The Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society · 2019-09-09 · The Bristol and...

The Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society

Newsletter 86 March 2020

Established 21 April 1876 www.bgas.org.uk

Registered Charity No. 202014

In the previous Newsletter, our Chairman outlined

why the Society had set up a ‘2026 Working

Group’ – partly to plan for our 150th anniversary,

but just as importantly, to identify changes

needed to keep the Society vigorous and

relevant. An important first step is to seek

members’ views on the services we currently

offer, and how they might be improved or

extended.

This will take the form

of a survey, which

we’ve been trialling

over the winter, and

which we now invite

(nay, urge) you to take

part in.

We are using an online

service called

SurveyMonkey, which

many of you may have

encountered before. If we have your current

email address, you will receive an email inviting

you to take part, with a link to the survey itself. If

you do not receive the email within a couple of

days of this Newsletter please access it at:

www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/BGAS2020A

Just follow the simple instructions to complete the

survey, taking about 10 minutes. The huge

advantage of using this system is that the results

are tabulated automatically, without placing a

further burden on your hard-pressed officers. We

ask you to respond to the survey ideally by the

27th March 2020.

If you are unable to

make an online

response, please let

the Hon General

Secretary know and we

will post you a paper

copy, the data from

which we will then add

manually to the

SurveyMonkey system

when you return the

completed

questionnaire.

As you’ll appreciate, the more responses we get, the sounder the conclusions we can draw from the data. We therefore strongly encourage you to complete the survey as it really is important to the Society.

Your Society

Your Views?

In summary

If you receive an email invitation, please follow the link and complete the survey.

However, if you don’t receive an email invitation within two days of receiving this Newsletter then please visit: www.surveymonkey/r/BGAS2020A where you can complete the survey.

If you cannot make an online response, please request a paper version from the Hon General Secretary at :10 Paddock Gardens, Longlevens, Gloucester GL2 0ED.

Please complete the survey by 27th March so that we may present initial results at the AGM. Thank you for your help.

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The Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society No. 86 March 2020

Just in case you missed it, the front page invited you to complete the survey! As mentioned there, one reason for using the online method is to ease the workload on your officers, and I need to emphasise that this is now becoming a pressing issue. We currently have several actual or impending vacancies, among them the Gloucester Section Secretary and the Archaeological Review Editor for the Transactions. Nor can we assume that others currently in post will remain for ever; goodwill is not inexhaustible. There’s an opportunity in the survey to say if you can offer your services to the Society – so do please take this chance to speak up if you have the time or skills we might make use of. (Are there any retired change management practitioners out there, I wonder?)

This brings me to the AGM, details of which are included in this mailing. One practical change recommended by the Working Group is to alter our rules to permit trustees (in our terms, Council) to set future subscription rates, rather than needing an AGM to alter these rates. You will find a proposal to this effect in the AGM papers. A change in the rules requires a quorate AGM, for which the primary attraction, I suggest, won’t be the statutory reports, but the Presidential address – I for one am very much looking forward to hearing David Viner speak on 'Spokes in a Wheel: The Cirencester Network of Turnpike Roads in the 19th Century', and I hope to see as many of you there as possible.

I need to mention at this point that the future relationship with the University of Gloucestershire with respect to our Library is giving your officers considerable cause for thought. The short of it is that UoG wishes to introduce a charge for housing and servicing the collection, hitherto provided at no cost under our existing agreement.

Interesting times ahead

Whilst there will be no change to the existing arrangements before September 2021, thereafter the Society will incur substantial expenditure whatever the outcome of negotiations with the University, either in paying a charge or in making other arrangements for the library. Negotiations are continuing, and more information will be given at the AGM.

So, to sum up: there are three things to add to your 2020 to-do list: complete the survey, think about volunteering, and come to the AGM. Once that’s done, feel free to pursue history and archaeology to your heart’s content!

With best wishes

James Hodsdon

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Having served as the Honorary Secretary for Gloucestershire since 2005, Angie Newcome has announced her intention to step down from this role when this season’s programme of talks has concluded in March 2020. Angie has performed sterling work for BGAS during the last 15 years, producing a lively and varied programme each year, from which members who have attended the Society’s talks in Gloucester have benefited enormously.

The question as to who is to take over this important role from Angie must now be addressed. The task is not an onerous one, especially if a successor is found quickly, while the current network of speakers and venues is still in place Finding a successor for Angie is critical though, if the long term future of the Gloucester talks programme is to be assured.

An individual, or small team, is needed to ensure that speakers are identified for the coming year, dates when talks are to be held are arranged and suitable venues booked. This may sound a daunting set of tasks, but in reality it is not. Many of the speakers we call upon are already committed members of the Society and the venues used are well established, and run by managers who are a delight to work with.

It is vital to have someone in the Society who can make arranging these talks their priority though, rather than relying on existing Council members to ‘pick up the slack’ and continue to organize meetings, on top of a dozen or more other tasks each is already performing to ensure that BGAS continues to function smoothly.

An Opportunity To Help The

Society and Make New Friends

The talks in the northern part of our region would probably stumble on for a short time without a Gloucestershire Secretary in place, but without a dedicated individual, or team, to plan and coordinate these activities, it is likely that the regular talks, as we know them, would wither or die within a matter of months, for lack of someone to champion these activities.

Could you be the person, or form part of a team, to help sustain this programme and ensure that regular BGAS talks continue to be held in Gloucester? If so, please contact either Angie Newcombe or Graham Barton, who will be happy to provide more details about what the role involves and to discuss the support which would be available.

