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Avebury and Stonehenge: World Heritage Site Geographical Information Systems
Channel Tunnel Rail Link
Birdoswald, Cumbria
Owmby, Lincolnshire
Noak Hill, Havering
Cleeve Abbey, Somerset
Wigmore Castle, Herefordshire
Old Wardour Castle, Wiltshire
Windsor Castle, Berkshire
Fort Cumberland, Portsmouth
Hill Hall, Essex

The role of the Central Archaeology Service is to secure the objectives set out in English Heritage’s agenda for archaeology, as advised by AMAC and agreed by Commissioners, which was published as Exploring our Past: strategies for the archaeology of England (1991). The CAS has two major functions: to initiate, advise, and monitor performance on commissioned archaeology projects, and to carry out for English Heritage a wide range of archaeological projects of all types, and particularly those of national importance. Through its work, the CAS contributes to policy formulation, and develops, sets, maintains, and disseminates the highest professional methods, techniques, and standards. The CAS also provides a rapid response capability to meet the managerial needs of English Heritage, and promotes English Heritage’s aims, objectives, and strategies in archaeology by informing the profession and the public. During 1998-99, work was carried out on a wide variety of projects, fulfilling a range of different strategic and management objectives:

Avebury and Stonehenge: World Heritage Site Geographical Information Systems

The GIS has been used to underpin the preparation of the management plan that was launched at Avebury in November 1998. Following the appointment of an Implementation Plan officer, the GIS is now based remotely in the offices of Kennet District Council, where it is in regular use. CAS staff spent time on site recording the effects of unauthorised excavation for telecom services within the Scheduled Ancient Monument on West Kennet Avenue.

For Stonehenge, the main work was directed at the preparations leading to the announcement by the Secretary of State, Chris Smith, of the Stonehenge Masterplan. This document presents details of a 2km cut and cover tunnel, the removal of the A344 adjacent to the stones, and details of a new visitor centre located outside the boundary of the World Heritage Site. The work of the GIS is well represented in the assessment of the impact of the proposed Masterplan on the known archaeology. Screen shots were also taken from the Stonehenge Virtual Reality model to indicate before and after views. A Working Party (chaired by Lady Elizabeth Gass) is overseeing the development of the management plan for the World Heritage Site, and it is expected that the GIS will underpin this work in a similar way to that already carried out at Avebury.

Channel Tunnel Rail Link

The CAS was asked to provide assistance in monitoring the fieldwork for the CTRL, one of the largest programmes of archaeological fieldwork ever undertaken in this country. The first contract, from the south bank of the Thames to the Medway, was awarded to the Museum of London Archaeological Service. Several sites, covering a wide range of periods, were identified for excavation, and some areas have also been targeted for the strip, map and sample approach. This is particularly important, as all work associated with the Channel Tunnel Rail Link is the subject of a parliamentary bill, and English Heritage must sign off on satisfactory completion of the archaeological work.

Work during 1998-99 included a major excavation is Thurnham Roman Villa near Maidstone, where topsoil stripping over this Scheduled Ancient Monument showed clear evidence of a masonry structure, possibly contained within a boundary ditch. Further features exposed at the Neolithic to Romano-British site at White Horse Stone included a possible Sarsen stone chambered tomb. This was substantially robbed in the medieval period and further analysis from soil samples was carried out to obtain more precise dating evidence. Work was completed at the medieval moated site at Parsonage Farm, where evidence of a pre-thirteenth century timber building was recorded, and the central mound has now been preserved in situ below landscaping.

Birdoswald, Cumbria

The CAS started the final phase of work in advance of the construction of a study centre. This involved the removal of the concrete surfaces to the farmyards and the recording of the underlying Roman Barrack Blocks. Parts of two barrack blocks were excavated facing each other across a narrow road. They contained evidence for modifications of the original structures during the second and third centuries AD, but evidence of later activity had been lost due to truncation. Tony Wilmott advised the museum display consultants on the content of the new, lottery funded, museum display. This included providing comment on the content of text and graphics panels, advising on a 1:300 model of the fort and vicus within its landscape, and, bizarrely, being personally moulded in plaster and dental latex for a full size replica!

Owmby, Lincolnshire

A final episode of fieldwork was carried out at Owmby, which in the first instance consisted of the sampling of an inhumation cemetery of probable fourth century AD date where there was evidence of erosion of the underlying archaeological deposits by continuing agricultural activity. This determined the condition and distribution of the burials; concurrent plotting of actual ploughing depths showed that the agricultural regime was indeed actively eroding the burials and subsequently the full excavation of the complete cemetery of 42 burials was undertaken.

The fourth episode of re-detecting 30m and 50m squares was undertaken during the winter months. Using coins as an indicator, there have been overall reductions in recovery rates of 2% in year 2, 36% in year 3, and 31% this year. These figures will allow us to predict the total population of coinage, and of course other objects, and also the resources required for their removal. The identification and dating of the metalwork, when available, will allow us to determine the degree by which new qualitative information is being obtained with each episode of detecting.

Noak Hill, Havering

The CAS was approached by the regional team to assist the Rochford Hundred Archaeological Field Group during their third season of excavation, and in the preparation of an assessment, of this medieval tile kiln and possible pottery production site. CAS staff worked with members the society to provide advice and training. A substantial tile kiln was initially located by geophysical survey although no traces of the supposed medieval pottery kiln were located, despite the presence of Mill Green wasters at the site.

