Anglo-Saxon Great Estates; How did they work?

Report of a talk given by Dr Michael Costen on 8th March 2011

Michael Costen has been working on the early period of Saxon settlement and the way in which the Saxons brought change to the landscape.

The work of Peter Fowler and Susan Osthuizen on agricultural techniques and common fields respectively had made important contributions to our understanding of the late Saxon landscape of the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries but Michael was here interested in the earlier period of Saxon occupation.

Archaeology suggested that pre-Anglo-Saxon Somerset had been dominated by a few important power centres such as South Cadbury, Cadbury Congresbury, Cannington Hillfort, and Glastonbury Tor. The elite maintained contact with the Eastern Roman Empire, with the rulers of Tintagel in Cornwall in all likelihood playing a dominant role in the power structure of the South West.

Limited finds of Roman coins during the late 5th to early 6th centuries suggest a return to a more primitive form of economy and Michael suggested that trading in slaves became an important factor at this time.

But there is good evidence that this situation of warrior chieftains based on hillforts did not continue. During the 6th century Old Welsh society changed. References to kings were disappearing. Society became less hierarchical and a peasant society depending on agriculture evolved.

The situation in neighbouring Anglo-Saxon Wiltshire at this time seems to suggest that a relatively peacable and not very militarised society was something of a norm.

But during the 7th century Anglo-Saxon society became more militarised and the growth of an aristocracy was favoured. Probably this occurred as a result of an influx of cultural ideas and treasure from Gaul. The outcome was a society poor in cash and dependent largely on the king giving land and treasure to his supporters in return for their service in his war-band. The arrangement was a perilous one and kings were frequently deposed. Later Chronicles from the time of King Alfred suggest tidy lines of kingly descent but the reality was probably far more messy.

For Somerset this all became a reality when the West Saxons burst into the southwest in the mid-seventh century. The battle of Penselwood (near Wincanton) in 658 is the event traditionally quoted as marking this change.

Dorset came under Saxon control about the same time and the newly enlarged Wessex was reorganized in order to provide the rulers with the wealth they needed to maintain their warrior society. The West Saxons were semi-Christian, having only recently undergone conversion. Old Welsh (i.e. British) Society probably had a Christian tradition of longer standing. It was Christianity that formed the basis of the new organisational structure of the West Saxon lands. A number of “Monasteria” were set up. These were quite large institutions with an Abbot supported by a large number of clerics. An important feature was that they were the focal point of quite substantial agricultural estates and seem not to have beenbased on earlier Roman villa estates. It also seems clear that in order to run efficiently they were heavily dependent on slave labour. This is perhaps a surprising conclusion but there is plenty of evidence for it, not least in some of the legal codes of the period, including that of King Ine in the early eighth century. In this slavery is the first item discussed and it appears that there were different categories of slaves, depending on whether they were born to it or had become enslaved for one of a number of reasons in their own lifetime. It was evidently highly regulated and not at all a casual affair.

There is very little physical evidence from this period - Michael cited the Anglo Saxon sword from Queen Camel. Most of the evidence comes from interpretation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and a few other documents of the time, and, most crucially, archaeological landscape studies. In a succession of maps Michael then described a number of likely early Anglo Saxon estates in Somerset and Dorset. He cited work by Dr J Davey examining the field patterns around South Cadbury and showing ditches originally cut in Roman times which had been crossed by later field boundaries. Nearby Sherborne had been an Old Welsh monastic settlement and was replaced by an Anglo Saxon Monasterium. The boundary can still be traced and Michael proposed that the Inland was farmed by slaves while there were small Anglo Saxon settlements to the west of Sherborne. Similar studies around Somerton, Curry Rivel and Chewton showed early rich arable land seeming to have a traceable curved “inland” boundary breaking through earlier field patterns.
In South Petherton a clear circular boundary could be detected. This was probably a Monasterium taken over by the King.

In summary the early Anglo Saxon period in western Wessex appears to have consisted of a series of great estates, some controlled by the King, some by the Church. The Wessex kings inherited an area where the social structure and landscape were well developed. By giving land to their supporters they created a landscape of conquest in which the churls on the small estates lost out. That these supplanted churls nonetheless had wealth was confirmed by early laws requiring Wergild as a compensation for murder of a churl to the value of 50 shillings - a huge sum of money in those days.

