Join us this summer for our 2024 excavation season at the world famous Bamburgh Castle.
We will be continuing our excavation and survey on and around the outworks at St Oswald’s Gate; the latest chapter in our investigations of this fabulous multiphase site whose history spans at least 3000 years. The dig will run for four weeks from the end of June to late July 2024, starting Sunday 30th June.
If you are ready to book a place please head straight to our Booking Detailspage.
We also aim to offer two separate post-excavation focussed weeks this year as well. Keep an eye out for more details on what these will involve soon.
Excavation at the outworks beyond St Oswald’s Gate.
Where will we be working this season?
We have had three really good seasons on this site already and made some fascinating discoveries – such as the surviving stone arch into what must be the well-room at the base of the Tower of Elmund’s Well. This year we aim to finally find the base of the tower and the well itself. In addition we will begin to survey the mounds to the landward side of the outworks that may be a siege castle dating back to 1095 AD. It promises to be a very exciting season!
If you want to read up on the history of this area of the castle, how it relates to the other areas of excavation, and what we have discovered to date, take a look at our Bamburgh Castle: St Oswald’s Gatewebsite page and look back on the blog entries here from previous seasons.
The Tower of Elmund’s Well under excavation
We welcome people from all ages and backgrounds
We are lucky to be able to welcome to the dig people of all ages and backgrounds, not just students of archaeology, and we feel that this makes for a friendly and welcoming team and a fun experience.
If anyone is interested but worries that mobility or other issues might be problematic then do get in touch with us via the Contact us page on the website and we will do as much as we can to accommodate you.
The Bamburgh Research Project will be taking part in an online talk to discuss the archaeology of the Last Kingdom.
Coinciding with the release of The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die, this event is designed to appeal to fans of the series, highlighting the ‘real’ history and archaeology behind the show.
The event is free for anyone to attend, and a recording will be made available on YouTube at a later date.
Join us this summer for our 2023 excavation season at the world famous Bamburgh Castle.
We will be continuing our excavation on the outworks at St Oswald’s Gate; the latest chapter in our investigations of this fabulous multiphase site whose history spans at least 3000 years. The dig will run for three weeks in July 2023, starting Sunday 2nd.
If you are ready to book a place please head straight to our Booking Detailspage.
Looking up from the outworks towards St Oswald’s Gate
Where will we be working this season?
We have had two really good seasons on this site already and made some fascinating discoveries – such as the surviving stone arch into what must be the well-room at the base of the Tower of Elmund’s Well. If you want to read up on the history of this area of the castle, how it relates to the other areas of excavation and what we have discovered to date, take a look at our Bamburgh Castle: St Oswald’s Gatewebsite page.
This year we will finish the site and find out what trace is left of the well itself. Exciting!
Aerial shot of Elmund’s Tower, note the stairs leading down to the arch and into the rubble-filled well room (or so we hope!)
We also have some really exciting news to share soon, which will mean we have some extra visitors working onsite alongside our main excavation and post-ex team. Watch this space…..
There is definitely some medieval masonry hiding under there!
As we get close to announcing the details of the new season of projects, its nice to see a positive write up by one of the participants of last year’s excavation. Hilary was present for the full season and seems to have enjoyed her time with us. You can see her article here
This year we will be undertaking the excavation on the outworks in July (three weeks starting 2nd July) and a week of post-excavation work in September (starting 10th September). Keep looking in here for the full details in the next few days!
We are planning two different activities this year – the normal excavation and a new post-excavation week
The Summer excavation season will be 3 weeks in July 2023
We will be continuing our excavation on the outworks at St Oswald’s Gate. The dig will run for three weeks in July 2023, starting Sunday 2nd of July. The aim is to get information up on the website and bookings open very early in the New Year. If anyone wants to be added to the contact list to be notified as soon as the info and bookings go live feel free to email us at graemeyoung@bamburghresearchproject.co.uk
We have had two really good seasons on this site already and made some fascinating discoveries – such as the survivng stone arch into what must be the wellroom at the base of the Tower of Elmund’s Well (check out some of the blogs below for reports on the work so far). This year we will finish the site and find out what trace is left of the well itself.
What is the Post-Excavation Taster Week?
In addition to the normal excavation season, we will also be offering a Post-Excavation taster Week which will be an introduction to work on the archive from previous seasons. This includes recording the artefacts recovered, processing the environmental samples taken, digitising the drawings and survey information. This work generates a physical and digital archive, which connects all the pieces of information together. It takes far longer (in most cases) than the actual field work and often takes place in the lab or at the desk.
