
Ludgershall, 74, 96; Castle, 292—3; Castle
Street, 286
Lukis Museum (Guernsey), 89
Lukis, William Collings, 89-90
Lulworth Cove (Dorset), 264
Lydiard Millicent, 95; Shaw, 96
Lydiard Tregoze, Lydiard Park, 286
Lyman, R. L., 229
lynchets, 280
Lyne, M., 185
Mabinogion, 133
Macan, R. E., 76
Macan, T: T.,. 265
MacFadyen, Amyan, 260, 261, 262, 263,
265, 266
McGlashan, D., 274, 276
McKinley, Jacqueline, 133; note on
inhumation at Stonehenge, 136-7
Macrolepidoptera (moths), 296
Magentius, coins, 163
magnetometer surveys, 282
Magor (Gwent), 301
Maiden Bradley, 207
Maiden Castle (Dorset), 140, 141, 165, 204
Maidment, E., 80
maize, flour, 84
Majerus, M., 125
Malmesbury: badgers, 67; Common, 78;
Foxley Farm, 78; hedgehogs, 66, 67;
Pinkney Park, 78; pottery, 243
Malmesbury, Abbot of, 275
Maltby, M., 201
Malus sylvestris (crab apple), seeds, 233,
234
Manchester University, 302
mangolds, production, 70, 84
Manningford, 73; Manningford Bohune, 86;
Shaw Farmhouse, 72
Manning, W. H., 179
mansio, 9
mansiones, 15
marble pavements, 35—6
marbles, coloured, 35
marbles (toys), medieval, 294
marble tarsia technique, 35-45
Marden, 273
Marden, River, 282
Margaret, Queen, 93
Market Lavington, 74; badgers, 67;
310 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
hedgehogs, 66, 67; pottery, 243; West
Park Farm, 77, 79
markets, 15, 17
Marlborough, 55, 65, 72, 295; agriculture,
70; Baily ward, 105; Barton Farm, 80;
Bridewell Street, 101, 105; Forest Hill,
286; High Street, 101, 105, 286-7;
Mound (Mount), 101, 286; Pewsey
Road, 129; St Peter and St Paul’s Church,
105; sawflies, 107, 115; Waitrose
Supermarket, 286-7
Marlborough Castle, 293; ?outer bailey
ditch, 100-6
Marlborough College: excavations, 100-6;
Mound (Mount), 101, 286; New Music
School, 286; swimming pool, 101, 286
Marlborough College Natural History
Society, 259, 265, 266; Report, 107, 125,
129, 263
Marlborough Downs, 64, 295
marquetry, 36
Marshman, Michael, reviews by, 297-9
Martival, Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, 275
Mary of Burgundy, 94, 95
mass spectrometry, 138
Matilda, Queen, 215
Maton, Mr, 85
Mattingly, Neil, work reviewed, 299
Maud, Empress, 274
Maundrell, Sidney, 78
Maximian coins, 3
Mayl, Nick, 282
Mayne, Emily Harriette see Fane De Salis,
Emily Harriette (née Mayne)
Mayne family, 37
Mayne, John Thomas, 37
meat, 247
mechanisation, in agriculture, 69, 70, 79—
81, 85
Medicago spp. (medicks), 231
medicine, folk, 247
Meers, Peter, work reviewed, 298-9
megaliths, 140, 256
Melksham, agriculture, 70
Mellor, M., 224
Melrose (Scotland), 57
memorials, 35, 40, 41—2; dating, 27-8; re-
use, 28-31, see also gravestones
Mendip Hills (Somerset), 15, 194
Mepham, Lorraine: note on excavations at
Marlborough College, 100—6; report on
excavations at Tidworth, 240-8
Mere, millennium book, 299
Merewether, Dr, Dean of Hereford, 89-90,
91
metal detectors, 148, 291
metal objects, 246; Iron Age, 227-8; Roman,
227, 228; copper alloy, 165-70, see also
iron objects; lead objects
metalwork: Roman, 3, 15; Late Romano-
British, 157; Saxon, 257, see also
arrowheads; awls; blades; copper alloy
objects; iron objects; knives; lead objects;
nails; tools
metalworker’s toolkit, Early Bronze Age, 290
metalworking: bronze, 290; debris, 243-4,
247; sites, 243
meteorology, 260-1
Meux estate, 86
Meyrick, Edward, 265
Micraspis (Tytthaspis) sedecimpunctata
(sixteen spot ladybird), 126-7
microkingdoms, 143
Microlepidoptera (moths), 296-7
Micromass (software), 138
micromoths, 296-7
middens, 117; Bronze Age, 231, 234, 235;
Late Romano-British, 147-213;
eighteenth century, 281
Middlesex see Cranford; Dawley Court;
Harlington; Harmondsworth; Hounslow
Midlands, 301
Milborne, John, 95
Milborne, Thomas, 95
Mildenhall, 140; Forest Hill, 66; Post Office
(former), 287, see also Cunetio
military archaeology, 302
military tribunals, 71
milk: production, 82, 83, 236; supplies, 85
milking: machines, 70, 80, 85; manual, 71;
training, 72; women in, 72
millennium books, reviews, 297-9
Mills, J. M., 208; note on finds from Wayside
Farm, Devizes, 171-80
Milton Keynes (Bucks): Bancroft Villa, 167,
170; Pennyland, 236
Milton Lilbourne, King Hall Farm, 78
Minerva, 303
Minety, pottery, 3, 105
minimum number of individuals (MNI)
method, 195-6, 197, 199
Ministry of Agriculture, 72
Ministry of Defence (MOD), 283
mints, Saxon, 291
MNI method, 195-6, 197, 199
MOD (Ministry of Defence), 283
Moffat, Bill, report on excavations at
Marlborough College, 100-6
Mogul tractors, 80
mollusc remains, 20, 255
Montans (France), 19
Montellius, Oscar, 49
Montgomerie, D. H., 1, 3
Monta fontana ssp. minor (blinks), 205
Moore, H. J., 260, 261
Moorhead, T. S. N., 162
Morris, Desmond, 259, 262, 263, 266
Morrison, Hugh, 72
Morris, Pat, 63
mortar, 11, 19
mortaria: Roman, 7; Romano-British, 119;
