Geophyical Survey: Bamburgh Castle Environs

In early 2023 the BRP was awarded funding from the Castle Studies Trust to undertake a series of non-invasive surveys to provide additional context to the outworks of Bamburgh Castle, focussing on St Oswald’s Gate and the Tower of Elmund’s Well. You can find out more about this area in our earlier blog posts (here’s a good place to start: Director’s End of Season Excavation Round-up).

We are now finalising the associated reports and sharing these ahead of releasing our interim excavation report. The next report we are sharing details a geophysical survey that we undertook with Dr Kristian Strutt of the Archaeological Prospection Services Southampton University exploring the environs of Bamburgh Castle.

Dominic Barker using the Bartington Grad 601-2 instrument on the Cricket Ground (photo: K. Strutt)

The Geophysical Survey Results

The survey utilised magnetometry, resistivity and Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) survey of areas of the Cricket Ground to the west of Bamburgh Castle. The results indicate the possible presence of a large ditch, some 45m across, immediately to the west of the outcrop, in addition to trackways, walls and other features in the survey area.

One of the principal questions we were hoping to address with the geophysics was if the castle ditch extended across the sports field at the base of the castle rock. A ditch cut through sandstone, can been traced in the area of the modern entrance that is at the site of the 12^th century gate. This feature extends across the front of the castle as far as the sandstone ridge was present above ground. The results of the GPR do seem to strongly indicate a large feature in the area where we would anticipate the castle ditch to be and the magnetometry and resistance surveys do seem to support this. It is intended to conduct further fieldwork, starting with coring, to confirm this.

Earth resistance survey being carried out by BRP volunteers (photo: K. Strutt)

In addition, to the probable ditch feature, several features seen on the 1^st Edition Ordnance Survey appear to be picked up on the surveys. Two trackways are evident, that lead to St Oswald’s Gate and to a cleft in the castle rock called the ‘Miller’s Nick’, which allowed people to scramble up to the West Ward in the 19^th century. The second is an S-shaped path that meandered towards the area of St Oswald’s Gate, perhaps originally skirting around the edge of the ditch feature. One further route-way or path extends across the field parallel to the road in the village to the south, called the Wynding, that appears from records to have had a medieval origin. This path runs alongside a linear plot boundary and field boundaries and it will be interesting to see if more can be made from a number of anomalies that can be seen within the enclosure areas to the south and west of the plot.

The resistivity and ground penetrating radar surveys so far cover a more limited area, due to time constraints and public access. There is an area of low resistance that lies in just the area that the ditch would lie and matches up to the path towards the Miller’s Nick. The enclosure areas picked up in the magnetometry to the south-west also seems to be present on the resistivity. Notably, there is a high resistance feature that the S-shaped pathway may curve deliberately to avoid at the south part of the plot. A further T-shaped high resistance feature is present in the north-east extending from the area of the modern pavilion that will bear further study. The GPR further reinforces the presence of some of these features and indicates some depth to the anomaly that is interpreted as the ditch, though the signal attenuates before it could indicate a true depth.

Interpretation plot of all three surveys, labels link to the report text (Airbus 11/05/23)

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Download the Full Report

If you want to take a deeper dive into the results of the geophysical survey you can download the report here: Report on the Geophysical Survey at Bamburgh, Northumberland, July 2023

It provides more information about the background to the site, detail about each survey technique and a breakdown, with useful maps and figures, about what was discovered.

In our forthcoming interim report we use this information to enhance our understanding of the castle within its landscape context and explore in more detail what some of the features identified in the survey might be.

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The geophysical survey described in this blog has been funded by the Castle Studies Trust.

This charity is entirely reliant on donations from the public. To help the Trust to continue funding this kind of research, please visit https://www.castlestudiestrust.org/Donate

To find out more about the Trust please visit www.castlestudiestrust.org

Photogrammetry Survey of Bamburgh Castle’s Medieval Outworks: St Oswald’s Gate and the Tower of Elmund’s Well.

In early 2023 the BRP was awarded funding from the Castle Studies Trust to undertake a series of non-invasive surveys to provide additional context to the outworks of Bamburgh Castle, focussing on St Oswald’s Gate and the Tower of Elmund’s Well. You can find out more about these in our earlier blog posts (here’s a good place to start: Director’s End of Season Excavation Round-up).

We are now in the process of finalising the associated reports and outputs and will be sharing these over the next few weeks ahead of releasing our interim excavation report. One of the surveys we undertook was a preliminary assessment of the standing masonry elements in the outworks, which will sit alongside the excavated archaeological report. To support this we also commissioned several photogrammetry surveys to create 3D models of the standing outworks and internal structures of the Tower of Elmund’s Well.

We are really excited to be able to share these with you now. Below, you can click each photo to take you to the online model, which will allow you to explore each area in detail.

3D Models of Bamburgh Castle’s Northern Outworks 2023

3D Model of Crosswall with St Oswald’s Gate

Bamburgh RP 2023: Crosswall with early form arch by Tony Liddell on Sketchfab

St Oswald’s Gate is written about as the entrance to the fortress of Bamburgh in the 8th century AD (Symeon HK, III. pg 37) and was very likely the route up onto the rock plateau since the earliest settlements. The present phase of work is investigating the entrance, the access routes up to the entrance and the structures and outworks built to control this route over many generations.