Michael’s recently published book is the recommended work for anybody aiming to examine more closely the arguments put forward in this talk:

Anglo-Saxon Somerset by Michael Costen. Oxbow Books 2011

Peter Johnson

News and Reviews

NATURAL HISTORY WALK

SUNDAY 27 MARCH 2011 AT 2.30 pm

It was a cool but dry and overcast Sunday afternoon that ten members of the Society met at the old parish church of St. Andrews, West End, Clevedon for a walk along the coastline of Clevedon Pill, accessing it from the churchyard, along the Poets Walk and around Wain’s Hill.

The high tide had gone out just one hour previously, however we saw various wading birds on our way to Gullhouse Point and Blackstone rocks, including shellducks, oystercatchers, curlew, black-backed gulls and a kestrel. Peregrine falcons are known to be in the area on the rocks, but were absent on this visit.

A few bumble bees, both white and orange- tailed were about. Some early flowers were in evidence, such as speedwell, violets, herb robert, coltsfoot, gorse and alexanders, the last probably being brought to Britain by the Romans as a pot-herb.
Last year’s teasels could still be seen, and blackthorn was very much in flower along the way.

The chiffchaff, a spring visitor, was heard and seen, as were goldfinch, greenfinch, long-tailed tits and even a cock pheasant. Possibly a wild cherry tree was in flower at the foot of Wain’s Hill near the fishing boats.

An enjoyable ramble was had by all.

The Knights Templar

Report of a talk given by James Bond on 11 January 2011

“Monks who were licensed to kill” was James Bond’s apt description of the Knights Templar.

The role of the Templars has its origins in the period after the First Crusade.

The Muslims had taken Jerusalem in 637 and for most of the following period had exercised a fairly tolerant rule, allowing the Christian inhabitants of the area to live in peace.

Pope Urban 1 launched the first Crusade in 1095, in part because of a generally worsening political situation in the Holy Land and in part to occupy the considerable numbers of quarrelsome young knights who had been rendered landless by primogeniture.

The First Crusade was a success in that Jerusalem was taken but at the cost of much bloodshed, which ruined relations between Christians and Muslims, and still has repercussions today.

Although the Holy Land had been taken it was never to be a peaceful place again and pilgrimage became a dangerous undertaking. The result was the setting up of several religious orders combining monasticism and knighthood whose role was to defend the Holy places and Christian pilgrims.

One of these was the Order of the Temple, set up shortly before 1120, and actively encouraged by Bernard de Clairvaux, an important early member of the Cistercian order. The Templar Rules had much in common with the Cistercians, but there were concessions to their more strenuous way of life. For example, unlike the monks, who were vegetarian, the Knights were allowed meat three times a week.

From relatively humble beginnings (only nine members were recorded in 1129) the order rapidly grew and developed provinces across Europe. In order to raise funds for their primary role in the Holy Land the Templars received gifts of land to generate income. Sometimes they built and manned castles in exchange, as in the Holy Land and in Spain and Portugal. As time went on and their wealth grew they bought further land to consolidate their possessions, and engaged in improvement such as land drainage. Because of their international role they developed the function of bankers and travel agents for the many pilgrims who wished to visit the Holy Land. All this activity led to an infrastructure of buildings, including barns, churches, treasuries and hostelries for travellers. But always the focus was on the mission in the Holy Land with the result that building in Europe was generally of modest proportions.

Jerusalem was of course central to this mission and in particular the Temple, where they had their headquarters and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which stood over the supposed site of the Crucifixion and of Christ’s tomb. This was the holiest of places for the pilgrims and its circular form was often imitated in the churches erected by the Templars.

