Archaeologia Cantiana, Volume CXLI (2020)
Written By Jacob Scott
ARCHÆOLOGIA CANTIANA
CONTENTS
‘Robbed in Antiquity’: Grave opening in seventh-century east Kent –
stimulated by cross-Channel influences. By Alison Klevnäs . . . . . . . . . . .
William Somner (1606-1669). Part II. By David Wright . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Republican Dressel 1 Amphorae from East Wear Bay, Folkstone.
By Adrian Weston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Three Weeks of Journeys, Ecclesiastical Ceremony and Entertainment in Kent: letters from Mary Yorke, 1774. By Anthea Jones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
An unusual fifteenth-century building with a special first-floor ‘meeting
Room’ – 15 Knightrider Street, Maidstone.
By David and Barbara Martin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
England’s earliest painted and framed Royal Coat of Arms (Edward VI, 1547- 53) in St Mary’s Church, Westerham: the work of a Low Countries’ artist commissioned by the Gresham Family.
By David M. Boston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Deal-type inhumations in Kent: defining an Iron Age mortuary rite in
light of new discoveries. By Andrew W. Lamb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Brickmaking Industry in Kent c.1825-1900. By Peter Tann . . . . . . . . .
The History of the Carmelite Priory at Lossenham, Newenden, c.1243-1538. By Richard Copsey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Rochester Cathedral Masons’ marks. By Jacob H. Scott . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Community care: Civic charitable institutions in the Kentish Cinque Ports,
c.1300-c.1500. By Sheila Sweetinburgh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Reconstructing the Prehistoric Landscapes of the Littlebrook Power station site, Dartford. By Phil Stastney et al. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Understanding Becket’s Canterbury: the Legacy of William Urry.
By Cressida Williams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
A Roman tile-kiln and an associated third-century hoard of sestertii at Bircholt Farm, Brabourne. By Ernest Black et al. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dover Castle and Royal Power in twelfth-century Kent.
By Richard Eales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Excavations in Westgate Gardens, Canterbury, revealing the changing character of Roman Watling Street, and Durovernum’s evolving street layout. By Jake Weekes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Two neighbouring Kent Estates near Hythe and their remarkable artistic connections in the mid eighteenth century.
By Rodney Griffiths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Research and Discoveries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Reviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Obituary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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ARCHÆOLOGIA CANTIANA
2020
2020 VOL. 141
www.kentarchaeology.org.uk
Kent Archaeological Society
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Archæologia Cantiana
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Images of Kent No. 16. Watercolour of Nettlestead Church (c.1800) with Nettlestead Place to the right.
From the KAS Library Collections (artist unknown).
Archæologia Cantiana
Being Contributions to the History and Archaeology of Kent
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VOLUME CXLI 2020
Published by the
KENT ARCHÆOLOGICAL SOCIETY
Charitable Incorporated Organization no. 1176989
© 2020 Kent Archaeological Society ISSN 0066-5894
Produced for the Society by Past Historic, Kings Stanley, Gloucestershire Printed in Great Britain
NOTES FOR THE GUIDANCE OF CONTRIBUTORS TO
ARCHAEOLOGIA CANTIANA
The end of September is the latest date for acceptance of articles for the volume to be published the following June. Earlier submissions are particularly welcome.
Papers in Archaeologia Cantiana typically contain 5,000-10,000 words. Significantly longer items are sometimes acceptable. With the setting up of the Society’s website another option for long papers is to publish a Summary or Introduction in Archaeologia Cantiana referenced to the full report on the Internet.
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Authors should identify the owner(s) of any copyright material (textual or illustrative) contained within articles offered for publication; and are responsible for obtaining the appropriate permission(s).
Cover illustration: Edward Haytley’s painting (c.1746) of The Brockman Family beside Temple Pond, Beachborough Manor, Kent. © National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, reproduced with permission. See article on pp. 275-82 (pp. 279-80).
CONTENTS
List of Officers and Members of Council vii-viii; Editorial Personnel viii
‘Robbed in Antiquity’: Grave opening in seventh-century east Kent
– stimulated by cross-Channel influences. By Alison Klevnäs . . .
William Somner (1606-1669). Part II. By David Wright . . . . . . . . .
Republican Dressel 1 Amphorae from East Wear Bay, Folkstone. By Adrian Weston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Three Weeks of Journeys, Ecclesiastical Ceremony and Entertainment in Kent: letters from Mary Yorke, 1774. By Anthea Jones . . . . . .
An unusual fifteenth-century building with a special first-floor
‘Meeting Room’ – 15 Knightrider Street, Maidstone.
By David and Barbara Martin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
England’s earliest painted and framed Royal Coat of Arms (Edward VI, 1547-53) in St Mary’s Church, Westerham: the work of a Low Countries’ artist commissioned by the Gresham Family.
By David M. Boston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Deal-type inhumations in Kent: defining an Iron Age mortuary
group in light of new discoveries. By Andrew W. Lamb . . . . . . . .
The Brickmaking Industry in Kent c.1825-1900. By Peter Tann . . .
The History of the Carmelite Priory at Lossenham, Newenden,
c.1243-1538. By Richard Copsey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Rochester Cathedral Masons’ marks. By Jacob H. Scott . . . . . . . . . . .
Community care: Civic charitable institutions in the Kentish Cinque Ports, c.1300-c.1500. By Sheila Sweetinburgh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Reconstructing the Prehistoric Landscapes of the Littlebrook Power station site, Dartford. By Phil Stastney et al. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Understanding Becket’s Canterbury: the Legacy of William Urry. By Cressida Williams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
A Roman tile-kiln and an associated third-century hoard of sestertii at Bircholt Farm, Brabourne. By Ernest Black et al. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dover Castle and Royal Power in twelfth-century Kent.
By Richard Eales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Excavations in Westgate Gardens, Canterbury, revealing the changing character of Roman Watling Street, and Durovernum’s evolving street layout. By Jake Weekes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Two neighbouring Kent Estates near Hythe and their remarkable artistic connections in the mid eighteenth century.
By Rodney Griffiths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
PAGE
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47
59
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84
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275
18. Research and Discoveries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Neolithic polished flint axe from East Wear Bay, Folkestone . . . A previously unrecorded Prehistoric barrow on Coxhill Mount, River, near Dover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
283
284
283
The place name Kent and Welsh Cant ‘rim’; ‘wall’ . . . . . . . . . . . . A late eleventh-century Rochester manuscript apparently echoing the political message of the Bayeux Tapestry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
286
293
A 1261 charter, a seal and a depiction of Canterbury’s pre-1380 Westgate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
313
Roman, Medieval and Post-Medieval activity at Court Lodge Road, Appledore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
321
The conundrum of the apex window at St Mary the Virgin Church, Eastry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
326
Some further bee boles found in Kent at Old St Albans Court, Nonington . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
328
An example of the Kent parish returns listing contributions received for the distressed Protestants of Ireland, 1642: those for Elham . .
331
19. Reviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
P. Clark, G. Shand and J. Weekes. Chalk Hill, Neolithic and Bronze Age discoveries at Ramsgate, Kent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
327
337
G. Dawkes, D. Hart, K. Grant and D. Swift. Beyond the Wantsum: Archaeological investigations in South Thanet, Kent . . . . . . . . .
339
G. Dawkes. Living by the Creek. Excavations at Kemsley near Sittingbourne, Kent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
341
Caroline K. Mackenzie. Culture and Society at Lullingstone Roman Villa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
342
Carolyn Marino Malone. Twelfth-century Sculptural Finds at Canterbury Cathedral and the Cult of Thomas Becket . . . . . . . . .
343
B. Awty. Adventure in Iron: the blast furnace and its spread from Namur to northern France, England and North America, 1450- 1650: a technological, political and genealogical investigation .
345
T.L. Richardson. Tudor Sandwich: A Social History . . . . . . . . . . . .
346
Ros Shefford (ed.). Minnis Memories and More . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
347
20. Obituary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
349
21. Notes on Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
351
22. Committees of the Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
356
23. General Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
357
KENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY
officers and members of the council, 1st january 2020
President
G. CRAMP, b.sc., ph.d.
Patrons
THE VISCOUNT DE L’ISLE, m.b.e.
THE COUNTESS SONDES
A.I. MOFFAT
C.R. POUT, m.a.
J. WHYMAN, ph.d., b.sc. (econ), assoc.cipd
PROFESSOR D. KILLINGRAY
SIR ROBERT WORCESTER, k.b.e., d.l.
Vice-Presidents
M.L.M. CLINCH, m.a.
R.F. LEGEAR, m.c.i.f.a.
S.H. WILLIS, b.a., m.a., ph.d.
Editor
T. G. LAWSON, m.a.(cantab), dip.kent.hist.
honeditor@kentarchaeology.org.uk
General Secretary
A.C. DREW
secretary@kentarchaeology.org
Treasurer
B. F. BEECHING, b.a.(hons), m.a.
treasurer@kentarchaeology.org.uk
Librarian
MRS R. G. SMALLEY, b.a., grad. dip. lib. sci., m.sc, m.a., dip. arch.
librarian@kentarchaeology.org.uk
Membership Secretary
MRS S. BROOMFIELD, f.s.a.
membership@kentarchaeology.org.uk
Curator
Dr E.D. BLANNING, b.a., m.a., ph.d.
curator@kentarchaeology.org.uk
Elected Members of the Council
H. Basford, b.a., m.phil. Canterbury
F. Birkbeck, b.a., Canterbury
C. Blair-Myers f.g.s., f.b.c.s. Maidstone
Prof. K. Brown, m.a. (cantab.), pg dip. ch., ph.d., f.r.s.a ………… Canterbury
P. Burton Charing
K.H. Kersey, b.a Bearsted
A.J.R. Mayfield, b.a., m.a. Gillingham
S.M. Sweetinburgh, ph.d Canterbury
R.W. Taylor, b.a., m.a., pgce Gravesend
P. Titley, b.a., m.a Maidstone
C.P. Ward Otford
Editorial Personnel
Editor Terence Lawson
Book Reviews Editor Dr Elizabeth Edwards
[All enquiries, including those relating to book reviews, to honeditor@kentarchaeology.org.uk]
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the permission of the Kent Archaeological Society.
‘ROBBED IN ANTIQUITY’: GRAVE OPENING IN SEVENTH- CENTURY EAST KENT – STIMULATED BY
CROSS-CHANNEL INFLUENCES
alison klevnäs
Signs of what appears to be ancient grave robbery have frequently been reported in excavations of Anglo-Saxon cemeteries in Kent. The county is the one area of early medieval England with substantial evidence of such plunder. Affected graves appear ransacked, with incomplete skeletons found in disorder on grave floors and in the fill. Artefacts, or at least their fragmentary remains, are often found in the disturbed burials, but grave-good collections appear diminished, with metal stains on bones sometimes indicating the original presence of removed objects.
Until recently no attempt had been made to collate reports of robbery, nor to compare the evidence from different sites, with the poor publication re- cord for cemeteries a major hindrance. Moreover, discussions in Kent have been almost entirely isolated from the parallel evidence for widespread re- opening in contemporary cemeteries on the Merovingian Continent.
This paper presents the key Kentish findings of recent research which brought together all the accessible evidence for disturbance of contemporary burials in Anglo-Saxon England as a whole. Reopening of recent graves occurred intensively, especially in the east of the county, being particularly common on the Isle of Thanet. There are also isolated examples of similarly treated graves in west Kent and elsewhere in southern and eastern England, but only east Kent shows reopening levels comparable to those seen in cemeteries over the Channel.
Looking in depth at the evidence from the most heavily disturbed sites in east Kent, it quickly becomes apparent that this is not a question of straight- forward robbery. On the Continent this period featured pervasive practices of revisiting, opening, manipulating and removing selected objects from recent burials, and it is now clear that these customs crossed the Channel into Kent.
Disturbed early medieval graves are still being discovered in Kent and are likely to come to light in many future excavations. Meanwhile archival records of a number of excavated examples are currently being revisited as publications are attempted for some key sites. A central aim of this paper is therefore to highlight outstanding questions which may be answered by future excavators, as well as to draw attention to the forms of evidence which are crucial to interpretation and which it may be possible to retrieve from archive material, especially where photographs
ALISON KLEVNÄS
and drawings survive. Some recent benchmark publications of comparable sites on the Continent show how much evidence may be reconstructed, if grave opening is approached as a significant episode in the biography of a cemetery (e.g. Codreanu- Windauer 1997; Burgweinting-Schule in Zintl 2012; Theuws & van Haperen 2012). Although ancient grave opening is a well-known phenomenon in Merovingian cemeteries (e.g. Stoll 1939; Werner 1953; Müller 1976; Roth 1978; Périn 1980;
Grünewald 1988; Perkins 1991; Aspöck 2005; Bofinger & Przemyslaw 2008; Jimenez & Carré 2008), little inter-site research had until recently been carried out, so that the research behind this paper (Klevnäs 2013) was the first time data had been intensively compared between early medieval cemeteries at a regional level. The aim was to recover as full a picture as possible of where and when in Anglo-Saxon England grave disturbance was and was not carried out.
While a number of isolated cases were found in other areas, by far the majority of reports of reopening come from Kent. Several prominent reports originate with one archaeologist in particular, the late David Perkins, who worked in Thanet for many years. However, ancient disturbance has been recognised by a wide variety of excavators in the county. The apparent association of Perkins with robbed sites is largely the result of his publishing record; the majority of disturbed graves have been found by other excavators, but not so promptly published. Perkins also contributed significantly more information and analysis of robbing than is typical in excavation reports (Perkins & Hawkes 1984, Perkins 1985a, Perkins 1987, Perkins 1991, Perkins 1992).
Accounts of disturbed graves have been published from 1866 onwards, with the most recent in the excavations in advance of the East Kent Access Road (Andrews 2015). The evidence of deliberate early disturbance in Kent cemeteries discussed here was recorded by at least nine site directors: J. Brent, W.P.D. Stebbing, A. Rowe, A. Warhurst, A.C. Hogarth, L. Webster, S.C. Hawkes, D.R.J. Perkins, and
D. Hart. At four sites (Finglesham, Bradstow School in Broadstairs, Monkton, and Sarre) disturbed graves have been identified by different excavators in successive campaigns of excavation. At Finglesham this was despite initial scepticism by the second director about the earlier interpretation of robbing.
When this research was carried out, early medieval graves had been excavated and recorded at about 120 sites in Kent (Richardson 2005). All 120 were reviewed in order to identify sites where the scale and standard of excavation produced data useful for this study. A total of 32 cemeteries was selected in which the quality of excavation and recording indicated that any early disturbance was likely to have been both observed and documented. Records of the selected burial sites were searched for evidence of reopening, as well as other forms of disturbance, including plough damage, unrecorded antiquarian excavation, recent robbing, and animal damage. Particular attention was paid to how excavators identified, described, and distinguished between different forms of disturbance.
The 32 cemeteries were divided into three groups: 8 sites with considerable evidence of early disturbance, 10 sites with limited evidence, and 14 sites with no evidence of early grave opening. Seven of the 8 more heavily disturbed sites have detailed information available in publications or site archives for at least some of the excavated graves; this is summarized in Table 1 (the full tabulated data for all the studied sites can be found on the KAS website). The full publication of this
‘ROBBED IN ANTIQUITY’: GRAVE OPENING IN SEVENTH-CENTURY EAST KENT
TABLE 1. SELECTED DATA ON THE EIGHT SITES WITH THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF EARLY GRAVE OPENING
Bradstow school
St Peter
Margate
Monkton
Ozengell
Sarre Brent +TAT
Lyminge
Fingl’ham
All 8 sites
No. graves for analysis
89
388
34
34
89
292
68
237
1,197
No. graves disturbed
18
54
3
39
39
11
17
181
% disturbed
20
14
9
44
13
16
7
15
No. burials for analysis
91
35
91
316
68
251
852
Confirmed male burials % total
40
37
36
26*
44
35
37
Ditto Female %
16
17
42
35*
41
38
34
% Adult burials
62
60
69
87
76
70
75
% Pre-adult burials
23
6
26
13
13
22
18
No. disturbed graves with artefacts
15
47
3
33
28
5
12
143
% with artefacts
83
87
100
85
72
45
71
79
No. weapon graves
24
70
28
122
No. disturbed weapon graves
4
21
3
5
8
0
4
45
%
17
11
14
13
No. disturbed graves with beads
3
13
0
12
4
1
3
36
No. graves with kerb-slots
7
0
5
2
0
No. disturbed graves with kerb-slots
4
0
4
2
0
3
* Graves excavated by the Thanet Archaeological Trust only.
ALISON KLEVNÄS
research (Klevnäs 2013) sets out the evidence for each cemetery and discusses its reliability, as far as possible at the level of individual graves. All available details of each disturbed and probably disturbed grave are presented, along with plans of the disturbed cemeteries and graves, many previously unpublished. This article is based on that data, but concentrates on presenting the results of the inter-site analysis of the cemeteries with considerable evidence of early disturbance. These include at least 183 affected graves, or about 15% of the 1,197 fully recorded graves at the sites. This is a much higher level of ancient grave reopening than previously recognised in the county, largely due to the access kindly granted by the British Museum to the evidence from the two Broadstairs sites. In 2010-2011 several further examples were uncovered (Andrews 2015); on the limited published information these resemble the previous finds in date and appearance.
A further ten Kent cemeteries have limited evidence of early disturbance, confined to one or two graves at each site. At least 18 disturbed graves are known from these sites, taking the minimum number recognised in Kent to 201 graves (containing 212 buried individuals). At Polhill, Darenth Park, Mill Hill and Eastry substantial areas have been excavated, showing that these sites are almost entirely intact, with just one or two cases of disturbance. On the other hand, the two Minster sites, Hoo Farm and Thorne Farm, may represent limited excavations into extensively disturbed burial grounds. Initial information from the 2003-2006 excavations of about 100 graves at Bourne Park suggested that significant evidence of early reopening had been found (Wilkinson unpubl.), but reported data remain unsatisfactory. The remaining fourteen sites either showed no signs of early robbing, or, as at Bekesbourne II, it was concluded that reports of reopening are unsubstantiated.
Geographic distribution
All the 8 heavily disturbed sites are in east Kent, with 6 on the Isle of Thanet (Fig. 1). The two exceptions are Finglesham and Lyminge, some distance to the south. The heavily disturbed sites are interspersed with unaffected cemeteries and with ones in which only one or two burials have been reopened. This pattern resembles that seen in the Merovingian kingdoms, where neighbouring cemeteries of similar date often show quite different reopening rates (e.g. Fingerlin 1971, 16-54, Roth 1978, 60). Finglesham, for example, is close to the extensively excavated sites of Mill Hill, Deal, and Updown, Eastry, which have only minimal evidence of early disturbance. Likewise at Dover Buckland over 400 burials have been excavated without any signs of early medieval reopening being recorded, despite this site’s proximity to extensively disturbed Lyminge, and its substantially overlapping use-period. It is also notable that Dover Buckland and the similarly undisturbed cemeteries at Townsend Road, St Margaret’s at Cliffe, and Cliff’s End Farm are so close to the coast: it is not the case that accessible coastal burial grounds were disturbed while inland sites remained intact.
The Affected Graves
Between the heavily disturbed cemeteries the percentage of affected graves ranges from 8% at Finglesham to 44% at Ozengell. This variation in the proportion of graves disturbed is probably partly a result of incomplete cemetery excavations, since at
‘ROBBED IN ANTIQUITY’: GRAVE OPENING IN SEVENTH-CENTURY EAST KENT
image
Fig. 1 Map of the early medieval burial sites in eastern Kent reviewed in the study. (There is a scattering of seven cemeteries in the rest of Kent which are either undisturbed or without significant disturbance.)
some sites opened graves are concentrated in particular areas. It is also likely that the diagnosis of early disturbance was more readily made at some sites than others. However, since the basis of the diagnosis of deliberate opening has been reviewed for every single grave in this sample, with numbers revised downwards at most sites, it seems there is real variation in levels, as is seen across the Channel.
Dimensions
ALISON KLEVNÄS
Graves reported as deliberately reopened are on average substantially deeper, longer and wider than undisturbed ones. There is variation between sites: disturbed graves at Ozengell are only an average of 7cm deeper than undisturbed ones, compared to 30cm at Sarre. However, in every dimension at every site for which figures are available, the disturbed graves are larger.
The observation that disturbed graves are consistently deeper than average substantially rules out the possibility that ‘disturbance in antiquity’ is misreported plough damage. Most cemeteries in this intensively farmed region have suffered some plough damage, but it is the shallowest graves which are most vulnerable.
It is likely that larger and more conspicuous graves were deliberately selected for reopening. Digging into burials may itself lead to enlarged grave cuts; there are some cases where grave cuts have evidently been damaged and extended. In St Peter’s Grave 261, for example, the head end is some 20cm deeper than the rest, suggesting that the reopeners ‘over-dug’ and increased the dimensions in this area of the grave. However, such cases are relatively few and seem usually to result in recognisably irregular re-cuts confined to the grave lip. In such cases excavators seem to have tried to record the dimensions of the original cut, rather than letting the robbers’ work render their measurements inaccurate (e.g. Finglesham Grave 139).
Age of the deceased
Only a small number of infant and child burials are reported as disturbed. This is in part due to the relatively poor preservation of sub-adult bones; displaced skeletal remains are usually key to recognising reopening. However, there are indications that children’s graves may have been avoided, since almost all the recorded examples are of sub-adults buried in large, adult-sized graves. This is an indication that reopeners may have been guided by aboveground appearance rather than previous familiarity with the interment. Beyond the possible avoidance of children’s graves, no other age patterns are evident. Reopening affected adult graves in all age categories.
Gender
Across the 8 heavily disturbed sites 54 female burials (19% of total), 74 male (22%) and 63 unsexed individuals (15%) had been affected (sexing here on the basis of a combination of skeletal data and grave-good arrays, see Klevnäs 2013 for details). These average figures mask considerable differences between cemeteries. In particular, at Monkton and Lyminge male burials make up the overwhelming majority of disturbed graves.
With the caveat that many disturbed burials lack gendered grave-goods, it is thus possible that male burials were more frequently targeted than female ones, at least at some sites. However, it is by no means the case that male graves were exclusively targeted. Male graves may have been preferred, either for their grave- goods or for some other reason, but female graves were also frequent targets.
This does not necessarily mean that reopeners brought with them foreknowledge
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of the sex of the buried individuals. Male and female graves may have been differentially marked on the surface; it seems plausible that the marked gendering of grave-good assemblages extended to other aspects of burial ritual and monument. Finally, there is also the possibility that male graves were more lastingly marked, so that more of them were visible to reopeners.
Markers and structural features
How and for how long graves remained marked on the surface is a key issue for grave reopening. Widespread and varied evidence exists for the use of grave markers in Anglo-Saxon field cemeteries (Lucy 2000, 97-102, Hirst & Clark 2009, 645). Above all, intercutting is so rare that all or almost all graves must have been indicated in some way.
In most cases in Kent it appears that not only were graves still marked at the time of reopening, but the outlines of the graves were still clearly discernible on the surface, since the disturbance is confined to within the grave cut and frequently to a specific part of it. This argument was explicitly made in the case for an early robbing date by the excavators at a number of sites, including Lyminge. At Bradstow School it is notable that the prehistoric graves which are intermingled with the early medieval ones as secondary interments on a Bronze Age barrow were not reopened: they were either invisible or readily distinguishable from the more recent interments that were the robbers’ targets.
There is a small number of graves in which ‘finding cuts’ to locate the exact edge of the grave cut are reported. One of these is Ozengell Grave 60, probably also the oldest disturbed grave at the site, which could explain it being less clearly defined on the surface. As shown at Mill Hill, Deal (Parfitt 1997, 17), graves did occasionally disappear from view within the use-periods of long-lived sites. On the other hand, Ozengell Grave 60 was also highly unusual in preserving what was thought to be the Anglo-Saxon ground surface under the robbers’ spoil. Substantial truncation of the upper levels of graves is the norm, especially since modern ploughing. Witness, for example, how much shallower the graves excavated in the late 20th century at Sarre were than those dug in the previous century by Brent (Perkins 1991). Where these upper layers are lost, so is evidence of finding cuts, so that disturbance apparently centred on a particular part of the grave may be giving an exaggerated appearance of accuracy on the part of the reopeners.
There are several more cases where slight extensions of grave cuts may be the result of uncertainty about where to dig, but are more likely due to the need to get a tool under a coffin lid to lever it open. The latter explanation is likely in Monkton Grave 22, which was reopened while the body was still substantially articulated, so that any cover was also likely to be intact. There can also be difficulties in distinguishing between finding cuts and other features (e.g. Bradstow School Grave 11 and St Peter’s Tip Grave 233).
Did some forms of burial monument attract reopeners? In many cases the marker showing the whereabouts and orientation of a burial may simply have been earth piled over the grave, which would be enough to indicate where to dig. However, a range of more elaborate forms of aboveground monument are known archaeologically, with the most conspicuous and durable form being the
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earth barrows commonly used in Kent. Some 752 out of Richardson’s 2,934 Kent burials were recorded as lying under mounds, the majority single graves under individual newly built barrows, but some inserted into prehistoric monuments. Even this figure is likely to represent significant under-recording, since antiquarian observations before intensive ploughing in the 20th century refer to much higher numbers of barrows than are seen today.
Such mounds do not appear to have attracted high rates of robbing, despite their lasting visibility. At Finglesham, for example, only 8 out of the at least 18 likely barrows were found disturbed. On the other hand, reopeners evidently did sometimes consider it worth their while to dig down through these substantial monuments. This has significant implications for the selection of burials for reopening: it was not the graves which are easiest to access which were chosen. Digging through a mound takes much longer and more effort than opening a flat- grave, yet barrows were still sometimes targeted. Barrows cannot be seen as a deterrent to reopeners, at least not an effective one.
Less monumental but even more common are postholes for wooden markers (e.g. Finglesham Grave 60). In some cases several postholes are found grouped together, suggesting a structure. Christina Lee (2007, 93-95) has recently surveyed the evidence for such constructions – outside Kent – and speculated on the possible superstructures and functions. In east Kent, a number of cemeteries have evidence for complex forms of internal and external structural features, which were first classified by Hogarth (1973) at St Peter’s, Broadstairs, with updates by Perkins (1991) at Sarre and Ozengell, and a recent survey by Richardson (2005a, 116-124). Although conventionally discussed together under the label ‘structural features’, these are varied, ranging from flint-packing around coffins to kerbs around graves, to apparently substantial structures or canopies over them. The original appearance of these forms of grave elaboration is currently poorly understood and in need of further study.
As Table 1 shows, the disturbance rates of graves with recorded postholes or other structural features are higher than average. However, the specifics of which structures were targeted vary significantly from site to site. There is no clear relationship between reopening and any one type of grave structure. It is not the case that a particular form of internal or external feature was consistently avoided or preferred by reopeners across the disturbed sites.
The only strong association is between kerbslots and disturbance. Graves surrounded by these rectangular gullies thought originally to have contained stone uprights are seen at Lyminge, Ozengell, and St Peter’s Tip. A high proportion are disturbed at all three sites. At Lyminge both examples had been reopened, and at Ozengell 4 out of 5 were disturbed. At St Peter’s Tip 4 out of 7 examples were definitely reopened, and it is possible that all had been. Were these graves selected on the basis of specific symbolic connotations, or simply because they were conspicuous? There is little to indicate whether this form of grave structure was associated with impressive grave-good assemblages, largely because almost all examples have been looted.
Conversely, there are plenty of examples of highly elaborated graves which are not disturbed. Ozengell Grave 64 is a particularly striking example. Within the grave was a ‘pillow’ of earth packing plus chalk packing along the sides. Probably
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visible aboveground were 3 pairs of posts along the sides, a square sandstone slab and a chalk pyramid (Richardson 2005a, 121). Yet this grave was found undisturbed at a site with an overall reopening rate of up to 44%.
Dating
Dating reopening requires establishing first the date of the initial burial, and then the length of the interval between interment and disturbance. This section briefly discusses the information which is useful in assessing that interval and summarises the conclusions which can be drawn about the chronology of the reopening in Anglo-Saxon Kent. The basis, precision, and reliability of relevant individual dates are discussed in Klevnäs 2013.