We are still working out the most appropriate date for this (week starting the week of 8th May is very softly pencilled in at the moment) but as with the excavation, details will follow soon and again you are welcome to ask to be added to the list to be notified (graemeyoung@bamburghresearchproject.co.uk) as soon as bookings open.
It has been a tough time for fieldwork in the last couple of years but we are aiming to be a little ambitious in 2022. Having learned a few lessons on how to cope, as safely as we can, with COVID restrictions and our short season late last year, we are aiming to run a full season of four weeks this summer.
There is a well down there we just know it! And just as shown on the early 19th century plan.
The field school will run from Sunday 26th June (arrival date Sat 25th) to Friday 22nd July as the last day on site. You can book single or multiple week slots:
Week 1: 26th June to 2nd July
Week 2: 3rd July to 9th July
Week 3: 10th July to 16th July
Week 4: 17th July to 22nd of July
This year we will be returning to the castle’s outworks to explore the newly discovered medieval Elmund’s Tower and the allusive well. You can read more about the excavation here: 2021 Excavation Round-up
To find out more or book place please head to our website: BRP Website
We look forward to seeing you all in in June and July and finally finding that well!
At the end of our 2021 dig season, we outlined the background and focus for the dig season here. In this blog post we look at the results of the dig.
A number of the older surviving plans of Bamburgh Castle depict the Tower of Elmund’s Well amongst the outworks beyond St Oswald’s Gate, so its location has long been known. In addition some some older aerial photographs (probably from around the 1950s to 1960s) seem to show that the cottage that was built into its ruins stood well above ground, and was even partly roofed at that time. There was some nagging doubt just what might survive today, as the area was covered with ivy and was not very accessible. So it was a matter of some relief that after even a few hours of ivy removal it became clear that stone structures did survive beneath the ivy above ground level. It would have been a much less interesting excavation season had we been trying to find a robber trench from which the stone structure had been entirely removed.
The outworks and the tower foundation lie at a much lower level than the main castle, you descend some 10m through St Oswald’s Gate and down to the areas where the tower stood. The route today is via a series of steps of varying date from quite modern to worn steps that may well be of early post-medieval date. There are two route ways (they split outside St Oswald’s Gate) one towards the village green and the other towards the tower and the port beyond to the west. How old these routes were was one of the questions we have posed as part of our investigations. It seemed likely that they both dated back to at least the later medieval period, even if the steps themselves were more modern, but some form of these routes are likely to date back even earlier as we know St Oswald’s Gate was in use from at least the early medieval period and perhaps the late Bronze Age.
The area of investigation for 2021 (contours are labeled in metres to show the slope)
One of our first tasks once we were on site was to clear the steps down to the area we were to work in. The lower part of which were covered in soil and ivy and required quite a bit of work. This would ensure we had a reasonably good access way to the site. I am sure the climb each tea-break was good for us, even if it did not feel that way.
Before and after the steps cleaning
It was natural to start clearing and investigating from the base of the steps northwards into the area where the cottage and tower stood. This means the first discovery was the end of a wall, that appears to extend back to the slope of the bedrock, and is likely to represent part of the wall that closed off the seaward side of the outworks on the north side. This stub wall had facing stones on the outside and some rubble and core work behind it but the other facing stones, that would have been expected on the opposite side, were missing. It would have been quite a wide section of wall had the other side been present and just possibly may have been a remnant of medieval date, given its form.
The fact that the wall we had just uncovered ended in a deliberately constructed face, on the west side, strongly suggested that we had a small gate present between the wall and the cottage. In fact the plan of the ancient parts of Bamburgh Castle compiled by the Antiquarian Cadwallader Bates for the 1st Lord Armstrong in 1895 shows a path in just this area, passing by the cottage east wall and then along the north wall veering off at its end towards the beach. There is no depiction of the wall end that we had found but in all other aspects it seems to confirm the presence of the route-way, and by inference the gate. The plan of 1803 showed the wall from the tower back to the bedrock as complete without a gate, but then this plan also shows the steps and path in a different area and neither map seems to be definitive, though may reflect changes in access arrangements between their compilation.
As we had a good idea of where the cottage and earlier tower lay, from the older plans of the site, we were able to start to reveal the top of the wall lines fairly quickly. Starting from the area of the gate, through to the beach, we were able to trace the top of the wall, westwards to the corner where it returned to the south. Tracing the wall top in the other direction (southwards) we discovered an area where the wall appeared to become more like rubble than an in place structure. This under excavation turned out to be an entrance, unsurprisingly right in front of the current steps down from St Oswald’s Gate.