Angie Newcombe:

e-mail: [email protected]

Tel: 01452 859308

or

Graham Barton:

e-mail: [email protected]

Tel: 01452 414279

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

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On a beautiful autumn morning, forty members assembled in Gloucester for the President’s Meeting. Much has changed in the city over the thirty years since the Society’s last visit and David Viner thought members would particularly enjoy the results of the recent restorations of the two priories, Blackfriars and Llanthony Secunda. We met at Blackfriars for coffee and biscuits before setting off on a guided tour of the buildings.

The Dominican Priory was founded around 1239 on land formerly part of the outer bailey of the Norman castle. At its peak the priory housed up to forty friars. In 1539, following the dissolution, the buildings were bought by Thomas Bell, a wealthy Gloucester cloth and cap maker, who converted part of the priory church into a mansion house and some of the other buildings into his cloth manufactury. After the death of both Thomas Bell and his wife in the 1560s the buildings became the property of the Dennis family who remained there until the late-seventeenth century. The buildings were then used for both residential and industrial purposes until the twentieth century. Restoration started in the 1960s.

The two highlights of the tour were the priory church and the scriptorium. The church was consecrated in 1284 and, although only a much-altered portion remains, vestiges of the original magnificence of the building can still be seen. Records show that the timber for the remarkable thirteenth-century scissor-braced roof came from the Forest of Dean courtesy of Henry III.

The scriptorium is on the first floor of the south range. Another magnificent thirteenth-century building, it has survived with its carrels (the individual cubicles in which the friars studied)

partly intact, one even containing a delightful piece of late-medieval graffiti, possibly the head of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Led by John Chandler, members walked to the site of the Norman castle where Andrew Armstrong, city archaeologist, provided an informative and entertaining update on the archaeology and forthcoming redevelopment of the site. Built in the early 1100s the castle had become the gaol by the end of the fifteenth century. Towards the end of the eighteenth century the Norman building was demolished and a new prison built in its place. It is intended that the redevelopment will allow public access to the area and some of the Norman remains of the keep.

Members left the castle and walked through the Docks stopping several times for John Chandler to talk about the development of the area. On arrival at Llanthony Secunda we were served an excellent sandwich lunch after which John Rhodes provided the following background to the priory.

In 1103 the queen’s chaplain left England and became a hermit in the Honddu valley among the Black Mountains of Wales. Norman knights joined him as fellow hermits. In 1108 the marcher lord Hugh de Lacy, lord of Ludlow and Weobley castles, built and endowed a priory for them. In 1118 they became Augustinian canons. Of course, they spoke French and Latin, not Welsh. As Gerald of Wales told them, they should have called their priory ‘Llan-honddu’, ‘church by the Honddu’, but they made nonsense of the name by putting a T in it. This mattered in 1135 when

Members inspecting masons' marks at Blackfriars Priory

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the Welsh revolted against Norman encroachment. Llanthony became a refugee camp for women chattering in Welsh. Most of the canons fled to Gloucester where Miles, lord of Gloucester castle and soon to become earl of Hereford, endowed a new priory for them. Built to a tight timetable, the new priory church was consecrated in 1137. Many monasteries moved in the 12th century. The pope’s permission was required to turn the old monastery into a farm, but this time the pope vetoed the move. As Gerald of Wales pointed out, the prayers of canons who lived in the mountains would carry more weight than the prayers of canons living among the comforts and temptations of Gloucester. So the new priory had to keep the name Llanthony and to be a cell of Llanthony Prima.

In the 1170s Hugh de Lacy II became marcher lord and patron of the Welsh priory and threw another spanner in the works. He gave it the tithes of the kingdom of Meath in Ireland, which he had just conquered, and expected the best canons to live at Llanthony Prima. Meanwhile the Bohun earls of Hereford had become patrons of the Gloucester priory. Their principal castles were Pleshey in Essex and Caldicot in Gwent, but Llanthony Secunda was their mausoleum. They too were generous benefactors and expected the best canons to live at Llanthony Secunda. The two priories separated in 1205. By then there was plenty of property to divide. The prior was lord of about 50 manors and patron or rector of about 100 churches in seven counties of England, three modern counties of Wales and six modern counties of Ireland.

Fast forward 250 years. In the 1460s both priories were still rich on paper, but collecting the rents and tithes was another matter. Wales was so impoverished that Llanthony Prima only supported four canons. Llanthony Secunda was paralysed by quarrels so violent that men were said to have been killed. In 1467 Prior John Schoyer fled for his life, taking the treasure of the priory with him. In his place the canons elected the youngest of their number, their student at Oxford, Henry Dene. We do not know what happened next but it turned young Henry into a superb leader and peace-maker. He became privy councillor to Edward IV. While still prior, he became chancellor of Ireland and spoke so forcefully to the Irish parliament that the rebellion of Perkin Warbeck collapsed. In 1500‒1 Henry VII stayed at the priory four times to try him out

and made him archbishop of Canterbury. Despite his other duties he was constantly busy at Llanthony. By this time the patronage of both priories had passed to the Crown, so in 1481 he persuaded the king to appropriate Llanthony Prima to Llanthony Secunda, making it the richest Augustinian house in Britain.

