Bamburgh Village

It is perhaps no surprise that our blog concentrates on our recent or current excavation projects within the castle, Bowl Hole and Kaims, but we have also undertaken work to investigate Bamburgh Village too.

Our report on the geophysical survey undertaken in 2004, mostly on the south and west sides of the village, is available to download on our website, but we have also undertaken some research using maps, documentary records and shovel pitting within the village itself. Click to take a look at the report

Bamburgh Village

The village interests us because it has been occupied for a long time and has provided services to the fortress, as well as being a settlement and trading emporia important in its own right. The earliest records we have of the village tells us of the presence of a church used by St Aidan, almost certainly the predecessor of today’s St Aidan’s Church. It also tells of a civil settlement demolished by a Midlands king, Penda, who stripped it of timber to build a giant pile of firewood in an effort to burn the timber fortress, which surmounted the castle rock in the 7th century.

St Aidan's Church

We have very little evidence of this Anglo-Saxon village, which must surely lie somewhere beneath the modern village awaiting discovery, but by the later middle ages we find increasing records of the borough of Bamburgh. These give us a number of street names and the names of many of the townspeople too. The modern village street plan almost certainly preserves some of the medieval streets, but its quite likely that not all will be ancient. One thing is clear, we have more names of medieval streets than we have streets in the modern village, meaning that we have lost some! So, the question is, can we make sense of the medieval records and rebuild a plan of the medieval borough?

I will cover our current state of knowledge over the next few weeks, including Bamburgh’s ecclesiastical sites, which includes the search for the elusive hospital. Just now we will start with a photo that seems to offer us a possible candidate for a lost medieval street.

Extending broadly east to west and lying between the modern car park and the southern side of the village, lies what appears to be a hollow-way, an old and overgrown road. It can be traced on aerial photographs over two fields before being lost in the garden plots of the village. Though its line continues to be respected by garden walls, which suggests that they are respecting quite an ancient boundary. As we will see in future instalments it is just possible we can put a name to this lost street.

To see our entry please follow the link. There are a few familiar faces on our photograph entry!

AIA website

Trial trench from the Kaims site, 2010

Our work at the Kaims has so far unearthed worked tools dating back to the Mesolithic, a burnt area and flagged surface dating to 4500-4000 BC and excellent preservation of organic material including wood and bone. Click here for our most recent update

We are still in the very early stages of our project and we hope for much more from future seasons. The following video is a recent report from another wetland site at Starr Carr, in North Yorkshire. This site has been excavated sporadically since 1948 and, therefore, offers us an insight into the different techniques we may need to undertake to successfully excavate, record and conserve the site, as well as indicting some of the possible material culture and environmental data we may unearth.

http://player.vimeo.com/video/2205880?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0

]]> http://bamburghresearchproject.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/wetland-sites/feed/ 0 bamburghresearchproject DSCF0624 http://bamburghresearchproject.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/bamburgh-king-arthur-and-a-british-name/ http://bamburghresearchproject.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/bamburgh-king-arthur-and-a-british-name/#comments Fri, 13 Jan 2012 17:26:15 +0000 bamburghresearchproject http://bamburghresearchproject.wordpress.com/?p=1287 Continue reading →]]> Project Director, Graeme Young, responds to one of our followers request for more information about the name of Bamburgh. Where did it come from, what preceded it and who coined the name, are just some the points up for discussion.

There has been an identification of Bamburgh with the fortress of ‘Joyous Garde’, in the medieval King Arthur tradition since at least the Vulgate cycle of AD 1215. Sir Thomas Malory certainly knew of the tradition when he wrote Morte d’Arthur (c. 1470), though he was unable to decide if it was the castle of Bamburgh or Alnwick! The legend, for those unfamiliar with it, tells of how Lancelot captured the fortress from its original, wicked owner single handed, and took it for his own. It is certainly easy to see how a recorded early British name for Bamburgh, Din Guayrdi or Din Guoaroy could have been imagined as the progenitor of the ‘Garde’ element of the name. Din, of course, meaning fortress in Welsh.

