Corfe Castle and the Locked Book

Corfe Castle demolished by Parliamentary forces after its capture from supporters of Charles I in February 1646

To the Honorable William Lenthall Speaker of the House of Commons: Pardon I beseech you my lateness and my haste. My good news is the cause of both. This morning twixt 4 and 5 a party of six score firelocks got into the Castle…the dispute with the enemy lasted 2 hours… see how they cry quarter and run along the wall tops towards us so that the Castle is likely to be yours within this hour……John Fitzjames Captain February 26th 1646

We are currently revising the conservation management plan for Corfe Castle and looking again at past discoveries.

Hidden within Kingston Lacy House in Dorset were many amazing things. The Bankes family had lived there for over 300 years and accumulated all sorts of items including paintings, furniture and a library of books and documents.

In August 1981, on the death of H.J.R Bankes, the National Trust were bequeathed the ancient estates of Kingston Lacy and Corfe Castle and this great gift included the contents of Kingston Lacy House.

For many years, curators and archivists kept stumbling across exciting new discoveries as they catalogued the collection. By 1998 it seemed that nearly everything had been found until Kate, the Kingston Lacy House Steward, found a locked book in the library. She spent several hours trying to open it and eventually succeeded.

Inside were a group of mid-17th century surveys and letters relating to the contents of Corfe Castle… plundered by Parliament when the fortress was eventually captured in February 1646. They had been collected by George Bankes…taken from his family archive during the writing of his book on Corfe Castle which was published in 1853.

They are evidence of the how the Castle was furnished and give an idea of the various rooms there before the soldiers ransacked the place and blew it to pieces. Kate gave me a table in the archive room on the second floor of Kingston Lacy House and I spent time reading and typing the contents. I soon discovered that George Bankes had left out much of the information from his book.

Our excavations within the walls of Corfe found musket shot and cannon balls, broken pottery, oysters and bone with fragments of carved stone; all brought to the Outer Gatehouse and dumped. Any delicate fabric and paper, leather and woodwork would have rotted away but all the useful and luxury items would have been divided up and either used in the homes of the victorious supporters of Parliament or sold.

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In 1993, excavation of the Outer Gatehouse Corfe Castle revealed cannon balls and debris from the demolition and plundering of Corfe in 1646

The owner of Corfe Castle, Sir John Bankes died during the war. His wife Mary lived long enough to see the end of the Republic… and for Charles II to become king. Her eldest son John died before her and therefore it was left to her second son Ralph to get back the land and land rights as well as the contents of the Castle. He wanted to retrieve some of the precious contents of his childhood home so that he could place them in his new fashionable house being built at Kingston Lacy.

The documents in the locked book are evidence of his attempt to achieve this. Ralph Bankes was searching for witnesses of the sacking of Corfe so that he could find out where things had been taken by the enemy.

One is a note written by a soldier and starts abruptly.

that room which Mrs Burroughs should show me which accordingly I did and the goods in them within an inner chamber in the Queen’s Tower (now a fragmentary ruin at the top of the Castle) and therein was a coffer which I was then told contained writings. The greatest part of the goods were sent by Colonel Bingham (commander for Parliament at Corfe and Governor of Poole) to the Isle of Wight by water from Swanage. Brewen Vincent of Povington and myself had the charge of them and Brewen Vincent carried the goods to Mrs Virges in the Isle of Wight after they were landed at Yarmouth. There was a charter that was in the hands of a soldier which I obtained from him, which I then took to be ye Charter of the Castle which I delivered to Colonel Bingham.

Another document is by a servant once employed by the Bankes family and by that time, in the 1660s, working for Colonel Bingham in charge of the captured Corfe. This gives an idea of the rooms now lost in the Castle.

One piece of ordinary hangings for ye Gallery;One piece to hang betwixt the closet and door in my La: (Lady’s) Chamber.; One piece over ye door going into the hall.; One piece to the door in the study next to ye Gallery.; One piece of ordinary hangings for the door over the Gallery; Two pieces of fine tapestry for ye Gallery.; One piece to hang behind my La: Bed.; One piece for the lower end of the Great Chamber.; One piece over the chimney in the Great Chamber.; Two large satin wrought window cushions.;One cushion of crimson velvet for a window.

The gallery and great chamber may have been in the Keep at the top of the Castle and there are Tudor floor plans of the Keep found in Kingston Lacy.

One of the Tudor plans found in Kingston Lacy House which show the floor plans of the Corfe Castle Keep in the late 16th=early 17th century

Perhaps it was Ralph’s detective work in tracking down the records stolen from Corfe which have enabled us to still see many of the maps and dociuments still stored in the Bankes family archive and now held at the Dorset History Centre, Dorchester but we can only wonder what was lost during the Castle’s capture. Other witness statements from Corfe villagers talk of soldiers burning paperwork on bonfires

Ralph wrote letters to Colonel Bingham asking for the return of the goods taken from the Castle but despite polite replies all he was given back was one large bed without the feathers and a red velvet chair.

Among the valuable lost items are finely woven tapestries that once hung in the castle including a series telling the story of Constantine and of the fashionable 1620s romance of ‘Astrea and Celadon’…apparently the Earl of Manchester bought it from a broker in London.

I’ll finish with a letter found in the locked book written by a Corfe Castle village shopkeeper.

To the right worshipful and his assured friend Sir Ralph Bankes, Knight, at his house at Chettle, these present.