Most of the medieval buildings that stand here today can be attributed to Prior Dene and the two priors who followed him. The present priory grounds are only a seventh part of the precinct, which covered 35 acres. Northwards, the church and cloister extended beyond Gloucestershire College. The west front of the church, as shown in a 14th-century sketch, had twin towers and Early English lancets. Some original Norman work survived the Middle Ages, such as a row of round columns with spurred bases found in 1846 and probably belonging to the dormitory undercroft. Beautiful architectural mouldings found at Frampton-on-Severn in 2000 had been taken from the priory in Elizabethan times; they belonged to a vaulted building in the same supremely elegant Early English style as the nave of Wells cathedral, perhaps the chapter house. The presbytery may have been in the Decorated style, because the high altar was re-consecrated in 1275. What we know is that in 1493 Prior Dene was raising money to rebuild the church, work completed when his successor Prior Forest laid a fine pavement of heraldic tiles, many of which survive in the Lady Chapel of the cathedral. According to an eyewitness the finished building looked like the cathedral cloisters, in other words it was panelled with tracery and fan-vaulted.

The priory church was used for worship until the Civil War. The owner was then a Royalist, so the Parliamentarians took its lead roofs to make musket-shot. By the 18th century it had been reduced to rubble. Finally in 1846 the clay subsoil underneath it was quarried away to build railway embankments and canal wharves around the city. Even the outline of its foundations was lost for ever. What we see today are only the outbuildings of a once magnificent priory.

A tour of the remains of the priory followed, and the day ended with delicious cakes and tea and a vote of thanks to Rose Hewlett for organising a very successful and enjoyable visit to Gloucester.

Sue Spurr

Lady Margaret Hall, Llanthony Secunda Priory

The President's address in Lady Margaret Hall

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The Transactions

Archaeological Review

Archaeological Review is a collection of short reports on archaeological fieldwork, research, building recording and other projects compiled annually and published in the Transactions of the Society. Reports are sent in by professional archaeological organisations, societies, archaeological groups and individual researchers with the objective of providing an overview of the results of archaeological investigation in Bristol and Gloucestershire each year.

The Review has been a part of the Transactions for many years. It originated in volume 95, in 1977, as a list of archaeological sites where work had taken place, together with bibliographical references, complied by the late Barbara Rawes for the Committee for Archaeology in Gloucestershire. The brief list of sites in the first year was expanded in 1978 to a series of short reports, establishing a format that has continued more or less to the present day. The late Bernard Rawes was the Review editor for many years, succeeded by the present author in 1996. I am grateful for the assistance of Julian Rawes and Jon Hoyle, each of whom co-authored the Review with me for a period of time.

Many well-known archaeological sites were reported on in the first full Review of 1978, including Barnsley Park Roman villa, Chedworth Roman villa, West Hill Roman temple at Uley, and the extensive excavations in advance of development in the centre of Gloucester city. The nature of the work and the contributors reflect, however, a very different world of ‘rescue’ archaeology, and extensive voluntary activity, at a time when there was no provision for archaeology within the planning

system or developer funding. Archaeological Review today reveals a county where the vast majority of archaeological field work is being undertaken by professional archaeologists in advance of development, as consideration of the potential impact of development on the historic environment is now a core aspect of national and local planning policy. What it also reveals is a much greater range and diversity of archaeological evidence across the whole area, including in landscapes previously little researched, mirroring the huge increase in knowledge of all periods of our past that has been the result of the last 30 years or so of developer-funded archaeological work across England.

Over 40 years have passed since the first Archaeological Review. We would like to know how members feel about it – is it still useful? How do you use it and how could it be changed or improved? The Publications Committee of the Society would like to hear your views.

Please send your thoughts to:

[email protected]

Jan Wills

Editor, Archaeological Review

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BGAS members will hopefully be aware of the ongoing project to transcribe and analyse for Bristol and Gloucestershire the survey of land values carried out as a result of the ‘People’s Budget’ of 1909. This provides a wealth of information about properties, their owners and occupiers during the early part of the last century. Details of the project may be found by visiting its website, glos1909survey.org.uk. The value of the project is perhaps best demonstrated by the fact that during the past two years, the site, even in its incomplete state, has been receiving an average of more than 500 unique visitors each month.

Since its inception, the project has been ably co-ordinated by Dr Anthea Jones, who is now looking to hand over to a successor. In terms of time, the role is not onerous, generally occupying around 12 hours every six months. Some familiarity with Excel spreadsheets and databases is needed. The role involves receiving and checking contributions to the database from volunteers, who continue to add to the

The Lloyd George land values

database: can you help?

resource for both Bristol and Gloucestershire, and then forwarding the data to Dr Jan Broadway, who uploads it to the BGAS database. Some initial discussion with Dr Jan Broadway will be necessary. It may involve guiding transcribers new to the project. Occasional queries from users of the database are also dealt with by the co-ordinator.

Any BGAS member who might be interested in taking on this role should contact Graham Barton ([email protected]), who would be pleased to put you in touch with Dr Jones, who will be able to tell you more about what is involved.

Part of Ham to the south of Berkeley

Part of Cheltenham

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Society-sponsored award at

University graduation ceremony

One especially enjoyable activity during the Presidential year is the opportunity to present the Society’s award for the best performing history student at the University of Gloucestershire’s annual awards ceremony. This is no modest event, the University holding no less than four ceremonies in 2019, the final gathering being held at Cheltenham Racecourse on 21 November.