Bamburgh Castle (Britain Express)

That said, the Arthurian legends that we know today are very much a product of the age of courtly love, which began in the 12th century, and although inspired by them have only a limited connection to the genuinely early legends preserved in Wales. Its very difficult, therefore, to make much of a case for or against the preservation of a historical element in the Arthur legends, particularly those that we do not have in earlier forms, and harder still to bring Bamburgh into them. There does seem to be a northern element to some of the earliest records, particularly with regard to place names, but sadly most legends that place Sir Lancelot to the fore, tend to be later. Personally, whenever someone mentions King Arthur I always think of the way the Historian Michael Wood ended an essay on the subject. Its a quote from the Hollywood Western The Man who shot Liberty Valance, ‘When the legend becomes a fact, print the Legend’.

The name Bernicia was later used for all Northumbria north of the Tees, but may have had narrower origins. It has been proposed that Bernicia translates as ‘Land of the Mountain Passes’  so could fit well with a kingdom centred on County Durham and south Northumberland from which Roman roads extend north over the Cheviots, westwards through the Tyne Gap and from the Tees, across the Stainmore Pass. In addition there is clear archaeological evidence for Anglo-Saxon settlement in this area a generation or two earlier than in north Northumberland and the Bamburgh area. This makes it quite possible for Din Guayrdi (Bamburgh and its hinterland) to be joined to Bernicia by Ida in the middle 6th century to form a wider kingdom. In fact, it is quite possible that Ida, and his deeds, were the subject of a lost epic. There are extraordinary surviving examples of such poems about the British kings of Rheged (thought to be centred in Cumbria and the western borders), who were broad contemporaries with Ida and his successors, in Welsh medieval literature. So some of the information we have in later texts could have come from a living oral tradition.

Map of territories in the 6th century, as suggested through interpretation of the textual evidence.

Secondly, the BRP have recently published our interim report on the metal-working building and styca hoard discovered in Trench 3. Written by archaeology supervisor, John Castling,  and Project Director, Graeme Young, the piece appears in the 2011 journal Medieval Archaeology, Volume 55.

The metalworking building which features in the interim report.

Finally, one of our eagle eyed students, Mathias, spotted another community project who are also re-excavating the work of Dr Brian Hope-Taylor, who we have been discussing in our previous blog posts. If you would like to take a look at this project in Surrey, follow the links:  Click here to visit a newspaper report and click here for background to the dig.

Please stay with us in 2012, as we will have posts about the on-going work at the Bradford Kaims and information regarding opportunities to volunteer with the project. Furthermore, we will keep you updated regarding the 2012 digging season at the castle, plus plenty of stories and snippets from previous seasons and other relevant information. If anyone has any ideas about things they would like to know, do get in touch.

Hope-Taylor sadly died in 2001 without ever publishing his work based on his excavations at the Castle. However, some quick work by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) and English Heritage meant that a partial archive was rescued from his house and preserved for future generations. These included finds as well as written, drawn and photographic records; many in a poor state of preservation and rather mixed. This ensured a substantial body of finds were returned to the castle along with a digital copy of the records and photographs by 2006 (Young, 2009). This meant the BRP could be begin to tie the archaeology in Hope-Taylor’s trenches with his archive and marry our own data to his.

The surviving plans, sections, notebooks and numerous photographs relating to Bamburgh from the Hope-Taylor archive have given us a good general understanding of the work undertaken at the castle during the 1960s and 1970s. Amongst the drawings is a plan depicting the location of all of the trenches excavated within the west ward. This identified a previously unknown trial trenching programme undertaken in 1970, involving four trenches radiating down from the rock outcrop on which the post medieval windmill now stands. They were labelled Cuttings B, C, D and E, the open area excavation being Area A (Young 2009). During 2006 and 2007 the BRP removed the backfill from most of them in order to complete our re-recording of the Hope-Taylor trenches. Most of these trenches have been reported here on the blog already, such as Trench 8 and 10.

What follows in an account by Project Director, Graeme Young, who tells us about an unlikely discovery made by the BRP team.