Honored Sir

 I am sorry I cannot more fully gratify you in your desires, but in what I can is undermentioned, and what I cannot at present shall as comes to my knowledge, Sir. Although I was not in the castle at the taking (which I suppose I should have been if your friends then governed it), yet I was so far from any hand in the taking it as any, and I was constrained to keep my own house for mine own preservation and mine, that I durst not look abroad to see the actions of others, wherefor all that I can inform you, is after others. Vizt.,- that some household goods and not a little was brought into the house of one Richard Smith of Corfe Castle, who had then three sons under the Parliament, but I suppose that is much divided; what remains is in the hands of Nathaniel Smith at the Ship, and of Henry Smith a shopkeeper; and I understand that Mr Anthony Fursmanhas some; I know not of any else in the island and I think but little was carried into the island. But I am informed by one Mathew Mosse, a tailor in Corfe, that one Captain Richard Gould at Holme had much of it; and that he had seen a room furnished and hung round with the castle goods, besides many stones and much timber he had; also some of the greatest timber was carried to Lutton, to Mr Dyonise Bond’s farm, where it remains yet unused. And not a little timber and stone was used about the George Inn. And the leads were mostly sold to Gaylen, the plumber of Poole, as I have been informed. What Colonel Bingham had of your’s I know not; but I am sure his soldiers had all my shop goods, and I did write to Mr Culliford whilst in London to advise me whether I could not have any satisfaction. And he answered me in the negative, that the Act would quit all men of all such actions, but I wish I could find it now; but I must rest satisfied; and Sir, with my due respects tendered do remaine,

 Your Worship’s servant

Edward Harvey

Corfe Castle

5th October 1660 

The Treswell survey book of the Corfe Castle Estate rescued by Ralph Bankes and used as evidence in the chancery court to get back his manorial rights within the Isle of Purbeck. The court case is recorded bottom left as taking place in the 22nd year of the reign of Charles II. He came to the throne in 1660 so the dates should be 1682 but the republican period of Oliver and Richard Cromwell was wiped from history so the actual date of the court case was 1671.

NZ 1: Edge of Empire

he will walk across the high Alps,
gazing upon the monuments of great Caesar,
the Gallic Rhine, the terrifying Channel,
the most remote Britons (Catullus 11 c.50BC)

Who the first inhabitants of Britain were, whether natives or immigrants is open to question: one must remember we are dealing with barbarians, (Tacitus ‘The Agricola’ c.AD98)

This week, there was a meeting in Bristol. A collaboration between National Trust SW curators and archaeologists…joining with professors and researchers from across the SW universities. The theme was ‘post-colonial legacies’

‘What did it mean ?’ I asked Barbara. She said that it was about slavery. About stuff the British had done to the world.

I said ‘Might it be about second sons of English landowners going out into the newly colonised world and planting vineyards. I was thinking of George Wyndham’s journey to New South Wales in 1827 from Dinton House (now NT’s Philipps House in Wiltshire). The legacy being Wyndham Hunter Valley wines..( now available in Morrisons and similar supermarkets). Barbara was not keen…best not to put a positive gloss on things.

The classical portico of Dinton House (renamed Philipps House) in Wiltshire. George Wyndham left here in the 1820s and travelled to New South Wales and began the Australian wine industry. He named the house he built there Dalwood after the farm on the edge of Dinton Park.

Archaeology gives us a glimpse down the deep tunnel of time.. gives us various perspectives.

Here we are… 2 days after Brexit. A little island on the edge of Europe.

2000 years ago, the Romans thought us as wild and distant. A good source of slaves and hunting dogs ‘These things, accordingly, are exported from the island, as also hides, and slaves, and dogs that are by nature suited to the purposes of the chase’ (Strabo c. AD10-20)

Just 400 years later, Britain had become integrated into the Roman Empire and the landscape was peppered with Roman villas and towns.

Bit of a shock when the Roman army left and the Emperor Honorius rejected the Brits appeal for help… and told us to look after ourselves.

How did Britannia cope? Most people think that things caved in pretty quickly in the 5th century. However, over Christmas, I did some post-excavation work on Chedworth Roman Villa and found a radiocarbon date from a foundation trench that suggests that wealthy owners in Gloucestershire were still commissioning new mosaics 50 years after Honorius’s letter.

Could this be true? Nancy has sent off some bone from the same context to get a back-up date. What remained of the Roman Empire in Britain? What did the Romans do for us…..and what did the Britains do to the world….and what happened when we left…did we ever leave?…did the Romans ever leave Britain? perhaps yes..and then again no. There is always a post-colonial legacy.

The whole point of this ramble is to take you to New Zealand.

There was a gap in the blog in October because Janet and I went around the world. We stopped in Canada on the way out and Australia on the way back.

The idea is to blog our road trip and link New Zealand places to National Trust places. We’ll see if it works..

Joiners, Barrington & White Barrow NT125

Remember 1995 and the National Trust’s centenary celebrations ?

In the SW, at Corfe Castle, after 349 years, huge blocks of the Civil War demolished 11th century Keep… were slid to one side to reopen the Inner Ward gate;

The gantry built across the 80 ton Keep west wall that fell and blocked the Inner Ward gate in 1646. All visitors once had to negotiate the narrow gap over the demolished curtain wall until 1995

at Kingston Lacy, we excavated the gateway of Shapwick’s 4th century Roman fort (a surprise, it was thought to be 1st century) and the storage pits and ditches of the Iron Age settlement beneath.

The 3.5m deep inner ditch of the triple ditched 4.5 hectare 4th century fort or ‘burgh’ at Shapwick part excavated in September 1995.

Now the National Trust celebrates 125 years of existence and it’s appropriate to quote the Director -General in the opening page of the 2020 handbook.

‘On 12th January 1895, The National Trust was founded. Home to 100 members paying ten shillings each, the organisation looked after 4 1/2 acres of land at Dinas Oleu in North Wales. Our first President, the Duke of Westminster, told co-founder Octavia Hill

‘mark my words Miss Hill, this is going to be a very big thing’

He was right..’.. there are over 5.9 million members now and NT now cares for over 610,000 acres.

Although the South West cannot claim the first property or building to be owned by the National Trust it does have one or two milestone places.

For a while, this growing, fledgling, conservation charity was able to acquire one or two small significant buildings under threat.

The earliest of these, in the South West Region, (Alfriston Clergy House in Sussex was the first in 1896) was the timber framed and flint cellared Joiners Hall in St Ann’s Street, Salisbury (acquired in 1898). It dates from the late 16th century but the property, with its long thin back garden occupies the footprint of two of the 13th century merchants’ burgage plots of the medieval city.

Joiners Hall Salisbury

Then there was stone-built Tintagel Old Post Office in Cornwall acquired in 1903, over 600 years old ‘a medieval manor house in mininature’.