But the City of Jerusalem was retaken by Saladin in 1187. The remaining territory of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem was effectively lost at the Siege of Acre in 1291 and the Templars withdrew to the small island of Ruad from which they were eventually expelled in 1303. They withdrew to Cyprus but with the loss of the Holy Land the Templars’ role was substantially diminished. In 1307 KIng Philip IV of France, who had been casting envious eyes on the Templars’ wealth gained the Pope’s approval to move against them. A number of serious and sensational charges were laid and confessions extracted under torture. When the leaders subsequently retracted their confessions they were executed. For nearly two hundred years the Templars had played an important role in Christendom but now the order was disbanded. In countries where the Templars were tried without torture no evidence of the wrongdoings alleged by Philip were produced and the modern interpretation is that the charges were trumped up solely to enable their riches to be pillaged.

The often shadowy remains of the Templars’ infrastructure are of interest to the archaeologist. They are to be found in many places throughout Europe and the Middle East, and James took us on a lightning tour of the major ones. In Britain a number of sites are known. The Temple area in London was let to the lawyers by the Hospitallers, the Templars’ successors, on condition they maintained the Church, which still stands today. In Bristol the name lingers on in Temple Meads, and the Temple Church, which was bombed out in the Second World War, has been excavated with interesting results. Temple Combe in Somerset is another local site, which featured in a Time Team investigation, but is still not fully understood. Baldock, Herts, was a new town founded by the Templars around 1138, its name being derived from “Baghdad” - so named in memory of the Holy Land. Other places mentioned included Templeton in Pembrokeshire, Temple Bruer in Lincolnshire, Garway in Herefordshire, Temple Guiting in Gloucestershire, Sandford-on-Thames in Oxfordshire, Temple Cressing in Essex and Strood Camera in Kent. All places worthy of a diversion if you happen to find yourself in the vicinity!

In concentrating on the known facts of the Knights Templar James showed us that the truth is so much more absorbing than the sensational tales which have grown up around them in the succeeding centuries.

James‘ talk was detailed, exhaustive and stimulating. This report could only hope to give the bare bones of what he had to tell us. For a more detailed account he recommends the following recent books:

Helen Nicholson, The Knights Templar: a New History (Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 2001)

Juliet Faith, The Knights Templar in Somerset (History Press, Stroud, 2009).

Peter Johnson

Blast from the Past - Part 1
Medieval Woodwind Instruments

Report of a talk given by Jonathan Weeks on 14 December 2010

“... to drive the cold winter away” was the refrain from the Christmas song of 1615 with which Jonathan ended his spellbinding talk. It could have served as an alternative title, all thought of seasonal weather banished as we were taken back to the world of the medieval musician.

Shawms, bagpipes, bladder pipes, crumhorns, cornemuses, curtals, gemshorns and organistums were just some of the early instruments with which we were regaled. First Jonathan introduced them and then he played them, reviving seldom heard early tunes in the process.

In tracing the development of his instruments Jonathan provided some surprising insights into the history of their times. Here are a few taken almost at random.

Nero was probably bagpiping rather than fiddling while Rome burned.

Far from being a Scottish invention, the bagpipes were at one time played across Europe, but by the time they reached Scotland they were losing popularity and eventually died out just about everywhere else.

The shawm, with which Jonathan opened proceedings, was introduced to Europe by the Crusaders who had confronted it in the Holy Land, where massed bands of this harsh-toned instrument were used by the Saracen armies as a psychological weapon.

The Bladder Pipe or Plattespiel offered a means of controlling the player’s breathing. A sheep’s bladder secured over the mouthpiece of a reeded pipe acted as a reservoir of air and allowed the player to snatch a breath whilst continuing to produce a note.

The troubadours of Medieval Europe, who popularised the idea of courtly love, performed songs whose content was often considered suggestive or immoral. These had to be sanctioned by the church and two and a half thousand of such items have been found in the Vatican Library.

An Abbot of Meaux in Yorkshire was a man of such musical sensibility that he had the bells of all the sheep on the Abbey’s estates tuned in fifths in order to create a harmonious atmosphere on the surrounding hills.

The pipe organ is a surprisingly early invention, dating back to classical times. There are accounts of an organ being installed at Winchester Cathedral in the year 990 which required seventy men to operate it.

Archaeology’s contribution to our understanding of musical instruments is considerable. Jonathan cited whistles fashioned from bone having been found dating back at least 35000 years. A simple set of reedpipes was found in a tomb in Ur from about 3000 BC. Amongst the many finds from The Mary Rose were a number of pipes and tabors. In Germany a recorder was excavated from a medieval privy pit.