The majority of the disturbed burials are dated to the 7th century, either by artefact finds or by inference since they are in cemeteries dominated by 7th-century burials. However, at all the sites there are many untouched graves contemporary with the opened ones. A smaller number of earlier burials were also reopened, but despite the much higher numbers of often impressive grave-goods found in 6th- century graves, they were not a significant target.
There are no disturbed burials which must have been interred during or after the last quarter of the 7th century. Burial at most of the disturbed cemeteries appears to continue after the reopening ceased, with the possible exception of Lyminge, which may have been disturbed after abandonment. A strong indication that reopening ceased before the final interments were made in field cemeteries comes from the internal layout of the Finglesham burial ground, explored by Duncan Sayer (2009). He shows that the eastern area, which he labels Plot C, is generally the later burial location, with the majority of datable burials being late 7th- or early 8th-century, especially close to the eastern edge. Plot C has almost no evidence of reopening, with the exception of a couple of graves at its western edge. It is likely that this area postdates the disturbance phase; the reopening episodes may even be associated, directly or indirectly, with the shift in burial location.
For assessing the length of time which elapsed between burial and secondary disturbance, the states of decomposition of all elements in the grave can provide indications: body tissues of different types, grave-goods of various materials and sizes, and any coffin or other container in which these lay. Timeframes adapted from German-language early medieval and Bronze Age research (Aspöck 2002, 49; 2005, 251-252, Neugebauer 1991, Sági 1964, Klevnäs 2013, 44-45) were used to classify the state of decay of the Kent graves at the time of disturbance. In addition, in a couple of cases where intercutting graves provided opportunities for robbing, the dates could quite tightly established.
The state of any coffin, other container, or lid over the grave is a neglected but useful source of information for the chronology of reopening, since it is frequently possible to distinguish between disturbance that took place within the void of an intact container and that which happened in an earth-filled grave (Aspöck 2005). Where the disordered bones are strewn in a layer over the grave floor, disturbance must have taken place within an open space. The grave was therefore originally lidded, whether or not residual traces of a container or lid remained at the time of excavation. The grave openers cleared the earth from above the lid, then either
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removed it entirely or made an access hole through it. They thereby gained access to the whole burial and were able to move its elements around within the open space.
Viewed in this light, the reopening evidence shows that burial containers were significantly more common in east Kent cemeteries than reports would suggest, since a considerable proportion of the affected burials can be seen to have been disturbed within intact open spaces, even though no traces of coffin or lid were reported. Evidence from St Peter’s supports this conclusion, as wood preservation seems to have been unusually good, allowing coffin traces to be observed in a larger number of burials. The drawings from that site suggest that the coffins were substantial, thick-sided containers, which would have lasted for a number of decades. In one case (Grave 78), the St Peter’s excavators made a comment that shows they were aware of this source of dating evidence, but it was not systematically or explicitly recorded. However, records allow reconstruction of the situation in a fair proportion of graves at several sites, and show that lids were still whole in a high proportion of cases (e.g. Monkton Grave 22, Finglesham Grave 197), giving the first indicative timeframe for reopening of within perhaps 10 to 50 years.
The indications that many containers were still intact at the time of disturbance fits with the evidence from the corpses themselves. The great majority of graves had been re-entered after the muscle and ligaments of the cadaver had decayed, but while bones were still solid and resistant to breakage. There are very few clear examples in which bones fragmented during disturbance, which is in marked contrast to the severely decayed state of the bones by the time of the excavations at most of the sites. The length of time taken for a corpse to skeletonize is highly variable; discussions of fleshy decomposition in previous discussions have tended to overstate the conformity of these processes. But for the purposes of this research, a broad estimate was employed that that skeletonization in the types of burial under discussion is usually complete after a decade, and almost always after 25 years. The majority of disturbance therefore appears to have occurred long enough after burial for fleshy decay to take place, but soon enough for many coffins to still hold as lidded voids: some years after burial, but within living memory.
In addition, there are a small number of burials disturbed before fleshy decomposition was complete, which enable reopening to be pinned to a more limited number of years after burial. In fact there are at least 16 claims of partial articulation, with cases seen at Bradstow School, St Peter’s, Monkton, Finglesham, and Ozengell. Only Lyminge and Sarre have no examples. However, fully seven come from Ozengell, where the lack of available grave plans prevented proper evaluation of the evidence. If those cadavers were indeed still semi-articulated, it should be noted that several were clustered in one part of the cemetery, making it likely that skeletonization was protracted in this area of the burial ground, possibly due to an extra factor such as water-logging.
Where partial articulation is claimed, it must be in accordance with the order in which articulated joints decay; the most persistent articulations being those which in life require thick and powerful ligaments (Ubelaker 1997, Duday 2006). On this basis, all but a handful of reported cases were judged unconvincing. However, sufficient remain to be of assistance in dating the Kent disturbance phase. These
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include St Peter’s Grave 165, in which a large part of the skeleton (R femur, pelvis, lower spine) seems to have held together and been moved intact, along with a bead necklace which remained strung when lifted; Grave 270 in which a couple of sections of spinal column seem to have remained articulated; and Monkton Grave 22 where it appeared that the right leg and part of the pelvis had been moved intact to the foot of the grave.
Bringing all this evidence together, it appears that the majority of disturbance took place within the 7th century, probably concentrated in the mid-part of that century. However, even on the shortest possible range, cases are spread over more than half a century. There are a few examples which suggest reopening had started before the end of the 6th century, while others indicate that the practice continued into the third quarter of the seventh century. There is therefore not a single wave of reopening, but rather a phase of several decades during which reopening episodes occurred sporadically in many – but by no means all – Kentish burial grounds. With the possible exception of Lyminge, the affected cemeteries must thus have seen burial continuing alongside intermittent reopening of graves from the previous generation.
Reopening methods
A wide variety of grave-opening techniques were employed, including within each cemetery. These were in part adaptations to the state of decay of the coffin and contents: for example, intact coffins were sometimes explored by means of a stick or hook passed through a hole in the lid, while decayed, earth-filled coffins could be dug through. However, the approaches taken to grave opening are sufficiently diverse that they must represent the work of different individuals or teams, rather than wholescale robbery by a group going from grave to grave on a single occasion. In general, the approach to each grave appears individual, with the various techniques dispersed across the cemeteries. In most cases reopening leaves graves in considerable disarray, in marked contrast to the carefully laid out burial displays, while in some examples the degree of fragmentation of bones and grave- goods suggests the use of destructive violence. Conversely, a substantial minority of graves show evidence for more deliberate treatment of the human bone. In at least 14 disturbed graves at St Peter’s, displaced bones had been heaped or piled at one end of the grave, usually but not always the foot end. A clear example is Grave 140 (Fig. 2), in which the displaced bones, mainly long-bones, have been laid lengthways across the width of the grave floor, at a time before the coffin had collapsed. Here the piling of bones is sufficiently careful that it looks like respectful treatment, in contrast to the apparently brutal emptying of many other graves, for example nearby Grave 147, which left the few remaining bones fragmented and
scattered.
There are just a few cases where neighbouring graves may have been opened together. St Peter’s Grave 261 and 268, for example, were both disturbed by an unusual method of pushing the whole body towards the side and foot-end of the grave, while in Grave 235 and 236 the robbing footprint is also sufficiently similar that it seems likely that these two graves were opened as a pair. Meanwhile there are very few examples in Kent where bones from extra individuals may have been
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image
Fig. 2 Plan of Grave 140 at St Peter’s, Broadstairs from the field
documentation, reproduced courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum.
added during reopening; it was not the case here that multiple graves were opened simultaneously and the contents mixed.
Spatial distribution
In none of the cemeteries are all the graves in any area affected. The reopened graves are dispersed across the sites and are interspersed with intact burials. There is no evidence for any systematic, simultaneous reopening of large sections of any of the burial grounds.
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At some sites, particularly Lyminge and Bradstow School, small clusters of weapon graves have been identified. There is no direct link between these and robbery. It is possible that weapon graves are robbed slightly more frequently, but spatially reopening is not exclusively or even particularly focused on weapon graves.
Plans of two sites, Finglesham (Fig. 3) and St Peter’s (Fig. 4) illustrate these points. At St Peter’s, the reopened graves are dispersed across the excavated area, perhaps with a slight concentration towards the centre. The apparent group of co- aligned graves at the extreme west is nearly free from robbing, and the cluster of ring-ditched graves at the south edge may also be, but disturbance appears to affect all excavated areas to some degree. There are one or two possible small clusters of reopened graves, such as co-aligned Grave 233, 235, and 236, in which the latter two in particular seem to form a pair. However, even in the areas where reopening is particularly intense, the disturbed burials are intermingled with intact ones.
At Finglesham the disturbed burials are best described as scattered across the excavated area. There is an undisturbed area on the eastern side, despite the presence there of some highly visible ditched graves; this is the plot identified by Sayer (2009) as the latest part of the burial ground. There is only one case of neighbouring graves being disturbed (Grave 2 and Grave 44). The disturbance patterns in these two graves are quite different, with Grave 22 suffering only slight displacement of some bones of the upper body, and Grave 44 heavily disturbed, but with only the legs in approximately in the right part of the grave. However, these differences may reflect the conditions of the burials or presence/absence of coffins, rather than different operating methods. It is quite possible that these two graves were opened together for reasons of proximity and convenience. Apart from this one example, however, the impression is rather the opposite: disturbed graves are spaced across the cemetery to such an extent that the dispersal may even be deliberate.
Backfilling
The stratigraphy of the fill of disturbed graves is crucial for understanding the process and nature of the reopening, yet is often neglected in the excavation records. No section drawings through disturbed fill have been located for any of the reopened graves in Kent. Most have only a two-dimensional plan of the grave floor, although even this is lacking at Lyminge, for example. In some cases, including several at Finglesham, bones and artefacts considered to have been displaced from their original positions were omitted from the grave plans, even when found within the original grave cut. Depicting objects displaced upwards into the fill is in any case near-impossible in a bird’s eye view; at St Peter’s Tip attempts have been made to include such objects by labelling the depth of each find, but the drawings quickly become confusing.
More generally it is evident from several comments on grave forms at St Peter’s Tip in particular that the excavators could at least sometimes detect considerably more information about changes in fill, robber cuts, and the internal stratigraphy of graves than they recorded. This can also be deduced from Perkins’ (1991) discussion of the disturbed fill in graves at Sarre, where he was able to reconstruct
image
Fig. 3 Plan of Finglesham cemetery showing the disturbed burials (after Hawkes & Grainger 2006).
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image
Fig. 4 Plan of St Peter’s cemetery showing the disturbed burials (after Hogarth 1973).
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image
Fig. 5 Artist’s drawing of a disturbed grave under excavation at Lord of the Manor, Ozengell, Ramsgate, by Len Jay. Reproduced by permission of the Trust for Thanet Archaeology.
considerable details of how graves were opened and refilled. Meanwhile the site artist’s drawings of disturbed graves under excavation at Perkin’s excavations at Ozengell (Fig. 5) show that the intrusive cuts into the burials were clearly visible, along with stratified deposits in the backfill.
Overall, sufficient information is noted across the sites to show that there was marked variety in the ways in which graves were (or were not) backfilled. Reopened graves could be backfilled with the original fill, often with bones and artefacts thrown or shovelled back in, or could be backfilled with a different material. Backfilling with the same fill probably accounts at least in part for the lack of discernible secondary cuts into some clearly disturbed graves.
Where graves were backfilled with the original fill it is also hard to tell whether bones and artefacts were intentionally thrown back into the grave or simply shovelled in with the rest of the material, perhaps overlooked by the reopeners. This latter possibility also limits our ability to say for certain that artefacts were intentionally rejected. Grave descriptions frequently state that bones or artefacts had been ‘thrown back in’, but without giving grounds for this conclusion.
Grave 22 at Finglesham is an example in which the disturbed area is backfilled with an unmistakably different material: ‘brown loamy soil containing a few salvaged bones, and this contrasted markedly with the original fill of chalk rubble’.
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In this case bones must have been picked out and intentionally added to the backfill, not just heaved back in with the rest of the spoil. Only part of the skeleton was replaced, but there was evidently at least a symbolic effort to restore the grave’s integrity. The impression here is therefore that rifling the burial contents was the motive, not emptying or desecrating the grave for its own sake.
On the other hand, the excavators’ observation that the backfilling of Grave 22 was not necessarily carried out by the reopeners is significant. A delay in backfilling or different diggers might account for the change in backfill, especially if the reopeners had scattered their spoil. Perhaps the open grave and its exposed contents were discovered and replaced by someone with a connection to, or respect for, the burial. We can still make only limited conjectures about how frequently Early Anglo-Saxon field cemeteries were visited by the burying community and how near to settlement sites they lay, despite recent settlement excavations (for which see Hamerow 2012). At Ozengell Perkins identified two graves in which deliberate backfilling probably never occurred, or only after a delay of at least some hours. In Grave 18 the robbers had dug out much of the fill, but original fill was still present at the sides. Within the disturbed area, ‘The stratification of fill indicated that the grave was not backfilled immediately after disturbance, heavy rain bringing a dark silt from land surface’. In Grave 60 the original chalk rubble fill could still be seen ‘heaped on both sides of the grave, trapping the land surface to the south’ (Perkins 1977). In this case the excavators thought that backfilling had happened naturally. A small number of disturbed graves had intrusive later material in the upper fill, as seen at Continental sites (e.g. Aspöck 2002, 53-4). Several of these are at St Peter’s Tip (e.g. Grave 54, 126, 270). Grave 52 at Ozengell had a medieval potsherd at 7cm depth. Bradstow School Grave 12 had a piece of medieval tile in the upper fill. However, these objects appear to have collected in hollows above the disturbed burials and are probably indicative not of partial backfilling, but of much slighter dips formed by the sinking of backfill. It is presumably also this sinking that leads to occasional finds of later material in the upper fill of even undisturbed burials: St Peter’s Tip Grave 95 had a piece of clay pipe around 5cm into the fill, but the underlying burial was to all appearances untouched. This later material is significant in confirming an early medieval date for the robbing: it is
never found in the disturbed burial contexts, only near the surface.
The non-backfilled graves speak against any need for concealment; they indicate rather that the reopeners were either indifferent or wished to advertise their work, perhaps to increase offence by leaving graves open. Recorded examples of non- backfilled graves are few, but on the other hand the fill evidence has been so widely disregarded that many more may have been missed. The quantities of bone missing from many graves suggests that piles of material may have been left strewn around reopened graves. In any case it would be extremely difficult entirely to conceal the digging out of a grave: Perkins (1991, 163) points out that in these usually chalky cemeteries a tell-tale spread of white dust forms around any digging.
Grave-goods
In Kent, as in Merovingia, the presumption has always been that a central motivation for reopening was the removal of grave-goods, whether as theft, reclamation, or a
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superstitious practice. The appearance of the disturbed graves supports the view that discovery and removal of artefacts was a primary aim. The archaeology bears witness to rummaging of grave contents, but not to attempts to eradicate graves. Generally the remains are left in considerable disorder, sometimes with damage to artefacts and skeletal parts, but occasionally the searching appears positively orderly. Further, a number of graves show clear signs that objects have been removed. Copper staining on bone, broken fragments of missing objects, and in a couple of cases the remains of scabbards but no swords testify to the former presence of removed artefacts.
It is therefore a counter-intuitive finding that graves reported as disturbed are as likely or slightly more likely to contain artefact remains than the undisturbed examples in the same cemeteries. However, this bare statistic is misleading: in grave catalogues and databases, a tiny scrap of a scabbard is counted in the same way as a whole scabbard, in order to give a picture of the original condition of a grave. Taking a closer look at the residual assemblages in the disturbed graves, it is evident that objects have been removed. Although a superficially similar proportion of disturbed and undisturbed graves at each site have grave-goods, the disturbed graves are at the bottom of the range in terms of the numbers of artefacts, and a high proportion of grave-goods in the disturbed graves are represented by partial, displaced fragments.
The evidence from the Kent sites suggests that a deliberate and largely consistent selection was made of types of artefacts to remove from graves. It was not the case that whoever reopened the graves wanted indiscriminately to remove as many artefacts as possible. Swords and brooches were the main targets, as they are almost entirely absent from disturbed burials. This selection is similar to the pattern seen in Merovingia, but the pattern is not identical, since knives were consistently left in the disturbed Kentish graves, while vessels were probably sometimes removed. Only one complete sword has been recorded in the 178 disturbed/probably disturbed burials. This was in Grave 304 at St Peter’s and may well have been missed by the reopeners, who made a limited intrusion into the other site of the grave. Additionally, there may have been sword blade fragments scattered in St Peter’s Graves 57, 182, and 200. These weapons must have been in very poor condition by the time of reopening, since they fragmented when disturbed. In Sarre Grave 104 the top of a sword hilt was found. The rest of the artefact had been
taken, but again was probably in bad condition.
None of the other sites have any substantial remains of swords in reopened graves. This is despite Kent having by far the highest proportion of graves with swords of any region (Richardson 2005a, 138), with swords in 108 or about 20% of weapon graves, or just over 5% of Richardson’s 2020 furnished grave-good assemblages (Richardson 2005a, 140-141). It would be reasonable to expect sword finds in a considerably higher proportion of disturbed graves. At Sarre in particular Brent’s excavations unearthed swords in almost one in every ten graves (Perkins 1992, 107; Brent 1868, 318 seems a slight undercount). Yet the only trace of a sword any of the 44 disturbed graves at the site is the hilt top.
It has been claimed that burials containing weapons were preferentially targeted for grave robbing (Härke 1992, 65; Härke 2000, 391-2 and table 5, Welch 2007, 222-3). This would require either detailed knowledge of the cemeteries by the
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robbers, or for weapon graves to have been differentially marked on the surface. The evidence collated here gives no basis for this conclusion. If reopeners had a preference for weapon graves as a general category, it was not systematic or thorough, since large numbers of 7th-century weapon burials remain in the disturbed sites. Further, the only category of weapon which is consistently removed from the reopened graves is swords. The disturbed burials contain a high percentage of spearheads, which were evidently not taken. Shield bosses are similarly present in a significant number of reopened graves. These represent some of the largest iron objects in Anglo-Saxon graves. That no effective effort was made to remove them also makes it very unlikely that the recovery of iron was a primary motivation for grave opening.
Brooch removal is frequently cited as an explanation for disturbance in the chest area of female skeletons, and indeed brooches are missing from disturbed female burials. Richardson records a total of 356 brooch finds in his 2020 grave-good assemblages (2005a, 137). Despite this frequency, the only artefacts of this kind found in disturbed graves are a ring brooch in Sarre Grave 85 and the two bow brooches at Finglesham. Of these latter, one is a fragmentary Roman copper alloy bow brooch, was almost certainly a stray object which found its way into the dip at the top of the disturbed fill of Grave 22. The second is a silver bow-brooch which was found on the spoil heap and thought probably associated with Grave 205, where it may have been responsible for copper-staining on the clavicle. Since the modern excavators missed it as they dug, it seems quite possible that the early grave openers did so too. At Sarre, 25 (8%) of the 294 excavated burials contained brooches or pendants, but only the Grave 85 early ring fibula was in a disturbed grave. Brooches, along with swords, are thus one of the most consistently removed grave-good types.
In addition, disturbed female graves tend not to contain the kind of apparently amuletic objects characteristic of the burials described by Audrey Meaney as ‘cunning women’ (Meaney 1981, 249-62; Dickinson 1993; Gilchrist 2008;
Reynolds 2009, 73-4). As Helen Geake (1997, 98-100) has shown, the boundaries of this category may be too vague to be meaningful, and the probably highly symbolic female belt items certainly do remain in disturbed graves. However, it may be significant that none of the crystal balls, perforated spoons, or animal or mineral keepsakes otherwise found in Kent are seen in the robbed graves. Numbers are too low, however, to conclude for certain either that such objects were taken, or that this kind of burial was avoided by reopeners.
A range of artefacts which to modern eyes appear highly desirable were left behind. This applies most clearly to the necklace elements: the beads of all materials, which remain in high numbers, and the various forms of pendant, even those made of precious metals. Sometimes beads may have been missed, especially where the hook method was used. However, there are strong indications that beads and other necklace elements were deliberately rejected: the still-strung necklace in St Peter’s Grave 165, which included 78 beads and 6 pendants variously of silver, silver-gilt, glass and garnet, had probably been viewed, perhaps even handled, as had the pendant depicted in the drawing as still hanging around the woman’s neck. Similarly, two silver pendants remained in Grave 237, and another in Grave 354. Sarre Grave 286 had a pendant fashioned from a tremissis and a silver-mounted
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key-stone-shaped type of pink glass. There is no reason to think that most of these were in bad condition at the time of robbing; their materials ought to place them among the better-preserved grave-goods.
Other elements of female dress frequently rejected are the various forms of chatelaine and other iron and copper alloy objects worn hanging from belts. These were consistently left behind even when in good condition. Looking only at the larger sites, there were at least 8 in the disturbed graves at St Peter’s and 4 at Sarre in addition to the 2 at Finglesham. These represent between 14% and 19% of furnished burials at these sites: above the expected average. In Grave 281 at Sarre the latch-lifter/chatelaine complex was lifted and replaced at the side of the grave floor, which is an unusually definite case of an object being handled and rejected.
discussion
This paper has summarised the key conclusions of recent research investigating the evidence for early medieval disturbance of contemporaneous graves in Kent. This was an attempt to reconstruct as nuanced a picture as possible from data of varied quality. None of the sites presents a full picture of the evidence. Many were hurried rescue excavations in the days before funding was available for processing and publication. Some have grave drawings but not a cemetery plan, or vice versa. Several lack post-excavation bone and artefact reports. It was therefore necessary to go back to the field documentation wherever possible, since the drawings, photographs, diaries, and context sheets held in site archives preserve the nuances of archaeological interpretation in the field in a way that is almost always edited out through the publication process. Future excavations are likely to unearth further examples, with the potential to bring considerable additional detail to the current picture, or even to alter it.
Currently the evidence points to a sporadic practice, carried out by a variety of actors over a period of some decades. Each time a grave was chosen for reopening, the selection seems to have been individual, based on factors which cannot be identified archaeologically, but which include a preference for larger, probably better-furnished burials. Yet most of the reopening was carried out in the early- mid 7th century, and affects interments only a generation or so old, rather than the more richly furnished 6th-century graves which were still clearly marked in these cemeteries.
The reopeners’ activities appear to be focused on entering, rifling, and removing grave-goods from the graves, with varying degrees of damage resulting to skeletal parts and artefacts. This is not a straightforward form of theft, since many apparently valuable objects are left behind, including gold and silver finds. Only two forms of artefact were consistently removed: women’s brooches and men’s swords. The condition of these objects at the time of disturbance has significant implications for the reopeners’ motives: swords were in several cases friable and fragmenting, yet were selected for removal whether or not they were still cutting weapons.
Given the labour, unpleasantness, and perhaps risk involved in reopening a grave, it seems counter-intuitive not to take all the artefacts on offer. If grave disturbance was a transgressive or insulting act, why not take everything that might be exchanged or given away? Even if beads and pendants were not useful for the
‘ROBBED IN ANTIQUITY’: GRAVE OPENING IN SEVENTH-CENTURY EAST KENT
main targets, why were they not acceptable trinkets for a partner or playthings for a child? There is a puzzle here: the manner of robbing looks transgressive, or at least is in marked contrast to the originally carefully arranged displays, with bones scattered and graves sometimes left often. Yet it was carried out by people who appear to have obeyed rules about what objects could and could not be taken.
In subsequent work the author has developed these ideas, suggesting that reopening may be explained as a tit-for-tat, vengeful practice, involving the removal of particular kin-related possessions from the graves of recent ancestors (Klevnäs 2015). In this interpretation the aim is not to obtain objects for use or exchange, but to remove them from the ownership of the dead, damaging the prestige of kin who invested them as grave wealth.
Meanwhile the data presented here are currently being integrated into a European- scale perspective on early medieval grave opening as part of a three-year project funded by the Swedish Research Council (reopenedgraves.eu). Comparison with evidence of the same phenomenon elsewhere in the Merovingian zone of influence will open up new possible lines of interpretation.
acknowledgements
The research behind this paper was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, with additional support from Girton College, Cambridge, and the John Templeton Foundation. In 2011 the Kent Archaeological Society awarded it the Hasted Prize, providing funds for publication. The data are now being included in the project, ‘Interacting with the dead. Belief and conflict in Early Medieval Europe (AD 450-750)’, funded by the Swedish Research Council and hosted at Stockholm University.
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WILLIAM SOMNER (1606-1669). PART II
david wright
The Anglo-Saxon Dictionary
Of all the seventeenth-century antiquarian achievements, that of the clarification of the Anglo-Saxon language stands very high. Whilst keeping alive the scattered enthusiasm of an earlier generation, they set up new standards of criticism independent of contemporary controversy. ‘Loving Truth (the end of all Science) for itself’, Somner wrote, ‘altogether unbyassed with any by-respects … I have made it my constant endeavour … that Truth alone might triumph over Falshood, Antiquity over Novelty’.1
Under Archbishop Matthew Parker (1504-1575) there had been extensive studies of Anglo-Saxon historical sources and of the Old English language, conducted chiefly in the 1560s and 1570s by his Latin secretary John Joscelyn (1529-1603), and Laurence Nowell (1530-c.1570) whose friend William Lambarde (1536-1601) had published his first edition of Anglo-Saxon laws, the Archaionomia, in 1568, and his A Perambulation of Kent in 1576; such works would show the way for scholars to work on other English shires when historical writing inspired the study of Anglo-Saxon grants and charters.
Parker’s endeavours were no mere planning and execution of Tudor propaganda, for he had long maintained an interest in antiquarian studies, ably surrounded by a circle of intelligent and educated clergy, teachers, lawyers and noblemen in official positions. The first publications in Old English thus owed their appearance to the language having reached a quasi-official status, guided and supported by men within high ecclesiastical and political spheres.
At the death of Elizabeth there was no published dictionary of Old English or even a published monolingual dictionary of modern English, even if there were several Latin-English and English-Latin ones published by way of stimulation and interest in the Renaissance. But modern English lexicography had neglected Old English and its forebears as of little interest. Under Elizabeth the study of Old English was linked to efforts to represent the break under Henry VIII as a return to the greater independence from Rome that the English church had known before the Conquest; new challenges from Catholics and Puritans made this more compelling and led to the need for more doctrinal support. As concern grew about Stuart absolutism, legal scholars turned to the pre-Conquest period for evidence of an ancient constitution that guaranteed the rights of freeborn Englishmen, vouchsafing their doctrines and laws.
The yawning gap in the understanding of the peoples between the Romans and the Normans had for too long lain in obscurity, their mysterious and uncouth
DAVID WRIGHT
tongue shrouded in ignorance. A growing interest in English antiquities had drawn attention to one signal gap in the scholarly resources, namely a comprehensive and up-to-date dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, a language which had early interested Somner and one which had become a source of worry as he was writing his Antiquities. Texts previously inaccessible or unknown now began to be published about a society scarcely imaginable in the previous century, but which within three generations lay open and full of historical events and personalities, its language now comprehended and familiar to an increasing group of Oxbridge scholars.
Fully versed in Latin and post-Conquest manuscripts, Somner had now been encouraged to study Anglo-Saxon, the key language of antiquarianism, and one with no dictionary, by his clerical and scholarly friend of some twenty years’ standing, the esteemed Meric Casaubon who had helped to give Somner’s work a new and more linguistic turn, been much taken with his friend’s ‘sagacious wit and great industry in searching the antiquities of Canterbury with great judgement’,2 and was well aware that before the Restoration such linguistic scholars were few indeed, Old English more or less extinct, and the literature on it fragmentary. Indebted to Somner, he would never forget that his early linguistic studies were firmly based on his friend’s support and would later incorporate an appendix of Somner’s observations on the links between Anglo-Saxon and the Germanic languages into his De Quatuor Linguis Commentationis.
