Congratulations to Kevin Hayward and Christiane Meckseper, whose article on a vast amount of Roman building material recovered from Crystal Park has been published in Britannia by Cambridge University Press.
During excavations in Bottisham, a known hot-spot for Roman settlement on the edge of the Cambridgeshire Fens, we identified many elements of a rural farmstead or villa complex dating from the early third- to early fourth-century. A policy to retain all of the 2.6 metric tonnes of building materials recovered from the site provided a rare opportunity for detailed investigation into the fabric, form, construction style and function of the various elements used in three masonry buildings and associated features.
Building 1 was a sunken, double-apsed structure, built using carefully selected courses of lydion brick and large blocks of Barnack stone. The apsidal shape is typical of a Roman bath-house and surviving opus signinum and opus spicatum floors, along with an archway for flues, attest to its intended use as a bath-house. However, the remains of this building were pristine with no sooting, and no box-flue tiles, pilae or decorative elements were found. The evidence points to the structure being an unfinished bath-house.
Building 2 consisted of a rectangular room and part of an external curved wall. It contained a concentration of yellow and orange roofing tile treated with red slip, which may have been an aesthetic choice in keeping with the red roofs of the other buildings, suggesting that Building 2 was a later addition. The Barnack stone in this building was fragmentary unlike the large blocks in Building 1, suggesting it was robbed stone reused as rubble. Limited quantities of brick were recovered so this building was probably a timber-framed structure on stone footings. The querns and millstone grit all came from Building 2’s demolition layer suggesting this was an ancillary building – a mill, barn or possible domestic building.
Building 3 was a rectangular building, the largest of the three with four rooms. Evidence for an extensive box-flue tile heating system was found and thick mortar attached to one side of the tiles only, and sometimes as vent infill, would have insulated the circulated hot air for use as either a sweat room, laconicum, or the heated opulent caldarium of a bath-house. There is a notable lack of sooting on the tubuli from Building 3, but this could be the result of the distance of the box-flue from the heat source rather than a sign of complete non-use. Building 3 may be a wing of a larger building extending beyond the limit of excavation.
Originally from York, since 2003 Stephen has been employed by the University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) on numerous multi-period urban and rural excavations, developing a solid fieldwork and post-excavation speciality in complex multi-period deeply stratified urban excavations in the city of Leicester, and directing urban sites exclusively for the last 10 or so years.
Stephen says:
My five and a half year long ‘swan song’ at ULAS was as fieldwork and post-excavation analysis director through to completion of a massive Roman and medieval excavation. Over the years I have also been fortunate to have worked extensively in the North African Sahara (Libya and Morocco) and in Cyprus (Operation Nightingale) and the Adriatic coast of Italy, in most recent years as the H&S Lead Archaeologist in the multi-disciplinary project EAMENA (Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa). I also set up and ran a small football charity in Zambia for some years. With an awareness that there is always much to learn and plenty of room for improvement in what we do, I am excited about the challenging new chapter in my career working with PCA and look forward to offering something to, and learning from, everybody here. Please introduce yourself, if you haven’t.
The Rank Hovis Premier Mill is an important survivor of the now almost vanished industrial history of the London Docklands. Described by the Evening Standard as a ‘decaying industrial anachronism standing defiant and alone in the surrounding subtopia’ the complex has become an icon of post-industrial Britain, and has a long and varied past. It was partially destroyed in 1917 by the devastating explosion at the nearby Brunner Mond’s munitions factory, which was manufacturing TNT for WW1. More recently, the mill has appeared in music videos by the Arctic Monkeys and Coldplay.
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These images show the Royal Victoria Dock in 1937 alongside a Google Earth image of the same (yet dramatically different!) view today, with the remains of the Rank Hovis Premier Mill marked in red. The mill was established by Joseph Rank in 1904 and remained operational until its closure in the mid 1980s.
Do you have stories about the Rank Hovis Premier Mill? Maybe you worked there or lived nearby, or know someone who did? Please spread the word and get in touch if you can tell us anything about this iconic building.
Thanks to Professor Neil Christie for this great review published in Medieval Archaeology Volume 66.2 (Dec 2022).
By the Medway Marsh by James Gerrard and Guy Seddon is available to purchase here
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A few kilometres north of Watling Street and close to the Roman town of Rochester in N Kent, excavations by Pre-Construct Archaeology at Grange Farm identified intriguing Romano-British activity, adding to older reported finds in the zone (including an early 5th-century coin hoard): earlier/mid-imperial earthen agricultural enclosures giving way in the 4th century to (cob-)walled enclosures, plus roadway, aisled hall, smithy and, peculiarly, a mausoleum. The latter (of cruciform shape over a squared base of c 6.5 x 6.3 m) held still a lead coffin (pp 65–70) containing an elderly female (landowner/patron?), while fragmentary materials pointed to other (lost) burials here. Potentially the mausoleum and coffin saw (new/renewed?) veneration after farming and industrial activity here ceased: a late 5th-century gilded silver Nydam-style brooch is suggested as a votive offering (pp 70–2), as perhaps were two 5th-/6th-century spearheads (72–3); while apparent demolition of the enclosure walls was perhaps to make the mausoleum more visible around. While one Anglo-Saxon sherd came from the redeposited late-Roman midden spread covering the demolition deposits, no settlement (or burial) activity for the 6th to 11th century occurs. The last remnants of the mausoleum appear robbed out in the 12th century for reuse in a nearby manorial complex (not investigated in the 2003–06 excavated, but related ditches, pits and a well were revealed). An unstratified openwork copper-alloy cross-staff terminal, meanwhile, suggests a chapel hereabouts when Bishop Odo, brother of King William I, held Grange Farm (pp 74–5). Noteworthy was the strong recovery of coins and metalwork finds – including badges, tools, dress-fittings – of Roman to early-modern date (mostly unstratified) thanks to onsite metal-detecting. A nicely produced and well-illustrated monograph, this publication benefits from its detailed, balanced end-discussion (Chapter 4) which integrates all finds types analysed in the specialist reports in Chapter 3 (including pollen from the coffin and evidence for a tawny owl roosting in the mausoleum ruins).