In the summer following Dr Hope-Taylor’s death, it was the turn of an unexpected discovery to play its part, when in an effort to provide some site office space for the current excavation, a series of rooms built into the landward wall of the west ward were investigated by the castle groundsman. 

The locks had long since corroded in the sea air, and the doors had to be forced open with a crowbar. The first room entered was at the southern end and proved to be a double room divided by a crosswall. Within it, a series of desks and chairs were present, together with a kettle, milk bottle and a copy of the Daily Telegraph, dated to 1974.

The date of the newspaper coincided with Hope-Taylor’s last excavation season and it was clear that this was Brian Hope-Taylor’s site office. To the north of the double room, a smaller single room contained tools and a series of palaeoenvironmental samples. The most intriguing items were four plaster casts, three taken from an archaeological surface and the fourth a single hoof print. An accompanying letter from a local Farmer, Charles Baker-Cresswell, to Brian Hope-Taylor described the difficult operation of encouraging a bullock to step in wet plaster. It also included the slaughterhouse certificate for the animal that provided the specimen foot print. Photographs in the Hope-Taylor archive show these casts being taken around the ‘gingan’. This feature still survives within the trench and appears to be a mortar mixer of probable early medieval date. The final room contained numerous boxes of finds mostly animal bone, thankfully with the majority of the labels still legible and demonstrating that they were from the 1970 to 1974 excavations.

The discovery of the content of the rooms was a surprisingly emotional experience. Items seemed to have been discarded as if the excavation team had just stopped for lunch. Some finds on a table within the northernmost room were clearly laid out in the process of being recorded. The obvious reference to the Marie Celeste was made and others felt it was a little like opening a tomb.

Follow this link to see some of the reactions and footage of the archaeologists as they entered and explored BHT’s old site offices The BRP Project Video

These discoveries have taken us a big step forward in understanding and integrating the work of Dr Brian Hope-Taylor and that of the BRP. However, many of the finds still remain missing from Hope-Taylor’s archive and we have the challenge of converting a site measured in feet and inches. Furthermore, we have to build interpretations based on incomplete notebooks and partial records. This is a huge challenge but one that is already underway.

If anyone would like to share their memories of the original excavation we would love to hear from you here on the blog or via email at bamburghresearchproject@hotmail.co.uk

If you would like to watch the segment UK viewers can catch it on the BBC I player.

On a different note, the BRP is having their annual winter lecture on Friday at the pavillion in the village. Please feel free to attend.

The first systematic excavation prior to the foundation of the Bamburgh Research Project (BRP) in 1996 was conducted, by the late Dr Brian Hope-Taylor, of Cambridge University. Hope-Taylor’s interest in Bamburgh seems to have stemmed from his previous work at the Anglian royal site at Yeavering, some 25km to the west of Bamburgh. It appears that Hope-Taylor believed Bamburgh, being in the first tier of royal centres, would make an interesting parallel to Yeavering and aid in its interpretation. Hope-Taylor began excavations at Bamburgh in the early 60’s and returned between 1970-1974 for more systematic excavation (Young, 2009).

Hope-Taylor never published his findings at Bamburgh, so when the BRP began their first season of investigation in 1996 they were not sure what to expect.

Project Director, Graeme Young, tells us in his article in Antiquity (2009) that “Dr Hope-Taylor loomed substantially in the minds of the small group of archaeologists who formed the BRP, not just because the thought of following in the footsteps of such a famous name seemed a little daunting, but also because without knowing the extent of his work within the castle, how would we integrate our own studies to his. It was perhaps this, as much as the interest of the site itself, that prompted the initial excavation undertaken by the BRP, to concentrate on the identification and investigation of an early medieval burial site close to, but beyond the castle gate” (2009). It was here that the BRP would unearth and excavate approx. 100 bodies from the final phase cemetery known as the Bowl Hole. Follow the link to see the first of three blog entries discussing this site. Bowl Hole: Part 1

The BRP also wished to explore the interior of the castle and decided to situate their trenches in the same area in which Hope-Taylor excavated.