Several hundred people, graduating students, their families and supporters, pretty much filled the capacious Centaur arena at the heart of the racecourse facilities, in order to applaud graduands and to support prize-winners of the various university awards. The BGAS History Prize of £100 is given to a student ‘who has shown a strong performance in History and/or an excellent final year dissertation’.

Sarah Crowe was the deserved winner this time, and when Graham Barton and I met up with her she told us that ‘it was an absolute honour to receive the prize’, just the sort of comment which makes the whole process so worthwhile. It was certainly an enjoyable day for all three of us, the Racecourse facilities making this an excellent venue.

Sarah told us a little more about herself, as a mature student at the University, where she is now pursuing a full-time, two-year master’s degree by research with the aim of continuing to a PhD. Born in Lydney, she attended Whitecross School before a career spent largely in retail, including as she recalled ‘many years at Marks & Spencer in Cheltenham’. In 2016 she ’took the plunge’ and returned to education, graduating with a first-class honours degree in History.

Sarah’s dissertation (which is currently being prepared for publication) studied The Musical Life of Brighton's Royal Pavilion at the time of George IV. With her specialist areas of research including gender studies and music history, it is logical that her proposed MA dissertation will focus on women in the British brass band movement in the late 19th/early 20th century.

At home in Longford, there is certainly a musical environment. Sarah, husband Neil and their three sons. who are aged 16, 19 and 21, ‘are all musicians (tenor horn, tuba and percussion respectively) and we all play for Cheltenham silver band, where my eldest son is the musical director whilst studying for a music degree at Cardiff University. I play the flugel horn and Neil plays the tuba. We also play as a family band and sing classically together.’ Neil is CEO of his own IT company; and Sarah told us that ‘my sons are all amazing; I have always wished to be a good role model for them and this is very important to me.’ Eventually she says she would love to become an archivist.

Well done, Sarah; the Society is very pleased to have helped you in a modest way.

David Viner

President 2019-20

Sarah Crowe and David Viner at the Presentation (Image courtesy of the University of Gloucestershire)

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Victoria County History

progress

Since last year’s update, progress has been steady rather than spectacular (very fitting, you might think, for a project now into its 12th decade and still walking without a stick!) However, there’s quite a bit to report.

Volume 14 (South Glos) – all sections of the three Sodbury parishes, researched and written by Dr Alex Craven, have now been locally edited, and the drafts placed online at www.vchglosacademy.org for public inspection; useful comments have already come in. Alex’s work was substantially funded by a BGAS grant, for which the Trust is very grateful, and there are now signs that local support will allow us to embark on neighbouring parishes before too long.

Volume 15 (Cheltenham & district) – Jan Broadway has been steadily completing the sections of the Cheltenham account up to the end of 1945 (extensive drafts once again at www.vchglosacademy.org), and is about to embark on the post-war period. Jan continues to coordinate volunteer inputs, where the most visible project is an ongoing study of the extensive retail and light industrial development at Swindon Village, west of Cheltenham itself. Compared with the VCH’s old staple of manorial descents, it’s a rather different aspect of the past, nevertheless the development now has a half-century of history, deserving of record. We are still keen to get going on Leckhampton, but recognise that this needs a professional historian to complement a number of willing local volunteers. Funds permitting, perhaps a start later in 2020.

Volume 16 (Cirencester & district) – Work on the last few parishes of this volume got a tremendous boost at the end of 2019, when the K D Winstone Charitable Trust very generously agreed to make us a further grant, of £25,000 – this on top of considerable support given by this Cirencester charity over several years, without which we could not even have made a start on this project. Our gratitude is unbounded! This means that all the remaining research, at least two more person-years, is funded, leaving a final year of editorial pre-publication consolidation to finance. So, at present, it looks as if Vol 16 will

be first past the post. Alex Craven is currently working on Bagendon and Daglingworth, while John Chandler has almost completed Baunton. As the picture shows, the Churn Valley is a very attractive area to study.

The Trust decided to re-constitute itself as a charitable incorporated organisation (CIO) last year, and we have three new trustees – Jane Marley, whose day job includes heritage matters at South Glos Council; Sue Brown, a qualified accountant well-known to many in the local history community; and Rose Wallis, associate director of the Regional History Centre at UWE. Rose researched our very first publication, on Yate, so it’s particularly good to welcome her back. Since the Heritage Hub opened in Gloucester, the VCH now has the use of the aptly-named Elrington Room, conveniently just off the main reading room, with space for a couple of desks and our working reference material.

The primary task of the Gloucestershire County History Trust is to raise the money to keep the VCH alive and well in Gloucestershire. Amazingly, we’ve now been at it for a decade, and can look back on those ten years with some pride, with one Red Book and two paperbacks to our credit, and three more Red Books (as above) in the pipeline. BUT (there’s always a but) to keep up this momentum, we need to keep the funds coming in. As ever, the support of individual BGAS members is gratefully acknowledged, and long may it continue.

James Hodsdon

Chair, GCHT

St Michael’s, Duntisbourne Rouse, in December sun (James Hodsdon)

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The villa at Cam was uncovered during routine pre-development excavations of 2.3 hectares. Started in April 2019 and undertaken by a team from Thames Valley Archaeological Services’ South West office (Taunton), they revealed a villa lying within a system of rectilinear ditched enclosures, along with two ovens and three burials amongst other pits and postholes, all Roman. Also uncovered was a prehistoric post-built roundhouse. Excavation of the villa proper started in September and revealed a rectangular building of 23m by 12m that appears to have undergone at least three phases of development. The original building consists of a well-built outer wall foundation and two separately-built inner walls dividing the building into three rooms. The second phase was an extension along the building’s western side, achieved by terracing into the hillside and creating three extra rooms. Here the wall foundation and remnant wall are of a much poorer construction and with minimal foundations. The third phase consists of the installation of the hypocaust, a possible bath and a corner pool. Following the abandonment of the villa, large sections of the walls and foundations were robbed out. Initial dating of the coins found during excavation of the building suggests that it was in use during the 3rd-4th century AD. In addition two coins found within one of the enclosure boundaries cut by the villa dated to the 2nd century AD.