In the early days, the NT had nothing to do with mansions and parklands, which is strange of course because it seems to have become best known for this kind of thing. The truth being, that the organisation did not have the finances to cope with them.

This was until 1905 when Miss Julia Woodward purchased a huge Tudor mansion and estate at Barrington Court in South Somerset for the NT.

The south sides of Barrington Court on the right and Strode House on the left. Barrington is an early 16th century mansions overlying a medieval manor house which the architect Forbes found traces of during the building works of the 1920s. Strode House is a significant 17th century stable block converted into accommodation in the 1920s. Quite a new responsibility for NT in 1907.

One of the NT’s founders Canon Rawnsley visited a seriously delapidated Barrington in the 1890s and tried to persuade the organisation to take an interest. The mansion came on the market in 1904 and the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) were concerned by the news that the building might be dismantled and the stone reassembled in Kent. They wanted the place to remain where it was and joined the campaign to persuade NT to acquire Barrington. The response was a request for SPAB to survey the builldings to find out how much it would cost to protect the historic fabric. The architect William Weir carried out the survey and found it basically sound.

After much deliberation, the National Trust accepted the gift from Miss Woodward in July 1907. However, it was soon realised that the amount that had been found for restoration was hopelessly inadequate, and the problem made such an impression on the National Trust Secretary Nigel Bond that even 30 years later (with the exception of Montacute House in 1931, also in South Somerset) he greeted any suggestion of preserving a large house with “We can’t possibly take it on: Remember Barrington!” (Freya Bohea, 2020, Barrington Court Conservation Management Plan,).

1907 was a key year: Octavia Hill and Hardwicke Rawnsley have already been mentioned but the third NT founder Sir Robert Hunter made his particular mark in that year. A talented solicitor and civil servant, he guided a bill through parliament which enabled the National Trust to have a unique ability. The 1907 Act allows NT properties to become inalienable, meaning that they cannot be sold, mortgaged or even compulsorily purchased by the government (without a debate in Parliament). A great asset for long term conservation …..but making land inalienable is a big, long, long term responsibility.

In 1908, holding repairs were commissioned for Barrington but to care for the building properly a wealthy tenant was required.

Colonel Lyle’s gardens at Barrington to Gertrude Jekyll’s designs.

Colonel Lyle first saw Barrington in 1915 when his architect friend James Edwin Forbes made him aware of the property. From 1921-1925 Lyle’s money (Tate and Lyle sugar) enabled the property to be re-visioned..and 100 yrs on, their work is a significant page in the story of this amazing place encapsulated in Freya’s new conservation plan for the property.

The gardens laid out in the 20s were to the plans of Gertrude Jekyll though not all of her designs were carried out.

To the south, there is a wide lawn, the intricate paths and garden bedding illustrated by Jekyll never materialised. I carried out a geophysical survey there in 2000 and found the pattern of earlier garden features (17th century?) beneath the grass, I had watched a pipe trench across the lawn and saw the layers of archaeology over 1m deep beneath it. Traces of flagstones and footings at the deepest level may have been medieval. Pottery and bone in the layers above dated from the medieval to 18th century.

The water pipe trench across the South Lawn in 2000 which yielded pottery and animal bone dating from the medieval to 18th centuries.

So Barrington was the first NT mansion and park and in 1909, the Neolithic long barrow known as the White Barrow at Tilshead, Salisbury Plain was the first National Trust property acquired specifically because it was an archaeological site requiring conservation protection. Today it is one unploughed island in a much ploughed landscape.

The White Barrow on Salisbury Plain, the earliest purely archaeological NT acquisition.

In the same year Leigh Woods was gifted to the National Trust to protect it from housing development from rapidly expanding Bristol. The Iron Age hilfort of Burgh Walls Camp was levelled at this time but Stokeleigh Camp at Leigh Woods remains a fine earthwork with amazing views out over the Avon Gorge.

LiDAR survey carried out for National Trust by Arc Heritage showing the Iron Age hillfort beneath the trees of Leigh Woods protected by National Trust from the expansion of Bristol since 1909.

The 1910 acquisition of parts of Cheddar Gorge was to protect this extraordinary landscape from the advances of carboniferous limestone quarrying. Much the same as Piggledene near Avebury where the sarsen stone deposits were being worked over and removed for building stone until 1908 when this sliver of land was purchased by National Trust.

Similar needs for conservation have created the National Trust Estate over the last 125 years…. part of the Stonehenge Estate in 1927, Chedworth Roman Villa 1924 and the Cerne Abbas Giant in 1920.

In this the centenary year of the Giant acquisition ….we will attempt to date him… so watch this space.

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Hidcote: The Far North

Hoarfrost in 2010 along the trees which line the field containing the medieval building earthworks.

Recently, things have been happening in the far north – so- as the last hours of the decade fade away it is time to visit a place this blog hasn’t been to before.

Hidcote is the very last bit of Gloucestershire.

Looking across the border into Worcestershire at the north end of the Hidcote Estate. The rainbow crosses Meon Hill in the centre of the photo which is the local Iron Age hillfort.

Immediately across the National Trust’s Hidcote boundary lies Warwickshire and the Midlands.

It is still just within the Cotswolds but it is further north than Chipping Campden where the Cotswold Way begins (See CW1-CW8). Anyway, it takes 2.5 hours to drive there from southern Wiltshire so I usually need a good excuse to go.

The National Trust acquired Hidcote from Major Lawrence Johnston in 1948. By this time, Johnston had created a nationally significant Arts and Crafts inspired garden. He purchased Hidcote Bartrim in October 1907 and gradually created a series of extraordinary garden rooms…though there was a necessary gardening gap 1914-18.

It is the garden that visitors come to see but this is a landscape full of archaeology and in the last few weeks new things have been discovered.

Meg researched the Estate, walking the surrounding fields and plumbing the depths of the archives to complete the National Trust Historic Landscape and Archaeological Survey for the property in 2014. The sites she identified can be found by searching National Trust Heritage Records Online.

The long winter shadows ripple across the undulations of the common field farming system. This was one large arable field with villagers working scattered strips (the ridges) with their neighbours. I guess there were chats.. when they rested… as we do today.. down the allotment, over the garden fence. How did you cope with that late frost…too much rain… not enough…what happened to the summer this year?