Late Romano-British, 184—5, 186, 187,
188, 189, 192, 224
moths, 296-7
motte and bailey, Norman, 101, 286
mounds, 101, 140, 141, 207, 256, 288-9
Murray, L., 48
mussel shells, 20
Musty, John, 294
mutationes, 15
Myrrha octodecimguttata (eighteen spot
ladybird), 128
Mytum, Harold, paper on nineteenth-
century re-use of gravestones, 27—33
Myzia oblongoguttata (striped ladybird),
128
nail cleaners, Roman, 279
nails, 118; Iron Age, 171, 175; Roman, 122,
227, 228; Romano-British, 19, 20; Late
Romano-British, 152, 154, 171, 175-7,
179-80, 208; post-medieval, 227; coffin,
152, 175-6; hobnails, 123, 152, 154, 175,
176, 177, 227, 228; Manning type, 122
Napoleon I (Bonaparte), 36, 42
National Archaeology Day, 282
National Farmers’ Union (NFU): Devizes
branch, 85; Swindon branch, 70, 76, 77;
Trowbridge branch, 78
National Monuments Record Centre, 12,
282, 285; Air Photographs Unit and
Library, 303
National Roman _ Fabric
Collection, 181, 221
National Spider Recording Scheme, 269,
272
Natural Environment Research Council
(NERC), Isotope Geosciences
Laboratory (NIGL), 138
needles, Saxon, 243
Nematinae (sawflies), 113-14
Nephus spp. (beetles), 125
Nero, 8, 19
Netheravon: excavations, 47;
Netheravon, 55
Neuilly-sur-Seine (France), Chapelle St
Ferdinand, 35, 40
Neville family, 93
Neville, Richard, 94
Nevill family, 290
Reference
RAF
Newall, Robert, 133, 135
Newark (Northants), Winthorpe Road, 140
Newbury (Berks), pottery, 103
New Forest (Hants), 14; pottery, 3, 7, 8, 11,
15, 19, 20, 119, 180, 183, 184, 186, 187,
224
New Sarum see Salisbury
Newstead (Scotland), 57, 302
Newton Tony, millennium book, 299
NFU see National Farmers’ Union (NFU)
NIGL (NERC Isotope Geosciences
Laboratory), 138
NISP method, 196, 197, 199
non-ferrous objects, 165-70
Norfolk see South Acre; Thetford
Northamptonshire see Newark; Oundle
North Sea Gas, 8, 19-20
North Tidworth, 295; Domesday Book,
246-7; Matthew Housing Estate, 241;
Perham Down, 246; Saxon pits, 240-8
Northumberland see Falstone; Vindolanda;
Yeavering
Northumberland, Duke of, 89, 91
Northumberland, Earl of, 97
Notley, C. E., 75
Notton, Mr, 71
number if identified specimens (NISP)
method, 196, 197, 199
oats: flour, 84; production, 70, 82; yields,
78-9, 83
OAU (Oxford Archaeological Unit), 214,
217, 283, 284, 285
Odstock: Longford, 72; Longford Castle, 73
Offa, King of Mercia, 274
Office of Works, 56, 135
Ogbourne St Andrew, 140
Old Sarum, 1, 8, 12, 14; bakehouse, 288;
Castle, 288; Castle Mound, 3; East Gate,
2, 11; excavations, 3—7, 19; field walking,
11; medieval objects, 294; occupation, 15,
16, 17; Old Sarum Bridge, 288, see also
Sorviodunum
Olive, G. W., 260, 261, 265
Oliver, Edith, 72, 73
Oliver, Jack, 65, 67
Oliver ploughs, 80, 81
oral hygiene, 195
Oram, John, 67
Oram, W. S., 76
Orcheston, 74; West Down, 74
Ordnance Survey, field walking, 11
Orléans, duc d’, 35, 40
ornithology, 260
Orton Hall Farm (Cambridgeshire), 167
Ostorius Scapula, 302
Oundle (Northants), 264
ovens: Roman, 8; Late Romano-British, 159,
160, 208; medieval, 288, 292; corn-
drying, 202
Overtime tractors, 80, 81
Overwey (Surrey), 183, 185, 186, 188, 189
Oxford, 64, 66; Ashmolean Museum, 90;
Oriel College, 37; Oxford University
Museum of Natural History, 231
Oxford Archaeological Unit (OAU), 214,
217, 283, 284, 285
Oxfordshire: kilns, 119; pottery, 8, 11, 19,
20, 180, 184-5, 186, 188, 197, 224, see
also Abingdon; Dorchester-on-Thames;
Farmoor; Frilford; Harwell; Little
Rollright; Stanton Harcourt; Wytham
Wood; Yarnton
oxygen isotopes, 138-9
oyster shells, 11, 20
P & O Company, 37
paddocks, Middle/Late Iron Age, 214, 218,
236
padlocks, 11
Palladianism, 293-4
Palmer, Stephen, work reviewed, 296-7
Pamphiltidae (sawflies), 109
Pant y Saer (Anglesey), 57
papal bullae, medieval, 294
INDEX
parch-marks, 8
Paris (France): Exposition Universelle de
l’industrie et des beaux-arts, 40; La
Madeleine, 35; Les Invalides, 36
Parmitter’s harrow, 79
Parrett tractors, 81
Patney, 72
Payne, Naomi, report on geophysical survey
at Potterne, 274-8
Payne, S., 229
Peach, Penrhyn, 133
Peach, Wystan, 133, 134
Peak-Garland, James, 86
peas, production, 70
Pegge, Charles, 48
Pegge, Elsie, 48
Pegge, Ernest, 48
Pelling, Ruth, 236; note on plant remains
from Brickley Lane, Devizes, 231-5
Pembroke, Earl of, 86
Pembroke, Lady, 72
penates, Romano-British, 215
periodontal disease, 195
Perren, A. W., 85
Perrett, Mr, 85
Persimmon Homes Wessex Ltd., 214
Peto, Mr, 71-2
Petrie, Sir (William Matthew) Flinders, 49,
53
petrol, rationing, 85
Petty Sessional Divisions, 70
Pevsner, Nikolaus, 35
Pewsey, 78, 81, 207; Blacknall Field, 140;
Broomsgrove, 80; hedgehogs, 64;
Stanton Mill, 85
Phillips, Bernard, 281, 286, 288, 289, 291
Philodromidae (crab spiders), 269
Philodromus spp. (crab spiders), in
Wiltshire, 269-73; P. albidus, 269-70; P.