The Dictionarium emerged as an offshoot of Somner’s major interest in the history of Kent, for whereas the Antiquities had dealt only with post-Conquest material in Latin, he now realised that Celtic and Anglo-Saxon texts were essential to realise his grand project. Somner would now tread an obscure and wide field, and one whose relatively few earlier scholarly predecessors he would diligently study before breaking out so memorably into new ground. Kennett fairly summarised the subject as one which ‘might have exercised a Critic, sooner than instructed a Novice … the Saxon language was extinct, and the monuments of it so few and so latent, that it requir’d infinite courage and patience, to attempt and prosecute the knowledge of it’.3 Kennett had further observations on the quality of contemporary Anglo-Saxon scholarship, praising Somner by saying that the work had been undertaken ‘in the days of anarchy and ignorance when all the Professors of true religion and good literature were silenced’.4
George Hickes, the great Oxford Saxonist, observed that since the Conquest only two foreigners and some twenty natives had mastered Anglo-Saxon, praising Joscelyn, Somner, Marshall and Junius for their pure and correct language, but condemning Selden, Spelman and even the Cambridge professor Wheeloc, who put theirs before the world ‘with faults and imperfections’.5
There was in fact much scattered material waiting to be assimilated: apart from glossaries and word lists which had been added to a few printed works, manuscript collections had been prepared by, for example, Laurence Nowell and Simonds D’Ewes, both of whom Somner consulted for material he had not found himself, although he was in fact more determined to work on sources either unknown to them or less fully treated.6 He was mindful that some earlier collections contained variations on a word for the sake of bulking out the text rather than for the utility of the reader.7 But the need in the mid-1600s for a complete dictionary remained paramount.
WILLIAM SOMNER (1600-1669). PART II
While at Cambridge Sir Henry Spelman and Jeremy Stephens had been thwarted by an almost total absence of men able to read Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, and so in 1639 Spelman founded the first readership in Antiquitates Britannicae et Saxonicae, thereby marking a signal stage in its development as an academic subject (Anglo- Saxon studies at Oxford were not introduced until the later 1600s). Much early study was based on the seven surviving manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as an historical source whose complexities became painfully aware when it was realised that each text described the same events from a different standpoint. The first reader was the Cambridge linguist Abraham Wheeloc who had assisted him in transcribing and promised to compile a Saxon dictionary but died in 1653 before anything came of it, on which failure Kennett nicely observed that the ‘infirmity of great men to proclaim a design and so to raise and deceive the expectation of the world’.8 Archbishop James Ussher now recommended the stipend for his friend Somner in order that work on the greatly anticipated Dictionarium might proceed, and so the funds were used to present Somner with the chair in 1657.
Having been collecting source material for perhaps as much as a decade prev- iously, the attached salary and concomitant encouragement would now signally assist Somner’s research into his most important undertaking, a work of long, difficult, profound and immense scholarship, A Saxon-Latin-English Dictionary of the chief Anglo-Saxon words and phrases (together with Latin and English definitions of the same) collected with great carefulness from books and manu- scripts, printed works and other records, both public and private of 1659, the first of its kind and the one on which all future Anglo-Saxon dictionaries would be based. Costs towards publication had been defrayed by, among others, Archbishop Ussher. No less a luminary than the great Sir Thomas Cotton, a great benefactor to, and correspondent with, Somner gave him free access to his magnificent library and entertained him in Westminster whilst compilation proceeded, and further contributed to the expenses of publication, as did Sir Roger Twysden whom Somner visited regularly at East Peckham.9
Although very much the result of work at Cambridge and the concomitant stipend, the Dictionarium was actually printed at Oxford. Somner had personally supplied an indispensable set of Old English characters needed by the printer for the Anglo- Saxon alphabet, but the extant Cambridge printing types were too large for such a task and ongoing and long-lasting civil disorders in the area meant that the university could not afford the expense of new types. Thus, an association with the University of Oxford seems to have arisen in around 1653 and, through the offices of William Dugdale, who would also be involved in finding a London bookseller to handle sales in the capital, was encouraged by Gerard Langbaine, Provost of Queens’ College and a friend of Selden and Ussher, who provided suitable types. And so Somner, alumnus to neither university, forged a link between the first attempts at establishing Old English studies at Cambridge and the later work at Oxford.
The year of publication of the Dictionarium was timely, for the interest of Somner’s work to general lexicography lay chiefly in his contribution to etymology. In the years preceding the Restoration English dictionaries began to include etymologies more regularly and sometimes also offer root forms for words derived from Old English, a practice doubtless reflected in the rise of scholarly investigation into the language during the previous hundred and more years.
DAVID WRIGHT
The Dictionarium comprised about 380 unpaginated pages in three dense columns with running titles extending to the first two letters of a word, containing headwords and phrases accompanied by Latin and English equivalents. At the end Somner added Aelfric’s tenth-century Latin-Saxon Grammar (a work which had already served antiquaries for over a century) transcribed by Junius,10 now in print for the first time and a rich source on which Somner drew heavily for definitions of grammatical terms and to communicate the structure of the language. Also important as an appendix was the then unknown conflation of glossaries known as Aelfric’s Glossary,11 even if Somner found (sometimes unique) words within it that he would not incorporate into the Dictionarium or did but left undefined, often because he suspected scribal corruptions and so left them to the reader to ‘exercise his talent in correcting or his mercy in condoning’.12
In an appendix to the Dictionarium Somner printed all of his supporters and patrons, recording his gratitude for their financial contribution and further help. The names do not have the usual appearance of a subscription list, and as the title page of the work says ‘pro Authore’ (implying at Somner’s own expense), we are perhaps to interpret the list more as a record of thanks, as is also shown in the dedication following the title page. The impressive list, a snapshot of the author’s circle of contacts in the 1650s, is most careful to record ranks and occupations, opens with fourteen Cambridge colleges (but, tellingly, none from Oxford, and so an indication of Somner’s research period during his occupancy of Spelman’s lectureship), and then records 82 individuals including barons, baronets, knights, esquires, gentlemen, academics and librarians: we see such giants as Ashmole, Cotton, Dugdale and Twysden, the doctors, clergy and gentry of many Midland counties, and a final and distinguished roll-call of thirty Kentish names, among them Anthony Aucher of Bishopsbourne, four different John Boys of Betteshanger, Bonnington, Fredville and Hode Court, Thomas Godfrey of Nackington, Norton Knatchbull of Mersham, Edward Monins of Waldershare, and Henry Palmer of Wingham.13
The Anglo-Saxon language could at last be studied on a broader front now that it was openly accessible to inquisitive and industrious scholarly minds; it is no exaggeration to state that Somner almost single-handedly inaugurated a new epoch in Anglo-Saxon studies. Long the preserve of divines, lawyers and country gentlemen, now for a short period the English universities became the especial homes of Old English learning, firstly at Cambridge, and after the Restoration more so at Oxford, particularly between about 1660-1730.
Despite the relative paucity of predecessors there were some sources which Somner both consulted and criticised. Lawrence Nowell, Anglo-Saxon teacher to Lambarde at Lincoln’s Inn (and sometime owner of the Nowell codex which contained the unique text of Beowulf), had written his Vocabularium Saxonicum in 1567,14 the first known Old English dictionary. The following year William Lambarde’s Archaionomia appeared, a pioneering collection and paraphrase in Latin of Anglo-Saxon laws and treaties, and one highly dependent on Nowell’s ‘improved’ translation of the original texts – but not to Somner’s liking, whose style he considered too polite and elaborate, and not offering help in understanding the original language : ‘This elegant and periphrastic way of rendering old records was too much like paint on the face of a wrinkled matron, or a cap and feather upon gray hairs’.15
A further source was John Joscelyn, Archbishop Matthew Parker’s Latin secretary,
WILLIAM SOMNER (1600-1669). PART II
who had made a two-volume Anglo-Saxon dictionary.16 This was transcribed (and possibly augmented) by Sir Simonds D’Ewes17 who had allowed Somner to make further contributions to it, and on the strength of that assistance then admitted him to his own library to work on the celebrated Anglo-Saxon verse Genesis.
All in all, the impression is that of a concerted collaborative effort to propel Somner towards his masterpiece; but beyond this, for better philological instruction, he immersed himself in a wide variety of European languages, all the while supported by his friendships with Junius and Casaubon, both foreigners, who would have alerted him to news concerning continental books and scholarship.
The preface to the Dictionarium, unsurprisingly, greets Roger Spelman as dedicatee: ‘to a truly noble man and one singularly esteemed by me’,18 and then acknowledges Casaubon’s assistance and encouragement. All possible spare time had been given to research and compilation in checking books and manuscripts, including material in the Arundel, Ashmolean, Cotton, Hatton, Selden, and Rochester libraries, during which he had consulted or transcribed the following grand roll-call: the Abingdon Chronicle;19 the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Wheeloc’s edition20 and his own transcript from the Cotton library,21 usefully adding the year of each entry: the work is quoted an impressive quoted 148 times); Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica (also much quoted) and De Temporum Ratione; Byrhtferth’s Manual;22 Camden’s Britannia (especially productive for place names and the Latin translations of Old English words); Dugdale’s Monasticon; Foxe’s Saxon Gospels (much quoted); Gregory’s Cura Pastoralis,; the Saxon Heptateuch;23 Lambarde’s Saxon Laws; Leland’s Cygnea Cantio; the Liber Medicus or ‘Leech Book’24 which had supplied a valuable and remarkable 95 hapax legomena out of 373 entries; the Liber Scintillarum;25 Orosius’s Historia Ecclesiastica; the Saxon Paraphrase (the codex Junius, lent by James Ussher);26 the Saxon Pentateuch; the Textus Roffensis; Henry Spelman’s Glossary and Concilia; John Spelman’s Saxon Psalter; and Verstegan’s A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence.
Somner admitted that of all the Saxon manuscripts in public and private libraries which he had consulted he had chosen not to transcribe most of them in full, having neither the time nor the leisure, but more importantly because he sensed that he would not discover many new words on account of the great diversity of subject matters and the early dates of the authors.27 In his use of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and other sources he displays the strong historical interests of the antiquaries,28 as well as revealing a contemporary shift of interest towards the study of Old English as a Germanic language.
Other sources included herbals and philological works, as well as dictionaries, word lists and literary sources for headwords and cognates. More quoted (679 times) than any other work is Cornelius van Kiel’s Etymologicum Teutonica Linguae: sive Dictionarium Teutonico-Latinum. Somner also made use of Chaucer (again much quoted) to emphasise, or clarify, the relation between Old and Middle English, and Spelman’s Archaeologus of 1626, mainly for legal terms. He further referred to ‘our glossary’, that is, the one he supplied for Twysden’s Scriptores Decem, and also contemporary grammars, particularly to establish current orthography. Casaubon’s De Lingua Anglica vetere (pages 127-406 of his De Quatuor Linguis Commentatonis) was much consulted, and highly rated by Somner, to which ‘he can add nothing’.
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No less important were large numbers of chronicles including Eadmer, Ethel- weard, Florence of Worcester, Henry of Huntingdon, John Asser, John Brompton, Marianus Scotus, Matthew Paris, Odericus Vitalis, and William of Malmesbury, and a panoply of supplementary sources reflecting contemporary European scholarship. Notable by their absence, perhaps through inaccessibility, were the famous poem The Battle of Maldon, the great Anglo-Saxon codex the Exeter Book, and, more surprisingly, the Nowell Codex29 which included Beowulf, the archetypal piece of Old English literature whose text contained the lion’s share of all surviving Old English poetry.
It was soon observed that the Dictionarium in some ways fell short of the needs of serious scholars, the failure to name sources consistently, especially in the cases of variant forms, one of its more cogent criticisms. Somner had gone to great trouble to prepare a valid list of headwords and correct definitions, an essential task but one only as good as his sources, two of which were the dictionaries of Nowell and D’Ewes, both composite books from a variety of sources, indirectly acquired, leaving Somner ignorant of their origins and textual background. Nouns were entered in the nominative singular and verbs in the infinitive, a huge task of normalisation where his sources had appeared in oblique forms, and it was inevitable that some nouns therefore appeared under inflected forms and some verbs were occasionally misconstructed, a true reflection of seventeenth-century Anglo-Saxon scholarship. A Latin translation followed each entry ‘for the benefit of beginners’.30 At a time when there was no system or set of rules for determining the pronunciation of a language no longer spoken, Somner had no choice but to omit vowel lengths. Additionally, no noun genders were indicated by him, and there was some confusion and uncertainty over adjectives and adverbs when he was sometimes unable to differentiate between -lic and -lice endings. Overall, however, the great majority of headwords do satisfy the standards of modern scholarship.
In general Somner does not name a source for a headword, thereby implying that he considers the form of the headword and the meaning given are credible. In a minority of entries he appends an abbreviation (usually initials) to indicate that something is uncertain or wrong and that the blame is to fall on the source employed or the original scribe of it, the three most frequent ones being the Anglo- Saxon Chronicle, the Liber Medicus and the Saxon Paraphrase.31 This has the effect of making the older manuscript dictionaries of Joscelyn, D’Ewes and others still valuable because they offer a clue to the manuscript source or sources of many Old English headwords.
In the compilation Somner was greatly assisted by several of his Anglo-Saxon documents being translations of Latin originals, for example the four gospels, and thus the Latin originals were able to provide hundreds of definitions for Old English words. Lambarde had translated old Saxon laws, but not to a high standard, as Somner recorded in his introduction,32 and Wheeloc’s published Latin version of the Chronicle he also found inaccurate, if still useful.33 But Dugdale’s Monasticon had also supplied many charters in translation and thereby greater numbers of Old English words which could now be defined precisely. Inevitably there still remained many imprecise definitions which could not be resolved even by his impressive battery of Anglo-Saxon sources, unreliable recent translations
WILLIAM SOMNER (1600-1669). PART II
notwithstanding. In the Liber Medicus and Saxon Paraphrase, for example, he was
reduced to creating his own definitions rather than correcting extant ones.
Etymologies in the 1600s were something of a jungle, and would remain so until the discovery a century later that Sanskrit was closely related to both Latin and Greek, and lead to the gradual recognition of linguistic change having structured patterns affecting whole classes of words. Somner was hesitant in assigning origins to his Old English headwords, often revealing his uncertainty by stating that they were borrowed, and, if known, the authority. When seeing a headword as the origin of a Middle English one he points out a similarity in Chaucer no fewer than 125 times, observing the relevance of Old to Middle English, and thereby noting phonological and orthographical changes.
Overall, the Dictionarium does not provide an Old English grammar despite Somner’s many perceptive observations. There had been little reconstruction of Old English grammar by his time, the one grammar with a bearing on the problem being that of Aelfric which was basically an exposition of Latin grammar along the lines laid out by Donatus and Priscian. Its tenth-century author had now provided much helpful grammatical material in the vernacular, written, as it was, for a generation of Anglo-Saxon schoolboys.
Scholars would wait until 1689 and the publication of George Hickes’ Institutiones Grammaticae which showed great progress in attempting to reconstruct Old English grammar. In general, Somner drew on the discoveries and suggestions of other scholars for his own purposes, especially as the past century had witnessed a widespread interest in the historical study of Greek, Latin, German, Dutch, Gothic, Danish and French, as well as English; and in England there had been a desire to regulate and reform certain aspects of the language which had produced a series of texts on the subject. Just as Sanskrit allowed scholars to see more clearly the historical relationship between the Indo-European languages, the discovery of Anglo-Saxon gave English scholars a new insight into the development of their own language, and Somner was now able to make intelligent (if not profound) comments on the relationship between Old English and modern forms. In the Dictionarium he further brought to light hundreds of words from Old English which were still alive in the contemporary vocabulary, especially in regional dialects where he partly adopted Nowell’s indications that certain words were still used in Lancashire,34 an observation that would be taken up and amplified by later dialectologists.
Ever keen for the highest levels of accuracy, Somner duly completed the work with two pages of addenda and errata; but the author himself would admit that it was not error-free or complete (and in 1659, how could it possibly be?), for defects must necessarily accompany a pioneering work of this nature. Its standards of definition were inadequate according to modern thought, the abundant sense of words to be apprehended from wide reading limited by the actual supply of available books, the constant soliciting of friends and scholars for source material a permanent duty. But what need was there to apologize? The book opened a new path to the philologist and at the same time made the subject less esoteric.
The work inevitably brought criticism, both initially and later, including the great Henry Sweet who opined disparagingly in his 1871 Introduction to King Alfred’s West-Saxon Version of Gregory’s Pastoral Care that the Dictionarium was
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‘a mere glossary without references’ but did, however, write more accurately in his
Student’s Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon that:
The great difficulty of Anglo-Saxon lexicography is that we have to rely for our material solely on a limited number of carelessly written and often badly edited manuscripts. There is no long series of native critics, grammarians, and lexicographers to help us … The investigator of Old English as a whole … is therefore often obliged to work by guesswork, until someone else guesses better, and to be thankful for an occasional ray of light.
Serendipitous browsing of definitions also reveals entries with extraneous comments, most particularly in connection with Somner’s intended general history of Kent – if he is spared to finish it. Under ‘abbandune’, for example, one reads, ‘But of this more fully in the future in my Kentish Antiquities, God willing that it is finally completed’,35 and there are others under ‘Den’, ‘Kent’ and ‘Limenemuth’, this last in English, and explaining that it is ‘the mouth of the river or haven of Limne, whereof at large hereafter in my intended Kentish antiquities.’
Of the process of the composition of the Dictionarium we are uncertain. The very first version must have been compiled on loose sheets before being worked up into perfect alphabetical order. Nothing of this has survived but a most remarkable and precious holding at Canterbury36 is the two-volume fair copy autograph text of the dictionary complete with all prefatory and appendix material as published, and including interlinings, corrections and deletions (as well as underlinings to indicate italic), again added by Somner himself. The two disbound books appear to be the very text used by the compositors as their quire signatures appear on various pages; the final printed version must surely represent one of the greatest triumphs of typesetting in printing history!
A second two-volume autograph manuscript has also survived,37 considerably shorter than the first in being just the text without any prefatory or supplemental pages, or indeed the grammar or glossary, and so probably representing an earlier model for the pair just mentioned, as they contain most of the entries in the same wording but not yet in the form of the final printed version. Numerous crossings-out show Somner working towards a concatenation of entries of words with multiple orthographical references under one main entry with information about Latin and modern English meaning, inflectional forms and references. Additionally, a comparison between the two pairs of manuscripts reveals Somner trying to make the clearest possible arrangement of the meanings of a single word by giving both concrete and figurative definitions. Lemmas, too, are separated by colons rather than full points as in the later versions.
Initial sales were slow, a fact probably not unconnected with the uncertain times, and for a long period there were more copies available than enthusiasts and students to buy it. A year after publication Dugdale noted in his diary that the bookbinder ‘piled up the Saxon Dictionaries in my upper chamber, which were in number 514 perfect, and six imperfect’,38 and that a year later Dugdale ‘left Ten Copies of Somner’s Saxon Dictionary with Booksellers “to try if they can sell them” ’.39 Stocks were later exhausted, but despite persistent demand no second edition would appear in the author’s lifetime.
In 1701 Thomas Benson of Queen’s College, Oxford, issued a revised version of
WILLIAM SOMNER (1600-1669). PART II
‘clarissimi Somneri’, Vocabularium Anglo-Saxonicum Lexico Gul. Somneri magna parte auctius. This was more of an epitome, a revised but abbreviated version of the first edition from which were removed numerous elements unsuited for students. The principal contributor was Benson’s fellow Queen’s scholar Edward Thwaites (1671-1711), whose own annotated copy of Somner still survives.40 Thwaites was a preceptor in Anglo-Saxon, and in a letter to Humphrey Wanley of 24 March 1688/941 declared that ‘We want Saxon lexicons. I have fifteen young students in that language, and but one Somner for them all’. The second edition runs to about one hundred dense (and again unpaginated), bi-columnar pages, and included additions from Junius’s papers in the Bodleian, as well as goodly contributions from the other scholars in the same college. Benson had augmented the original to the extent that ‘I have expanded more than three hundred out of four thousand [entries]’42.
Despite these signal events, it could not be denied that even if Oxbridge were replete with Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, it would be many years before most had been located and deciphered, a situation not helped by the decline from about 1720 of Anglo-Saxon disciplines and the loss of much of the early Saxonists’ expertise for most of the remaining part of the eighteenth century.
The subject gained new life and moved forward with the publication in 1772 of the Dictionarium Saxonico et Gothico-Latinum by Edward Lye and Owen Manning, which in turn served as a model for Joseph Bosworth’s A Dictionary of the Anglo- Saxon Language of 1838, and his and T.N. Toller’s Anglo-Saxon Dictionary of 1884 where Somner is sometimes still cited as a sole authority. Once regarded as Somner’s magnum opus by his contemporaries, the field of Anglo-Saxon studies has inevitably moved on; today the Dictionarium stands as a foundation-piece and must yield to the Antiquities as the greater and more enduring work.
A Treatise of Gavelkind
Somner published A Treaty of Gavelkind both Name and Thing shewing the True Etymologie and Derivation of the One, the Nature, Antiquity, and Original of the Others in 1660, long after he had finished it in 1647. It was then brought forth by the encouragement of his friends, including Archbishop Ussher who publicly approved it. Here he would now bring to bear his knowledge of Anglo-Saxon to pre-Conquest material, studying the earliest customs and tenures of Kent in their original language. Paramount was his interest in legal material which would bear fruit in his most substantial and original contributions to scholarship.
Kent’s remarkable and individual system of land tenure, called gavelkind, ensured the equal partition of an estate between a man’s heirs rather than inheritance by the principal one, a system not always to an owner’s liking and one which would cause trouble and legal expense to them until it was abolished as late as 1925. It was perhaps this system operating in his own county that drew Somner to investigate it, for in the preface he stated that his reasons for writing were: ‘to know things not so much in their present as primitive state’.43 Research into the subject may well have been undertaken originally as part of a wider study for his intended ‘Antiquities of Kent’ and, after the inevitable interruptions in developing it further, was finally resumed in 1659 but death supervened before any further publication;
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the great delay had been occasioned by his own distress and ignorance of the times that ‘hated all antiquity, both ecclesiastical and civil, and doted on a new gospel and new laws’.44 Meric Casaubon read the manuscript and trusted that publication would ensue ‘when monarchy, episcopacy and learning were restored’.45 Here Somner’s scholarship would prevail over regional pride and romantic views of the past as he expounded the nature of feudal tenants and gave definitions of land- use terms. His text was prefaced with the Saxon alphabet and its abbreviations alongside this revealing declaration: ‘it is now full eighteen years since, by solemn promise, I became engaged to my countrymen, upon their good acceptance of certain of my labours, in behalf of our City, wherewith I then presented them, to proceed to the same, or some other such like undertaking for the County; a thing, which as I then really intended … But being soon after overtaken by that impetuous storm [of civil war] not yet quite blown over, causing the distraction, and threatening the destruction of this once renowned Kingdom, I was necessitated to betake myself to other thoughts, chiefly how I might secure myself against the fury, in warding off the danger, of the present storm’.
A great deal of space was devoted to a discussion of the etymology of the term gavelkind itself (‘confuting what is generally received’); earlier interpretations, by such luminaries as Lambarde, Verstegen and Spelman, had favoured a derivation from three Old English words, gife, eal, and cyn (‘given to all the kin’), but these ignored inflexional endings, and were based on the signal feature of land being equally divided among sons or children after a tenant’s death. Lambarde had seemingly been the first to record this derivation in his Archaionomia of 1568, but had later in his A Perambulation of Kent of 1576 noted a second etymology based on land rents and services gafol, whence gafolcynd or ‘let for rent’. But Somner soon, and with characteristic incisiveness, showed from the evidence of charters that the gife eal cyn etymology was worthless, challenging the cyn element and going on to prove that this type of land tenure could be alienable outside the male line, and even also outside the main family. He further noted the existence of related compounds such as gavelcorn and gaveldung where the first element ‘will not bear the derivation of it from Gife-eal, without absurdity’,46 and in a final peroration dismisses it as ‘a wrong and mistaken derivation’,47 showing that the true etymology is from gafol (tribute, rent) and gecynd (nature, custom), entering his decision in the Dictionarium under Gafel. The work continues with four further propositions:
the actual practice of gavelkind;
its antiquity and why it is peculiar to Kent;
whether it is a tenure or custom, and if the latter, whether it is inherent in the land;
and whether gavelkind lands in Kent were devisable before the statute of
wills of 32 and 34 Henry VIII.
A valuable suffix of 42 pages lists transcripts of charters mentioned in the text (including parts of the Textus Roffensis). He also notes which owners’ estates had been disgavelled by Act of Parliament, just as Lambarde had done in his
WILLIAM SOMNER (1600-1669). PART II
Perambulation. Sufficient demand led to a corrected second edition in 1726 by White Kennett, prefaced by the prelate’s life of the author, revised in Westminster on 2 December 1725. Silas Taylor’s History of Gavelkind (1663) had acknowledged Somner (even if Somner would correct his errors by marginal annotations!), and Thomas Robinson in his The common law of Kent or the customs of Gavelkind (1741) quoted Somner concerning the custumal of Kent.
A second marriage
After some time as a widower, Somner remarried on 1 December 1659, again in Canterbury Cathedral, to Barbara the daughter of John Dawson of Lympne, the royalist ‘chief searcher’ for Kent, and widow of Edward Browne, Master of the King’s School from 1649-1658, whom he would have known when a pupil there. By his second wife William Somner produced four children, all baptised at the cathedral.
Barbara (1660-1675), said by Hasted [XI, 353] to have been the first child
baptised in the cathedral’s new font;
William (1661-1693) who as his father’s heir would inherit the Castle Street family home with its garden and appurtenances after the death of his mother but actually predeceased her. After graduating b.a. and m.a. from Merton College, Oxford, he became vicar of Lyminge from 1685 until his death.
Francis (1663-1664), a full generation younger than his namesake half- brother born to his father’s first wife;
John (1666-1695) was born when his father had turned 60. He inherited a family house and tenement at Chartham, succeeded his brother-in-law John Boughton as a practising surgeon at Elham, and was buried as a bachelor alongside the high altar of that church. The ledgerstone fitly records him as the son of the ‘learned Mr William Somner of Canterbury’.
Maturity and last years
Now in his 60s there was surely time for Somner to look back and reflect on a life of extraordinary industry and its concatenation of many individuals drawn from legal and antiquarian circles. Of the giants of seventeenth-century writers and researchers we have already seen some goodly evidence of Somner’s involvement in their lives, and how he inevitably profited by such relationships. Of lesser, but still important names, the biographer searches harder for evidence other than a passing reference or letter of acknowledgement for some favour gratefully received. Today, other than his own works, scattered letters and manuscripts, quotations and his known contributions to the works of others form the mainstay for gaining a full picture of Somner’s wide-ranging scholarly activities. Letter-writing and correspondence would have been time-consuming as he maintained his enthusiastic friendships with Cotton, Dugdale, and Spelman, and doubtless also with a host of others who would exchange knowledge and materials on selected research problems. We must presume there to have been at least occasional, if not at times regular, journeys to libraries in London, Oxford and perhaps elsewhere during the compilation of the Dictionarium, but thereafter, in the almost total absence
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of explicit references to scholarly excursions or the receiving of like-minded guests, Sir Roger Twysden’s home at East Peckham in west Kent was perhaps the only regular scholarly destination of more than a few hours’ ride from Somner’s beloved Canterbury.
