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The Story So Far Excavations at Chewton Mendip 2011 to 2018

4th edition

Pip Osborne

Community Archaeology on the Mendip Plateau CAMP

Community Archaeology on the Mendip Plateau

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THE STORY SO FAR

EXCAVATIONS AT CHEWTON MENDIP 2011 TO 2018 4th Edition

Introduction For some years Pip Osborne had been fascinated by a field in Chewton Mendip, Somerset. Although it was bordered by houses it had not been built on and scrutiny of old maps did not show any building on the site well back into the 19th century. In 2010 Pip gained permission to do some geophysical surveying across the main part of the field. This revealed the outline of what appeared to be a rectangular building. Having recently formed a Community Archaeology Group, Pip asked for permission to put a test trench across the site of the strongest reading. This was kindly granted and members embarked on a five day dig of a 15 by 2 metre trial trench. The excavation confirmed that there were two substantial parallel wall foundations, one of 90cm and one of 1 metre width, the two being 6.8 metres apart. There was a layer of stones covering the whole trench. Two small test pits or ‘sondages’ were sunk to confirm the depth of archaeology. These turned up items dating to just after the Norman Conquest. What was this building? We just had to find out more! This is a brief resume of what has been happening in the last 7 years.


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THAT FIRST YEAR (2011) It was not difficult to find members willing to come and dig, even though some had never experienced excavation before. This site was too good to miss! We were lucky to be joined by experienced archaeologists and together we did two further sessions that first year: one in July and one in August. We decided to approach very cautiously, digging to the highest possible standards and recording and writing up as we went. We were rewarded that summer by uncovering the southwest corner of the building and a fantastic example of a medieval drain. One of the first objects to be uncovered was a large slab, the archaeology being never far from the surface. What was it? Was it a grave cover or a perhaps the base stone to support a timber cruck frame? It became apparent that it had a channel running underneath, but the incline of the channel was such that Pip’s arm was not long enough to stretch right inside to fully excavate. She took a photo down the channel and was shocked to see what looked like a human rib cage! In the event it turned out to be roots from a nearby tree stump that had found a nice damp place inside a drain. We were relieved.

Careful backfilling took place and after the autumn rains you could hardly see where we had excavated. That summer we also sank two other small trenches to test where the projected wall line might extend, given that the geophysics results were very poor over much of the east of the field. THE SECOND YEAR (2012) During the winter months Pip was giving a talk at the Museum in Wells and in the audience was Sarah Porteus, who was at that time working for South East Archaeology. She had decided to take a sabbatical and was keen to get involved in local community archaeology. Pip seized this opportunity to involve her in the dig, which she was only too willing to do. She led the main trench 7 that April. We needed to assess the extent of damage caused by a water pipe, installed in the 1930s, running diagonally across the field. It threw up a huge interference on the geophysics, but where exactly did it cross the building? Sarah and her team worked hard on uncovering what became known as the south wall, and also two cross walls. The pipe trench was found to cut a neat path through the building with very little disturbance.

Figure 1 Looking northeast, this photo shows the southwest corner of the building. In the foreground is the pitched exterior cobble surface. The large slab covers the course of the drain flowing downhill under an interior slab floor. The south wall can be seen continuing under the east trench edge.


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There were signs of burning in this trench. Had there been a fire, or was it used for light industry? Several sondages, sunk down to the natural subsoil, produced medieval pottery, a substantial dressed stone block, and animal bone of several species.

Figure 2 Trench 7 showing the south wall across the bottom of the picture with crosswalls at right angles. The waterpipe is just visible in a small sondage. Pip was also very lucky to have on board Kay Boreland who, although working professionally as a geologist, also had an archaeological background. She led another trench (6) further east, which revealed a fine threshold step and cobbled approach, plus yet another cross wall….. and still the south wall continued east!

By now we were sure that this building had been demolished systematically at some time in the past and all the good dressed stone, fixtures and fittings removed,

Figure 3 Trench 6 looking west, with the south wall in the foreground and yet another crosswall abutting from the north. The threshold can be seen at the far end with cobble exterior on left of photo


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probably to be used elsewhere. Wherever we deturfed we found stone. This was either random rubble north of the south wall, or cobble surfacing to the south. Assuming that north of the wall had been the interior we decided to return to the west end and reopen part of the original test trench between the two walls, excavating down through the layers to study the interior in more detail. It was indeed curious. We encountered large slabs at the base, on both the north and south sides. They looked like bedrock, but their orientation was wrong. We concluded that lifted bedrock had been used to build up the floor level to form interior walkways. In between was a curious oval area of pitched cobble. We have no idea of its purpose. Had it been a threshing surface?