The survey demonstrated that Hidcote has the very best classic medieval ridge and furrow in the whole of NT South West (granted these earthworks are more of a Midland thing).

Meg found that Hidcote was a settlement recorded in William I’s Domesday survey of 1086 so it had been occupied at least since the Saxon period (there is a Saxon charter which mentions Hidcote dated AD 716! …but its authenticity is disputed).

However, there are two Hidcotes. Hidcote Bartrim is the NT bit with Hidcote Boyce a kilometre down the valley to the south. In history they are often confused.

The stone buildings are likely to occupy ancient sites and a group of earthworks in a neighbouring field are probably medieval house foundations. This suggests that the village was once much larger and has declined in importance over time.

The Hill Barn at Hidcote

Fieldwalking in the 1990s, found many bits of debris including Roman pottery and this was collected and plotted onto maps.

This year Judith will write the Hidcote Conservation Managment Plan.She will weigh the entire property in the conservation balance and filter out its significances (in consultation of course).

Chris the General Manager asked what additional archaeological work could be commissioned to support the CMP.

LiDAR, Geophysical Survey and Building Analysis were suggested and this was agreed.

Soon we were walking across the large arable field south of the village with Professor Dyer where he talked through the results of the fieldwalking he had carried out 20 years earlier. He pointed out a couple of areas where there were particular concentrations of finds. Some pottery was prehistoric but most of the sherds were Romano British dating from the 1st to 4th centuries. He also found the rare Post-Roman grass-tempered wares near the stream in the centre of the field.

Later, we walked around the village with Ian the building specialist: the farmhouse; the cottages; the ranges of outbuildings. We examined the clues in the building fabric and discussed similarities and differences in style. The shells of the buildings may be several hundred years old but they have been modified over time. The village is now rather picturesque..like a film set, designed for something essentially English… adapted in an arts and crafts style..probably during Johnston’s time but possibly in the late 19th century.

We wandered down an alley and turned a corner and Ian spotted a complete single light window carved out of a block of stone and reused in a wall. Roman? he wondered….seemed unlikely.

People had suggested that the scatter of chipped and broken pottery in the field could be the result of kitchen waste….gathered somewhere else… then mixed with manure and scattered. Could there really be a villa or farmstead lurking beneath the ploughsoil? Perhaps our newly commissioned fieldwork will detect something there.

So… the LiDAR has been flown and the report will arrive in the next couple of months. The building analysis is about to start ….but… the geophysical survey is complete.

The field with the earthwork house platforms and the arable field to the south have been covered using magnetometry. Earth resistance takes longer and is more expensive to survey and therefore this was concentrated where archaeology showed up on the magnetometry or as undulations in the ground.

Martin, the geophysicist contacted me after the magnetometry survey. ‘The field is full of archaeology’ he said. The plot shows a tangled web of geophysical anomalies. There are all sorts of phases of activity going on.. and as one might expect…it is concentrated where Professor Dyer’s fieldwalking highlighted areas of Roman building debris and pottery.

Part of the survey plot of Hidcote carried out by Tigergeo. Earlier mainly Roman? enclosures and building remains have been cut across by the later medieval strip fields ‘ridge and furrow’ these linear ploughing strips are arranged in parallel blocks or ‘furlongs’ mainly crossing the image from top to bottom but the furlong strips top right run from left to right. For scale this magnetometry survey
plot is 250m wide

So Hidcote…in the far north, beyond the Cotswold Way, you are far more than a beautiful garden. Already elderly at the time of the Domesday Survey, you have revealed yourself to be a long favoured place to live….. soaked in archaeological deep time.

We await the LiDAR.

Dyrham LiDAR 2

Dyrham House from the statue of Neptune above the park.

Last time, I wrote about the way the aerial scanning of the ground from a plane can produce high resolution digital terrain models which can reveal patterns of faint earthworks. These are impossible to see through aerial photography or visually on the ground, even in low sunlight.

I also mentioned the way that tree cover could be filtered out to see just the ground surface beneath the trees.

LiDAR is short for Light Detection and Ranging and these digital images are best interpreted by comparing them with other layers of information.

Modern digital mapping allows different imaging sources to be superimposed and by using percentages of transparency, the chronology and phasing of earthworks revealed by LiDAR can be better understood.

I will do this by using the LiDAR that the National Trust commissioned for Dyrham Park. A property which lies between Bristol and Bath in South Gloucestershire.

The LiDAR survey of Dyrham Park. The site of the mansion and West Garden lies at the bottom of the valley centre left. The lines of old medieval open field strips can be seen middle right

Briefly, Dyrham is a landscape park occupying an amphitheathre of natural terrain with the great late 17th century mansion occupying the valley floor beside a medieval church. The church demonstrates that manor houses have occupied this favoured spot since the Domesday survey of 1086. Archaeological fieldwork has demonstrated that there has been significant Roman and prehistoric occupation at this location.

LiDAR plot zoomed in to central area of the park. The Old Lodge area middle right.

The LiDAR plot of the whole park shows that the deer park here was enclosed out of a medieval open field system and that no cultivation has taken place for over 400 years. The plough ridges, arable strips and furlongs remain from the last year of ploughing frozen in time.

The farm buildings in the centre of the park have structures dating to the later 18th and 19th centuries shown on the modern aerial photograph.

A modern air photo of the ‘Old Lodge’ farm buildings within the park

However, if you upload the LiDAR and fade out the photo you can see that the present buildings do not relate to earlier earthworks though there is a focal significance to the area in which the buildings stand.

Air photo faded to show LiDAR earthwork detail beneath

Notice the three broad linear features radiating out from this place, a little above where the present buildings stand. These must be quite old as these linears are cut across by trackways and other features.

A 17th century map shows an earlier lodge near this location. This was the keepers house built at the division between the rabbit warren to the upper left and the deer park to the right.

Another layer to be georeferenced and compared with the LiDAR would be a geophysical survey which would show how vague surface earthworks might relate to anomalies detected beneath the ground.