Our Head of Environment Jane Wheeler is the first to publish an article this year, with a paper for the open-access journal Quaternary MDPI, co-written by Katherine A. Selby and Sally Derrett from the Universities of York and Sheffield respectively.
The dramatically shifting climate of the early- to mid-Holocene period coincided with population expansion in northwest Europe. In ‘Disentangling Holocene Climate Change and Human Impact from Palaeoenvironmental Records from the Scottish West Coast’ the authors present fascinating new environmental evidence to determine the extent to which the changing landscape of Mesolithic populations in western Scotland was climate-driven, rather than a result of changing human land-use.
Last week Sian (Finds, Environmental and Archiving Manager at PCA Cambridge) took part in a ‘Careers Carousel’ event at Swavesey Village College, with a presentation to five classes of Year 9s about archaeology as a career.
‘Form the Future’ is a community interest company set up to help young people discover exciting opportunities for the future. Sian told the students about her background, qualifications, progression, skills and why GCSEs are important!
We have an unusual find from a site in East London – the severed head of a monkey from a mid-19th-century context.
Our animal bone specialist Kevin says “Its wisdom teeth haven’t erupted so it is probably less than 6 years of age but definitely more than 2 years. I think it is likely to be a macaque type, the most famous of which is the variety living on Gibraltar, which is also known as the Barbary Ape. The same type also lives in North-West Africa especially in the Atlas mountains, where no doubt the Gibraltar monkeys originate.”
Kevin adds “It’s too large to be an organ-grinder’s monkey, these were small capuchin monkeys. It may have been a sailor’s pet which suffered the ignominy of being stuffed, hence the discovery of just the head (the taxidermist would just keep the head, feet and tail parts of the skeleton).”
Monkeys were highly desirable pets in the 18th and 19th centuries, to the extent that a popular book called Notes on Pet Monkeys and How to Manage Them was published in 1888.
“The menagerie and the zoological collection are incomplete without a certain complement of monkeys; and whatever else may awe, and frighten, and command the admiration of the gaping crowd, it is this department that awakens the broad grin and the hearty laugh.”
Arthur Henry Patterson
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Alongside tips on the care and management of monkeys, the book is full of “amusing stories” of owners who’d acquired them with the expectation that they’d behave like mischievous children only to find them destructive and wild. Patterson suggests to be “Bully, Peggy, Mike, Peter, Jacko, Jimmy, Demon, Barney, Tommy, Dulcimer, Uncle or Knips” as suitable names for monkeys but adds that “Pets are liable to fall ill, so there is a chapter on ‘Monkey Ailments and How to Cure them.’ If they can’t be cured and die, Mr. Patterson gives us instructions how to stuff them!
We recovered a white metal medal during recent investigations in Gloucester. These medals, 39mm in diameter, were awarded to those who took a pledge of abstinence from alcohol. On one side the medal reads “Band of Hope Medal – Prevention is Better than Cure – I Promise to Abstain from All Alcoholic Drinks as Beverages”. The reverse has an image of hands shaking and an open Bible with the words “Wine is a Mockery – Strong Drink is Raging – Thy Word is Truth.”
The Band of Hope was first proposed by Rev. Jabez Tunnicliff, a Baptist minister in Leeds, following the death in June 1847 of a young man whose life was cut short by alcohol. While working in Leeds, Tunnicliff had become an advocate for total abstinence from alcohol. In the autumn of 1847, with the help of other temperance the Band of Hope was founded. Its objective was to teach children the importance and principles of sobriety and teetotalism. In 1855, a national organisation was formed amidst an explosion of Band of Hope work. Meetings were held in churches throughout the UK and included Christian teaching.
The Band of Hope and other temperance organisations of the period fought to counteract the influence of pubs and breweries with the specific intention of rescuing ‘unfortunates’ whose lives had been blighted by drink and teach complete abstinence.
by Sean Rice
Token found on siteBand of Hope token reference image
Kickstart is a scheme implemented by the UK government to help create jobs for young people from the ages of 16-24. Historic England approached us with the scheme and with their assistance, we searched for potential applicants. We employed Lidia Kones via the scheme, who turned out to be such a helpful, quick learner, we offered her a role in the admin side of things for the London office, once the scheme had ended.
My time in Pre-Construct Archaeology has been one of the best experiences in my career. I joined the company as part of ‘Kickstart’. The programme offered six months working experience for young people. The first six months I was working in different departments of the company. The idea behind that, was that by doing that I would be able to gain knowledge about the company, what they do, and how the company runs. When the ‘Kickstart’ programme ended, PCA offered me a permanent part-time position. During this period, I was finishing my degree, therefore, I could not work full time. Throughout my studies, PCA offered me flexibility, as I needed to change my working days and hours.
Working with Pre-Construct Archaeology for the past 17 months allowed me to improve and gain new skills, as well as learning amazing facts about archaeology. Furthermore, the working experience that PCA offered me has enhanced my determination, and prioritisation abilities. Besides that, I had the opportunity to work with incredible and talented colleagues and managers.