Meanwhile, Sarah excavated the extreme west end of the building following the projected path of the drain uncovered the previous year. She was delighted to find it running beneath the paved ground surface she had excavated, but rather disappointed that it curved northeast in such a way as to track under the baulk between the two trenches. Time did not allow us to fully excavate its course. It would have to wait for the future, but we did catch a tantalizing glimpse of the threshold in the west gable end.

Figure 5 Trench 8 was at the extreme west end of the building. Note the drain with slab floor remains and a tantalizing glimpse of the threshold surrounds in the west gable end wall (centre top of photo)

Figure 4 Trench 1 Looking north. This was reopened and excavated between the north and south walls. Here we found walkways of lias limestone bedrock (in foreground) and a curious layers of pitched cobble, visible protruding from under the west section edge in centre of photo.


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Not being able to keep away, a few stalwarts returned in October to excavate to the northwest and outside the building, where we had seen some fine cobble poking through the grass surrounding the large tree stump there. This was indeed worthwhile, for not only did we uncover yet more well-laid cobbling, but a kerb of paving stone, a plinth-like stone which had a look of re-used Roman about it, and a very substantial wall foundation, this time heading off downhill. Sarah had previously found a less substantial foundation, also heading downhill from the northwest corner of the building. Were they related? Yet more questions to add to the ever growing list to be addressed. Snow eventually forced us to call it a day for 2012, but workshops continued for processing all the finds, and for all the drawing and paperwork associated with post-excavation work.

THE THIRD YEAR 2013) It was decided to concentrate on the eastern extent of the structure this year. Moving from the known to the unknown we extended east and finally were rewarded with locating the east wall-return, some 35 metres from the west wall. This was certainly some building. Why hadn’t the geophysics helped us in this respect? That question was answered when we came down on layer after layer of compacted dumped modern rubbish: clay, rubble, linoleum and so forth. Eventually we mattocked through it, to be rewarded with finds of pottery confirming a date range from pre-Norman to later medieval period, plus a further fine threshold.

Figure 6. The first snows of winter. In the foreground in trench 9 the course of a wall-like foundation running downhill to the north. To the south of this, a tree-stump which had caused considerable damage to the archaeology

Figure 7 Trench 10. The southeast corner of the building is just visible in the bottom left hand corner. Here we are recording the stratigraphy of compressed rubbish dumped over the years!


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THE FOURTH YEAR (2014) This saw us return to the curious wall-like features running downhill outside the northwest of the building. Two digs later and we could confidently say that these were walkways down to a spring, which still feeds into the owners’ garden pond.

There was great excitement when we found a considerable number of glazed 13th century Bristol jug sherds in soil between the two walkways. Did an occupant drop the jug on the way to or from the spring? One of our members, Brian, reconstructed a good part of it. Unfortunately the handle is missing.

We also located more of the threshold in the west gable end of the building this year. This was fascinating. Despite the close proximity of the large tree stump, Brian attacked the roots with the mattock and eventually came down on the foundations. The threshold had a sloping paved approach and a porch, with rainwater deflected onto lias limestone slabs, which drained into a gully in the cobble surrounds of the building.

Figure 8 Trench 15. Two walkways coming downhill from the building merge and head towards a spring lower down the slope.

Figure 9 The 13th century glazed jug from a Bristol pottery. The decoration shows a vine with bunches of grapes (or so we believe!)


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THE FIFTH YEAR (2015) Having very little idea of the north wall we decided to concentrate on this for the whole year. The first trench was placed where the one of the cross walls uncovered in trench 7, was projected to join its course. We did indeed find the junction but were surprised to find that the cross wall merely floated on top of a substantial layer of blackish charcoal soil and was not tied into the north wall. In fact the north wall was curious. It only had coursing in one small area surrounding a drain. The rest was merely a rubble-filled trench. At the time we could not figure this out, but in time we came to understand it. Yet more medieval pottery kept turning up and we had by now accumulated a substantial collection of much varied coarseware as well as some glazed sherds, in all the layers of the excavation. For some time several of the group had been studying the pottery, under the guidance of pottery expert David Dawson and establishing a Chewton Mendip Pottery Type Series. This would help us date the pottery in due course.

