WILTSHIRE “STUDIES

The Wiltshire [Neat tcelorater! and Natural History Magazine

Volume 96 2003

CAI

The Wiltshire Archaeological :

and Natural History Magazine Volume 96 2003

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THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE VOLUME 96 (2003)

ISSN 0262 6608 © Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society and authors 2003

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, PhD, Dip.ELH, Cert Ed.

We acknowledge with thanks publication grants for this volume from the following bodies: Department of Antiquities, Ashmolean Museum (Venner-Gren Fund), for ‘Beaker Presence at Wilsford 7’, by Humphrey Case; English Heritage, for the colour pages supporting ‘From Pit Circles to Propellers: Recent Results from Aerial Survey in Wiltshire’, by Martyn Barber, Damian Grady and Helen Winton; Salisbury District Council, for ‘Neolithic Pits at the Beehive’, by Michael Heaton; Messrs Morrows (on behalf of a client), for ‘AWiltshire ‘Bog Body’?: Discussion of a Fifth/Sixth Century AD Burial in the Woodford Valley’, by Jacqueline I. McKinley; 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

Avonset, 11 Kelso Place, Upper Bristol Road, Bath BA1 3AU Printed in Great Britain

Contents

Frederick Kenneth Annable — ‘Ken’ — BA, FSA, FMA, 1922-2002: a Memoir, by Nicholas Thomas (Curator 1952-1957)

A Wiltshire ‘Bog Body’?: Discussion of a Fifth/Sixth Century AD Burial in the Woodford Valley, by Jacqueline I. McKinley

The Eyes and Ears of the Lord: Seventeenth-Century Manorial Stewards in South Wiltshire, by J.H. Bettey

Excavation of Roman Features and Deposits on the Outskirts of Cunetio (Mildenhall), Marlborough, in 1997, by Nicholas Cooke, with contributions by Moira Laidlaw and Jacqueline I. McKinley

Etruscan and Other Figurines from Avebury and Nearby, by Paul Robinson

The Trees of Savernake Forest, by Jack Oliver

Islam in East Knoyle: George Aitchison and the National School 1870-1873, by Elisabeth Darby

Neolithic Pits at the Beehive, by Michael Heaton, with contributions by Mark Corney, Sheila Hamiton-Dyer, Peter Bellamy, Peter Higgins and Ros Cleal

Dragonflies in Wiltshire - Odonata recording past, present and future, by Steve Covey The Chantry of the Holy Trinity at Hungerford, by Norman Hidden

Malmesbury Abbey and Late Saxon Parochial Development in Wiltshire, by Jonathan Pitt The Wiltshire Natural History Forum 1974-2002, by Michael Darby

‘False and Unjust Slanders’: The Duchess of Beaufort and her Daughter Quarrel over the Seymour Estate, by Molly McClain

‘A Feast of Reason and a Flow of Soul’: The Archaeological Antiquarianism of Sir Richard Colt Hoare, by David Robinson

Spiders of the Family Tetragnathidae (Araneae) in Wiltshire, by Martin Askins The Use of Beetles in Evaluating the Saproxylic Status of Savernake Forest, by Michael Darby The Friendship between Sir John Thynne junior and John, Baron Stourton of Stourton in

Wiltshire: an Account of the Provenance of the Portrait of the 10th Baron Cobham and his Family at Longleat House, by Kate Harris

19

54

63

69

77

89

98

111

129

137

143

From Pit Circles to Propellers: Recent Results from Aerial Survey in Wiltshire, by Martyn Barber, Damian Grady and Helen Winton

Beaker Presence at Wilsford 7, by Humphrey Case, with contributions by Paul Robinson and Alison Hopper-Bishop

‘A Family Chapel . . . to an Archdruid’s Dwelling’: an investigation into the stone circle at Winterbourne Bassett, Wiltshire, by Andrew David, David Field, Joerg Fassbinder, Neil Linford, Paul Linford and Andrew Payne

Notes and Shorter Contributions

Recent work on St Laurence’s Chapel, Bradford-on-Avon: an interim report, by David A. Hinton

From Tiny Seeds . . . a Correction, by Antoinnette Rawlings

A Bronze Genius figure from Badbury, by Bernard Phillips and Martin Henig Thomas Twining’s Roman Avebury, by Rick Peterson

Early Dog Collars in Wiltshire Museums, by Kenneth Rogers and Paul Robinson

A Newly Discovered Round Barrow and Proposed Dispersed Linear Cemetery at Boscombe Down West, by Bob Clarke and Colin Kirby

A mid Saxon Disc-Brooch from Upavon, by David A. Hinton

Clack Mount, by Steven Hobbs

A Curious Roof Modification at no. 47 The Close, Salisbury, by Michael Heaton Fir Clump Stone Circle — a correction, by Aubrey Burl

The Glow-worm (Lampyris noctiluca, (Linnaeus, 1758)) in Wiltshire: an Update, by Michael Darby

Steam Cultivation in Wiltshire during the First World War, Peter Donovan A Romano-British figurine of Mercury from near Durnford, by Martin Henig Breton Melchi, ‘Prince-Hound’, and Melksham, by Andrew Breeze

Excavation and Fieldwork in Wiltshire 2001

Reviews

John Bowen, The Story of Malmesbury, part 1: 500 BC - 1600 AD, by Kay S. Taylor The Picture Book of Malmesbury, by Kay S. ‘Taylor Reis, John (ed.), Plenderleath’s Memoranda of Cherhill, by Michael Marshman

Tim Couzens, Hand of Fate: the History of the Longs, Wellesleys and the Draycot Estate in Wiltshire, by Ken Rogers

Index, by Philip Aslett

148

161

195

206

206

240

The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society

The Society was founded in 1853. Its activities include the promotion of the study of archaeology (including industrial archaeology), history, natural history and architecture within the county; the issue of a Magazine, and other publications, and the maintenance of a Museum, Library, and Art Gallery. There is a programme of lectures and excursions to places of archaeological, historical and scientific interest.

The Society’s Museum contains important collections relating to the history of man in Wiltshire from earliest times to the present day, as well as the geology and natural history of the county. It is particularly well known for its prehistoric collections. The Library houses a comprehensive collection of books, articles, pictures, prints, drawings and photographs relating to Wiltshire. The Society welcomes the gift of local objects, printed material, paintings and photographs to add to the collections.

The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine is the annual journal of the Society and is issued free to its members. For information about the availability of back numbers and other publications of the Society, enquiry should be made to the Curator.

Publication by the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society does not imply that the Society endorses the views expressed; the factual content and the opinions presented herein remain the responsibility of the authors.

Notes for Contributors

Contributions for the Magazine should be on subjects related to the archaeology, history or natural history of Wiltshire. While there is no fixed length, papers should ideally be under 7,000 words, though longer papers will be considered if of sufficient importance. Shorter, note length, contributions are also welcome. All contributions should be typed/ word processed, with text on one side of a page only, with good margins and double spacing. Language should be clear and comprehensible. Contributions of article length should be accompanied by a summary of about 100 words. Please submit two copies of the text (with computer disk if possible) and clear photocopies of any illustrations to the editors at the Museum, 41 Long Street, Devizes, Wiltshire, SN10 1NS. A further copy should be retained by the author. The editors will be pleased to advise and discuss with intending contributors at any stage during the preparation of their work. When submitting text on disk, Word or Rich Text

Format files are preferred. Contributors are encouraged to seek funding from grant-making bodies towards the Society’s publication costs wherever possible.

Referencing: The Harvard System of referencing (author, date and page, in parentheses within the text) is preferred: e.g. *... one sheep and one dog lay close together (Clay 1925, 69)’. References in footnotes should be avoided if at all possible. Only give references which are directly applicable, repeating as little as possible. All references cited in the paper should be listed in the bibliography using the following style (with the journal name spelled in full, and the place and publisher of books/ monographs given):

For a paper:

PITTS, M.W. and WHITTLE, A. 1992.The development and date of Avebury. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 58, 203-12.

(Note that in citations Wiltshire Archaeological and

Natural History Magazine is abbreviated to WANHM) For a book or monograph:

SMITH, I.F., 1965, Windmill Hill and Avebury: Excavations by Alexander Keiller, 1925-39. Oxford: Clarendon Press

For a paper in a book or monograph:

FITZPATRICK, A., 1984, ‘The deposition of La Téne metalwork in watery contexts in Southern England’, in B. Cunliffe and D. Miles (eds), Aspects of the Iron Age in Central Southern Britain, 178-90. Oxford: University Committee for Archaeology

Endnotes can be used for specific information that cannot

otherwise be comfortably incorporated in the main body

of the text.

Illustrations need to be clear and easily reproducible, the format following that of the Magazine. If possible, all original artwork should not exceed A3 before reduction. Drawings should be produced on drafting film or high quality white paper using black ink. Detail and lettering should not be so small that it will become lost in reduction. Mechanical lettering (dry transfer or computer generated) is preferred over hand lettering. Photographs should be supplied as good quality black and white prints, and transparencies and colour prints avoided wherever possible. Digitised images may be supplied as computer files in certain formats: please seek advice from the editors. Original illustrations and photographs should only be sent once a contribution has been accepted.

Offprints: Ten offprints of each article will be given free (to be shared between joint authors). Offprints are not given for notes and reviews.

WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY

BOARD OF TRUSTEES (from 16 November 2002)

Chairman Lt. Col. C Chamberlain

Deputy Chairmen Mrs G Swanton, BA, Dip.Ad.Ed. J HThomas BA, PhD, FRHistS

Other Elected Trustees

Miss A Arrowsmith BSc

B K Davison OBE, BA, FSA, MIFA Mrs W P Lansdown

W A Perry (Hon Treasurer)

D Roseaman

CA Shell, MA, MMet, PhD

E Stanford, FRBS

JSS Stewart BSc, MB, ChB, FRCS MJH Stiff BA, DPhil

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)

In attendance: T Craig (Wiltshire County Council Heritage Services Manager)

COLLECTIONS TRUSTEES (from 3 March 2001)

RC Hatchwell

C Meays

Miss V Novarra

OFFICERS

Curator P H Robinson, PhD, FSA, AMA

Assistant Curator and Keeper of Natural Sciences A S Tucker, BSc, AMA

Sandell Librarian and Archivist Mrs L. Haycock, BA, PhD, Dip ELH, Cert.Ed.

Outreach Officer Ms R Stalker HND, BA, MA

Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 96 (2003), pp. 1-6

Frederick Kenneth Annable — ‘Ken’ — BA, FSA, FMA, 1922-2002: a Memoir by Nicholas Thomas (Curator 1952-1957)

Ken Annable served the Society and its museum for 32 years, 29 of them as its Curator. This is a record that will be hard to beat, not just because of its length — anybody can work on and on if allowed. It was the quality of what he did in virtually every department of this entrancing, treasure-filled museum that may never be bettered. And, when asked, he attended to a host of other matters that were essential to the smooth running of the Society. I felt touched and privileged when invited to write an obituary for Ken and I have chosen to make it a personal tribute rather than something more formal. Three friends and colleagues, Lorna Haycock, Paul Robinson and Ian Hodder have contributed essays about Ken recently, in which his work as a Romano-British scholar has been emphasised (Roman Wiltshire and After; Papers in Honour of Ken Annable, ed. Peter Ellis, WANHS 2001). Though drawing on some of the detail already set down in Ken’s festschrift (which he just lived to receive), I have thought it appropriate to concentrate on his achievements in this wonderful museum of ours as its Curator. I have also done my best to include a bibliography of his writings. Major influences on Ken’s adult life and career came from his childhood and war service. He was a Derby man born and bred. From his father who played the timpani in a local orchestra must have come at least the germ of his love of music. Ken’s elder brother, later Secretary of Derby County Football Club, had first choice, as a child, of what instrument to learn, and he selected the piano. Ken had to be content with the fiddle, though when in the right mood he could perform impressively on the spoons. Soon after the outbreak of World War II, Ken enlisted in the Royal Corps of Signals (and subsequently in the Royal Scots Greys and the

Household Cavalry) and was stationed in the Middle East, West Africa and Germany. It was while training in what is now Ghana to go to Burma that he came into contact with Professor A.W. Lawrence, the classical archaeologist, who at that time was teaching in Achimota College. Lawrence permitted the scholarly young soldier to read in the library each weekend. One of my many reasons to feel grateful to Ken was the communication of his passion for the life and writings of T.E. Lawrence, which he must have obtained from his mentor at Achimota, the man’s brother (and generous friend and Honorary Member of this Society). Ken’s own library included a wealth of T-E.L.’s published work, all of which he lent me to devour during my curatorship at Devizes. If Professor Lawrence fed Ken’s scholarly appetite, so the antiquities which he saw while serving in Egypt must also have inspired him with a feeling for the remote past, and especially for the deep and compelling romance of it, which inclined him towards a career in archaeology.

But this was not before his three fruitful years as an ex-Forces undergraduate at Reading University where he read English and Classics, and where, too, he met Myra, a fellow student reading Music, Latin and French. They married in 1952. The seal was set upon Ken’s future in archaeology in 1950, when he gained a place at the University of London Institute of Archaeology to read for the two-year diploma in the Archaeology of the Roman Provinces. That was where we met, my preference being European prehistoric archaeology.

In those days the Institute was located in the slightly dilapidated but appealing Regency mansion, St. John’s Lodge. It stood in the inner circle of Regent’s Park, Queen Mary’s rose garden facing it,

Upper House, Belle Vue, Newlyn, Cornwall TR18 5ED

2 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE

the open air theatre across the road, the London Zoo audibly located away in the opposite direction. The giants of archaeology, environmental studies and object conservation were there to teach us — Gordon Childe, Mortimer Wheeler, Kathleen Kenyon, Max Mallowan, Frederick Zeuner, Ian Cornwall, Ionye Gedye. If Ken sought further for romance in archaeology, he found it in the inspiration which came especially from Wheeler, both at the Lodge and during his famous field trips. Verulamium became a spiritual home.

His diploma achieved, Ken began the search for a post, preferably in archaeology. Meanwhile, like many young graduates then, he directed excavations for the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works. Ken was not averse to prehistory. In 1951 he joined Richard Atkinson and me at the Big Rings, Dorchester-on-Thames (Whittle et al. 1992), and the following summer a number of fellow Institute students, with Ken, followed me to the Thornborough Circles near Ripon, where we made a trial excavation at the famous henge monument which, with its two neighbours, so closely resembled the Big Rings (Thomas 1955a). In 1953 Ken went back into the field, extending his excavation experience at Great Chesterford (Essex), where he began a lengthy campaign, completed and published by Vera Evison with acknowledgement to Ken, on a series of Pagan Saxon graves in a gravel pit (Evison 1994). His work at the Cantley Estate, Doncaster Romano-British pottery kilns followed (Bibliography, 1954, 1960). For about three months during the autumn of 1952 Ken had also worked as a volunteer at Guildford Museum. This offered him his first and very influential taste for work in a world in which, in due course, he was to find his own special place.

This kind of peripatetic archaeology is not ideal, even if Myra was there in support. The relief must have been considerable when Ken applied successfully for the Assistant Curatorship at Devizes. It was a wonderful day for all of us when, in February 1954, as I recall so vividly, Ken and Myra drew up outside the Museum in a pantechnicon containing their worldly possessions. They were to occupy the flat at no. 41, now the Society’s administrative area, curatorial offices and workroom.

For the next 32 years, three as Assistant Curator with special responsibility for archaeological conservation (including a day a week at Salisbury Museum), Ken dedicated his life to the daunting multiple role of Curator, field archaeologist,

researcher, assistant to the Society and willing servant to the Museum’s many clients, young and old. He re-displayed the entire museum. He combined curatorship with pioneering work in the field, scrupulously published, as contributors to his festschrift gratefully acknowledge. And he remained at the beck and call of the Society, playing an important part in its several committees, editing WANHM at one stage with Isobel Smith (whom we both knew from our days at the Institute where she was Gordon Childe’s personal secretary), leading Society walks, lecturing and teaching. He found time to be tutor for the Museums Diploma and was notably generous with the help and encouragement he gave to researchers, scholarly or more casual. Many of the students who worked on attachment to Devizes Museum have gone on to develop notable careers in universities and museums.

This enormous achievement, this immense labour to transform the Museum and make its collections fully accessible, can best be appreciated in the form of a chronology, beginning with the year of my appointment as the Society’s first professional Curator in August 1952. In all of this, Ken and I acknowledge with praise and gratitude that had it not been for the help, as carpenter and electrician, of Albert Cole, formerly of the Wiltshire Regiment and husband of Frances, our caretaker, little would have been possible and then only slowly, since Bert gave his services each evening for a token payment. It is noticeable how the programme of re-display slowed after he and Frances retired in July 1968.

1952-3, N.T: alone

Centenary Exhibition, ground floor, no. 41

Gift of grave group from the Manton barrow (Preshute Gla) negotiated and exhibited for the first time in that exhibition

Conservation facilities for pottery and metalwork installed

Office for Curator established, 1st floor, no. 41

Refurbishment of Natural History Gallery begun by Natural History section and Cyril Rice, Beatrice Gillam

Neolithic/Beaker Room (today’s mediaeval gallery)

1954-7, N.T., F.K.A.

Five-Year Plan (Thomas 1955 with plan)

Lecture Hall with platform, fire escape 1954

Visitors’ entrance transferred to no. 41, 1954-5

Picture Gallery in former entrance hall, 1955-6

Recent History Room (later Henge Room), 1956 Planning of Bronze Age, Iron Age rooms, no. 41, begun

FREDERICK KENNETH ANNABLE, 1922-2002: A MEMOIR 5)

Ken (far right) with his colleagues in April 1954. Left to right: Nicholas Thomas (curator), Justus Akeredolu (attached Institute of Archaeology student, from Nigeria), Frances Cole (caretaker), Albert Cole (carpenter/ electrician). The group 1s sitting outside Mr and Mrs Coles’s flat at the rear of the Museum.

1954, 1955

Negotiation for display grant from Carnegie United Kingdom Trust for Bronze Age, Iron Age rooms achieved 1956

Bronze Age Room installation begun 1956, 1957

1957-86, EK.A. (Assistant Curators listed below)

Natural History Gallery (former Stourhead Room) opened 1958 (name board over entrance carved by Beatrice Gillam)

Bronze Age Room, with study storage of all grave groups, opened 1960

Dark Room added to pottery repair room, 1960-1

Anglo-Saxon/ Mediaeval Room (former Neolithic Room), 1962

Neolithic/ Beaker gallery (former Picture Gallery), 1962

Conversion of attics in no.41 to Museum stores, begun 1961, completed 1970

Recent History Room refurbished, 1963

Gas-fired central heating installed, 1965

Planning and installation of Iron Age displays begun, 1965

Iron Age Room opened, 1968

Frances and Albert Cole retired 1968.The Iron Age Room display mounts were Albert’s final contribution. Olly Brown, his successor, was not appointed until 1971

Flat in no. 41 converted for storage, workshop use, 1971

Repair, restoration of the Marlborough Vat negotiated with British Museum, installed in Iron Age Room in new display case, 1971

Roman Room refurbished from 1970, opened 1975

Henge Room (replacing Recent History), 1979

New Neolithic/ Beaker Room (former Curator’s office) enlarged, 1980

The Bonar Sykes Wing was built in 1980-1 and opened by Sir David Eccles, Minister for Works in 1982

New Art Gallery, John Piper Window, 1982

Anglo-Saxon Gallery (Coles’s former flat), 1982

Natural History store, 1982

Natural History Gallery enlarged, re-displayed, 1983

Two cellars beneath no. 41 converted to storage, 1984-5

Devizes Museum awarded Museum of the Year, 1984 (see frontispiece in Ken’s festschrift)

Picture Store, metalwork store, 1985

Ken Annable retired, 1986

4 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE

Assistant Curators who worked with N.T: and F-K. A. S.M. Mottram, 1953

EK. Annable, 1954-1957

D.D.A. Simpson, 1960

G.P. Lamacraft, 1961

G.P. Mitchell ( née Lamacraft), 1962-1964

A.M. Burchard, 1965-1973

P.H. Robinson, 1974-1985 (Acting Curator 1985-1986) S.A. Cross , 1980-1986

Ken was a good committee man, always short and to the point, and strong with it when necessary. As well as serving the Society’s Council, he worked with a number of its smaller groups, including liaison with Salisbury Museum, the County Council, the Area Museums Council. He was secretary of the Archaeology sub-committee in the sixties. Here his important contribution was to draft the 1966 memoranda I and II which became the Society’s submission to the Ministry of Public Building and Works, concerning proposed G overnment changes to the Ancient Monuments Acts (Fowler 1968).

From the outset Ken believed that good curatorship should include excavation and fieldwork. As Ian Hodder and others have made clear in the festschrift, Ken remained essentially a Romanist. Cunetio became his patch, the Savernake kilns and their product his speciality, their rapid publication his scholarly duty. Perusal of Ken’s bibliography also reveals a steady outpouring of short, pithy notes on Romano- British objects which had found their way to the Museum, together with more substantial papers on his excavations. A pleasing and productive aspect of Ken’s fieldwork was his collaboration with Tony Clark, who was engaged in development of his Martin—Clark proton magnetometer in the late fifties (Bibliography, 1966).

Ken’s interest in post-Roman times, perhaps first aroused at Great Chesterford in 1953 (Evison, 1994), was renewed towards the end of his museum career when the need arose to excavate a spectacular series of Pagan Saxon graves at Blacknall Field, Black Patch, Pewsey. The long loan of these important and often beautiful grave goods he negotiated successfully in 1973 and they now form the centre of interest in the Anglo-Saxon Room, which he set out in 1982. The manuscript of his excavation report on the Blacknall graves was substantially complete at his death, a tribute not just to his scholarship but also to his courageous perseverance in the face of declining eyesight.

Ken made one contribution of great significance to European prehistory. With Assistant Curator Derek Simpson he published the catalogue of the Neolithic and Bronze Age collections which make our museum so famous (Bibliography, 1964c). Ken also initiated work on an Iron Age catalogue, whose completion by Mark Corney is awaited. During the sixties Ken was also collaborating with Margaret Smith and Professor Christopher Hawkes on the preparation of nine cards to add to the Great Britain series within the Inventaria Archaeologica, an expanding European publication during those years. These cards would have highlighted our holding of princely Bronze Age grave groups and it was unfortunate that the British contribution to the series ceased before the Devizes Museum cards could be added to it.

Away from the Museum, the diversity of Ken’s interests should cause no surprise. Those maps, diagrams and other illustrations, which he prepared himself to enhance all his museum displays — and models too — reflect his gifts as a serious artist. He never spoke of it and he never exhibited. He particularly loved pastel and occasionally painted in oils. He saw drawing as the basis of good art and during his retirement he used to have regular weekly drawing lessons. His museum models also reflect his considerable manual skill, seen again in his repair of museum pots and in cabinet making.