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3D Model of The Tower of Elmund’s Well

Bamburgh RP 2023: Well Room by Tony Liddell on Sketchfab

One particular area of focus was the recovery of the site of the Tower of Elmund’s Well, named in records from the 13th century (Colvin, H. M. pg 556) and onto which a cottage was constructed in the late 18th century.

The outline of the cottage/tower structure was quickly revealed during the first phase of investigation by the removal of foliage and a modest volume of aeolian sand. One of the first exciting discoveries during 2022 excavation was the presence of two splayed lights (open window-like features) in two of the walls. The discovery of the top of a stone archway that formed the entrance to the well-room confirms both the depth of the basement, there must after all be depth to pass under the arch, but also suggest that the floor level cannot be too much deeper.

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3D Model of the Postern Gate Trench 5D

Bamburgh RP 2023: Postern gate, Trench 5D by Tony Liddell on Sketchfab

The postern gate lies beyond St Oswald’s Gate and leads out to Bamburgh Village. The structure as uncovered was a single well-constructed feature of coursed squared masonry that ended abruptly and deliberately short of the rock. A further constructed face abutted the bedrock and the gap between the two faces a little more than 1m side formed what surely must have been a second gate.

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3D Model of Trench 5E with possible foundation wall

Bamburgh RP 2023: Trench 5E by Tony Liddell on Sketchfab

Trench 5E was a new trench opened in 2023, sited outside of the wall with the postern gate and the outworks. It was placed next to a short length of wall that we investigated in 2022 to see if it had once extended further. It has revealed a stone alignment that extends parallel to the two standing walls. Those of the outworks and the short wall length. So far only the upper level has been uncovered, so it is possible that it could be either a wall top or a foundation or the surface of a narrow path.

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We think being able to share these 3D models, alongside the traditional interim report, really helps others who have not been to site to visualise the structures and our progress to date.

Please check back soon to take a look at the preliminary masonry report that will add further detail to the 3D models above.

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Book Now for our 2023 Post-Excavation Week!

Dates: 10th-14th September 2023

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Bookings are OPEN for a 1 week post-excavation taster.

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What is post-excavation?

Archaeology is not all about digging. In order to turn the data gathered through excavations or surveys (for example) into information that can be used to interpret a site and/or plan further investigations, archaeologists must process this data during the ‘post-ex’ phase.

This includes recording the artefacts recovered, processing the environmental samples taken, digitising the drawings and survey information, for example. 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.

Post-Ex at the Bamburgh Research Project

Here at the BRP we have generated a lot of post-excavation work in the last 20 years. We undertake much of the initial post-ex on site, where we wash and process the small and bulk finds, we process our environmental samples and we catalogue much of the records and photographs we take. However, there is still much work that is undertaken during the off-season by our staff and more that is sent away for specialist analysis. We thought this year we might bring some of this ‘behind the scenes’ work back to the Castle and share it with a small cohort of interested individuals.

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What is the Post-Excavation Taster Week?

We offer quality training in archaeology with an emphasis on practical hands-on experience. The post-excavation taster week will use the BRP’s extensive archive, which consists of material from the prehistoric to the medieval periods, as the basis for an introduction to the different post-excavation techniques and research methodologies employed by the project.

We are still planning the daily schedule but the week will include:

• a general introduction to finds processing (bulk and small finds)
• hands-on training to record, draw and photograph artefacts from the site
• live demo and handling session with a medieval textile specialist
• introduction to environmental sampling and processing
• guided tour of Bamburgh Castle, related Anglo-Saxon burial ground and the new ossuary and Bamburgh Bones exhibition
• guided visit to Lindisfarne and Yeavering

Please Note: we are also in the process of organising a visits by a conservator and/or osteoarchaeologist but these are yet to be confirmed.

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Who is it for?

Our training is open to people of all skill-levels and abilities, with particular interests accommodated where possible. We particularly wish to offer a fun and educational experience to beginners and non professionals.

Please get in touch with us if you have any questions about access, facilities, etc.

BRP is open to anyone aged 18 and over. 

Who will be teaching me?

Professional field archaeologists and post-excavation specialists.

How much does it cost?

The post-excavation taster week costs £300 pp and covers 5 days of training in a small group of between 6-8 people. This covers the cost of the tuition, tours and the trip to Lindisfarne.

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How do I book a place?

Please visit the BRP’s website and take a look at the Post-Ex Taster Week page. At the end of the page is the details on how to book and pay for your place.

PLEASE NOTE: the week will only run if the BRP receive enough bookings to make the week viable (more info on website).

Any questions? Email: graemeyoung@bamburghresearchproject.co.uk

Funding Success for the Bamburgh Research Project with the Castle Studies Trust

The Bamburgh Research Project (BRP) are pleased to announce that we have been successful in securing £9306 from the Castle Studies Trust (CST).