Loss or misplacement of so many records which were kept partly in the treasury and partly in the chamber over St Andrew’s chapel48 made for a complex and messy business of restitution in Canterbury: the discreet undercurrent of conservation which had accompanied the most violent changes in the ancien régime manifested itself when Somner not only gave back to the Dean and Chapter the muniments and goods which he had snatched from Puritan destruction (even if, alas, with no inventory), but also placed at the disposal of the restored clergy his greatest treasure: the erudition of a lifetime lovingly spent in the investigation of the history of Canterbury and Kent. Now, when the intruders had been dispelled, he would generously volunteer instruction to those that wanted it: his long and hard-won intimate local knowledge would inform a new generation of church officials whose memories had been dulled by age, war and suffering, unsure of earlier practice and diplomatic precedent as to how the church’s rightful estates and revenues, and its proud and ancient legal rights, might be recovered. ‘No other private man had such influence and authority: he continued to be wise and faithful, moderate and humble – and, like his writings, free of prejudice and passion’.49
The prevailing mood of the Commonwealth years had not favoured antiquarianism and its reverence for dead ancestors, for of course the majority of them were royalists and Anglicans. And nor was sustained research at all easy when the resolving of the present issues prevailed over slow-paced scholarship directed to the past. Under Cromwell there was a gradual lessening of hostility, but authors might still have to buy their way into print – the market would improve steadily, if slowly, until the Restoration when antiquarianism saw a return to favour. Although busy in recovering church lands and possessions, Somner did manage to help Dugdale complete Spelman’s Concilia, and, with less success, try to progress with a general history of Kent, even if, as we have seen, all that reached print was the Gavelkind.
The Restoration of Monarchy
Early in 1660 Somner, still hating Richard Cromwell’s military government and mindful of a dislocated church and absent king, solicited petitions for a free parliament and supported various agitations for the return of Charles II from exile. In contradistinction to the royalist conspirators who had staged the earlier 1655 rising, the pro-Restoration Kentish gentry were markedly different in character, being mostly middle-aged men and moderate representatives of old-established families: Somner himself was now 53 and, ever loyal, suffered with his monarch by choosing not to take office with the usurpers, and rejecting offers of land acquisition from the dissolved church.
A paper entitled A Declaration of the Nobility, Gentry and Commonalty of the County of Kent was put about for subscriptions by the old Kentish rump and led to some of the agitators being arrested. Kennett presumed that ‘Somner was the chief penman, or at least the promoter of getting subscriptions, and suffered for
WILLIAM SOMNER (1600-1669). PART II
it’.50 Prompt response by the authorities resulted in an order on 28 January for ‘Mr Sumner the Proctor’ to be apprehended and detained with his fellow petitioners in Deal castle for a few months until the Restoration.51 Charles II landed at Dover on 25 May to retake his kingdom, and then proceeded to Canterbury where he was the recipient of civic gifts including Somner ‘on the bended knees of his body’ as he proffered a copy of his The Antiquities of Canterbury (the volume, with its special extra dedicatory leaf, now resides in the Henry Huntingdon Library in California). Since Laud’s execution in 1645 there had been no archiepiscopal successor for a record-breaking fifteen years, the majority of bishops preferring to stay in hiding to avoid persecution. The administration of spiritualties had thus devolved upon the Chapter during the vacant see. Somner was appointed Registrar of the Consistory Court of Canterbury on 14 July 166052 thereby taking up his father’s old position, and then in October, with the aged William Juxon as the new Primate, he was appointed joint-registrar with George Juxon (almost certainly a relative?) by a deed from the Dean and Chapter,53 becoming full registrar again from 1662 onwards. In December of the same year he received a signed letter54 from his good friend Meric Casaubon, d.d., Prebendary of Christ Church, and Receiver General, appointing him auditor and deputy in his absence to collect, rents, payments and other monies for the Dean and Chapter, for an annual salary around this time of £12. An indenture55 of 31 December 1662 deputed Somner to act for William Sherman as registrar of the Consistory Court until the end and relaxation of William Juxon’s
archiepiscopal visitation.
Various classes of church court records suspended or scattered by wartime would now recommence, notably the probate and instance act books, in abeyance for the whole of the 1650s, and now adding greatly to Somner’s workload. All were recommenced by simply turning a fresh page with no mention being made of the intervening lacunae. But fate smiled once more when Somner was given the mastership of St John’s Hospital, Canterbury, defending its and Harbledown Hospital’s interests in correspondence56 with Miles Smith, secretary to Archbishop Gilbert Sheldon. In increasing old age the Dean of Canterbury would entrust Somner with the examining of King’s School boys and future university entrants. In later life and looking back on losses of books from the cathedral library, Somner recalled that at its foundation it had been well endowed but that within man’s memory it had been ‘shamefully robbed and spoiled of them all; an act much prejudicial and very injurious both to Posterity and the Commonwealth of Letters.
The piety of the present Churchmen hath begun to replenish it and may it have (what it well deserves) many Benefactors’.57
In 1662, two years after the Restoration, and with some semblance of earlier and settled times, Somner wrote:
‘But first (as a necessary premonition) we shall here recount and represent the sad, forlorne and languishing condition of our Church at our returne; which (in short) was such as made it look more like a ruined Monastery than a church; so little had the fury of the late Reformers left remaining of it besides the bare walls and roofe
… The windows (famous for both strength and beauty) so generally battered and broken downe, as to lay exposed to the injury of all weathers … Many of the goodly Monuments of the dead shamefully abused, defaced, rifled and plundered … our Houses (many of them) much impaired, some by neglect of reparations, others by
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mangling and parcelling them out into tenements … our Registers and other books, together with our Records and evidences of all sorts, seized and distracted; many of them irrecoverably lost, and the rest not retrieved without much trouble and cost’.58
He continued by noting that expenses for materials and workmanship so far had totalled £4,148 2s. 10d., and that another £1,000 was set aside for perfecting the quire, organ, communion table with its plate &c, finally predicting that the total costs expended on the cathedral since the Restoration would be upwards of £10,000.
Now entering his last decade, his reputation was secure for his legal prowess and expertise, his linguistic abilities, his unrivalled local knowledge and his breathtaking scholarship. As acknowledged master of Anglo-Saxon studies, correspondence within an elite circle was assured, his local reputation second to none as the doyen of Kentish antiquaries, and indeed his long-standing but unofficial care of the muniments was vouchsafed and rewarded by Kennett’s epithet of ‘Keeper of the Archives’.59
Somner was able to identify the many coats of arms in and around the cathedral at a glance – always a sure sign of an expert heraldist, and a good reason for his intense interest in the cathedral stained glass. Elias Ashmole (1617-1692), the Windsor Herald who planned Charles II’s lavish coronation, supplied Somner with many papers and tracts, in return for which was helped with his own History of the most Noble Order of the Garter (1672). Thus, it is no surprise to learn that on 25 August 1663 Sir Edward Bysshe, Clarenceux King of Arms (who had probably met Somner on the 1663 county heraldic visitation and whom Somner had helped to improve his heraldry in return for supplying research papers), granted a coat of arms to William Somner (Fig. 3) and his brother John.60 The two men, now in
image
Fig. 3 Somner grant of arms from the 1663-68 visitation of Kent.
WILLIAM SOMNER (1600-1669). PART II
the very prime of life, understandably sought the distinction of gentility and were awarded the coat Ermine two chevronels gules. Unusually, although the elder, John was given a crescent as a mark of difference, perhaps to be ascribed to his brother’s greater renown. More curious is that the same coat was borne by Archbishop John Bird Sumner (1780-1862) and his descendants, although standard reference works on the gentry show no armigerous ancestor earlier than his father who was born in 1748, and indeed indicate (in italics) that this coat was assumed without official authority, perhaps because William Somner the antiquary’s grandson had died young in 1764 and the armorial achievement had thus failed for want of a legitimate heir.
By 1666 the ramifications of the Great Plague had spread far beyond London, for in May of that year Somner was busy recording receipts and expenditure for relief collections,61 noting that the eleven local deaneries had subscribed £486 0s. 9d., less expenses of £395 9s. 9d. incurred by travel to various local towns and London, leaving £90 11s. in hand.
Late in his working life Somner spent periods enjoying his house and tenements at Chartham, where his brother John had also acquired some land on the Stour. In the course of sinking a new well on a river bank in September 1668 some gigantic bones were discovered there by the workmen; Somner, writing perceptively about monstrous origins set against an inevitably limited viewpoint of biblical chronology, identified them as the hippopotamus (equus fluvialis) and wrote up his results in Chartham News, or A Brief Relation of some strange bones there lately digged up, in some grounds of Mr John Somner’s of Canterbury (which included an engraving of the teeth), a monograph which was published just after his death in 1669, and then included by Nicholas Battely in the 1703 edition of The Antiquities of Canterbury.
The antiquary, writing and working to the very end, made his last court appearance as registrar on 17 March 1669. With the end not far away, he told his wife that he had never been let blood nor taken physic.62 He had by now let his mansion in St Margaret’s St and moved, by virtue of his office as auditor, to the precincts. William Urry related63 that a 1668/9 chapter library drawing of the Waterworks64 by James Wilkie with its distorted plan of the precincts64 is the probable evidence for Somner’s residence in the old sub-prior’s lodging built into the ruins of the Infirmary Hall along the brick walk pathway which ran between the Oaks and the Dark Entry. The location is clearly marked on the plan, close to the audit house. To the lifelong antiquary the location was perhaps ideal, even if the location admitted no sunlight. There he died on 30 March 1669, having made his nuncupative will66 ‘very sick and weak in body’ on the very same day, hence the text being in the third person. Apart from bequests to his three surviving children and a few city functionaries, he remembered family connections in a memorandum by leaving 20s. each to the poor of the three parishes of Chartham, Christ Church and St Margaret. The residuary estate went entirely to his wife and children and was proved 8 May 1669 by his three witnesses and widow. His registrar’s position now devolved to a Mr Vaughan, as mentioned in the probate document.
He was buried in the north aisle of St Margaret’s church three days later on 2 April 1669, but a memorial to him was long in its creation. As late as 1693 Kennett complained of its absence;67 at some point soon thereafter Somner’s widow at her own expense commissioned a suitably inscribed memorial tablet duly recording the antiquary’s scholarship, piety, royalism and rectitude (Fig. 4).
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image
Fig. 4 Somner’s monumental inscription in St Margaret’s church, Canterbury. It reads: ‘Here lies William Somner of Canterbury who elucidated the Saxon language and the history of Canterbury, both of which were obscured in darkness. Death interrupted him planning his Kentish Antiquities. He showed his duty to God with strict piety, to men by a simple honesty, to the king by a hazardous allegiance, and to his country in his immortal writings. Thus the study of antiquity moulded ancient customs. He was born 30 March 1606, spent his whole life in Canterbury, and died 30 March 1669’.
A scholar’s library
WILLIAM SOMNER (1600-1669). PART II
On 11 June 1669 his widow Barbara sold ‘certain books and a case of shelves which were my husband’s in his lyfe time’ to the Dean and Chapter for £100 8s.68 Books, manuscripts, notes and papers were carried from Somner’s study to the Audit House, but it was not long before the majority was consumed in a disastrous fire just a year later in 1670 – to the chagrin of generations of later scholars. But even before that disaster the books and manuscripts had been recognized as of national significance and would have immediately attracted scholars to browse Somner’s holdings in canon, civil and common law, the majority with valuable manuscript annotations in the scholar’s own hand. Much would no doubt have been worked on during his periods of enforced leisure when cathedral business had been suspended in the 1640s and 1650s. A fulsome list of this material was made by the Royal Commission for Historical Manuscripts.69
The Audit House fire deprived posterity of the bulk of Somner’s correspondence, a grievous loss for our knowledge and insights into his family and into his scholarly circle. Of Somner’s marital happiness and the joys of children and grandchildren the records are silent: at the end he had a scattering of nephews and nieces, a wife, four surviving children, and a few grandchildren, none scholarly, and for whom there is not a single surviving comment on any of their lives. In the absence of anything to the contrary, it is tempting to see the antiquary, full of years, dying contentedly in the shadow of his beloved cathedral, his antiquarian circle, his books, his manuscripts and records, as great a comfort as the family that surrounded him.
Many antiquarians were necessarily leisured and of sufficient means to possess a working library, a distinct advantage in the days of a primitive and uncertain postal system. Loans certainly occurred, but probably more often by means of a personal visit. Books and manuscripts still extant from Somner’s library afford us some idea of his own researches as well as his personal contacts and whose works he was reading or consulting.
Purchases and gifts of books, partly to help rebuild the Dean and Chapter library after the destruction of the late mediaeval one, are recorded over several decades from the 1630s. The modern library has its origins in the 1620s when Isaac Bargrave (dean from 1625) instituted a Benefactors’ Book70 which includes donations from Somner himself, all given by around 1660. Today nearly one hundred volumes are safely ascribed to him through autograph ownership inscriptions. The titles inevitably reflect his own interests and include not only most of his own works, but many he had referred to or contributed to in the course of his lifetime researches: for example, Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica, Bilson’s Perpetuall Government, Casaubon’s De Quatuor Linguis Commentationis, Dugdale’s Monasticon and Warwickshire, Horne’s The Mirror of Justice, Junius’ Nomenclator, Kilburne’s Kent, Lambarde’s Archaionomia, Twysden’s Historiae Anglicanae Scriptores Decem, and Wheeloc’s Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Laws of Henry I. There are other works on Anglo-Saxon history and also that subject so dear to antiquarians, chorography.
Somner often recorded the price (between 12d. and 25s.), whether new or second hand, and the year of purchase of his books. Some thirty-one volumes were gifted to him, the donors including Edward Aldey, vicar of St Andrew’s, his former
DAVID WRIGHT
headmaster John Ludd, Francis Taylor, Roger Twysden, William Dugdale, the London printer and bookseller Cornelius Bee, seven titles from his esteemed friend Meric Casaubon, and other items from local Kentish historians including Richard Kilburne, John Philipot, and John Boys who gave Somner an Italian dictionary. In all, this was very much a working library, and Somner’s interest in local history is quickly recognized by his annotations in the Kentish sections of the general books about England.
Grievous as those early losses were, a reasonable corpus of Somner manuscripts still survives, nearly all in Canterbury Cathedral Archives. We still have a good idea of what did survive the fire at Canterbury, for within a generation of Somner’s death White Kennett had appended71 a list of ‘Mr Somner’s Posthumous manuscripts, now in the Library of Christ Church, Canterbury’. This in turn was repeated and slightly augmented by Humphrey Wanley in his magisterial volume of 1697.72
By its nature, the considerable quantity of (then unindexed) workaday letters, certificates and much other ancillary material pertaining to Somner’s professional life is passed over in silence. Observations upon … Commisariship,73 an autograph commonplace book of legal formulae, precedents, jurisdictions, privileges and so on concerning charters, commissions, the courts, clergy, petty crimes and probate is supposed to be the first fruits of his labours and the start of his study of antiquity, probably started before he reached adulthood and based upon a patent granted to Sir Nathaniel Brent (four similar mostly non-autograph ones also survive74). A volume of sundry autograph papers75 reveals details of church land, beadsmen and related matters, and two autograph rentals76 of 1662-65 give interesting details about rents and arrears for the cathedral and city parishes. There are also an autograph translation of the preface to the Dictionarium77 and an autograph list78 of his own works, published and unpublished, 1660-69.
A folio paper book containing a miscellany of fourteen libelli,79 was probably compiled by Somner and then considerably annotated by him with corrections and queries. Its provenance80 may well be the same as that for a pair of volumes with identical and distinctive bindings,81 which were recorded by Somner as having been gifted to him by Thomas Godfrey of Hodiford in Sellindge (1585-1664), ‘a great lover of learning and all ingenuity’, and previously in the possession of the Kentish historian Lambarde, whose daughter Margaret had married Godfrey in 1608.
Kennett’s attention was drawn rather to scholarly and literary items. Some things we may still recognize, such as ‘A large collection in order to the compiling his Saxon Dictionary in 2 volumes’ and ‘His Antiquities of Canterbury interleaved, with very large additions’ as well as copies of his own published and unpublished works, some with additions and emendations, along with assorted collections towards his unrealised county history. There are also scholia on the laws of Henry I,82 a discourse touching the patent of the Canterbury Commissary Court which included the origin, jurisdiction and privileges of that spiritual court; and two volumes of mostly autograph collected papers including copies of letters, transcripts from manuscripts, chronicles charters and early books, and emendations and additions to Selden and Spelman.83 Kennett further records Somner’s notes and emendations to Henry de Bracton, Meric Casaubon, Gervase of Canterbury, Andrew Horn, William Lisle, John Marsham, Henry Spelman, Silas Taylor, William Thorne,
WILLIAM SOMNER (1600-1669). PART II
Verstegan, Gerard Vossius and other authors, all highly illustrative of his broad
compass of reading and interests.
A final volume84 is of more than passing interest. Entitled Dictionarium Latinum, it is a fifteenth-century folio paper book of 139 double-column folios containing a copy of the contemporary Medulla Grammaticalis written by Geoffrey, a Dominican friar, to which Somner himself has added the Anglo-Saxon equivalents of many Latin words throughout the volume. At f.130 there is an inscription ‘This is Giles Wynston’s book honest man of the parish of St Dunstan’s Canterbury’. Is this the same Giles Winston of St Alphege parish whose will85 of 1602/3 was witnessed by William Somner senior, and so perhaps the grandfather of the antiquary?
Three years after her husband’s death Barbara Somner was married on 6 February 1672 at Postling to her third husband (and the third with King’s School connections) Henry Hannington, the rector of Elham. After his death in 1691 and some time spent living at Chartham, she returned to the confines of the cathedral precincts and the Archbishop’s Palace. In November 1675, six years after Somner’s death, Barbara Hannington, took delivery as administratix of his probate inventory with the will annexed.86 Her husband was described as being ‘late of the Precincts’, and the document makes for the usual fascinating reading. His home comprised blue, grey, striped, and great chambers (the latter with 23 yards of hangings worth 30s.), a little room under the stairs, study and parlour, hall and larder, buttery, kitchen and closet, and an outside woodhouse. The contents included twenty pounds of old pewter valued at 13s. 4d., a pair of virginals 40s., his purse and clothes £16, furniture £17, money in gold and silver £30, and ‘all the books in the house according to our judgement’ £100. Then is described his house at Chartham with its dozen or more rooms and details of debts due upon mortgage and various bonds. Barbara Hannington signed the inventory and confirmed the grand total valuation of £1,409 4s. 2d. and then proceeded to itemise the customary expenses incurred: the funeral, gloves and black bays, the tolling of the great bell, the pall and wine, physic administered to the late deceased, and sundry small debts, leading the administratix to complain that she was out of pocket to the sum of £76 15s. 3d. After a third widowhood, this latter of fourteen years, she died in 1705 and, at her particular request, was buried alongside her second husband, William Somner, in St Margaret’s church, a stone’s throw from the old family home in Castle Street. At her own expense a small memorial tablet was set up (wrongly giving the date of death as 1695) beneath her ‘beloved husband’ William’s larger wall monument.
Several generations later, Richard Gough (1735-1809), the leading antiquary of his
day, would sum up Somner’s life:87
This eminent antiquary was born on the eve of a period for which he seems to have been reserved, to rescue our antiquities from that second and more desolating storm of civil war and fanaticism which threatened them with a more sweeping ruin than the dissolution. To write his life is to write a panegyric on that study, without which the antiquities of England could hardly be discovered, or at least but imperfectly known.
That is perhaps a fair summary of a truly remarkable life which sought no fame and counted no cost in its devotion to the assiduous and diligent uncovering and recording of a nation’s language and a city’s antiquities.
acknowledgements
DAVID WRIGHT
The author would like to thank Dr Nigel Ramsay and Rachel Fletcher for valuable help and suggestions; Dr David Shaw for bibliographical information taken from the forthcoming Kentish Book Culture 1400-1660; and the Canterbury and Maidstone Archives for permission to quote from documents held in their care.
Appendix 1 – Chronology
1572, birth of father, William Somner senior, at Boxley. c.1574, birth of mother, Ann Wynstone, at Lynsted.
1594, October 22, marriage of parents in Canterbury. 1606, March 30, birth of William Somner, antiquary. 1615, elected King’s School scholar.
1634, June 12, marries Elizabeth Thurgar.
1638, March 20, admitted Proctor of the Canterbury Consistory Court. 1640, March 3, admitted Freeman of Canterbury.
1642, August, sacking of Canterbury cathedral.
1659, December 1, marries secondly Barbara Browne.
1660, imprisoned in Deal Castle; Registrar of the Consistory Court of Canterbury; Auditor of Canterbury Cathedral.
1663, August 25, grant of arms.
1669, March 30, dies at home in the precincts.
1669, May 8, nuncupative will proved.
1669, June 11, books and papers sold to the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury. 1705, death of his widow Barbara Hannington late Somner.
Appendix 2 – Published and unpublished works
1640, The Antiquities of Canterbury (reissued 1661; revised 1703).
1648, The In-securitie of Princes.
c.1650, The Frontispiece of the King’s Book Opened.
1650, Ad verba vetera Germanica (in Casaubon’s De Quatuor Linguis). 1659, Dictionarium Saxonico-Latino-Anglicum (revised 1701).
1660, A Treatise of Gavelkind (completed 1647; revised 1726).
1669, Chartham News.
1693, A treatise of the Roman Ports and Forts in Kent (written c.1650s?).
1693, The Goodwin Sands.
1694, Iulii Caesaris Portus Iccius Illustratus (written c.1656).
WILLIAM SOMNER (1600-1669). PART II
Unpublished works
1644, Observations on the Laws of King Henry I.
c.1650s, Litus Saxonicum per Britanniam.
1660, A Declaration of the Nobility, Gentry and Commonalty of the County of Kent
(Somner’s exclusive authorship not certain).
endnotes
1 Gavelkind, Preface.
2 Life, 20.
3 Life, 27.
4 Life, 98.
5 Life, 31.
6 Dictionarium, ad lectorem, 6.
7 ibid., 8.
8 Life, 93.
9 Life, 126.
10 BL MS Royal B xxii.
11 Oxford, Bodley MS Junius 71.
12 Dictionarium, ad lectorem 17.
13 Life, 133-5 (CCAL: W2/Q-2-10). A generation later in Roman Ports and Forts Kennett repeated almost verbatim twenty-six of the Kentish supporters’ names, perhaps to emphasise local networks of scholarly activity, some of whom at least would have sights firmly set on the elucidation and exposition of ancestry, and so justifying their present country seat.
14 Oxford, Bodley MS Selden Supra B.
15 Life, 63.
16 BL MS Cotton Titus xv, xvi.
17 BL MS Harley 8, 9.
18 Viro Vere Generoso et mihi unice observando.
19 BL MS Cotton Tiberius B i.
20 CCAL: W/E 6.20.
21 CCAL: Lit MS C/8.
22 Oxford, Bodley MS Ashmole 328.
23 BL MS Cotton Claudius B iv.
24 BL MS Royal 12D xvii.
25 BL MS Royal 7C ix.
26 Oxford, Bodley MS Junius 11.
27 Dictionarium, ad lectorem 3.
28 ibid., 2, 15.
29 BL MS Cotton Vitellius A xv.
30 Dictionarium, ad lectorem 9.
31 ibid., 15.
32 ibid., 14.
33 ibid., 18.
34 ibid., 10.
35 De hoc autem amplius imposterum, inter Antiquitates Cantianas, a nobis, hoc opere tandem
absolute, Deo volente, adornanadas.
36 CCAL: Lit MS E/20-1.
37 CCAL: Lit MS C/9-10.
DAVID WRIGHT
38 Hamper, op. cit., p. 107.
39 ibid.
40 Oxford, Bodley MS Ballard 51.
41 BL MS Harley 3782, f.119; quoted in Nichols (1812-15), IV, p. 141.
42 plus ter centum supra quatuor mille auctum reperio.
43 Life, 53.
44 Life, 56.
45 ibid.
46 Gavelkind, 11.
47 ibid., 41.
48 Antiquities, 173.
49 Life, 116.
50 Life, 106.
51 Calendar of State Papers Domestic, 1659/60.
52 CCAL: DCc Ch. Ant. S/406.
53 CCAL: DCb J/Z.2.2.
54 CCAL: DCc BB/W/12.
55 CCAL: DCc V P/9.
56 Oxford, Bodley MS 28183, ff. 128, 133, 137.
57 Antiquities, 96
58 CCAL: Lit MS A/15, ff.7-8.
59 Life, 92.
60 Armytage (1906), p. 152; Grantees of Arms (Harleian Society, lxvi (1915), p. 238).
61 LPL: CM VI/20.
62 CCAL: DCb J/Z/2/5.
63 The Cantuarian (1949), p. 286.
64 CCAL: Fabric XXXV.
65 Illustrated in Archaeologia Cantiana, xlix (1938), 194-5.
66 KHLC: PRC32/53/464.
67 Life, 102-3.
68 CCAL: DCc LA/1/11.
69 RCHM Ninth Annual Report (1883), Appendix I, pp. 124-5.
70 CCAL: Lit MS E/40.
71 Life, 37.
72 Wanley (1697), pp. 223-5, 389.
73 CCAL: Lit MS A/3.
74 CCAL: Lit MS C/16-19.
75 CCAL: Lit MS A/15.
76 CCAL: DCc Rentals 17; 57.
77 CCAL: Ch Ant M/352.
78 CCAL: DCc LA/1/10.
79 CCAL: Lit MS B/2.
80 Archaeologia Cantiana, cxv (1995), 389-411.
81 CCAL: Lit MS E/1, 2.
82 CCAL: Lit MS C/6.
83 CCAL: Lit MS C/5, 8.
84 CCAL: Lit MS D/2.
85 See above, endnote 6.
86 KHLC: PRC18/34/85.
87 Gough (1780), I, 443.
REPUBLICAN DRESSEL 1 AMPHORAE FROM EAST WEAR BAY, FOLKESTONE
adrian weston
East Wear Bay is located at one of the shortest sea crossing points of the Dover Strait. As a shallow bay protected from the westerly winds by the ridge of Copt Point, its situation would have facilitated a safe and sheltered landing for traders crossing the strait from ports on the French coast (Fig. 1). The prehistoric bay would have looked somewhat different from today, with Copt Point most likely forming a more prominent ridge and extending further out to sea. Traders arriving on the foreshore in the late Iron Age are likely to have encountered a gentle slope rising up to the extensive settlement that was located on the East Cliff adjacent to the bay. The settlement was principally engaged in the manufacture of quern- stones (Green 2016, 160-163), an industry that flourished from at least the first
image
Fig. 1 East Wear Bay, Folkestone, looking down from the site of the Iron Age settlement.
ADRIAN WESTON
century bc. The construction of a large villa complex over part of the settlement took place at the end of the first century ad, possibly contemporaneous with the decline of the industry.
During the Iron Age, East Wear Bay was likely to have formed the main focus of Folkestone, rather than the modern area of the town now centred around the Pent Stream. Its close proximity to the long-distance prehistoric trackway, the North Downs Way, would have facilitated easy movement of goods bound for the interior of Kent and beyond (Parfitt 2013a, 22-23). A large quantity of Dressel 1 wine amphorae together with other imported pottery and coins from Gaul have been found on the beach, and during recent excavations at the settlement site. These finds provide substantial archaeological evidence for a pre-Roman port of entry (Parfitt 2013b, 36-37), which may have performed a similar function to that of Hengistbury Head in Dorset.
What goods were traded in exchange for the wine and pottery can only be speculated at. They may have included any of the items listed by the Greek historian and geographer Strabo as being exported from Britain during the late Iron Age such as grain, cattle, hides, silver, iron, slaves and hunting dogs. Although a number of querns of French origin have been found at Folkestone, querns of Folkestone origin appear at present to be almost absent from Gaul (Green 2016, 163) and therefore may not have formed a significant part of this cross-channel trade.
The geology of East Wear Bay makes it prone to instability, when high ground water levels saturate the Gault Clay it begins to liquify and lose cohesion where it joins the Lower Greensand. This causes rotational slippage, a process that is resulting in the East Cliff slowly slipping down into the bay below and subsequently succumbing to sea erosion. Extensive rotational slippage in the 1990s left significant archaeological material exposed on the surface of the foreshore, with much of it still in stratified layers. It was during this time, in these exposed layers that most of the Dressel 1 amphorae were recovered by the writer. Simultaneously two local fossil collectors found a number of other significant Dressel 1 fragments in the same area, and latterly gave these to the writer with the intention of keeping this important material together.