The instruments in Jonathan’s collection were made from a variety of materials including reed, wood, horn and bone. He had made many of his own replica instruments and claimed a personal best of twenty three seconds for fashioning a simple workable reed pipe with a Stanley Knife!

This really was a splendid evening, for we proceeded from this stimulating talk to the wonderful and elaborate buffet prepared for us by Heather and Vivien and their hardworking assistants. Truly a feast for ears and stomach alike!

For anyone interested in finding out more about early instruments Jonathan thought it was hard to improve on the classic text by the pioneering musician:

David Munrow: Musical Instruments of the Middle Ages and Renaissance”, published by OUP 1976.

There are also some fine recordings on CD by the same author.

Peter Johnson

Life in an Urban Fox Family

Report of a talk given by Helen Whiteside on 9 November 2010

Helen is researching urban foxes at the University of Bristol as a member of a project which has been under way for over thirty years. She presented an absorbing account of general fox ecology and gave us an insight into some of the latest research findings.

There are several species of fox and we had a quick look at three of them: the Arctic, the Bat-eared and the Cape foxes, before homing in on the one with which we are familiar - the red fox. The red fox and its variant the silver fox is distributed throughout the northern hemisphere. It has also been introduced to Australia where it has become a significant pest.

The urban fox is, of course, the same species as the rural one, the difference being that it has adapted wonderfully to life in the big city. One has even been seen taking a ride on a London Underground escalator!

Like its country cousin, the urban fox establishes a territory occupied by a dog fox, a vixen and their cubs, the difference being that the urban territory is usually much smaller, given the greater availability of food. Their breeding behaviour is familiar at least in part to many people. Mating takes place in January/February with the female being receptive for four days. Most people will have heard the eerie screams coming from a pair of mating foxes but not everybody will have witnessed the phenomenon of “post-copulative lock”, which prevents them from separating and may last for some time.

Pregnancy normally lasts for 53 days and the cubs are born at the end of March/beginning of April. A den is prepared for the young, often in a nice cosy location such as under the floorboards of a shed or, even better, a house. The cubs are usually around six in number, and appealingly mischievous and playful. By the age of 18 weeks they are feeding themselves, rats being a favourite item on the diet.

Once raised to young adulthood the cubs disperse and new territories are taken up in time for the next breeding season. The process by which this occurs is complex, and still very much subject to investigation. Observations include the fact that females don’t travel as far from their parents’ home territories as the males. Sometimes a territory may be taken over from a fox that has died or alternatively a new territory may be established between existing ones. Helen herself is carrying out her PhD research into the question of whether the young foxes disperse of their own accord or whether they are effectively “kicked out” by their parents.

The main causes of death among foxes appear to be road accidents and the very unpleasant disease of mange. This is related to the human disease of scabies and is transmitted by mites. Many people will have seen the distressing sight of a fox that has lost large amounts of fur and is obviously in a highly debilitated condition. In 1994-1996 there was a major outbreak of mange in Bristol which led to a massive crash in population. The same thing has been experienced in other populations of urban fox.

Foxes sense the world around them in a somewhat different way to humans. Although their sight is good they detect movement differently. As a result it is possible to be approached quite closely by a fox as long as you don’t move. Their hearing is very acute and aided by ears which can be moved independently, a feature which is put to good use in locating prey.

Rather like squirrels, foxes are “programmed” to exploit gluts and cache food away to be consumed at a later date. This was offered as an explanation for the slaughter that takes place when a fox gets into a chicken coop, and the way the contents of dustbins get strewn about.

The Bristol University research project began in 1977, initially because of concerns about the risk of rabies. The Bristol population has not changed greatly in the last decade and is thought have reached a stable level, though it is still susceptible to crashes brought about by epidemics of mange. It is not considered possible to limit the population artificially as this would require numbers to be reduced by 70 per cent every year. It was tried unsuccessfully in London in the 1970s and abandoned as a strategy. In Australia, where the fox is an alien species, it has reached pest proportions and no solution to its control has yet been found.

The Bristol researchers make use of coloured ear tags and radio collars to detect the movements and dispersal patterns of their subjects. Public cooperation is important both in reporting sightings and in the placing of traps.