Over the next 12 months the BRP will be utilising the funding to further explore Bamburgh Castle’s medieval outworks, particularly the area outside St Oswald’s Gate where our current excavation is underway as part of our annual field school. Our project is titled ‘Contextualising Bamburgh Castle: wells, towers, mounds and more!’

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St Oswald’s Gate and the Medieval Outworks

St Oswald’s Gate and the outworks beyond lie in the area of the original entrance to the castle. It is very likely that the siege castle (named Mal Voisin in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) was built close to this gate in AD 1095. When the main access was re-sited, the entrance here remained as an important postern. Perhaps serving a small adjacent harbour immediately to the north of the site. This area now forms the BRP’s main investigative focus. The outworks consist of strong walls enclosing a trapezoidal area with the Tower of Elmund’s Well. With a more recent wall and postern to the west.

The outworks at St Oswald’s Gate are a rare case at Bamburgh as they have not been subject to extensive rebuilding in the post medieval period. Other than the reconstruction of the tower as a cottage, the outworks represent an astonishing window into mostly unaltered medieval fabric still standing at Bamburgh.

Foreground shows the area currently under excavation by the BRP with St Oswald’s Gate visible at the top of the steps and West Ward of Bamburgh Castle present in the background.

Work to Date

Recent investigation by the BRP has revealed that a substantial structure still survives below ground. This is in the form of an L-shaped corridor and steps down into the room that is thought to be the tower basement that contained the well. The presence of two splayed narrow windows appears to further indicate that this is part of the medieval Elmund’s Tower. The 2023 excavation season aims to reveal the full extent of the tower and identify any remains of the well depicted on the 19th century survey. You can find out more about our ongoing excavations in this area by taking a look at earlier blog posts: Investigations beyond St Oswald’s Gate: End of Season Overview.

What will the CST Funding be used for?

There are two primary aims for the CST funding. The first is to contextualise our recent excavations at Elmund’s Tower through geophysical survey (GPR and Magnetometry) and undertake a preliminary masonry survey of the castle’s associated extant outworks.

The geophysical survey will provide context to the area immediately outside of the outworks and identify if the castle ditch (seen as a rock cut feature at the Great Gate) extends all the way along the front of the castle. As part of the masonry survey the project will be using photogrammetry to create a 3D model of the standing outworks and internal structures of Elmund’s Tower. The survey will be undertaken in conjunction with a metric survey of the structures outlines so that a photo-real, stone by stone, 3D photo model can be used as a management tool for future plans, including consolidation work.

The investigation of the area will be used to aid in making management decisions to ensure the preservation of the outworks. More broadly, the proposed investigations will assist the interpretation of the extensive, but more complex and disturbed stratigraphical sequences recovered elsewhere in the castle, principally the West Ward.

We will also be using the photogrammetry and geophysical surveys as an opportunity to upskill BRP staff and provide add-on benefits to students during our annual field school (July 2023).

The second focus for the funding will be on disseminating our discoveries to the wider public. Bamburgh Castle is in the process of re-focussing the story it tells the public, giving greater focus to its medieval and early medieval history through a new website, signage throughout the grounds and new displays within the castle itself. However, the medieval outworks are inaccessible to the public and there is currently no opportunity to highlight the ongoing research into this area of the castle and how the site was shaped by the surrounding topography. The funding will allow us to create and install signage for visitors with a QR code for the 3D model, granting online access to Elmund’s Tower and the wider outworks. This information will also be replicated and enhanced with the creation of a new webpage on the Bamburgh Castle website. Alongside these permanent additions we will continue to share our work through our blog and social media.

Listen to two of our Directors discuss the project with the CST

Project Directors, Jo Kirton and Graeme Young, recently spoke to the CST about the project, which you can listen to here:

Make sure you follow our blog and social media accounts to see how the project progresses over the summer. We cannot wait to share what we discover!

Bamburgh and the Last Kingdom what’s the real story? Part 1- a real Uhtred??

Bernard Cornwell’s ‘Last Kingdom’ books, and the related TV series, has generated a huge amount of interest and a considerable fan-base. As Bamburgh features so prominently in the story, as the original home of the protagonist – Uhtred – and its recovery by him was one of the main long term plot drivers, its fair to say that Bamburgh is now more widely known than it was before. We experienced this during our excavation seasons, as every year we seemed to chat to more and more fans, many of whose visit to Bamburgh had been inspired by the books and the TV series.

Bamburh Castle today. The principal palace fortress of the Earls of Northumbria and a place so important to Uhtred. It would have looked very different in his day but was even by then almost certainly a stone fortress.

We are of course delighted that so many people have been inspired to learn more about the early medieval period as a result, but its not always easy to give simple answer to some of the more common question – such as: how much of the story is real? That is not an easy question to answer as the books are very well researched and draw a great deal from historical reality, but of course in the end they are a work of fiction telling a good yarn! In the next few blogs we will aim to cover the areas where the story touches on historical reality and what Bamburgh would have been like at that time. We very much hope that the answers will be interesting and if it leads to a few more people learning about an extraordinary place then we see that as a very good thing.

Was there a historical Uhtred?

