Six months is a big gap between blogs, but it’s been a busy six months. First, there was the hallowed archaeological tradition of end-of-the-financial-year meltdown crisis panic as clients want reports completed for April. Even that was not without surprises, as Longtown Castle in the Black Mountains turned out to have been installed in an old Roman fort – and the rampart colleagues and I had dug a section through in 2016 turned out to be 1st century and not 12th-century. No such great surprises at Clifford Castle (also Herefordshire), surveyed and excavated last year, but that had added novelty-value in the sense of discovering archaeological deposits on the top of an eight-metre high inaccessible wall top. Someone in the past had accessed it and taken soil up there, maybe for planting? Could wall-top archaeology become a new sub-discipline? Definitely one for the drones.
New books
And then, last month (June), nigelbakerarchaeology.com gave birth to twins! So to speak. Two books, both published by Oxbow and co-authored by your correspondent, finally appeared simultaneously after years in production. Houses of Hereford 1200-1700 started as a stalled volume of buildings casework by Ron Shoesmith’s Hereford City Unit in the mid-90s (co-authors Pat Hughes and Richard K Morriss). The other, Bristol, a worshipful town and famous city has come out just over a decade after its inception, and after the untimely death of its principal author, Jon Brett. Weighing-in at what seems like half a ton, it looks amazing, thanks to full colour throughout and Bob Jones’s brilliant selection of illustrations, many of which are from the early 19th-century Braikenridge collection. The book is what the late Charles Mundy would have called (approvingly) serious head-banging urban archaeology, it would make a great coffee-table book (if you could find a strong enough coffee table) and for ageing urban archaeologists, the book brings with it just the faintest whiff of distant chocolate factories, breweries and broken drains.
But – two books in press simultaneously – pretty horrible, six sets of proofs, a gazillion queries. But now, there’s two launches to look forward to in late August or September in Bristol and Hereford. Dates tba.
New discovery in Attingham Park
The beginning of June was spent on an evaluation for the National Trust in Attingham Park, near the Walled Garden, establishing old road positions in two trenches with the help of NT volunteers Judy, Mervyn, Nick and Terry, who’d signed up for archaeological duties. And then, there was the other trench, trench 3, where what had been a rough crater with some brickwork sticking out, in an area of recently-felled woodland, was investigated with the JCB… Which resolved it in a couple of hours into a five-metre square building with thick brick walls, a sunken floor, and a corridor running around three sides and extending off-site east and west. What is it? It looks mid- 19th-century, but is recorded on no map editions, no estate plans, and no estate documents so far seen. Suggestions as to what it could have been include a dovecot, water-tower, ice-house or a folly. Isn’t archaeology great? To find out what it really is, we’re returning to excavate it properly, with visitors able to see the excavation, in August.
You’d think that well-known, much-visited, Attingham Park would have given up all its secrets by now. In the last three years there’s been underwater archaeology (the medieval Tern bridge – see elsewhere on this site), aerial archaeology (LiDAR survey showing dozens of medieval open fields), and now, a completely undocumented building complex? Whatever next?
Back to paddling
With the big blockbuster volumes out of the way, it’s probably time to get back to Paddling into the Past. In the sense of river-loop tours of Shrewsbury (now incorporating ‘Dr Baker’s Shit Tour of Shrewsbury’) with Drummond Outdoor on July 5th, August 9th and September 6th. Also in the sense that there’s the next book that needs attention. And also in the sense that the level on the Severn is at its summer low, and there’s going to be more archaeology out there…
Nigel Baker Archaeology 