aureolus, 269, 270-1, 272; P. buxi, 273;
P. cespitum, 269, 271, 272; P. collinus,
269, 271-2; P. dispar, 269, 272; P.
emarginatus, 273; P. fallax, 273; P. histrio,
273; P. longipalpis, 271, 273; P.
margaritatus, 269, 273; P. praedatus, 269,
271, 272-3; P. rufus, 270
Philp, Brian, 300
Philpot, D., 263
Philpott, R., 208
Phymatocera aterrima (sawfly), 108
Pickard-Cambridge, Rev, 263
picks, Iron Age, 227, 228
Piggott, Stuart, 48, 54, 56-7, 92, 290
pigs, 74; bones, 195-202, 228-31, 243, 247,
251; in Wiltshire, 70, 83-4
pilae, Romano-British, 193
pinbeaters, Saxon, 243, 247
pins: Iron Age, 171, 175, 177; Anglo-Saxon,
289; Saxon, 243, 247
pin shanks, Saxon, 243
pitchers, 103; medieval, 105, 224
pits, 283; Neolithic, 214, 250; Late
Neolithic, 217, 235; Beaker, 279; Bronze
Age, 285; ?Iron Age, 151-2; Iron Age,
204, 228, 230, 235, 236, 281-2; Early
Iron Age, 205; Middle/Late Iron Age,
218-20, 234; Late Iron Age, 284; Late
Tron Age/Early Romano-British, 7, 147,
165, 175, 181, 206; Iron Age/Roman, 7;
?Roman, 123; Roman, 2, 8; Romano-
British, 9; Late Romano-British, 147,
155-7, 184, 200; Anglo-Saxon, 133-4,
228; Saxon, 220, 229, 237, 240-8;
medieval, 101, 102, 103, 105, 285; 19th
century, 286; stone destruction, 249,
252-4, 257, see also cesspits; ditches;
postholes
Pitt Rivers, Augustus Henry Lane Fox, 50
Pitts, Mike, 48, 54, 57; paper on Anglo-
Saxon decapitation and burial at
Stonehenge, 131-46
Plantagenet, George, Duke of Clarence, 93,
94-5
Plantagenet, Isabel, Duchess of Clarence,
94
plant remains: charred, 202, 204—5, 231-5;
mineralised, 202-4, 231-5
plaster: Roman, 3, 8; Romano-British, 18,
19
plates, clay, 122
platters, Samian, 120
Platynapsis spp. (beetles), 125
Player, Mr, 133
Plenderleath, W. C., 28-30
Pleydell-Bouverie family, 260
ploughing, 69, 73, 75—9; medieval, 220, 285;
mechanisation, 79-81; steam, 70, 79, 81,
82; teams, 74
Poissy (France), Abbey, 36
Pollard, Joshua, report on excavations at
Beckhampton Avenue, 249-58
pollen analysis, 285
Polygonaceae (docks and knotgrasses),
seeds, 233
ponds, 284
Poole (Dorset), 260
Poole Harbour (Dorset), 224; pottery, 15,
182, 188
Poore, Daniel, report on excavations at
Brickley Lane, Devizes, 214-39
Poore, Herbert, Bishop of Salisbury, 275
Portchester (Hants), 185; Portchester
Castle, 201
postholes, 133; Early Bronze Age, 134, 221;
Middle Bronze Age, 285; ?Iron Age, 152;
Iron Age, 227. 235, 236, 283; Middle/
Late Iron Age, 218; Late Iron Age, 284;
Romano-British, 9-10; post-Roman, 134;
Late Romano-British, 157, 202; Anglo-
Saxon, 141; medieval, 102, 103, 105, 288;
burnt, 283, see also pits; stakeholes
postpipes, 157
potatoes, production, 70, 84
pot rivets, 170
Potterne, 122, 202, 231, 234, 235; Courthill,
274, 276, 278; Courthill House, 276;
episcopal manor house, 274-8; Great
Orchard, 274-8; High Street, 275, 276;
manor, 274; Plump Lane, 277; Plump
Well, 276; Porch House, 275; St Mary’s
Church, 275, 276; Whistley Farm, 71
pottery: early prehistoric, 218, 221;
Neolithic, 53, 251; Late Neolithic, 217,
220, 221, 224, 226, 235; Beaker, 53, 54;
?Bronze Age, 220; Bronze Age, 52, 117,
123, 246; Early Bronze Age, 53, 280;
Middle Bronze Age, 241, 285; Late
Bronze Age, 241, 290; Iron Age, 52, 53,
117, 121; Middle Iron Age, 118, 123;
Middle/Late Iron Age, 218-20, 221, 224—
6, 236; Late Iron Age, 3, 11, 123, 218-
19; Late Iron Age/Early Romano-British,
3, 119, 220, 221-4, 236, 281; pre-Roman,
52, 118-19, 120; Roman, 3, 7, 8, 220,
224, 226, 237, 241, 257, 283, 284, 303;
Romano-British, 3, 7, 9-10, 11, 18, 103,
117, 118, 119, 121, 123, 254, 280, 283,
289; post-Roman, 241; Late Romano-
British, 152, 154, 157, 161, 220; Saxon,
220, 224, 226, 237, 241, 245, 283; Early/
Middle Saxon, 241, 242, 243, 246;
Middle Saxon, 243, 284; Late Saxon,
226, 246; medieval, 7, 101, 102, 103-5,
106, 131, 220, 224, 226, 245, 252, 280,
281, 283, 284, 287, 289, 291, 294; post-
medieval, 103, 161, 220, 224, 245, 281,
284, 287, 289, 291; 17th century, 286;
18th century, 19; 19th century, 161, 289;
20th century, 161; Alice Holt type, 183,
184, 185-6, 187, 188; All Cannings Cross
type, 119; Belgic, 3, 8, 19; Black
Burnished ware, 7, 11, 15, 20, 119, 183,
185, 224; black iron glazed kitchenwares,
224; blue transfer-printed wares, 161;
coarsewares, 3, 11, 20, 101, 103-5, 118,
123, 181, 184-6, 187-8; Collared Urn,
53; colour-coated ware, 11, 20;
Durotrigic wares, 8, 19, 182;
earthenwares, 224; finewares, 11, 103-
5, 184, 186, 189; functional analyses, 15;
311
Gallo-Belgic, 118, 119; glazed wares, 105;
Grey Wares, 7, 20, 119, 186, 224;
Grooved Ware, 53, 251, 255; Kennet
Valley wares, 101, 103, 105; Laverstock
type, 105, 245; lead-glazed wares, 20;
New Forest ware, 3, 7, 8, 11, 15, 19, 20,
119, 180, 183, 184, 186, 187, 224;