This is one of the most frequently asked question we hear. And the answer is annoyingly both yes and no! There is, as it happens, more than one Uhtred in this period associated with Bamburgh and one of them stands out as having inspired the character of the books. He lived at a later time and so was not present for the real historical events described in the books but much of his story and character will seem familiar. In fact in the historical note at the end of the first book Bernard Cornwell informs us that although his Uhtred is a fictional character he represents a real family who did indeed have a member called Uhtred. He also tells us that he has an ancestral link to this family. With these few clues its easy to identify the historical Uhtred that lies behind the character of the books and who has gone down in history as Uhtred the Bold.

‘Uhtrede eorle’ as his name appears in Version C of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (wiki commons)

He was born some time in the later 10^th century and became the Alderman or Earl of Northumberland in the early 11^th century. These two terms represent a noble of great rank, alderman being the Old English (OE) title and earl the Old Norse (ON), we will use earl in this blog as it very much became the norm in this later period. He is clearly the inspiring character as there are many elements of his story that will seem familiar. He was of course first and foremost a renowned warrior and was also connected to the kings of the house of Wessex, even marrying a daughter of that royal house. His king was Aethelred the Unready, a king descended from Alfred the Great but of very different character indeed! This Uhtred, like the Uhtred of the books, was married a number of times and had enemies and allies within the Viking descended community of the Danelaw and the north.

Part of an illustrious family

So far so very like the Uhtred of the books, but what else do we know of him? He was the son of the Earl of Northumberland called Waltheof and had a brother called Eadulf. Uhtred’s Father’s name – Waltheof – was an OE name derived from and ON name and the name Uhtred itself was from OE. This mix of Viking and Anglo-Saxon naming within the family was very typical of a hybrid culture that developed over many generations within the Danelaw and the North of England. Our historical knowledge of the period is very dependent of course on those who were literate and what they thought important enough to write down. As literacy was very much a church thing, the records are often a little biased towards what was important to a monastic community. The idea of keeping a year by year historical record of events had started in the 8^th century as an attempt to compile follow on records continuing on from Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. This tradition of record keeping was given a great boost when Alfred the Great encouraged the keeping of such annals in order to promote literacy and to ensure that the deeds of his dynasty would be remembered. The results of this initiative survives to us today as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (in fact a series of parallel chronicles compiled in different monasteries) but these only became properly detailed in the 11^th century. We will see that gaps in our knowledge are a real problem for earlier times and we will often be left to speculate.

The immediate family tree of Uhtred

We know from such records that our historical Uhtred had connections with Aldhun the Bishopric of Durham as he married Ecgthryth the bishop’s daughter. This is a reminder that the world of the 10^th and 11^th centuries was rather different to how we often imagine the medieval period. Perhaps this is because we are generally more familiar with the better documented later Middle Ages, where a celibate clergy was the norm. At this earlier time the church, particularly in the north (where so much had been disrupted during the Viking Age) could be something of a family business with clerics a little like landed aristocrats. This seems to have been the background to Uhtred’s marriage as it was associated with a number of estates going to Uhtred as a dowry. Through this connection Uhtred was involved in the creation of the new site of the church of St Cuthbert at Durham, and was noted to have helped to clear the area for the new monastery in AD 995. This may be a clue as to the period in which that marriage occurred and suggests to us that Uhtred was of a grown up at this time. Before the creation of this new monastery in the loop of the River Wear at Durham the relics of St Cuthbert and his monastic community had been centred on a church at Chester-le-Street where they had settled in AD 883. This religious community of course had begun its monastic existence on Lindisfarne, a site closely associated with Bamburgh geographically and historically. During the later 9^th century they travelled for many years across Northumbria seeking a new home, before settling in County Durham. We are told that the community undertook this long journey fleeing the Vikings whilst looking for a new and safer place of residence. That they ended up closer to the Viking Kingdom of York than when they started may tell us that the location of the new monastery and its lands may have had more to do with the creation of a religious buffer zone between York and Bamburgh than the story that comes down to us and why the some of the most powerful dynasty in the region had such a close connection with the Bishop’s family.

Second marriage

We are not sure how long Uhtred was married to Ecgthryth but we hear of a second marriage that took place before 1005. This was to a woman called Sige, daughter of Styr son of Ulf. Marriages of aristocrats at this time were mostly very political affairs or even just something of a business transaction. This second marriage seems to have been very much political, connecting Uhtred with a powerful and wealthy Danish family. Perhaps this was intended to generate leverage and influence to the south of their own heartland that lay north of the River Tees. We will see that this political relationship between those who controlled the two former parts of the Kingdom of Northumbria, north and south of the Tees River, will be a theme that we see again and again. We will also see that this second marriage of Uhtred will have huge ramifications for his fate and that of his decedents for several generations.

Invasion and battle

The story of Uhtred’s third marriage begins with a conflict from further north. Malcolm II who had just become King of Scotland, raided into Northumbria in 1005 AD. Perhaps this was an attempt to show off his military ability and add to his prestige, as he had come to the crown having killed his predecessor in battle and may not have felt entirely secure on the throne. Whatever the reason behind the conflict it did not go to plan. Uhtred’s father seems to have been old and infirm and chose to seek refuge in Bamburgh rather than seek battle. The same could not be said of his son Uhtred who raised a force and met Malcolm in battle relieving a siege of Durham and inflicting a defeat on Malcolm. It was reported that Uhtred then decorated the walls of Durham with the heads of his defeated enemy.

