29 Mar 2025
Extensive Cobbled Surfaces
12 Feb 2025
Discoveries At Our New Site
Work began at our new site a fortnight ago and in that time we've made two fascinating (and fairly important) discoveries. Firstly, in the first half of the 19th century, there was a 'whim-gin' or 'horse-gin' coal mine at the site which we now know gave the name 'Hell Hole' to the field.
The second discovery is rather older and equally important. Running alongside the south part of the mine area we've discovered a medieval cobbled surface which could be a track or something else. Whatever it turns out to be, from pottery finds we know it was in use in the 13th or 14th centuries! We have a couple of months to investigate further before the land returns to grazing use for the rest of the year.
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Part of the cobbled surface |
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South Staffordshire Whiteware dating to the 13th or 14th century. Just some of the 40+ potsherds discovered lying on top of the cobbled surface. |
17 Jan 2025
Marsh Park, Brierley Hill
3 Dec 2024
Plough Inn Report
The extensive report covering our eight month long excavation of the former Plough Inn at Gailey is now available via our Reports page (number 83 near the end of the list). The document runs to almost 160 pages, including many photographs and illustrations.
Please note that the download is a zip archive which contains two files, the report and the site plan, both in PDF format.
8 Nov 2024
School Test Pit Turns Up A Few Surprises
24 Aug 2024
Lots of Room(s) at the Inn!
Our excavation at the former public house continues with new walls, floors and other features coming to light at every dig session. Despite the complexity of 300 years of extensions and alterations the history of the building is slowly becoming clearer.
It appears that there were originally two cottages at this location probably built in the late 1600s or early 1700s and mostly unaltered until the first half of the 19th century, when they were partially demolished and absorbed into the new inn and farm.
As the century progressed the inn expanded and new farm buildings were built around it. Later in the century some of the outbuildings were demolished as the inn and domestic side expanded. The early 20th century saw a little more building as the inn became solely a farmhouse until the 1960s, that decade of upheaval, when it was finally demolished.
Our work at the site continues and no doubt our theories will be modified as new discoveries are made and the history of this fascinating site becomes clearer still.
Here are a few of the myriad features we've uncovered to date.
Part of the cobbled farmyard:
The brick floor of a c1700 cottage overlaid by a later brick floor:
An inglenook fireplace which contained dateable pottery and clay pipes:
Floors of an early utility building overlaid by various concrete footings:
27 Jul 2024
Festival Feedback
Here are some of the email and Facebook comments we've received following our Festival of Archaeology digs. It was hard work but we very much look forward to doing it all again next year!
25 Jul 2024
More Discoveries at Oak House
Our three-day test pit dig at Oak House which ended today was a great success. Thirty three years ago a number of exploratory trenches were dug in the back garden of this grand old house and in one, the corner of a wall foundation was found. No further investigation was carried out at the time so our objective for this dig was to locate the structure and look for any dating evidence.
We know that the building was in existence in the 1840s since it's illustrated on the parish tithe map but it had been demolished by the late 1800s when the house was converted to a museum. After serving as 'pleasure gardens', the back lawn became a bowling green in the 20th century. The garden is now undergoing partial 're-wilding' with an emphasis on a sustainable wildlife habitat rather than formal mown lawns which have little environmental benefit.
While we didn't find anything in a sealed archaeological context to provide a date, we did locate our target and discovered a little more information.
The foundations consist of large sandstone blocks on top of which lies a 10cm (4 inch) thick 'pad' of sandstone fragments, tile and mortar, which is wider than the blocks. Why this overhang exists isn't clear but we plan to carry out a more extensive excavation in the near future which may answer this question and provide a date.
A 3D photogrammetry model can be found here.