Another quick comparison would be to compare historic maps with the LiDAR. Here the 1921 edition of the Dyrham Ordnance Survey maps is made transparent above the LiDAR. Notice how the trackway heading from the buildings continues towards the top centre respects a large rectilinear earthwork but does not show what it is.

The next slide shows the 1892 OS map over the LiDAR. In less than 30 years the size of changes can be seen. The site of the aviary is not shown in 1921 and in 1892 the enclosures surrounding the farm buildings were more extensive.

So the basic data of the LiDAR provides a great insight into the historic earthworks of a piece of land but it takes time to test them against all available sources and sift out the potential information that might lie there.

The Stourhead LiDAR

Whatever next?

When Archaeology takes advantage of new techniques, whole new landscapes of information emerge.

One of the most exciting developments in recent years has been Light Detection and Ranging or LiDAR for short. Using a drone or an aircraft, pulsed light signals are sent using a laser. When linked to a scanner and a global position system (GPS), It can create an ultra-fine 3D record of the ground surface over wide areas.

The boundary of the National Trust’s Stourhead Estate in South Wiltshire. Whitesheet Hill is on the edge top right. Stourhead Park and mansion, garden, lake and Stourton village are lower centre. Park Hill Camp hillfort lies in woodland centre left.

In large surveys, millions of light points are plotted and tied to existing mapping with the GPS. Each point has its unique XYZ position… latitude, longitude and height above the datum level.

The total Stourhead survey area tilted slightly to show the contours covering roughly the same area as the map above. Whitesheet Hill on the right The hillfort faintly visible on the lower right hand edge. To the left, two valleys separate a ridge which has Park Hill Camp hillfort near the middle.

The Environment Agency has been using this technology for years and have made their data freely available. A quick visual link can be seen here https://houseprices.io/lab/lidar/map. This survey data was collected mainly to predict levels of flooding and consequently it tends to be concentrated along valleys and coasts. It has given good results but the detail tends to be at 1.0m resolution or in the better areas 0.5m. The best quality is 0.25m density of coverage.

There are still large gaps in the land area currently covered by LiDAR and therefore the National Trust is commissioning its own surveys at 0.25m.

In the South West, there are new surveys for the Bristol and North Somerset properties, the Bath and Dyrham properties and most recently the data has arrived for the Stourhead Estate in South Wiltshire. Bluesky collects the data and it is analysed by ArcHeritage who provide the baseline digital imagery in various forms as well as the core GPS files.Their report picks up many new sites which have now been uploaded onto the NT Historic Buildings Sites and Monuments Record. This is not the end: new archaeological sites can still be discovered by further manipulation of the data combined with other information sources.

The LiDAR data can be uploaded into the digital mapping system and then it can be overlaid as a layer on digitised historic maps, onto geophysical surveys and onto aerial photographs. It is so easy these days to zoom in an out of maps and also to fade one layer of information and then see another in direct relation to it.

Detail of Whitesheet Hill causewayed enclosure. Four round barrows can be seen along its bottom edge all with little dimples in the top where the owner of Stourhead Estate, Richard Colt Hoare, excavated them in he early 19th century. One at the lower left hand edge of the plot was cut by a chalk quarry in the 19th century. Close examination of the plot shows phases of trackways and faint embankments.

A great ability of LiDAR is to fell forests and woods (virtually) to see the ground surface beneath. Something impossible with air photography.

Imagine the light pulses from the aircraft like rain falling on the ground. Some will bounce off the tree tops (the first returns) but many will hit the ground below the tree canopy (the second returns). There are systems to filter out the first returns so that only the ground can be seen. It is why I always ask for surveys to be done in the winter when the leaves have fallen from the trees and the ground surface can be most clearly surveyed.

Park Hill Camp from the air surrounded by conifer plantations. In the last 10 years the National Trust has gradually removed the trees from the scheduled monument. The LiDAR defines the earthworks in a better way than can be seen by aerial photography when trees interrupt the view (see below)

Stourhead’s Park Hill Camp Iron Age hillfort has been covered in trees for many years making it difficult to see. Over a number of years, gradually, the National Trust has been clearing the woodland and bringing it back to grass. The LiDAR survey has enabled the ramparts and ditches to be clearly seen as well as showing its strategic position on the ridge top unimpeded by the conifer plantations that surround it.

The ramparts and ditches of Park Hill Camp Iron Age hillfort revealed by the LiDAR survey.

Another great thing: the LiDAR light point cloud is three dimensional and this enables a digital terrain model to be created. This can be viewed on its own or it is possible to drape aerial photographs and/or historic maps across it…as though the map or photograph has become a gigantic cloth thrown over the contours of the landscape. There is now the ability to screen- fly through the Stourhead landscape switching on or off other layers of information while weaving up the valleys or skimming over the hillfort ramparts.

Stourhead Lake (bottom) and the position of Park Hill Camp Iron Age hillfort clearly revealed on the ridge top between two valleys. This area is planted with trees and this vantage point of the fortification would not normally be appreciated.

During a bright winter day, low sunlight will traverse the landscape bringing different shadows in sharp relief and revealing new details. LiDAR analysis can introduce its own light source and the survey plot can be re-generated.. with the light source at any angle and direction. This shows up very faint archaeological earthworks when the light source is beamed from a particular direction.

The LiDAR survey shows the quality of surviving archaeology and reveals where conservation should be concentrated across the Stourhead Estate.

This image looks down to the arable land from the hillfort and causewayed enclosure on Whitesheet Hill. On the lower land, the earthworks have been almost levelled by modern ploughing but old quarries can be seen clustered, where stone outcrops on a low hill, and faint traces of prehistoric ‘celtic fields’ can be seen.

The Stourhead farmland, ploughed for many 100s of years, has lost much of its archaeology but the survey still shows traces of medieval and prehistoric agriculture and traces of buried enclosures suggesting settlement remains below the ploughsoil….(though much worn down buried pits and ditches will survive).

However, there is fine earthwork survival in Stouhead Park and on Whitesheet HIll.

The prehistoric earthworks on Whitesheet Hill show up very clearly: the Iron Age hillfort to the south, the Neolithic Causewayed enclosure in the middle and the other enclosure (also probably Neolithic) to the north and in between Late Bronze Age cross ridge dykes, Early Bronze Age round barrows and medieval pillow mounds all crossed by banks, trackways and quarries of various periods.