Nick Dawson Site Supervisor Thames Valley Archaeological Services

Editor’s Note:

The original plans for the development of the site would have had houses built on top of the villa . However, Bovis Homes modified their plans so that the villa will be preserved, reburied under public open space, and an interpretative sign board provided.

A Roman Villa at Cam

Cam Roman Villa Site Plan

Image of the villa showing its scale

The Hypocaust

All images courtesy of Thames Valley Archaeological Services

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The tributes were as warm as the log fire in the Great Hall at Berkeley Castle on the evening of 12 December, when guests gathered to mark David Smith’s “final” retirement after a remarkable four decades as the Berkeley estate archivist – a role begun part-time when he was still County Archivist at Gloucester.

Karen Davidson, his apprentice and now successor, outlined his considerable achievements in bringing order to the records at both Berkeley and Spetchley, and helping to make their riches better known and more available to researchers. On behalf of the family, Mr Charles Berkeley presented David with tokens of their appreciation – a fine engraved bowl, and a framed and signed picture, both depicting the castle.

Adroitly judging that his audience was for the moment more interested in seasonal refreshment than the cavalcade of history, David chose in his response not to list the entire Berkeley genealogy from Eadnoth the Constable onwards (though this threat was briefly dangled over them), instead paying tribute to the many long friendships that had grown out of his work at the castle.

James Hodsdon

David Smith’s Retirement

from Berkeley Archive

David Smith and engraved bowl with Charles Berkeley (right) and Roly Brown, Berkeley Estate Director

David with castle picture and Karen Davidson

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Fascinating insights into the early medieval people of southern Britain can be gained from their burial practices. In Gloucestershire to the south and west of the River Thames alone, we have recorded 19 burial sites consisting of the graves and cremations of at least 400 individuals of the fifth to seventh centuries AD. Associated with these people were over 1100 objects, a vast array including weaponry, jewellery, glassware, and more mundane items such as knives, beads, and spindle whorls. Studying these assemblages and their locations in the landscape give us important information about past lives. The sheer scale of this information has been difficult to encompass, but digitisation now allows us to collate and present this data in a publicly accessible and freely available format.

The UCL Early Medieval Atlas is pleased to announce the launch of the Beyond the Tribal Hidage burial data. This is the baseline research data of the Leverhulme Trust funded project Beyond the Tribal Hidage: the early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern Britain AD 450–650 directed by the late Dr Martin Welch FSA at UCL Institute of Archaeology, 2006–9. The project aimed to bring together in an accessible format all the available evidence for burial and material culture in southern Britain from the fifth to seventh centuries AD. Over the years Martin had compiled a meticulous card catalogue of sites in the knowledge that only the full deployment and accessibility of the data would allow the fundamental questions of the early Anglo-Saxon period to be addressed with clarity. This ambition was realised as a digital census created by Sue Harrington and Stuart Brookes.

Data for an early Anglo-Saxon

census of southern Britain

The process of data acquisition was one of desk-based assessment by county, followed by discrete searches of both published and unpublished grey literature and other archive material held by county archaeological societies, research libraries, national and county journals, museum day books and accession registers, as well as through various communications with local researchers. In general, it was possible by this additional level of search to add 10 per cent to the number of sites recorded by national and county archaeological registers. Next, discrete county site lists were assembled, and museum and archive visits arranged to view the relevant objects from

Location of fifth to seventh century burial sites identified in Gloucestershire

13


these national listings. Data was collected geographically in county sets working clockwise around the study region, beginning with East Sussex in November 2006 and finishing in Kent, Surrey, and Greater London in August 2008. This iteration of the dataset also includes listings of new sites appearing between 2008 and 2017.

The study area extends south from the River Thames and westwards into Somerset. The downloads comprise: Sites table lists of 834 burial sites with grid references; the Individuals table of 12,379 people for whom there are partial or complete burial records; and the Objects table noting their 26,043 associated artefacts. The three tables can be freely downloaded from: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/early-medieval-atlas/map-data/beyond-tribal-hidage-data. The data enables users to explore the nature, distribution and spatial relationships of burial sites in their landscape context.

The web page also gives a full list of references and suggested further reading. We are also pleased to announce that Dr Audrey Meaney FSA has given us permission to include pdfs of her 1964 gazetteer of Early Anglo-Saxon burial sites.

As originally envisaged, this data is being made public in the expectation that future researchers will be able to enhance and extend its content. The conclusions of the project, as presented in the project monograph (Harrington and Welch 2014) could thus be tested, challenged, revised and extended as others see fit in the future, aware that what is presented there is but one assessment of the wonderfully complex and

engaging material for this crucial period of early medieval studies.