Overwey/Tilford Wares, 183, 185, 186,
188; Oxford Parchment Ware, 183, 186;
Oxfordshire ware, 8, 11, 19, 20, 119, 180,
184-5, 186, 187, 188, 224; oxidised
wares, 186, 224; Peterborough ware, 214,
217, 221, 224; Portchester Ware, 185;
Rhenish ware, 119; rural—urban
differences, 15; Samian, 3, 7, 8, 9-10, 11,
15, 18, 19-20, 118, 119-22, 181, 182-3,
254 (catalogue, 302; Central Gaulish,
224; Dragendorf form, 19-20; South
Gaulish, 221); Savernake ware, 118, 119,
181, 182, 221, 224; Shell-tempered Ware,
183, 184; slipwares, 119, 183, 186, 224;
South Midlands Shell-tempered Ware,
183, 184, 185, 188, 189; Southwest
white-slipped ware, 119; stonewares, 161,
224; Yarnbury—Highfield type, 221, see
also amphorae; beakers; bowls; clay pipes;
dishes; jars; jugs; kilns; tiles; urns
Potton, Uriah, 30-1
Poundbury (Dorset), 136, 176
Prehistoric Society of East Anglia, 57
Preshute: Manton Barrow, 48, 49, 50-2;
Manton Down, 208; Rockley, (Temple
Farm), 287
prisoners of war, in agriculture, 73—4
prisoner of war camps, 74
Pritchard, E., 76, 77
Propylea quattuordecimpunctata (fourteen
spot ladybird), 127-8
Provisional Atlas of British Spiders, 269, 272
Prummel, W., 229
pruning hooks, Late Romano-British, 177,
179
Psyllobora vigintiduopunctata (twenty two
spot ladybird), 128
Pugh, C. W., 56
Pullinger, Mr, 72
pupae, 109
Purbeck (Dorset), stone, 3, 8, 19, 20
Purbeck marble, 8, 19, 98
Quarley (Hants), Lains Farm, 204, 205, 234
quarries, 283, 285; medieval, 289; chalk, 246
quartzite, 134
querns, 118, 123, 194, 281; Roman, 3;
Saxon, 243, 244; saddle, 283
Quidhampton, 96
quoins, 8, 18
quoits, 122
radiocarbon dating, 224, 290; Avebury area,
255; Bayesian calibration, 255; buildings,
247; Stonehenge, 131, 134-6
Radnor, Earl of, 86
Radnor, Lady, 72
Rahtz, Sebastian, 27
railways, dismantled, 147
Ramsbury, 74; Axford, 286; bishopric, 274;
Littlecote Park, 303; metalworking, 243
RASC (Royal Army Service Corps), 80
Ratcliffe, Sir Richard, 96
Rathbone, Maurice Gilbert, obituary, 300
Rawlence, E. A., 85
Rawlings and Sons, Messrs, 79
Rawlings, William, 86
Raynsford, Sir Laurence, 94
RCHME (Royal Commission on the
Historical Monuments of England), 286,
292, 293, 297, 303
reaping hooks, 228
Recorder 2000 (software), 109
Redman, Gordon, 77
Reece, R. M., 14, 161
refuse material, Romano-British, 1—2, 3, 7
Reimer, P., 134
Remounts (Army), 84
312 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
rents, income tax, 85
Report of the Marlborough College Natural
History Society, 107, 125, 129
reptiles, 262
rescue excavation, 55
reserved occupations, 71
residential mobility, reconstruction, 137—9
resistivity surveys, 276-7
Reynolds, Andrew, note on inhumation at
Stonehenge, 139-43
Rhizobius spp. (beetles), 125
rhyolite, 133
Richard III, King, 93, 94, 95-7, 98
Richborough (Kent), 170
Richmond, Sir Ian, 302
ridge and furrow, 282, 284, 289
Ridgeway, 283
Ridgeway Heritage Project, 285
Rigby, Nicholas, 96
rings, Late Romano-British, 165, 167, 178,
180
Ringwood (Hants), 86
ringworks, 140
Rivers, Earl, 95
Rivers, Jonas, 30, 31
Rivers-Moore, C. R., 260
roads: Roman, 1, 2, 7, 8, 9-11, 12-13, 15,
283, 286 (Ermine Street, 16, 289; Old
Sarum-—Dorchester, 17-19, 20, 21;
Silchester—Dorchester, 16, 17); Devizes—
Andover, 147, see also trackways
road traffic accidents (RTAs), hedgehogs,
63, 64-5, 66, 68
robber trenches, 11, 101, 102, 105
Roberts, Julia, paper on Maud Cunnington,
46-62
Robertson, Dorothy, work reviewed, 299
Robey, Tim, 281
Robinson, Paul, 122, 161, 207; note on
pottery from Erlestoke Detention Centre,
118-19; review by, 294-5
Robinson, Stephen, report on excavations
at Wayside Farm, Devizes, 147-213
Roddham, D., paper on 1963 excavations
at Erlestoke Detention Centre, 116-24
rodents, bones, 229, 230
Roger of Salisbury, 215
Rogers, F. R., 76
Rogers, Kenneth, obituary by, 300
Roman Britain, 301, 302, 303
Roman Conquest, 14, 15
Roman Pottery Studies Research Group,
303
Roman Research Trust, 303
Rome (Italy), Protestant Cemetery, 27
root crops, production, 70, 84
Rosa spp., 108
Rotweilers, 243
Roundway: Oliver’s Camp, 48, 49, 50-2;
Roundway Down, 140
Royal Army Service Corps (RASC), 80
Royal College of Surgeons, 131, 133
Royal Commission on the Historical
Monuments of England (RCHME), 286,
292, 293, 297, 303
Royal Navy, 69
Royal Town Planning Institute, 293
RTAs (road traffic accidents), hedgehogs,
64-5
rubella, 195
rubidium, radioactive decay, 138
Rumex acetosella (sheep’s sorrel), 205
Rumex spp. (dock), 204, 205
Rushall, 85, 86
Russell, Sally, 67
Russia, 80
Rutland, 272, see also Great Casterton
rye, 84
Rye, Edward Caldwell, 129, 130
sainfoin, production, 70
St Albans (Herts), battle of, 93
St Amand, Baron de, 93
St George Hundred (Dorset), 141
St John Hope, W. H., 1, 3
Salisbury, 73, 81, 85, 95, 293, 300;