As a result of this victory Aethelred king of England, who had had few military successes against a new generation of Viking enemies, clearly desired a connection with this successful warrior and therefore arranged a marriage of Uhtred to one of his daughters. This would have involved Uhtred setting aside his current wife Sige, an action that surely damaged or broke the connections with her family. It is very likely that this weakened Uhtred’s position in the north, loosing him important allies that seem to have played a part in his recent victory, and all for an alliance with a weak king whose reign would end with his own heir in rebellion against him.

At the time a connection by marriage to Aethelred was likely to have seemed a good route for him to have political influence at the royal court. At first it seems to have have worked well for both Uhtred and Aethelred. It did not though, stand in the way of Uhtred making a ruthless decision when needed. Such as when in 1013 he switched allegiance to Swein of Denmark when Aethelred’s position became so weak Uhtred must have felt it threatened his remaining in power as Earl. He changed sides again when Swein died, but this time he appears to have been more closely associated with Edmund (later called Ironside) Aethelred’s oldest surviving son who was in a position of near open rebellion to his sick and ailing father. Ruthless politics as this may have been it did not work out well in the longer run.

A Kite Pin brooch dating from the decades around AD1000 excavated from the West Ward of Bamburgh Castle. The kind of clothes fastening that someone like Uhtred would have been familiar with or even used.

Betrayal and murder

Cnut, Swein’s son who had taken control of his father’s army at his death was now the rival that Uhtred and Edmund must resist, but things did not go well. Cnut outflanked Uhtred and invaded Northumbria when Uhtred was in the midlands with Edmund. Uhtred being one of the most important and powerful figures in the north was always going to be key to how Cnut dealt with the north, he needed him as at least something of an ally or he needed him out of the picture. Finding his enemy in a position to cut him off from his land and earldom Uhtred opened negotiations. Hostages were exchanged between them to assure good conduct and a meeting arranged. At a place called Wiheal – that might be modern Wighill in Yorkshire. We are told that Uhtred arrived with 40 of his followers only to be attacked and killed in ambush by the forces of one of his enemies who had been lying in wait for them concealed behind the hangings in the hall! A suitably dramatic end to a life of adventure. This act was likely a consequence of both one of Uhtred’s earlier marriages and the complex power politics of the North. More of this later.

The historical Uhtred was clearly a warrior like his namesake in the book and had indeed some points that the fictional version may have drawn on, but he was a man of a very different era. This brings us back to his family, its connection to Bamburgh and the question – can this be traced back to the same time of the books, when the kingdom of Northumbria fragmented under attack from a Viking army in the middle of the 9^th century and the later reign of Alfred the Great? We will look at this next time.

If anyone is intrigued to learn more, get some hands on experience of archaeology and a tour of the site there are still places available on the Taster Week and all are welcome.

Introduction to Archaeological Finds a Post Excavation Taster Week: Bookings Open Now!!!

Dates: 10th-14th September 2023

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Bookings are OPEN for a 1 week post-excavation taster.

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What is post-excavation?

Archaeology is not all about digging. In order to turn the data gathered through excavations or surveys (for example) into information that can be used to interpret a site and/or plan further investigations, archaeologists must process this data during the ‘post-ex’ phase.

This includes recording the artefacts recovered, processing the environmental samples taken, digitising the drawings and survey information, for example. 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.

Post-Ex at the Bamburgh Research Project

Here at the BRP we have generated a lot of post-excavation work in the last 20 years. We undertake much of the initial post-ex on site, where we wash and process the small and bulk finds, we process our environmental samples and we catalogue much of the records and photographs we take. However, there is still much work that is undertaken during the off-season by our staff and more that is sent away for specialist analysis. We thought this year we might bring some of this ‘behind the scenes’ work back to the Castle and share it with a small cohort of interested individuals.

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What is the Post-Excavation Taster Week?

We offer quality training in archaeology with an emphasis on practical hands-on experience. The post-excavation taster week will use the BRP’s extensive archive, which consists of material from the prehistoric to the medieval periods, as the basis for an introduction to the different post-excavation techniques and research methodologies employed by the project.

We are still planning the daily schedule but the week will include:

• a general introduction to finds processing (bulk and small finds)
• hands-on training to record, draw and photograph artefacts from the site
• live demo and handling session with a medieval textile specialist
• introduction to environmental sampling and processing
• guided tour of Bamburgh Castle, related Anglo-Saxon burial ground and the new ossuary and Bamburgh Bones exhibition
• guided visit to Lindisfarne and Yeavering

Please Note: we are also in the process of organising a visits by a conservator and/or osteoarchaeologist but these are yet to be confirmed.

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Who is it for?

Our training is open to people of all skill-levels and abilities, with particular interests accommodated where possible. We particularly wish to offer a fun and educational experience to beginners and non professionals.

Please get in touch with us if you have any questions about access, facilities, etc.

BRP is open to anyone aged 18 and over. 

Who will be teaching me?

Professional field archaeologists and post-excavation specialists.

