Smithy Project Ends

Our investigations into the former blacksmith's shop have now ended and while almost nothing of the original building survives, we did manage to discover a little new information.

At the building's north-west and south-west corners we found one or two courses of house-bricks laid in a square, forming foundation pillars (first photo, at right). Given that no other foundations were found, we suspect that building may have been a shed-like structure with its frontage open to the track. As can be seen in the second photo, these pillars were laid directly on the natural sand and gravel which in turn overlies sandstone.

While the material above foundation level was modern, it still had a story to tell. We could see how various materials had been deposited (and mostly removed) when the nearby main road was improved in the 1980s, how channels for cables and pipes had been cut, where road-sweepers had emptied their loads and even where removal of invasive plant species had been carried out!

Our full write-up can be downloaded via the Reports page here.

Looking For A Smithy

Our latest project, to find any trace of a village smithy that's at least 200 years old has just begun. Even though it was only demolished in the 1970s, little is known about the building or the people who worked there.

Through our initial desk-based research, we've been able to locate the building on maps going back as far as the start of the 1800s and by overlaying these on satellite images, to ascertain its position. Despite extensive changes to roads, buildings and boundaries over the last fifty years, we're reasonably confident that we have the right spot!

Any trace of the building is somewhere under the metre-deep bank in the middle of this photograph!

Soon after we begun putting in some exploratory trenches, a nearby resident kindly gave us a copy of a photo taken in the late 1960s. This shows two lost buildings, a cottage in the foreground and behind that a part of the old smithy itself. As can be seen in the above photograph, the area is much more wooded today.

A zoomed-in segment from a 1960s photograph shows the smithy building, partially obscured by a cottage, at left.

The indications from our initial digging is positive, with several clusters of house-bricks lying in the anticipated position of the building.

September Meeting

At our meeting on 28th September we enjoyed a series of 3D stereoscopic films courtesy of Phil Brown aka '3D Phil'. The films included breath-taking views of archaeological sites from around the world including numerous locations in Turkey, Egypt, Peru and Cambodia.

Phil's painstaking work in cleaning up images to create views you can almost touch revealed fascinating visual details about ancient buildings, the archaeologists who first explored them and the indigenous people they encountered.

An example of Phil's work for the National Trust can be found here:

https://archive.org/details/NationalTrust4K3DSXSFullMaster

and his Youtube channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/@3DPhilBrown

The Year To Date

As we're now entering the last quarter of 2023 it's worth a quick look back at what we've achieved so far this year.

The year began with a weekend project to investigate brickwork which had been noted below ground some years ago in the yard of Albrighton church. There were no recorded graves in the area and, being close to the site of a ancient building, there was the possibility of building foundations or a cellar. By the end of the dig we knew exactly what we'd found - a pair of brick-built tombs which are almost certainly occupied by a vicar and his family. Despite being the longest-serving vicar in the recorded history of the parish, the location of the grave had for some reason been lost, a wrong that we have finally righted.

The rediscovered tombs at Albrighton

A project begun in the summer of 2022 continued until July and finally yielded results. We'd been searching a vast area for a moated site which probably dated back to the medieval era. Despite geophys surveys and over 40 test pits, Georgian landscaping and World War II construction served to frustrate us until we finally discovered one arm of the moat and the rubble from whatever stood on the island within. Another successful project which we hope to continue in the future.

Worked sandstone blocks and sandstone fragments at the edge of the moat forming a revetment for the building platform

Our next dig was a return to Himley Hall near Dudley, where we've done extensive work in the past. Over a dozen diggers were involved on each day of what turned out to be the hottest weekend of the year, with temperatures around the 30 degree mark. The excellent attendance meant we were able to dig a larger than usual test pit of 2x1 metres all the way down to natural at around 1.25m deep. Finds included many sherds of locally made cooking pots dating from the 12th to 13th century and the resulting stratigraphy was quite spectacular (see earlier post for details). We'll be revisiting this fascinating site soon!

Rim sherd from 12/13th century cooking pot and its profile (below)

 

What will we discover in the final quarter of the year? Who knows, but as is always the case, we can guarantee it will include some surprises!

Willenhall History Society Fair

We had a busy day with lots of interest at the Willenhall History Society's fair held on Saturday 23rd September. Our next display is at the Perton History Fair on 7th October with the final exhibition on 21st October at Wolverhampton Archives.

From https://staffordshirehistorycentre.blog/

The team at Perton Library have planned an amazing history themed escape room and there will be exhibitors, re-enactors and local history groups with lots of free hands on activities to try.

From https://www.wolverhampton.gov.uk

The Wolverhampton Local History Fair is returning to Wolverhampton City Archives’ Molineux Hotel Building, Whitmore Hill, WV1 1SF on Saturday 21 October, 10am to 4pm.

Confirmed exhibitors include the likes of:

    West Midlands Police Museum
    The Western Front Association
    Wolverhampton Archaeology Group,

Birmingham Museums will be bringing along some items from their handling collection so children and adults can get a real feel for historical objects and artefacts.

City of Wolverhampton Council Director of Strategy, Charlotte Johns, said: “As a council, we are proud to support and see the return of the Wolverhampton Local History Fair and I very much encourage everyone to go along if they can.

“The Local History Fair is a great opportunity for residents to discover our city's fascinating past. The City of Wolverhampton Archives houses a wealth of material relating to the history of all parts of the city, including Bilston, Bushbury, Tettenhall and Wednesfield.

"Visitors will also be able to speak to experts who have carried out wide ranging research into the history of Wolverhampton and the Black Country and find out more about the service that the city archives offer.”