Ken wanted people to know about things and to appreciate the romance, especially the romance of the past, which was also his principal motivation. The museum world was for him an ideal one through which to communicate this passion. A speciality within his approach to museum display was the provision in galleries of discreet extra information panels, which contained data for the more dedicated museum visitor. And from 1958 he composed an annual Curator’s Report (discontinued after 1973), which was always a model of good English and a delight to read. Ken enjoyed writing poetry. He never let others read it, often screwing up and throwing a piece away when done with. It formed an essential part of the artistic and very private side of Ken which few other than Myra ever saw.

This clever, formidably well-read, intensely amiable and valued friend and colleague could be wonderfully entertaining, whether as formal speaker or in more private company. Some of my most pleasurable days when at Devizes were spent with Ken and Dick Sandell, visiting other museums and sites in Dick’ state-of-the-art two tone green

FREDERICK KENNETH ANNABLE, 1922-2002: A MEMOIR 5

Sunbeam Talbot. A slap-up lunch, which Ken and I paid for, was a feature of these extra-curricular days out. Once during such a meal Ken asked us, “Do you know what the French for “Mow the lawn” is?’ Always eager to receive some new apercu from Ken, we confessed ignorance. ‘Mot de I’an’, came the reply.

And Ken could be robust in his views and straight in remonstration. I have never forgotten the shock of being hauled over the coals by him, when accusing me, quite rightly, of becoming an absentee. It made me realise that it was time for me to move on, which I was able to do shortly afterwards, and I found it especially touching to read Ken’s more than generous remarks about my work at the Museum, which appeared in his Annual Report the following year (WANHM 57, 1958, 99).

The climax to Ken Annable’s time as Curator of Devizes Museum came with the award of Museum of the Year in 1984, one year before his retirement (festschrift, frontispiece). I believe that Ken’s contribution to the community through curatorship, excavation and scholarly writing went far beyond the call of duty and surely deserved much wider recognition than his Fellowship of the Museums Association (1968) and of the Society of Antiquaries of London (1962) reflect. In words which appear on many medals commemorating the tercentenary of the birth of Shakespeare in 1864, “We shall not look upon his like again’. Our successors will be the poorer for it.

Ken’s wife Myra, also a devoted friend of this Society, and his three daughters survive him.

Finale

It was Myra who told me about Ken’s poetry and his unwillingness to have it known. However, she recalled a poem with which Ken began his unpublished history of St. Mary’s church, Bishops Cannings. It is not acknowledged, but she thinks that he wrote it. In this belief Myra has allowed me to add it to my memorial as a final affectionate act of homage to this special man.

Laudate!

O, preferable are the celestial cities of the Early English Gothic!

Look, stranger, on these aery transepts now,

This blessed Chantry of Our Lady Bower.

Slim-line columns, fanfare of trumpet scallop,

Still-leaf ornament, sculpted and jaunty,

Looking as if it were alive,

And crystal lancets; all,

All leaping light and glad grace. Sweet friend, be reconciled: herein, Changeless from the beginning, Prevailing as the deeps,

Breathes the moving Spirit of God.

References

EVISON, V., 1994, An Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Great Chestertord, Essex (CBA Research Report 91) FOWLER, P.J., 1968, ‘Conservation and the countryside’, WANHM 63, 1-11

THOMAS, N., 1955, ‘The Thornborough Circles, near Ripon, North Riding’, Yorkshire Archaeological Jnl 38, 425-45

WHITTLE, A., ATKINSON, R.J.C., CHAMBERS, R., and THOMAS, N., 1992, ‘Excavations in the Neolithic and Bronze Age complex at Dorchester- on-Thames, Oxfordshire’, Proc Prehist Soc 58, 143- 201

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF KEN ANNABLE’S WRITING

1954 ‘The Roman pottery kilns at Cantley Housing Estate, Doncaster, Kilns 1-8’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 38, 403-12

1956 ‘Stone coffin at Bradford-on-Avon’, WANHM 56, 390-1

1956a ‘An ancient British forgery’, ibid, 391-2

1958 ‘Excavation and field-work in Wiltshire: 1957’, WANHM, 57, 2-17

1959 ‘Excavation and field-work in Wiltshire: 1958’, ibid, 227-39. This includes records of K.A.’s important work in Cunetio (Roman Mildenhall) and Savernake Forest

1960 The Romano-British Pottery at Cantley Housing Estate, Doncaster, Kilns 1- 8. Doncaster Museum Publications XXIV

1960a ‘Storridge Farm, Westbury. A Roman lead coffin’, WANHM 57, 402

1962 ‘A Romano-British pottery in Savernake Forest, Kilns 1-2’, WANHM 58, 142-55

1962a ‘Romano-British burials at Devizes’, ibid, 222-3

1962b ‘Bronze brooch found in Savernake Forest’, ibid, 226

1963 “The Romano-British pottery’, in F. de M. Vatcher, “The excavation of the barrows on Lamb Down, Codford St Mary’, 432-3, WANHM 58, 417-41

1964a ‘Pottery’, in P.M. Christie, ‘A Bronze Age round barrow on Earl’s Farm Down Amesbury’, 39-40, WANHM 59, 30-45

6 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE

1964b ‘The Romano-British pottery’, in I.F. Smith and D.D.A. Simpson, ‘Excavation of three Roman Tombs and a prehistoric pit on Overton Down’, 79-81, WANHM 59, 68-85

1964c ‘Romano-British interments at Parsonage Farm, Winsley’, WANHM 59, 182-3

1964d F.K.Annable and D.D.A. Simpson, Guide Catalogue of the Neolithic and Bronze Age Collections in Devizes Museum. Devizes

1965 ‘Romano-British pottery’, in G. Connah et al, ‘Excavations at Knap Hill, Alton Priors, 1961’, WANHM 60, 1-23

1966 ‘A first-century well at Cunetio’, WANHM 61, 9- 24

1966a ‘Romano-British interments at Potterne’, WANHM 61,95

1966b ‘A Romano-British interment at Bradford-on- Avon’, ibid, 95-6

1966c ‘A ? Romano-British interment at Maiden Bradley’, ibid, 96-7

1970 “The Roman pottery’, in J.X.W.P. Corcoran, “The Giant’s Caves, Luckington, (Wil 2)’, 54-6, WANHM 65, 39-63

1970a “The Romano-British pottery’, in G.J. Wainwright, ‘An Iron Age promontory fort at Budbury, Bradford- on-Avon, Wiltshire’, 163-4, WANHM 65, 108-66

1971 ‘Pottery’, in N.P. Thompson et al, ‘Archaeological research in the Pewsey Vale’, 68-9, WANHM 66, 58- 15)

1972 Review: Bronze Age Metalwork in Salisbury Museum, by C.N. Moore and M. Rowlands, WANHM 67, 189-90

1974a ‘A bronze military apron mount from Cunetio’, WANHM 69, 176-9

1974b E.K. Annable, A.M. Burchard and P.E. Cray, ‘The 1965 excavations and finds’, in M.R. McCarthy et al, ‘The medieval kilns on Nash Hill, Lacock, Wiltshire’, 146-60, WANHM 69, 97-160

1976a ‘A bronze military mount from Folly Farm’, WANHM 70/71, 126-7

1976b ‘A late bronze buckle fragment from Cunetio’, ibid, 127-8

1980 ‘A coffined burial of Roman date from Cunetio’, WANHM 72/73, 187-91

1991 The Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, Bishop’s Cannings. Devizes

1993 Following publication of this church guide, Ken spent about a year researching the history of the church in depth on behalf of the Parish Council, with a book in mind. Its title was to be The Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, Bishop’s Cannings, a Celebration AD 1091-1993. Unfortunately the ms would have proved too costly to publish and the project was shelved. A number of copies were distributed locally, including the Parish Council archive: and a copy has been given by Myra to WANHS.

2003 (forthcoming) Romano-British pottery derived from agriculture around the barrow cemetery, in N. Thomas et al, Snail Down, Wiltshire, The Bronze Age Barrow Cemetery and Related Earthworks in the Parishes of Collingbourne Ducis and Collingbourne Kingston. Excavations, 1953, 1955 and 1957. WANHS Monograph 3

Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 96 (2003), pp. 7-18

A Wiltshire ‘Bog Body’?: Discussion of a Fifth/Sixth Century AD Burial in the Woodford Valley

by Jacqueline I. McKinley

During a watching brief occasioned by the construction of an amenity lake at Lake, in the Woodford Valley, near Salisbury, the waterlogged remains of inhumation burial with a wooden ‘cover’ were discovered. In the absence of associated artefacts, radiocarbon analysis showed the burial to be of 5th-6th century date. This paper considers the nature of the burial and others from ‘watery’ contexts, together with its potential significance within the contemporaneous landscape and society.

INTRODUCTION

Project Background

Wessex Archaeology was commissioned by Morrows, on behalf of a client, to undertake archaeological investigations on land adjacent to the River Avon, at Lake in the Woodford Valley, near Salisbury (centred on SU 4137 1388; Figure 1). The investigations were stipulated by Salisbury District Council, on the advice of the County Archaeological Service of Wiltshire County Council, as part of the planning permission attached to the construction of an amenity/trout lake.

The site lay on alluvium (calcareous alluviai gley soils) over Valley Gravels and Upper Chalk at c.60.4m aOD, and before excavation of the lake the land was under rough pasture. The project comprised two stages of investigations: an earthwork survey of the proposed area of construction to record traces of a relict water meadow (undertaken July 1996) and a watching brief during the mechanical excavation of the lake (August 1996). During the course of the latter timbers were noted in a section of the excavations. These proved to be part of a grave containing the remains of an inhumation burial.

Archaeological Background

Lake lies within the area of the ‘Stonehenge Environs’, in which there is ‘a remarkable concentration of archaeological remains’ (RCHME 1979, ix). The earliest finds from the vicinity comprise Palaeolithic flint implements, including handaxes and flakes, found at Lake in the 19th century. Four Bronze Age bowl barrows lie within 300m of Lake, with the Lake Down and Wilsford Barrow Groups to the north west. Remnants of prehistoric field systems have been recorded within the vicinity, for example at Lake Bottom, Lake Down and Rox Hill. A number of Iron Age hillforts are known within the area, the nearest being Ogbury Camp which lies to the south-east of Lake. Evidence for Roman activity in the immediate area is limited, although individual finds of coins and pottery indicate some continuity from the earlier period (Richards 1990, 280, fig. 17; Wainwright 1971, 76).

The Domesday Survey describes two estates in Wilsford, the Deserted Medieval Village in Lake Bottom probably being associated with one of them. The Lake estate passed through a number of hands, including the earls of Salisbury who remained overlords throughout the 12th to 14th centuries.

Wessex Archaeology, Portway House, Old Sarum Park, Salisbury, SP4 6EB

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Stonehenge

- Wilsford

>

Lake Group ss

Wilsford cum Lake

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: whe Wilsford Group *

«= Spring Bottom

Lake Downs - Group ¢

Lake Bottom

Burial Village: Earthworks : ® ; Barrow

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Barrows : : ‘ : : jal ay =) | Contours in m O.D.

500 m }

Fig. 1. Site location and archaeological landscape

The water-meadow system dates to the 17th John [Duke] had condoned the building of the bay century (Pugh 1962, 218); a ‘lawsuit of 1697 about and weir there’ (ibid). A plan of 1752 and large the making of the water-meadows in Woodford ... scale Ordnance Survey maps of 1887, 1901, 1925 said that although it damaged the excellent fishing, and 1939 all show the major elements of the system.

A WILTSHIRE ‘BOG BODY’?: A BURIAL IN THE WOODFORD VALLEY 9

RESULTS OF THE FIELD SURVEY AND WATCHING BRIEF

Field Survey

A number of linear earthworks pertaining to the water meadow system were recorded comprising two carriages (east and west), one tail drain and a length of spillway all running approximately north- west to south-east, and 23 drains on approximately north-east to south-west alignments (terminology according with Cowan 1982; Figure 1). The western carriage, 2.5m wide and between 0.1-0.3m deep, ran roughly parallel to a large tail drain up to 6.5m wide and 0.4m deep. The drains were largely denoted by patches of sedge and longer grass within the otherwise fairly closely cropped meadow, being visible as earthworks (c.0.1m deep) only towards their western ends where they fed into the deeper tail drain and spillway. There were no traces of the carriers used to draw water from the carriages but these small features would have silted up quickly without regular maintenance. A constriction towards the northern end of the western carriage may represent the remains of a small sluice or hatch by which the flow of water from the main carriage was controlled, possibly indicating the facility to ‘drown’ only half of the meadow while the other half remained dry.

Watching Brief

Observations at various locations in the area of the lake showed the topsoil (0.20m thick) overlaying a redeposited clay (c.0.45m thick) - probably imported to build up the water meadow system — above a highly humic/peaty layer (202; c.0.20m thick) containing Romano-British pottery, and burnt and worked flint. The latter overlay a blue- grey, waterlain clay (203; c.0.25m thick) with inclusions of worked flint, above the undisturbed natural valley gravels.

All the worked flint (40 fragments, 1374g) derives from local gravel sources and is generally in a fresh condition. The pieces consist of undiagnostic flakes and possible core fragments, suggesting a broad date range of Neolithic to Bronze Age. An extensive layer of undiagnostic, unworked burnt flint on the eastern shore of the lake lay at the

interface of the natural valley gravels and the waterlain blue-grey clay (203). All the pottery (26 fragments, 312 g) is of Romano-British date and is either unstratified or associated with layer 202. With the exception of a single sherd of samian (1st or 2nd century AD) and one sherd of New Forest colour coated ware (mid 3rd to 4th century AD), the small assemblage comprises a range of coarsewares including both early and late vessel types. These finds indicate that the shores of this stretch of the River Avon were the site of extensive activity in the prehistoric period and fairly regular use in the Romano-British period, the relative stability of the plant matter in the latter phase contrasting with the blue-grey clay which characterised the earlier shore.

‘The absence of later finds suggests that the area went out of use in the post-Roman period, with no further evidence of the land having being used until the postulated deposition of imported clay to build the water meadow in the 1690s.

THE BURIAL

The Grave

At the time of excavation the grave, situated on the north-western margins of the lake, was under several centimetres of water (Plate 1) requiring the insertion of a partial coffer-dam allowing the water within the enclosed area to be pumped out (Plate 2). The grave cut (c.2.20 x 0.80m) was not clear, the margins largely being defined by the slight change in character between the grave fill (a fine, blue-grey silty clay) and the surrounding deposit (203). The majority of the 14 loose oak timbers recovered lay longitudinally over the skeletal remains (Figure 2; Plate 3), those to either side apparently resting against the sides of the grave cut through the clay (203).The timbers comprise radial and tangential planks of varying dimensions (maximum c.2m), each having at least one cut end (sawn or chopped) with little other signs of working beyond the primary splitting. One squared timber has been worked the length of one face and facets from a metal axe or adze are visible. The size and form of the timbers suggests they were re-used, but the absence of any distinguishing features precludes deduction of what their previous function may have been. The nature and disposition of the timbers indicated they did not represent a coffin; rather,

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A WILTSHIRE ‘BOG BODY’?: A BURIAL IN THE WOODFORD VALLEY

Detail plan of skeleton &

——

Upper grave planking

Lower grave planking

Skeleton

0

SS

Scale 1:20

0

Scale 1:10

Above: Fig. 2. The burial; skeletal remains and plank cover Far left: Plate 2. Coffer-dam and pumping mechanism after removal of plank cover (from south) Left: Plate 3. In situ burial after partial removal of upper planking (from north)

11

12

they appear to be the remains of a cover, perhaps originally resting on the side timbers. The grave appeared to be sealed by the humic layer (202).

The Human Remains

The burial was made fully prone and extended, on a south-north alignment; the left arm was flexed with the hand resting on the abdomen and the right arm extended (Figure 2, Plate 2). The bone was in good condition, though stained brown by the humic conditions and slightly friable due to the waterlogging. Some of the articular surfaces had fragmented, and the left distal parietal vault was damaged and slightly warped possibly in consequence of the collapse of the timbers overlying the body. The skull was the only part of the skeleton to protrude above the level of the timbers (Plate 3). The position of the burial, within an active water- meadow, the circumstances of identification and — despite ‘whole-earth’ recovery of the grave fill — the unusual nature of the excavation inevitably resulted in the loss of some of the smaller bones of the hands and feet.

Approximately 94% of the skeleton was recovered, representing the remains of a young adult (20-25 years) female (ageing criteria from Beek 1983, McMinn and Hutchings 1985, and Brothwell 1972; sexing criteria from Bass 1987), with an estimated stature of 1.58m (5ft. 2% inches; Trotter and Gleser 1952, 1958; from fibula). The singular absence of the atlas vertebra (first cervical) from the spine may be viewed as significant, possibly reflecting some peri-mortem or immediately post- mortem damage, but it is difficult to see how this could have been affected without damaging the skull or adjacent vertebra. A few minor pathological lesions were observed; dental calculus, periodontal disease, Schmorl’s nodes (degenerative disc lesions) in the L4-5 and osteophytes (new bone) in the L5.

A piece of undiagnostic worked flint was found close to the skull, and a tiny sherd of undatable pottery and a fragment of burnt, unworked flint were retrieved from the whole-earthed grave fill, but the finds are all residual and the burial had no directly associated artefacts.

Dating

It was not possible to obtain a reliable dendrochronological date from the timbers within the grave as all the wood was taken from a single

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tree whose ring pattern could not be matched with the national data base. A sample of 10-15 outer rings of the tree was taken from one of the timbers (<2001>) and submitted for radiocarbon dating (Scottish Universities Research and Reactor Centre). A result of 1560450 BP (GU-4921) was obtained, with a calibrated date of AD 450-610 (calibration using the 20 year atmospheric calibration curve using CALIB 2.0, expressed at the 95% confidence limit with the end points rounded out to 10 years following the internationally recognised form (Mook 1986)). When the probability distribution is plotted using OxCal v2.10 it indicates a near perfect, steep gaussian curve and gives added confidence to a date around AD 500, indicating the burial was made in the early post-Roman period.

DISCUSSION

Contemporary Burial Practices

‘The most commonly adopted burial posture within Anglo-Saxon cemeteries of the 5th-6th centuries comprised supine, extended burials on an west-east orientation (i.e. head to west; Hogarth 1973, Craddock 1979, Down and Welch 1990), from which position it is believed the body would ‘rise’ to face the dawn (Welch 1983). The rite reflected a continuation of the Late Romano-British burial tradition and that adopted in parts of earlier and contemporary pagan Germany and Gaul (ibid.). Variations in posture did occur however (e.g. Harman et al. 1981), with many cemeteries including at least a small proportion of north-south and/or south-north burials, for example c.8% of the burials at Droxford, Hampshire (Aldsworth 1979) and 26% at Charlton Plantation, Downton (Davies 1985), whilst on occasions more substantial numbers may be observed as at Petersfinger, Salisbury (Leeds and Shortt 1953), where almost 50% of burials had been made south-north. Rare crouched burials have also been found (e.g. Piggott and Piggott 1944; Green 1984; McKinley 1994, 138). Burials were generally made within groups of variable size, some with associated barrows (e.g. Portway, Andover; Cook and Dacre 1985), and they frequently incorporated grave goods (Wilson 1992). Isolated lone burials dated to this period are rare.

Several small groups and a few individual 5th century Anglo-Saxon burials have been found in

A WILTSHIRE ‘BOG BODY’?: A BURIAL IN THE WOODFORD VALLEY 13

Wiltshire, all in the vicinity of Salisbury, including east-west and north-south extended, supine burials with associated grave goods (Musty and Stratton 1964, fig 2; Davies 1985, fig. 1; Eagles 1994, fig. 1.1). Cemeteries, and by implication settlements, became more widespread in the 6th century, the distribution of at least the former tending to be focused on the rivers, the Avon apparently marking the western boundary of expansion at this time (Eagles 1994). However, not all 5th-6th century burials in the Wessex region would have been of incoming Saxons. There is a growing corpus of evidence indicative of the — not surprising — continued presence of earlier communities (1bid.). The two largest 5th-8th century cemeteries in Dorset, Ulwell, near Swanage (Cox 1988), and Tolpuddle Ball, near Dorchester (Herne and Birbeck 1999), both contained supine, extended burials with very few or no grave goods, indicating a continuation of the Late Romano-British burial tradition amongst the indigenous population. In these two cases, as with others in the region — such as the 5th-7th century crouched burial made amongst a small group of Iron Age graves at Tinney’s Lane, Sherborne (McKinley 1999) — the burials may easily have been attributed to the wrong phases without radiocarbon dating. Lone, unaccompanied burials such as that reported here are particularly susceptible to such erroneous allocation of date; single burials tend to be found unexpectedly as in this instance, and where there are no finds they tend to be dismissed as of little significance in expanding archaeological understanding of population groups. This attitude, however, overlooks their ritual significance which as singletons may be limited, but as temporally or geographically linked groups may offer significant insights into the social and religious views of those making such burials.

Although prone burials were not the ‘normal’ mode of deposition at this time they are not uncommon in Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon cemeteries (Harman et al. 1981, Philpott 1991). The possible reasons suggested for pronation include stopping the dead from walking, sacrificial victims (generally females) and criminal executions; implicitly the individual so treated was in someway ‘different’. South-north and/or north-south burials were common in many Romano-British cemeteries, for example Bath Gate, Cirencester (23% N-S, 40% S-N, McWhirr et al 1982, 76), and the Eastern ~ cemetery in London (44% N-S/S-N; Barber and Bowsher 2000), in comparison with their generally

less frequent occurrence in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries (see above). Whilst the use of wooden coffins became relatively common in the later 2" century, there was a marked decline in their use in the Late Romano-British period (Philpott 1991, 53). The use of wooden covers or vaults in both Romano- British and Anglo-Saxon graves has been indicated or implied either by the presence of wood stains, nails or brackets, and ledges or slots believed to act as supports (Hogarth 1973; Aldsworth 1979; Philpott 1991, 69-70). Elsewhere, the patterns of bone destruction and the ‘relaxed’ anatomical position of the skeleton have indicated that the grave fill was not immediately around the body (McKinley forthcoming). In many cases the covers or containers are implied rather than apparent, and the surviving cover in the Lake burial may not be as unusual as it appears. In this case the horizontal timbers may have rested on those to the side and have been roped together, subsequently collapsing on to the human remains.

The apparent recognition and continuity in use of mortuary areas from early periods is a common theme within the Anglo-Saxon period with, for example, burials frequently being made in (e.g. Osgood 1999, table 1) — or in proximity to— Bronze Age barrows as at Christchurch and Swallowcliffe (Eagles 1994, 17 and 25) and Winterbourne Gunner.