Graeme tells us “ Documentary survey, resistivity and ground penetrating radar surveys were undertaken prior to excavation and, together with anecdotal evidence from those who remembered Hope-Taylor at Bamburgh, helped identify the general area of the 1970s excavations. Sufficiently to at least allow a trial trench to be sited with some confidence within the west ward in 2000”.

This 30m by 2m trench, oriented broadly north to south, was by sheer good fortune, perfectly placed to identify the east side of Hope-Taylor’s main excavation trench.

And once this had been identified, it was a relatively simple task to follow the edge during the following season to reveal the vast majority of a substantial, trapezoidal, open area excavation, divided by a central baulk. The north side of the trench was 10m wide, the south 7m wide, extending 19.4m north to south.

The full trench was emptied to the base of the original excavation, with the exception of the southern 3m, where a service pipe had been inserted in the intervening time between the BRP and Hope-Taylor excavations. This was a relatively easy task, as the trench had been covered with a mixture of polythene fertilizer sacks and tarpaulins weighed down by stones and timber by Hope-Taylor and his dig team at the end of the 1974 season.

The Hope-Taylor level covered by fertilizers sacks and tarpaulin

The day of the great unveiling, when the tarpaulins and sacks were peeled back was a memorable occasion, given the quality of the archaeology that was revealed. This was made all the more interesting by the presence of section strings, nails and occasional marker tags left in situ. Clearly, Hope-Taylor had left with every intention of returning in a later season. Once cleaned, the Hope-Taylor trench was extensively recorded by photography, as well as by plan and section. In addition to this record, our strategy was to excavate a parallel trench on the east side of Hope-Taylor’s. This it was hoped, would provide sufficient insight to allow at least a basic interpretation of what had been excavated during the 1970s. Primarily however, it would provide an independent sample of the west ward stratigraphy (Young, 2009).

This trench is what many people now know to be Trench 3 and is still under excavation today. The 2011 season was particularly interesting as we began the excavation of the baulk which BHT left in-situ. This has enabled us to begin to marry-up the excavated stratigraphy in the BHT trenches with the stratigraphic sequence we recorded this summer.

In the following blog post we will discuss one of the BRP’s most exciting discoveries to date, which concerns our main protagonist, Dr. Hope-Taylor.

Young. G. Excavating an Archaeologist: Brian Hope-Taylor at Bamburgh. Antiquity 82(318)

The lecture will discuss the archaeology uncovered during the 2011 summer dig at Bamburgh Castle and introduce our new project the Bradford Kaims Wetland Heritage Research Project

Click here to read more about the project and opportunities to get involved

Trial trenching at the Bradford Kaims

I am also pleased to announce that the report for the 2004 investigation of the chapel situated within the inner ward of Bamburgh Castle is now available to download.

Click here for a list of downloadable publications from the BRP

Trench 8 (2006)

We have over the last few months been posting short articles on the various trenches that have been excavated over the years, by the BRP, to investigate both the castle site and its surrounding environment. The work of Dr Brain Hope-Taylor has figured quite prominently in these updates, appropriately so given the scale of his previous work at the castle. In reporting on Trench 8 we come to the very beginning of Hope-Taylor’s time at Bamburgh, as it represents our re-investigation of his first ever trial trench.

The fully excavated Trench 8 photographed facing north west at the end of the 2006 season. Trench 3 can been seen in the background under tarpaulins for the winter.

Hope-Taylor’s Trench 1 was known to us right from the start of our investigations as he published a short article on it in the University of Durham Gazette in 1960. In it he described some seven phases of archaeology that he defined as, Prehistoric, early Roman and late Roman, which was followed by deposits that he identified as fifth to sixth century, from sherds of pottery that he was familiar with from his Yeavering excavation together with sherds that he speculated as representing possible imports. This period is one of the least well understood in our history so it is frustrating that we have not been able to identify these pottery sherds in the Hope-Taylor archive. Hope remains though that future work will help us better understand his interpretation, as potential imports would be fascinating if we can identify them.