Whitesheet Hill: LiDAR shows the ramparts and ditches of the Iron Age hillfort (c.300BC) at the bottom. The three rectangles are modern reservoirs just east of the National Trust boundary. A cross-ridge dyke (c.1000 BC) divides the narrow downland ridge separating the hillfort from the Neolithic causewayed enclosure (c.3600BC) which has a Bronze Age round barrow (c.2000BC) built over its southern edge and across its north side runs the old cattle drove road from the the west towards Salisbury and then on to London. Further along the down to the north (the upper edge of the plot), is another faint enclosure (c.3000 BC) of similar size to the causewayed enclosure (this site has been ploughed in the 20th century but can be seen clearly on the LiDAR).

The parkland is a very precious survival. The ridge and furrow of medieval open field furlongs was fossilised when the park for the mansion house was created. This must have happened before 1722 which is the date of our earliest map of the park.

The 1722 Stourhead Estate map (Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office). The newly built Stourhead House is centre right. The north-east corner of the park is Spencers Mead. The strip fields and curving enclosure ditch shown on the LiDAR lie within this field and Slade Mead below. Buildings in red between these fields were demolished in the late 18th century, the building sites lie where there are earthworks shown on the LiDAR image below.

Near the Stourhead House and near the landscaped garden obelisk are two turbulent areas of earthworks, outside the areas of agriculture and therefore places already occupied ….before the open fields were created it seems.

One of these, east of the House, is likely to be the site of the medieval Stourton Castle..demolished when the present mansion was created in the early 18th century. The other area near the obelisk is a mystery… the LiDAR raises many new archaeological questions…. wonderful.

Next year the Cotswolds and Hidcote NT properties will have LiDAR We await the results with anticipation…what new Roman sites lies beneath Chedworth woods……

The site of the present Stourhead House is lower centre. The buildings show as triangles. Top right is the NE corner of the present park where a large oval enclosure (prehistoric?) underlies the regular furlong blocks of strip fields divided by trackways (this is just grass not visible on the ground). Centre right and NE of Stourhead House is an area of earthworks likely to be the site of the medieval Stourton Castle. At the left edge of the picture is another grouping of mixed earthworks, perhaps an early settlement to the right of the mound with the 18th century obelisk monument on it.

Reprofiling on Purbeck Heath

Last week I woke up in an Edwardian smallpox hospital and pulled the curtains to look out at ponies grazing on heather. This was the NT holiday cottage we lived in while reprofiling a Bronze Age Bell Barrow on Godlingston Heath.

The Isolation Hospital near the Three Barrows and Half Way Inn, Middlebere

The isolation hospital consisted of two black corrugated iron buildings surrounded by apple trees and a red phone box…. in idyllic surroundings.

Now that the badgers had moved on and not returned for several years, our task was to redistribute the spoil from the badger setts so that the profile of the bell barrow could be restored. This would enable an even curving profile so that the monument could be covered in mesh. The work would protect the scheduled monument from any new burrowing activity.

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  The Bell Barrow on Godlingston Heath before we started showing the grassed over badger sett spoil heaps.

Good conservation practice… to preserve the 4,000 year old archaeological stratigraphy as a time vault against further disturbance.

Technology changes all the time and future researchers may have techniques we can only dream of… to help understand the evidence of past lives encapsulated in this place.

The short drive from the cottage took us past the ruins of Corfe Castle and along the north side of the Purbeck Hills. We arrived in a very scenic lay-by. From here there are sweeping views across heathland to Poole Harbour and Brownsea Island.

We unloaded the tools, heaved them over a fence, piled them into a wheelbarrow and pushed them downhill to the barrow. The other three barrows in this group (two other bells and a bowl) had been meshed a few years ago …but this one had been left. At that time it was too difficult because it had been so heavily dug into. We had extra Countryside Stewardship funding and could complete the work now.

The barrow from the lay-by showing the landscape towards Studland Heath and Poole Harbour

The south-west half of the barrow was in perfect condition. A very fine example of an Early Bronze Age bell barrow built c.2100-1900 BC; with its 30m diameter encircling quarry ditch, around a raised level berm 3m wide, surrounding a 2m high and 19m diameter central mound.

We soon found out why the badgers had chosen the north-east side for their home. This was the side which was sheltered …protected from the wind. We followed the badgers’ example and set up the stove and kettle here.. the best place a for tea break ..where we could admire the view.

It turned out that reprofiling the site was not such a simple task…further help was needed. The now grassed over burrow heaps were full of tussocks. A hefty mattock blow merely bounced off them. Each tuft needed to be worked around, undermined and then torn from the ground. Below this was black, dry, fine sand.

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  The mound profile taking shape with the spoil heaps smoothed to create an even curve

A new problem.. the constant wind whipped the sand into eyes and lungs. Nancy brought us face masks and goggles. The rangers called out the Purbeck Heritage Archaeological Rangers (HART) volunteers. Then the Wednesday group came to the rescue. We saw them park in the lay-by and approach in single file down through the bracken and gorse.

Afternoon break required a trip up to the ice-cream van in the lay-by… and the careful loading of a bucket with tubs of vanilla, rum and raisin and toffee crunch ice creams.

As the days went by… the ice cream man began to ask questions ..to discover what was going on… why did this dirty, sand-blackened man with goggle shaped clean patches rise up out of the blackberry and gorse each day?

Over time, I became less self-conscious; walking the line of lay-by cars, bucket in hand, briefly blocking the views of their occupants and trying not to catch their questioning eyes as they licked their 99s.

There was cutting the turf.. stacking it…digging the sand and re-moulding the mound… filling the buckets and carrying them to the top… where the sievers were.

A self-selected sexism evolved. The women took the buckets from the men and sieved the badger spoil…. I told tales of the Wessex Culture.. jet and amber beads… barbed and tanged flint arrowheads.. bronze daggers… the soil too acid here for bone to survive.

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  Sieving the soil on top of the barrow mound with goggles and masks against the sand whipped up by the wind.