Burials in ‘Watery’ Contexts

With the exception of disarticulated human remains — predominantly skulls — dredged-up from river deposits (e.g. c.299 finds from the Thames and its tributaries in the London region: English Heritage Gazetteer; Bradley 1990, 108-9; O Floinn 1995) and coastal waters, burials from ‘watery’ contexts focus on peat deposits, the so-called “bog bodies’. Accumulated data show in excess of 1500 such ‘burials’ concentrated in north-west Europe (Sanden 1996, 71), with c.121 individuals recovered from some 66 sites in Britain (Turner 1995, fig. 46). Locations include intertidal areas, upland peat and blanket bog, lowland raised mires and fenland peats, with a marked absence of finds in southern England (ibid.) corresponding with the lack of peat formations here (Sanden 1996, fig. 24), though none has been found in the small areas of peat deposits in the south-west. The date of these finds covers a broad range from the Neolithic to the post- medieval period, those in Continental Europe

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appearing to form two concentrations, in the Neolithic and between 300 BC and AD 400 (Sanden 1995.). In contrast, the British finds (Turner 1995) have concentrations in the Bronze Age (c.15), with about ten across the Iron Age to Romano-British period and one dated to the 7th century AD (Jubilee Tower, Lancaster); almost all the 16 Scottish examples are post-medieval. In general, a relative small proportion of these finds have been reliably dated, many having been found in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The posture of these ‘burials’ varies considerably (Sanden 1995 and 1996, 97) inciuding extended, flexed, supine, prone and ‘seated’. There are several cases in Europe where wood — posts, branches, twigs —has been recovered from over the body, below or adjacent to it (Sanden 1996, 99), two being in oak coffins. A large proportion of the bodies show no indication of clothing, though this cannot necessarily be taken to mean they were naked; traces of linen, for example, would be lost even in the anaerobic conditions of a bog (Sanden 1996). In c.20 cases there was evidence for mortal injury, for example by strangulation, stabbing or slitting of the throat, and the hair of several individuals appeared to have been shorn (ibid.). Immature and adult individuals, males and females are amongst those identified, but children are rare and males predominate (Sanden 1995).

The major differences between the Lake burial and these other ‘watery graves’ are the date and location; the predominant date for the majority of these finds is pre-AD 400 or post-medieval and there are no records of burials on river-bank locations. To these observations must be added the caveat that most of the finds have come to light as the resuit of peat extraction, whilst river-bank or river valley activity is generally limited to pastoral agriculture. Burials in such locations were probably at greatest risk of disturbance during the construction of the water-meadow systems, though whether they would have been recorded or not is open to question. Similarly, the lack of secure dating of many of the bog burials and other lone graves may make the post-Roman date of the Lake burial appear more unusual that it really is. The body posture and associated presence of wood has similarities with some of the bog burials, but also with other more ‘conventional’ contemporaneous burials. There is no physical evidence of violence to the skeleton and the absence of artefacts cannot be taken as indicative of the woman being naked at the time of deposition, since the form of her dress

may not have included any inorganic fastenings and organic fabrics would be unlikely to survive in these burial condition.

Landscape Context

The ritual significance of water and watery places to the ‘Celtic’ peoples is well attested (Magilton 1995), with the veneration of pools, springs and lakes, which were viewed as liminal places forming entrances to and exits from the Otherworld. Votive deposits were commonly made at river crossings and wet places (Bradley 1990; Haselgrove 1996, 76). Tacitus, in his Annales, makes reference to two German tribes who were at war over the control of a frontier river, their reason being that such locations were closest to heaven and the easiest place from which to communicate with the gods (Sanden 1996, 174). Saxon cemeteries are noted for their location close to rivers (Eagles 1994) and it may be significant that the Avon apparently formed the western margins of Saxon expansion in the area in the 6th century, suggesting its importance as an interface between two groups of peoples set within what, even at the time, would have been recognised as a rich ritual landscape; the dry valley, at the eastern end ef which Lake lies, forms a direct route via Lake Bottom and Spring Bottom to Stonehenge Bottom through a landscape containing some of the densest concentrations of Bronze Age barrows in England (Figure 1; Woodward and Woodward 1996, fig. 6).

In addition to their ritual significance, the pragmatic importance of rivers — particularly the ‘East/Wiltshire’ Avon — as highly significant communication and trade routes has been discussed by Sherratt (1996). Although the pre-eminence of the Avon river system as a Communication route is believed to have been in the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age (ibid.) it is likely to have maintained at least a provincial significance into later periods.

Significance of the Burial to Participants

The suggested reasons for the bog burials are various and partly dependent on date. Many of the prehistoric cases, particularly in Britain, appear to represent formal ‘burials’, though perhaps of a type not commonly seen (Sanden 1996, 177). The later medieval and post-medieval cases are generally

A WILTSHIRE ‘BOG BODY’?: A BURIAL IN THE WOODFORD VALLEY 15

accepted as the victims of accidents or perhaps muggings/murder (Turner 1995). Much of the focus of discussion lies with those bodies dated or presumed to date to the Iron Age/Roman period. Tacitus makes reference to a form of punishment in which ‘the coward, the shirker and the unnaturally vicious are drowned in miry swamps under a cover of wattle hurdles’ (Germania 12, trans. Mattingley 1948). Evidence for shaven heads and individuals being stripped of clothing has been cited as supporting the punishment theory (Sanden 1995). The possible sacrificial, and/or implicit and explicate indications of ritualistic activity elicits the greatest interest. There are those who have argued (Briggs 1995) that many of the supposed ‘ritual’ aspects of these deposits could be explained as failed attempts at rescue — the presence of ropes or wooden poles representing items thrown out as lifelines. Branches and poles could represent materials simply laid over graves to deter animal disturbance such as may be seen in some contemporary Central-Eastern European cemeteries (personal observation). However, Tacitus writes of human sacrifices in the ‘Celtic’ regions though he does not state they were made into bogs; Magilton (1995, 186-7) gives reference to ritual drownings, and a document pertaining to Wulfran’s visit to Fresia in AD 690 talks of two children bound to a stake on the beach to be engulfed by the sea in sacrifice for ‘the common good’ (Sanden 1995).

Burial or sacrifice, the loan and liminal location of many of these deposits, and their association with water, suggests the individuals selected for such treatment were viewed as being in some way ‘different’. They may have been considered as ‘restless’ spirits who needed to be rendered harmless (Sanden 1995, 148), criminals, suicides, victims of violence or accident, or perhaps those with ‘special’ abilities. The singularity and mode — prone and covered — of the Lake burial strongly suggests this individual was ‘different’. The location, at a potentially interface between two cultures and ina spiritually liminail situation on the river bank — 1.e. both of ritual and possibly territorial significance (see above) — imply a deliberate choice in the place of burial. There is no evidence to suggest the woman was subject to physical violence or coerced into position; she was carefully buried in what were almost certainly waterlogged conditions adjacent to the river, and on its western bank in what, at this time, is likely to have been territory predominantly occupied by the indigenous population. The pronation of the body and presence of a heavy plank

cover may signify an attempt to confuse the spirit and stop it wandering in ‘this’ world. However, if she had been buried in this situation as one who could communicate with the Otherworld it may be expected that the head be placed towards rather than away from the river. Whilst it cannot be categorically denied that she may have been ‘sacrificed’, perhaps not unwillingly, she may also have died a natural death. Either way, she may have been seen as sufficiently ‘different’? — perhaps due to her possessing some particular skill — to necessitate special treatment and to represent one who was suitable to treat with the Otherworld on behalf of those in this world.

THE REBURIAL

The excavation of all human remains in Britain requires either a Church Faculty for remains buried in consecrated ground or a Home Office licence (Garratt-Frost 1992, McKinley and Roberts 1993), both of which will include some stipulation regarding the subsequent treatment of the remains. A recent survey of archaeological organisations in Britain (by the writer on behalf of the British Association of Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology) showed that reburial of human remains over the past two years has only occurred where the burials were known to be Christian (medieval and post-medieval) and at the request of the Church who also comprised the client in almost all cases. The Home Office licence obtained for the Lake burial, in common with most, stated that ‘The remains shall, if of sufficient scientific interest, be conveyed to a museum for archival storage ...or they shall be conveyed to a place where burials may legally take place and there be reinterred’.

The client was of the opinion that the human remains should, if possible, be returned to rest close to the original burial position and it was considered that, though the burial was clearly of significance, the skeletal remains were not of sufficient scientific interest to warrant archive storage in a museum. Consequently, following osteological examination and the production of a report, application was made to the Home Office to allow reburial. Initial discussion resulted in the statement that reburial close to the original location was not possible and that the remains would have to be reinterred in a ‘legal burial place’ as was stipulated in part 2d of

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the Licence (see above). Further discussion sought to highlight how inappropriate it would be to rebury such ancient, clearly non-Christian remains in a modern cemetery and application was subsequently granted on condition of approval from the local Director of Housing and Health (Salisbury District Council) to confirm the burial would pose no risk to public health.

The human remains were reburied in October 1997 approximately 70m south of the original grave on an island in the newly constructed lake, it being impractical to rebury the woman in the same grave or in exactly the same manner in which she was originally interred. The remains were placed in a specially constructed wooden box made from local timber. A record of the location and nature of the reburial, together with known details of the original were placed in the county archives, with the deeds of the property and with the skeletal remains themselves.

Licences for the removal of human remains (relating to non-Church property, see above) are granted to those who remove them (i.e. in such cases as this, the archaeological organisations) not the developer or client on whose behalf the investigations are being conducted. Consequently, the responsibility — legal and moral — for the care and appropriate treatment of such remains lies with the excavators. In addition to ensuring a sufficiently appropriate standard of osteological procedures and recording has been undertaken (information pertaining to which is also requested on application for a licence, often including the name of the appointed osteologist — in this case the writer), in the rare cases of reburial which may occur it is necessary to ensure an appropriate location is used, that physical packaging is of a standard which will maintain the integrity of the remains, and that any attendant rites and rituals followed during the reburial are appropriate to the date and probable beliefs of those being reburied as deduced from their archaeological context. In the latter, the probable beliefs of the dead are tantamount and should take precedence over those of the living who may not share the same beliefs.

CONCLUSIONS

The accidental discovery of this burial resulted from a rare intervention into the flood-plain alluvium of the Woodford valley. These deposits have rarely been

subject to any archaeological investigation due to their situation and the associated type of landuse (i.e. not subject to ‘development’). Prior disturbance is likely to have been limited to the insertion of the water-meadow systems in the late 17th and early 18th centuries when isolated deposits of this type, with no associated earthworks or artefacts to attract attention, are likely to have passed un-noticed or have been ignored. There is high potential for further archaeologically significant deposits along the Woodford valley bottom given the general ritual significance of rivers and of the surrounding landscape, and the apparent territorial importance of the Avon — or the Avon valley — as a boundary between the Saxon migrants and the existing population in the 5th-6th centuries AD.Whilst not necessarily under dispute, the valley may have represented an interface between the two cultures.

The bodies currently known from ‘watery’ contexts clearly do not all fall into one category of deposit type. Each case needs to be assessed individually in terms of date, mode of deposition, associated features and artefacts and, as highlighted by the Lake burial, location. The date of individual deposits should not be assumed from such potentially misleading features as burial position, which is likely to have been at variance from the ‘norm’ in such burials anyway. Whether the burial at Lake should be considered as a ‘bog-body’ is debatable, but it is hoped that this article has demonstrated that the significance of a burial is not defined by the accident of preservation.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks are due to the client for funding the site investigations and the production of this report. The assistance of Mr. Stammers is also gratefully acknowledged. The project was managed by Antony Firth on behalf of Wessex Archaeology. The field survey was undertaken by Vaughan Birbeck and David Murdie, the latter also maintaining the watching brief in which the grave was initially identified. The excavation team comprised Antony Firth, Natasha Meader, Jacqueline I. McKinley and David Murdie. Contributors towards this report included Michael J. Allen (Sedimentary Analysis), Lorraine Mepham (Artefacts) and Karen Walker who initially compiled the archaeological background. The drawings were prepared for publication by Karen Nichols, while plates are by Elaine Wakefield.

A WILTSHIRE ‘BOG BODY’?: A BURIAL IN THE WOODFORD VALLEY 17

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Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 96 (2003), pp. 19-25

The Eyes and Ears of the Lord: Seventeenth- Century Manorial Stewards in South Wiltshire

by J.H. Bettey

The various functions performed by stewards (such as John and Leonard Snow of Downton) for their manorial lords are examined. These included estate management; the movement of livestock; legal disputes; opinions on personal matters; agricultural improvements such as the introduction of new crops and the creation of water meadows; the policing of tenants and cottagers, especially in connection with squatting on wasteland; and the management of parliamentary elections in the lord’s favour. Stewards in seventeenth- century South Wiltshire were of crucial importance, and far more formidable than non-resident landlords.

In the parish church of Tormarton in Gloucestershire near the Wiltshire border, there is a large memorial to Gabriel Russell who died in 1663, aged 88. For ninety years members of the Russell family had been stewards to the Marquess of Newcastle, and the inscription on the memorial gives an indication of the crucial position of a steward in managing the estate of a non-resident landlord.

Here Gabriel Russell lies, whose watchful eyes Were William, Marquess of Newcastle’s spies.

Over three parishes his onely hands

Were here entrusted with his lordship’s lands.

Full ninety yeares my father and I

Were sarvants to that nobility.

But all that knew them did them witness bare, Of their just dealing, loyalty and care.

And for their comfort here below,

One and twenty children could they show.

The memorial emphasizes the importance of the steward as the landlord’s representative and his involvement in all aspects of manorial government. For non-resident landlords, preoccupied with other matters, reliable and trustworthy stewards were essential for the efficient management of large estates.! The survival of a number of account books and other records kept by seventeenth-century

stewards in the district around Salisbury, provides evidence of the range of their concerns and of their importance in manorial and estate management. Some were gentlemen, such as Sir Walter Raleigh’s elder brother, Carew Raleigh (died 1626). He was the steward of various Duchy of Cornwall manors in Dorset and Wiltshire, including Mere during the reign of James I. He also possessed land of his own, and leased the rectory and tithes of Downton from the Bishop of Winchester.’ William Thynne, steward on the Longleat estate during the 1660s, was a kinsman of Sir James Thynne. Others were lawyers with small estates of their own, such as Henry Sherfield, a prominent Salisbury lawyer who was steward for the Earl of Salisbury’s estate on Cranborne Chase. He also owned land at Winterbourne Earls. Henry Sherfield’s brother, Richard, served as bailiff or under-steward on the Earl of Salisbury’s estates.’ Another owner of a small estate who was involved with the administration of some of the Cranborne estate, including the manor of Damerham, was Samuel Stillingfleet who lived near Cranborne.*

Some stewards were affluent yeomen farmers, such as John Bennett of Motcombe who was steward on the widespread estates of the Arundell family of Wardour from 1663 to 1676.’ John Snow

Clayley Cottage, Hunstrete, Pensford, Bristol BS39 4NX

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and his son, Leonard, who served as stewards on the Ashe family estate at Downton from 1665 to 1727 were also prosperous farmers living at Loosehanger near Redlynch, south-east of Downton.°

The salaries paid to stewards were often modest, but prestige of the office and the social status it conferred was a further reward, and, as will be shown, there were other opportunities for enrichment. John Bennett was paid £50 per annum by the Arundells, the Snows at Downton were paid £40 per annum for supervising all aspects of the estate on behalf of the non-resident Ashe family. Their account books and correspondence with members of the Ashe family show the range of their duties and the many ways in which they protected the landlord’s interests in Downton and the surrounding area, acting as the eyes and ears of the lord.

I It was the involvement of John and Leonard Snow with the administration of Downton which produced the fullest and most informative series of records. Sir Joseph Ashe, who lived at Twickenham, was created a baronet by Charles II in 1669. In 1665 he had leased the manor of Downton from the Bishop of Winchester, and he represented the borough of Downton in Parliament from 1662 to 1681. Sir Joseph Ashe died in 1686, and his estates were left in the hands of his widow, Lady Mary Ashe, until their son Sir James Ashe succeeded in 1698. Sir James Ashe died in 1734.’ Since the Ashe family did not reside at Downton, all aspects of estate management were entrusted to John Snow, and later after John’s death in 1698, to his son Leonard. Much of the work carried out by the Snows involved presiding over the manorial courts, granting of tenancies, copyholds and leases, resisting encroachments, ensuring compliance with manorial regulations and collecting rents and fines. Sending money to non-resident landlords was fraught with difficulty. The Snows took money to Twickenham themselves or entrusted it to various Salisbury tradesmen who were visiting London. Later in the seventeenth century the money was transferred by bills of exchange, many of them drawn on Hoare’s Bank. An alternative method employed was to purchase goods such as cattle, sheep or cheese for dispatch to London where they could be sold.* John Bennett was involved in collecting rents and fines from the Arundell manors in Wiltshire, Dorset, Devon and Somerset. He sent considerable sums to Lord Arundell in London by

the regular carrier service, although the carriers charged large sums to insure against highwaymen and footpads. For example, in 1663 he sent £3000 to London at the cost of £15; in 1677 it cost £4 10s. Od. to send £900 to London. More frequently, however, John Bennett hired a coach and, accompanied by servants acting as guards, took the rents and other income to Lord Arundell in London himself. In 1663 he recorded expenditure of £25 for coach hire, guards and expenses for two journeys to London.’ By 1670 the costs for coach, horses and guards, together with his own expenses, for journeys to London had risen to £26 10s. Od. Thomas Greene, steward to Sir John Nicholas, who possessed an estate around Gillingham and was MP for Shaftesbury during the last decade of the seventeenth century, adopted numerous informal arrangements to send rents to his master in London. He paid drovers, merchants, Shaftesbury tradesmen and other travellers to London for delivering sums of money to Sir John Nicholas.!° The regular carrier service was used to carry the Earl of Salisbury’s rents from Cranborne to Hatfield or to the Cecil family house in London.

The Snows were also involved in sending cattle, sheep, cheese, apples and other goods to Twickenham for the use of the Ashe household. There are references to buying livestock, especially sheep, at numerous local markets and fairs, including Wilton, Salisbury, Ringwood and Weyhill. Cheese for dispatch to Twickenham was purchased from the cheese market at Marlborough and also from Somerset. In May 1692 John Snow bought two expensive black horses for Lady Mary Ashe’s coach. One came from Nicholas Moore of Durrington, the other from Henry Haitter of Witherington Farm, Downton. Each horse cost

£18."

II ‘The Snows’ accounts include numerous references to their role as agents for supplying sheep to dealers around London. For example, in August 1690 twenty ewes were purchased from John Doore of Stalbridge ‘warranted sound’ at 6s. 10d. apiece, and a further fourteen ewes ‘not warranted’ at 5s. Od. apiece. These were sent to John Robinson of Ham, Middlesex, and to John Gilles of Kempton Park. John Bennett sent beef, pigs, butter and fruit to Lord Arundell in London. His account book also records all sorts of miscellaneous expenditure for the Arundells. He paid keepers to take gifts of deer and swans to various local gentry. Gardeners were

THE EYES AND EARS OF THE LORD: MANORIAL STEWARDS IN SOUTH WILTSHIRE 21

paid for planting fruit trees at Wardour and Ansty. In 1668 Lord Shaftesbury’s coachman at Wimborne St Giles was given 2s. 6d. ‘for showing my Lord Arundell the way to Lulworth Castle’. He also paid a farmer 5s. 0d. when one of his sheep was killed by Lord Arundell’s dog. On 29 May 1670, ‘Oak Apple Day’, when the Restoration of Charles II was commemorated, the celebrations involved many expenses. The bowling green keeper at Shaftesbury was given 2s. 0d.; the keepers and ‘the servants of the house’ were rewarded; the “Hare finder’ was paid 5s. Od. ‘when you killed a brace of hares’ and a further 1s. Od. ‘for playing the Knave’. In 1675 the steward spent £1 16s. 8d. for black cloth to hang around the chancel at Tisbury when Lady Arundell was buried, and on black cloth for the Minister who conducted the service. '”

Stewards were frequently involved in law suits in defence of their masters’ interests. Such suits, with the inevitable fees and ‘sweetners’, could be expensive. For example, in 1677 John Bennett was concerned with a case at Salisbury Assizes over an unspecified suit described as ‘Mr Vaughan’s business’. The expenses came to nearly £200, and included the following: ‘Paid 17 of the Jury men and the Sheriffe in all 18, to each of them 5 guineas, the whole 90 guineas at £1 1s. 8d. per guinea make £97 10s. 0d’.

The range of John Bennett’s concerns, covering all aspects of estate management for the Arundells, from care of house, household and garden to all the minutiae of manorial government, illustrates how indispensable a trustworthy steward was to his lord. Bennett was evidently trusted completely by Lord Arundell. Interestingly, although he was employed by a leading Catholic family, Bennett remained staunchly Protestant, calling his daughters by the Puritan names of Patience and Repentance, although he christened one of his sons Arundell. Occasionally stewards were called upon to deal with matters requiring great delicacy, such as involvement in marriage negotiations. In 1699 when Sir John Nicholas was anxious for his son to marry, he entrusted his steward, Thomas Greene, with the task of encouraging the young man and of suggesting suitable brides for him. Likewise, in 1695 Lady Mary Ashe consulted her steward, John Snow, about a possible marriage. She wrote:

I have a grand-daughter of £3000 fortune, very Handsome, Good Humour, and the best Huswife and manager I ever saw, and would Look no where else for my sonn, if weare Not so near a kin.

Snow’s opinion was sought on the suitability of ‘young Mr Goole’, and he was asked to send particulars of this possible bridegroom: ‘give me your oppinion of it [the match] and what estate he has’."*

An additional source of income for landlords is illustrated in the accounts kept by John and Leonard Snow. They lived at Loosehanger where Sir Joseph Ashe possessed a large park and considerable woodland. The grazing in the park was let to ‘cow- keepers’ and the accounts record their names and the number of cattle in detail. Likewise, pigs were allowed into the woodland during the autumn months to fatten on the acorns and beech nuts. Owners were charged from 6d. to 1s. 0d. per week for each pig, although ls. 6d. a week was charged for a few ‘great pigges’. With so much money passing through their hands in rents, fines, timber sales and miscellaneous manorial dues, there were numerous perfectly legal opportunities for stewards to make temporary use of it to enrich themselves. The best examples of this come from the account books of John Bennett. Although his annual salary as a steward was no more than £50, Bennett was lending large sums at interest to many people. Evidently he was well-known as a money lender, and his dealings ranged from Bristol to the south coast. He lent Lord Arundell various sums, including £1,000 in 1665, while other loans ranged from £800 to £20. Some were to relatives, such as ‘my brother, Anthony £000’, or ‘my sister Barren £300’. Other loans were to Arundell tenants to cover arrears of rent. All were charged 6% per annum. His complex financial affairs and long lists of loans fill many pages of his account book. Henry Sherfield, the Salisbury lawyer who was steward to the Earl of Salisbury, also had an extensive money-lending business. His clients ranged from Lady Weld of Lulworth Castle to the poor of Salisbury, and he generally charged 8% per year.”