agriculture, 70; Anchor Brewery Site
(former), 287-8; Belle Vue Bus Garage,
287; Castle Hill, 7; Castle Keep Estate,
8, 12, 19; Castle Street, 287; The Close,
297; Devizes Road, 11, 17; diocese of,
274; Endless Street, 287; Fisherton
Meadow, 8, 19; Franciscan friary, 294;
Gigant Street, 287-8; Highfield, 15, 16;
Highfield Road, 287; Hill Top Way, 7;
Infirmary, 294; Ivy Street, 294; Juniper
Drive, 7; market, 84; Market Place, 95;
medieval objects, 294; Moberley Road,
16; Mompesson House, 294; Netheravon
Road, 16; Paul’s Dene Estate, 2, 7; The
Portway, 17; pottery, 105; sawflies, 107,
109; Stratford Road, 8, 18 (Avonview, 9;
Roselea, 9; Silverdale, 10-11); Stratford
sub Castle, 1, 2, 14, 15 (excavations, 7—
11, 16, 17-23; Old Castle Inn, 17; Old
Post Office, 12; Post Office Corner, 22;
Tithe Award Map (1840), 13); town
houses, 297, see also Old Sarum;
Sorviodunum
Salisbury, Bishop of, 72, 85, 95, 97
Salisbury, bishops of, 274-8
Salisbury Cathedral, 57
Salisbury City Council,
Department, 7
Salisbury—Devizes Road, 8, 17
Salisbury District Council, 2
Salisbury Journal, 38, 75
Salisbury Museum, 2, 11, 12
Salisbury Museum Archaeological Research
Group (SMARG), 7; excavations, 17—23
Salisbury Northern Link Road, 7
Salisbury Plain, 17, 117, 241, 265, 295-6;
army training, 74; hedgehogs, 64
Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum,
Medieval Catalogue Part 3, 294—5
Salisbury Syndicate, 85
Salisbury Theological College, 8, 18
Salis-Samedan, Joachim v., 38
Salis-Samedan family, 38
Salon (Paris), 35, 36
Sambucus nigra (elder), seeds, 233, 234
Sandbanks (Dorset), 260
Sandell, R. E., 274, 276
Sandy Lane see Verlucio
sarsen stones, 249, 254; burial pits, 256;
burnt, 251, 252, 254
Sartigny, Margaretha de, 38
Sarum, origin of name, 1
saucepans: Middle/Late Iron Age, 221, 224—
5; Late Iron Age/Early Romano-British,
181, 182, 183
Saunders, Eleanor, 294
Saunderson tractors, 80, 81
Saunders, Peter (Ed.), work reviewed, 294—
5
Savage family, 97
Savernake: Braydon Hook, 66; Cadley, 66;
rents, 85; St Katharine’s, 66; Timbridge,
66
Savernake Forest, 50, 103, 295; badgers, 66;
crab spiders, 273; hedgehogs, 64, 66;
pottery, 118, 119, 181, 182, 221, 224
Savill, P. C., 260
Savory, Theodore, 265
sawflies: characteristics, 107—9; in Wiltshire,
107-15
Sawyer, Rex, work reviewed, 295-6
Saxons, 16
scarce seven spot ladybird (Coccinella
magnifica (Redtenbacher)), 127, 129
Scheduled Ancient Monuments, 281, 282,
283, 286, 289
School House Natural History Society
(Dauntsey’s School), 259-68
scoops, bone, 122
Scotland, 273, 302; ladybirds, 129, 130, see
also Melrose; Newstead
Scott, George Gilbert, 37, 40
Scott, Sir (Warwick) Lindsay, 57
scrapers: Late Neolithic, 193; flint, 289
Engineers
Scull, Albert, 77
Scymnus spp. (beetles), 125, 129
scythes, 228
Scytodes thoracica (spider), 264
seeds: charred, 231-5; mineralised, 219,
231-5
Selandria serva (sawfly), 115
Selandriinae (sawflies), 110
Semple, Sarah, note on inhumation at
Stonehenge, 139-43
Send (Surrey), 300
settlements: Iron Age, 7, 16, 206, 214-39,
287; Late Iron Age/Early Romano-
British, 147-213; Roman, 1-26;
Romano-British, 9-10, 16, 19-20, 117,
215, 237, 283, 284; Late Romano-British,
147-213; Saxon, 240-8; medieval, 17,
106, 237, 284, 285; functions, 15; growth,
15-16, see also castles; enclosures; towns;
villages
Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act, 49
Seymour, F. H., 77
SFBs (sunken-featured buildings), Saxon,
247
sgraffito, 35
shale objects, Late Romano-British, 171
sheep, 82, 236; bones, 195-202, 228-31,
243, 244, 247, 283; teeth, 218; in
Wiltshire, 70, 83-4
Shell, Colin, 290
Sheppard, D. A., 109
Sherardia arvensis (field madder), 205
Sherborne (Dorset), 274
Sherborne, Bishop of, 274
shield fittings: Anglo-Saxon, 254; bosses,
291
shoe cleats, Late Romano-British, 178, 180
shoes, Late Romano-British, 175
Shortt, Hugh, 22
Shrewton: Catherine Wheel, 288; Chalk
Hill, 288; High Street, 288; Homanton,
288; Maddington, 288; Maddington
Farm, 122, 123, 201; Maddington Street,
288; Rollestone, 288
Shropshire see Wroxeter
Shuttleworth tractors, 80
Siena Cathedral (Italy), 35-6
Silchester (Hants), 15, 16, 17
siliqua (coins), 163
Silver, I. A., 229
Simon of Ghent, Bishop of Salisbury, 275
Sinapsis spp., 204, 206; seeds, 233, 235
Sinapsis alba (white mustard), seeds, 233
Sinapsis arvensis (charlock), seeds, 233
Siricidae (wood wasps), 107, 108, 114
Sites and Monuments Record (SMR), 101,
237
Sixpenny Handley (Dorset), Down Farm,
255
Skilling, Michael, 95
Skinner, Raymond J., paper on Sir Roger
Tocotes, 93-9
Skurray, E. C., 76
Skurray’s (Swindon), 81
slag, 18, 178, 180
Slocombe, Ivor, paper on agriculture in
World War I, 69-88
Slocombe, Pamela: review by, 293-4; work
reviewed, 297
