Mucklestone excavation 2016
We last visited this field in Mucklestone in 2013 and
early 2014, when we carried out magnetometry surveys and trial excavations.
We discovered what appeared to be evidence of a bread oven. At the time we
believed we would return later in 2014 to do a more extensive excavation,
but unfortunately the gaps between crop planting and our availability never
seemed to coincide - until now.
We have been here for a couple of months
and on the rest of this page are photos and text describing our progress. We
started on the 11th of September, after the landowner had very helpfully
used his machine to remove a few inches of the plough soil and stubble over
a 10m by 10m square. Winston, our dig director, had positioned the trench to
cover the area where we found evidence of the bread oven in 2013's
trial excavation. We finished on the 3rd of November, after a very
interesting and rewarding dig, in the course of which we confirmed that this
was indeed the location of a bread oven, which from the pottery sherds we
found in and around the debris seems to have collapsed, apparently following
a disastrous fire, sometime in the 17th Century. We hope to be able to return
next year to investigate what appears from the magnetometry to be a building
immediately to the north of this bread oven. We will soon be carrying out a resistivity
survey over this area in an attempt to confirm the existence, and clarify the extent, of any remaining wall bases or ditches. - Click on any of
the following images to enlarge it
Weeks 1-3 (September 11th - October 2nd)
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Start of the first
day's trowelling. Looking NW |
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Looking W. As we
continue trowelling on the first day, some large stones start to show
(lower right hand side of the picture) ... |
... as well as
some finds, including this pipe bowl with its maker's mark |
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A few days later,
looking W. You can see that the large stones appear to be in a line -
the ranging rod is beside them. |
Two days later,
looking E this time. Colin is working around one of the large stones.
You can see an area of broken pieces of daub nearer the camera |
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We found several
small pieces of bronze, plus a couple of what appear to be legs of a
skillet (a heavy saucepan-shaped cooking pot) or cauldron |
These two photos
are of one leg, which shows that the pot was made all in one, rather
than the legs being attached individually to the pan |
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Here is one sherd
of pottery as the troweller discovered it, ... |
... and here are
some other examples of sherds after they've been washed. All late 17th
or early 18th Century. |
The following picture shows the whole trench on the 20th September, looking
south.
You can see the line of larger stones up the middle, with a darker area with
a lot of broken daub to the right of them.

Week 4 (2nd - 9th October)
In October, a large number of interesting pottery sherds were discovered in
an area in the NE corner of the trench. This area appeared at first to be a
rubbish pit or midden, but on further examination proved to be a relatively
shallow linear feature which became known as "Keith's ditch". You
can see one of the finds from this area under Week 5 below, and more in
Weeks 6 & 7. We found relatively little pottery in the black ash material
near the centre of the oven itself, but the next picture is of a nice piece of
decorated blackware which Dave found there. It is probably late 16th or
early 17th Century slip decorated Cistercian ware.