Il Through their stewards many seventeenth-century landlords encouraged the introduction of new crops and better farming methods. Improved stock and increased yields meant that tenants could afford higher rents for their farms. Thus Henry and Richard Sherfield, steward and under-steward to the Earl of Salisbury for his Cranborne estate actively promoted the growing of woad by their tenants. In particular they supervised the conversion to arable of a large area of downland at Blagdon Hill between Pentridge and Martin. This was divided into small plots and let to tenants for

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growing the profitable but labour-intensive woad. Henry Sherfield himself set an example by growing large crops of woad on his own land at Winterbourne Earls. One of his letters still has attached to it a sample of cloth dyed with his woad and retaining its attractive soft, blue colour.'® Henry Sherfield was also interested in introducing other new crops. He sent his step-son, George Bedford, to the Low Countries to obtain roots of madder, and seeds of rape and cole for cultivation in England, and his account book contains references to the cultivation of sainfoin, vetches, grasses, peas and different varieties of corn.'’ John Bennett’s accounts show that he encouraged enclosures, drainage and improved woodland management. Evidence for improved farming comes from the account book for the Arundell demesne farm at Ansty, covering the years 1694 to 1706, which contains numerous references to sowing recently- introduced fodder crops such as French grass or ‘sainfoin’, vetches, rye grass, hop clover and peas.'® Bennett’s account book also includes references to woodland management, planting saplings, coppice work, and the sale of timber, faggots, charcoal, hurdles and rakes. In particular, he took a close interest in the estate woodland at Hooke near Donhead St Andrew and Castle Ditches near Swallowcliffe. Sales of timber, oak bark for tanning and logs for firewood were an important source of income for landlords. The Snows regularly sold wood from Downton and Loosehanger to charcoal burners, and there are many references in their accounts to the income from ‘colewood’. The correspondence of Thomas Greene, steward at Gillingham to Sir John Nicholas, is full of references to the woodland. He was constantly concerned to protect the woods from cottagers desperate for firewood, and to preserve the young trees from the inroads of sheep and cattle.

The most remarkable example of the encouragement of new husbandry practice comes from the manor of Downton. Starting in 1665 the steward, John Snow, presided over an elaborate and expensive scheme for watering meadows all along the Avon valley. His plan was not finally completed until the 1690s, and involved taking water from the Avon near Alderbury, and the creation of a new channel along the side of the valley to Downton, a distance of some three miles. From this main channel water was supplied to the manorial farms at Witherington, Standlynch, Barford and New Court. This remarkable and expensive project involved not only the creation of the water courses,

but also the building of hatches, channels and drains, levelling and ensuring the flow of water over the meadows, making of bridges, paying compensation to millers, commoners and owners of fishing rights. The scheme involved John Snow in a great deal of work and bargaining. The eventual cost was more than £2000, and Snow wrote to Sir Joseph Ashe in 1674 explaining why the work ‘came to nere duble the expense as was at first proposed’. He mentioned the difficulty of getting the levels right, the cost of additional hatches, the expense of bringing gravel to improve the drainage, and the necessity of building bridges along the towpath for bargemen and their horses using the canal or ‘navigation’ from Salisbury. He went on, however, to point out the value of the early grass produced by the water meadows, the improvement the increased supply of fodder for winter feeding would bring, and the fact that 194 acres of meadow which had been worth £218 per year were now worth £428. If they could not be let for this sum, John Snow undertook to rent them himself.!”

All the complex negotiations for creating the water meadows along the Avon above Downton fell entirely upon John Snow. One part of the scheme alone required 41 agreements to be made with landowners, tenants and millers, for rights to make water courses, and install stone hatches, compensation for disturbance to commoners and those entitled to the herbage who were described by John Snow as ‘the Earbidgers of Alderbury’. The use of water for each meadow had also to be agreed; the periodic winter watering beginning on 1 November and ending on 6 March, and the brief summer watering to be during the period 3 May to 25 May each year. It must have required great enthusiasm and skilful diplomacy on the part of the steward to bring such complex negotiations to a successful conclusion. The series of letters from Sir Joseph Ashe shows that he took a close interest in the progress of the scheme and was a regular critic, but he did not handle the arrangements himself. He obviously placed great trust in John Snow, but nonetheless complained constantly over the costs. For example, in March 1677 he wrote from London to John Snow: ‘I thinke this Cursed Wateringe hath given me 10 tymes the trouble that all the other concernes of my life hath done...’ Again in April 1678 he wrote:

...When you will consider the perpetual trouble and constant laying out of money, and noe coming in, you need not wonder I am sicke of those designs and

THE EYES AND EARS OF THE LORD: MANORIAL STEWARDS IN SOUTH WILTSHIRE 23

let other men fall into my circumstances and they will be as weary as my selfe. But those that enjoy a profitt and quiett may be ever content, and when that tyme comes, soe will I.*°

There are few better examples of the high capital cost of creating water meadows, and of their value in improving agricultural productivity. Interestingly, in most places where water meadows were developed along the downland valleys during the seventeenth century, their main purpose was to provide early feed for the sheep flocks; at Downton, however, where nearby Salisbury provided a ready market for milk and butter, the meadows were valued as providing early grass and an abundant hay crop for the milking cows. In 1676 John Snow summarised the advantages which water meadows would bring as follows:

1. There would be a great increase in crops of hay.

2. Men could keep more sheep and cattle.

3. There would be an increase in corn and grass for fattening cattle and for butter and cheese.”!

IV

With so much power over all aspects of manorial life delegated to the stewards, and so much money passing through their hands, it was inevitable that there should be criticism and complaint. An anonymous letter received by Humphrey Weld at Lulworth Castle in 1706 protested that the steward was acting ‘contrary to all rules of Christianity and Honesty’. The writer concluded: ‘.. . he will make you a poore Lord and himself a rich steward’.*? A century earlier, Sir Carew Raleigh had been dismissed as steward of the Duchy of Cornwall manors in Dorset and Wiltshire when an enquiry found that he had been taking bribes from the tenants in return for granting copyhold leases for very low entry fines.”

Complaints of a different kind were made against Richard Sherfield, under-steward of the Cranborne estate. In 1623 several tenants at Cranborne and Damerham wrote to the Earl of Salisbury at Hatfield House to protest against Sherfield’s actions. Having been appointed to his post in 1620, Sherfield had begun an enthusiastic campaign to maintain the Earl’s rights in his manors and to prevent the encroachments and infringements of which the tenants were guilty. Sherfield’s legal attempts to preserve and increase

- the Earl’s profits provoked a storm of criticism. The Earl was anxious to preserve good relations with his tenants, maintain his political influence in the

locality, and act in a benevolent manner consistent with his wealth and status. He therefore appointed a commission to inquire into Sherfield’s actions. Although the commissioners found nothing illegal, they reported that Sherfield’s proceedings were: ‘directly opposite to your truly noble disposition by pressing and enforcing such strict penalties and lawquirkes, that he hath justly drawne on him the hate and ill opinion of that parte of the country’. Notwithstanding Sherfield’s diligent regard for the Earl’s interests, he was sacked from his post. His fate illustrates the tight-rope which a steward had to traverse in maintaining good relations with both landlord and tenants.*! Particularly difficult for stewards to deal with were the substantial and well- connected freehold tenants on each manor. The complaints about Richard Sherfield at Cranborne had been led by Thomas Hooper of Boveridge, whe as well as a freehold estate also leased many of the demesne lands of Cranborne. Richard Sherfield’s insistence on the Earl’s rights had quickly provoked protests from Hooper, whom Sherfield referred to as ‘the old devil who lives on the hill at Boveridge’. As steward of Damerham, Samuel Stillingfleet faced a barrage of criticism in 1638 from Denzil Holles, a younger son of the Earl of Clare. Through his wife Holles had acquired the tenancy of a house and land on the Earl of Salisbury’s estate at Damerham. As his political career showed, Holles was a proud, passionate and quick-tempered man, and when Stillingfleet delivered to him a letter complaining that he had cut down timber and committed other misdemeanours at Damerham he reacted furiously. He complained bitterly to the Earl of Salisbury that the style and content of the letter failed to appreciate his rank: ‘for beginning, middle and end, inside and outside, are all below me’. He claimed that the timber had been necessary to repair the property, ‘a rotten house not fit for a gentleman to live in’, and totally refused ‘to run to your officer in Cranborne, or I know not where, to beg a tree and tarry his pleasure to assign it to me’. Stillingfleet’s response to this onslaught is unknown, but it is clear that he was no match for a man so conscious of his rank and position as Holles.” Dealing with cottagers, paupers, poachers and squatters on the woodland, waste and common land of manors also presented intractable problems for stewards. Thomas Greene at Gillingham had constant difficulty in defending the woods of his master, Sir John Nicholas, from depredation by wood-stealers and poachers. Likewise, the stewards at Longleat had enormous difficulty in defending

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the woods from thieves, and the deer, hares, rabbits and game birds from poachers.”°

At Downton, where there were large areas of waste and common in the east of the parish, John and Leonard Snow were concerned about the number of poor families who illegally took up residence there. In 1695 John Snow wrote to Lady Mary Ashe at Twickenham stating:

There are in the whole of Downton waste above 100 cottages besides many small enclosures. . . Every summer enlarges the number of cottages and encroachments, so that some effectual course must

be taken at great Expense to stop these proceedings.

In 1698 Snow reported how a group of people attempted to erect a timber-framed house on the common at Downton in spite of his warnings. Clearly, this was little more than a hovel, to be erected overnight in the mistaken but widely-held belief that such subterfuge conferred a legal title. Six men were to be involved in erecting the structure, the owner, a carpenter, his apprentice, a thatcher, a plasterer, and a man who was to dig the holes for securing the flimsy edifice to the earth.

Snow’s response to the influx of paupers was to apply to the justices for licence to demolish the illegal dwellings. The fact that such requests were often granted is evident from the references to ‘plucking downe the Cottages’ which appear in Snow’s accounts. An example occurs as early as 1670, when John Snow applied to the justices in Salisbury for ‘pulling downe John Moore’s cottage on the waste within the manor of Downton’. The considerable costs included bringing John Moore to court, rewards to lawyers, court officials and witnesses. Finally, in 1672 the following payments were made concerning John Moore’s house:

8 May 1672 Paid John Eastman and Thomas Hatcher for helpinge to pull downe the materialls 2s. 8d. John Browne for cuminge to carry away the materials 1s. 6d.

Such actions, however, provoked widespread condemnation. There were petitions to Lady Mary Ashe at Twickenham, to the Bishop of Winchester and to the justices in Salisbury. In 1694 a freeholder, Benjamin Wyche, wrote to Lady Mary Ashe deploring the fact that it was intended to ‘turne out a great many poor Creatures out of the small Cottages built upon Downton waste’. He urged Lady Mary not to listen to the advice of John Snow, ‘who is little moved with the Cryes of the poore where a little small interest is concerned’. The

churchwardens and overseers of the poor of Downton also wrote desiring that the poor might be allowed to remain, ‘beinge poore persons within our said parish and want houses for their habitation’ .*’

V

In addition to their other duties, stewards were also expected to play their part in securing the return of their master to Parliament at borough elections. They reported gossip, kept him abreast of local events and did their best to retain the support of local voters. Unlike Old Sarum, whose representatives in Parliament were little troubled by electors, Downton had more than 100 men who, by occupying particular tenements, qualified as burgesses and possessed a vote. Sir Joseph Ashe seldom came to Downton, but he was at pains to secure the gratitude and votes of the burgesses by supporting local charities and by his concern for the welfare of the borough. Accordingly, he had founded a school in Downton, and in 1676 obtained the grant of two annual fairs, to be held on 12 April and 21 September each year.*®

With so many voters, he depended upon John Snow to keep their goodwill and ensure their continued support. He was keen to be kept informed of local affairs, gossip and opinions. In 1680 when there was a rumour in Downton that Sir Joseph had not attended many sessions of Parliament, he wrote a letter for Snow to take to every elector. Addressed to ‘My lovinge friends the Burgesses of the Borough of Downton’, the letter justified his absence from Parliament on the grounds that there had been little business of any importance to discuss.”

The trust which the Ashe family reposed in John Snow over political affairs at Downton is illustrated by a letter of Sir James Ashe concerning a by- election in 1698:

One of your members of Parliament is dead. I here have sent down my man post to let you know that I would stand to be chosen either this or the ensuing parliament. Pray let me know what interest you can make and if you think fit I will come down presently and stand. Pray see about and make what friends you can.”

At Shaftesbury Thomas Greene distributed beef or money to the poor at Christmas on behalf of the MP, Sir John Nicholas. He also contributed generously to local charities. When Sir John Nicholas retired in 1701 and was succeeded as MP

THE EYES AND EARS OF THE LORD: MANORIAL STEWARDS IN SOUTH WILTSHIRE 25

for Shaftesbury by his son,Edward, Thomas Greene took the new member to call on all the burgesses who had voted for him.’!

The role of a steward as election agent, and the expense involved in securing votes, can be illustrated from the accounts kept by John Snow at Downton during the election of 1670. The election was called for 15 December 1670, and the campaign to obtain votes started a month earlier. Dinners were provided for voters at local inns, and the costs included wine, ale, tobacco, oysters, venison, turkey, cheese and fruit. No delicacy was denied to the voters, and there are references in the accounts to Canary wine, claret, burnt claret, white wine, oranges, and even to ‘two dozen larks’. Even the poor in the borough received charity, although they did not have a vote. On election day, dinner was provided for 160 men at a cost of £12 17s. Od. The total cost of the hospitality provided for voters by John Snow came to nearly £200.The expenditure was not in vain, and Sir Joseph Ashe was duly returned as member of Parliament for the borough of Downton.”

In conclusion, the evidence concerning the varied activities of seventeenth-century stewards in the Salisbury area amply demonstrates their crucial importance in estate management. For most tenants of the major landowners whose properties covered so much of the west country, the ever-present, vigilant steward was a much more formidable figure than the non-resident landlord. A trustworthy steward, with a careful eye to all aspects of his master’s business, treading a delicate path so as not to alienate the major tenants, was indispensable for the functioning of great estates and manorial government during the seventeenth century.

References

' D.R. Hainsworth, Stewards, Lords and People, 1992.

2 Public Record Office, E123/28 fol. 358; E178/2457. R. Hoyle, The Estates of the English Crown 1558-1640, 1992, 178, 209-10; E. Kerridge, “The Movement of Rent 1540-1640’, Economic History Review, 2nd Series, 6, 1953, 32.

> J.H. Bettey, ‘Henry Sherfield of Salisbury’ Hatcher Review, 9, 1980, 19-27; Hampshire Record Office, 44M69/XLIV/16-18 Henry Sherfield’s Accounts

4 J.H. Bettey, ‘Manorial Stewards and the Conduct of Manorial Affairs’, Dorset Natural History & Archaeological Society Proceedings, 115, 1993, 15- 19; see also J. Chandler, Endless Street, 1983, 169, 201-4; L. Stone, Family and Fortune, 1973, 126-9.

The information concerning Stillingfleet, the Sherfield family, and the administration of the Cranborne estate is derived from Cranborne Accounts 1611-59, Hatfield House, especially General 18/26, 27/8, 83/ 22, 88/24. 88/26 and Legal 234/17.

> Wiltshire & Swindon Record Office, 750/1; 413/507- 10, Accounts of John Bennett.

®° W.S.R.O. 490/842; 490/909-12, Accounts and Correspondence of John and Leonard Snow.

7 Victoria County History, Wiltshire, XI, 1980, 24, 29, 41.

8 W.S.R.O. 490/842.

° W.S.R.O. 750/13 413/507-10.

'0 John Rylands Library, Manchester, Letters from Thomas Greene of Gillingham to Sir John Nicholas 1698-1701. Photocopies in Dorset Record Office.

WS R.O. 490/842.

12, W.S.R.O. 413/507.

5 W.S.R.O. 413/509

4 W.S.R.O. 490/909.

' W.S.R.O. 490/842; 750/1; 1946/Box 12 (5); Hampshire Record Office, Henry Sherfield’s Account Book 44/ M69/XXV.

'o H.R.O. 44/M69/XXX/76.

'7 J.H. Bettey, “The Cultivation of Woad in the Salisbury Area during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, Textile History, 9, 1978, 112-117.

18 W.S.R.O. 2667/12/97 Ansty Farm Accounts 1694- 1706. I am grateful to Steven Hobbs for drawing my attention to this source.

'° For an account of the creation of water meadows and their importance in seventeenth-century farming see J.H. Bettey, “The Development of Water Meadows in the Southern Counties’, in H. Cook & T. Williamson eds., Water Management in the English Landscape, 1999, 179-95. The creation of the elaborate system of water meadows above Downton produced a mass of documentation. See especially W.S.R.O. 490/756- 7; 490/890; 490/903-12; 1946/Box 12 (5) (10). VCH Wilts. XI, 1980, 71-7.

20 W.S.R.O. 490/909.

21 W.S.R.O. 490/890; 490/896.

22 Dorset Record Office D/WLC/E12.

3 Public Record Office E123/28/fol. 358; E178/2457.

*4 For detailed references to this affair see J.H. Bettey, ‘Henry Sherfield of Salisbury’ Hatcher Review, 9, 1980, 19-27.

2 The correspondence between Denzil Holies and the Earl of Salisbury over this dispute is summarised in Calendar of State Papers (Domestic), Vol. 393, 1638, 55, and Vol. 400, 1638-8, 2.

20 D.R. Hainsworth, op.cit., 208-15.

27 W7.S.R.O. 490/909; 490/925; 490/932.

8 VCH Wilts., XI, 1980, 24, 29, 41.

29 W.S.R.O. 490/909.

30 Ibid:.

31 —D.R. Hainsworth, op.cit., 154.

32, W.S.R.O. 1946/Box 12 (5) (10).

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THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE

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Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 96 (2003), pp. 26-32

Excavation of Roman Features and Deposits on the Outskirts of Cunetio (Mildenhall),

Marlborough, in 1997 by Nicholas Cooke

with contributions by Moira Laidlaw and Jacqueline I. McKinley

Evidence of Roman occupation to the west of the Roman small town of Cunetio was revealed in 1997 along the line of a sewer pipeline. Early Roman features were located on both sides of a large, possibly defensive, ditch, but were concentrated to the west where they included ditches, pits and postholes, as well as two graves forming part of a larger cemetery. Fewer later Roman features were revealed, including an

urned cremation burial.

In 1997 Wessex Archaeology undertook a programme of archaeological works, comprising excavations and a watching brief, in advance of the construction of a new sewer pipeline at Mildenhall, near Marlborough. The work was commissioned and funded by Thames Water Utilities. The proposed pipeline ran for approximately 910m on the south side of the River Kennet, from OS Grid Ref. SU 2151 6958 at its northeast end to SU 2069 6914 at its southwest end (Figure 1). At its northeast end it lay within c. 30m of the Roman small town of Cunetio.

BACKGROUND

The extent of the Roman small town of Cunetio is known primarily through the interpretation of aerial photographs, there having been very little archaeological excavation, although much of the evidence of its origin and development has recently been collated (Corney 1997). Pre-Roman settlement in the area is thought to have focused on the univallate enclosure at Forest Hill and its

associated earthworks, c. 1km to the southwest, which may have acted as the focus for a late Iron Age oppidum. The enclosure was subsequently occupied in the Roman period by a winged corridor ‘villa’.

The exact date of the origin of Cunetio is uncertain, although limited excavations have demonstrated occupation from the second half of the Ist century AD onwards. It has been suggested that the initial occupation of the site may have been military in character (Corney 2001), with a post- Conquest fort controlling the river crossing, although no traces of a fort have been identified on aerial photographs. There is good photographic evidence, however, for two successive defensive circuits for the town, along with a number of buildings and a street grid. The earlier earthen defences formed a double ditched enclosure of some 6ha, and may be of 2nd or 3rd century AD date. The later defensive circuit, dated by excavation to after c. AD 360, consisted of a substantial stone wall with projecting bastions, although its position appears to show little regard for the extant street system or the line of the earlier defences (Burnham and Wacher 1990, 150).

Wessex Archaeology, Portway House, Old Sarum Park, Salisbury, SP4 6EB

28 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE

Aerial photographs reveal extensive cropmark evidence for occupation to the west of the town in the form of roads, possible enclosures, buried walls and possible buildings (Cox 1997). Although these cropmarks could not be traced in Plots 1-3 (Figure 1), any features in these fields, which all slope steeply down to the river, may have been masked by colluvial and alluvial action.

Excavations in 1951 identified a late Iron Age or early Roman inhumation cemetery in Plot 3, with associated artefacts of 1st century AD date (Meyrick 1955). Seven of the burials were aligned east-to-west, four of them being flexed. The eighth, a prone burial, was aligned north-to- south. Although their exact locations were not reported, the cemetery was described as being ‘low and quite near the present course of the Kennet, with a brook only about 20 yards away’ (ibid, 20).

METHODOLOGY

A two-stage programme of archaeological works was undertaken, emphasis being placed on establishing the location of important deposits, and the targeted excavation and recording of those threatened with disturbance.

The first stage involved the stripping and excavation of the area of the highest archaeological potential — some 310m of the pipeline route, incorporating Plots 1, 2 and 3. Topsoil was stripped under close archaeological supervision from a 1.6m wide trench to the surface of the archaeological remains. In Plot 1, this involved the excavation of a considerable depth of modern ‘made ground’ overlying alluvial deposits and gravels, while in Plots 2 and 3 the subsoil deposits above chalk ranged from 0.2m to 1m in depth, generally increasing in depth from east to west. All archaeological features were defined, planned and recorded, and those threatened by the proposed course of the pipeline were sample excavated in order to establish their form, function and date. All human remains were fully excavated. Excavation ceased at 1.2m below ground level, the installation depth of the pipe.

The entire remaining length of pipeline not subjected to archaeological excavation was monitored during topsoil stripping and subsequent trenching, but no archaeological deposits or features were identified during this stage.

RESULTS

Plot 1

Plot 1 lies immediately adjacent to the present course of the River Kennet. Topsoil stripping revealed a relatively intact sequence of deposits. A light-medium grey silty clay and a medium grey silt, both containing modern pottery and ceramic building material, overlay a thick band of dark grey fine silty clay containing quantities of Roman pottery, animal bone, driftwood and roof tile. This in turn overlay an unsorted gravel in an orange silty clay matrix, which may represent a decalcified solifluction deposit of the last glaciation. Although archaeological remains were recovered from these deposits, none was demonstrably in situ, and their matrices were consistent with either having been lain down or truncated by a change in the course of the river.