SMARG see Salisbury Museum
Archaeological Research Group
(SMARG)
Smith, John, 95
Smith, Pamela, 56-7
Smith, R. F., 15
smith’s tools, Late Romano-British, 179
Smith, Wendy, 282
SMR (Sites and Monuments Record), 101,
237
snakes, 262
Society of Antiquaries, 3, 49
Society of Antiquaries of London, 302
Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 49, 54
Society of Local Archivists, 300
Soffe, Grahame, obituary by, 301-3
INDEX
Soglio family, 37
soils, buried, 159-61, 175, 199
soldiers, 75; in agriculture, 73
Solomon’s seal, 108
Somerset, 96, 171, 273, see also Brean
Down; Bruton; Frome; Mendip Hills;
Wells Cathedral
Sorbiodunum see Sorviodunum
Sorviodunum: archaeological evidence, 1—
26, see also Old Sarum
South Acre (Norfolk), 137, 141
Southampton (Hants), 96
South Marston, Primary School, 288-9
South Midlands: settlements, 236; Shell-
tempered Ware, 183, 184, 185, 188, 189
South Newton, Camphill Reservoir, 289
South Tidworth, 295; Tidworth Garrison
Golf Club, 289
soya beans, flour, 84
Spackman family, 73
spearheads, Anglo-Saxon, 254, 257
spears, 291
Spencer, J. W., 76
Spergula arvensis (corn spurrey), 202, 205
Sphaeroceridae (lesser dung flies), 233
spiders, 262, 263, 264, 265, 269-73
spindlewhorls, 281; Romano-British, 283;
bone, 118, 122; clay, 247
spoons, 11; Late Romano-British, 165, 167,
170, 175, 176, 177, 207, 208; iron, 154
Stace, C., 202
Stafford, Henry, 2nd Duke of Buckingham,
94, 95-6
Stafford, Humphrey, 96
Staffordshire, 94
Stafford, Thomas, 96
Staines (Surrey), 141
stakeholes, 254, 255; 2modern, 241, see also
postholes
Stamford (Lincolnshire), 301
stamped sheet objects, Late Romano-
British, 165, 167
Stanley family, 97
Stanton Harcourt (Oxon), 140
Stanton St Quentin, Stanton Park, 271
Staphylinidae (rove beetles), 129
starlings, 260
stationary engines, 85
steam ploughing, 70, 79, 81, 82
Steeple Ashton, 78
Steeple Langford, Hanging Langford, 289
Stephen, King, 215, 274
Stethorus spp. (beetles), 125
Stevens, H. C., 81-2
Stevens, J. B., 76
stinging nettles, 233
Stockbridge Down (Hants), 141
Stocker, David, 292
Stockton, Stockton earthworks, 175
stoke pits, 157—9
stone blocks, 118
stone burnishers, Early Bronze Age, 290
stone circles, 249, 256, 257
Stonehenge, 52-3, 55, 56, 57, 91, 255;
Aubrey Holes, 53, 131; decapitation and
burial, 131-46; Heelstone, 131, see also
Amesbury
stone holes, 254—5, 256
stone objects, 246
stones, 193-4; buried, 249, 251-2; burnt,
118, 159, 193, 194, 252, 285; destruction,
249, 252-4, 257; sockets, 249, 256;
standing, 251-2, see also sarsen stones
stonework: Romano-British, 20; Saxon, 241,
244, see also flintwork; querns
stores, 15
Stourton, Sir William, 94
strap-ends, Late Romano-British, 165, 167
strap hinges, Late Romano-British, 178, 179
strapping, iron, 102, 103
Stratton, Arthur, 72, 73, 76, 79, 80
Stratton family, 81
Stratton, Frank, 86
Stratton, John, 2, 17, 18, 20
Street, Arthur, 75
strip fields, 13
strip fragments, Late Romano-British, 179,
180
Strong, Charles, 31
Strong, Elizabeth, 31
strontium isotopes, 138-9
Stuiver, M., 134
Stukeley, William, 249, 251, 252, 256, 257
Sturminster Marshall (Dorset), 205
styli, Late Romano-British, 175, 177, 178,
207
Subcoccinella vigintiquattuorpunctata
(twenty four spot ladybird), 126
submarines, German, 76
Suffolk see Sutton Hoo
sunken-featured buildings (SFBs), Saxon,
247
Surrey, 273, 296, see also Farnham;
Guildford; Haslemere Museum;
Overwey; Send; Staines; Tilford
Sutton Hoo (Suffolk), executions, 141
Swallowcliffe, Swallowcliffe Down, 140
Swan Hill Homes, 214
Swanton, Gill, 281, 290
swedes, production, 70, 84
Swindon, 12, 81, 186, 285, 301, 303;
Abbeymeads, 289; Cricklade Street, 294;
Groundwell West, 289; Kingsdown
Crematorium, 289
Swindon Advertiser, 73, 85
Swindon College, 281
Swindon and District National Farmers’
Union, 70, 76, 77
swords, 35, 131, 141, 291
Symphyta (sawflies), 107-15
syphilis, 195
Taplow (Bucks), 140
tares, production, 70
Targett, Mr, 75
Tarvin (Cheshire), 300
Tattershall Thorpe (Lincolnshire), 140
teeth: analyses, 137—9; animals, 196-202,
229-30, 243; diseases, 195; human, 137—
9; sheep, 218; wear, 229-30
Teffont: almshouses, 37; Manor School, 37;
Teffont Evias, (Church of St Michael and
All Angels), 34-45; Teffont Manor, 35,
37
tegulae, Romano-British, 20, 193
temples, 15; Roman, 207, 208; Late
Romano-British, 147, 165, 171; coin-loss
profiles, 14
Tenthredinidae (sawflies), 110-14
Tenthredininae (sawflies), 112-13
Tenthredo thompsoni (sawfly), 107, 108
Tetbury (Glos), 81
Tetricus I, 23
Tetricus II, 7, 23
Tewkesbury (Glos), battle of, 94, 96
textile industry, Iron Age, 282
Thames, River, 141
Thames Valley Archaeological Services
(TVAS), 214
thatch weights, 122
Theodosius, coins, 162, 164
Theodosius, House of, coins, 164—5