Urban foxes are studied worldwide and Helen concluded by describing a fascinating project that had been carried out in Russia. In an attempt to understand the process of domestication, silver foxes had been selectively bred for tameness. In ten generations they had effectively produced a creature more akin to a dog, complete with droopy ears and larger eyes and altogether “cuter”.

For more information Helen recommends:

Urban foxes by Stephen Harris and Phil Baker (British Natural History Series) published by Whittet Books.

For online information about Helen’s Department, google Bristol University Mammal Research Unit or go straight to:

http://www.thefoxwebsite.org

It’s also worth keeping an eye open for a forthcoming Natural World Documentary on BBC 2 to which Helen will be contributing.

Peter Johnson

Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud.

Emerging new ideas about the Development of Bristol and its hinterland.

Report of a talk given by Bob Jones at the meeting of WANHS on 12 October 2010

Bob Jones, the City Archaeologist for Bristol, was our guest on the 12 October, in place of the hospitalized George Nash, to whom we wished a speedy recovery. Our programme secretary had once again excelled herself by engaging a speaker of such quality at short notice.

Bob chose to speak on the matter of mud, a substance not unfamiliar to Westonians, although Bob chose to focus on the Bristolian variety.

Bob’s archaeological career began in cold and wet conditions in Lincoln and it was there that the find of a medieval ship started his long appreciation of the value of mud. Its preservative qualities, particularly with regard to wooden and other organic objects, are what make it so exciting to the archaeologist.

Before discussing Bristol itself Bob reminded us of the interesting finds made in the mud up and down the Severn estuary. At Hallen Marsh in Avonmouth developments from 1988 onwards had revealed both Iron Age finds and some Bronze Age seasonal sites consisting of organic patches, burnt material and scatters of potsherds. A protective layer of desiccated alluvium had sealed the remains at one metre down.

Turning to Bristol Bob gave us a detailed account of the development of the City as it is currently understood and followed with a description of some of the major recent excavations and finds. A current English Heritage-funded project is looking at producing a summary of all the recent work in the City.

The name of Bristol, or Brigstowe, comes from the bridge over its principal river, the Avon, the present bridge being a nineteenth century construction overlying an eighteenth century predecessor, with the probable remains of a Saxon structure beneath that. The other river which was a vital feature in the development of Bristol was the Frome. Both have been significantly altered over the years to serve the needs of the inhabitants. The Frome, which originally joined the Avon a little way downstream from Bristol Bridge was first altered to form a tighter bend enclosing the castle area of the City, and then in the thirteenth century a new line of town walls was built and the river was changed to its present course along St. Augustine’s Reach, creating a major new harbour. This was a major engineering project for the time and represented a considerable investment, enabling Medieval and early Modern Bristol to establish itself as one of the busiest ports in the land.

Eventually, as ships grew in size, new facilities were required and the Floating Harbour was constructed. From the late nineteenth century the Frome was gradually culverted and built over, with the Centre finally being covered in 1938.

New industries had been steadily developing, including copper working, lead smelting and glassmaking, and their effluent added to the sewage draining into the river made it a pretty unwholesome place. The effect was exacerbated by the building in the early nineteenth century of the New Cut and the Floating Harbour which effectively reduced the natural scouring effect of the tide. Studies of the diatom populations in the mud show that the sewage/nutrient rich muds had caused a seven or eightfold increase in the microorganism count.

Turning to recent excavations, Bob showed how the extension of the river bank and reclamation of the muddy foreshore could be traced along the line of Redcliff Street. A succession of buildings and revetments had gradually been built out into the river mud, culminating in the splendid towered house of the wealthy fifteenth century merchant William Canynge. Successive muddy deposits had preserved old reused ship’s timbers, wattle fences and planks. It also yielded insights into contemporary diets in the shape of well-preserved finds of nuts, shells and other waste products. In a phrase which might have served as an alternative subtitle to his talk, Bob informed us that “there was a lot of cess around”. Evidence of riverside industries was also revealed, including dyeing, weaving, metal working and cutlery production.