We found….a fragment of red plastic…just one…..not even a struck flint, just natural gravel and conglomerate red-brown Heathstone fragments. The badgers seemed not to have struck the central burial deposit and scattered the finds.

With thanks to everyone working together… our barrow achieved its proper shape and a few days later the mesh was laid. The grass and heather will grow up through the mesh and gradually it will draw it against the mound. It will take a few years to become completely hidden beneath the sward.

We carried out geophysical surveys across the whole group in 2012.

I pointed to the horizon and told the group of the six barrows I found when I first surveyed this area in 1987. Three low mounds could be seen on the hill top beyond the golf course. Nobody had spotted them before…except perhaps the soldiers training there in WWII. The mounds are punctuated by a scattered group of slit trenches dug along the ridge top in the 1940s.

The place is remote and difficult to get to. I hadn’t been there for years… but we finished early on the last day. and there was just time to take up a ranging pole and some loppers and push through the undergrowth. I crossed the stream and skirted the golf course.. stepping through marshland and then up through the heather towards my destination.

This place is so primal….when I got there, a recent heathland fire had scorched the heather and accentuated the wilderness. Somwehere… blackened and out of time.

The contours of the sweeping crescent of six barrows were very clear on the skyline… carefully designed by their ancient builders to be seen from all directions as a monument to their ancestors.

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  One of the six barrows covered by fire-blackened heather and cut by a WWII slit trench with Poole Harbour in the background.

I cut some gorse stalks and took some photos..enjoyed the isolation and viewscape for a moment and turned back to civilisation.. who knows if I will come here again.

 

 

Killerton’s Roman Fort

I wrote something earlier in the year about a potential Roman fort on the Killerton Estate near Exeter, Devon.

In 1984, an aerial photograph had shown a triple-ditched ‘playing card’ shaped enclosure which looked like the plan of a typical Roman fort.

The field cut on the east by the M5 and on the south by the quarry. Killerton House lies away to the left of the picture to the west. If you look carefully at the image you might see the darker lines of the potential fort first recognised in 1984. The corner of the orchard field jutting into the large field top left cuts across the corner of the fort-like ditches.

A group of us had walked across a neighbouring ploughed field and found no Roman finds.. but we resolved to reconvene in August and test the site with our National Trust geophysical survey equipment.

Here are the results of our three day investigation. Dave with his Fluxgate Gradiometer and Fi with the Killerton NT Heritage Archaeological Ranger Team (HART), wielding the Earth Resistance Meter.

Earth resistance survey of the field with members of the HART team.

The site lies under a huge grass field which is cut on the east by the M5 motorway and on the south side by a deep quarry.

We made our baseline the row of telegraph poles that crossed the field. The pole in the middle became our zero point and from there we marked out the 20m grid and began walking up and down with our machines.

After a while, Dave reported extremely high readings across the middle of the site and we wondered why a helicopter hovered over us. On the second day a British Gas official climbed through a hedge and asked what we were doing. Apparently an important gas main runs through the field and is constantly monitored to prevent intrusive activity which might disrupt the supply.

The fluxgate magnetometer plot of the field with the gas pipeline clearly visible from right to left and the water pipe running top to bottom along the left hand edge. The edge of the quarry bottom left. North is at the top

I reassured him that we were not going to excavate the site and then asked whether any archaeological recording was done when the pipeline was constructed through the field. Too long ago for such annoying things to be considered it seemed and he left us with a leaflet.

Derek reached down and plucked some fungus from the grass. ‘Field mushrooms’ he said ‘try these for breakfast’.

I drove round the field for a camping site. There was much sloping ground but I settled for the top end ..where the ground was level and sheltered by woodland.

From here, the advantage of the place became extremely clear. Huge views all around with only Dolbury hillfort occupying the higher ground along the spur to the north west.

Stuart visited us on the third day because of his interest in Devon Roman forts. He told us about his experience of finding a vicus (settlement) outside the fort at Okehampton near Dartmoor to the west.

This was one of a chain of forts, constructed in the 40s AD, marking the route of the Roman army as it captured territory from the peoples of what are now Devon, Somerset and Dorset… pacifying the wild west…. with the fortress of the II Legion Augusta established at Exeter.

We wondered whether other lines shown on the Killerton 1984 photo might relate to an Iron Age settlement pre-dating the fort. Alternatively, the lines may be the remains of structures constructed by people attracted to the fort in order to trade with.. and offer services to the soldiers.

I mentioned that fieldwalking had produced nothing here which could be dated to the Roman period. His reply was reassuring. Okehampton was much the same, despite careful excavation only a few scraps of 1st century Roman pottery were found in the beam slots and ditches of the settlement.

Another thing that bothered us was the lack of entrances. There was a good shape to our triple-ditched enclosure but no clear gaps. Gates should be found in the centre of at least two or usually all four sides of a Roman fort.

We worked hard and the HART team are now good surveyors and will go back and do some more of the field in the near future. Geophysics is like fishing.. you are never sure of the results until you land the catch… or the readings are downloaded and seen on the computer screen.

The survey plot after processing. The three fort ditches can be seen and a gap through them at the bottom part of the survey can be seen 3 grids in from the left. North is at the top of the plot.

The magnetometry had been seriously affected by the huge steel gas pipeline and to a lesser extent by a water pipe. The sky-high ferrous readings bleached out the subtle responses from the archaeology. However, following ‘despiking’ and using various other processes on the Geoplot programme, the fort defences gradually emerged …and there, on the south side, near the centre was a clear entrance though the three ditches.

The earth resistance survey north at the top. Grids 20m square. The area within the fort ditches is about 140m long and 80m wide

Parts of the enclosure circuit were visible on both types of geophysical survey plot and this now confirms Killerton’s Roman fort. The 1984 image wasn’t the result of some curiously appropriate plough pattern but in fact (which was more likely) demonstrated real archaeological features cut into the bedrock almost 2000 years ago.

Where I camped….. on the north end of the fort, the ditches were shown to continue under the woodland into the neighbouring field.

I fried and ate the mushrooms there…early one morning, watching the sun rise out of the Blackdown Hills, listening to the bells ring from the cupola on the Killerton House stable block…. and Derek was right… they were the best I have ever tasted.