Later in the year we chose to follow the line of the north wall going east to work out why it didn’t have coursed foundations. This proved to be the best, most rewarding trench of the dig so far. Not only did we conclude that the north wall foundations consisted of a rubble-filled trench throughout, but the contents of the fill gave us a tantalizing glimpse into the use of the site right back into the Saxon period. The blackish soils of the previous trench were pitch black here, oily, ashy and charcoal-rich and full of pottery and other significant finds. Metal finds dated back to the 8th century and highly baked red clays were very similar to those found in excavations at

Figure 10 Trench 12 looking south. Here we can see the west wall foundations (bottom left) and the approach to the threshold (foreground) with the water-worn slabs behind. These deflected rainwater west into a gully which is just visible running out of the bottom right of the photo.

Figure 11 Trench 16 looking south. The north wall is coursed only round a drain-hole. The rest is rubble. The cross wall is just visible behind


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Glastonbury Abbey in connection with glass furnaces of the 7/8th centuries. We found tiny shards of glass, flake and spherical hammer scale, silver globules in the soil and best of all, a crucible with gold beads attached. Of course all this could only be seen under a microscope, but their use opened up a whole new world to us. Soon several of us had bought them and the Flotation Study group was underway. When we got funding for a radiocarbon test on animal bone from low down in the black soils, we were very pleased to find an early Saxon date of between AD642 and 766. The curious thing was the presence of pottery throughout the layers of black soils. The widely held belief is that there was no pottery in Somerset in early and mid Saxon times. This definitely warranted further investigation. THE SIXTH YEAR (2016) Being very excited about the pottery and other finds from the black soils last year, we decided to return to the area and dig further. This time we took many soil samples for laboratory testing and flotation study. We needed to know about the metallurgy content and also needed to look at them carefully for other clues as to their function. As I write this second edition this work continues. We also studied the pottery in great detail as we excavated it. We had a team on hand to wash the sherds immediately after they were excavated and identify their Type numbers. Their position in the soils was marked and then measurements were taken so that we could record them in 3D. Now we know exactly where they came from and their height above sea level. Where they were accompanied by bone, charcoal or shell, (all carbon datable), these items were lifted and stored. We’ve used these for some further scientific dating. Bone from the lowest level gave us a date of between AD665-772, very similar to the first test. A marine limpet shell gave us a date of between AD1126 and 1285 and may give us a clue as to when the main building was erected. How a marine shell got there we can only guess. It must have travelled quite a distance! A second cross wall which had been exposed in 2015 was further excavated to show that its foundations survived to 12 or more courses, by far the deepest part of the building structure. This wall was not floating on the black soils as the other one did but had been built on the subsoil. Yet another wall on a different alignment was uncovered, but this time we could tell that it was an earlier construction by studying the sequence of events in the excavation. The black soils came first, then the first wall, which had noticeable subsidence. Finally this wall was cut by the later north wall, the black soils all being sealed by floors and cobbling. Our soils and finds have lain undisturbed for hundreds of years under piles of demolition rubble, which is why this site is so special and exciting to dig

Figure 12 A wall on a different alignment to the later building overlay the black soils. This wall had slumped into the black soils. It was in turn cut through by the north wall trench foundation. A rubble demolition layer sealed the whole site.


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We must mention the east end of the building too. That got partially excavated in the spring and curiously the wall here was on the same alignment as the earlier wall just mentioned. Together they may represent the earliest building. YEAR SEVEN (2017) This was the time to do some ‘mopping up’ of unanswered questions, so in the spring we dug two trenches. One was to explore the potential for a further north/south wall towards the eastern end of the building, the other to look at the drains! Trench 21 was placed over a possible corner of the north wall course and a wall running north from trench 6. Did they meet at a NE corner? If so could this tell us something about the phasing of the building? As always, it was not as straightforward as hoped. The wall did continue north but ended short of a corner having been completely robbed out. This is the story of the site. When this happens you lose the stratigraphical relationship of the walls and have to rely on other means for dating the phases, such as the pottery and other finds.