Cleeve Abbey, Somerset

A considerable length of precinct wall was recorded in advance of consolidation by Historic Properties South West region. The survey of the Long Orchard boundary walls at Cleeve Abbey has been completed and the conservation and consolidation of the walls is now underway. The survey proved very useful in highlighting the complex history of the walls, providing evidence for blocked openings, rebuilding and repointing.

Wigmore Castle, Herefordshire

The CAS has been co-ordinating and monitoring the work of the two archaeological contractors, working at Wigmore on behalf of English Heritage’s Major Projects team (the Lancaster University Archaeological Unit recording of the masonry and Marches Archaeology for the excavations). Within the bailey, work on the north east tower and gatehouse has revealed it to be a very complex structure with evidence for three or four construction episodes. A flue was been found within the curtain wall linking the tower and gatehouse, showing that buildings probably occupied this area by c1300, a pattern emerging elsewhere in the bailey. In the gatehouse the dismantling of an unstable part of the garderobe chamber revealed clear junctions and hidden render, indicating three phases of construction of the western chambers. Clearance of vegetation from the south west tower revealed a double seated corbelled garderobe and a flue.

In the upper bailey the original scope of intended works was reduced by the decision not to remove vegetation from much of the wall heads. Features have been identified which indicate the presence of timber framed buildings against the inner face of the bailey wall. Examination of the fabric of the keep has shown a major rebuild of the twelfth century structure, presumably c1300 AD, characterised by masonry of the highest quality. Clearance of two areas revealed a splayed window seat similar to those in the south tower, and a wall passage and stair, which appear to lead into the northern buttress.

The final excavation by Marches Archaeology, uncovered an earlier build of the east tower and a number of distinct black fill layers. Also at the base of the south east tower of the keep some curiously aligned foundations have come to light, these have yet to be fully understood.

Old Wardour Castle, Wiltshire

The third year of recording associated with the conservation programme being carried out by Historic Properties South West Region was completed during 1998-99. Work centred on the need to remedy the disastrous effects of the insertion of concrete floors into the castle in the 1960’s, and recording revealed considerable evidence (doorways, windows, floors etc) for the form and layout of the building prior to the remodelling by Robert Smythson in the sixteenth century. Small-scale excavations revealed the line of drain leading away from the Castle, and a garden wall was located on a completely different alignment indicating a previous garden layout.

Windsor Castle, Berkshire

Work progressed towards completing the integrated assessment and updated project design for the Round Tower and Fire projects. There is the suggestion from the finds assessment that there may have been a change in character between phases 2 & 3 (before 1170), which has produced finds that are overwhelmingly military in character, and those of phase 4 onwards which are domestic in nature.

Further documentary research has located and transcribed the medieval constables’ accounts, which give a more detailed breakdown of expenditure on some of the building operations than the published accounts provide. The accounts from the early years of Henry VII’s reign are particularly useful, as they give a very detailed picture of the work carried out in the Great Kitchen in 1489. This provides for the first time a solid link between the results of dendrochronology, which showed the roof to have been built in 1489, and the published accounts, which vaguely suggest that a roof was being replaced somewhere in the castle at that time.

These accounts are likely to be important for a number of reasons: - they will provide a series of room names and descriptions of works, which can be compared with contemporary descriptions of the palace. They show how parts of the buildings were changed to suit new needs and tastes - such as a gallery built for trumpets in the royal chapel; and they will help to enhance our understanding of the organisation of building operations at Windsor. They are also extending our knowledge of the craftsmen engaged in the works - thus John Guynes, previously known to have flourished as a joiner and carpenter between 1499 and his death in 1510, can be shown to have been active at Windsor in a more junior capacity as early as 1487.

Fort Cumberland, Portsmouth

Work recording Fort Cumberland itself (the Portsmouth base of the CAS) has continued in advance of the ongoing programme of consolidation of the outer brick defences of the Fort. This involved a watching brief on the clearance of vegetation and the removal of rubble in the moat beyond the north curtain wall and central bastion. This revealed an infilled bomb crater in the moat wall, which was surveyed and recorded. The damage can be dated to the 26th of August 1940 when a large number of bombs were dropped on the fort and surrounding area, and a contemporary plan drawn up of the location of the bombs shows one in the position of the recorded crater. Further work to the counterscarp on the eastern flank of the fort revealed another bomb crater and the two traverses linking the place d’arms have been recorded prior to reconstruction.

Building work at Fort Cumberland was also carried out to refurbish buildings in advance of the relocation of the Ancient Monuments Laboratory to the fort. The Guardhouse/Cinema is a surviving element of the first fort built in 1747, and was the subject of the first component of a more extensive recording programme linked to these works. A primary measured survey largely based on rectified photography of the internal and external elevations was commissioned. This is the most cost-effective method for recording flat brickwork. The trusses, floor structures, projection booth, stage, and the structural ironwork were recorded by hand, as were specimen examples of door and window carpentry. Work on the roof trusses revealed these to be of nineteenth century date, indicating that the extant photographs showing a hipped roof and brick parapet must be of similar date. No evidence was found for the earlier eighteenth century roof shown on earlier drawings.

A number of other small interventions were carried out to inform the structural engineer and architect. The hipped roof in the house 4 extension is very similar to that surveyed in the guardhouse, supporting to the theory that the roof structure of the guardhouse was replaced in the mid-nineteenth century. In the storehouse (now known as the hospital building) the removal of a small section of concrete floor revealed that the timber pillars sit on small square limestone padstones and that the original brick paved floor survived largely intact.

Hill Hall, Essex

The CAS collated the remaining archive from the recording work carried out in the 1980’s on the roof and walls of this burnt out shell of an important building. The archive is being prepared prior to the building being leased to tenants who will restore the interiors as habitable dwellings.