 

 

Himley Revisited

The south section of our test pit

The hottest weekend of the year was no barrier to our dedicated team when we revisited the grounds of Himley Hall near Dudley. 

With more than a dozen diggers on each day, we were able to put in a 2m x 1m test pit all the way down to natural at around 1.25m. Under the topsoil we found a demolition layer followed by a short sandy interval before another deeper and more compacted demolition layer. Below this we found around 15-20cm of a fine dark silt followed by more sand before finally coming down on to the natural sandstone.

Before the current hall was built, an older moated house stood in the vicinity. The layer of silt and the very flat sandstone at the bottom of the test pit could in some way be related to the moat or its watercourses.

As can be seen, the final sections presented some very clear and colourful stratigraphy - exactly what each layer represents and when it was deposited we'll endevaour to work out from the plentiful finds, which spanned the 12th to 19th centuries.

Given that Himley Park is open to the public and very well used, we were surprised that we didn't encounter any modern rubbish. This was no doubt due to our site being within the ha-ha, an area much less used than the general parkland. 

 

The spectacular view from our dig site

SOTMAS Visit

Today we visited the current excavation site of our friends at Stoke-on-Trent Museum Archaeology Society. The group have been digging the site of an early post-medieval house for a few years and have uncovered much of the floor plan which displays various phases of building.

Recent discoveries seem to indicate other building phases while much remains to be understood about the structures and features already uncovered.

As might be anticipated from the open excavation of a domestic site, there have been many interesting finds, including the range of ceramics one might expect from a dwelling so close to The Potteries.

 Details of the dig can be found at the Society's website.

Moat Pseudo-Section

Here's the final plot from a series of resistivity readings taken at our moated site yesterday. The diagram shows a 'pseudo-section' ie a slice down into the ground across a single line, rather than the usual points on a horizontal plane.

The rubble-filled moat is clear to see (the big blue blob at left!) and its size and profile match with our excavations nearby. Being able to detect the former moat in this way should help us to trace its outline and limit the number of exploratory trenches we need to put in.

The higher resistance area at right lies within the area of the building platform and may hint at surviving foundations.

 

Creswell Crags

Engravings at 'Church Hole', made during the last ice age some 12,000 years ago

 

On Saturday 8th July, members visited Creswell Crags, near Worksop, Nottinghamshire, to attend a meeting organised by Dr George Nash on the subject of rock art. The programme consisted of seven lectures from eminent speakers covering subjects such as cup marks, ring marks, cave painting and linear incisions. The morning session was devoted to the art of the UK and Ireland while the afternoon focused on art from America, South Africa and Australia.

All of the lectures were superbly presented, resulting in many questions and discussions from the audience. This was an informative field trip which served to improve our knowledge of rock art, which is a fairly recent innovation within archaeological circles.

Spectacular scenery at Creswell Crags.

Image copyright Creswell Crags Museum & Heritage Centre

 

 

 

Progress at the Moated Site

 

Good progress is now being made on our current project, with almost a complete cross-section of the moat having been excavated. Our work to date shows that the moat was around 1.2m deep in the middle with the blue-grey sandstone floor rising gently towards each edge. The edges of the moat seem to be formed by a vertical 'wall' of clay in front of which, sand has been used to form a slope which in turn has also been covered with a thin layer of clay.

Dating evidence from the very bottom of the moat suggests it was last cleaned out in the second half of the 17th century but after that it was allowed to silt up. Fast forward to the late 1700s and the house which stood on the island platform was demolished and the rubble put into the moat. Since then around a foot of topsoil has built up both mostly as a result of leaf litter from the nearby oak trees.

The photo above shows the north end of our trench, where the rising floor meets a wall of clay at the furthest point.

We're still working on the south end (below), having just encountered the bottom of the clay slope in which the large stone at centre is set.

 

This artificial colour image shows the various strata to good effect; topsoil, demolition rubble, silt, clay slope, sand, sandstone at bottom and clay 'wall' at left:

 

Tilley Field Trip

On 24th June WAG members were treated to a guided tour of the beautiful Shropshire village of Tilley. Our hosts,  George Nash and Alastair Reid, have spent years studying the village's amazing collection of timber-framed houses and its history in general.

Their work forms the basis for two books, 'The Tilley Timber Project' and 'Tilley: The Secret History of a Secret Place'. The 'timber project' began with dendrochronological dating of timbers but expanded to include other historical aspects of the buildings concerned, while the 'secret history' book is a detailed look at the entire history of Tilley from the Anglo-Saxon era to the twentieth century.

One of the most fascinating details revealed by George and Alastair's work is the notable spikes in building activity in certain years, especially in the early seventeenth century. They were able to show that local trees were used for construction and explain the varied and intriguing range of carpenter's marks and witches marks. In the latter case experimental archaeology was used to discover exactly how candles could produce flame marks on oak beams without burning down the entire house!

The glorious weather (and tea and cakes in the garden!) topped off one of the most memorable and interesting visits WAG have made in recent years.

 

 

 

Unknown Burials Rediscovered

 

Over the weekend of 7th/8th January 2023, we investigated some underground brickwork which had been recently been brought to the attention of the Albrighton and District Historical Society. Having worked in partnership with ADHS before we were confident that this was a lead worth following up and that there would be plenty of local interest. However, we didn't expect to find two intact tombs which don't appear in the burial records or to be able to welcome so many interested townsfolk to our dig.

The photo above shows the pair of brick-built tombs with their barrel-vaulted roofs and below, the WAG dig team. Two Society members also joined us for the dig which was a resounding success with dozens of locals checking on our progress, some visiting as many as three times over the course of the weekend!

Clues discovered during the dig will hopefully enable the Society to discover the identify of those interred and add a little more to the recorded history of the town.