thermal ionization mass spectrometry
(TIMS), 138
Thetford (Norfolk), hoard, 165
Thomason, Dave, report on excavations at
Brickley Lane, Devizes, 214-39
Thomas, W. C., 75
Thomisidae (crab spiders), 269
Thompson, Cecil H., 300
Thompson, Luigi, 303
thorium, radioactive decay, 138
thumb pots, 7
Thuresby, John, 94
Tighe, M. F., work reviewed, 299
tiles: Roman, 3, 7, 8; Romano-British, 10,
11, 19, 20; Late Romano-British, 147;
medieval, 294; combed box flue, 11;
hypocaust, 8, 19; roof, 8, 19, 123, 193,
194
313
Tilford (Surrey), 185
Tilshead, dew ponds, 261
timber circles, 52-4; Late Neolithic, 256
Timby, Jane, 181, 182; note on pottery from
Brickley Lane, Devizes, 220-6
Times, The, 71
TIMS (thermal
spectrometry), 138
Tisbury, 12, 76; Old Wardour Castle, 289—
90
Titan tractors, 80, 81
Tithe Award maps, 13
Tockets (North Yorkshire), 93
Tocotes, Elizabeth, 98
Tocotes, Elizabeth (née Braybrooke), 93-4,
98
Tocotes, James, 98
Tocotes, Sir Roger, 93-9
tokens, medieval, 294
Tolpuddle Ball (Dorset), 136
tombs, 29; chambered, 256
Tomlin, R. S. O., note on lead fragment from
Wayside Farm, Devizes, 171
tools: Iron Age, 214, 227-8, 236; Late
Romano-British, 175, 177, 178, 179; flint,
50, 289; woodworking, 228
Torilis japonica (upright hedge-parsley),
seeds, 233
town houses, 297
towns: Romano-British, 16, 140, 302;
Saxon, 291; coin-loss profiles, 14
Towton (North Yorkshire), 94
toys, medieval, 294
trackways, 12, 14, 236-7; Late Iron Age/
Early Romano-British, 7, 147, 149-50,
206; ?>Romano-British, 289; Romano-
British, 214, 220, 224, 227, 235, 236, 284
tractors, 79-81, 85
Trajan, 22
Trier (Germany), 228
Trifolium spp. (clover), 231
Triqueti, Amadea Sophia Maria Henrica de,
38
Triqueti, Henry de: Choir of Angels, 34—
45; David listens to the Angelic Choir
which inspires his Psalms, 41-2; Edward
VI, 40; La Mort de Charles le Téméraire,
35; Marmor Homericum, 39-40, 41, 42;
Peace and Public Prosperity, 36; Sappho
and Cupid, 40; The Visitation of Mary to
Elizabeth, 36, 37, 38, 42
Triticum spp. (wheat), charred grains, 231
Triticum dicoccum (emmer wheat), 231;
charred grains, 205
Triticum spelta (spelt), charred grains, 205,
231, 234, 236
Trotter, M., 136
Trowbridge, 78, 301; agriculture, 70; Castle,
293; County Hall, 300
Tucker, Samuel, 80
Tucker, William, 86
Tudor, Henry see Henry VI, King
Tudors, 93
tunnels, ?medieval, 3
Turbyvyle, John, 96
turf, 290
turnips, production, 70, 84
Turnor, Wyatt William, 78
TVAS (Thames Valley Archaeological
Services), 214
‘Twynyho, Ankarette, 94-5
Tyson, Rachel, 294
ionization mass
U-boats, 69, 76
Uley (Glos), 167, 208
Ulwell (Dorset), 136
Uncleby (Humberside), 140
Underditch Hundred, 142-3
Underwood, Austin, 296
University of Ulster (Northern Ireland), 266
Upavon, 74; Casterley Camp, 224
Upper Bourne Valley, 295
Upton Lovell: badgers, 67; barrow, 290;
hedgehogs, 65, 67; Knook East Farm, 67;
Manor House, 75
314 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE
uranium, radioactive decay, 138
Urchfont, 162; millennium book, 299;
Wedhampton, 299
urnfields, 302
urns: Bronze Age, 55; Middle Bronze Age,
241
Urtica dioica (stinging nettle), seeds, 233
Utherpendragon, 143
Valens, coins, 163, 228
Valentinian, House of, coins, 164
Valentinian I, 23; coins, 164
Valentinianic coins, 162, 189
Valentin, John, report on excavations at
Wayside Farm, Devizes, 147-213
Valerianella dentata (narrow fruited corn-
salad), 231
Van Mensch, 201
vases, 35
Vatcher, Faith de M., 256
Vatcher, Lance, 256
vaults, 27
Verlucio, 188
Verulamium (Herts), King Harry Lane, 122,
167, 178
Vespasian, 22
vetches, production, 70
Vicia spp. (vetches), 205
Victoria, Crown Princess of Prussia, 40, 41
Victoria History of Wiltshire, 295
Victoria, Queen, 38, 40-2
Victorinus, 23
vicus, 15-16
Vikings, 48
villages: medieval, 284, 285; deserted, 285;
functions, 15
villas: Roman, 283-4, 302, 303; Late
Romano-British, 189; coin-loss profiles,
14
Vindolanda (Northumberland), 201
Visconti, Louis, 36
Vulpes vulpes (fox), 195
Wacher, J., 15
Waddon Hill (Dorset), 302
Wales, 301; ladybirds, 130; medieval tales,
133
Wales, Princess of, 41
Wallace milking machines, 80
Wall, David, 67
Wall, Jean, 67
wall paintings, 55
walls: Iron Age, 236; Roman, 3, 8; flint, 8,
18, 19; robbed-out, 103; timber, 19
Wanborough see Durocornovium
WANHS see Wiltshire Archaeological and
Natural History Society (WANHS)
Wansdyke, 50
War Agricultural Committee, 73, 76, 80;
Ladies Sub-Committee, 72
Warbeck, Perkin, 93
Ward, Joan, 67
Warminster, 55, 81; Battlesbury, 47;
Battlesbury Camp, 55; Harman Lines,
290; hedgehogs, 65; Imber Clump Road,
290; Southern Range Road, 290
Warminster Gardening Club, 65
War Office, 75
Warrender, Miss, 72
Warren, E. G., 76
Wars of the Roses, 93, 98
Warwick, 94
Warwick, Earl of, 94, 95