Plots 2 and 3

These plots lay on the lower slopes of the valley immediately above the bluff of the floodplain. A number of archaeological features were identified, excavated and recorded in both plots, although there was a concentration towards the west of Plot 3 (Figure 2). Most date to the early Roman period (1st and 2nd centuries AD), although a few later Roman and medieval features were also recorded.

Early Roman (Ist and 2nd centuries AD)

The dominant feature of the early Roman period was ditch 43, running northwest-southeast. It was 9.8m wide at the top, and although excavated to a depth of only 1.2m, auguring indicated a depth of at least 2.4m.The upper part of its profile was sealed by accumulations of ploughsoil that had migrated downslope, slumping into the in-filled ditch. This contained significant quantities of lst and 2nd century AD Roman pottery, with a smaller proportion of 3rd century AD pottery. It also contained a very small copy of a 4th century AD coin, bearing heavily stylised lettering and engraving.

The upper fill of the ditch proper, which contained pottery dating to the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, consisted of a spread, 7.2m wide and up to 0.15m deep, of charcoal and burnt material, including charred plant remains (mainly grain). This material also yielded a carbonised wooden pin

EXCAVATION OF ROMAN FEATURES AND DEPOSITS ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF CUNETIO, 1997 29

Key: @ 1st-—2nd century AD @ 3rd-4th century AD B@ Medieval

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Old pipe aN Lt 7 (fs

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Fig. 2. Archaeological features in Plots 2 and 3

30 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE

(Figure 3), its head formed by two simple notches on either side of the circular shaft which tapered towards the missing tip. The origin of this burnt material is unclear. It sealed a much deeper secondary fill containing pottery of lst and 2nd century AD date. The underlying layer of re- deposited chalk rubble, filling much of the eastern half of the ditch, contained considerably fewer finds, although of a similar date range. The rubble may have derived from a chalk-built rampart to the east of the ditch that was subsequently used to backfill the ditch.

0 50mm Sea

Fig. 3. (1) Complete Black Burnished ware cremation vessel, pit 14, (2) carbonised wooden pin, ditch 43

Four features excavated to the northeast of ditch 43 may date to the Ist and 2nd centuries AD. The most substantial was well 35, which was c. 4m across with vertical sides. The earliest recorded fill, a silty loam, appeared to represent a circular shaft in the centre of the well. After the well had gone out of use it had been backfilled with sarsen boulders and flint nodules. Both fills contained pottery of the Ist and 2nd centuries AD. No traces of a timber or stone lining were identified within the depth excavated.

Pit 21, the earliest in pit group 158, was 2.4m in diameter, 0.6m deep and contained ten sherds of lst and 2nd century AD pottery. Pits 40 and 42, which lay outside the line of the pipeline at the northeastern end of the trench and were therefore not excavated, yielded small quantities of pottery

of a similar date from their surfaces. (As sherds of this date were often recovered from later contexts and features, the early dates for pits 40 and 42 are by no means secure.)

The only feature within 40m of ditch 43 on its western side was pit 51, a sub-circular, possibly natural, feature producing six small sherds of undiagnostic pottery. The majority of the early Roman features lay further to the west, in an area where the overall density of features is higher.

Apart from ditch 75, which ran east-west, all the early Roman ditches in this area were aligned northwest-southeast. Ditch 75, which was 0.9m wide and 0.45m deep, was cut by the slightly deeper ditch 77, measuring 0.8m wide and 0.73m deep, both ditches containing early Roman pottery. Ditch 68, c. 3m to the west, was very similar in form and alignment to ditch 77, measuring 0.8m wide and 0.54m deep. Two ditches further to the southwest, 96 and 110, also dated to the early Roman period. Of these, the former is relatively shallow, at 0.25m, while the latter is deeper, at 0.89m. Each of these ditches, possibly all drainage features, differed slightly in form, and did not appear within the limits of the trench to form any coherent arrangement. A number of similar but undated ditches in the same area may have been contemporaneous.

Two shallow sub-circular pits in this area were firmly dated to the Ist or 2nd century AD: pit 101, c.1.8m across and 0.24m deep; and pit 141, c.2.2m wide and 0.62m deep, from which fragments of re- deposited human bone belonging to two individuals were recovered.

Later Roman (3rd and 4th century AD)

In contrast to the early Roman period, only six features can definitely be dated to the 3rd or 4th centuries AD. All of them, apart from pit 71, which at 0.92m in depth was the deepest excavated pit of this date, were located at the northeast end of the trench.

Acremation burial, consisting of cremated bone from an adult and a neonate, had been placed in a Black Burnished Ware jar (Figure 3) in a shallow cut (feature 15) with a dump of pyre debris. The burial was adjacent to pit 14, a steep-sided sub- circular pit, c. 1.3m in diameter and 0.3m deep, also containing pyre debris, including quantities of burnt human bone from an adult, as well as the square base of a glass vessel, hobnails, nails, a copper alloy fitting, a coin of Constantine I (AD 306-337), sherds of pottery and small quantities of unidentifiable burnt animal bone.

EXCAVATION OF ROMAN FEATURES AND DEPOSITS ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF CUNETIO, 1997 31

Although no direct joins were found between the fragments of adult bone from the two features, there was no duplication of skeletal elements, and the age and general morphology of the bone was similar in both contexts, suggesting that it originated from the same cremation. The combined weight of the bone, 654.3g, represents a maximum of 65% of the expected weight from an adult cremation (McKinley 1993), suggesting that some bone, particularly skull fragments which were under- represented, was removed for disposal elsewhere. The combined cremation of an adult and an immature individual represents the most commonly occurring type of dual cremation (McKinley 1997), and may indicate that a mother and child died and were cremated together.

Pit 14 cut two earlier pits — pits 16 and 30. Pit 30 may have been a rubbish pit, while pit 16, the base of which was lined with a layer of tile and sarsen stones, may have been used for some form of storage. Pits 25 and 27, in pit group 158, also contained later Roman pottery. Pit 25, 2.4m wide and 0.6m deep, cut pit 27, 1.2m in diameter and 0.4m deep. Their function is uncertain, although the material recovered from them suggests that they were rubbish pits.

Medieval

Two ditches, both aligned northwest-southeast, and one pit (pit 104) contained sherds of 12th and 13th century AD pottery. Ditch 121 was 1.9m wide and 0.8m deep with a V-shaped profile. Ditch 108, c. 5m to the southwest, was 0.7m wide and 0.65m deep. They probably represent activity peripheral to a nearby agricultural settlement.

Undated Many of the excavated features, most of them to the southwest, could not be closely dated. These included two truncated, intercutting shallow graves, both aligned roughly east-west, immediately west of, and disturbed by, medieval ditch 108. Much of the bone in grave 60, which had the upper torso to the east, was disturbed by the later grave 67. Grave 60 also contained bone from two further individuals, possibly derived from other truncated graves in the vicinity. (Five sherds of medieval pottery recorded as having come from the grave are likely to have derived instead from ditch 108, which was not initially recognised as truncating this grave.) Grave 67 was in a slightly better condition, with significant portions of the skull and the left arm surviving in situ, although again the inhumation

was too badly preserved to establish the precise body position.

The small size of the whole unburnt bone assemblage (which includes the bone from early Roman pit 141, as well as that from two individuals from undated ditch 149) and nature of the deposits —miostly disarticulated and redeposited — precludes much demographic discussion. Individuals were of both sexes, and ranged in age from neonatal to older adult. The majority of the pathological lesions, none of which was severe, were of a degenerative nature most commonly associated with age-related wear and tear (Rogers and Waldron 1995).This evidence suggests the assemblage represents part of a ‘normal domestic’ cemetery, which, including the eight burials already recorded (Meyrick 1955), gives a total to date of 15 individuals.

Other undated features included further pits and ditches, including ditch 90 which had two postholes dug into its base, suggesting the ditch may have had a structural function. Three other postholes were excavated in this area, but no other structures could be identified within the limits of the trench.

DISCUSSION

The limited extent of the excavation makes it difficult to draw firm conclusions as to the significance of the features uncovered. However, the excavation has shed considerable light on the nature and extent of Roman activity west of Cunetio, extending the area of known archaeological remains to some 300m from the town’s defences, and northwest towards the floodplain of the River Kennet. Ditch 43, which may have continued up to the river, appears to have had a chalk rampart on its northeastern side and could have formed a major defensive boundary to the nucleated settlement in the 2nd century AD, possibly protecting a river crossing. There were no other contemporaneous features within 15m to the northeast of the ditch, beyond which the evidence of occupation consisted of a well and a number of rubbish pits.

To the southwest, the concentration of early Roman features, possibly associated with a domestic settlement, is separated from the ditch by a gap of some 50m, the gap possibly acting as a defensive zone in front of the ditch. The two undated graves to the southwest have a similar alignment and

32 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE

location to the 1st century AD burials previously excavated (Meyrick 1955, 20), and they may be associated with the first phase of Roman settlement within the river valley. The presence of re-deposited human bone in a number of other features in this area, including early Roman pit 141, supports this dating for the burials, and also suggests that there may be further truncated burials in the immediate vicinity.

There was less evidence for settlement extending as far to the west in the later Roman period. The later Roman features were fewer and less informative, most appearing to be rubbish pits, although they point to some continued activity in the western hinterland of the town. The main exception was the cremation burial towards the northeast end of the trench. Cremation burial was relatively unusual in the 4th century AD, with inhumation the predominant mode (Philpott 1991, 50), although later Roman cremation burials were found at Winterbourne Down (Algar 1961, 470), Lankhills in Winchester (Clarke 1979) and Owslebury, Hampshire (Collis 1977, 27). It was impossible to establish whether the cremation burial was an isolated feature or part of a larger extra- mural cemetery.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Wessex Archaeology would like to acknowledge the co-operation of Thames Water Utilities, in particular Mr Alan Young (Project Manager) and Ms Juliet Roper (Senior Conservation and Heritage Scientist). The collaborative role of Mike Lang Hall (Archaeological Consultant), Roy Canham and Duncan Coe (Wiltshire County Council) is also acknowledged, as is the assistance of the Resident Engineer, Mathew le Port (Gleesons). Aerial photographic transcription was undertaken by Chris Cox, Air Photo Services, and her assistance during the course of the project is acknowledged. Mark Corney is acknowledged for his helpful comments and advice on the results of the fieldwork.

The project was managed for Wessex Archaeology by Roland J.C. Smith and was directed in the field by Phil Harding with the assistance of Nicholas Cooke, Chris Ellis, Jim Stedman, Julie

Lovell, James Wright and Cornelius Barton. The illustrations were prepared by S.E. James. A more detailed report on the results of the work (Wessex Archaeology 1998) has been deposited with the Wiltshire SMR.

References

ALGAR, D.J., 1961, Winterbourne Down: Roman cemetery. WANHM 58, 470

BURNHAM, B.C., and WACHER, J., 1990, The Small Towns of Roman Britain. London: Batsford

CLARKE, G., 1979, Pre-Roman and Roman Winchester Part II: The Roman Cemetery at Lankhills. Oxford: Oxford University Press

COLLIS, J., 1977, ‘Owslebury (Hants) and the problem of burials on rural settlements’, in R. Reece (ed.), Burial in the Roman World, 26-34. London: Council for British Archaeology Research Report 22

CORNEY, M., 1997, The origins and development of the ‘Small Town’ of Cunetio, Mildenhall, Wiltshire. Britannia 28, 337-50

CORNEY, M., 2001, “The Romano-British nucleated settlements of Wiltshire’, in P. Ellis (ed.), Roman Wiltshire and After: Papers in Honour of Ken Annable, 3-38. Devizes: WANHS

COX, C., 1997, ‘Mildenhall Rising Main SU 2068, 2069, 2168, 2169 Wiltshire, Aerial Photographic Assessment’. Unpublished Air Photo Services Ltd. Client Report 967/13

MCKINLEY, J.I., 1993, Bone fragment size and weights of bone from modern British cremations and its implications for the interpretation of archaeological cremations. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 3, 283-7

MCKINLEY, J.I., 1997, Bronze Age ‘barrows’ and the funerary rites and rituals of cremation. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 63, 129-45

MEYRICK, O., 1955, Romano-British burials at Werg. Marlborough College Natural History Society 96, 19- 20

PHILPOTT, R., 1991, Burial Practices in Roman Britain: A Survey of Grave Treatment and Furnishing A.D. 43 — 410. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, British Series 219

ROGERS, J., and WALDRON, T., 1995, A Field Guide to Joint Disease in Archaeology. Chichester: Wiley

WESSEX ARCHAEOLOGY, 1998, Excavation of Roman features and deposits on the outskirts of Cunetio (Mildenhall), Marlborough, Wiltshire 1n 1997. Unpublished Client Report No. 43455

Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 96 (2003), pp. 33-39

Etruscan and Other Figurines from Avebury and

Nearby by Paul Robinson

The paper re-examines the history and provenance of a number of bronze figurines and related objects originally in the collection of Joshua Brooke. All are purported to be of Roman date and to have been found in and around Avebury during the late 19th and early 20th century. Whilst genuine Etruscan, Roman and Chinese antiquities, in each instance the provenance can be shown to be false. It is evident that Brooke was being sold antiquities with false findspots, a practice designed to increase their value that was

not uncommon at the time.

There are in the Society’s museum a group of bronze figurines and related objects which purport to be of Roman date and which were said to have been found at Avebury and in one instance, Bishops Cannings, the adjacent parish. They came to the museum in 1916 from the collection formed by Joshua Brooke and had previously been displayed in the private museum in his house at Marlborough. Most of these objects have been published at different times as genuine Wiltshire finds from Avebury or nearby. It is not however insignificant that they were all omitted by M.E. Cunnington (1932) and L.V. Grinsell (1957) in their gazetteers of archaeological finds made in the county, although most were included by Mrs Cunnington in 1934 in the catalogue of the museum collections of which she was joint author. It is now appreciated that there were important Roman buildings both in and near Avebury and it is therefore opportune to reconsider this group and their recorded provenances to consider whether there is indeed any possibility that any may be genuine finds from Wiltshire.

Joshua Brooke built up an extremely important collection of artefacts and coins, many of which were found in Wiltshire and West Berkshire. Some

_of these came from excavations that he himself undertook: some were given to him by landowners

while others he purchased from dealers or the workmen who had found them. He was perhaps unfairly and rather summarily dismissed by O.G.S. Crawford as ‘a rather crazy and disreputable collector. .. he did not appreciate the importance of recording the exact sites of his finds; many of these were obtained from road workmen and others, and the sites of many are suspect’ (Crawford 1955, 27f). Brooke did however fully appreciate that the objects from Avebury which are the subject of this paper were potentially of very great importance in understanding the history of the monument and the region around it in Roman times. While few of these objects, and indeed a small proportion only of the objects and coins in his collection do have precise findspots, most do have relatively close findspots. Where the findspot is more general, this is almost certainly because he had been given only generalised information by the donor or vendor. Certainly in his manuscript notebooks, which are preserved in the library of the WANHS, Brooke records findspots, evidently in as much detail as he was able to. While he was certainly knowledgeable about coins and artefacts, he does appear at times to have been gullible with regard to some provenances and fanciful in some of his identifications. In this respect he is perhaps no different from many other collectors, archaeologists

The Museum, WANHS, 41 Long Street, Devizes, Wiltshire, SN10 1NS

34 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE

or provincial museum curators of his time, when they have been faced with archaeological finds either made by members of the public or offered for sale by dealers.

The group of objects is as follows. They are listed in the order given to them by Brooke in his catalogue of his collection.

a i a

}

Fig.1. Italic figurine of a priest or genius from ‘Avebury

1. Italic bronze figurine depicting a priest or genius (Figure 1). Height 65mm. It is said to have been found at Avebury but the purported exact findspot is not recorded. Neither the finder’s nor the vendor’s name is recorded. Accession number: Brooke collection 117. Published: 1. Cunnington and Goddard (1934, 226); 2. Green (1976, 191) as ‘a white metal statuette with a radiate head’. Professor E.A. Richardson has kindly reported on this figurine as follows (pers. comm.): ‘The bronze, with spiky crown, patera in the right hand and an acerra (incense box) in the left hand is a battered example of the common type of ‘priest’ or

‘genius’ found at Latium and Etruria in quantities. A few have dedicatory inscriptions in Etruscan or Latin. Some come from the Latin sanctuary of Nemi, some from Orvieto and many have no provenance. It is a type apparently invented in the 2nd century B.C,

Other examples of comparable Italic figurines are recorded as having been found at Chester and London (Pitts 1979, 69, no. 96). They were however not found in the course of archaeological excavations and cannot be seen as confirming the genuineness of the Avebury findspot. The figurines were made as dedications, not for trade or domestic use and they are extremely unlikely to have been brought to England in late Iron Age or Roman times. They must be seen almost certainly as recent imports into Britain, given false findspots to make them marketable to collectors of locally found artefacts.

The figurine must be considered in association with the following Etruscan figurine:

Fig. 2. Etruscan figurine of a standing warrior from ‘Bishops Cannings’

ETRUSCAN AND OTHER FIGURINES FROM AVEBURY AND NEARBY 35

De

Etruscan bronze figurine depicting a warrior standing on a lead base (Figure 2). Height of figurine 73mm. The findspot is given either as ‘Shepherds Shore, Bishops Cannings’, ‘near Devizes Waterworks’ (Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette, 6 July 1905), or ‘near Devizes’ (ibid. 17 April 1916). Neither the finder’s nor the vendor’s names are recorded. Accession number: Brooke collection 118. Published: 1. Cunnington and Goddard (1934, 224 and pl. LXXIII, 4) as ‘a soldier’; 2. Green (1976, 191) as ‘a bronze Mars’.

Professor E.A. Richardson reports on the figurine as follows (pers. comm.): “Che warrior with the patera in his right hand is a rather battered example of a type of which I know only three other examples — one in Florence, one in Verona and one in Paris. They wear a leather cuirass with shoulder guards and two rows of lappets (pteryges), fastened at the waist with a belt which is tied with a fancy knot in the Paris and Verona examples, but stiff and smooth with raised edges in Florence 338. The helmet is high-crowned: the Paris example looks like a Corinthian parade helmet: the others do not look like anything but an inverted pot. All have lowered cheek pieces fastened under the chin. The weight is on the right leg, hip out, left knee bent, foot to the side. The left arm is raised to lean on a spear: the right (arm) down and out to hold a patera. The type is a descendant of the Mars of Todi, “Warrior pouring a libation”. It is Etruscan and dates tentatively to the 3rd century B.C,’

As with the italic figurine above, such Etruscan bronze figurines were made as dedicatory offerings, not for trade or as personal objects. It is unlikely to have been an ancient loss in Wiltshire in the Iron ‘ Age but most probably is a recent import into Britain which has been given a false findspot.

The figurine may be compared with the Etruscan bronze figure of Turms (Hermes) said to have been found ‘by a labourer near Uffington’, i.e. not too far distant from Avebury, and now in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. It is soundly discounted as a genuine find, together with a number of other Etruscan figurines with purported English findspots in Rigby, Swaddling and Cowell 1995.

Be

Roman bronze affix from a vessel in the form of a bearded male bust surmounted by a small modus, representing the Romano-Egyptian deity Serapis

Fig. 3. Bronze affix depicting Serapis from ‘Avebury’

(Figure 3). Height 48mm, width 34mm. It is said to have been found at Rogers Meadow, Avebury and was purchased by Brooke from C.H. Paradise, who was a blacksmith at that village. Accession number: Brooke collection 119. Published: 1. Cunnington and Goddard (1934, 224 and pl. LXXIII, 3); 2. Green (1976, 191 and pl. 22f) as ‘a bronze male bust, probably Serapis’.

The provenance is given on page 50 of Brooke’s notebook: ‘Aug 25 1911. Obtained from C.H. Paradise a small bronze head and bust of Jupiter Capitolinus which was found at Rogers meadow, Avebury. It appears to have some red enamel on the bust. CHP was offered £3 for it. I obtained the specimen for £3.10.0 much above its value, yet this with a similar specimen of a vestal virgin ?? Juno may have an immense bearing on the perpetuated meaning of Avebury in early Roman times.’

The ‘similar specimen of a vestal virgin’ is described below. The red enamel appears to be ink or paint and is not ancient. It may be the remains of an early collector’s accession or catalogue number.

No other finds of Roman date have been recorded from Rogers Meadow at Avebury. Paradise is known to have sold to Brooke another bronze

36 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE

figurine said to have been found at Avebury (see no. 7 below), making it most likely that the provenance of this bronze affix is not genuine. There is in addition some doubt that a bronze figurine depicting Serapis would be likely to be found on a rural site in Wiltshire. Representations of the god are rare in Britain and are predominantly from urban sites. The only other purported image of the god from Wiltshire is a sculpture made from Egyptian porphyry, said to have been found at Highworth. This too is considered to have been most probably given a fraudulent provenance (Cunliffe and Fulford 1982, no. 113).

Fig. 4. Bronze steelyard weight depicting Cybele from ‘Avebury’

4.

Bronze steelyard weight in the form of a draped female bust, probably representing Cybele (Figure 4). Height 53 mm, width 33 mm. The findspot is given only as ‘Avebury’ and neither the finder’s nor the vendor’s names are recorded. Accession

number: Brooke collection 120. Published: 1. Cunnington and Goddard (1934, 224 and pl. LX111, 1) where the findspot is incorrectly stated to be the Roman town of Cunetio; 2. Green (1976, 191).

The steelyard weight is to be identified as ‘the similar specimen of a vestal virgin ?? Juno’ mentioned above, suggesting that it had been found and acquired by Brooke before 1911. There is no hard evidence to condemn the findspot, merely the facts that there is no satisfactory evidence confirming that the bronze was indeed found in Avebury, coupled with the unlikelihood that an object depicting Cybele should be a genuine ancient loss on a rural site in Wiltshire.

5.

Incomplete copper alloy figurine depicting the winged Cupid (Figure 5). The right arm is raised and the left leg bent. The right hand and the right foot are both missing. Height 48mm, width 37mm. The findspot is given only as Avebury and neither the finder’s nor the vendor’s names are recorded.

Fig. 5. Bronze figurine of Cupid from ‘Avebury’

ETRUSCAN AND OTHER FIGURINES FROM AVEBURY AND NEARBY 37

Accession number: Brooke collection 121. Published: 1. Cunnington and Goddard (1934, 224 and plate LXXIII, 2); 2. Green (1976, 192) where the findspot is incorrectly given as Liddington.