Yet more confusion lay in trench 22 at the west end of the complex. One outstanding question from the very first year was ‘where did the drain exit the building on the north side?’ Initially we were thinking we only had the single drain, but when we dug down over the north wall line we found two drain courses and things didn’t really add up. All we could conclude is that some modification had happened later on in the building’s history, with floor levels being raised and drain courses altered accordingly.

Figure 13 left Trench 21. The north/south wall as it approaches a possible NE corner. It was completely robbed out. Figure 14 above Trench 22. The drain exit, thought to be part of the drain discovered in 2011. Curiously it stopped short of the north wall and appears to have be modified at some point in time.


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The Summer project of 2017 All the while during the whole excavation we were digging up sherds of medieval pottery and beginning to suspect that we perhaps could use it more to somehow help us date certain phases of occupation on the site. We had already found pottery with animal bone in the lowest depths of the black artisan soils, and these bones returned early radiocarbon dates of 7/8th centuries. We became well versed in recording pottery sherds in 3D so we had an exact record of where they were found. A model was devised whereby we would dig some test pits outside the rectilinear building in black artisan soils, which had not been later disturbed by wall cuts. A proposal was put to the Maltwood Fund of the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society and they were kind enough to grant us 6 radiocarbon dates. Of the 5 test pits dug, 3 were successful in finding occupation levels in dark soils undisturbed by later building. Very careful trowelling, with sieving and 3D recording of bone and pottery took place over August 2017 and in the following months the sherds were identified with several new types occurring. There was much interest in the stamped ware appearing, as this is rare to find. In due course the best 6 examples of bone were chosen from the various pits and contexts and sent to the Scottish Universities laboratories for processing. In January 2018 the results came back. The sequences confirmed pre-Norman occupation, not as early as 7/8th century, but filling in the gaps of late Saxon and greatly helping our understanding of the pottery, especially the stamped ware. This has been written up in Interim Report 13 in much detail.

Figure 15 Stamped ware from test pit 1 shown where found in different contexts radiocarbon dated by accompanying animal bone.


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THE SEVENTH YEAR In the summer of 2018 we dug trench 24 to straddle our great cross wall which we’ve exposed in the past, but not fully understood. Not only did this dig answer outstanding questions about the building’s construction and phases, but we uncovered more evidence of the first phase building 1 metre down and on a slightly different alignment. We could now understand better the other wall fragments we’ve found on this N/S orientation. We also found a further glazed fabric type which has foxed even the professionals! It may well be an early type of Bristol ware. WHERE ARE WE AT NOW? So far we can deduce that we have a building complex of several phases, with a south wall of 35 metres length, with at least 3 cross walls. At the west end it was either a 1.5 or a 2-storey building. It had substantial foundations and could have had stone walls or stone base with timber frame above. The middle cross wall, and by far the most substantial, was at one time the west gable end of a second phase building to the east. This building had, incorporated in its SE corner, part of the first phase building, on a slightly different alignment. The roof was probably thatch although we have found a few broken pennant sandstone roof tiles. These could have formed the lowest courses of the roof. We have uncovered two thresholds in the south wall and one in the west gable end. A further doorway is thought to have existed on the north wall at the northwest corner. The floor levels at the west end of the building had been built up over time, perhaps due to a damp problem within the building. This west part of the building had a slab floor with drain running beneath, though this was strangely truncated before it could exit the north wall and was believed to have been part of a modification when a second drain was added.

Figure 16 The east face of the cross wall exposed. In the foreground is the cut into the clay where the phase one building foundation runs on a N/S alignment.


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At some stage a stone retaining kerb was built over the slabs at the west end and a pitched floor surface laid with slab walkways to north and south. Its purpose has not been established. It could have been agricultural. Walkways lead from the exterior cobbled entrance at the west end, and the north west corner of the building down the hillslope, where they merged and continued to a spring. The east end, which we now believe to have been the second phase of the building seems to have been individual cells, probably for dwellings. A few sherds of glazed Ham Green ware jugs dating to the 12th century were found in the lower contexts, suggesting a domestic use for this end of the complex. In contrast, the vast majority of pottery found throughout the site is medieval coarseware. This could have had many uses: cookware, storage jars or even chamber pots! Underlying the central part of the building complex was mid Saxon occupation in the form of industrial black soils, with evidence of kiln use, smelting, iron forging and the processing of precious metals.