Dressel 1 Amphorae
Dressel 1 is the most common type of late republican amphorae, produced from c.150-10 bc. It is traditionally sub-divided into three sub-types, 1A, 1B, and 1C (Lambogia 1955) (Fig. 2). Production was concentrated along the western coast of Italy from Etruria to Campania, in what may have been up to 100 production sites (Thierrin-Michael and Picon 1994, 144), together with much smaller scale production in Spain and the south of France. The principal contents were undoubtedly wine, with some Dressel 1 bearing inscriptions that refer to them carrying the famous Falernian and Caecuban wines (Sealey 1985, 23). Other commodities that may have been occasionally carried include garum, defrutum and olive oil, although it is not certain if some of this trade involved the reuse of containers (Loughton 2014, 73-74). Dressel 1 are found in very large numbers around the western Mediterranean, especially the coasts of southern France and
image
3
4
2
1
REPUBLICAN DRESSEL 1 AMPHORAE FROM EAST WEAR BAY, FOLKSTONE
Fig. 2 Republican Amphorae: 1. Greco-Italic. 2. Dressel 1A. 3. Dressel 1B.
4. Dressel 1C.
Spain. In the late Iron Age, Britain lay at the very edge of the distribution of Roman wine and as a consequence received relatively small numbers of amphorae. The British distribution is centred in two main areas, namely around Dorset and Hampshire, and Kent/East Anglia. Dressel 1 are occasionally stamped, taking the form of a name or more often a series of two or three letters; the stamp is usually located on either the rim or handle. A gazetteer of find spots in Britain records seven stamps (Carver 2001, 82-93).
The Dressel 1A evolved c.150 bc (Hesnard 1990, 51), from earlier Greco-Italic amphorae and might still have been in circulation c.50 bc. It is characterised by a short triangular rim, 30-50mm high, a rounded shoulder, and an overall vessel height in the range 0.9-1.05m with a capacity of c.16-20 litres.
The Dressel 1B possibly appeared as early as the beginning of the first century bc (Parker 1992, 32), but the traditional date for its evolution from the 1A form is
c.50 bc. With a vessel height in the range 1.1-1.2m and a capacity of c.25 litres, the 1B was slightly larger and more robust than the 1A. It is characterised by a tall concave rim over 45mm in height, an angled shoulder and a tall base.
The Dressel 1C first appeared in Gaul c.130-120 bc (Loughton 2014, 56), and continued in use throughout most of the first century bc. Its overall height is in the range 1.1-1.2m with a capacity of c.25 litres. Its shape is more spindle-like than the 1A or 1B. Its most distinctive feature is a high rim, 60-80 mm high that usually flares out at the base. The diameter of the rim is always 150mm or less, considerably smaller than that of a 1B. It is much less common than the 1A and 1B. Its rarity as a find may suggest that it was primarily used to carry commodities other than wine.
ADRIAN WESTON
The Folkestone Dressel 1 foreshore assemblage
Dressel 1 amphorae are readily identified by rim and handle fragments. The collar rims are very distinctive in appearance and the long straight oval to slightly rounded handles are completely different from the bifid (composed of two rods) handles of its successor, the Dressel 2-4. Body fragments cannot always be assigned to Dressel 1 or the later Dressel 2-4 as both exist in the same fabrics. Because the Dressel 1 has a sturdier construction than its successor, most archaeologists take the view that body sherds in Italian fabrics with a thickness of 20mm or more can be assigned to Dressel 1. Any remaining sherds below this thickness are classified as belonging to either Dressel 1 or 2-4. By following these rules it has been possible to identify 50 sherds recovered from the foreshore that can be positively attributed to Dressel 1 (Figs 3-5). This assemblage weighing 9,644 grams includes 14 rim sherds from 10 amphorae, 17 handle sherds and 19 body sherds. A further 15 body sherds weighing 1,790 grams with a thickness below 20mm have been classified as belonging to either Dressel 1 or 2-4. The minimum number of Dressel 1 amphorae present in this assemblage is 23 (Table 1). Excavations at the settlement site conducted as part of the Folkestone A Town Unearthed project (2010-11) have resulted in a further significant assemblage of Dressel 1 amphorae being recovered. These include a large number of rim and handle sherds equal in quantity to that already recovered from the foreshore. The total area excavated so far is very small in relation to the likely size of the settlement, therefore the potential exists for further Dressel 1 material to be found in the future.
The writer has adopted the practice whereby rims are recorded as a series of measurements consisting of the rim diameter, height, thickness and angle of inclination. Fig. 6 explains how these measurements are arrived at. This practice, widely used in amphorae reports from France, is gaining popularity in Britain and enables the comparison of assemblages from different sites, many of which will have known date ranges.
The Folkestone Dressel 1 Amphorae in a wider context
The East Wear Bay Dressel 1 assemblage is certainly the largest and most important so far found in Kent. Canterbury has the second largest assemblage, although still a relatively small amount when considering both the extent and the timescale of excavations there (Pollard 1991, 57-58). A handful of other Kentish sites have realised just one or two sherds.
In a wider national context the East Wear Bay assemblage is comparable in size and importance to the assemblages from Hengistbury Head, Dorset, and Elms Farm, Heybridge, Essex, which are two of the largest recorded in Britain. The Hengistbury Head assemblage is typologically the earliest in Britain, dominated by the 1A type with a few possibly earlier Greco-Italic amphorae dating to the second century bc. Conversely, the Elms Farm assemblage is dominated by the later 1B type, which may have arrived over a short period of time towards the last quarter of the first century bc. It has been generally accepted that the main emphasis of the wine trade with Britain moved from Hengistbury Head and the Dorset-Hampshire region in general, to South-East England around the middle of the first century bc (Peacock 1984, 37-8).
REPUBLICAN DRESSEL 1 AMPHORAE FROM EAST WEAR BAY, FOLKSTONE
Fig. 3 Dressel 1 amphorae. The East Wear Bay foreshore assemblage 1-11.
image
ADRIAN WESTON
Fig. 4 Dressel 1 amphorae. The East Wear Bay foreshore assemblage 12-19.
image
image
REPUBLICAN DRESSEL 1 AMPHORAE FROM EAST WEAR BAY, FOLKSTONE
Fig. 5 Dressel 1 amphorae. The East Wear Bay foreshore assemblage 20-21.
image
Fig. 6 Dressel 1 rim metrology: D = Diameter of rim; HR = height of rim; TR =
maximum thickness of rim; I = angle of inclination (amended from Maza 1998, fig. 2).
The majority of Dressel 1 amphorae previously found in Kent and Essex have been of the 1B type, with a few exceptions in Essex. A large proportion of the East Wear Bay assemblage is composed of the 1A type, some of which are typologically very early. This suggests that wine imports commenced at East Wear Bay whilst the Hengistbury Head trade was still in operation, with imports continuing to arrive throughout the first century bc. However, the early first century ad saw a dramatic reduction in supplies of Italian wine reaching Britain due largely to increased wine consumption in Italy itself (Sealey 2009, 22) and East Wear Bay was to prove no exception to this.
ADRIAN WESTON
TABLE 1. CATALOGUE OF ILLUSTRATED DRESSEL 1 FINDS FROM EAST WEAR BAY; DIMENSIONS IN CM
No.
(Type)
Component(s)
D
HR
TR
I
S
Comments
1 (1B)
rim and neck fragment with a two-letter stamp: A C
(see Fig. 7)
19
5.6
2.7
86°
Other examples of this stamp have been found at Clermont-Ferrand (Puy-de-Dôme), France (Loughton 2001, vol. 2, 334), Alesia (Côte- d’Or), France (Mangin 1981, pl. XIX no 54), Titelberg, Luxembourg (Callender 1965, no. 13) and Mt Beuvray (Bourgogne), France (Olmer 2003, no 212). This amphora originates from Albinia, Italy, and dates to the last quarter of the first century bc
2 (1B)
rim and neck fragment with a two-letter stamp: C D
(see Fig. 7)
17
6.2
2.5
85°
Two other examples of this stamp have been found at Mt Beuvray (Bourgogne), France (Olmer 2003, nos 259, 260). This amphora originates from Albinia, Italy, and dates to the last quarter of the first century bc
3
rim and neck
16
4.2
2
82°
(1A)
fragment
4 (1A)
rim and neck fragment
(see Fig. 7)
16
3.2
3
60°
Typologically the earliest Dressel 1 rim found at Folkestone, probably dating to the second century bc
5
rim and neck
16
4
3
75°
(1A)
fragment
6
rim and neck
17
4.2
2.7
67°
(1A)
fragment
7
rim and neck
16
4.5
3
80°
(See Fig. 7)
(1A)
fragment
and neck
and handle
fragment
8 (1C)
rim and neck fragment
(See Fig. 7)
14
7.3
2.5
87°
A tall upright rim with an out-flaring base and a narrow mouth typical of the 1C form. A substantial fragment reconstructed from 4 adjoining rim sherds which were found over a period of three years
REPUBLICAN DRESSEL 1 AMPHORAE FROM EAST WEAR BAY, FOLKSTONE
No.
Type
Component(s)
D
HR
TR
I
S
Comments
9
(1B)
rim and neck fragment
18
>5
3
87°
10
(?)
base
11 (1A)
rim, handle (two adjoining sherds), and a neck fragment
14
4.2
2
80°
4.5x
2.6
4 adjoining sherds from the same
amphora
12
(?)
handle
4.6x
3.5
13
(?)
handle
5x
3.2
14
(1B)
shoulder
A sharp angular shoulder typical of the 1B form
15
(?)
handle
5x
2.7
Two sherds
16
(1A?)
handle (two sherds)
4.4x
2.4
from the same small handle, probably from a Dressel 1A
17
(?)
handle
4.8x
3.1
18
(1B)
handle
5.1x
3.3
19
(?)
handle
5x3
20
(?)
handle stub
21
(?)
handle stub
Note. D = diameter of rim; HR = height of rim; TR = maximum thickness of rim; I = angle of inclination; S = section of handle.
ADRIAN WESTON
image image
image
image
Fig. 7 Dressel 1 amphorae. The East Wear Bay foreshore assemblage.
Top left – Dressel 1C (8); Top right – Dressel 1A (7); Bottom left – Dressel 1A (4);
Bottom right – Dressel 1B (1)/ Dressel 1B (2).
REPUBLICAN DRESSEL 1 AMPHORAE FROM EAST WEAR BAY, FOLKSTONE
discussion
The Dressel 1 amphorae recovered from East Wear Bay constitute a group of national importance both in terms of the quantity and range present; in fact no other site in Britain has recorded all three sub-types. The range of sub-types provides substantial evidence for the prolonged importation of these amphorae to East Wear Bay; however, it is uncertain how much of this wine was being traded with the interior of Kent. On the basis of the scarcity of Dressel 1 finds inland it would appear that most of the wine was being consumed at the settlement site itself, although the possibility of wine being decanted from amphorae into other more readily transportable containers cannot be ruled out.
The exceptionally large number of Dressel 1 amphorae together with the extensive range of fine-ware imported pottery found at the site indicate a high status settlement. The leading citizens of this settlement may have been expatriate maritime traders as has been proposed at Heybridge (Sealey 2015). Such traders would no doubt have appreciated fine Italian wine themselves and may well have also been involved in the local quern-stone industry. What effect the Roman Conquest had on East Wear Bay is still uncertain. One of the wealthy trading families may have built the villa, or control of the whole trading establishment by the Classis Britannica on behalf of the state remains a possibility (Weston 2017, 307).
acknowledgements
The writer would like to thank the members of the Folkestone Research and Archaeology group who assisted with access to the finds from the A Town Unearthed excavations, and to Richard Hoskins for sorting through these finds on his behalf; Dr David Williams for his help in initially examining and commenting on the foreshore assemblage and to Barbara McNee for the foreshore assemblage illustrations.
bibliography
Callender, M.H., 1965, Roman amphorae with index of stamps, London: University of Durham.
Carver, E., 2001, The visibility of imported wine and its associated accoutrements in later Iron Age Britain, Oxford: BAR BS 325.
Green, C., 2016, ‘Querns and millstones in Late Iron Age and Roman London and South East England’, in Bird, D. (ed.) Agriculture and industry in south-eastern Roman Britain, Oxford: Oxbow Books, 156-179.
Hesnard, A., 1990, ‘Les Amphores’, in Duval, A., Morel, J.P. and Roman, Y. (eds), Gaule interne et Gaule méditerranéenne aux IIe et Ier siècles J.-C.: confrontations chronologiques, 47-54, RAN supplément no. 21.
Keller, P.T., 1989, ‘Quern production at Folkestone, south east Kent: an interim note’,
Britannia, XX, 193-200.
Lamboglia, N., 1955, ‘Sulla cronologia della anfore romane de età republicana (II-I secolo a.c)’, Revista di Studi Liguri, 21, 241-270.
Laubenheimer, F., 1991, ‘Les Amphores de Bibracte, Le matériel des Fouilles Anciennes’,
Documents d’Archéologie Française, 29, Paris.
ADRIAN WESTON
Loughton, M.E., 2001, ‘Republican wine amphorae in the Auvergne, central France: an archaeological and petrological study’, unpubl. ph.d. thesis, University of Bournemouth. Loughton, M.E., 2014, The Arverni and Roman wine: Roman amphorae from the late Iron Age sites in the Auvergne (Central France): chronology, fabrics and stamps, Oxford:
Archaeopress.
Mangin, M., 1981, Un quartier de commerçants et d’artisans d’Alésia, Paris.
Maza, G., 1998, ‘Reecherche méthodologique sur les amphores gréco-italiques et Dressel 1 decouvertes à Lyon IIe-Ier siècles avant J.-C’, SFECAG, actes du congrès D’listres, 11-29.
Olmer, F., 2003, Les amphores de Bibracte 2. Le commerce du vin chez les Éduens d›après les timbres d›amphores. Catalogue des timbres de Bibracte 1984-1998. Catalogue des timbres de Bourgogne, Glux-en-Glenne: Collection Bibracte no. 7.
Parfitt, K., 2013a, ‘Folkestone before Folkestone: prehistoric times’, in Coulson, I. (ed.),
Folkestone to 1500: A town unearthed, CAT, 9-30.
Parfitt, K., 2013b, ‘Folkestone during the Roman period’, in Coulson, I. (ed.), Folkestone to 1500: A town unearthed, CAT, 31-54.
Peacock, D.P.S., 1984, ‘Roman amphorae in Iron Age Britain: a Reassessment’, in Macready, S. and Thomson, F.H. (eds), Cross channel trade between Gaul and Britain in the pre-Roman Iron Age, 37-42, London : Society of Antiquaries occas. paper 4.
Pollard, R.J., 1991, ‘Dressel 1 amphorae from Kent’, Journal of Roman pottery studies, 4,
, Oxford: Oxbow books, 57-58.
Sealey, P.R., 1985, Amphoras from the 1970 excavations at Colchester Sheepen, Oxford: BAR BS 142.
Sealey, P.R., 2009, ‘New light on the wine trade with Julio-Claudian Britain’, Britannia, XL, 1-40.
Sealey, P.R., 2015, ‘The amphoras’, in M. Atkinson and S.J. Preston, Heybridge: A late Iron Age and Roman settlement, Excavations at Elms Farm 1993-5, Internet Archaeology 40. http://dx.doi..org/10.11141/ia.40.1.sealey.
Thierrin-Michael, G. and Picon, M., 1994, ‘Les amphores de 1’Italie, identification des exportations’, in Olcese, G. (ed.), Ceramica Romana e archeometria : Io stato degli studi, Firenze, Edizioni all Insegna del Giglio, 143-151.
Weston, A., 2017, ‘More Classis Britannica tiles from East Wear Bay, Folkestone’,
Archaeologia Cantiana, cxxxviii, 301-08. Winbolt, S.E., 1925, Roman Folkestone, London.
THREE WEEKS OF JOURNEYS, ECCLESIASTICAL
CEREMONY AND ENTERTAINMENT IN KENT: LETTERS FROM MARY YORKE, 1774
anthea jones
James Yorke, Dean of Lincoln and newly-appointed bishop of St David’s, was chosen to assist Archbishop Cornwallis in his Visitation of his diocese of Canterbury in June/July 1774.1 Yorke (1730-1808) was the younger brother of the 2nd Earl of Hardwicke,2 whose wife was Marchioness Grey. Yorke’s wife, Mary (c.1744- 1823), wrote three lengthy letters to the Marchioness and her eldest daughter Amabel describing her experiences during the Visitation. The Kentish correspondence, part of a much larger collection, was preserved amongst the De Grey letters at Wrest Park.3 Two of the three letters quoted below were penned immediately after the Visitation had ended, but the first was sent early on in the journey, from Sittingbourne.4
Mary Yorke’s letters covering the three weeks spent in Kent display not just a personal picture, but give readers today an illuminating insight into the life of the upper echelons of the Church of England at that time. Spelling, abbreviations, capitalisation and punctuation are mainly modernised in these extracts, to avoid reducing their immediacy, with a few exceptions including Ld for Lord and Bp for Bishop, and underlinings to give a flavour of the originals. She always signed herself simply ‘MY’.
The James Yorkes left their home at Forthampton, Gloucestershire, for London in late June and then set out for Rochester and Canterbury.
June 30th 1774 12 o’Clock Sittingbourne [to Marchioness Grey] [L30/9/111/49]
This place is in as fine a fuss Dear Madam as you can suppose, however the Bps are now gone to church & I am sat down to compose myself by thinking of your Ladyship & at the same time returning my thanks for your very kind note received just before I set out. Our tour sets out very successfully, the Bp of St David’s & myself are both very well except a little limp in the foot, which gives an air of dignity proper for the occasion. The road we came on is beau- tiful beyond anything I am used to see, & the weather as favourable as could be wished. The first scene that struck my eye was Black Heath & its environs particularly Sir G Page’s.5 The road from thence to Rochester runs almost all the way upon the banks of the Thames, noble views of which are continually opening between the gentle declivities of the neighbouring hills. One delightful scene broke in upon us at once near a Seat that did belong to Lord Besborough
ANTHEA JONES
image
Fig. 1 A miniature by Philip Jean (1755-1802) is held by family tradition to be of Mary Yorke, painted about 1790, when she would have been 45 years old. Jean was patronised by George III and other members of the royal family. A lock of thick fair hair at the back suggests Mary was younger than the impression given by the conventional powdering. (Reproduced with the kind permission of John Yorke.)
JOURNEYS, ECCLESIASTICAL CEREMONY AND ENTERTAINMENT IN KENT: 1774
& which I should have liked to have walked over if I had had time.6 After that we descended into a lower part of the country & pleased ourselves with ob- serving the neat enclosures of hop gardens & cherry orchards, when suddenly rising out of this retired part of the road Chatham & the Thames in all its glory ornamented with ships of all sizes appeared before us; we never lost sight of it again for many moments till we reached the winding Medway & Rochester. This town is I think not a pretty one ...
This morning we sallied forth from thence [Rochester] at 8 o’Clock & whipped up with his Grace before ten. Our airing here was very entertaining in a different way. Indeed soon after we left Rochester we commanded a near view of the noble scene of Chatham which had appeared at some distance from us the night before & could now count 17: 3 mast of first rate ships besides small ones inumerable (alas the poor Severn how I shall despise you when I return?).7 From this time forward my attention was entirely confined to the road itself, which now began to have evident marks of a visitation. Sometimes we passed a reverend Divine upon a sober Pad,8 sometimes two stuffed into a one-Horse Chair; then four or five tidy lads with silk handkerchiefs round their necks, some in clean white frocks, others in fustian suits, perhaps as many lasses in straw hats & clean linen gowns all trudging on foot, till we came nearer the town [Sittingbourne], when the plot thickened & we drove before us Girls in Waggons, on Foot, Horseback, every way surrounded with Boys, old Women, Clergy, Church Wardens, & Parish Clerks without end, the Bp himself bringing up the rear. Thus we entered the town in the midst of dust noise & bustle, I must confess to my no small amusement, though I am desired to keep the muscles of my face in the greatest composure throughout the whole Visitation, & not betray any risibility of disposition.
The room I am in is over the Gateway where the carriages are continually rumbling, over head is I believe half the Clergy of the Neighbourhood & their Valets de Chambre preparing themselves & their wigs for the dinner, on each hand of me are apartments taken, & separated only from me by a folding par- tition, & the passages & staircase continually occupied.9 However my room is my castle. Hark l hear somebody bouncing at the door.
‘Who’s there?’
‘I beg your pardon Madam’ ‘Sir this is my Room’
….
Adieu Dear Madam. The Church is up & there is an hundred tongues under my window
….
My Bp is come in, he says not much tired but his hands very greasy owing to the quantity of pomatum upon the young gentlemen & ladies’ heads; he has confirmed about 200. I hear his Grace calling out through the partition ‘where is my Lord Bishp of St David’s?’. So I suppose they are going to dinner. I would advise them to talk no secrets.
ANTHEA JONES
image
Fig. 2 James Yorke was painted in 1792 by Jean-Laurent Monier (1743-1808, who worked in London 1789-95). After his death in 1808, an engraving was made by C. Turner and published in 1810. (Reproduced with the kind permission of John Yorke.)
The following two letters, one to Marchioness Grey and one to Amabel (less formal in style) were penned immediately after the visitation.
July 18th 1774 Upper Brook Street [London][L30/11/339/16]
Guess where I have been Dear Lady Bell since you last heard from me? By the length of time you will be apt I am afraid to say, ‘beyond Sea no doubt’: and indeed you would be very near in the right, for it is but a very few days
JOURNEYS, ECCLESIASTICAL CEREMONY AND ENTERTAINMENT IN KENT: 1774
ago since I was in a neat little pacquet boat with another lady in the harbour at Dover, every thing convenient about us & above half tempted to sail over to Calais, but our Beauxs were not at leisure to attend us, & we thought our party too small without them. To explain this riddle you must know Mrs Cornwallis [the Archbishop’s wife] & myself have taken the ‘Tour of Kent’, & made part of a noble Cavalcade of the Arch Bp’s. We have been exceedingly fortunate in the mildness of the weather; & the beauty of the country, which is really very great in many parts, made me ample amends for some little inconveniences of removing from one inn to another, dust, crowds etc.
The Bp has indeed had more to do & when I consider the fatigue he went through at Canterbury, & indeed for the whole three weeks, I rejoice he is not ill ...
In the course of my tour nothing struck me more than the awful beauty of the sea (an object intirely new to me). I think I saw it to the best advantage at Kingsgate [Broadstairs] where Lord Holland had built a romantic kind of flint castle, surrounded with ruins of the same materials;10 several ships being in view, full sail, at the same time made the scene more complete. Mrs Cornwallis & I spent one whole day very agreeably at Deal, close by the sea; an ‘India Man’ being arrived there the day before added much to our entertainment, the numbers of little boats trading about it & running their goods in shore, with at last a chase by the custom house officers a mile into the sea driving the poor frighted creatures before them, was no bad sport. You may guess we did not entirely resist the temptations this same India man flung in our way. We visited Ramsgate and Margate, the former famous for a Pier built at the expense of 150,000£ half a mile into the sea;11 it was intended to secure a good harbour for ships but has failed; the latter for its fine Assembly Room, & good bathing. But if you would wish for a particular account of my travels I refer you to a little book entitled the History of Rochester which is I believe in the hands of all the family, only I must observe the scene of Dover so near the sea with that beautiful castle rising above it, & the uncommon richness of the valley beneath was striking beyond description. We spent a very agreeable day there, while the poor gentlemen laboured, & in the course of three hours saw & conversed with French, Americans (who were in barracks), Norwegians, & honest English Tars, almost as different a people as any of the others.
As for Canterbury itself it is an ugly town. The Cathedral is irregular, but the outside may be called fine; the inside is spacious, but all the elegance of the arches taken off by vile white wash; & the choir fitted up in a modern manner by no means suited to the gothic. In short Lincoln spoils me for all these old churches, I see some impropriety or other that I cannot now find is in our own.12 Becket’s Shrine is only now remembered by being shewn the spot it once stood on.
As for giving you an account of our life at Canterbury & what we did there, I don’t think if I was to attempt it, a quire of paper could contain all the par- ticulars; if you are acquainted with Mrs Berkeley,13 who is the most busy of
ANTHEA JONES
image
Fig. 3 Amabel, James Yorke’s neice, was painted about 1776; the artist is unknown. She did not become the Countess de Grey, the name she is usually identified by, until 1816; in 1776 she had recently married Alexander Hume-Campbell, Lord Polwarth, created Baron Hume of Berwick in 1776, possibly the occasion for this portrait. (Unknown collection; photograph National Portrait Gallery, London, reproduced with permission.)
JOURNEYS, ECCLESIASTICAL CEREMONY AND ENTERTAINMENT IN KENT: 1774
women, you will easily conclude the rest. She was very obliging and desired to show me every thing & every body so that without exaggeration I was in a bustle from 8 in the morning till 12 at night, for we always had numbers to supper as well as dinner, except when we were at a neighbour’s from whence we twice walked home by candle light at the same late hour. One night I own I could not help rallying her on her hospitality, I had been out all the morning seeing sights, dined with a roomful of gentlemen & ladies, received a fresh set of visitors, friends etc at tea, to a catch club (in all I think about 25 of us besides performers), the Bp of St David’s had that same day confirmed near a thousand with his own 2 hands,14 and at half past nine the music being over I ventured to retire to my room to read a letter I received from your mama two hours before, was pursued by my good hostess who came to see if I was ill and upon my ask- ing her if all the company was gone, she answered very cheerfully,
‘yes’.
‘What all?’ says I.
‘Yes all but the sixteen that sup with us! & I hope you and the Bishop wont be crowded’.
This answer I own made me laugh, indeed had I been a little more tired than I was, I am not sure whether it would not have had a contrary effect, & have made me cry. I often thought of your phrase of being diverted to death & never was in greater danger.
I don’t comprehend what was the reason but every body visited me just as if I was to live there for ever, & the neighbouring great folks & small folks all honoured us with their company; most of them I returned, all indeed in some way or other, but you may be sure we had many invitations we could not accept, of which Lord Sondes’ was one to spend the day, so if there is a fine place I lost it.15 Mrs Cornwallis left her place of residence the Deanery, just four hours after poor Mrs Moore was brought to bed (another consequence of the delays of the visitation), however it was lucky we were all near going ...16
We dined last Sunday at Maidstone at Lord Romney’s17 at one O’Clock, Church at 3 & Confirmation Church in the morning at 10, brim full both times, was not that another busy day?
The next day ‘Lady Marchioness Grey, Wrest’, had a final letter rounding off the Canterbury experience.
July 19th 1774 Upper Brook Street [London] [L30/9/111/50]
I know Dear Madam you will rejoice with us that we are returned from his Grace’s Fete de Champetre & neither of us the worse for our expedition. Indeed had I known beforehand the fatigue the Bishop was to go through, I should have been alarmed for him, the least part of which was his duty in the Church, the greatest the entertaining and receiving new people & faces from morning till night (for the attending Bishop must be his Grace’s right hand in every sense of the word & upon every occasion, dinners as well as prayers). If a Mayor & Corporation for instance were entering the Inn door, his Grace would take care to secure his aide-de-Camp by his side before the Mace bearer had ascended the last step of the stairs. Indeed he expressed himself very happy in the assistance he had received,
ANTHEA JONES
& both himself & Mrs Cornwallis showed us every civility in their power. She did not join the party till the second night, so was no way concerned in what passed at Sittingbourne, where the history of my travels commenced.
Your Ladyship really received it so favourably that if I had had time you would scarcely have escaped a regular Journal, which however would have consisted of a repetition of the same scenes over & over again at 16 different places, with every little variation but what the beauty of the country afforded. In the evenings if we had time we enjoyed it by half an hour’s walk, or if that was not practicable contented ourselves with a Pool at Quadrille with our two youngest Beaux, the Bp of St David’s & Dr Calvert the Vicar General. This was at the Inns. How we spent our time [at] Canterbury it is impossible to tell you, only this that my head turns round whenever I reflect upon it. Dr Berkeley & his Lady were indeed very kind & obliging, & did all in their power to amuse us, their spirits are certainly of the most active kind & that added to their zeal for us will sufficiently account for the bustle we lived in eight days, from nine in the morning (or sooner) till 12 at night ...