If you would like further information, please contact:

Data content: Dr Sue Harrington FSA [email protected]

Website: Dr Stuart Brookes FSA [email protected]

Harrington, S. and Welch, M. 2014. The early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern Britain, AD 450-650: beneath the Tribal Hidage. Oxford: Oxbow Books

14


Book Reviews

Kiftsgate Court Gardens: three generations of women gardeners

Vanessa Berridge, (London: Merrell Publishers, 2019). 192 pp., many col. ill. Hardback, £40.00 [ISBN: 9781858946696]. Reviewed 01.2020

This lavishly illustrated celebration of the centenary of Kiftsgate Court Gardens combines the aesthetic of a coffee table book with a family history, a lesson in garden design, a plant encyclopaedia and a comprehensive garden guide. The first section begins with an account of Kiftsgate's early history and its link to the eighteenth-century garden designer William Shenstone. This is followed by a chapter on each of the three plantswomen who have created the garden as it is today: Heather Muir, her daughter Diany Binney and Diany's daughter Anne Chambers. This biographical approach explains how this garden on the edge of the Cotswold scarp came to exhibit Italianate features, and traces its development over the three generations from a private garden into a business, open to the public for several months of the year. This section also draws the links between Kiftsgate's owners and other influential twentieth-century gardeners: Lawrence Johnston, Vita Sackville-West, Norah Lindsay, Graham Stuart-Thomas and Hilda Morrell. The author has been fortunate both in being able to interview Anne Chambers and in the survival of notebooks belonging to Diany Binney. This allows the evolution of Kiftsgate to be explored in far greater depth than the neighbouring Hidcote, for which the archival remains are limited.

The second section of the book takes each section of the garden in turn, describing how its design, planting and maintenance has evolved. I know Kiftsgate quite well, but at times I became slightly lost amidst the detail and had to refer to the garden key at the front of the book or the aerial photograph at the start of this section to orient myself. The detail on the plants is slightly overwhelming, but will provide a useful reference for the future. The book ends with a useful short section on the Kiftsgate rose and other signature plants found in the garden.

The beautiful photographs in this book fill me with a strong desire to revisit Kiftsgate as soon as it re-opens in the spring. I will now view the garden with a more discerning eye, being far more knowledgeable about its design and planting. If

you have any interest in twentieth-century garden history, I recommend this book.

Jan Broadway

Secret Cheltenham

David Elder, (Amberley Publishing, 2019). 96 pp., many col. ill. Paperback, £14.99 [ISBN: 9781445673325]. Reviewed 09.2019

Cheltenham punches above its weight in local history circles. Perhaps the biggest ‘secrets’ of the town are those being revealed by the VCH volume currently in process, heralded by the publication last year of Cheltenham before the Spa, which summarises the town’s forgotten history from before the medieval period up to its emergence as a resort for the wealthy who arrived in the wake of King George III’s visit in 1788.

Cheltenham has been well served by histories since Gwen Hart’s A History of Cheltenham (1965), as well as by numerous more recent investigative books and articles by Cheltenham historians such as Sue Jones, Neela Mann, Eric Miller, and others. The resources provided by the Gloucestershire Archives, and particularly by the indexing work of the volunteer researchers (and doesn’t the term ‘volunteers’ undervalue their work?) of the Cheltenham Local History Society, is making the historical infrastructure of the place more publicly available. As the work of the ‘volunteers’ feeds through into Ancestry and other

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genealogical and social history platforms, and as databases such as the British Newspaper Archive expand, we can nowadays examine the lives of Cheltenham’s people, its architecture, its interaction with the wider world, in ways that could only be dreamt of previously.

David Elder is another well-known doyen of Gloucestershire local histories, with contributions including Cheltenham in 50 Buildings and Literary Cheltenham. Secret Cheltenham falls into the popular genre of books which explicitly search out hidden and forgotten facts. Cheltenham, as the author points out, is paradoxically a town known for its secrets, being the home of GCHQ, but are there other curious stories which deserve telling (or retelling)?

The book is divided into seven thematic chapters, such as ‘Crime and Punishment’ and ‘War and Peace’, each concentrating on particular aspects of the town’s history. The structure is well thought out, the narrative excellently written, and the stories flow easily: the diminutive Cheltenham muffin-man, ‘Little John’ Milbank, is followed by his successor, Henry Clarke, fined for smashing the window of a druggist’s store. Henry Clarke gives way to Mr Fry, the Dandy Candy Man, with his 104-year-old mother, who is turn introduces the celebrated Cheltenham Dandy, Jan Mackay. Although the characters are known to historians of Cheltenham, the author has made excellent use of new resources to provide additional colour to their lives.

Perhaps the most successful chapters are ‘Reform and Revolution’, features for which

Cheltenham has been less noted in the past, and ‘Hidden Histories’, a title which itself rather coyly hides a significant area of modern research into Cheltenham wealth derived from the slave trade. James Robert Scott, of Thirlestaine House, and ‘Handsome Sam’ Barrett find themselves in the spotlight, alongside numerous former slaves who came to live (and be buried) in Cheltenham. House names can elucidate history, and the author notes that ‘Zeelugt House’ and ‘Rioho Lodge’ commemorate estates which were formerly the property of plantocrats who retired to Cheltenham.

The focus of the book is naturally Cheltenham and the curious details which can be extracted by sympathetic research, but the book benefits from a wider perspective, as a national context is suggested for clashes involving rights of way, women’s rights, animal rights, and religious freedom. Cheltenham, especially since the development of its spa society, emerges both as a caricature of what we always suspected, or thought, or feared, but also as a focus of the humane concern of its citizens, for innovation, and for protest. Perhaps that is really the ‘secret’ of the title.

