A tiny glass bead turned up this week in the cesspit at Newark Castle. Not the most glamorous spot, but one of the best places for real stories. Things get dropped and then sit untouched for centuries, giving us a concentrated snapshot of everyday life.
Glass beads are a familiar and important part of medieval life. By the 12th–15th centuries they were circulating widely across Europe, so this one may have travelled some distance before it was finally lost in the castle’s waste.
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Orthophoto of the medieval cesspit at Newark Castle
A large, worn millstone was used to cap the cesspit at some point during the medieval period, to make way for a garden. Its reuse like this is typical on sites where older materials were repurposed to shape new phases of activity.
Our work at Newark Castle forms part of ongoing investigations for the Newark Castle Gatehouse Project. The castle’s gatehouse, originally built for Bishop Alexander in the early 12th century, was designed as a grand and residential entrance complex and later suffered heavy damage during the Civil War. The current project aims to reinstate the Romanesque gatehouse as an accessible visitor experience, with new gallery spaces, community facilities, improved biodiversity, and a tower-top viewing platform offering views across the Trent Valley not seen for nearly 400 years. CGI reconstructions (below) illustrate how the reinstated gatehouse and its spaces are intended to look, helping us place finds like this bead within their wider architectural story.