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These
are two views of the line of stones in the middle of the trench. The
line runs roughly N-S, with the point of the ranging rod pointing to
the north. The stones are seen now to be more of a continuous line,
possibly the base of a wall. Is there perhaps a parallel line to the
west of them (above them in these views)? There is a line of darker
material alongside them, too |
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Among the finds
this week was this piece of painted glass |
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This
toroidal find ("ring") may or may not be man-made. It fell into two
pieces when it was lifted, and the picture on the left shows that it
seems to be made of stone or slate |
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These
two pictures are of what was once a ball of thread, about 10cms
across. The left-hand photo is of an approximately 5cm width. The
right-hand photo is a close-up of a single thread. The whole is
extremely delicate, as it has been burnt and what we see is all
carbonised and falls to black ash when handled. Congratulations to
Janet for excavating it so carefully! |
Week 5 (9th - 16th October)
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A view of the
whole trench, looking N. You can see the line of stones in the centre
of the trench, and top right (in the NE corner) are Marlene and
(nearly) Keith working in "Keith's ditch" |
A couple of days
later, looking NW. Another view of the line of stones. As we remove
the rubble (mostly brick-like pieces of daub) from the W side of the
stones, another large stone emerges - you can see this more clearly in
the larger picture - click on the thumbnail. |
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A small cooking
pot, or maybe a posset pot, emerging from Keith's ditch. |
A nice mottled
ware flagon neck with part of its handle |
Weeks 6 & 7 (16th - 30th October)
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Here is a view of
the whole trench, looking N. We have removed much, but not all, of the
daub material. Note that we found almost none of the daub to the E of
the line of stones |
Here is a close-up
of the central oven area taken from the same viewpoint as the previous
photo. If you look closely, you can see a splash of what appears to
have been molten pewter across the top of one of the newly-revealed
stones to the left (W) of the original line. |
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Here
are some of the pieces of daub. The right-hand picture shows the other
sides of the pieces in the left-hand picture. You can clearly see
where the wattles ran through the daub, as well as the smooth faces on
the other side suggesting that these faces were located on the outside
of the top of the oven, or its front face, or inside the mouth of the
oven (where the dough was put in and the bread taken out). Some pieces
are more curved and are concave, suggesting the latter location. |
On the 20th October, Terry used his drone to take the following aerial
photographs of the whole trench.
North is to the left (in both pictures). The second picture is a close-up of the central oven area,
in which you can see what is now clearly a second line of stones
parallel to the first. Notice the once-molten pewter splash across one of
the stones, looking like an exclamation mark diagonally across the
stone. You can also see clear indications of areas of black ash and
charcoal.
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Keith's first
sight of the sherds of another posset pot in his ditch |
The contents of
his finds tray so far today |
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Close-up of the
posset pot sherds as found |
Those sherds
turned over |
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The posset pot
sherds washed and joined. What a lovely piece! |
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Looking N. We have
removed nearly all the daub rubble to reveal the shape of the oven. We
assume that the front is to the right. The back seems to have been
semi-circular, levelled on the nearer edge by a line of clay pads |
In this closer
view, now looking westwards from the front side, notice the remains of
a burnt timber beam which runs between the two lines of stones. We
assume the stones steadied this timber which presumably formed the
bottom of the front wall. |
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Some more finds: a
pot of (perhaps) midland yellow with unusually-angled handles ... |
... another pipe
bowl, here showing the maker's mark on the underside |
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A 17th C
saltglazed stoneware sherd with part of the face of a bearded man |
... and a squashed
bronze thimble |
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In this view of
the whole trench looking northwards, you can see a roughly linear
feature (of which more later) just above Janet's head, leading
eastwards from the western baulk. You can also see Keith's ditch in
the far NE corner. |
The end of
October, and we have removed all the daub rubble. You can see the
remains of the timber beam running roughly N-S between the lines of
stones. A pair of large stones has just emerged, visible just above
the information board |
Week 8, the final week:
The penultimate day (1st November)
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Recall that
roughly linear feature in the picture above? These two pictures show
what was revealed when we removed the dark fill ... |
... - not much.
Two holes which don't seem right for post holes. Maybe tree or bush
roots have been removed here? |
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Here is the pair
of large stones, which we first saw in a previous photo. |
The stones have
been removed, revealing - again, not much. Maybe another tree or bush
root hole? |
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In the
low sun at the end of the working day, you can perhaps see that the
roughly linear feature (nearest the camera - we are looking SE now),
the line of clay pads, and beyond that the hole where the twin stones
were (the largest stone is visible on the same line, just beyond) all
seem to be in line. What is more, this line roughly corresponds with a
line on the 2013/2015 magnetometry survey (see the first Mucklestone
page). Make of that what you will. An old hedge line? Coincidence? |
The last day (3rd November)
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The
final day of this year's dig, and Winston is catching up with his site
drawing, using his mobile drawing board. We are looking S. The stones
in the next two photos are in the N baulk, just about under where the
photographer is standing |
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The
middle stone of the main three shown here looks to be solidly set in
the surface. We are looking N here - maybe we will find out if it is
part of some larger structure in next year's dig! |
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The
final day team |