How much does it cost?

The post-excavation taster week costs £300 pp and covers 5 days of training in a small group of between 6-8 people. This covers the cost of the tuition, tours and the trip to Lindisfarne.

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How do I book a place?

Please visit the BRP’s website and take a look at the Post-Ex Taster Week page. At the end of the page is the details on how to book and pay for your place.

PLEASE NOTE: the week will only run if the BRP receive enough bookings to make the week viable (more info on website).

Any questions? Email: graemeyoung@bamburghresearchproject.co.uk

Museum Monday

This Monday, we’d thought we take a bit to talk about the re-installation of some of our most interesting artefacts in the Castle’s state rooms. For years, many of the conserved finds from the BRP and Brian Hope-Taylor’s excavations were tucked away in a little room at the far end of the gift shop in their own little exhibit. The only problem was that folks would reach the gift shop and often go no further. We were stumped as to how to draw attention to the artefacts and information placards when there was delicious fudge and souvenirs in the previous room. A few years ago, some of the artefacts were integrated into the existing state rooms displays, Our one-of-a-kind (okay, one of, like, three in all of northwestern Europe) 6-billet pattern-welded sword was logically in the armoury on the first floor of the keep; it’s uniqueness was sometimes not recognised when displayed amongst the shiny and sharp medieval and post-medieval bladed weaponry. While this melding of artefacts into existing spaces increased the quantity of eyeballs on the artefacts, it still felt like something was missing. How could we best use these artefacts to tell the stories of Bamburgh Castle?

The past year has allowed the curators to combine cutting-edge technology and some tried-and-true, good old-fashioned museum display protocol to give us a more holistic glimpse into the three millennia of occupation of the site.

The first room, what was the medieval kitchen, has been streamlined to focus on five particular assemblages in detail. The large wooden model of the castle is still there, but it is now joined by video screens and a projected animation on the upper story wall. The video screens stand behind the glass display cases or freestanding artefacts. This room features the Bamburgh Beast and filigreed thumbnail (both of gold) each in a minimalist mount, while the carved-interlaced stone chair-arm is positioned as it would have been during its period of use to really help you understand the wear patterns on the leading edge where great kings would have rested their fingers. Each video panel shows magnified views of the objects as castle owner Frankie Armstrong pleasantly and engagingly shares further information about the objects in his family’s care. From these short videos, you really get a sense that a deep responsibility to the stewardship of this shared heritage is the underlying driver for this revamped exhibit.

As you wind your way through the adjacent rooms, you eventually reach the salon where the curators have taken great care to give voice back to half of the population that is often written out of history elsewhere: the women. Here at Bamburgh, however, formidable women stand out to us through the material culture individuals whose names are now lost to us and the documented works for the public good by named post-medieval owners. The salon, a heavily gendered space in the early modern period, is the perfect matrix for these snippets of women’s history through objects. We hope in the future to see this exhibit expand to include more historically gendered objects (such as latch-lifters and girdle tools) and really engage with this idea of performed gender and femininity. As the named women hold elite status as well, so we hope to be a part of developing the artefacts on display to include objects associated with lower status women in our long history here.

The ground floor of the keep is our next stop, where there is now an interactive dig touch-panel. It allows you to excavate computer-animated grid squares of our former Trench 1 and Trench 3 to find artefacts that our team discovered over the years.

The traditional museum display case are also used in the base of the keep, with cases full of interesting artefacts and small placards describing them. The cases are now mostly organised by theme, allowing you to see every-day items like stycas, knives, and dice, and the more high-status and ornate material grouped together as well. Also, the fantastic sword we discussed earlier has found a home in the lower level of the keep.

You can still come visit us to the end of this week to chat about the archaeology with our team up at the windmill in the West Ward, and then take a walk through the state rooms to see some of our best finds in their new displays!

THRIPS SWARM

Sunday was rolling along rather pleasantly, from an overcast morning to a glorious afternoon…but with the warmth and the burning off of the mist, we were invaded!

It wasn’t Vikings (who never took the castle, by the way, and we have almost no archaeological evidence of them in the castle environs)…

It wasn’t tourists…

It was the dreaded THUNDERBUG!

Based on Ernst Heeger’s illustrations from Beiträge zur Naturgeschichte der Insecten. Als Beiträge zur Fauna Oesterreichs, a text in German held in the Smithsonian collections. This is from a section on thrips, but using the old synonymous name “physopod.”

In recent memory, most of us can only recall a single nightmarish day in 2019 when they swarmed the castle. But today, oh, today was much worse than that day. We all know that insects, spiders, and earthworms are a standard part of the job of excavation. We’ve made our peace with that, and usually those little bugs get relocated or brushed away gently, no harm, no foul. But not today.

Today, these little pests covered our arms and necks, so small that you’d be surprised how you could feel every footfall of each miniscule foot. But their little feet were so irritating, tap-dancing across our sun-cream-sticky flesh! No, they didn’t bite us, but they crawled over every inch of exposed skin. They landed on our lips and were smushed as we aggressively tried to wipe our faces clean. They flew into our eyelashes and poked us in the eyes. They squirmed into our ears and nostrils. It was revolting.