Also on the south side of the river excavations had been carried out in the area of the old George’s Brewery, and Roger Leech of Southampton University was working on research for English Heritage into the medieval layout of street patterns and industries. This whole area was producing some very interesting evidence of late Saxon occupation, including a possible boundary ditch relating to a property intriguingly known as Arthur’s Acre. Finds had include a beautifully preserved wellhead made of two barrels set one on top of the other and a wooden bridge from a medieval stringed instrument known as a rebec.

In short the muddy deposits of Bristol’s tidal riverside location had greatly influenced the development of the city, dictating its economy and preserving earlier features for later generations to uncover. Indeed the history of Bristol is being pushed even further back by a new project which is conducting research into a deep investigation of the muddy blanket lying over the solid geology of the area. Glorious mud, indeed!

Further reading: Bob Jones recommends the ”New Pevsner” Guide to Bristol:

Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides) by Andrew Foyle. Yale University Press 2004. ISBN 9780300104424

Also look out for Bob’s own book of walks round Bristol, a project he has promised himself for his retirement!

Peter Johnson

World War 2 and Somerset's part in it.

Report of a talk given by John Hellis at the meeting of WANHS on 14th September 2010

As the nation remembered the seventieth anniversary of the Battle of Britain, our first speaker of the new programme reminded us of some of the other crucial events of that pivotal year. John Hellis has made a particular study of the defences that were set in place to counter the possibility of a German land invasion. Fortunately this event never took place, but John left us in no doubt that it would have produced acts of heroism equal in scale to those of RAF Fighter Command.

The background to the story was the situation in which Britain found itself after the evacuation of the Allied Forces from Dunkirk. Operation Dynamo, as it was known, was completed by 4 June 1940. Although more than 338,000 Allied soldiers were rescued, the losses of vehicles, guns and supplies were enormous.

The day after Operation Dynamo was set in motion, General Edmund Ironside, Commander-in-Chief Home Forces, was placed in command of the anti-invasion defences. Given the dire shortage of equipment he devised a static defensive system, based on a network of fortified lines of concrete pillboxes and other associated features. Highbridge in Somerset was the starting point for the Taunton Stop Line which ran south to Seaton and also for the GHQ Line which ran eastwards towards London.

The Taunton Stop Line was intended to contain any invasion from the southwest. Although the southeast might have been a more obvious target it was necessary to cover all eventualities and the South West peninsula would have had many advantages for an invader. After all, four years later Operation Overlord was to take the less obvious route through Normandy.

The main feature of the Taunton Stop Line was the pillboxes of which there were hundreds located at intervals of about three hundred yards. Tactically viewed as “stationary tanks”, they were mostly machine-gun emplacements, later reinforced by 13 Defensive Islands, which allowed the line to be reinforced if breached.

The scale of the building operation can be judged by the fact that in a period of three months, between July and September 1840, somewhere between 18 and 20 thousand pillboxes were built. Each weighed around 100 tons and they were built by local contractors to a broad specification drawn up by the War Office, but frequently adapted to suit local materials and circumstances.

They were extremely basic, not at all spacious and often not particularly well built. We saw examples of pillboxes where there was no door at the back, the only way in and out being through the loophole at the front. The implication of this was that once under attack there was no escape. Effectively the defenders would have been committed to a suicide mission. The individual pillbox may have been able to hold out for a day and the whole line for perhaps a week, buying sufficient time for heavier forces to be mobilized from the interior.

In answer to the question of whether pillboxes were really worth conserving, John suggested several reasons for valuing them. Seventy years after the event there is no official record of where they were sited and, of the original 22000, fewer than 6000 remain. Future generations would be as interested in WW2 defences as we are in Roman military remains. Indeed there are striking similarities between the tactical role of the Stop Lines and Hadrian’s Wall.

Only by recording them now can we preserve the information about how they were designed to relate to one another and operate in action. Apart from their intrinsic interest, conserving them is at the very least a memorial to the many personnel in the Home Guard who lost their lives in the War and to the many more who stood ready to man the land defences if necessary.