I don’t know whether the account of our pompous entry into Canterbury ap- peared in any other paper but their own, but I must say I was surprised in that & other instances with the parade & magnificence of the Church of Canterbury so far exceeding what I am used to see in other Churches. When we approached within 4 miles of the town I was told the Mayor & Corporation would meet us; our own Cavalcade was a coach & six, three chaises & 12 out riders. At the appointed spot we were met by six coaches, out of each of which flew three or four persons & stood upon the bank in a body collected. At the same moment alighted with equal activity their Lordships & the Chaplain, & advanced to the bank (& now I found I had been led into a mistake for this goodly com- pany were all dressed in the gown & cassock & were no other than the Dean & Chapter of Canterbury come to pay their duty in all the dust to his Grace). After a few moments spent in the usual compliments they all took coach & led the way to the town. We had not advanced in this grand manner above a mile when we were met by another carriage containing an Alderman in his robes & his attendants presenting the compliments of the Mayor & Corporation to their Lordships etc & begging they would do them the honour of stopping at the Town Hall where they should be ready to receive them & had prepared some slight refreshments. This carriage likewise joined the Cavalcade & followed us into the town. As we approached it was entertaining to see the crowd of people, but when we got actually into the streets they were lined with faces from the tops of the houses to the coach wheels, so that the horses could hardly move. In this manner we proceeded within a hundred yards of the door of the Town Hall, when the first coach stopped & in a quarter of an hour all the eleven had unloaded. The Church was received with great grace by the Corporation, the Mayor making a genteel speech to his Grace upon the joy with which he had filled the hearts of the people by his arrival. The entertainment was a dessert of the finest fruits Ices etc (very refreshing after the loads of dust they had swal- lowed for the last three miles). As for Liquor, Burgundy & Champaigne flew about most delightfully, & when they were all satisfied they proceeded to the Deanery where his Grace was housed.
JOURNEYS, ECCLESIASTICAL CEREMONY AND ENTERTAINMENT IN KENT: 1774
The next morning we all went to the Choir where there was something sol- emn & fine in procession of the Arch Bp to his Throne: first arrived the Mayor & Corporation as usual two & two, then began the Gentlemen of the Choir in their surplices two & two. When those of the Chapter entered the Choir door at the bottom, the organ played solemn music, & when their Lordships appeared the Boys accompanied it with their voices, till they arrived near the Throne when the procession opened & his Grace etc walked through the middle of the Chapter, they bowing respectfully. This account you will say would not be at all pleasing on the other side Tweed & therefore I have not ventured to send it to Lady Bell, indeed I did not think there had been so much form still left in our reformed Churches.
The next Sunday the Bp of St David’s ‘hancelled’18 his Lawn Sleeves in the pulpit by preaching before a noble large congregation, it was computed there was above a thousand people in the choir, however it was a great pleasure to me and what I did not suppose possible, to observe that they were all so perfectly quiet & attentive I could have thought myself the only one present if I had not seen rows of faces sticking up before me. He did indeed meet as you mention many civilities from the gentlemen of Dover & other places, particularly there I believe his Grace was obliged to him entirely for a visit from the Mayor etc; it seems there had been some difference, & they had declared they would not pay him this usual compliment, however the Bishop of St David’s received a letter from them the day before that they would wait upon them both. We might there have lain at a Mr Russels19 if we had chose it, & indeed had the offer of private houses almost all the way, but we chose to decline them whenever we could, Mrs Cornwallis & I both agreeing we were more at our ease at the Inns than with entire strangers, especially as the gentlemen could not be with us of- ten. We were just three weeks upon our Tour reckoning today as one, & found it upon the whole more agreable than we expected. The Bishop bore the fatigue with spirit, & I hope won’t be the worse for it tho’ he complains of feeling more tired now it is over than he did at the time.
Dramatis Personae
The Archbishop in 1774 was Frederick Cornwallis, archbishop from 1768 to 1783. He was by far the most aristocratic of the eighteenth-century archbishops of Canterbury. His wife, Caroline, who gave the ladies of the party the tour of the sea coast of east Kent, was also well-connected, the daughter of William Townshend, third son of Charles, second Viscount Townshend. She had a reputation for ‘routs’. She also had a reputation for learning.20 The Archbishop was accommodated in the Deanery during the Visitation, the Archbishop’s palace being ‘uninhabitable’. The episcopal scene was familiar to Mary Yorke, who was the only surviving child of Isaac Maddox, bishop of Worcester from 1743 until his death in 1759. Mary married James Yorke on 29 June 1762, when she was 18 or possibly 19; her date of birth has not been found.21 James was 32. It proved to be a long and happy
marriage.
endnotes
ANTHEA JONES
1 A Visitation by the bishop of a diocese was made every four years, its purposes being to visit the principal church in each deanery, to confirm all those ready to become communicant members of the church, and to meet the clergy of the area.
2 Hardwicke was one of Archbishop Cornwallis’s patrons. See G.M. Ditchfield, 2012, ‘A neglected archbishop of Canterbury? Frederick Cornwallis (1768-1783)’, Archaeologia Cantiana, cxxxii, 215-34. He was instrumental in securing the bishopric for James.
3 The letters of Mary Yorke have been deposited in Bedford Archives, catalogued L30/9/111 for those addressed to Jemima, Marchioness Grey and L30/11/339 for those to Amabel. Transcripts of the letters were kindly made available to the author by John Yorke of Forthampton Court.
4 It was routine on the archbishop’s Visitation to conduct confirmations at Sittingbourne (and next at Faversham) before proceeding to Canterbury. See Ditchfield, 2012, ‘A neglected archbishop of Canterbury’, 221.
5 Sir Gregory Page built a magnificent mansion on the edge of the heath. It was illustrated in Picturesque views of the principal seats of the nobility and gentry in England and Wales (1788). Sir Gregory died in 1775, and his heir, Sir Gregory Turner, became Sir Gregory Page Turner. He sold all the ornaments in the house, and then sold the house itself, which by 1788 had been demolished. https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection accessed 22/1/2019.
6 ‘Ingress is a seat, built on the bank of the Thames, adjoining to the hamlet of Green-hithe’. It was acquired in 1748 by William Viscount Duncannon who ‘greatly improved this seat and the grounds belonging to it, with much elegance and taste, and resided here, with his lady … till her death, which happened in 1760’. He then sold the property, and in 1774 it was owned by John Calcraft esq. Edward Hasted, ‘Parishes: Swanscombe’, in The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: ii (Canterbury, 1797), pp. 399-421. British History Online http://www.british- history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol2/pp399-421 [accessed 22 January 2019]. Did Mary Yorke have a guide to the various Kentish seats?
7 Having launched HMS Victory in 1765, the 1770s saw considerable expansion of Chatham Dockyard and its further development as a shipbuilding centre.
8 A slow-paced horse.
9 Mary Yorke’s party were almost certainly staying at the Rose Inn. Hasted states that ‘the principal inn in [Sittingbourne] is the Rose, perhaps the most superb of any throughout the kingdom, and the entertainment afforded in it equally so ...’. The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, vi (Canterbury, 1798, reprinted 1972), p. 152.
10 Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland, built a second Holland House at Kingsgate (Broadstairs) between 1762 and 1768. On either end of the cliffs above the bay he built what is now the Captain Digby Public House and Kingsgate Castle. The ‘castle’ was one of several follies in the grounds of Holland House, intended as its stable block and staff accommodation.
11 The modern development of Ramsgate harbour had begun in 1749 and was not completed until the mid nineteenth century.
12 James Yorke retained his office as Dean of Lincoln in addition to becoming bishop of St David’s.
13 Wife of Sir George Berkeley one of the Six Preachers at Canterbury Cathedral and so had a house in the Precincts in which the Yorkes apparently stayed.
14 The Gentleman’s Magazine (1774) 330-331 has a list of the churches visited and the dates during the 1774 Visitation of the churches in the diocese. Confirmations were held at Faversham, Canterbury, Ashford, Ramsgate, Sandwich, Dover, Elham (‘where there had been no confirmation since Archbishop Wake’s time’), Hythe, New Romney, Tenterden, Maidstone and Lenham. Over four days in Canterbury 2,500 were said to have been confirmed. In the 1778 visitation, 7,478 people altogether were confirmed. (pers. comm., Prof. G.M. Ditchfield, acknowledged with thanks).
15 Lees Court, Sheldwich, near Faversham, was the house MY missed seeing. The estate reaches into three parishes: Badlesmere, Selling and Sheldwich. It was bought in 1600 by Lord Sondes and the house was built in 1652; it is now listed Grade I. The estate has passed through daughters as well as sons and there have been a number of changes of family name. In 1760 Lewis Monson Watson was created 1st Baron Sondes. Edward Hasted, ‘Parishes: Sheldwich’, in The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, vi (Canterbury, 1798), pp. 481-498.
JOURNEYS, ECCLESIASTICAL CEREMONY AND ENTERTAINMENT IN KENT: 1774
16 The Dean of Canterbury was John Moore, 1771 to 1775; in 1770 he had married his second wife, Catherine, who was ‘brought to bed’ at the end of the Visitation. She was the daughter of Sir Robert Eden of West Auckland.
17 Charles Marsham, 3rd Baron Romney (1744-1811), created Earl of Romney 1801, whose seat was at Mote Park.
18 Meaning damaged or rubbed?
19 Michael Russell was mayor of Dover in 1755 and 1762. In 1781 he was painted by George Romney with Dover Castle in the background and was described as Agent Victualler of Dover. Maison Dieu House, built in 1665, was originally the office and house of the Agent Victualler of the Navy who controlled the supplying of the Channel Fleet, and was used as such from the reign of Queen Elizabeth until after the Battle of Waterloo.
20 Ditchfield, 2012, ‘A neglected archbishop of Canterbury’, 218.
21 The marriage settlement dated 25 and 26 June 1762 stated that she was ’18 or thereabouts’; one of the properties included in the marriage settlement, a house in Arlington Street, London, was to be passed to trustees within six months of her attaining her majority to form part of the provision for their children. She was 21 by 12 April 1765 when the house was transferred. Gloucestershire Archives D2240 Box 14. The monument in Forthampton Church should possibly have said that she was in her 81st year when she died on 30 December 1823.
AN UNUSUAL FIFTEENTH-CENTURY BUILDING WITH A SPECIAL FIRST-FLOOR ‘MEETING ROOM’ –
15 KNIGHTRIDER STREET, MAIDSTONE
david and barbara martin
On behalf of Archaeology South-East, University College, London, the authors carried out an initial assessment of this building in 2002. This revealed its potential significance as a structure built to serve a specialized function, and correctly indicated the potential for further discoveries during stripping-out in advance of repair and conversion. Even so, the complexity of the historical alterations could not have been envisaged. The building has proved to be an example of a little known, and poorly understood, group of structures built to serve as meeting places for groups of individuals, whether they be officials, members of a religious or trade fraternity, or members of the public wishing to gather for a feast or other special occasion.
The account which follows describes the location of the building and sum- marizes the in-depth phase-by-phase archaeological interpretative survey undertaken in 2002 and revised in 2003.1
Location and Setting
The building is situated on the southern side of Knightrider Street (Figs 1 and 2), from which it is set back, the space between it and the street being occupied (until World War II when the site was bombed) by a timber-framed building known as The Foresters Arms (no. 13). Map evidence indicates The Foresters Arms to have been a rectangular structure aligned parallel with the street, with a street facade of approximately 22m (72ft) and a width of c.8m (26ft 3ins).2 The building is shown in a photograph of the 1920s as a long, continuously-jettied structure with a plastered first floor. It may have incorporated a pair of crosswings, for the end parts of the main elevation were capped by gabled roofs turned at right angles to the street. Between these was the main range, the roof of which was roofed parallel to the street. A large brick axial chimney is visible at the western end of the main range, against the western ‘crosswing’.3 The details shown in the photograph suggest 13 Knightrider Street dated from the sixteenth century or earlier.
The earliest relevant map is dated 1738 and shows the building at 13 Knightrider Street as very similar in appearance to the 1920s photograph. Unfortunately, the subject of the map is the property immediately to the west, and therefore only sketch details are shown regarding the buildings here under discussion. This must explain why 15 Knightrider Street (which stands immediately to the rear of no. 13) is not
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Fig. 1 Field drawing of Maidstone for Ordnance Survey map (c.1805); area marked shown at larger scale in Fig. 2.
shown, though both buildings certainly existed by that date.4 A Parliamentary Survey of Maidstone Manor compiled in 1650 likewise includes the property immediately to the west of 13/15 Knightrider Street. Its eastern abutment indicates that at that time nos 13 and 15 Knightrider Street formed part of a much larger tenement.5
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Fig. 2 Nineteenth-century plans showing location and layout of site.
The important point illustrated by the above historical summary is that until at least the early 18th century (and probably until c.1800) both nos 13 and 15 Knightrider Street formed part of one property, with no. 15 effectively built within the back yard of no. 13 − this despite a very low density of buildings within this peripheral part of the town. This suggests that 15 Knightrider Street originally fulfilled a function associated with that of the main house built against Knightrider Street. Such an interpretation is entirely consistent with the architectural evidence presented below, for the structure does not conform to the layout of a house and was built to suit a specialized use.
THE BUILDING
No. 15 Knightrider Street was first inspected by the authors in June 2002 with a view to assessing its age, form, and subsequent development up to the present day. At that time the building was standing unused and was in poor repair (Plates I and II). Most of the windows were boarded up and many of the rooms, particularly those on the ground floor, contained large quantities of rubbish, making access difficult. Little historic fabric was visible below roof level, the vast majority being masked by nineteenth-century plaster coverings. The data as available in 2002
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PLATE I
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Exterior from the south showing the Phase-2 main range with added ranges to left and right.
PLATE II
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South-eastern corner of Phase-3 kitchen range with remains of later added range on right.
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suggested a very complex sequence of development, with the earliest parts dating from the medieval period.
Later in 2002 Maidstone Borough Council granted planning approval to English Churches Housing Group for the redevelopment of the site, including refurbishment of 15 Knightrider Street as the northern wing of the new building to be constructed to its south. The approval included a condition that an archaeological watching brief be maintained during the refurbishment of no. 15. Most of the later coverings were stripped from the frame during the period March-October 2003, allowing good details to be recorded. In addition, in October 2003 limited below-ground archaeology was carried out in the north-western corner of the building in association with the provision of a new concrete ground-floor slab. The additional building recording was undertaken by the authors; the below-ground archaeology in the north-western corner of the site by Simon Knight. The results of the watching brief within the building markedly augmented the already known details regarding the physical form of the structure and modified the sequence of development as suggested in the original assessment. During this same general period below-ground archaeological excavation was undertaken to the rear of the building, within the footprint of the new build.6
The revised interpretative survey (2003)
This work identified up to eight distinct phases in the development of no. 15, the first four of which − covering the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries − are described in detail below (Fig. 3).
Phase 1 (pre-late fifteenth century)
The earliest remains upon the site indicate a rectangular structure aligned north- south, measuring approximately 13.50 by 5.05m (c.44ft 6ins x 16ft 7ins) overall, its northern end wall being slightly canted, the reason for which is not now apparent (Fig. 4, ground floor plan, and Fig. 5). On the ground floor all four walls were of shallow-founded Ragstone, dug approximately 150mm into the surviving (probably truncated) disturbed natural. Only the lowest course remained, and even this was patchy: it was laid dry and showed signs of a mortar bed on its upper face. On average these walls measured 550-600mm thick, thereby reducing the long, narrow internal space to about 12.35 by c.3.85m (40ft 6ins x 12ft 8ins). The stone walls supported massive first-floor joists, fifteen and a half of which survive in situ. They span the full width of the structure in one length and are lodged into position, being laid over a timber plate set flush with the internal face of the Ragstone walls. One joist incorporated brackets beneath its ends, rising from the internal face of the masonry ground-floor walls: the short length of the mortices suggest that in section the braces were either square, or almost so. The purposeful location of this feature, approximately half way along the building, and the absence of any other mortices in the soffits of the extant joists, is surely significant; it suggests a single room occupied the entire ground-floor.
As the joists were not intended to be built into a stone wall, this eliminates the possibility that the stone walls extended into the first-floor storey. They stop short of the external edge of the building by about 150mm (6ins), so there must always
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Fig. 3 Plans as existing in 2003 showing sequence of development of site.
DAVID AND BARBARA MARTIN
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have been a timber-framed upper storey supported by the masonry walls. This upper storey was rebuilt during Phase 2. The date of the Phase-1 structure remains unknown, but pre-dated the late fifteenth century (and could have been as early as the thirteenth century).
Phase 2 (late fifteenth century)
During the second half of the fifteenth century the upper storey of the Phase-1 range was removed and replaced by a new, lofty, four-bay timber-framed structure incorporating two rooms − a single-bay northern ante-chamber and a three-bay first-floor hall/function room (Fig. 4, first-floor plan). Both were open to the roof, the hall/function room being crossed by two arch-braced open trusses incorporating gently cambered tiebeams.
In addition to the rebuilt upper storey of the main range, a stubby, two-storeyed porch-like wing was added to the west, providing primary access from the exterior (Fig. 4, ground-/first-floor plans). Unlike the main range, with its Phase-1 stone-walled lower storey, the porch-like structure was entirely timber framed, incorporated a jetty at all three external walls, and seems to have had ceilings within its two first-floor chambers from the outset. Although the point cannot be proven beyond doubt, it seems likely that the porch wing was divided into two rooms on each storey. At ground-floor level the porch led to a wide passage extending through the main range. Within the passage the plain, relatively rough existing Phase-1 joists were removed and replaced by a ceiling incorporating stop- chamfered joists. Unlike the retained Phase-1 joists elsewhere in the range, the ends of the Phase-2 joists have pegged mortice-and-tenon joints to the soleplate of the timber frame above. The northernmost of the extant Phase-2 joists doubled as the headbeam to the cross passage’s northern wall.
The eastern of the main range’s first-floor walls was of large-panel design, but all other external walls, both within the main range and porch were close-studded − a feature used locally to display wealth/status. This variation in wall design indicates that the main range’s east elevation was considered to be the secondary (or rear) elevation of the complex and was not intended to be viewed by visitors. In addition to its showy close studding, the walls of the porch wing were originally elaborated with a moulded string course at mid-storey height, as well as having a moulded fascia at the jetties, masking the ends of the joists (Fig. 6). The windows in this part had moulded surrounds and arched heads to their lights, whereas elsewhere the windows were square headed. Even so, they were better finished than the average window of the period in that they did not incorporate closely-spaced diamond-section mullions, but were instead divided into two lights by a centrally-placed moulded mullion.
Three internal first-floor doorways survive in varying degrees of completeness. All originally had moulded jambs of two orders − a plainly-chamfered external order which returned across the head of the opening, and a hollow-chamfered inner order which extended around the leading edge of an arched head. The arched head was formed from a separate timber, morticed into the jambs. Of significance is that the principal moulded face of the off-centred doorway in the partition dividing the hall/function room from the ante-room faces into the latter, indicating either that this was the more important of the two chambers, or that the hall/function room was designed to be entered from this direction. In addition, this partition also
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Fig. 6 Details of jetty running round three sides of porch.
shows its close studding within the ante-chamber, rather than within the function room (Fig. 4, sections B-B and C-C). Frustratingly, the position of the Phase-2 staircase(s) leading up to the first floor is not known.
The roofs of both ranges were of typical construction for the medieval period
− crownpost within the main range and simple paired-rafter-and-collar over the porch wing. Within the main range the two upper rooms were initially open to the roof, which was hipped to the south and gabled to the north. Even so, the crownposts above the hall/function room’s open trusses were not of moulded type, but instead incorporated braces rising from the tiebeam. As already noted, the two chambers within the porch wing probably incorporated ceilings from the outset.
Phase 3 (closing decades of the fifteenth century)
Based upon the constructional details, is seems likely that it was very soon after completion of the Phase-2 works that a range was built approximately 2m (6ft 6ins) to the east of the Phase-2 complex (Fig. 4, plans). The two structures were from the outset joined by a link, but this link has since been rebuilt. Like the Phase-2 main range, the new range is aligned north-south and has a gable to the north and a hip to the south. It measures 5.70 x 4.40m (18ft 8ins x 14ft 5ins), is framed in two bays, and incorporates a single room on each storey, though on the first floor the northern end was originally divided off to form a smoke bay serving a hearth within the room below. This latter point is evidenced by soot encrustation on the remains of the daub infill and on the roof timbers within this bay. Thus the northern end of the ground-floor room was open to the roof.
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Being positioned ‘behind’ (that is, to the east of) the specialized building containing the function room, and being connected to it by a covered link, the Phase-3 structure (with its hearth located within the smoke bay) is typical of a kitchen range − a type of building now known to have been common prior to the seventeenth century.7 This structure would undoubtedly have served both the inn/ alehouse fronting Knightrider Street and the function room within the specialized Phase-2 building. The first-floor space within the kitchen could have been used either as a cook’s chamber or for storage. To this end, it is possible − even likely
− that the range was rebuilt upon the site of an earlier kitchen, for the Phase-2 and -3 works have every appearance of representing a progressive scheme of improvements to an existing and ageing complex.
The means of access to the upper chamber within the new building remains in doubt. Certainly no staircase rose through the first-floor joisting and there appears not to have been a first-floor doorway in either the north, south, east, or west walls. The only option appears to have been a ladder rising within the smoke bay, giving access through a doorway in the partition between the smoke bay and the upper chamber − the details in this area were not exposed during the building works.
On its northern side the since-rebuilt link was of two storeys, whereas on the south the link’s roof extended down to the level of the first-floor joisting. The single-storeyed part formed an eastward continuation of the cross-passage in the Phase-2 range and aligned with a doorway leading into the ‘kitchen’ giving, in effect, an undercover link between the two structures − a logical arrangement. The fact that the northern part of the link was two-storeys in height suggests it may have incorporated a staircase rising to the first-floor of the Phase-2 range.
The kitchen structure is sturdily framed and incorporates close studding within all its external walls. Unlike within the Phase-2 part (where the braces triangulating the frame pass to the rear of the close studding) here the braces interrupt the close studding (Plate II): even so, as in the main range the close studs were intended to be visible in the external face of the wall only. The only Phase-3 doorway which is evidenced was on the ground floor at the extreme southern end of the ‘kitchen’ range’s western wall. As with the Phase-2 doorways, the opening was originally fitted with an arched head. A chamfer is evidenced running around the surround, with a second order of chamfering extending up the principal post and, originally, around the lower leading edge of the arched head. Square mortices in the soffits of the main timbers show that the range’s windows were each divided into three unglazed lights by mullions which were either moulded or chamfered. A vertical (rather than a horizontal) sliding shutter was fitted to the first-floor window in the east wall. The first floor is supported by very heavy, neatly-cut medieval joists aligned north-south along the axis of the building, being lodged over the crossbeam in the southern wall and jointed into the crossbeam which divides the floored part of the range from the northern smoke bay. This chamfered crossbeam has beneath its ends two small curved brackets. The roof makes use of simple paired-rafter- and-collar construction, absent of crownposts.
Phase 4 (mid sixteenth century)
Only two recognizable alterations are attributable to Phase 4. To judge from their architectural style, these were most likely carried out during the second, or perhaps
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Fig. 7 North elevation showing Phase-4 window.
the third quarter of the sixteenth century, though not necessarily contemporaneous with each other. The modifications involved providing a new, centrally-placed projecting window in the northern end wall of the northern chamber and inserting ceilings into the two first-floor rooms of the main range. Serving the function of an attic floor, the new ceilings are of central-girder construction and have closely spaced chamfered joists with neat, stepped-and-hollowed stops.
The projecting window represents the principal Phase-4 modification and is a good indicator of the high status of the ante room (Fig. 7). Now removed, it measured 2.20m (7ft 3ins) wide by 1.30m (4ft 3ins) tall and replaced the much smaller Phase-2 off-centred window, requiring some modification to the adjacent infill framing. In order to mask the redundant mortices in the soffit of the tiebeam immediately above the window opening, a 15mm thick plank was nailed to the soffit. The new jambs of the window are neatly chamfered both inside and out. Externally, the chamfers on the leading edges are neatly stopped for a transom positioned just over half way up the opening, the position of which is evidenced by pegged mortices in the external face of the jambs. It is not known how the top of the window was weathered. Although the walls flanking the window are close studded, the space beneath the window’s inner cill comprises two large panels divided by a pegged-in stud. One of the daub panels survived at the time of inspection. Significantly, the external face of the panel was inset from the exterior of the frame, indicating that it was not intended to be an external wall face. This is consistent with the mortice evidence, which indicates that the projecting window took the form of a bay extending down to ground level (Fig. 7), rather than an oriel supported by jointed-in brackets. It is worth noting that when the projecting window was finally removed and replaced by a flush opening in the late seventeenth century, the close studding of this wall was still exposed externally. Because of this, a plaster skim coat was applied to the infill beneath the window cill and false studs − two per panel − were painted onto the external face using grey paint.
It is perhaps worth some brief speculation at this point about the reasons for the significant upgrading of this north-facing window which merely looked out onto the rear of the front building and was largely hidden from view from the street. It would have been fully visible to anyone entering the site to visit no. 15, and more welcoming, emphasizing the importance of the ante room. Both the window and
DAVID AND BARBARA MARTIN
the inserted ceilings appear to underline the continuing popularity of whatever
social function(s) were carried out in the spacious upper-floor accommodation. The pair of first-floor Phase-2 windows in the western wall of the porch wing,
together with the single first-floor window in the western wall of the Phase-2 main range have been blocked by nailing-in close studding and applying traditional thick daub. Although there is no proof that this occurred during Phase 4, the added studs are noticeably weathered, indicating that the wall framing remained exposed for some time after the windows were blocked. In addition to some windows being blocked, it seems likely that the remaining fenestration was upgraded at the same period. What is certain is that no windows were retained in the west wall of the first-floor hall/function room (Fig. 5, south elevation, main range).
Later phases
Further modifications were made during the mid/late seventeenth century (Phase 5), late seventeenth century (Phase 6), late eighteenth or very early nineteenth century (Phase 7), and between 1823 and 1843 (Phase 8), with other alterations subsequently. Details of these latter Phases may be found at: https://kentarchaeology. org.uk/publications/archaeological-reports/15-knightrider-street-maidstone.
DISCUSSION
Knightrider Street was on the edge of the medieval town (perhaps just outside) which was centred on the Market Square and had two Court Halls, one of which was on the site of the current Town Hall. Even so, Knightrider Street was an important access route linking the main north-south road through Maidstone to the Church, College and the precincts of the Archbishop’s Palace. As such, it attracted high status dwellings from medieval times through to the seventeenth century (pers. comm. Paul Oldham). An example of the street’s high-status architecture was the former Old Vicarage (demolished in 1964) which stood on the same side as the building here under discussion.8
Based upon analogy with the layouts of similar buildings elsewhere, the complex was almost certainly intended for entertaining groups of people and from the outset appears to have functioned in association with the alehouse/inn which formerly fronted onto Knightrider Street and behind which the complex was sited. It was not uncommon for principal inns to incorporate facilities of this type, though few extant examples have been identified. What cannot be told without documentary evidence is whether this example was intended to serve a single function − paid for by a specific fraternity − or whether it acted as a general function room let out by the alehouse/inn as required. Bearing in mind Paul Oldham’s comments (see above), the second of the two suggested uses seems the more likely.
This type of structure, incorporating a first-floor hall or function room, has been little published. The only vaguely comparable material relating to Kent being H.S. Cowper’s, ‘Two Headcorn Cloth Halls’ (1915), and S.E. Rigold’s, ‘Two Types of Court Hall’ (1968).9 No published examples are known for Sussex. However, the grey literature does include at least three Sussex examples: a specialized meeting building (once thought to be a detached kitchen, and initially published as such)
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standing at the rear of a house called Comphurst in Wartling;10 the Court Hall at Winchelsea;11 and the building now known as ‘Parsonage Barn’, Eastbourne.12 In particular, the layout of the Eastbourne example is in many ways very similar to Knightrider Street, being of four bays with a three-bay timber-framed first-floor hall/function room with an associated ante room, all set above ground-floor walls of stone. However, Eastbourne lacks the porch and an associated kitchen range.
endnotes
1 For the full report see https://kentarchaeology.org.uk/publications/archaeological-reports/15- knightrider-street-maidstone.