Summing up the trench excavation for the Media Department at the end of the season. Filmed from within Trench 3

The elusive 5^th to 6^th century phase was followed by a broader Anglo-Saxon phase, that contained evidence of a building, and was dated by styca coins. Something very familiar to us from Trench 3. Immediately above this a collection of metalwork was found. These included the two famous pattern welded swords, the investigation of which by the BRP and the Royal Armouries after they were recovered from the Hope-Taylor archive made quite a stir in the press. Probably in no small part due to one of them being a very rare example of a six stranded sword, and as such of incredible sophistication. Dr Hope-Taylor identified a single phase of later medieval activity and reported the use of the West Ward as a midden, just as we later found with our Trench 3.

Hope-Taylor’s Trial Trench 1 had always been of interest to us, because it was known to have produced a full sequence through the West Ward, indicating how long the castle had been occupied, and also because of the remarkable find of the swords. Frustratingly we could not accurately locate the trench as there was no location plan in the short article and all we had to go on was a photo of the trench under excavation that Professor Richard Bailey had been kind enough to find for us. It was first on the list for re-excavation as soon as we had access to the Hope-Taylor plan that showed the location of his trial trenches in the West Ward. In fact once we had flipped our tapes over, so we could measure out in feet and inches, and laid it out we realised that we could see the corner of it just extending into Trench 3. Though we had assumed that this intrusive feature was one of the WW1 practice latrine pits seen elsewhere in the trench. This was very positive in a way as it meant that looking at the trench would give us advance warning of what was coming in Trench 3 and, in the longer term, would allow us to refine our understanding of Hope-Taylor’s trench using the much more extensive evidence of our main excavation.

Looking at the trench proved to be very informative and quite complicated too, as it was a substantial trench and also quite deep. Dr Hope-Taylor had battered the trench back so that the sides sloped, in order to make the excavation safer. Nevertheless we securely shored the deep end of the trench as we hand-dug the backfill from it. The sections when cleaned up showed layer upon layer of accumulated material and numerous layers of stones. Likely, in many cases, to have been laid as deliberate surfacing. Dr Hope-Taylor knew he had reached prehistoric layers as he had recovered crude coil-built pottery sherds from beneath the layers he had dated the Romano-British Period. We were able to go one better. By excavating the soil layers left in as a baulk beneath a sewer pipe we were able to conduct our own small-scale excavation. Right at the base of this we found a pebble and stone surface, cut through by post holes, beneath which we recovered a small assemblage of flint that Kristian Pedersen has dated to the Neolithic Period. This suggests that we could have occupation of the castle rock at Bamburgh stretching back 5000 years.

One of the earliest features identified at Bamburgh. The post-hole is cut into the glacial boulder clay right at the base of the stratigraphy and is associated with a small assemblage of Neolithic flint.

We also found clear evidence of the early medieval buildings that Hope-Taylor had referred to in the form of large post-pits and at least one linear feature of hard compacted rubble that could well have formed the foundation to a sill-beam timber building.

A quarter section of a massive post-hole of broadly early medieval date. Very likely one of the features mentioned by Dr Hope-Taylor in his 1960 text. A pebble surface just beneath the horizontal ranging rod is likely to be the ground surface associated with the building,though one of the big packing stones would have stood just above this level.

One surprising find that particularly fascinated us, were a series of aluminium labels that Hope-Taylor had left stuck into the sections. Amazingly the writing on them was still legible and we were able to discover the location of a number of the small finds present in the Hope-Taylor archive. Frustratingly no label marked the find spot for the swords so we were unable to locate them any more accurately than could be deduced from the text of the short report.

The swords and axe after conservation, which were found in the area where T8 was situated.

There was a happy ending to this though, as one of our former staff, Marsaili McGregor, spent some time working on the various Hope-Taylor archives, held at the Scottish Royal Commission, found a familiar looking section drawing that proved to be the missing main section of the trench as drawn by Dr Hope-Taylor in 1960. And on it was written ‘sword’ and a line drawn to where X very much marked the spot, which just goes to show that you never know how the pieces that make up the puzzle will come together.