John Simpson

Secret Forest of Dean

Mark Turner, (Stroud, Amberley Publishing 2019). 96 pp., many col. ill. Paperback, £14.99 [ISBN: 9781445684956]. Reviewed 08.2019

The first thing that you notice when starting to read this book is the amount of background research Mark has put in. He has certainly consulted several Forest of Dean books to help with this research and has then built on the information he has uncovered. The book moves from prehistory through the Roman and medieval eras pointing out important and lesser known sites connected with each period. He tells us about the remains of earthworks, castles, and standing stones that can still be found today and of the impact of the Civil War in the Dean describing battles in Coleford, Highnam, Redmarley and Westbury. Mark has obviously

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The Surgeons and the Bristol School of Artists

Michael Whitfield, (ALHA Books 28, 2019), iv, 22pp. col and b/w ills. Paperback, £3.50 [ISBN: 9781911592280]. Reviewed 12.2019

This is the sixth book written by Dr Whitfield in the ALHA series of pamphlets. It describes three Bristol surgeons who as amateur artists sold art works and contributed to the Bristol School of Artists.

Francis Gold, a surgeon, in 1813 set up a course of medical lectures in Bristol but then tried to become a commercial artist in 1819 but had to return to medicine before dying in the service of the East India Company in 1832. His paintings are said to have influenced Francis Danby towards a more imaginative and poetical style.

John King worked with Beddoes and developed links with Robert Southey, S T Coleridge and Humphrey Davy as well as the local artist scene. He developed friendships with Washington Allston, an American painter, who painted his family. King’s paintings, however, are not described or illustrated in this pamphlet. He died in 1848 aged 80.

John Harrison, an Infirmary surgeon, used to go sketching with the artist William Muller. He painted many views of Bristol, a selection of which are illustrated. He was crippled by rheumatism in his one remaining hand but still painted. He died in 1892 at the age of 91.

The pamphlet briefly describes the antecedents of the Royal West of England Arts Academy and how doctors generally were important in its committees. In addition it touches on the Bristol School of Artists. It is a good opening to this rarely described group of artists who have little known about them. It is however rather bitty in content and leaves questions unanswered such as which other doctors contributed paintings? Harrison is described as having only one rheumatic hand at age 80 but we are not told how he lost the other. I would presume this may have affected his painting!

Peter Carpenter

visited many of the sites he writes about as some are quite hard to locate and could only be described after a personal visit.

The book continues through the industrial era of the Forest of Dean and into the twentieth century, again with detailed descriptions of significant buildings and structures. Several interesting church artefacts are included in this chapter and a note about Rock castle in Coleford is quite unusual. The narrative throughout the book is cleverly interspersed with highlighted blue boxes entitled ‘Did you know?’ which give snippets of interesting information concerning individual sites.

Mark finishes his book with some well observed chapters on the canals, tramroads and railways of the Forest of Dean, a chapter on crime and punishment mentioning the first murders of any Gloucestershire policemen being carried out in 1861 and of course the infamous story of ‘Who killed the bears?’. Finally a chapter on notable residents of the Forest bring us right up to date with details about the lives of, among others, Edna Healey, Denis Potter and Joe Meek.

The collections of superb photographs throughout the book help the reader to understand the description of each building and site. The book covers locations lying in the wider area of the Forest of Dean District Council’s administrative area and for anyone visiting the Forest this is a book to keep in your car to help you understand the rich history of this unique area.

Averil Kear

Book Reviews Continued

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Library Update

Peter Morphew is currently covering Louise Hughes’ maternity leave. You can get in touch with Peter via [email protected] or by calling 01242 714851. During this time, appointments are available Monday to Thursday 10am – 4pm.

Recent Acquisitions

Britannia Vol. 50 (2019)

Family & Community History: Journal of the Family and Community Historical Research Society Vol. 22 No. 1 (April 2019), Vol. 22 No. 2 (July 2019)

Friends of Gloucester Cathedral Annual Report (2019)

Journal of Roman Studies Vol. 109 (2019)

Midland History Vol. 44 No. 2 (Autumn 2019)

The New Regard: The Journal of the Forest of Dean Local History Society No. 34 (2020)

Vernacular Architecture, Vol. 50 (2019)

Bannister, A. T. (ed.), The Register of Thomas Spofford Bishop of Hereford (1422-1448) (Hereford, 1917)

Barlow, P. & Boothman, M. (eds.), ''Conspicuously Marked': Vehicle Registration in Gloucestershire, 1903-13', Gloucestershire Record Series Vol. 33 (2019)

Clarke, A., 'Taking the pledge: the Temperance Movement in Bristol, 1830-1914', ALHA Books No. 30 (2019)

Franklin, W., 'Thomas Cowper, Land-Surveyor', Victor Hatley Memorial Series, Northamptonshire Record Society Vol. 6 (2019)

BGAS are delighted to announce that the Society’s library has been presented with a copy of Sir John ap Adam: a thirteenth century knight by the booklet’s author, Keith Underwood. This is the latest of a series of booklets which Mr Underwood has produced to mark the lives and achievements of important historical figures who were associated with Tidenham during the Medieval period. These booklets have been designed to be read at medieval speed - ‘at leisure’!

Other works in this series Mr Underwood has donated to the BGAS library include William FitzOsbern: to commemorate the 950th anniversary of the founding of Chepstow Castle, 1067 and In commemoration of the death of William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, May 14th 1219.