To the immediate south of the entrance we also identified a wall along the south side that we at first considered might mark the southern wall of the tower. This proved not to be the case when we realised that this wall had one face forming the side of the entrance but that there was no outside face just core-work and sand. The wall had been built up against the sand subsoil (or what at the moment we think is subsoil) as what we call a revetment. It was not all that substantial and did not extend very far to the west making us see it as a late addition to the structures and only part of the cottage. Further investigation within the entrance, removing rubble and soil fill, revealed a set of steps down into the cottage, which we now realised survived more substantially below ground than we expected. More of this below.
The revetting wall that is just a stone wall face that holds back the slope
Interlude – the enigma of Area A
Whilst the investigation of the cottage/tower area was our main focus for the season we also had questions concerning a short length of stone wall that lay to the south of the, still standing, main closing wall of the outworks. Whilst only a few courses high it survived over some 7m in length and was broadly parallel to the southern wall of the outworks. As it was relatively narrow it would be easy to dismiss it as of late post-medieval in date. We excavated a trench at its base back in 2002, which revealed three or more courses of very substantial stone foundations below ground level. This put the idea in our heads that it just might be earlier and of medieval date. Helping with this interpretation we have the earlier phase of the medieval outworks (the multiphase wall with the arched entrance through it) that still stands to a good height that is also relatively narrow in width. It remained possible that this short length of wall could be associated with this multiphase wall. If it represented an earlier version of the Postern wall it would likely extend across in front of it and all the way to the bedrock. We sited a trench to see if its line continued there below ground. Whilst this trench did produce some medieval pottery it has failed, so far, to reveal a wall or the trench from which a wall had been robbed, despite the trench being substantially extended. It is fair to say that this wall remains enigmatic and we will have to try harder next year to find some answers.
The trench in Area A showing a distinct lack of a wall foundation – at least so far
And back to cottages and towers
Whilst the wall investigation beyond the outworks was only adding to our confusion the investigations at the cottage / tower had identified four stone steps that led down into the cottage through an entrance from the base of the stairs that lead back to St Oswald’s Gate. A landing at the base of these stairs turned you round ninety degrees to the door of the cottage. Traces of the door survived as a stone door jamb on the east side, with some rather rotted timber that had formed the door frame, and a threshold stone.
The steps down into the structure from the botom of the current path
Inside the threshold three further stone steps led down deeper into the cottage, that we were now realising survived to quite a depth below the current ground level. Here a further ninety degree turn pointed you towards the interior of the cottage proper, where evidence of a further door was seen in form of much more rotted timber and rusted iron nails, that marked a second door-frame.
The presence of two doorways so close together was unexpected and may be explainable if we imagine one being in use later than the other. The two plans that we have that depict the structure in some detail may show that this is the case. The later plan, Bates’ plan of 1895, appears to depict the outer of the two entrances in use and also shows the short flight of steps into the structure from the base of the steps down from St Oswald’s Gate. If we want to push the interpretation of the plan as far as we dare it also suggests that the wall at the south side of this entrance that has only the one face was just there to revet (and hold back) the mound of sand that the structure was dug into.
The earlier plan, from 1803 shows the entrance as rather different. The revetting wall was absent and a set of steps entered the structure from the south. The east wall of the entrance is hardly depicted and we might infer that the second entrance was in use then, even though it is not clearly depicted. There is no gate out to the beach on the north side and the steps and path down from St Oswald’s are shown in a different area heading down in a straight line towards the closing wall on the west side of the outwork. It is possible that this means the plan has been simplified but other evidence may support it as accurate and suggest that the route was realigned in the later 19th century (see below).
The 1803 plan also shows a set of additional steps down from within the second, and probably earlier door, leading down to the well-room. It seems safe to call it that as this plan also depicts the well-head itself within the room. This does suggest that the room here is perhaps at a basement level and excavation of the rubble fill already shows it to be more than 1m below ground level. If we are to see any part of the cottage structure as the most likely candidate to be old and part of the Tower of Elmund’s Well, this surely is it.