Long Bredy, The Cleaning of Bones

This week: the LiDAR survey report for the Stourhead Estate was completed; at Chedworth we understood the drains; a meeting at Brean Down gave context to a 65,000 year old horse’s tooth, and, on the northernmost edge of the South West Region… geophysics has begun to provide evidence for the origins of Hidcote.

Wonderful stuff.. and all for future consideration, but my heart is still at Long Bredy and our recent excavations there.

I walk on past the parish church, and up, steeply, through the pasture field to the Ridgeway’s western edge. The sheep watch the figure follow the spine of Martins Down bank barrow. Stopping to enjoy the wide fading landscape, out across Golden Cap to Start Point. Then back through a field of ripening wheat and down a deep grassy hollow-way, back past the church to my tent. Everything glowing red in the setting sun, every strand of grass richly pink and the wool strands hanging sharply in the wire.

Looking towards Long Bredy church from the hollow-way

One day, when it seemed that we would run out of time. A long day of mattocking, barrowing.. collecting fragments of flint and small sherds of red-black pot. Level after level of 5cm spits of soil. I came back to continue on into the evening and Rob said he would too …but the energy was gone… we exchanged glances and eventually stopped, limply putting the tools away.

The cluster of large stones overlying the burials cut by the 2013 pipeline

The next morning, the lumpy surface turned into a cluster of large stones and we began to carefully lift them one by one. Each stone covered human remains, broken and impacted by their weight over the millennia. Three crushed skulls and a jumble of long bones.Yellow and fragile mixed with soil and roots. The roots looking like bones and intermingled with them. A trowel, a plastic spatula, a pair of secateurs and a fine brush.

A view of the three skeletons looking north

Then the cleaning of bones. A long quiet day, crouched in a trench in a field. Nothing else, just the gentle loosening of soil around them. The initial shock and concern.. then yielding to beauty. The realisation of practical creative design, every curve and facet. A broken pair of shins is exposed; delicate, hard and finely formed. You stroke your own, feel the tibia below the warm skin. Then the softer bones of the feet, a jumble of tarsals. Extraordinary heel bones and the wonder of toes.

The northern teenager with feet and legs bent above the head.

We brought back the bones, gathered from the 2013 pipe trench. We took away a few small fragments for DNA and strontium isotope analysis. Once we had cleaned them, Clare came and analysed the skeletons. Two teenagers, one with head to north and one with head to south. One tightly bound and face down, one doubled with feet above the head and the third, a young adult, crouched, the last to be buried. Most of this one gone after the JCB struck six years ago.

A dry fortnight ..but as we packed up it started to rain.. though by that time Nancy had protected the skeletons. Carefully covered, then placed them under a blanket of sieved soil. The stones were put back in place and then Clive brought the digger and pushed the spoil back over the trench. The flint and chert flakes and tools, the pottery and the animal fragments together with the samples from these three 2700-2800 year old people will all tell more of the story.

We will wait, and in the mean time…

I will appreciate the intricacies of my feet.

 

Cerne, Corfe, Badbury & Alfred’s Tower: Legends in the Landscape

This is another from the NT SW pages and can be found on

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/legends-in-the-landscape

Places have meanings and stories that are deeply rooted. These may not be backed up by written documents but tales are passed down through generations. Sometimes monuments are built to confirm the rumour of events that happened, of associations with famous people or to symbolise a sacred place. The National Trust cares for many of these mythical locations. Here are some in Wessex.

The Cerne Abbas Giant

First the Cerne Abbas Giant in deepest Dorset. Is he the celtic god Cernunnus, the Roman classical god Hercules, or a 17th century cartoon of Oliver Cromwell? There are strong backers for each theory. Should we date him? There is a method that could do it. Would it be better not to know and keep the mystery?

Cerne Giant 

Ancient naked figure sculpted into the chalk hillside above Cerne Abbas

Glastonbury Tor

Glastonbury is full of legends and the Tor stands like a beacon in the Isle of Avalon. Was Joseph of Arimathea here? Did he bring the Holy Grail and bury it at Chalice Well below the Tor? Many believe, and come to drink the spring waters.

Glastonbury Tor 

Prominent hill overlooking the Isle of Avalon, Glastonbury and Somerset

Corfe Castle

On the site of Corfe Castle in 978 it is said that young King Edward visited his stepmother, but she had him murdered to make her own son Aethelred the king in his place. Edward’s body was thrown down a well and a shaft of light located the place. Water from the well was said to heal the eyes. The legend is preserved on the Purbeck Estate by Edward’s Cottage towards Wareham.

Corfe Castle, Dorset 

Dominating the village below it, the dramatic ruins of Corfe Castle hold many royal stories of intrigue, treachery and treason. In 978 King Edward, known as ‘the Martyr’, was believed to have been stabbed to death here, while visiting his step mother. In later years the castle became a royal prison to King John, before being reduced to ruins during the Civil War.

Badbury Rings

Badbury Rings hillfort, on the Kingston Lacy Estate, has been linked to the legend of Mount Badon. The place, where in the 5th century, Arthur led an army of Romanised Britains against the advancing Anglo Saxons and had a great victory keeping them from further conquests into Somerset, Dorset and Gloucestershire. Until AD 577 and the Battle of Dyrham.

Badbury Rings 

There’s evidence of Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman occupation at Badbury Rings, but it’s best known for the Iron Age hill fort with its three rings. There are Roman roads passing by, and Bronze Age burial mounds.

Alfred’s Tower

Places of great change, where history hung in the balance. Is Alfred’s Tower such a place? In 878, at Egbert’s Stone, on the boundaries of Dorset, Wiltshire and Somerset, King Alfred rallied a scattered army near the edge of defeat and from there won a great victory against the Danish host. This happened a few miles away near the village of Edington beyond Warminster, Wiltshire.

In 1765, Henry Hoare had built a great tower on his Stourhead Estate where he believed Egbert’s Stone to be. Visit and climb his huge structure, built on the high escarpment edge, and take in the wide views of Wessex. Without this place, would we all be speaking Danish rather than English. Who knows, but the land is full of half forgotten stories. Enjoy the mystery.