Figure 17 Composite drawing of all the trenches dug to August 2018


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Figures 18 & 19 Composite of overhead photos and plan of the various digs. The south wall clearly shows crossing the site from east to west. The two main cross walls are evident in the central portion. The slightly different alignment of the east wall we believe is phase one building reused in the later construction. The walkways to the spring are shown merging in the top lefthand section of the photo. The large slab over the drain course is just visible in the bottom left hand segment. The positions of the test pits are also indicated. The absence of trenches centre left is deliberate, this area showing well on the resistivity survey.


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DO WE KNOW WHO OWNED THIS BUILDING? As far as we can tell there is no historical record of this building or of the site of the Saxon minster that preceded it, despite its size and probable importance in its day. We believe the building complex was constructed in phases immediately after the Norman Conquest and demolished at the beginning of the 15th century. The two most likely candidates for the building would be either a Manor House for the secular Lord of Chewton Estate or a multipurpose priest house for the church. Considerable research was undertaken by members of CAMP and the discovery made that the land on which the building sat never belonged to the secular estate and therefore it is highly unlikely to have been their Manor house. However, after the Norman Conquest in 1066 King William granted Chewton’s church lands to the Abbey of Jumièges in Normandy. This was a hugely powerful and wealthy monastery. Why would he do that? Perhaps because Chewton was a hugely wealthy place. Representatives would have come across from Normandy to run the church and collect the tithes due from the church lands, which amounted to some 300 acres at that time. The Abbey not only looked after the people of Chewton; it was also responsible for the ‘cure of souls’ of the villagers in several neighbouring manors, namely Farrington, Ston Easton, Emborough, Hallatrow, Paulton and Welton. It would have had priests to house and care for. Before they were given their own houses in these manors, they were housed close to the church at Chewton. We know this because it is mentioned in a document called the ‘Ordinance of Bishop Jocelin’ dated 1241, which gives a clue to the early origins of the site as a minster or mother church to the surrounding settlements. Gradually the Abbey of Jumièges relinquished its hold over Chewton and eventually in the 15th century the church and lands were passed to the monastic Order of the Carthusians. They built their own farm buildings somewhere in Chewton, but did not live there. This may be where the ‘Priory’ at Bathway had its origins, but they never actually had a religious house there. HOW WE PROCESS THE DATA We publish Interim Reports on each of the digs as soon after they take place as is possible. John Croxford supplies the overhead and section photos for the archives, which prove very useful in analysing the site. We endeavour to identify our finds using an extensive range of reference material and by asking experts in various fields, who have been very generous of their time and expertise. Brian Irwin expertly photographs any significant finds and we include these in our reports. As for the pottery, we have formed a study group within CAMP and under the guidance of David Dawson we meet weekly to process all the sherds and create a Type Series of medieval wares. It is hoped that this will inform us on how local the pottery was to the area and whether similar types were found at other medieval sites in Somerset. Eventually we hope to have a dedicated website for our Type Series with high-resolution photographs of the fabric types with their descriptions. We also have an Environmental Group which works its way through soil samples looking microscopically for evidence of seeds, grains, metallurgy and much more. We still have much to discover of this intriguing medieval building and will continue to report our findings on the CAMP website. Do follow us on www.camplat.btck.co.uk if you’re interested in our work or maybe you’d like to join us.

http://www.camplat.btck.co.uk/


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Thanks to John Croxford, Brian Irwin and Kay Boreland for photos included in this brief resume.

Acknowledgements to the landowners and the many people who have helped along the way, in particular Dr Michael Costen, our president, and David Dawson (pottery expert). Thanks also to the Maltwood Fund for grant funding of 14C dating and XRF. Likewise to the Archaeological Research Services’ CARDfund for 14C dating and to our other kind benefactors

Pip Osborne and CAMP retain full copyright of this, and any other report (commissioned or otherwise), or other project documentation by her under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 with all rights reserved. Pip Osborne and CAMP may however, assign copyright of a document to an interested party upon written request, but will still retain the right to be identified as the author of the document as defined in the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (Chapter IV s.79).

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