Warwickshire: ladybirds, 130, see also
Berkswell; Chesterton
washers, Late Romano-British, 178
waterholes, Middle Bronze Age, 285
wattle, manufacture, 228
Webster, Graham, 15; obituary, 301-3
Webster, J., 170
weeds, seeds, 231-5
weights: medieval, 294; ceramic, 122; clay,
118, 122
Welch, James, 76
wells, 288; post-Norman, 3
Wells Cathedral (Somerset), 97
Wessex, 139, 141, 182, 215, 221; hundreds,
143; settlements, 246
Wessex Archaeology, 133; evaluations, 7,
279, 283-4, 285, 286, 287, 291;
excavations, (Amesbury, 279-80;
Salisbury, 287-8; Tidworth, 240-8);
watching briefs, 286—7, 289-90, 291
West Ashton, Rood Ashton, 86
Westbury: Edward Street, 290-1; Rifle
Range, 77; West End, 77
West Dean, Station, 81
West Lavington, 303; Agricultural College
Magazine, 260; dew ponds, 261; Littleton
Panell Manor House, 260, 262; Manor
Stream, 261; Market Lavington Road,
263; Mill Stream, 262; Viaduct, 262, see
also Dauntsey’s School
West Midlands see Birmingham
Westonbirt (Avon), 264
West Overton, 282-3; Lockeridge, 65, 67,
68; Overton Down experimental
earthwork, 251
West Saxon laws, 141
West, Thomas, Lord de la Warre, 96
West Woodhay (Berks), 95
Weymouth (Dorset), 94
wheat: flour, 84; imports, 69; production,
70, 82; shortages, 84; yields, 70, 76, 83
Wheatley, David, report on excavations at
Beckhampton Avenue, 249-58
Wheeler, Sir (Robert Eric) Mortimer, 48,
54,57
whetstones, 118, 123
White, A. R., 76
Whiteparish: Cowesfield Farm, 77; Rowden
Farm, 77
White, T. H., Ltd., 79, 80, 81
WHM see Wiltshire Heritage Museum
(WHM)
Wilcot, Oare, 80, 221
Wilkes, John, 302
William of York, Bishop of Salisbury, 275
Willis, Ernest, 80
Willis, W. G., 80
Willoughby, Sir Robert, Ist Baron
Willoughby de Broke, 96, 97
Wilsford, Broadbury Banks, 175
Wilsford cum Lake, Druid’s Lodge, 65, 264
Wilson, Mr, 74
Wilton, 72; Mint, 291; Pembroke Arms
Hotel, 291; rents, 85; Royal Palace, 291;
Wilton House, 291
Wilts & Dorset Bus Company, 287
Wiltshire: buildings, 293-4; landscapes, 295;
Microlepidoptera, 296-7; town houses,
297
Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural
History Magazine, 3, 7-8, 42, 49, 50, 54
Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural
History Society (WANHS), 47, 49, 54,
56; Field Group, 282, 290; inception, 48;
library, 89, 259, 264; publications, 2, 64
Wiltshire Archaeological Sites and
Monuments Records, 2
Wiltshire Buildings Record, 297
Wiltshire County Council, 7; Archaeological
Department, 2; Archaeological Officer,
217; Archaeological Service, 101, 106,
148, 300-1; county archivists, 300
Wiltshire Gazette, 55
Wiltshire, G. H., 264
Wiltshire Heritage Museum (WHM), 11-
12, 48, 55, 57, 89, 290, 303; archives, 117;
collections, 175, 178
Wiltshire Library and Museum Service, 2
Wiltshire Record Society, 300
Wiltshire, Sheriff of, 93-9
Wiltshire Society see Wiltshire
Archaeological and Natural History
Society (WANHS)
Wiltshire Sound, 282
Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office, 299,
301
Wiltshire Times, 71—2
Wiltshire Youth and Community Service, 20
Winchester (Hants), 294; Easton Lane, 205;
Lankhills Roman Cemetery, 122;
Winnall, 140; Winnall Down, 205
Windsor Castle (Berks): Albert Memorial
Chapel, 35, 40, 41-2; Wolsey Chapel, 40
Winklebury (Hants), 202
Winterbourne, 208; Winterbourne Gunner,
246
Winterbourne Monkton: Middle Farm, 86;
Monkton Estate, 86; West Farm, 86
Winterbourne Stoke, Parsonage Down, 271
Winterslow, Roche Court Down, 137
wire, Saxon, 243
wireworm, 79
Woden (god), 141
women, in agriculture, 69, 72-3
Women’s Land Army, 72
Woodborough, 79
Woodford, 72; hedgehogs, 66
Woodhenge, 47, 48, 49, 52-4, 55, 57
Wood, John, the Younger, 294
Woodshawe, Grace, 97
Woodshawe, Thomas, 96, 97
Woodville, Anthony, Earl Rivers, 95
wood wasps, 107
Wookey, Charles, 86
Wootton Bassett, prisoner of war camps, 74
Wor Barrow (Dorset), 137
World War I, 49, 52, 56; agriculture, 69-88
Worms, Baron Charles de, 296, 297
Worthy Park (Hants), 140
Worton, 273, 277
Wright, Mary Elizabeth, 30, 31
Wroughton: Brimble Hill, 291; Costow
Farm, 80; Elcombe, 96; Overtown
House, 80
Wroxeter (Shropshire), 302
Wylye, Tea Pot Street, 298
Wylye Valley, hedgehogs, 65
Wyndham, William, 37
Wytham Wood (Oxon), 64, 66
Wyvil, Robert, Bishop of Salisbury, 275
x-radiographs, 176, 227, 228
Yarnton (Oxon), 141
Yates, Edward, 42
Yeavering (Northumberland), 140
Yerrington, Gwyneth, 67
York, Minster, 170
York, House of, 97
Yorkists, 93, 94, 96-7
Yorkshire: Wolds, 139, see also Guisborough;
Tockets; Towton
Young, Allan, 75
Young, C. J., 186
Young, Henry, 75
Young, Nathaniel, 86
Young, William E. V., 50, 54, 57
Zeals, St Martin, 80
.- . WILTSHIRE HERITAGE
MUSEUM
GALLERY
LIBRARY
Published by
The Wiltshire Archaeological
and Natural History Society
ISSN 0262 6608