As well as the pillboxes there are other local sites with WW2 associations. The Stop Lines were designed to hold an enemy who had already landed but there was an obvious need to prevent them from landing in the first place. Those low-lying areas of beach and estuary where invasion would be targeted were designated as the “Coastal Crust”. Most of us will have seen features related to the defence of the beaches and with the vagaries of tidal action more become exposed from time to time.
Steep Holm was heavily defended and artillery from several periods can still be seen there. “Once a good military site, always a good military site”. John reminded us of the role of HMS Birnbeck as part of the Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development, otherwise known as “The Wheezers and Dodgers”. It made its contribution with the development of the “Bouncing Bomb” used by the RAF against the dams on the Ruhr, several new kinds of anti-submarine depth-charge, and important work on techniques for destroying the magnetic mines which had an impact on our shipping as devastating as that of the U-Boats.

Further Reading: John recommends the following publication, to which he has contributed a chapter:
20th Century Defences in Britain (Practical Handbooks in Archaeology) Council for British Archaeology 1996 ISBN Bernard Lowry, John Hellis etc
ISBN 9781872414744

John also suggests a visit to www.pillbox-study-group.org.uk, to which sightings of pillboxes can be reported. He says that it’s better to include reports of the obvious ones rather than risk having one slip through the net unreported.

Peter Johnson

Cadbury Congresbury - Guided Walk - 21 August 2010

The final event of the summer Programme for 2010 was a guided walk over the hillfort at Cadbury Congresbury. Our expert guide was the North Somerset Archaeologist Vince Russett.

We set off from the car park of The Star Inn and were soon at the entrance to the site. Vince explained to us how the site sits within two modern parishes: Congresbury and Yatton, though it was doubtless all one estate at one time.

The name Cadbury means something like “The fortification of Cadda”, one of several hillforts with that name, Cadbury Tickenham and South Cadbury, being the two best known local examples.

The Hill is jointly managed by YCCART (Yatton, Congresbury, Claverham and Cleeve Archaeological Research Team) and YACWAG (Yatton and Congresbury Wildlife Action Group), the aim being to gradually remove the scrub and to allow the regeneration of calcareous grassland, a habitat type that develops on thin, grazed limestone soils. The benefit for the archaeology is that hidden features are now becoming better defined and damaging tree roots are kept at bay.

The Congresbury Tithe Map (c.1840) shows the hill as being all open grassland, though interestingly the slopes located in Yatton were maintained woodland, evidenced by the presence of the wood anemone which grows only on the Yatton side of the boundary.

The hillfort probably originated in the period between 700 and 500 BC, though the site has gained renown for the evidence it has yielded about later periods.

The clearance work has begun to reveal clearly defined banks and ditches around the north and east sides of the hill, the steeper south side. We walked along one of the cleared ditches, trying to imagine the ditch deeper and the banks higher.

Vince suggested that the hillfort had, like many others around the country, probably been abandoned during the Roman era.

The hill was reoccupied in the 5th century, when the hill was divided in two, a new bank was built and two guardhouses installed. A major hall was built as evidenced by two huge post holes. It is this period of “Post-Roman re-occupation” that has occasioned much of the recent interest in Cadbury Congresbury. Evidence for continued contact with the Mediterranean comes in the form of pottery imported from Anatolia, North Africa and Spain. The suggestion is that a form of Roman life-style, perhaps with Roman Law and other civil institutions persisted until the mid 6th century. The end may well have been brought about by the well-recorded events of 540 when a series of very bad summers coinciding with a major plague pandemic caused widespread hardship throughout Europe.

With the arrival of the English, believed to have been around 660, following the supposed Battle of Penselwood in 658, any remaining occupation of the hill would have been discouraged and new centres of administration and Christian worship established on the plain below, i.e. the site of modern Congresbury.

The morning’s walk concluded with a visit to the nearby site of the Henley Wood temple. Nothing now remains as the archaeology was totally destroyed by quarrying, which itself has been almost entirely backfilled. All that remains is a splendid view over the North Somerset Levels and the opportunity to walk under the site of a former Romano-British temple.

Grateful for the opportunity to park so conveniently for our visit we repaired to the Star for a welcome lunch.

Bickley Wood

In the afternoon a bonus was on offer in the form of a visit to Bickley Wood, a private site, which is not open to the general public. This was eagerly taken up by those who were able.