The figurine is possibly one of a pair of figurines depicting Cupid which originally flanked a larger bronze figurine of a classical god in a Jararium or domestic shrine.

There are no positive arguments for denying that this is a genuine find from Avebury. There is at least one Roman building in the parish — that near Silbury Hill — which was evidently of sufficient importance that it would be a plausible place where the figurine might have been found. The recent discovery near Avebury of a Roman gold finger ring with an intaglio depicting Fortuna has confirmed that finds of particular quality might be found in the parish. However, the fact that there is no further information about the discovery of the figurine confirming the genuineness of the findspot and its association in Brooke’s collection with figurines to which a false provenance at Avebury has been applied suggest that the recorded findspot is probably not genuine.

6. Fragment of a cheekpiece in copper alloy in the form of a hippocamp, probably manufactured in the 6th-5th centuries B.C. in Magna Graecia (the Greek cities in South Italy) rather than in Etruria (Figure 6). Height 59mm, width 49mm, thickness 7mm. The findspot is given only as Avebury and neither the finder’s nor the vendor’s names are recorded. Accession number: Brooke collection 122. Published in Cunnington and Goddard (1934, 226: _not illustrated) as the ‘well-modelled Head of a Horse; perhaps an affix or handle from a vessel’. There is an almost identical cheekpiece in the Greek and Roman department at the British Museum (accession number 1975. 12-3.12) which is unprovenanced. A complete bridle with slightly less similar cheekpieces in the same department (accession number 1937.5-14.1) is also unprovenanced but catalogued as ‘Etruscan or South Italian’. A tore with terminals in the form of hippocamps similar to that on the cheekpiece was found at Belmonte-Picenza and it is suggested that it was manufactured in Magna Graecia, perhaps in Campania in the 6th century B.C. (Anon 1959, 127 and fig. 100). As with the Italic and Etruscan figurines above it is highly unlikely that this could be a genuine ancient loss in Avebury.

Fig. 6. Fragment of a cheekpiece from Magna Graecia, found in ‘Avebury’

es

Two fragments comprising the head and one shoulder of a bust of Buddha made of copper alloy with traces of gilding and red paint (Figure 7). It has been identified by Shelagh Vainker, Chinese curator at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, as ‘Chinese... probably Ming, 15th —16th century’. As well as having been broken into pieces, the face has been heavily battered and the left eye is missing. Height (of head fragment) 107mm, width 72mm, depth 48mm. It is described on the accompanying label as having been ‘found near Avebury’ and in Brooke’s notebook as from ‘under Monkton Hill in...Avebury’. Brooke purchased it from Barnard, ‘a local curio dealer’, who in turn had purchased it from C.H. Paradise, the Avebury blacksmith. It appears not to have been given a catalogue number by Brooke, who initially believed it to depict the Roman god, Mars. The importance of the piece is that its full provenance is recorded and that it illustrates the unreliability of those who supplied Brooke with antiquities for his collection.

Brooke records in his notebook (page 80): ‘March 14, 1894. Barnard Curio dealer brought in the remains of a Bronze Eastern like head which he said had been ploughed up under Monkton Hill in the parish of Avebury. He said that it was only a

38 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE

Fig. 7. Two fragments of a bust of Buddha found in ‘Avebury’

portion but the whole could be obtained. From what I gleaned, the figure when found was put up as an Aunt Sally and knocked to pieces by ploughboys in their dinner hour.

‘March 29. I made searching enquiries at Avebury and ascertained that Barnard had obtained the specimen from Paradise (Blacksmith). I offered 10/- for the remainder and called again when I received a portion of the shoulder. I was informed by Paradise that the whole was laid on his bench for months and that he had made many attempts to put it together. In fact he had the pieces not a

fortnight previous. The find was made about 18 months ago and Paradise bought it from Monkton,

The figurine was also sketched in his notebook (as figure 8) and entitled ‘Figure of Mars’.

Although not a genuine find, the bronze is nevertheless of some interest as a documented example of a Chinese antiquity which had reached Britain prior to 1894.

The practice of deliberately giving false findspots to archaeological objects is a long established one. It was first exposed by Franks (1858): ‘The numerous local antiquaries who have sprung up since archaeology has been more carefully studied, are anxious to obtain antiquities from some particular locality. Spurious localities are therefore invented, and Greek, Etruscan, Egyptian, and Italian antiquities are palmed off on the unwary as having been found in his native soil. I have been informed by dealers in curiosities that labourers frequently come to their shops and purchase miscellaneous rubbish to be retailed to any stray archaeologist who should venture near their work. I remember some years since being shown a modern Abyssinian sandal duly steeped in oil which purported to have been found in Roman London; and I have even seen Greek vases, which were said to be found in digging the foundations in the city; one of them I strongly suspect to have been recently brought from Cyrenaica, and another had all the marks of having been through the hands of an Italian restorer of modern times. Such frauds are carried on to a great extent in coins, and the recent works in the city have supplied a profitable outlet for the rubbish of coin sales.’

The paragraph illustrates that the antiquities which were already in the mid-19th century being given false findspots and ‘palmed off on the unwary’ included items originally from Italy, which had been purchased from Victorian curio shops. The addition of a spurious findspot in Britain not only made them easier to sell but gave them an enhanced value as ‘exotic’ finds. In the 19th century the number of potential purchasers of antiquities and coins increased with the growth of local museums and the increase in the number of people interested in local history and archaeology. It was inevitable that unscrupulous people would emerge to satisfy this demand by dishonest means. Other early Italian items purporting to have been found in Wiltshire include the bronze spiked bit roller of the 6th-4th century BC purporting to have been found at Great Bedwyn (Evans 1881, 271f; Grinsell 1957, 73 — described as a socketed bronze ‘mace-head’) as well

ETRUSCAN AND OTHER FIGURINES FROM AVEBURY AND NEARBY 39

as all but one of the Italic fibula brooches from Wiltshire — and other counties — which have already been dismissed as genuine local finds by Hull and Hawkes (1987), as well as by Rigby, Swaddling and Cowell (1995). The only Italic find from Wiltshire that is at present considered genuine is a fibula brooch with a ‘violin bow’, dated to the 12th century BC, and found in Avebury (!). An Early Bronze Age flint dagger, purporting to have been found at Avebury, exposed by Leslie Grinsell (1953-4), illustrates how British antiquities also were at times given false provenances.

It would be very easy to condemn Brooke outright for his gullibility in accepting impossible local findspots for a few purported finds and to dismiss the rest of his collections as having unproven findspots. It is, however, likely that false findspots are restricted to a small part only of his collection.

Brooke nevertheless has made a significant contribution to the archaeology of Wiltshire. Over a period of some thirty years he did record as accurately as he was able to do or as he believed was necessary, the findspots of a large number of prehistoric, Roman and Medieval objects and coins from the area of the North Wiltshire Downs and West Berkshire. His records of, for example, Mesolithic flints from Aldbourne and Roman finds from the site of Cunetio at Mildenhall still remain crucial for our appreciation of these sites. By purchasing objects found he ensured that they would be preserved in the county. For many years, for example, the hoard of Bronze Age socketed axes from Manton which he had purchased was the only complete hoard of metalwork of this period to be preserved in the county. Recent discoveries from Manton have given this find a particular importance. While private collectors of antiquities frequently receive a bad press, their contribution in the past to our knowledge of Wiltshire archaeology cannot be denied.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The writer is indebted to Professor E. Richardson,

Dr Judith Swaddling and Ms Shelagh Vainker for

their help in writing this paper and for permission to quote them here. Martin Henig read a draft and made suggestions for its improvement.

Bibliography

ANON., 1959, Piceni. Populo d’Europa. (Exhibition Catalogue). Luca

CRAWFORD, O.G.S., 1955, Said and Done: The Autobiography of an Archaeologist. London

CUNLIFFE, B.W. and FULFORD, M.G., 1982, Bath and the Rest of Wessex. The British Academy Corpus Signorum Imperii Romani — Corpus of Sculpture of the Roman World. Great Britain, volume 1, fascicule 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press

CUNNINGTON, M.E., 1932, ‘Romano-British Wiltshire’. WANHM 45, 166-216

CUNNINGTON, M.E. and GODDARD, E.H., 1934, Catalogue of Antiquities in the Museum of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society at Devizes. Part II. Devizes: WANHS

EVANS, J., 1881, The Ancient Bronze Implements, Weapons, and Ornaments, of Great Britain and Treland. London

FRANKS, A.W., 1858, ‘Frauds and Forgeries of “antiques”. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries 5, 5andi233

GREEN, M.J., 1976, The Religions of Civilian Roman Britain. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports 24

GRINSELL, L.V., 1953-4, ‘A Flint Dagger from Avebury’, WANHM 55, 176 and 291

GRINSELL, L.V., 1957, ‘Archaeological Gazetteer’, in R.P. Pugh and Elizabeth Critall (eds), A History of Wiltshire, Vol. 1, Part 1. London: Oxford University Press

HULL, M.R. and HAWKES, C.F.C., 1987, Corpus of Ancient Brooches in Britain by the late Mark Reginald Hull, Pre-Roman Bow Brooches. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports 168

PITTS, L.F., 1979, Roman Bronze Figurines of the Catuvellauni and the Trinovantes. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports 60

RIGBY, V., SWADDLING, J.T., and COWELL, M., 1995, ‘The Blandford Forum Group: Are any Etruscan Figures True Finds from Great Britain and Eire?’, in J. Swaddling, S. Walker and P. Roberts (eds), Italy in Europe: Economic Relations 700BC —AD50. London: British Museum Occasional Paper 97

THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE

40

Grand Avenue, Savernake Forest, May 2000

Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 96 (2003), pp. 40-46

The Trees of Savernake Forest

by Jack Oliver

A complete list of the trees, including hybrids, recorded during 1999 and 2000 is provided with indications of frequency, situation and spread. These can be categorised in four groups which are described. Some individual trees of national significance are mentioned. The diversity both of tree types and habitats puts Savernake at least on a par with Stourhead and Longleat.

INTRODUCTION

Most of the present extent of Savernake Forest, 905 hectares, was notified as an SSSI in 1971 and again in 1988, largely on the grounds of exceptional biological diversity. The Forest is in private ownership (Lord Cardigan) although much of it is currently managed by the Forestry Authority. Savernake Forest has a very long history. The three old forms of the name Savernake are Saxon in origin and are — Savernoc, Savernac and Savernak; all of these have their suffixes alluding to the three old forms of oak, oc, ac and ak. Today, in addition to ancient oaks, there are many different types of trees of different sizes and ages growing in the forest. During 1999 and 2000 I spent many hours walking in Savernake Forest recording and measuring the trees. The following is summary of my findings.

The trees can be categorised in four groups: Native species and natural variants.

Forestry plantations.

Naturalised and semi-naturalised species. Exotics, mainly (but not exclusively) found in the Savernake Forest Arboretum.

NATIVE SPECIES AND NATURAL VARIANTS

To NS

Native oaks including the English (or pedunculate) - oak, the sessile (or durmast) oak, and intermediates

which appear to be hybrids and back-crossings between the two. There is also the Savernake Cluster oak, a very rare mutant form of the English oak which can, however, reproduce itself. Some of the ancient oaks have been pollarded, some coppiced and some both, in past centuries. In fact both pollarding and coppicing increase longevity. Several of the oaks would go back to pre-Tudor times and one (the Big-belly) to the Saxon era. This has a coppice circumference of 14 metres. Twelve Savernake oaks have girths, at 5 ft from the ground, of over 7 metres, including one of almost 10 metres and two over 10 metres. Old names of some of these veterans include King of Limbs, Duke’s Vaunt, Amity Oak, Cathedral Oak, Queen Oak and Braydon Oak (see Oliver & Davies 2001, WANHM, for a much fuller account of the Savernake Oaks).

Beeches and hornbeams were probably past introductions to Savernake Forest (see ensuing sections), but there are in the Forest not less than 25 further types of tree native to the area, including hybrids. In approximate order of commonness, these are as follows: - hawthorn, holly, elder, field maple, silver birch, (there is also downy birch and hybrid), pussy willow (also grey sallow and the hybrid), cherry (gean), hazel, ash, rowan, wych elm, English elm (suckers only, following Dutch Elm disease), crab-apple, yew, sloe, spindle, whitebeam, midland hawthorn (and the hybrid with the common hawthorn), buckthorn, and a single

High View, Rhyls Lane, Lockeridge, Marlborough SN8 4ED

42 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE

remaining small-leaved lime. A field maple in the south central part of the Forest is hollow, and one of the largest girth field maples in the country (4m at 6ft from the ground). The Savernake (true) crab- apple trees are exceptionally spiny, with cherry-sized or even smaller fruits.

Hollow Field Maple

FORESTRY PLANTATIONS

Many of the plantations have broad designations such as ‘Mixed Broadleaves’ or ‘Mixed Conifer.’ Oak (mainly pedunculate, but often from foreign acorns) is the most commonly planted followed by beech. Other tree species, variants and hybrids planted include the following in approximate order of frequency: - birch (two native species, the hybrid, and four foreign species in an experimental plot), Scots pine, Norway spruce (Christmas trees), larch, (European, Polish and hybrids), Douglas fir, ash, sycamore, larch (Japanese), Corsican pine, western hemlock-spruce, hazel, gean, bird-cherry, American red oak, sweet chestnut, large-leaved lime, poplar, (black poplar hybrids), hornbeam, Lawson’s cypress and grand fir.

NATURALIZED AND SEMI-NATURALIZED TREE SPECIES AND TYPES

The following tree types reproduce naturally in Savernake Forest, but were not originally native to the area. The most important species is beech, which dominates many avenues and other parts of the Forest. The beech can be either broad and spreading or slender and graceful with narrow angled branching. Probably both management techniques and genetic factors are involved. A type of mutant beech with rough bark like an oak also occurs in Savernake Forest, (Oliver 2000). One of the finest and largest beeches in the British Isles is flourishing on the S.E. fringe of the Forest, the Warren Farm Great Beech. In the year 2000, this had a girth of 7 metres at 5ft from the ground. Some of the beeches south of Charcoal Burners Road have copper-tinged leaves, as have numbers of descendent saplings. Perhaps the most impressive trees in Savernake Forest are the sweet (or Spanish) chestnuts. Many have residual old coppice rings at the base and a few have huge fractured trunks or boughs. However most have straight tall trunks, with beautifully spiralled bark. Coppice ring circumferences can exceed 10metres and girths at shoulder height can exceed 7metres. Of equal or even greater heights are the Savernake common (hybrid) limes. These usually have their trunks largely hidden by dense masses of stem sprouts, often also with vigorous basal suckering. Seedlings can also be produced in abundance in spring, but voles nearly always eat them; so fewer than 0.1% survive their first summer. Many of the limes seem to have been planted as

Plantation of young trees

THE TREES OF SAVERNAKE FOREST

grand avenues in the past, on account of their height and beauty.

Hornbeams were once plantation trees introduced from other parts of Britain, but are now reproducing naturally, often with more seedlings and saplings than the commoner large beeches around them. Horse chestnuts only progress from seed (conker) to sapling rarely in the Forest, and I have only seen two seedlings of Turkey oak. However there is one Turkey oak with a buttressed base and this fine tree exceeds any of the native oaks in height. Descendants of eating apple trees are also to be found which could derive from discarded cores or from birds or rodents.

Sweet chestnut

None of the trees in this section compare with sycamore and Norway maple for naturalisation and survival of seedlings in the forest conditions. In parts of Savernake Forest, natural saplings of these two (once foreign species) can survive in dozens, thriving as if they were true natives.

EXOTICS

Occasional surprises in unexpected parts of _Savernake Forest include fine cedars of Lebanon and a tall imposing Monterey pine. There are also younger western red cedars and Lawson’s cypresses planted

43

Monterey pine

at entrances or to screen the camping washrooms. However most of the unusual introductions were planted in the Savernake Arboretum or in the garden areas near the Forestry Offices. These areas include 30 more types of coniferous tree and 20 more types of broadleaf over and above those mentioned under the three previous headings.

LIST OF TREE SPECIES AND HYBRIDS (INCLUD- ING TOTTENHAM PARR)

The ensuing list covers Savernake Forest and its immediate fringing gardens both within the Forest, and its edges. Altogether the area considered is very diverse. Some species are found mostly or only at Tottenham Park; others have spread at Tottenham Park but not in the main Forest — for instance cherry and Portugal laurels, by extensive layering. Savernake Forest has many huge native and naturalized trees such as oaks, beeches and chestnuts, but very few large exotic trees, because the Arboretum is young. By contrast, Tottenham Park has several giant specimen non-native species (such as wellingtonias) but only a few really large native trees.

ead

The right hand columns give an immediate indication of the botanical (as opposed to the forestry or horticultural) importance of each taxon.

THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE

than 50 conifer species, which is common, widely distributed, and self-perpetuating, whereas this applies to nearly one third of the dicotyledonous

For instance, yew is the only conifer out of more

tree species and hybrids listed.

Key

Frequency Column

C Common, likely to be seen in many parts of the forest

O Occasional

R_ Rare

Situation Column

W Widespread; (sometimes as a major plantation species)

L_ Limited occurrences

T Mainly or only Tottenham Park A Mainly or only Savernake Forest Arboretum P Confined to small or experimental plantations

Natural Spread S Seedlings and/or natural saplings noted locally

SS Seedlings and or natural saplings extensive, or

frequently seen

F Forest fringes and/or private gardens. H, used as

hedging

Ginkgoaceae Araucariaceae. Cupressaceae.

Pinaceae

V_ Limited vegetative spread, suckering, layering etc

VV Extensive vegetative spread

Ginkgo biloba Maidenhair Tree

Araucaria araucana Monkey Puzzle, Chile Pine Chamaecyparis formosensis Formosan Cypress Chamaecyparis lawsoniana Lawsons Cypress Chamaecyparis nootkatensis Nootka Cypress Chamaecyparis pisifera Sawara Cypress

X Cupressocyparis leylandii Leyland Cypress Cupressus macrocarpa Monterey Cypress Juniperus recurva Drooping Juniper

Thuja plicata Western Red-cedar

Thuja orientalis Northern White-cedar

Abies cephalonica Grecian Fir

Abies concolor var lowiana Low’s White Fir Abies grandis Grand Fir

Abies nordmanniana Caucasian Fir

Abies procera Noble Fir

Abies veitchii Veitch’s Silver Fir

Cedrus atlantica Atlantic (Atlas) Cedar Cedrus deodara Deodar Cedar

Cedrus libani Cedar of Lebanon

Larix decidua (incl ssp polonica) European Larch (including Polish Larch)

Larix kaemferi Japanese Larch

Larix x marschlinsii Hybrid Larch

Picea abies Norway Spruce

Picea brachytyla Sargent Spruce

Picea engelmannii Engelmann Spruce

Picea glauca White Spruce

Picea jezoensis Hondo Spruce

Picea mariana Black Spruce

Picea omorika Serbian Spruce

Picea orientalis Oriental Spruce

Picea pungens Colorado Blue Spruce

Picea sitchensis Sitka Spruce

Pinus aristata Bristlecone Pine

Pinus banksiana Jack Pine

Pinus contorta Shore/Lodgepole Pine

Pinus jeffreyi Jeffrey Pine

Pinus nigra ssp laricio & ssp nigra Black Pine (Corsican and Austrian Pines)

Frequency Situation Natural Spread

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THE TREES OF SAVERNAKE FOREST

Taxodiaceae

Taxaceae Magnoliaceae Lauraceae Platanaceae Fagaceae

Betulaceae

Juglandaceae Salicaceae

Tiliaceae

Ulmaceae

Aquifoliaceae Ericaceae Rosaceae

Pinus pinea Stone Pine

Pinus ponderosa Ponderosa Pine

Pinus radiata Monterey Pine

Pinus rigida Northern Pitch Pine

Pinus sylvestris Scots Pine

Pinus wallichiana Bhutan Pine Pseudotsuga menziesii Douglas Fir

Tsuga canadensis Eastern Hemlock-spruce Tsuga heterophylla Western Hemlock-spruce Cryptomeria japonica Japanese Red-cedar Cunninghamia lanceolata Chinese Fir Sequoia sempervirens Coast Redwood Sequoiadendron giganteum Wellingtonia Taxus baccata Yew

Liriodendron tulipifera Tulip Tree

Laurus nobilis Bay Laurel

Platanus x hispanica London Plane Castanea sativa Spanish Chestnut

Fagus sylvatica & variants Beech Nothofagus nervosa Rauli

Nothofagus obliqua x nervosa Hybrid Roble-Rauli Quercus cerris Turkey Oak

Quercus coccinea ?Scarlet Oak

Quercus x crenata Lucombe Oak

Quercus ilex Holm Oak

Quercus petraea Durmast Oak

Quercus robur English (Pendunculate) Oak (Quercus robur ‘Cristata’ Savernake Cluster Oak, an endemic variant of the preceding) Quercus x rosacea Hybrid Native Oak Quercus rubra (borealis) American Red Oak Betula x aurata Hybrid Native Birch Betula ermanii Hermann’s Birch

Betula lenta Cherry Birch

Betula lutea Yellow Birch

Betula maximowiczii Monarch Birch Betula papyrifera Paper Birch

Betula pendula Silver Birch

Betula pubescens Downy Birch

Carpinus betulus Hornbeam

Corylus avellana Hazel

Juglans regia Walnut

Populus nigra ‘Plantierensis’ Black Poplar Populus x canadensis Hybrid Biack Poplar Populus x jackii Hybrid Balsam Poplar Salix caprea Sallow; Goat or Pussy Willow Salix cinerea ssp oleifolia Grey Willow Salix x reichardtii Hybrid Sallow

Tilia cordata Small-leaved Lime

Tilia x europea Common (Hybrid) Lime Tilia platyphyllos Broad-lvd Lime

Ulmus glabra Wych Elm

Ulmus procera English Elm

Ilex aquifolium Holly

Rhododendron ponticum Rhododendron Crataegus monogyma Hawthorn Crataegus laevigata Midland Hawthorn Crataegus x media Hybrid Hawthorn Malus domestica Apple

Malus sylvestris Crabapple

45

Frequency Situation Natural Spread

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46 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE

Frequency Situation Natural Spread

Prunus avium Gean, Wild Cherry (Cc W S,VV Prunus cerasifera (and vars) Cherry Plum O F,H SV Prunus laurocerasus Cherry Laurel O F&T,H 2S, VV Prunus lusitanica Portugal Laurel O F&T,H 2S, VV Prunus padus Bird Cherry R 1B S Prunus sargenti Sargent Cherry R A - Prunus spinosa Blackthorn, Sloe Cc W S,VV Sorbus aria Whitebeam O Ww S Sorbus aucuparia Rowan C Ww SS Sorbus hupehensis Hupeh Rowan R F - Sorbus intermedia Swedish Whitebeam R A - Sorbus x thuringiaca Bastard Service Tree R A - Fabaceae (Leguminosae) Laburnum anagyroides Laburnum O WwW - Celastraceae Euonynus europaeus Spindle O W S Rhamnaceae Rhamnus cathartica Buckthorn R F S Hippocastanaceae Aesculus carnea Red Horse-Chestnut O F - Aesculus hippocastanum Greek Horse-Chestnut SC W S Aceraceae Acer campestre Field Maple Cc W SS Acer palmatum Japanese Maple R Jb - Acer pensylvanicum Moosewood R A - Acer platanoides Norway Maple (c; WwW SS Acer pseudoplatanus Sycamore G Ww SS Oleaceae Fraxinus excelsior Ash G; W SS Caprifoliaceae Sambucus nigra Elder Cc W SS

SUMMARY

‘Total Tree Species: 107 (11 species sometimes or usually shrubby).