So in preparation for all-out war tomorrow, we have done a little reconnaissance on our enemy:

Common blossom thrips with measurements.
Vivek Kumar, University of Florida’s Entomology and Nematology Dept.

SCIENTIFIC NAMES: Thysanoptera (order with over 6,000 species), Thrips (genus with about 280 species)

The genus and generic name for the creature comes from the Ancient Greek for “woodworm,” which is weird because they are definitely not worms (annelids). The University of Chicago’s Classical language app Logeion cites the Lewis & Short Latin dictionary: thrips, thripis (m.), transliterated from the Greek θρίψ. The Greek is found in the Liddell & Scott Greek-English lexicon, but the citations are a bit harder to find. Pliny the Elder refers to the woodworm literally in several passages of his Natural History, for example while describing the resistance of tree species to infestation. Martianus Capella (Late Antiquity/early 5^th century, but studied and used throughout Carolingian education discourse) also uses the word, but as a synonym for worthless things, in Book II, Section 164 of his De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii (“On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury”). You can also access the Perseus database on which the app is based here.

OTHER ALIASES:  thunder flies, thunderblights, storm bugs, storm flies, corn flies, corn fleas, corn lice, harvest flies, harvest bugs, freckle bugs

DESCRIPTION: 0.5mm-15mm long, slender body, two pairs of fringed or feathery wings folded over its back, only the left mandible (lower jaw), usually black or brown in adult stage except for a few species that stay yellowish like juveniles

As there are over 170 species found in Britain, it would be folly to detail them all, but they all share the same basic characteristics. They have a slurpy tube (that’s not the scientific name) through which they secrete saliva into their food that starts the digestion process and then suck it all back up. Remember those gross little feetsies we mentioned above? They have a grippy pad on each of its six feet called an “arolium” that inflates with the bodily fluids of the insect and helps it climb in any direction, defying both gravity and common decency. There are an astonishing number of thrips-centred websites.

KNOWN HANGOUTS: often among cereal crops and flowers, and, apparently, Bamburgh Castle for the weekend

ACTIVE TIMES: hot and humid weather, and particularly weather systems that can form thunderstorms (correlation, not causation, by the way), in the UK flourish between April-September

They’ve been around since about 300 million years ago, long before the dinosaurs (but probably annoyed them too when they showed up) and around the time of the dolerite magma injection that intruded into the sandstone at Bamburgh. Their entire life-cycle takes about a month, but they can lay 100 eggs in that time. Some can complete their life-cycle in two weeks if the temperature is high enough!

PROS:

Some thrips are pollinators, which is almost always a good thing and why we should be nicer to insects like bees. Some species prey on other thrips, the eggs of wasps and moths, and mites (which are not insects because they only have two body parts). Others eat fungi. Thrips also have a cool means of flight that is worth reading about.

CONS:

Thrips can destroy crops by eating their tissues from aesthetic damage like stippling/mottling or silvery patches (and little poo stains), to the formation of galls, to full defoliation of plants. They can also spread about 20 different plant viruses, such as the Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus. In addition, they are extremely invasive and have been found on every continent. Thrips can also reproduce asexually, where the female lays eggs without a mate. Numerous gardening websites also warn that they become pesticide-resistant quickly, and that biological control (like increasing natural predators) is preferable to chemical control.

THE PLAN:

1. Wear long-sleeves to cover up.
2. Cry deeply.
3. Borrow some of the repellent the Australian students brought all the way from the only continent that is actively trying to harm you.
4. Get back to work.

Back in Action for 2022!

Welcome back for the 2022 season!

We are all so excited to be back on-site today with a fresh bunch of new students, and some familiar faces among the staff (more on us tomorrow) as well as former students who’ve signed back on as staff (more on them next Monday). We’ve got FOUR action-packed weeks planned for you all, so follow along on here and your preferred social media site:

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Our first and hopefully most straightforward goal for the season is to bottom out the tower and find Elmund’s well (discussed in this blog post about the wells from last season)…or at least find traces of it. None of us are truly expecting an empty shaft with potable water, but everyone is at the very least expecting that yours truly, against the basic premise of self-preservation and scientific safety, will offer to taste-test whatever mud or sludge lays at the bottom.

Trench 5b footprint of the tower just a little worse for wear.

We also would like to do a full outworks extant masonry survey to get a better grasp on the complicated and numerous phases of construction. There are bits of wall that show signs of at least half a dozen separate rebuild or refacing events! We would also like to generate a to-scale model using Electronic Distance Measurement (a method of survey called EDM for short) of the masonry.

Looking up towards the castle from Trench 5B; note the multi-coloured masonry around the arch.

Our post-excavation goals, in addition to keeping up with processing of finds, will include a bit of housekeeping; we’ve recently moved our archives and want to make sure everything is where it should be and easily-accessible via our cataloguing system. We’ve got plenty of finds from last season to finish washing and sorting, and there will hopefully be a similar abundance of material from our excavations of the next few weeks.