Just over the road from the Star lies King’s Wood, of which Bickley Wood is a part. We found ourselves in a completely different environment of gloomy ash and lime woodland. At one time, though, it had been a much busier setting with evidence of quarrying and mining at every turn. But we were there to explore some rather different features. These were the puzzling penannular or YCCCART type enclosures, which have recently been recognized and described by Vince and the YCCCART team. They are not properly understood and, intriguingly, do not seem to have been described elsewhere. Basically they are stone-built enclosures with walls having two drystone faces and rubble infill. So far no dating evidence has been found, although they must be quite old, as in one of the examples that we viewed the parish boundary between Cleeve and Congresbury respects the structure. They appear to come in three fairly standard sizes of ¼, ¾, and 1½ hectares, and so far nineteen of them have been identified across Broadfield Down. Some appear to have a hut circle inside. The current working hypothesis is that they had some function related to the herding of sheep. But until some thorough excavation can be undertaken, the date and purpose of these features is likely to remain a mystery.

Our thanks go to Vince for his inspiring exposition of both sites, and to the owner of Bickley Wood for allowing us access on this occasion.

To learn more about the Hillfort, a visit to YCCCART’s website (just Google the initials) is recommended.

Peter Johnson

At the Quarry

At the Community Festival, Beach Lawns

Saturday 19th June 2010
Visit to Banwell Bone Caves and Tower

Arrived at the car park on a lovely sunny day, although breezy and we were met by the current owners of the house and given a brief talk , next to the Druids Grotto, outlining what the visit would consist of and the relevant history behind the caves, house and follies.

Taken to the original part of the house, which was built by the bishop as a cottage for guests and shown a short video about the caves and their history.

Then we were taken into the main cave via one of the open entrances and this sight is really awesome and difficult to appreciate the age of the event that caused this result as seen. Animal bones, now tidily stacked in great piles by the walls, but when first discovered they carpeted the floor of the cave and must have presented the unsuspecting miners, who found them, with an incredible sight. Further excavation could result in more being found. Some of the other entrances are closed and visits to other caves from the main cave are not possible without the correct climbing equipment and expertise.

Next, we were taken up the hill, passed closed entrances to the main cavern and other caves and the Alcove seat, to the Pebble Summerhouse which is totally fascinating and from which there is a magnificent clear view to Steep Holm in the estuary.

After this, we had a short walk through the woodlands and passed the remains of the other summerhouse which, we were told, had been vandalized and consideration was being given to rebuilding it, to Banwell Tower, which, upon climbing the steps to the top offered a magnificent view all around with it being a clear day. Although coming down was tricky with there being no handrail, but then it is a folly!

A walk back to the house and tea, coffee, cake or cream scones awaited us.

Very enjoyable and fascinating-this is just a brief summary.

Ann Harris

Banwell Bone Caves

Thursday 11 February 2010
Field trip to West Sedgemoor RSPB Reserve

18 people arrived at Dewland Farm in sub-zero temperatures for a conducted visit to the RSPB reserve. After a short walk from the RSPB offices, during which we had an excellent view of a buzzard, we mounted the steps of the viewing platform, which overlooks the marshes where the wintering birds live. There we were able to view flocks of several thousand mallards, teal, wigeon, shovellers, pintail, gadwalls, lapwings, herons, black-tailed godwits and other waders and ducks. But most spectacularly we were treated to a merciless display of hunting by a pair of marsh harriers and a pair of peregrine falcons that were working together with one trying to disturb the water birds while the others swooped to catch any weaker stragglers who became separated from the group. It was a fascinating display of nature at its most awesome.

Tuesday 12 January
'Early Monasteries in North Somerset'
Professor Mick Aston

Around 55 people braved the snowy weather to attend a talk on 'Early Monasteries in North Somerset' by Professor Mick Aston of Channel 4's Time Team fame.
His talk gave us an insight into the various monasteries that had been in places such as Banwell, Congresbury and Woodspring to name a few, in the post-Roman period.
It was an extremely interesting talk and a privilege to have Professor Aston visit the Society.
The Society reached a milestone on the same evening when the 100th member joined.

Professor Aston with Rosemary Dowie

Malcolm with the society's 100th member, Michael Jones