Further details of these booklets, together with information on other publications which have been produced by members of the Tidenham Historical Group, may be found on the group’s website: tidenhamhistory.co.uk/publications/ Copies of Mr Underwood’s booklets may be obtained from The Chepstow Bookshop, tel: 01291 625011 or email: [email protected] .

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‘Conspicuous’ success

‘Conspicuously marked’ – our 2019 Record Series volume, detailing pre-WWI vehicle registrations – has been well received. The launch took place in the recently-opened Dunrossil Room at the Gloucester Heritage Hub, a pleasant venue and one we’re likely to use for future Gloucester section meetings. The accompanying talk, by volume editors Peter Barlow and Martin Boothman, formed part of the Gloucester History Festival programme, which meant a good turn-out and plenty of questions from the audience. In addition to the questions and compliments received at the launch, Peter and Martin have been contacted by a number of readers who have been able to shed additional light on the history of some of the vehicles featured in their text.

This is welcome public engagement, which we’d like to build on. Sales of the book beyond our own membership have been very encouraging (a reviewer in a vintage motorcycle magazine recommended people to put it on their Christmas list – ‘better than a bottle of Bolly’) and a school in Croydon is using a subset of the data to add to an online mapping project. Evidence of the popularity of this book is demonstrated by the fact that orders over the Christmas period exceeded the sales figures for our entire back-catalogue of Gloucestershire Record Series volumes over the same period, a remarkable achievement.

Copies of Peter and Martin's book are still available and can be ordered via the BGAS website, or by sending a cheque for £30 per copy to the Hon General Secretary.

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A day of Gloucester archaeology

Committee for Archaeology in Gloucestershire

Annual Symposium: 21st March 2020

Speaker Talk

Amy Bunce The archaeology of Project Pilgrim

Peter Cox The rural hinterland: multi-period activity at Grange Road

Carolyn Heighway Gloucester Abbey: the Romanesque elements

Henry Hurst 11-17 Southgate Street, fifty years on

Andrew Mudd Roman legacies: excavations at Upper Quay Street 1989 and Ladybellegate Street 1991

Kevin Potter Discoveries at St Mary de Crypt

Martin Watts Llanthony Secunda Re-Formation project

Professor Keith Wilkinson My time in prison: geoarchaeological borehole surveys of Gloucester’s historic waterfront

Lecture Theatre, Oxstalls Campus, University of Gloucestershire

10am to 5pm—Tickets £15 each

Free parking is available on the campus. The Stagecoach Cheltenham-Gloucester 94 bus stops outside the campus gates.

Tea and coffee are included and will be provided at mid-morning and afternoon breaks.

The university canteen will not be open at lunchtime, so please bring a packed lunch. Alternatively pub meals are available at the King Edward and Greyhound pubs a short drive away. There is a Co-op store in Longlevens (a ten minute walk).

There will be a strictly limited number of tickets available on the day, so the best way to obtain them is to buy online at:

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cag-2020-a-day-of-gloucester-archaeology-tickets-83636620383

https://www.emberinns.co.uk/nationalsearch/southwest/the-king-edward-vii-gloucester

https://www.greyhoundpubgloucester.co.uk

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Spring Meeting Saturday 6 June 2020

The Forest of Dean and Newnham on Severn

A chance to explore some of the traditions of the Forest of Dean such as the ancient custom of freemining, and to gain an insight into the work of the verderers, forest officials

whose history can be traced back to 1216. After lunch we shall follow one of the trading trails out of the forest to the port of Newnham. A booking form is enclosed with further details. This is also available on the BGAS website.

Dates for Diaries

2020 Annual Deerhurst Lecture

The 2020 Annual Deerhurst Lecture will take place at 7.30 pm on Saturday 12th September 2020 in St Mary’s Church, Deerhurst and will be given by Professor Francesca Tinti on the subject of ‘The cathedral community at Worcester, Odda of Deerhurst and his contemporaries’. Tickets at the door, price £5 (students £3). Further details available at:

https://deerhurstfriends.co.uk

Don’t forget the survey

If you receive an email invitation, follow the link and complete the survey.

However, if you don’t receive an email invitation within two days of receiving this Newsletter then please visit: www.surveymonkey/r/BGAS2020A where you can complete the survey.

If you cannot make an online response, please request a paper version from the Hon General Secretary at: 10 Paddock Gardens, Longlevens, Gloucester GL2 0ED

Please complete the survey by 27th March so that we may present initial results at the AGM. Thank you for your help.

Newnham-on-Severn from Dean Hill by William Turner of Oxford (Gloucester City Museum and Art Gallery)

Annual General Meeting Saturday 4th April at 2.15pm

Venue: University of Gloucestershire's Park Campus, Cheltenham. Full directions to the meeting are included with this Newsletter. Please come along to join us at this year's AGM if you can..

President's Meeting Saturday 19 September 2020

Apperley and Deerhurst

During Michael Hare's President's Meeting we will discover the parts of Deerhurst often overlooked by visitors — a wonderful opportunity to learn more about its setting beside the River Severn, and of the anchorage or hermitage site first noticed in the 1970s by Mick Aston (see BGAS Newsletter No. 84). We shall also spend time in Apperley, including a visit to the moated Wightfield Manor (seen above)

The Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society · 2019-09-09 · The Bristol and...

Documents

Transcript of The Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society · 2019-09-09 · The Bristol and...