2 Ordnance Survey 5ft to 1 mile 1870 Urban Survey, Sheet XLII.7.8 − see Drawing no. 1657/1.
3 Hales, I., 1982, Old Maidstone’s Public Houses.
4 Centre for Kentish Studies [now KH&LC] TR 1638/3.
5 Then owned by a Mr Flud (Centre for Kentish Studies Local Studies Map 7/270A).
6 For details of which, see https://www.kentarchaeology.org.uk/publications/archaeological- reports/archaeological-investigations-15-knightrider-st-maidstone-kent.
7 David Martin, Barbara Martin and Christopher Whittick, Rural Medieval and Transitional Housing in the Eastern High Weald, 1250-c.1570, Domtom publishing (2017), 99-102. See also David and Barbara Martin, ‘Detached Kitchens in Eastern Sussex; A re-assessment of the evidence’, Vernacular Architecture (hereafter VA) 28 (1997), 85-91; Pat Ryan, ‘The Buildings of Rural Ingatestone, Essex, 1556-1601: ‘Great Rebuilding’ or ‘Housing Revolution’?’, VA, 31 (2000), 11- 25; Bob Meeson, ‘Detached Kitchens or Service Blocks’, VA, 31, 73-75; John Walker ‘Detached Kitchens – A comment and an Essex example’, VA, 31, 75-77; David and Barbara Martin, ‘Detached Kitchens or Adjoining Houses? – a response’, VA, 32 (2001), 20-33; Richard Suggett, ‘The Unit System Revisited: dual domestic planning and the developmental cycle of the family’, VA, 38 (2007), 19-34; Sarah Pearson ‘The Provision of Services in Medieval Houses in Kent’, VA, 43 (2012), 28-47, especially 37; David Martin, Barbara Martin and Christopher Whittick, Neither Town nor Country: Villages in the Eastern High Weald, 1250-1750, Part 2, The Houses Described, Domtom publishing (2016), 195-199.
8 See E.W. Parkin, 1965, ‘The Vanishing Houses of Kent: The Old Vicarage [Knightrider Street], Maidstone’, Archaeologia Cantiana, lxxx, 205-14.
9 Archaeologia Cantiana, xxxi (1915) 124-30; Archaeologia Cantiana, lxxxiii (1968), 1-22.
10 East Sussex Record Office (hereafter ESRO) HBR 1/979, revision 4.
11 ESRO HBR 1/1362.
12 ESRO HBR 1/1286.
ENGLAND’S EARLIEST PAINTED AND FRAMED ROYAL COAT OF ARMS (EDWARD VI, 1547-53) IN ST MARY’S
CHURCH, WESTERHAM:
THE WORK OF A LOW COUNTRIES’ ARTIST COMMISSIONED BY THE GRESHAM FAMILY
david m. boston
In his introduction to a paper in Archaeologia Cantiana in 1931,1 Torr described the pre-Reformation custom of displaying Royal Arms in churches and cathedrals using a variety of forms – carvings, stained glass or needlework – all underlining the ‘semi-spiritual character of Kingship’. His prime example of the Tudor arms of Henry VIII in King’s College chapel can be matched with the carvings over the gateway of Canterbury Cathedral erected in memory of Prince Arthur between 1517 and 1521 (Fig. 1). In due course, after the parting with Rome, there came
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Fig. 1 Royal Arms of Henry VIII with Tudor emblems: Canterbury Cathedral. (Photo: author.)
ENGLAND’S EARLIEST PAINTED AND FRAMED ROYAL COAT OF ARMS: WESTERHAM
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Fig. 2 Royal Arms of Henry VIII with Tudor emblems: Rushbrooke, Suffolk. (Photo: author.)
a concentration on a single representation in the form of a framed, painted Royal Coat of Arms on wood or canvas to mark the displacement of Papal Authority by Henry VIII and the establishment of Royal Supremacy over the Church of England. Kent remains rich in these examples of Royal heraldry and St Mary’s Westerham holds a special place in this regard. It possesses the oldest framed, painted Royal Coat of Arms, those of Edward VI (reigned 1547-53). Torr provides a definitive article on the Royal Arms of Westerham giving a full account of the church’s three paintings from the reigns of Edward VI, Charles II2 and George III.
Torr particularly noted the ornamentation of Renaissance character in the fine quality painting of the Edward VI arms. His verdict has been endorsed by John Newman:3
The only arms of this reign and so, but for Rushbrooke, Suffolk (Fig. 2),4 the earliest of all to survive in England.5 Oil on panel. Much better done than most later Royal Arms and with a few Early Renaissance details typical of the period.
This paper provides a brief recapitulation of the details of the Edward VI arms but concentrates on the involvement of members of the local Gresham family in its acquisition by St Mary’s and in turn their connections with artists from the Low Countries where this high quality painting may well have been executed.
Details of the Edward VI Coat of Arms and conservation measures
The Edward VI coat of arms is executed in oils on four boards joined horizontally
DAVID M. BOSTON
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Fig. 3 Royal Arms of Edward VI with added pediment: St Mary’s Church, Westerham. (Photo: Stuart Barnes.)
in a moulded frame to form a square and surmounted by a triangular pediment (Fig. 3). Encircled by the Order of the Garter, with its motto HONI. SOIT. QUI. MAL. Y. PENSE, the royal shield bears the fleurs-de-lys of France and the lions of England below the golden imperial style crown, lined with ermine, of Tudor heraldry. As supporters the spirited Welsh dragon of Henry VIII remains (sinister) but his
ENGLAND’S EARLIEST PAINTED AND FRAMED ROYAL COAT OF ARMS: WESTERHAM
Beaufort hound is replaced (dexter) by a powerful crowned lion, a combination continued into the reign of Elizabeth I. These arms could indeed be attributed to Elizabeth from the letters ‘E’ and ‘R’ in the lower corners but across the foot of the painting above the lower motto DIEU ET MON DROIT, a further inscription reads DNE. SALVV. FAC. REGEM. Moreover, on either side of the crown at the top are two tablets containing the following inscriptions – VIVAT REX (on the left) and CURAT LEX (on the right).6 The significance of the framed pediment will be discussed later since it has now been established that this is a later addition. The intended purpose of the painting is demonstrated by the construction method of the square frame, composed of four horizontal rather than vertical boards. This gave greater strength in a free-standing upright position on the church’s rood screen where it replaced the rood (crucifix) to provide a symbol of royal authority. Two slots on the bottom of the lowest board indicate how this was effected through the use of mortise and tenon joints.
In 1931 Torr’s concern about the state of the painting led the Vicar of Saint Mary’s to enlist expert help from a well-known family of London restorers, careful not to go too far but, greatly increasing the visibility of the whole composition. The front was cleaned but not retouched and the back was treated against the recurrence of woodworm. Cracking was infilled between the planks which were stabilised successfully by the insertion of nine mahogany ‘buttons’ on the back of the main panel. During the following 80 years, the condition of the painting again deteriorated. This was largely caused by its continuing location, from the nineteenth century onwards, over an ill-fitting doorway opening to the south, vulnerable to fluctuations of temperature and humidity as well as air pollution. Consequently, reports and estimates for conservation and restoration of both the Tudor and Hanoverian (1804) Royal Coats of Arms were obtained by St Mary’s Church in 2007. Hopes for support were dashed by the response that a higher level of deterioration had to be evident before a case could be considered. Four years later the author of this article was asked to re-assess the position with the objective of reviving the project7 in order to mark the Diamond Jubilee in 2012 of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II whose own Royal Coat of Arms had been presented to the church to mark her coronation, making Westerham one of the few places to have representation from three reigns.8 Following a successful fundraising campaign the necessary conservation work was undertaken in 2013.
Why Westerham?
This small market town perhaps seems an unlikely location for this survival, important to the national heritage not only for its antiquity but also for its artistic merit. Westerham was part of the large manorial landholding straddling the Kent/ Surrey border of the illustrious Gresham family which had very close Royal connections during the reigns of Henry VIII and his son. Surprisingly, however, no family memorials exist in the church as a reminder of the link.
The old inn on Westerham Green named the Grasshopper, emblem of the Greshams, is another reminder of the local ties with the fortunes of the family who rose to become ‘merchant princes’. For Westerham the key figure was John Gresham (1495-1556), younger brother of Richard Gresham (1485-1547), uncle of
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Thomas Gresham (1519-1579), who ascribed his wide commercial knowledge to training under him and who is remembered as founder of the Royal Exchange and Gresham College in London.9
The Gresham brothers acted as agents for Henry VIII10 and Cardinal Wolsey11 (accompanying them to the Field of Cloth and Gold in 1520), then undertook the same role for Thomas Cromwell and later sat on the Commission for enforcing Henry VIII’s Six Articles under Bishop Bonner. John Gresham’s major part in helping to develop overseas trade, principally in the Levant, led to his appointment by the Privy Council to examine disputes between English and foreign merchants. In the year that his brother became Lord Mayor of London (1537) both were knighted and he was also appointed Sheriff, foreshadowing his own election to the Mayoralty ten years later. He clearly shared his brother’s recorded views in serving Henry VIII as ‘comfortable in all things to His Highnes’s pleasure’ and, in consequence he also came to share in the rewards dispensed, at a price, by the monarch following the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
After the Abbot of Westminster, William Benson, surrendered the manor of Westerham to Henry VIII by an instrument dated 16 January 1539 it was granted on 16 August 1540 by the King to his ‘loving servant John Gresham of London Knight’ in consideration of £1,441 19s. 7d., together with Edenbridge and with the rectories and churches of the same. Westerham’s Rectory, held apart from the Vicarage, had been the property of the Prior and Chapter of Christ Church, Canterbury. When free from responsibilities in London and being resident at nearby Titsey just over the border in Surrey, he was able to take an active interest in his manor of Westerham and the Church of St Mary’s. We cannot know whether the Tudor emblems in the roof over the chancel owe their origin to his financial support. Court Rolls of the manor show him maintaining local involvement in the Town of Westerham and, for example, holding a court on 2nd May 1548.
Against this background, we could look to the commissioning by the Greshams of the Royal Coat of Arms of Edward VI for Westerham from a painter of the highest competence. A striking full-length portrait of Thomas Gresham as a young man in 1544 (Fig. 4), now hanging in the Mercers’ Hall, was attributed to Girolamo da Treviso or other artists employed by Henry VIII; however, scientific analysis, and the paints used as well as style supports re-attribution to an unknown Netherlandish artist, believed to be one commissioned by Thomas Gresham himself when in Antwerp.12
When was the Royal Arms painting commissioned?
With an initial grant from the Society of Antiquaries,13 the opportunity arose during the 2013 conservation work in the studio of Plowden and Smith for Ian Tyers to undertake a dendrochronological analysis funded by English Heritage. Using a micro computer-based travelling stage to obtain readings three of the four boards yielded tree-ring datings that supported the authenticity of the painting and its attribution to the reign of Edward VI. The boards were derived from oak trees felled after 1541 in the eastern Baltic (significantly, see below).14
Previously it was considered that the painting could have been commissioned as early as 1547 when Edward VI succeeded his father (Fig. 5), coinciding with
ENGLAND’S EARLIEST PAINTED AND FRAMED ROYAL COAT OF ARMS: WESTERHAM
image
Fig. 4 Portrait of Thomas Gresham in 1544: Mercers Hall, London. (© The Mercers’ Company of London.)
Sir John Gresham taking office as Lord Mayor of London. But the records of the Privy Council under Lord Protector Somerset require a different conclusion. In that year a detailed account is given of the actions of Protestant reformers who had replaced the Rood and displayed the ‘Armes of the Kings Majeste painted’ (sic), offering the excuse to the Council that the Crucifix and other images were so decayed that they fell apart. Their unauthorised actions were seen as so serious that the punishment considered was imprisonment in the Tower of London. In the light of their repentance, this sentence was remitted, but a pardon was dependent on immediate erection of a new image of the Crucifix or at least ‘summe paynture representing the crucifix’.15
Following Somerset’s removal in 1549, the Privy Council came under the control of the reformers and power passed into the hands of the Duke of Northumberland
DAVID M. BOSTON
image
Fig. 5 Portrait of Edward VI (c.1547) wearing the Order of the Garter with
Royal Arms in the background.
(© National Portrait Gallery London, reproduced with permission.)
for the remainder of Edward VI’s short reign. With the young King an enthusiastic reformer (although there was no legislation to enforce the display of Royal Coats of Arms until the Restoration of Charles II) c.1550/1 seems the likely time for a decision to replace the Roods against the background of extreme iconoclasm.16 Gresham influence had continued to grow and Sir John’s nephew was now coming to the fore, displaying undoubted financial talents in service of The Crown. Correspondence shows his close connection with Northumberland even at the cost of his relationship with his uncle. Thomas Gresham has been described as
ENGLAND’S EARLIEST PAINTED AND FRAMED ROYAL COAT OF ARMS: WESTERHAM
a Protestant, a friend of John Foxe.17 He was equally well placed to commission Westerham’s painting and as well as paintings for the London churches with which the family were associated. Whoever took the initiative, Gresham involvement seems to have been evident at this very early stage in the introduction of a dramatic statement of Royal Supremacy in English churches that continued over the centuries to come.
Counter Reformation; the significance of the triangular pediment
Only a couple of years elapsed before the accession of Queen Mary I in 1553 led to the re-appearance of Roods or of hurriedly created paintings on canvas of the Crucifixion. Royal Coats of Arms had to be re-sited elsewhere in churches. In spite of his Protestant sympathies that caused initial problems, Thomas Gresham’s expertise and reputation in mainland Europe that had proved so indispensable previously in helping to restore England’s finances, remained just as vital for the new monarch. A friendly relationship was established with Queen Mary, securing the Gresham position for the time being and ensuring stability for their estates in troubled times. However, further implications of the changed religious climate for Westerham can deduced from the triangular pediment that must have been added at this point, also painted on oak but on much thinner boards than on the main panel and differing also in the paint used. In 1931, Torr noted ‘the roundel bears on a dark green background, the Gothic letters i h s in gold, outlined with red. This is also an interesting and unusual feature – the depiction of a religious symbol along with Royal Arms’.
It seems logical that the pediment was added with the religious inscription signifying ‘Jesus’ in Greek when the Royal Coat of Arms was sited elsewhere in the church, remaining attached after restoration to its central location on the screen with Queen Elizabeth’s accession. This accords with the religious sympathies of Sir John Gresham who did not share his nephew’s views. While he had supported actively the establishment of Henry VIII’s Royal Supremacy over the Church of England his religious beliefs remained Catholic, as evidenced by the splendour of his funeral ceremonies recorded by his contemporaries.18
A Burgundian Heritage?
While identification of the earliest paintings of Royal Coats of Arms in English churches has focused attention on Rushbrooke in Suffolk and Westerham in Kent, a likely source of inspiration for the style adopted in the Church of St Mary the Virgin and elsewhere could be traced back to the times of medieval chivalry in the previous century. In 2018 after the successful completion of the conservation project, a visit by the author to the Low Countries led to a chance encounter with an earlier example of English royal heraldry, a painting in Bruges Cathedral.
Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, in deciding to renew the old alliance with England in his rivalry with France, married Margaret of York in 1468 in a sumptuous wedding near Bruges. Keen to strengthen the relationship (with growing ambitions to recreate a ‘Middle Kingdom’) Charles sent ambassadors to England in the following year to invest his brother-in-law Edward IV,19 with the Order of the Toison d’ Or. Symbolism of this second most famous medieval order of chivalry derived from the commercial basis that underlay the wealth
DAVID M. BOSTON
and cultural achievements of the Netherlands – the valuable trade in wool and textiles that provided a common bond between England and Burgundy in spite of periodic strains. In turn Charles was admitted in the same year at a Chapter held at Westminster to the Order of the Garter established by Edward III. He was then invested at Ghent by a delegation including the Garter King of Arms, with the Order’s insignia, described as bejewelled and heavy with gold.20
During the fluctuating fortunes of the turbulent period termed Wars of the Roses the Yorkist King Edward IV was forced into exile in the Low Countries in 1470-
71.21 Seeking support from the Duke of Burgundy to regain control of England from the Lancastrians, he reminded Charles the Bold that not only was he his brother-in-law, but that ‘they were brothers in each other’s Order’ (of Chivalry).22 Edward IV enjoyed the hospitality of the Governor of the North Netherland, Louis de Gruthuse, in whose palatial house in Bruges he stayed during part of his exile. Besides admiring his host’s library, he would have known the beautiful interior of Bruges Cathedral where the elaborately carved stalls were added in 1430. Reconstructed to commemorate a later convention of the Knights of the Golden Fleece in 1478, their individual Coats of Arms were painted on framed wooden panels displayed on the back walls of the choir stalls (Fig. 6).
Prominent at one end the resplendent Royal Coat of Arms of Edward IV is enclosed
image
Fig. 6 Choir stalls of Bruges Cathedral with Royal Arms of Edward IV on right. (Photo: Adrian Younis.)
ENGLAND’S EARLIEST PAINTED AND FRAMED ROYAL COAT OF ARMS: WESTERHAM
image
Fig. 7 Royal Arms of Edward IV: Bruges Cathedral. (Photo: Adrian Younis.)
within the insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece, bearing the inscription in French ‘Edward King of England and Lord of Ireland’ (Fig. 7). This was the work of a gifted Franco-Flemish artist, Pierre Coustain, who became Burgundian Court Painter in 1454. (It emerges that he was also responsible for another fine example of the Achievement of Edward IV.23) Its sophistication contrasts with the simple treatment of the Yorkist leader’s Coat of Arms carved in wood in Fotheringhay Church24 in Northamptonshire (Fig. 8). While Westerham’s Tudor Coat of Arms, intended to convey a message, did not require the elaborate treatment suited to a ceremonial cathedral setting, the framed painting bears a striking similarity in format to the earlier Bruges painting, which was also executed on boards (although conforming to the normal vertical construction method, since it was not free- standing). It is true that the Royal Helm (surmounted by a lion) is replaced by the Crown and yet the shield, quartered identically with the lions of England and the fleurs-de-lys of France, is simply encircled by the Order of the Garter instead of the Golden Fleece. Interestingly Charles the Bold’s stall-plate in Saint George’s Chapel, Windsor, set a style copied somewhat later by other Knights, enclosing his arms within the Garter.25 Overall the evidence indicates the influence of the Northern
DAVID M. BOSTON
image
Fig. 8 Royal Arms of Edward IV: Fotheringhay Church, Northamptonshire. (Photo: author.)
Renaissance and the employment of a Netherlandish rather than an Italian artist as responsible for the early Renaissance touches detected in Westerham’s Arms by both Torr and Newman. Moreover the oak boards were imported from the eastern Baltic to Antwerp where the sapwood was seemingly removed in accordance with the statutes of the Guild of Panel and Frame Makers.
During the first half of the sixteenth century the Greshams were increasingly extending their role in both commerce and finance, while developing their involvement in the Low Countries. After serving as an apprentice to a leading London mercer and Merchant of the Staple in Calais, Richard Gresham was admitted to the freedom of the Mercers’ Company in 1507. Living chiefly in London, he was already visiting Antwerp and neighbouring towns. Letters that survive from 1520 onwards show his activities in both the Netherlands and Germany, with his services to the Crown recognised by the presentation of a gilt cup and cover from Henry VIII as a New Year gift (1531-32). His son Thomas, was admitted to the Mercers in 1543 and took over the Greshams’ commercial operations on the Continent three years later, securing a leading place for the House of Gresham (established in 1537) in Anglo-Netherlands commerce, at the same time coping with the problems of the English silver coinage. With a network of agents, he continued the long- established family export of woollen cloths to Antwerp and the importation of fine cloths, silks, luxuries such as tapestries and ‘harness’, that is the armour and weaponry needed by the Tudors. Upon his appointment as King’s Merchant or Royal Agent in 1551, Thomas lived in Antwerp at the house of his ‘very friend’ Gaspar Schetz,26 who shared his interest in art.
ENGLAND’S EARLIEST PAINTED AND FRAMED ROYAL COAT OF ARMS: WESTERHAM
During his years in the Low Countries it is highly likely that Thomas Gresham would have seen, or at least learnt about through these connections, the Achievement of Edward VI in Bruges. Bruges had indeed supported a long- established community of merchants as part of the ‘English Nation’ or Merchant Adventurers of the Low Countries, which had been in Edward’s time under the governorship of William Caxton. Caxton as a mercer had successfully negotiated renewal of a treaty concerning the wool trade (1468) before perhaps becoming secretary to Margaret of York and then launching into his new career in printing in Bruges. Although no documentation has been found to date, the Gresham involvement (if not possible initiative) in introducing Netherlandish style framed paintings of the Tudor Royal Coats of Arms must point to Thomas rather than his uncle who remained attached to his more conservative religious views, as we have seen. At this time, his activities as Royal Factor meant that he was close to the centre of developments in London; he recorded numerous crossings between the capital and Antwerp. Throughout his life he continued to favour artists from the Netherlands for portraits, including the fine pair of seated studies of himself and his wife (acquired by the Rijksmuseum) executed c.1560 by Anthonis Mor Van Dashorst.27
Conceivably then we owe a debt to Sir Thomas Gresham for the framed and painted Royal Coats of Arms (whether initially created in Antwerp or London) that have remained a distinctive feature of churches in Kent and throughout England under successive dynasties, alongside his well-remembered foundation of the Royal Exchange and Gresham College. The Greshams can be seen as contributing to the transition between medieval and modern times in more ways than one.
acknowledgement
This article is dedicated to the memory of the late Treve Rosoman, f.s.a., former Curator of the Architectural Study Collection, English Heritage. He supported the author’s original ‘Gresham Thesis’, negotiated the English Heritage Research Report and took an active part in progressing the highly regarded 2013 restoration project undertaken so meticulously by Susan Moore, fbapcr, of Plowden and Smith.
endnotes
1 V.J.B Torr, 1931, ‘The Royal Arms at Westerham’, Archaeologia Cantiana, xliii, 285-94.
2 The Royal Arms installed after the Restoration disappeared during the Victorian remodelling of the church. From the Churchwardens’ books it is evident that ‘ye King’s Arms’ were painted and framed locally in 1662 at a total cost of £5 6s.
3 J. Newman, 2012, Kent: West and the Weald, Buildings of England, Yale University Press, p. 638.
4 There remain doubts about the authenticity of Henry VIII’s Arms displayed on the rood beam in Saint Nicholas Church, Rushbrooke and, in any case, the treatment is different. Set against the tympanum, the Tudor Coat of Arms is flanked by the Welsh dragon and the Beaufort hound together with the Tudor emblems of the Rose and Portcullis, all separately carved, in contrast to the framed painting in Westerham intended to be the focal point on the rood screen.
DAVID M. BOSTON
5 The author’s attention was kindly drawn by Dr Tarnya Cooper, then of the National Portrait Gallery, to another early but highly modified survival. In St Mary’s Church, Preston, Suffolk, there is an Elizabethan Triptych, with the central panel displaying the Royal Arms probably cut down from a rectangular board. Originally it represented the Arms of Edward VI and still shows his personal emblem of a Sun in Splendour but with his monogram overpainted.
6 H.M. Cautley, 1934, Royal Arms and Commandments in our Churches, Norman Adlard, pp. 16, 25-26. Cautley interprets the inscriptions as ‘Long live the King, guardian of the law’ with (below the Arms) ‘O Lord save the King’ from ‘D (omi)ne Salvum fac regem’. The question remains as to who decided on additions which do not carry through to later reigns, whereas there was continuity with the royal mottoes of the Order of the Garter and of Richard the Lionheart’s battle-cry ‘God and my right’. Certainly, one can point to a Gresham link to Archbishop Cranmer, who had benefited from the family’s loan support and this may explain the source of the additions. See also note 8.
7 Updated condition reports on both the Edward VI and George III Arms were generously provided by Susan Moore (Senior Paintings Restorer, Plowden and Smith). Her later comprehensive Treatment Reports can be consulted in the volume displayed inside Saint Mary’s bell tower where the Coats of Arms have been re-sited in secure conditions. Sources of financial help on the project are also given. Treve Rosoman commented not only on the comprehensive nature of the condition reports but also on the highest standards achieved in the conservation programme which revealed important new features including the techniques and colours employed as well as establishing the different character of the pediment.
8 After the Coronation it was agreed between the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Crown that the Church of England can authorise the display of Royal Coats of Arms but needs royal permission to introduce them into stained glass windows. A thorough investigation failed to find any legal requirement to display the Royal Arms before the reign of Charles II. Cautley (op. cit., p. 17) deduced from prosecution statements at the trial of Archbishop Cranmer for heresy in 1556 that he was held directly responsible for the policy of removal of the ‘Arms of Christ’ and their replacement with the Royal Arms.
9 Among many benefactions, his generosity would be shown by the establishment of Gresham’s School in Holt, Norfolk – the original family home. He probably supported the successful efforts of his brother Richard (d.1549) in securing the grant as hospitals by Henry VIII and Edward VI of St Mary’s, St Bartholomew’s and St Thomas’.
10 John Guy, 2019, Gresham’s Law: The Life and World of Queen Elizabeth I’s Banker, Profile Books, London. This masterly reappraisal of Thomas Gresham’s career replaces the idealised biography by the Victorian historian, J.H.W. Burgon, but in spite of personal flaws, Professor Guy characterises him as the first high priest of market economics, close to the side of successive Tudor monarchs. Both the Old and New editions of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography contain valuable information on the Gresham family.
11 Henry Ellis, 1827, Original Letters illustrative of English history, 3rd ser., i, pp. 232-8. Early Gresham involvement in artistic activity is documented in a letter from Richard Gresham to Cardinal Wolsey (14 Oct 1520) responding to his request to secure foreign workers to make tapestries for 18 rooms in Hampton Court. Similar commissions were undertaken for the King.
12 Tarnya Cooper, 2012, Portrait Painting and the Urban Elite of Tudor and Jacobean England and Wales, Yale University Press. Thomas Gresham almost certainly commissioned this painting when he was in Antwerp in 1544. Among the earliest full-length portraits, this format was rare elsewhere in Europe except for royal sitters. Artistic and scientific evidence support the conclusion.
13 Among other sources of help, guidance was kindly given by John Newman, English Heritage (Treve Rosoman) the National Portrait Gallery (Dr Tarnya Cooper and Dr Charlotte Bolland) and the College of Heralds (Robert Noel) besides the Librarians of the Society of Antiquaries, Lambeth Palace, Mercers Company, British Library and Courtauld Institute and Kent County Libraries.
14 Ian Tyers, 2014, ‘Royal Coat of Arms for Edward VI, from the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Westerham, Kent, Dendrochronological Analysis of Oak Boards’, Research Report Series 30-2014 English Heritage. Tyers also established relationships with other paintings on oak boards from the Eastern Baltic, for example de Jongh’s Old London Bridge in the Kenwood collection and Holbein’s Henry VIII at Petworth House
ENGLAND’S EARLIEST PAINTED AND FRAMED ROYAL COAT OF ARMS: WESTERHAM
15 J.R. Dasent et al. (eds), 1890-1964, Acts of the Privy Council of England NSII, 1547-50, pp. 25-27.
16 Eamon Duffy, 1992, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, c.1400-c.1580,
Yale University Press.
17 John Foxe, 1641, edition, Acts and Monuments. In this reprint of the ‘Book of Martyrs’, there is prefaced an outline of his life now generally attributed to his younger son, Simeon (1569-1642). There is a list of supporters and friends from all levels of Elizabethan Society, among whom is numbered Sir Thomas Gresham with leading Citizens of London ‘who had him in great account and esteem’. Foxe is recorded as receiving their financial help for his work with the poor. Other instances of Gresham’s Protestant sympathies, discreetly concealed in Queen Mary’s reign, are given by Professor Guy (op. cit.), pp. 164-165. Thomas’ father had been an open supporter of Cranmer, actively involved in the removal of images from St. Paul’s Cathedral to meet the wishes of the archbishop.