The 1803 plan showing the structure and well (north not to the top of the photo)
The final area of investigation was along the closing wall of the outworks, between the tall standing south wall and the cottage / tower. It is shown as a solid structure on the plan of 1803 and not depicted on the Bates plan of 1895, though it is on the 1st Edition Ordnance Survey of c.1860 so may have been collapsed and partly covered by the end of the 19th century. We have revealed that this wall survives in this area, close to and below ground level. Within the trenches excavated it certainly shows different phases of stone structure and in some places rubble and mortar foundations, stepping downwards to the north, towards the beach. As depicted on the earliest plans this wall does not seem to have been anything like as wide at its base as the southern closing wall, and as both were built on sand this may explain why only the southern wall remains standing to substantial height to this day. There appears to be a possible blocked opening through this wall a little to the south of the cottage / tower and this is interesting given the different line of the steps down the slope from St Oswald’s Gate shown on the plan of 1803. Perhaps this will prove to be a gate out towards the port area when we get to investigate it more next season.
A few dolerite blocks smeared with mortar may show an blocked entrance through the wall
Looking forward to next year the most exciting discovery that remains is to get to the floor level of the ‘well-room’ and find what remains of the well itself. How was it built and how was it lined? It must surely have been lined to have stood open for any time as it clearly was in places excavated through sand and down into the boulder clay. By uncovering much more of the surviving masonry, and some investigation of the foundations, we will hope to identify more evidence of the different phases and hopefully gain an insight into the date of some of these components. Perhaps we will even solve the puzzle of the enigmatic wall in Area A!
The well-room excavation at the end of the season – quite a bit deeper to go we think
The entrance to the cottage at the end of the season
Here at the BRP we have been giving our 2021 dig season a lot of thought. As you can imagine there are a lot of factors to considers. Given the new UK Government roadmap to re-opening the country during the spring and summer, and the expected demand on campsite and other accommodation options from late June to August, we felt that we needed to run a season either earlier than usual or later. As things stand, if we go for an early season it would be very risky as there is a very real prospect that delays in the government roadmap will occur at some point in response to any rise in infection rates as different sectors are re-opened across the UK.
As a result, we have decided to plan a late season after the peak of the holidays has passed. We are aiming for three weeks in September with the option of a fourth if the first weeks fill up quickly. We do think this is far enough in the future to set up the website and take bookings without feeling too much pressure to react to every variation in the government roadmap. That said, we very much recognise that any plans will of course be subject to alteration if the situation demands it, so we will be offering full refunds in the case of the need to cancel. This should allow you to book with some confidence that any deposit or payment is safe.
This will be the first of a series of posts aimed at keeping you all informed as our plans start to firm up over the next few days. We will also make a special announcement when the booking form on the BRP website goes live.
It has been a long and difficult process for us all, coping with the pandemic, but we do hope that there is real cause for optimism about running a dig season late in the summer and very much look forward to seeing some of you there!
Anyone not currently living on the moon can’t but be aware that we are living through very difficult and rather frightening times! As a result it has been hard to make plans for the summer, and waiting for things to become a good deal clearer has up till now seemed the sensible option. Now we have a second Covid 19 wave very much here, as well as new variants, leading to a new lock-down in place in the UK. On the other side, more positively, vaccination is very much under way. As a result, it really is very difficult if not impossible to predict what the situation will be during the summer.
Just waiting for things to resolve themselves is not a very practical option now as it will leave us too little time to react, so we think it best to make some cautious plans now. It seems fair to assume that a number of restrictions will still be in place in the summer and should plan accordingly. It is also sensible to have a contingency for travel bans and sudden changes of regulation.
We will continue to work closely with Budle Bay campsite and Bamburgh Castle to ensure that the accommodation and the work environment are safe for all taking part. We have robust Covid-19 secure risk assessments in place to enable us to make decisions about the safety of the site and accommodation at regular intervals and as new guidance emerges.
We will be updating the website soon with more information, so please check back soon or follow our social media platforms for more updates.
The discovery of the roundhouse was very exciting and really does add a nice new dimension to our understanding of Bamburgh. We had seen evidence of occupation in the Roman and Iron Age before in the form of limited amounts of animal bone and a few pottery sherds. This is the first time we have clear evidence of a building of such a date and in fact quite a substantial one. Given that this low lying area of the West Ward, away from the highest status areas, does suggest that it could well be one of many extending all the way up to the top of the rock in the Inner Ward.
As a result of such an exciting discovery we are working on getting back to site for a further week of excavation during which we hope to trace the building a little further and take some specialist samples for laboratory examination.
A sherd of pottery we recovered from the stone wall base
I am sure you will not be surprised to hear that good research can at times be expensive so we are always very grateful for the support we get. If you may be able to help at all then please do follow this link below and make a contribution.
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