Total Tree Hybrids: 13 (2 hybrids sometimes or usually shrubby).

Total Taxa, including Subspecies and important Variants: more than 130

Extensive natural spread: 18 species, 1 hybrid.

Occasional natural spread: 24 species, 5 hybrids.

In general, Savernake Forest is most noteworthy for the varieties of its habitats including wild areas, plantations, semi-managed locations, glades and fields, and its tree types, putting it on a par with places such as Stourhead and Longleat. Ancient oaks, especially hybrid native oaks, may be the most important single group, but the Forest should also be famed for its beeches and Spanish chestnuts. Given another 200 years, there will certainly also be some fine specimen trees, (including rarer species) in the Savernake Arboretum to rival those in other established collections in Wiltshire. But it is to be hoped that the diversity will be maintained for many centuries longer than that.

Most large trees have been earmarked, mapped, tagged and described. There are fine (digital) photos of many of these, taken by Joan Davies. The colour tree maps, tag keys, taxonomic and descriptive text, historical accounts and photos have been retained at the County Archives at Trowbridge (see Oliver 2001, 2002, and Davies, 2001).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT My thanks to Joan Davies for preparing the illustrations for this paper.

Bibliography

DAVIES, J. M., 2001 Savernake Parish Millennium Project, Wiltshire &] S[windon] R{ecord] O[ffice] 3255

OLIVER, J.E. & DAVIES, J.M. ‘Savernake Forest Oaks’, WANHM, 93, 24-46

OLIVER, J. E., 2000 ‘Beech Tree Variants in Savernake Forest’, BSBI News, 85, 26-43

OLIVER, J. E., 2001 Savernake Millennium Tree Project, WSRO 3281

OLIVER, J. E., 2002 ‘Savernake Forest Millennial Tree Maps. Baselines for Future Research’, BSBI News, 90, 20

Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 96 (2003), pp. 47-53

Islam in East Knoyle: George Aitchison and the National School 1870-1873

by Elisabeth Darby

The former national school at East Knoyle (1870-1873) is exceptional, both for being the work of the London architect, George Aitchison, and for its Near Eastern style. This article documents the commission and examines the inspiration behind this unusual village school.

The national school at East Knoyle (1870-1873: Figs. 1& 2) was designed by George Aitchison (1825-1910) who, although better known as an interior decorator and furniture designer than as an architect, nonetheless rose to the height of his profession, becoming President of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1896.' Aitchison’s obituary in The Building News refers to the ‘many schools, warehouses and suites of offices’ designed by him,’ but East Knoyle appears to be his only known school. Even so, it does not appear in lists of his works and is only briefly mentioned in published literature.’ This article seeks not only to document the commission but also to explain the unusual style of the building which, with its overhanging eaves and ornamental windows in honey-coloured Ham Hill stone, draws inspiration from Near Eastern sources. As such, it pre-dates Aitchison’s more famous essay in this style — the Arab Hall at Leighton House, London (1877-79) - and thus occupies an important place in the architect’s career.

The decision to erect a new school at East Knoyle followed the Education Act of 1870 which established boards in every district to provide schooling for children between the ages of five and thirteen. Canon R.N. Milford, who had arrived as rector of the parish in 1865, was a prime mover

- behind the scheme to build the school,’ but it was at the suggestion of Alfred Seymour of Knoyle House

that Milford wrote to George Aitchison in London on 3 November 1870 asking him to prepare plans.’

Alfred Seymour (1824-1888), described in his obituary as ‘in all respects a fine type of an English gentleman’,° was the younger son of Henry Seymour (1776-1849) who had built up the estates in the parish, and who was a descendant of Jane Seymour, wife of Henry VIII. Educated at Eton and Christ Church Oxford, Alfred was a Magistrate and Deputy Lieutenant of Wiltshire, and was MP for Salisbury between 1869 and 1874. Although Canon Milford was the initiator of the scheme, Seymour was the principal benefactor, providing the land and some materials for the school and donating over £500 to the fund. He was to be closely involved in the project, being consulted regularly on key issues and, in the circumstances, it is perhaps not surprising that he should have nominated the architect.

The choice of Aitchison is intriguing. On accepting the commission, Aitchison indicated that he had already ‘built some schools”’ - a fact that might have persuaded Seymour he was the right man for the job. On the other hand, up until this date (1870) Aitchison’s career as an architect had been largely limited to London buildings so the decision to employ an architect from the capital for a small country school was unusual. A more normal! practice would have been to commission a local architect, as was the case with the nearby and contemporary schools at Tisbury and Shaftesbury,

The Old Malthouse, Sutton Mandeville, Salisbury SP3 5LZ

48 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE

both of which were built by James Soppitt of Shaftesbury.*®

There are several possibilities as to how Seymour and Aitchison became acquainted. When he accepted the commission for the school at East Knoyle, Aitchison was working in the vicinity, at

indirectly, for the style of East Knoyle school. Aitchison had first met Leighton in Italy in 1853 when he was introduced to the painter as ‘an impoverished architectural student of twenty- seven’.!> The two were to become life-long friends and work together on several commissions: they

Fig. 1 George Aitchison East Knoyle School c.1870. RIBA Library Drawings Collection

Stalbridge, Dorset, the home of Richard de Aquila Grosvenor (1837-1912), the second surviving son of the second Marquess of Westminster.” Grosvenor was possibly acquainted with Alfred Seymour as, after the latter’s death in 1888, Knoyle House was periodically let out and he (now Baron Stalbridge) was one of the first tenants.!° Thus, it might have been at Grosvenor’s suggestion that Aitchison was engaged.

Seymour could also have made the acquaintance of Aitchison through a distant relative, Percy Wyndham (1835-1911), to whom, in 1876, he was to sell his Clouds estate.'! In 1869 Percy Wyndham commissioned Aitchison to decorate parts of his London house at 44 Belgrave Square’ and Seymour (whose town house was in Eaton Square) may have been introduced to the architect there.

Another possible intermediary, the painter and sculptor Frederic Leighton (1830-1896), is more significant, for he might also have been responsible,

collaborated, for example, on the Wyndhams’ house in London. In 1864, as a consequence of the financial security and future success that followed the painter’s appointment as Associate of the Royal Academy, Leighton commissioned Aitchison to design his house and studio in Holland Park Road, London." Leighton was to use his house not only as a home and studio, but also as the venue for social gatherings, most notably Show Sunday (when artists opened their studios prior to the private view of the Royal Academy annual summer exhibition), and for his famous annual music party, held in his studio from c.1870.'° These events were important for attracting patrons and, as Leighton’s architect and friend, Aitchison would have been introduced into this wealthy, art-orientated circle. As a result, Aitchison’s career was to move in a new direction from the late 1870s and he was to enjoy a steady stream of commissions for interior decorative schemes, sometimes in collaboration with Leighton. It is quite possible that the Seymours visited

ISLAM IN EAST KNOYLE: GEORGE AITCHISON & THE NATIONAL SCHOOL 1870-1873 49

Leighton House on Show Sunday, or perhaps attended one of Frederic Leighton’s parties, and were introduced to Aitchison by the painter.

There is a further link to Frederic Leighton which comes through Alfred Seymour’s wife Isabella. When Leighton was raised to the peerage in 1896, he stated that it was Sir Baldwyn Leighton (1836-1897) who had suggested he adopt the title Lord Leighton, Baron of Stretton in the County of Shropshire. This was in reference to an unrelated Leighton family which had owned lands around Stretton in Shropshire for centuries.'® If Frederic and Sir Baldwyn’s acquaintance dated back to the 1870s, the latter may have introduced his sister Isabella, Alfred Seymour’s wife, to the painter who, in turn, may have introduced his architect, Aitchison. Moreover, Isabella, while married to her first husband Beriah Botfield, had had her portrait painted by G. F. Watts,'’ a close friend of Leighton since 1855, to whose studio in nearby Melbury Road Aitchison added a picture gallery in 1879.'*

These connections, documented or conjectural, suggest that the Seymours were on the fringes of the artistic and aristocratic group that constituted the Holland Park circle in the later 19th century.'” They help to explain not only the unusual choice of a London architect for th school at East Knoyle but also the style of the building.

The designing and building of the school was far from straightforward. Canon Milford’s original request was for ‘a school for 130 children - a residence for Master and Mistress - with two rooms in addition for the School mistress — as the wife of our present master does not teach — the School room — as it will be for Boys and Girls taught separately will have to be divided by sliding doors — It must also have two class rooms — It must be large

nema = a a 7 : Fig. 2 George Aitchison plan for East Knoyle School c.1870. Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office F8/ 320/133

and lofty —so as to be fit for concerts and meetings’. He surmised that all this could be achieved for £700.” Aitchison, who visited the site and produced his first drawings soon afterwards, estimated the lowest cost for such a scheme would be £1120 plus £150 for carriage of materials.” Over the next few months, as the site for the school changed no less than three times, entailing new drawings on each occasion,*’ various means of reducing the cost were discussed. These included abandoning the two extra rooms for the school mistress,”* thinning the stone,”* substituting partitions for interior brick walls and omitting chimney pieces and grates,” and also paying workmen ‘more at a country jog’, that is, making smaller payments over a longer period.”°

However, the most important discussions about reducing the cost centred on the windows. The original design for the school (which does not appear to have survived) seems to have included stone mullioned windows. Alfred Seymour felt strongly that ‘the only way materially to reduce the cost...will be to cut out the stone mullions altogether and have oak frames for the windows’. He believed that ‘if you have only stone frames...it will cost much less than mullions which must be of art stone’ but also that they would be more practical.*’ Aitchison was willing to comply but noted that ‘in a stone country it is a pity to spoil the ship for a ha’worth of tar’.** As built, opening wooden windows were set behind decorative pierced frames in Ham Hill stone. That the parish was able to afford these was probably in part because Alfred Seymour gave a rent-free cottage for the School Master, thus dispensing with the need and additional cost of a separate building.*? Further, Mrs. Seymour paid £50 for the two large windows in the gables at each end of the building.”

The final cost of the building was about £1000, slightly less than Aitchison’s original estimate.’ Aitchison’s fee was £135 —2-11, but he made no charge for one set of drawings or his travelling time between London and East Knoyle. He also made a donation of £10 to the funds because, as he stated, he took ‘great interest in the education question’. The contractors for the building were Doddington and Farthing of Mere. The foundation stone was laid by Mrs. Seymour on 21 June 1872” and by December of that year the walls of the school and outbuildings were complete, ‘the mullions and perforated heads in’ and the main roof tiled.** The school was opened on 6 June 1873 by Alfred Seymour in a ceremony attended by Aitchison. The Salisbury Journal, commenting on the building,

50 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE

Fig. 3 Window of East Knoyle School

singled out the ‘elegant, fluted columns in semi- relief, with beautifully carved capitals in Caen stone’ which flanked the entrance door. It noted also the ‘interesting novelty of style’ of the building, particularly evident in ‘the overhanging eaves and windows’, which it referred to as ‘Byzantine’.” The principal architectural interest of East Knoyle School lies in the presence and design of the windows (Figs. 1 & 3). Although at an early stage, with limited funds, Aitchison had acknowledged that ‘some of the finely ornamented work might have to be omitted’,*® in the event the building possesses an unusually strong decorative element for a small village school. Moreover, the style of this decoration is exceptional in the context of buildings of this type. At this date (the early 1870s), the more usual style would have been the Gothic Revival, not least because of its national and religious connotations. As Chris Brooks states ‘... there were hundreds of parish schoolrooms, often funded by the squire or parson, frequently designed by a local builder-architect, in which gothic identity and religious allegiance were indicated by little more than lancet windows and a pointed door below a gabled porch’.*’ At East Knoyle, however, Aitchison

opted for a Near Eastern style which is apparent in the ogee arches of the small windows and in the stylised vase of flowers in the two large gable windows.

The influence of the Near East had been evident in British architecture before 1870. Buildings such as Brighton Pavilion and Sezincote in Gloucestershire are conspicuous early 19th century examples, but from the 1830s, fostered by travel and an increasing number of scholarly publications, Islamic influence became more pervasive. It was particularly associated with private houses and, although Near Eastern styles were occasionally used for public buildings, it is rare to find it being employed for schools, especially country ones.** The Near Eastern style employed at East Knoyle school is, thus, exceptional. It appears to have been adopted as a direct consequence of Aitchison’s involvement with Frederic Leighton and is a style imported from fashionable circles in London.

As already mentioned, Aitchison had built Leighton’s house in 1864-1866. Later, between 1877 and 1879, Aitchison added the Arab Hall, his best-known work and one of his few decorative schemes to survive. The Arab Hall was built to house Leighton’s collection of 16th and 17th century Syrian and Iznik tiles and is one of the most lavish examples of 19th century taste for the Near East.” The style had been prefigured a few years earlier, however, when Leighton had asked Aitchison to make some alterations to the building. Between 1869 and 1870 the studio was lengthened to the east and two stained glass windows were inserted into the walls as part of these modifications. The windows (Fig. 4), designed in 1870, consist of a row of Arabic characters with sprays of flowers beneath. Although the format is narrower and taller than the East Knoyle windows, the composition is similar. The flowers are also rather more geometric in treatment at East Knoyle but this may reflect the use of a harder material (stone) in the school. The floral composition of the windows at Leighton House and at East Knoyle school is reminiscent of the patterns found on Near Eastern pottery, particularly Iznik tiles of the type which Leighton had been collecting since the 1850s. Leighton’s interest in Near Eastern art and architecture had been awoken by his visit to Algiers in 1857 and intensified by further trips to Greece and Turkey in 1867 and Egypt in 1868. On these trips he acquired pieces of Near Eastern pottery*’ which Aitchison, as a close friend and his architect, would almost certainly have seen. Moreover, Aitchison was

ISLAM IN EAST KNOYLE: GEORGE AITCHISON & THE NATIONAL SCHOOL 1870-1873 Dil

familiar with Islamic work himself since he was to century Moslem palace of La Zisa near Palermo base the Arab Hall at Leighton House on the 12th which he had visited in 1854.

is

Fig. 4 George Aitchison Design for two windows for Leighton House 1870. RIBA Library Drawings Collection

52 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE

Thus, it would appear that Aitchison, having recently designed the windows for Leighton House, modified the composition for the school at East Knoyle. The question remains whether this was his own idea (possibly for economic or practical expediency) or was it at the suggestion of someone else, perhaps Alfred Seymour. It may be significant that, although Aitchison was more than competent in the Near Eastern style, he did not pursue it after the completion of the Arab Hall in 1879. Instead, the decorative schemes which occupied him from the late 1870s tended to employ classical forms and motifs or the Aesthetic Movement vocabulary of strong colours, ebonised wood and gilt details. It is accepted that many of the details at Leighton House were determined by the painter himself," and therefore one is tempted to think that the unusual style adopted at East Knoyle was also at the request of the patron, in this case, Alfred Seymour. In later life, Alfred Seymour, an asthma sufferer, spent time in Algiers’’ and an inventory of Knoyle House” which lists damascened brassware, presumably of Near Eastern origin (some of which was shown at South Kensington Museum in 1862), suggests that he might have travelled in those areas earlier. Did the Seymours admire the new windows at Leighton House and ask for something similar at East Knoyle because of their own interest in the Near East? Unfortunately, the surviving records do not provide the complete answer.

It is hoped that this brief account has gone some way to explain the unusual architectural style of the school at East Knoyle. The building is a rare example of the adoption of the Near Eastern style in terms of building type and location. Moreover, it sheds further light on the largely undocumented career of the fashionable architect George Aitchison. The school closed in 1984. The building has lost its bell, both its gable ends have been reduced in height and the outbuildings are largely demolished. Fortunately, the original windows, which render the building so distinctive both locally and nationally, survive intact.

Notes

' There is no published monograph on Aitchison. The most comprehensive accounts of his career appear in The Builder, 21 May 1910 p.592; The Building News, 20 May 1910, p.683; Royal Institute of British Architects Journal, 3rd series, XVII, pp.581-3; Margaret Richardson, ‘George Aitchison

Lord Leighton’s Architect’ Royal Institute of British Architects Journal, January 1980, pp.37-40; Joanna Banham (ed.) Encyclopedia of Interior Design, vol. 1 (1997), pp.16-19

° The Building News, 20 May 1910, p. 683

> The school is mentioned in The Victoria History of the Counties of England: Wiltshire vol. XI (Oxford University Press, 1980) p.97 & ill. opposite p.145; Caroline Dakers, Clouds The Biography of a County House (Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 117-8; and E. Young, East Knoyle School (Salisbury 1984), pp. 5-10, which discusses the building of the school but makes no mention of the architect.

’ E. Young, East Knoyle School, pp. 5-10

° Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office [hereafter WSRO] F8/600/159/1/26/1 Milford to Aitchison 3 November 1870. Milford had already broached the subject with Seymour in September when he and ‘other gentlemen’ measured the site. E. Young, East Knoyle School, pp.8, 10.

° The Salisbury Journal, 17 March 1888, p.8

7 WSRO F8/600/159/1/26/1 Aitchison to Milford 4 November 1870

8 The Building News, 15 March 1872

° WSRO F8/600/159/1/26/1 Milford to Aitchison 3 November 1870 writes ‘I understand that you are often now in our neighbourhood at Stalbridge’ . See also Aitchison to Milford 4 November 1870. Aitchison’s obituary in The Building News, 20 May 1910, p.683 refers to his work at ‘Stalbridge Park, Dorset, for Lord Richard Grosvenor’.

'© Caroline Dakers, Clouds, p.131

'! Tbid, pp. 46-51

' Aitchison’s designs for 44 Belgrave Square are in the RIBA Drawings Collection.

' L. & R. Ormond, Lord Leighton (Yale University Press, 1975), p.18

' For the construction of Leighton House see L.& R. Ormond, Lord Leighton, pp.62-3, Survey of London vol. XX XVII Northern Kensington (1973), pp. 136-141.

L. & R. Ormond Lord Leighton, pp. 64-65

'¢ Tbid, pp.143-4

'7 Tsabella (died 1911) was the second daughter of Sir Baldwin Leighton. She had married the bibliographer Beriah Botfield (1807-1863) in 1857, then, following his death, she married Alfred Seymour in 1866. Her portrait (as Isabella Botfield) by Watts was sold, together with a portrait of Sir Baldwin Leighton by J. Bridge after Watts, in 1945 (Pictures by Old Masters and Historical Portraits The Properties of the late Miss J.M. Seymour and the late Sir Robert A. Hadfield Bart. and from other sources, Christie, Manson & Woods Ltd., 19 January 1945 lot 102 : WSRO 1126/17). Through Isabella, Alfred Semour came into possession of considerable property and at the time of his death (1888) he owned estates in

ISLAM IN EAST KNOYLE: GEORGE AITCHISON & THE NATIONAL SCHOOL 1870-1873 53

Northamptonshire, Dorset, Church Stretton in Shropshire in addition to those at Knoyle. The Salisbury Journal, 17 March 1888, p.8 '8 Margaret Richardson, ‘George Aitchison’, p. 40 19 See Caroline Dakers, The Holland Park Circle Arusts and Victorian Society (Yale University Press, 1999) 20 WSRO F8/600/159/1/26/1 Milford to Aitchison 3 November 1870 21 Tbid, Aitchison to Milford 19 November 1870 22 [bid, Aitchison to Milford invoice stamped 18 March 1874 23 [bid, Milford to Aitchison 23 December 1870, 25 December 1870, 18 February 1871 4 Ibid, Aitchison to Milford 23 August 1871 25 Ibid, Aitchison to Milford 15 August 1871 2° Ibid, Aitchison to Milford 23 August 1871 27 Tbid, Seymour to Milford 27 November 1870 28 Ibid, Aitchison to Milford 30 November 1870. Milford evidently entertained the idea of building the school in brick initially, but Aitchison peruaded him to use stone: ‘if you have fully determined on brick I will make it of brick but it will not harmonise so well with the church’. Ibid, Aitchison to Milford 15 November 1870 ° Ibid, 4 December 1870 30 The Salisbury Journal, 29 June 1872, p.7 31 Ibid, 7 June 1873, p.7; WSRO F8/600/159/1/26/1

to

Account of subscriptions

*> WSRO F8/600/159/1/26/1 Aitchison to Milford 26 November 1870; Aitchison to Milford 30 January 1874 and invoice stamped 18 March 1874

> The Salisbury Journal, 29 June 1872, p.7

** WSRO F8/600/159/1/26/1 Certficate signed by Aitchison 9 December 1872

*® The Salisbury Journal, 7 June 1873, p.7

*° WSRO F8/600/159/1/26/1 Aitchison to Milford 26 November 1870

7 Chris Brooks, The Gothic Revival (Phaidon, 1999), p. 204. Brooks is referring to the 1830s and 1840s, but the comment holds true for the 1870s.

For 19th century taste for the Near East see John Sweetman, The Oriental Obsession Islamic Inspiration in British and American Art and Architecture 1500-1920 (Cambridge University Press, 1988); Michael Darby The Islamic Perspective (World of Islam Festival Trust, 1983)

On the building of the Arab Hall at Leighton House see L. & R. Ormond Lord Leighton., pp. 99-101; Survey of London, pp. 136-141

‘0 Frederic Leighton 1830-1896 (Royal Academy of

Arts exhibition catalogue, 1996), pp.174,179; L.&R.Ormond, Lord Leighton., p.99

4 Joanna Banham Encyclopedia of Interior Design., p.18

® The Salisbury Journal, 17 March 1888, p.8

® WSRO 1126/16

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Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 96 (2003), pp. 54-62

Neolithic Pits at the Beehive

by Michael Heaton!

with contributions by Mark Corney’, Sheila Hamilton-Dyer’, Peter Bellamy’,

Peter Higgins’ and Ros Cleaf

Three Neolithic pits, identified during a staged evaluation, were investigated during the construction of the Beehive Park and Ride facility immediately north of Salisbury, during the summer of 2000. Small quantities of worked flint, animal bone, plant remains, molluscs and pottery were recovered.