We are happy to once again have the specialist staff (previously unavailable due to travel restrictions) and workspace to begin processing environmental samples again. Our main means of processing will be through flotation, and a primer on our methods can be found here. In short, flotation allows tiny artefacts and ecofacts from coins and beads to bones, snail shells, and seeds to be separated from the soil matrix. The characteristics and chemistry soil itself can also tell us about what was likely going on in a certain area of the trench during a certain time. This season we will be covering seed identification and a bit of soil science here on the blog.

Finally, we hope to enhance our database of finds with a new system of key words. We also would like to eventually integrate the Brian Hope-Taylor material we have in our care into our existing system.

End of Season Director’s Round-up

This Director’s 2021 Round-up Report will split into two posts. This blog post is a round-up of previous work undertaken in the excavation area and sets out what our aims were for the 2021 season. The second post will look at how the actual excavation results matched up to what we expected and will look forward to next season and its new goals.

The excavation area seen from the base of the windmill. The surviving outworks are to the left of the excavation and the depression at the top of the image was the area of the former port, now silted up

The 2021 Excavation Area: what we know

The focus for the 2021 dig season was St Oswald’s Gate and the area of outworks below it. Regular readers of the blog will be quite aware that St Oswald’s Gate is known to have been the original entrance to the castle – with the current gate taking over the role of principal entrance at some point in the 12^th century. We do not have an actual description of the construction of the Great Gate in the records that survive but there is fabric of this date in the vault of the Constables Tower that forms part of the complex entrance behind the Great Gate. So we can date the new entry arrangement within a few decades at least.

Sr Oswald’s Gate

We do have at least one, much earlier, record describing St Oswald’s Gate as the entrance, dating from from AD 774 that states – Bamburgh as ‘having one hollowed entrance ascending in a wonderful manner by steps’ – a clear reference to St Oswald’s Gate as we see it today. As we have radiocarbon evidence for the fortress being occupied since the 9^th century BC, its reasonable to think this was the entrance to the site for 2000 years! So I am sure you can understand why investigating this area of the site is important to our understanding of the fortress and its long history.

One of the reasons that the gate remained in this area for so long, apart from being at a lower lying part of the bedrock and so more practical for access to the castle rock, is that it was able to service a small port that lay to the immediate north of the castle. It is logical then that this entrance and its access routes, and how they were used, goes back a very long time and is much older than the outworks that stand in partial ruins to this day. Nevertheless study of the various phases of the structures that do survive, and how they were likely used, will help us understand how the topography may have dictated long standing routes much older than the standing structures themselves.

Previous Investigation

The current phase of investigation is the second undertaken by us beyond St Oswald’s Gate (see images below). The first was way back in 2002 but was not continued as resources were needed elsewhere. It did though show us that the area was important and needed further work, so its good to be able to concentrate on this area now. The original work identified the phases of the St Oswald’s Gate main structure that we can match to the historical records. This included two phases of medieval build to the gate as well as identifying traces of timber elements of the structure known from records. The two phases should be 12^th century and a 13^th century widening and update to the structure. We also know of timber elements that were sent to Bamburgh from a castle at Nafferton that was for form a breteche – a defensive structure that juts out over agate to allow nasty things to be dropped on anyone attempting to force their way in.

There are a number of standing ruined walls outside of the gate forming outworks beyond the gate, sited we are sure, to control access to the gate itself and also how people would be able to move in the area. The structures that we see represent many phases of build, the earliest thought to be 11^th to 12^th century in date, extends south-west from the castle rock and is narrow in width and has a narrow tall archway passing through it that led towards the port area. Underlining the importance of the port if it was needed. This multiphase wall was then cut through by a newer medieval wall with a Postern gate that clearly led to the village. It is tempting to see this construction phase as responding to the creation of a new port in Budle Bay around the middle of the 13^th century and we must assume that this means the little port goes out of use at this time. Perhaps a reason for rebuilding and realigning the outworks.

The Tower of St Elmund’s Well

One structure we were not able to identify in 2002 was the Tower at Elmund’s Well, known from documentary records to have been in the outworks and, rather obviously from the description, to have contained or guarded a well. We have records of the tower being repaired in AD 1250 so we know it was in place by then and if needing repair had likely been built some time before. This record mentions both the repair of the tower and the repair of the ‘barbican before St Oswald’s Gate’, which explains at least some of the phasing in the outworks that we see and perhaps records the remodelling that we see with the new wall and Postern construction.

The 1803 plan that shows the location of the well we are looking to identify

To guide us in finding and investigating the tower and well we have two plans that show the outworks in some detail. The earliest of these is from 1803 and is the only plan we have that shows the location of the well. The building, including what remained of the tower, is shown as L-shaped and entered by steps from the south-west and these steps led down to the well room at the west end. The second plan was compiled by Cadwallader Bates (an Antiquarian) for the 1st Lord Armstrong in 1895 and shows some alterations to the entrance but seems to confirm the general shape and arrangements.

The 2021 excavation was intended to help us interpret the build sequence and understand these alterations and also tell us if the plans are accurate. We were also very keen to be able to define the medieval elements from the post-medieval cottage and perhaps identify how early the tower was constructed.

We will go over how many of these questions we have answered this season and what remains to be done next year in our next blog post. For sneak peak, you can always look at our earlier blog posts…..