Saxons, Templars & Lawyers in the Inner Temple, Archaeological investigations in Church Court and Hare Court
By Jonathan Butler
PCA Monograph No. 4: 2005
This volume tells the story of the Saxons, Templars and Lawyers who previously occupied the quiet courtyards of the Inner Temple.
Here, beyond the recognized extent of Lundenwic, a Middle Saxon weapon burial and occupation activity were surprising finds, although previous discoveries in the area included a hoard of coins, possibly buried in response to the escalating threat of Viking raids in the mid 9th century.
In the mid 12th century the Knights Templar took possession of the site and built their characteristic Round Church. The church itself was extensively rebuilt in the mid 20th century, following bomb damage during the Second World War. The recovery of worked stone and marble, alongside floor tiles from the interior of the Church, has enabled some reconstruction of the Church's earlier fabric and appearance. Structural remains of a previously elusive eastern cloister were also found.
A single pit at Hare Court produced over two thousand sherds of pottery that, alongside other contemporary artefacts, illustrate the boisterous lifestyle of the 17th century lawyers inhabiting the Inns of Court.
PCA Monograph 4
ISBN: 0-9542938-3-5
126pp, 99 illustrations, colour and B&W
Published by: PCA, London 2005
Price: 16.95
On the Boundaries of Occupation: Excavations at Burringham Road,
Scunthorpe and Baldwin Avenue, Bottesford, North Lincolnshire
By Peter Boyer, Jennifer Proctor and Robin Taylor-Wilson
PCA Monograph No. 9
The southern suburbs of the modern industrial town of Scunthorpe
perhaps seem an unlikely location for an important archaeological
record stretching back into prehistory. Nevertheless this is precisely
what was revealed by two archaeological investigations at Burringham
Road and Baldwin Avenue, Bottesford, in an area that was, until
the mid 19th century, a rural landscape with a scatter of villages
overlooking the River Trent and its tributary, Bottesford Beck.
That humans were active in this area in prehistory is demonstrated
by flint tools at both sites. By the Late Iron Age, the Burringham
Road site probably lay at the southern limit of a settlement, while
for much of the Roman occupation it was utilised for various purposes,
mostly agriculture-related and including several ‘corn-driers’,
these indicative of the crucial activity of grain processing. The
Roman evidence raises the intriguing possibility that a settlement
of that period - possibly a ‘villa’ - lay close by.
It was in the Middle Saxon period that a settlement lay close to
the Baldwin Avenue site, this situated close to Bottesford Beck.
Amongst artefacts recovered there are the remains of three large
Saxon lead vessels, probably dumped as scrap metal for later retrieval,
which have provided a wonderful opportunity for an unusual and fascinating
body of archaeological ‘post-excavation’ analysis.
PCA Monograph 9 ‘On the Boundaries of Occupation’
130pp, colour throughout, price £14.95
is available from direct from Pre-Construct Archaeology or Oxbow
Books www.oxbowbooks.com
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