INTRODUCTION

The Beehive junction is situated 3.5km north of Salisbury on the A345 Amesbury road at its junction with the A338 Philips Lane/Portway to Andover (Figure 1). It occupies the crest of a dissected ridge between the valley of the River Avon and that of its tributary, the Bourne, with ground levels at approximately 70mOD. The site comprises land immediately north-east and south-west of the junction that became encompassed within the Beehive Park and Ride facility and its associated road modifications, a total of 4.2ha centred on SU 144 333, within which the natural ground level was reduced to varying degrees during construction. It is 10km south of the major Neolithic monument complex centred on Stonehenge, and immediately south-east of a late Neolithic/early Bronze Age barrow cemetery and associated linear earthworks. Recent RCHME aerial photographic transcriptions have identified a network of undated linear features that cross the site, some of which appear to share the orientation of the road network and the post- Enclosure field layout recorded by the Tithes Survey.

The demonstrable archaeological potential of the site rightly required evaluation prior to determination of planning permission. Following surface artefact collection and metal-detector survey, trenched evaluation of the site by ASI in 1999 identified a range of archaeological features including a Neolithic pit and undated linear features corresponding to the alignment and relative disposition of those shown by aerial photography. A programme of works was agreed with the County Archaeological Service, encompassing detailed investigation of the Neolithic pit and others that were considered likely to accompany it, prior to commencement of construction, and ‘strip-and- record’ planning of the other features during the initial topsoil strip.

The following is a selective description of the significant features revealed, followed by summaries of the finds and environmental reports. More detailed descriptions of all facets of the project, including the evaluation reports and post- excavation assessment, are deposited with the archive at Salisbury Museum.

' ASI, Furlong House, 61 East Street, Warminster, BA12 9BZ * Centre for the Historic Environment, University of Bristol, 43 Woodland Road, Bristol, BS8 1UU *5 Suffolk Avenue, Shirley, Southampton, SO15 5EF 451 Fordington High Street, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1LB ° Southern Archaeological Services Ltd., Unit 7, Kingsbury House, Kingsbury Road, Southampton, SO14 OJT ° Alexander Keiller

Museum, High Street, Avebury, SN8 1RF

56 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE

RESULTS

The Pits

In addition to the pit revealed during evaluation (502), two other pits (509 and 512) were investigated, together with a stratigraphically earlier amorphous feature (507) bearing the hallmarks of a tree-throw. The plan forms, profiles and dimensions of these are illustrated in Figures 2 and 3. The pit fills were retained in their entirety for flotation separation.

Pits 502 and 509 were each filled by single, homogenous deposits of friable, chalky, yellowish brown silty clay (503 and 508) from which small quantities of struck flint and pottery were recovered

Fig. 2. Pit plans

manually. Pit 512, the largest and deepest of the three, contained two deposits: an upper layer (510) of compact, very chalky, dark yellowish brown silty clay from which which animal bone, flint and pottery were recovered; and a lower layer (511) of dark greyish brown, fine silt with an ‘ashy’ texture, from which came pottery and flint. Both 510 and 511 displayed white fungal mycellia lining the sides of worm and root channels and, in the case of 510, as a ‘carpet’ extending across the feature, approximately 100-120mm below the ground surface.

Other features

Other features were revealed around the periphery of the site during topsoil stripping. In the south- west corner, a pair of broad linear ditches, one of which corresponded with the 3m wide and 0.60m deep V-shaped ditch 1604 identified during evaluation. On this occasion it was revealed to be turning sharply to the west at Philips Lane, with a similar feature apparently running parallel to it on its west side.

NEOLITHIC PITS AT THE BEEHIVE

Recent animal burrow

Sif,

Old animal burrows

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i ier aig /: cal }.|¢ | i 7 efi Sj 3 j

Fig. 3. Pit sections

Narrow, 0.3m deep, linear features filled with crushed flint and/or oyster shells, corresponding to those identified during field evaluation (403 and 1606/9) were exposed in the south-west and south- east corners of the site. These are considered to be waggon ruts, an interpretation supported by their proximity to, and alignment with, the present roads, both of which are ancient routes. Running E-W across the northern half of the site, also corresponding to a feature (1103) revealed during field evaluation, was an amorphous linear spread of degraded humic chalk, considered to be the line of a grubbed-out hedge.

Pottery by Rosamund Cleal and Mark Corney

Twenty one sherds of pottery were recovered; all but one of which were recovered from the pit group, the other, a single sherd from Ditch 1604. Their

509

Pit cross-sections

0 0.2 1m

weights and stratigraphic distribution are summarised on Table 1. All were examined with a x10 hand lens.

The fragment from Ditch 1604 comprised a small (2g) sherd of uniformly pinkish brown, sand/ flint tempered fabric with wavy combed external decoration, likely to be from a Beaker.

The twenty sherds (123g) from the pit group are of a soft and slightly laminated fabric (mainly on the surfaces) containing rare angular, ill-sorted flint inclusions (maximum dimension 8mm) and grog. The grog is difficult to distinguish from the matrix but appears to be generally small (2mm). The exterior is orange-brown, the core dark grey to black and the interior surface orange with localised reduction. The one exception is a sherd from context 508, which is orange/brown throughout. One sherd, from 511, also bears the impressions on the internal surface of burnt-out organic material. Where the full thickness survives, the dimensions are notably consistent, averaging 10mm.

Table 1: Summary of artefactual material

Pit 502 503 (+ sample 2000)

Pit 512

Pottery

Peterborough Ware 2 (36g) 10 (20g) Flaked stone

Flake - 3 Broken flake - 1

Blade - -

Tool - 1 scraper

510 (+ sample 2001)

Pit 509 511 (+ sample 2003) 508 (+ sample 2002)

4 (35g) 4 (32g)

1 1

1 = 1 scraper 2 retouched flakes

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The condition of the material varies: the material from Pits 509 and 512 being unabraded, whilst the sherds from Pit 502 are abraded, both on the edges and the surfaces, suggesting that these had been exposed for some time before burial. The fact that they conjoin indicates that little lateral movement can have occurred to separate them.

All are body sherds, the larger of which are decorated with horizontal rows of twisted cord impression; each is crescentic and probably created by partially pushing a loop of cord into the clay. The variation of width of the impressions is largely the result of weathering (i.e. the edges of some are more weathered than others). The impressions are Z-twisted indicating the cord to be S-twisted.

The slight variations in paste and spacing of the decorative motifs suggest a minimum of three vessels are represented in the assemblage, all of Peterborough Ware.

Flaked stone by Peter Bellamy

The assemblage comprises 11 pieces of flaked stone, recovered from three contexts (508, 510, 511) in two adjacent pits 509 and 512. The raw material is all chalk flint with both cortical and thermal surfaces to the nodules. The pieces are all in mint condition, but are heavily patinated and some are covered in calcareous concretion. One flake from context 510 is burnt. All were examined macroscopically with the aid of ax10 hand lens ‘The classification is based on Andrefsky (1998) and Inizan et al. (1999).

The assemblage composition is presented in Table 1. All the pieces appear to belong to the same non-specialised flake industry and the majority of the pieces recovered are core preparation and trimming flakes. The blades are in effect long flakes, rather than the result of deliberate blade manufacture. All pieces have plain or cortical butts with little evidence of platform preparation and almost all have feather terminations. The hammer mode is indeterminate.

The number of pieces exhibiting traces of secondary retouch or use is very high in such a small assemblage, but the nature of the activities represented by these tools is unclear. The two scrapers have only minimal semi-abrupt retouch to round off naturally steep edges of flakes. One of the retouched flakes has abrupt retouch on a broken distal end of a long flake. The other has irregular serrations on the right side and small inverse

retouch on the left proximal side, and perhaps should be regarded as use-wear rather than deliberate retouch.

There are no diagnostic pieces present in the assemblage. However, the overall character of the technology would fit comfortably with the Later Neolithic date provided by the pottery.

Animal bone by Sheila Hamilton-Dyer

The material was recovered by hand and from the sieved fills of the pits, and is summarised in Table 2.

The condition of the bone is generally very poor. Small calcined fragments of bone recovered from the sieved samples are in better condition but could not be identified. The small mammal remains from Pit 502 were also in relatively good condition which poses two questions. Firstly are they intrusive or are they, as seems likely, pit fall victims? If it is thought that they are contemporary then why are these tiny remains well preserved when larger bones are considerably damaged? The large mammal remains have meandering root-like dissolution tracks across their surfaces and the bone itself is chalky and fragile. This appearance is quite common for bones from similar contexts in the area and these bones are very similar to those from Crescent Copse where fungi associated with trees have been implicated in deposit destruction (Hamilton-Dyer 2000).

Pits 502and 512 both contain a lower tusk of a mature female pig; indeed being left and right they could even be a pair. It is not possible to tell whether these are from wild or domestic animals, nor is it possible to say whether these were deliberate isolated items; tooth enamel is more resistant than bone and pig canines are especially large and sturdy elements which could survive when other material has completely disappeared. There is an incisor from 503 and both contain a few fragments of unidentified bone. The large fragmented bone from 510 could not be identified with any certainty but the size indicates a larger animal than pig. Cattle humerus seems the best match and the most likely in a Neolithic context, but horse and red deer should not be ruled out. Cattle and pig are usually the most frequent bones in Neolithic deposits, and pig may be associated with Late Neolithic ritual deposits (Richards and Thomas 1984).

NEOLITHIC PITS AT THE BEEHIVE

Table 2: Summary of palaeoenvironmental materials

Pit 502

503 (+ sample 2000)

Mammal

Pig 1 1. right female canine

Vole Shrew Unid.

Plant Chenopodium

cf album Rannunculus sp. Plantago sp. Agrostema githago Lathyrus sp. Rumex sp. Silene spp Stachys sp. Cruciferae Corylus evellana Spp indet

Arthropod Dipterous larvae Mirripeda Coleopteran elytra Coleoptera erantarsus

Mollusca % Discus rotundatus Vallonia costata Carychium tridentatum O. alliarus A. pura Aegopinella nitidula O. cellarius Pomatius elegans Pupilla musorum Cochlicopa lubrica

Punctum pygmaeum

Cochlodina laminata

Cochlicopa lubricella

V. pulchella

V. pelucida

Arianta arbustorum Euconulus fulvus O. helveticus Lauria cylindracea Other/Indet

7 individuals 1 mandible + frags

43 (2g) large mammal

35

Ne. .o ~) 00 CoN

16 (1g charcoal) 1

Pit 512 510 (+ sample 2001)

67 (9g) large mammal

4 (g) 86 (84 charcoal)

11 24 (1 complete) 1

511 (+ sample 2003)

1 1. left female canine

1 burnt 1. mammal; 3 s. mammal

bo

NOD

59

Pit 509 508 (+ sample 2002)

12 (charcoal)

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Plant, mollusc and insect remains by Peter Higgins

The entirety of each of the pits fills was immersed in dilute hydrogen peroxide, passed through 250 and 500 micron sieves, the residues and flots air dried and then sorted under low magnification. Limacid slugs and the burrowing snail Ceciloides acicula were discarded. Fragments of slate, burnt clay and burnt stone, and what appears to be lime mortar, small enough to pass through worm burrows, were recovered from all samples. The assemblage is summarised in Table 2. Terminology follows Kerney (1976).

Charcoal fragments were present in all three pits, the largest quantity in the upper layer (510) of Pit 512, but identifiable to species (hazel) only in Pit 502. Modern cereal fragments were present in large numbers in Pit 502, indicating potential contamination of the whole sample. Seed fragments were present in all deposits except the fills of Pit 509; the assemblage varies slightly, but Chenopodium and Rumex were common to all. The former generally demand nitrogen-rich soils, and the latter is commonly associated with damp conditions. Hazel was present in quantities small enough to suggest a handful of nuts taken as a snack, the shells discarded on a fire. No other obvious food species are present, although some of the Chenopodiaceae such as fat hen are known to have been used as a food source in times of dearth. The plant remains, as a whole, are indicative of an unkempt area, possibly a woodland margin.

Dipterous larvae were present in all deposits; all were fragmentary, and had probably passed through the gut of small predators, such as the millipedes which were present in large numbers in Pit 512.

The dominant mollusc species in all deposits prefer shaded environments, usually characterised as woodland. Accepting the Neolithic date indicated by the artefacts, we might expect the general environmental background to be a dry calcareous landscape enjoying a temperate climate (cf. Evans, 1991). Diversity indices (Table 3) might suggest a less diverse habitat affecting Pit 502. Despite the higher species count, the rest of the assemblage apparently derived from deciduous woodland, with diminishing diversity between the lower and upper layers of Pit 512. However, given the small volume of these features, their close spatial proximity, and the likelihood of contamination indicated by the

modern cereals in Pit 502 and the building materials recovered from all samples, it is not possible to be more specific.

DISCUSSION

The linear features are of reasonably well- documented forms, and need not detain us much further. However it is pertinent to observe that, whilst corresponding in disposition and form with RCHME transcriptions of aerial photographic evidence, they are uniformly 12m-15m north and east of the positions suggested by those plots, a consistent discrepancy noted at other sites in the area (Heaton 1997). Whilst this might be an acceptable level of accuracy, it has methodological ramifications for the design of field evaluation strategies based on aerial photographic plots. The Neolithic pits, also, are a well documented, if still poorly understood (cf. Whittle 1988, 55-8), form of archaeological feature. Though this group is, perhaps, too small and restricted in deposit type to support discursive analysis of its content, some consideration of the extent to which these features fit into emerging theoretical models is required.

With the exception of the singular Mesolithic examples at Stonehenge car park, small pits of this sort are a later phenomenon. They are commonly associated with earlier Neolithic pottery, Peterborough Ware and Grooved Ware, and less so with Beaker material. They are nothing to do with rubbish disposal, in the modern sense, nor with storage (Thomas 1999, 64).

Though not conducive to detection through extensive survey, small pit groups of this sort are common in the central and eastern shires of southern England; and examples are also known in increasing numbers from the Midlands and northern England (e.g. Manby 1974, Tavener 1996). They typically occur in small groups of less than half a dozen, but larger groups have been identified at settlement sites, as at Yarnton (Hey 1997) and Broome Heath (Wainwright 1972). They have been recorded at numerous sites within the middle reaches of the Avon valley and adjoining areas of chalk upland in Dorset; within a 10km radius of the present site examples have been identified at Amesbury, Ratfyn, Winterbourne Gunner, Larkhill, Rollestone, King Barrow Ridge at Stonehenge, and Coneybury to name just a few (Stone and Young 1948, Harding 1988, Cleal and Allen 1994, Thomas 1999). The oil pipeline that

NEOLITHIC PITS AT THE BEEHIVE

runs through the present site exposed a group of three in 1967, less than 50m north of the present group, whilst a water pipeline under construction in the Spring of 2002 has revealed more at the base of Old Sarum, 200m to the south-west on the edge of the river valley (Cave-Penney pers. comm.).

Whilst contemporaneous settlement contexts have been identified at Yarnton (Hey 1997) and Broome Heath (Wainwright 1972), in Wessex they are stratigraphically isolated but appear spatially proximate to larger monument groups. The latter may be simple bias: there are more evaluations and excavations close to major monuments, and pits are always an unanticipated result. Within this area of the Avon valley, they form the principal repository for Peterborough and Grooved Ware pottery, but never both (Thomas 1999, 176-7). Peterborough Ware, as occurs here, appears to be more secular in its geographic distribution compared with Grooved Ware which is frequently associated with major monuments (Thomas 1991), and it is the dominant fabric in the southern quarter of Darvill’s quadripartite Stonehenge landscape characterisation (1997), within which this site is situated. Profiles indicate them to have been excavated and backfilled rapidly; the worked flint within them typically includes a high proportion of finished tools; the pottery invariably comprises (deliberately?) broken fragments of several vessels; the animal remains represent high meat-yield parts of domesticates, often the same joint repeatedly; whilst the plant remains are generally the opposite, representing non-food species. These assemblages are contained within only one or two layers of ash- rich soils, though neither the features nor their components are burnt themselves. Thomas (1999, 64) considers the simple stratification to directly reflect the manner of backfilling, though some post- depositional mixing is likely in such shallow features, that would not pertain in their deeper Iron Age cousins (Heaton and Cleal 2000).

These characteristics describe perfectly the pits revealed at this site. Although, admittedly, the animal bone assemblage here is too small to support any archaeological conclusions other than that the features have been burrowed into by shrews and voles, the floral material is not food-related and a high proportion of the worked flint displays secondary dressing, whilst the Peterborough Ware is compatible with the site’s 10km distance from the major monument groups to the north. The pits are the result of deliberate actions (you cannot dig a neat hole accidentally) and, whilst the ash and

61

artefacts are mementoes of the cultural activities, the composition of the fills may not necessarily be intentional. That these features contain only Peterborough Ware, indicates only that Peterborough Ware alone was being used in this area (cf. Darvill 1997); whilst Moore’s (1996) essay on use of fire in Neolithic landscape transformation provides a better explanation than feasting for the ash content of many - but not all - Neolithic pits.

So, what are they for? Thomas (1999) has posited a non-utilitarian interpretation of these apparently functionless features, and the present author concurs with him entirely. They are a form of monument, but a personal one not intended to be seen, the monumentality of which is expressed and realised at the moment of creation as our Neolithic forebears become self-consciously aware of themselves as individuals in a landscape that they are transforming, slowly diverging from the rest of the natural world. They are, in effect, a form of ‘Junk Installation Art’. As such, they tell us more about the experience of the artist, than his or her aspiration.

However, the author cautiously suggests, on a technical note, that the simple stratification of such small features is as likely to be the result of post- depositional modifications, as of single-episode back‘illing in the Neolithic. These features, at only 0.3m — 0.6m below the surface, are within the biotic zone of soils that have been under continuous cultivation for at least two thousand years. Furthermore, in addition to the efforts of smaller rodents evident here, extensive fungal mycellia were noted by the excavators and by Hamilton-Dyer, the effects of which on shallow archaeological deposits have already been broached by the author (Heaton and Cleal 2000).

Methodologically, there is much here to comfort those struggling to match the intent and mechanisms of PPG16 with the objectives of archaeology and the reality of major construction schemes. The open-area manner of construction facilitated observation of the entire evaluated area; the absence of significant deposits from most of the site indicates that the combined results of aerial photography, fieldwalking and linear trenching, on this occasion, were reliable for the purposes of characterising the generality of the site’s archaeology, if not the detail. Nonetheless, it is salutary to note that had Trench 5 been positioned one metre to the west, Feature 502 would not have been revealed.

62 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE

References

ANDREFSKY, W., 1998, Lithics: macroscopic approaches to analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

BARBER, M., 1997, ‘Landscapes, the Neolithic, and Kent’, in P. Topping (ed), Neolithic Landscapes, 77- 85. Oxford: Oxbow Books

BOYCOTT, A.E., 1934, The habitats of land mollusca n Britain, Journal of Ecology 22

CARTER, S., 1990, The stratification and taphonomy of shells in calcarous soils: the implications for land snail analysis in archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Science 17, 495-507

CLEAL, R.M.J., and ALLEN, M.J., 1994, Investigation of tree-damaged barrows on King Barrow Ridge and Luxenborough Plantation, Amesbury. WANHM 87, 54-84

DARVILL,T., 1997, “Neolithic Landscapes: identity and definition’, in P. Topping (ed), Neolithic Landscapes, 1-13. Oxford: Oxbow Books

DOBNEY, K., HALL, A., KENWARD, H., and MILLES, A., 1992, A working classification of sample types for environmental archaeology. Circaea 9

EVANS, J.G., 1991, ‘An approach to the interpretation of dry-ground and wet-ground molluscan taxenes from central southern England’, in D.R. Harris and K.D. Thomas (eds), Modelling Ecological Change, 75-89. London: Institute of Archaeology

HAMILTON-DYER, S. 2000, ‘Animal bone’, in M. Heaton and R. Cleal, ‘Beaker pits at Crescent Copse, near Shrewton, Wiltshire, and the effects of arboreal fungi on archaeological remains’, 78-9. WANHM 93, 71-81

HARDING, P., 1988, The chalk plaque pit, Amesbury. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 54, 320-326

HEATON, M., 1997, ‘Milston Farm Buildings, Amesbury, Wiltshire’. Non-publication watching brief report ref: ASI 3042, Wilts County SMR

HEATON, M., and CLEAL, R.M.J., 2000, Beaker pits at Crescent Copse, near Shrewton, Wiltshire, and the effects of arboreal fungi on archaeological remains. WANHM 93, 71-81

HEY, G., 1997, ‘Neolithic settlement at Yarnton, Oxfordshire’, in P. Topping (ed), Neolithic Landscapes, 99-111. Oxford: Oxbow Books

INIZAN, M.-L., REDURON-BALLINGER, M., ROCHE, H., and TIXIER, J., 1999, Technology and terminology of knapped stone (Préhistoire de la Pierre Taillée; 5). Meudon: CNRS

KERNEY, M.P., 1976, Atlas of the Non-Marine Mollusca of the British Isles. London

MANBY, T., 1974, Grooved Ware Sites in Yorkshire and the North of England. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, British Series 9

MOORE, J., 1997, “The Infernal Cycle of Fire Ecology’, in P. Topping (ed), Neolithic Landscapes, 33-40. Oxford: Oxbow Books

RICHARDS C. and THOMAS J., 1984, ‘Ritual activity and structured deposition in Later Neolithic Wessex,’ in R. Bradley & J. Gardiner (eds), Neolithic Studies, 189-218. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, British Series 133

STONE, J.F.S., and YOUNG, W.E.V., 1948, Two pits of Grooved Ware date near Woodhenge. WANHM 52, 287-304

TAVENER, N., 1996, ‘Evidence of Neolithic activity near Marton-le-Moor, North Yorkshire’, in P. Frodsham (ed.), Neolithic Studies in No-Man’s Land, 183-7. Newcastle: Northumberland Archaeological Group

THOMAS, K.D., 1985, ‘Land snail analysis in archaeology: theory and practice’, in N.R.J. Fieller, D.D. Gilbertson and N.G.A. Ralph (eds), Palaeobiological investigations: research design, methods and data analysis, 131-56. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, International Series 131

THOMAS, J., 1991, Rethinking the Neolithic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

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Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 96 (2003), pp. 63-68

Dragonflies in Wiltshire — Odonata recording

past, present and future by Steve Covey

A list of the different species is preceded by a brief history of dragonfly recording in the county. The more important species are then picked out for special mention and detailed information provided about their biology and habitats. Finally, a plea is made for more records.

INTRODUCTION

The bright, jewel-like appearance of dragonflies on hot, languid summer days inevitably makes them one of our most popular insects.