18 John Stow 1720, A survey of the cities of London and Westminster, 2 vols, London, 1, pp. 258-9. Dr Nicholas Harpsfield, chosen by Sir John to give the sermon, was instrumental as Cardinal Pole’s Vicar General in launching the Marian heresy hunting campaign. Three masses were sung on the second day of his elaborate funeral.
19 Peter J. Begent and Hubert Chesshyre, 1999, The Most Noble Order of the Garter, Spink,
London, pp. 158-159, 231-232.
20 Joan Evans, 1952, ‘The Garter of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy’, The Antiquaries Journal, xxxii, pp. 71-72.
21 C.L. Scofield, 1923, The Life and Reign of Edward IV, 2 vols, London, p. 566.
22 Statuts de l’Ordre de la Toison d’Or, 1481-86, Bruges. In this earliest copy of the Order’s Statutes preserved in the British Library (Harley 6199), there are not only the portraits of the Dukes of Burgundy but also the coats of arms of members including Edward IV (f.70) at the time when the Habsburg family provided the Order’s Sovereign. Notwithstanding the change of the English monarchy from Yorkist to Tudor, Henry VII and the future Henry VIII were admitted to the Order.
23 In a painting acquired by the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. SK-A-4641), Pierre Coustain executed the Arms (with the lion facing to the right) in oil on panel in 1481 for Saint John’s Church, s’Hertogenbosch.
24 In the beautiful restored pulpit of oak given by Edward IV to Fotheringhay Church, his Royal Arms are carved and painted on the back panel below the double tester with a black bull of Clare and a white lion of March as supporters.
25 W. St.John Hope, 1901, The Stall Plates of the Knights of the Garter, pl. LXXV. On display in the present Chapel of Saint George, commenced by Edward IV, the Duke’s brass stall plate is engraved and enamelled with the arms seen on the shield in Fig. 7., enclosed within the motto of the Order of the Garter (which has suffered some past damage).
26 Professor Guy (op. cit.) details the importance of the Schetz banking family to Thomas Gresham’s operations. Gaspar was the son of the banking dynasty’s founder and likely to have introduced him in 1546 to the leading artists in Antwerp. Gresham’s appreciation of art led not only to his own striking portrait but to later paintings imported into England. Timber from the Baltic featured among other imports. Schetz was appointed Royal Factor to Emperor Charles V who headed the House of Habsburg until his abdication in 1555 and was thus Sovereign of the Order of the Golden Fleece.
27 Catalogue of Paintings, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. No. 1673 BI, p. 215. Gresham’s con- noisseurship can be seen again in the masterly portraits of himself and his wife (c.1563) that passed from the collection of Sir Robert Walpole to Catherine the Great before acquisition by the Rijksmuseum in 1931. Born in Utrecht in 1519, the artist was also known as Antonio Moro and had been Court Painter to Philip II of Spain.
THE DEAL-TYPE INHUMATIONS OF KENT: DEFINING AN IRON AGE MORTUARY GROUP IN LIGHT OF NEW DISCOVERIES
andrew w. lamb
This paper discusses a distinctive group of pre-Roman Iron Age (PRIA, c.800 bc-ad 43) burials from Kent. The first examples of these burials were identified during excavations undertaken by the Dover Archaeological Group (DAG) at Mill Hill, Deal starting in 1984 (Parfitt 1995). Since then, the number of known examples has more than tripled. These burials are significant for several reasons. Firstly, they contribute to the growing evidence for formalised burial practices in PRIA Britain, something for which there has been limited evidence for much of the previous two centuries. Secondly, the distinctive arrangement of these burials, with the bodies positioned supine and extended, contrasts with the more common British practice of positioning burials in crouched positions on their sides. Instead, such positioning finds its closest parallels in early La Tène (c.475-300 bc) burials from northern France. Indeed, artefactual evidence supports the idea that the rite was inspired by Continental contacts. These two characteristics therefore make this type of burial a distinctive and important group which warrant further study. This paper seeks to provide a preliminary archaeological definition of these burials in the light of the new evidence which has emerged as a result of fieldwork in the county over the last three decades. Following standard archaeological conventions, the burials discussed in this paper are named after the site where they were first identified; Mill Hill, Deal. There are several places named ‘Mill Hill’ in Britain. By contrast, Deal is synonymous with Kent, and thus helps to highlight to regionally specific nature of this group. As such, these inhumations are here referred to as Deal-type burials.
When the DAG began work at Mill Hill, Deal, the site was already known to have produced evidence for Iron Age occupation, including burials. Nevertheless, the results were surprising. In addition to five cremation burials of the long-identified Aylesford-Swarling group, a Late Pre-Roman Iron Age (LPRIA, c.100 bc-ad 43) cremation rite, 42 Iron Age inhumation burials were discovered, including a well-furnished warrior burial. The position of most of the inhumed individuals (26, or 62 per cent), lain on their backs, their legs extended out from the pelvis, was of particular interest, as such positions were rare in British burials. Although the importance of the site was immediately recognised, it did little to alter the
THE DEAL-TYPE INHUMATIONS OF KENT
prevailing picture that PRIA Britain lacked formal burials. At the time only a small number of regionally and chronologically restricted groups were recognised. These were inhumations from East Yorkshire’s ‘Arras’ culture (which may be as short lived as 300-100 cal bc; Jay et al. 2012, 181), South-Western England (c.300 bc-ad 100), and southern Dorset (Durotrigian burials: c.50/25 bc-ad 100) as well as the aforementioned Aylesford-Swarling cremation burials from South-Eastern England (c.150 bc-c.ad 43). When the Mill Hill site was published, the author remarked that they were virtually without parallel in southern England (Parfitt 1995, 157). The only other site which Parfitt could identify as potentially producing evidence for the same rite was Highstead, Sittingbourne, Kent. Here 20 inhumations and six cremations were reportedly found with LPRIA pottery (Kelly 1978, 267). Sadly, the site was not documented extensively, and the only written record of the cemetery was stolen. The remaining evidence which exists from Highstead are a series of photographs of the cremation burials, and a small number of vessels recovered from the cemetery. Parfitt also listed a series of other Iron Age inhumation burials, although all of these were examples of more common crouched inhumations lain on their side. Mill Hill, Deal, thus appeared to be a fascinating aberration.
Subsequent summaries of Kent’s Iron Age mortuary data over the following decade suggested that this limited occurrence was little altered (Hamilton 2007, Appendix 1 and 2; Parfitt 2004, 16). Nevertheless, Champion (2007a, 123) noted the discovery of new cemeteries on the Isle of Thanet and proposed a Continental origin for the rite. Champion (ibid.) also offered an initial definition for the Deal- type burial (although he did not use this term), describing it as consisting of supine, extended inhumation, with limited grave goods (Fig. 1). However, in recent years rates of archaeological investigation in Kent have expanded on a massive scale, in large part due to the effects of Planning Policy Guideline 16. As a result,
image
Fig. 1 Grave C24, Saltwood Tunnel, a typical Deal-type burial (reproduced from Riddler and Trevarthan 2006, fig. 18, by kind permission of High Speed 1 Ltd).
ANDREW W. LAMB
TABLE 1. DEAL-TYPE BURIALS RECORDED IN THE DATABASE (TOGETHER WITH THREEADDITIONAL DEAL-TYPE BURIAL SITES NOTYET PUBLISHED)
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Site No. burials Other Human Remains Reference/Source
image
Mill Hill, Deal 42 Parfitt 1995
East Kent Access (Zone 12) 13 Andrews et al. 2015
A2 Activity Park 5 Dawkes 2010
Weatherlees WTW (Ebbsfleet) 2 Egging Dinwiddy and
Schuster 2009
Saltwood Tunnel 1 Riddler and Trevarthen
2006
Church Whitfield 1 Parfitt 1996
Augustine House (Cby) 1 Helm 2014
Leysdown Road 1 Margetts 2012
Cottington Hill 1 Egging Dinwiddy and
Schuster 2009
Total 67
Plateau 8 Thanet Earth 35 2 pit inhumations, 1
crouched, 1 cremation
Rady 2010; Weekes 2010 (unpubl.)
Tothill Street, Minster in Thanet 11 Gollop and Mason 2006 (unpubl.); Bailey 2010 (unpubl.)
Brisley Farm, Kingsnorth 2 Roman era cremations Johnson 2002 (unpubl.)
image
Grand total 115
image
subsequent large-scale infrastructure developments which have been built in Kent, of which the Channel Tunnel Rail Link and High Speed rail connection 1 are the largest (Booth et al. 2011), have meant the quantity of data available for Iron Age Kent has increased immensely. Of the nine sites which form the database of this paper (Table 1), seven have been discovered since the turn of the century. Mill Hill, Deal, has ceased to be an aberration.
Selection Criteria and Dataset
Following Parfitt’s (1995, 157) and Champion’s (2007a, 123) lead, this paper has employed two criteria when selecting burials to be included in this study. In order to qualify as a potential example of a Deal-type burial, examples must originate from a site with supine, extended inhumation(s) which date to the PRIA. Burials which are not supine and extended have also been included, provided they originated from a site where supine, extended inhumations were present; this is in order to account for potential cultural variation within individual communities. This variation likewise conforms to the evidence initially observed at Mill Hill, Deal.
The dataset consists of 67 burials, derived from nine sites (Map 1). The majority lie in eastern Kent, with the main exception to this being the A2 Activity Park site,
image
THE DEAL-TYPE INHUMATIONS OF KENT
101
Map 1 Sites in Kent with Deal-, or likely Deal-, type burials: (1) Mill Hill, Deal (2) Zone 12, East Kent Access II
(3) A2 Activity Park (4) Weatherlees Wastewater Treatment Works (5) Saltwood Tunnel (6) Church Whitfield (7) Augustine House
(8) Leysdown Road (9) Cottington Hill (10) Thanet Earth, Plateau 8 (11) Tothill Street, Minster (12) Brisley Farm (13) Deal, Walmer
(14) Highstead, Sittingbourne (15) Cemeteries 195118 and 126223, Zone 19, East Kent Access II (16) Julliberrie’s Grave
ANDREW W. LAMB
Gravesend (Dawkes 2010), located to the north and west of the main concentration of sites. Of the burials in the dataset, the majority (42 or 63 per cent) are from Mill Hill, Deal itself. It should be noted that inhumations from this site do not represent the total number of inhumed burials interred at the site, as it was partially destroyed in the 19th century (Parfitt 1995, 155). Other sites are also known but were not included in the main database as the details required to analyse these burials are awaiting publication (bibliographic details are listed in Table 1). These include 35 Deal-type burials from Plateau 8, Thanet Earth (Rady 2010; Weekes 2010). Tothill Street, Minster, has also revealed the existence of 11 burials, of which 10 were supine, extended and one prone but belonging to the same cemetery (Bailey 2010, 69). Like Plateau 8, only summaries are available at present for these sites, and it is thus not possible to analyse them to the same extent as sites in the main dataset (Gollop and Mason 2006; Bailey 2010; Birchenough 2010). This brings the total number of Deal-type burials which conform to the above selection criteria to 115. Further discoveries could potentially be added to this figure (Table 2). Some, such as the Highstead burials, lack enough details to permit further analysis. Others are published but cannot be dated with certainty to the PRIA. This may be due to the lack of associated grave goods, as is the case for an additional burial from Tothill Street which did not belong to the group noted above (Birchenough 2010). In the case of other burials from Kent this has only been resolved by radiocarbon dating (Fitzpatrick et al. 2015, 155). Where grave goods are present, they may lack sufficiently refined chronologies to ascribe a PRIA date. An example of this is cemetery 195118, East Kent Access II (EKA II), where the only grave good which could be used for dating was a penannular brooch (ON 4633) from Grave 278060 (Booth et al. 2015, 305). The brooch is a Fowler type A (Fowler 1960, 151, fig. 1), but dating cannot be any more precise than the first century ad (Anna Booth pers. comm. 25/04/19). As discussed in greater detail below, a post-Conquest date may not preclude some burials from being Deal-type inhumations rather than Romano- British burials. Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that early Roman period inhumations represent a continuation of the Deal rite. A potential example of this
TABLE 2. OTHER SITES IN KENT WITH PROBABLE DEAL-TYPE BURIALS
image
image
Site No. Burials Other Human Remains Source Highstead, Sittingbourne 20 6 LIA cremations Kelly 1978
EKA (Zone 12) cem. 195118 5 4 flexed inhumations Andrews et al. 2015
Cottington Hill 2 None Egging Dinwiddy and
Schuster 2009
EKA (Zone 12) cem. 126223 2 1 Roman inhumation Andrews et al. 2015
Tothill Street, Minster in Thanet
1 None Birchenough 2010
Saltwood Tunnel (sub-rect.) 8 2 EIA-MIA cremations Riddler and Trevarthen
2006
image
Julliberrie’s Grave 3 1 LIA cremation Jessup 1939
Total 41
image
THE DEAL-TYPE INHUMATIONS OF KENT
are three supine, extended inhumation burials from Julliberrie’s Grave. Found associated with an Aylesford-Swarling type grave, they were dated to shortly after AD 43 on the basis of associated ceramics (Jessup 1939, 226). Finally, there exists the problem of poor preservation, due in part to soil conditions in Kent, as is the case for most of the burials at Saltwood Tunnel (Riddler and Trevarthen 2006, 3). If all possible examples of Deal-type burials listed in Table 3 are combined with those from Plateau 8, Thanet Earth, the cemetery from Tothill Steet, Minster, and those in the dataset, then the total maximum number reaches 156. An additional burial which could be added to this group is the adult female from Walmer, Deal, who was recovered with two ‘divination spoons’ (Woodruff 1904). The dataset also does not include the two warrior burials from Brisley Farm (Johnson 2002), although some have suggested it is a member of this group (Booth 2011, 314). If the Brisley Farm burials were included within this group, it would raise the total number of Deal-type burials to 158. The nature of the relationship between Deal and warrior burials is discussed below. A final pair of burials which could potentially be added to this group are the inhumations from Dumpton Gap, Broadstairs (Hurd 1909), although they were too poorly recorded to be able to do so. The Dumpton
Gap burials also included a warrior burial.
Characterising the Deal rite
To attempt to determine what characteristics, other than the selection criteria noted above, can be used to define these burials as a cohesive cultural grouping, analyses of the following were conducted:
Associated funerary architecture, Grave proportions, orientation, Demographic profiles of the deceased, Associated material culture.
In order to prevent patterns concerning orientation and demographic profiling being distorted by the dominance of the Mill Hill, Deal, sample, the results are presented in three groups; the entire dataset, Mill Hill, Deal, alone, and all remaining burials excluding this cemetery.
Associated Features and Funerary Architecture
There are no recurring patterns which would suggest that Deal-type burials were culturally linked to specific features or were expected to be associated with a particular form of funerary structure. Associations do occur, but they are varied and inconsistent. At Mill Hill, Deal, Grave 123 was surrounded by a ring ditch. It may also have been covered by a mound. Likewise, Graves 46, 114 and 127 also appear to have been covered by mounds (Parfitt 1995, 156). A ring ditch has also been recorded associated with burials at Plateau 8, Thanet Earth (Rady 2010, 8). A mound has likewise been suggested as an associated burial marker at Augustine House (Helm 2014, 15). Other associations are less clear. At Saltwood Tunnel, the poorly preserved, possible Deal-type, inhumation cemetery was positioned overlying and immediately east of a Bronze Age ring ditch. The cemetery was
ANDREW W. LAMB
associated with a small square or rectangular ditched feature, which the authors proposed to be a square barrow or mortuary enclosure. The relationship between the burials and the enclosure is, however, unclear. An undated possible posthole that cut the northern end of grave W1411 may also have supported a grave marker (Riddler and Trevarthen 2006, 16). At the Church Whitfield Eastry site, the sole burial discovered was located just outside the main contemporary enclosure (Parfitt 1996). At East Kent Access (EKA II) Zone 12, the small inhumation cemetery was positioned between hollow-way 1901163 (Fitzpatrick et al. 2015, 154). The burials were located close to a nearby settlement, but not within the settlement itself (ibid., 187). No architecture was recorded within any graves. Indeed, all graves recorded had small proportions, and seemed to have been dug simply to contain the deceased and occasionally a small number of objects (the largest had a modest volume of 1.47m3). The lack of internal grave architecture and variation in terms of grave proportions may indicate a desire to have such burials conform to a cultural pattern.
Body Position and Orientation
Bodies were overwhelmingly positioned in supine, extended positions (n=44; 66 per cent) (Fig. 2). A similar pattern occurs at Plateau 8, Thanet Earth, where all burials were positioned extended, although some were located on their side (Rady 2010, 8). The prevalence of supine, extended inhumations supports the idea that this position was an important feature of this rite. The existence of other bodily positions also suggests that a degree of individual choice existed when burying an individual. Nevertheless, it does raise the question of whether the Deal rite represents a distinct cultural group based on burial position alone. In response to this, it is worth remembering that the use of varying burial positions is attested to among self-identifying groups in ethnographic literature. For example, in Evans Pritchard’s (1956) study of the Nuer it was noted people who received different positions or orientation did so because of the specifics of their character when they were alive.
The pattern observed in the orientation of burials further supports the idea of personal choice playing a part in the way the burial was arranged (Fig. 3). Among the Mill Hill, Deal sample the largest number (n=15, 39 per cent) of burials with known orientation were orientated south-west. At Plateau 8 the pattern was even more pronounced, with all 28 burials in the main cemetery being orientated to the north (Rady 2010, 8). The same is also true of the group from Tothill Street, Minster (Bailey 2010, 69). In the remainder of the sample most burials (n=9, 36 per cent) were orientated north. However, in both the Mill Hill, Deal, and remainder of the sample, north and south-west orientations represented the second most prevalent orientation, respectively. The recurrence of these orientations, combined with the evidence from body positions, supports describing the Deal rite as a distinct mortuary group.
Deceased Population
A demographic profile classification system was constructed based on that used by Anderson (in Parfitt 1995) for the Mill Hill, Deal, cemetery, combined with that employed by Lucy Sibun (pers. comm. 11/03/2019). Determination of sex is based
THE DEAL-TYPE INHUMATIONS OF KENT
image
Fig. 2 Bodily position of all burials within the dataset. From top to bottom: entire dataset, Mill Hill, Deal and all sites aside from Mill Hill, Deal.
ANDREW W. LAMB
image
Fig. 3 Orientation of the burials of all ages observed within the dataset. From top to bottom: entire dataset, Mill Hill, Deal and all sites aside from Mill Hill, Deal.
on the information contained within the reports used to assemble the dataset. The age groups used are as follows: Infans I (0-12 months); Infans II (1-6 years); Infans III (7-12 years); Juvenile (13-20 years); Young Adult (21-30 years); Prime Adult (31-45 years); Mature Adult (45 years plus). The determination of sex was based on the information contained within the reports used to assemble the dataset, rather than on assessment of the osteological material by the author himself.
The Deal rite appears to have been provided to all ages and sexes (Fig. 4), and
THE DEAL-TYPE INHUMATIONS OF KENT
image
Fig. 4 Demographic profiles of burials within the dataset. From top to bottom: entire dataset, Mill Hill, Deal and all sites aside from Mill Hill, Deal.
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image
Fig. 5 Frequency of grave goods and types and quantities of grave goods recorded in the dataset.
the two cemeteries in the dataset, Mill Hill, Deal, and EKA II, can be considered to represent ‘typical’ agricultural populations (Fitzpatrick et al. 2015, 186). The predominance of certain groups within the sample, such as prime adults, should not be used to infer conclusions about the health of the population (Wood et al. 1992). Typically, among such populations a greater number of sub-adults should be expected (Chamberlain 2006, 90). Their absence from Deal-type burials can be best explained by the soil conditions of eastern Kent. The levels of preservation among adults were highly variable, ranging from c.99 per cent skeletal preservation to less than c.25 per cent. In such circumstances the bones of infants would be unlikely to
THE DEAL-TYPE INHUMATIONS OF KENT
survive. The presence of sub-adults in the dataset, combined with empty graves as at Mill Hill, Deal, which were of child-sized proportions, does indicate that even the youngest members of the community were permitted access to this rite.
Grave Goods
The recent discoveries appear to confirm Champion’s (2007a, 123) statement that grave goods rarely occur in Deal-type burials (Fig. 5). The number of items in the dataset which may be considered grave goods is limited (n=16). An additional ceramic vessel, provisionally dated from c.100 bc-ad 50, and sheep bones were found with the main Tothill Street, Minster group (Bailey 2010, 69). If the poorly- preserved Saltwood cemetery group does represent a Deal-type cemetery, then this would increase the number of ceramic vessels by two (Fig. 6). At Plateau 8 the only grave goods recovered were two LPRIA fibulae (Rady 2010, 8). Of the grave goods in the dataset, nails (n=2) and firedogs (n=5), all from a single grave (123 Mill Hill, Deal) could be argued to represent the remains of coffins, and thus not grave goods in a traditional sense (although see Cooper et al. 2019). The six objects within Grave 112, Mill Hill, Deal (the warrior burial), are remarkable for their quantity, unique nature and opulence. They have been much discussed elsewhere (Parfitt 1995, 58-94), and all that need be noted here is the contrast between Grave 112 and others in the dataset. Champion (2011, 235), in discussing the poorly- preserved Saltwood cemetery, has suggested that the provision of carinated bowls was a feature of the rite. The data do not support this. Rather, the impression given by the grave goods is like that noted above for associated features; a certain degree of individual choice. The objects chosen for inclusion in the grave were likely personal possessions of the deceased. Thus, the lap dog thrown into Grave 47, Mill Hill, Deal, could conceivably have been the pet of the woman in the grave.
Summary of Analysis
The patterns observed conform to those initially observed at Mill Hill, Deal, and provisionally defined by Champion (2007a, 123). The characteristics of the Deal rite are thus predominantly supine, extended inhumation, with bodies typically orientated to the north or south-west. Apart from Mill Hill Grave 112, grave goods are lacking. This may suggest that these communities sought to emphasis some sort of egalitarianism in death. A lack of associated monuments lends support to this. Nevertheless, the rite was not so strictly regulated as to prevent individual variation between graves. The presence of a limited number of monuments, and the varied nature of what few grave goods were included, indicates there was room for personal preference when deciding how to arrange the grave.
The Chronology of the Rite
The lack of dateable grave goods recovered from Deal-type burial has had the unexpected benefit that numerous radiocarbon dates have been obtained for these burials (Table 3). The radiocarbon dates obtained attest to a long-lived rite, likely originating in the fifth century bc. A fifth century bc origin is also supported by the carinated bowls from the potential Deal-type graves at Saltwood Tunnel (Champion
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image
Fig. 6 Grave W1411, one of the two poorly preserved graves from Saltwood Tunnel with ceramic vessels (reproduced from Riddler and Trevarthen 2006, fig. 24, by kind permission of High Speed 1 Ltd).
TABLE 3. RECALIBRATED RADIOCARBON DATES FOR SAMPLED DEAL-TYPE BURIALS
(All dates have been calibrated using OxCal 4.3.2 (Bronk-Ramsey 2017) and are expressed at the 2 sigma level.)
image
image
Site Burial sampled Recalibrated radiocarbon result and associated probability Original Reference
Zone 12, East Kent Access 2 Grave 136033 2285±30 BP, SUERC-40287: 405-325 cal BC (at 65.5%); 295-229
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(at 29%)
Fitzpatrick et al. 2015, 155
Whitfield-Eastry bypass Area 2
Grave 1 2230±60 BP, BETA 141266: 403-162 cal BC (at 94.7%); 130-120 cal BC
(at 0.7%)
Parfitt 1996
Zone 12, East Kent Access 2 Grave 153028 2215±30 BP, SUERC-40288: 373-201 cal (at 95.4%) Fitzpatrick et al. 2015, 155
111
Saltwood Tunnel C24 2185±35 BP, NZA-27734: 370-164 cal BC (at 95.4%) Riddler et al. 2006, 16
Mill Hill, Deal Grave 31 2130±50 BP, BM-2868: 358-277 cal BC (at 19.4%); 259-42; BC
(at 76%)
Augustine House Grave 1050 2064±26 BP, UBA-16765: 168-19 cal BC (at 92.2%); 12-1 cal BC
(at 3.2%)
Mill Hill, Deal Grave 20 2030±65 BP, OxA-2967: 202 cal BC-88 cal AD (at 94.1%) 103 cal BC- 122 cal AD (at 1.3%)
Parfitt 1995, 153, table 51
Helm 2014, 15
Parfitt 1995, 153, table 50
Weatherlees WTW Grave 3122 2016±30 BP, NZA-28976: 96 cal BC-61 cal AD (at 95.4%) Barclay 2009, Appendix 2.5
Mill Hill, Deal Grave 15 1975±70 BP, OxA-2966: 169 cal BC-173 cal AD (at 94%); 193-211 cal
AD (at 1.4%)
Mill Hill, Deal Grave 44 1950±70 BP, OxA-2968: 151-141 cal BC (at 0.7%); 112 cal BC-233 cal
AD (94.7%)
Parfitt 1995, 153, table 48
Parfitt 1995, 153, table 49
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2011, 235). The evidence from Mill Hill, Deal, and Weatherlees Wastewaster Treatment Works (Ebbsfleet) demonstrate that the rite continued into the early Roman period. This supports Booth’s (2011, 314) suggestion that first-century ad supine inhumations in Kent represent the continuation of Iron Age rites, rather than a Roman introduction. Elsewhere in Roman Britain it seems that inhumation only became widespread from the second century ad onward (ibid., 315).
Determining the chronological phasing of the PRIA in Kent is problematic due to a variety of reasons recently reviewed by Champion (2007b; 2011) and Booth (2011). They can be summarised as:
A paucity of associations between metalwork and ceramic assemblages, A lack of published large ceramic assemblages,
Imprecise radiocarbon dates for the earlier part of the First Millennium bc, as a result of the Hallstatt plateau,
An uneven chronological and geographical distribution of ceramics in the county.
Despite these difficulties, Champion proposes that the Earliest Pre-Roman Iron Age dates from 800 cal to 500 cal bc; the Early Pre-Roman Iron Age (EPRIA) can be dated with reasonable confidence to the period 550 cal bc to 300 cal bc. The Middle Pre-Roman Iron Age (MPRIA) likely dates from 300 cal bc to 100 cal bc, whilst the Late Pre-Roman Iron Age (LPRIA) probably began c.100 bc (Champion 2011, 166). Fitzpatrick et al. (2015, 120) reviewed the ceramic evidence for the EKA II route and concluded a comparable range of dates. The fact that the Deal rite continued into the LPRIA is particularly noteworthy, as this period saw major disruption and alteration in the settlement record, the introduction of coinage and the adoption of cremation burials in Kent. Likewise, the continued existence of such burials as potentially late as the third century ad attests to either its compatibility with early Romano-British practices, its longstanding cultural importance for the communities of eastern Kent, or probably a mixture of both. Several first century ad supine, extended burials which have been considered examples of early Romano- British mortuary rites, may instead represent a continuation of PRIA rites (per Booth 2011, 314). It suggests that, despite the cultural and social changes attested to in the archaeological record over the centuries, the Deal rite continued to be considered by certain communities as the correct way to bury the dead.
The Deal Rite in the broader regional, British and near Continental contexts
Deal-type inhumations thus appear to constitute a distinct, formalised burial rite, one which was seemingly long lived. Within eastern Kent as a region, it co-existed in the first centuries bc and ad with the Aylesford-Swarling cremation rite, as well as a variety of non-formalised inhumation rites and other practices involving human remains. Deal and Aylesford-Swarling type burials were not mutually exclusive, occurring at both Mill Hill, Deal and Highstead, Sittingbourne. It seems unlikely that either represents an ethnic marker based on this co-occurrence. It is possible that personal choice, or circumstances surrounding the death of an individual may have determined if they were inhumed or cremated, as was the
THE DEAL-TYPE INHUMATIONS OF KENT
case in western Norway during the Migration Period, c.ad 400-550 (Kristoffersen and Oestigaard 2008, 134). However, at least by the first and second centuries bc, issues of status may have played a part. This is suggested by the fact the quantity of objects recovered from Aylesford-Swarling graves is, on average, much higher than those found in Deal-type graves (Lamb 2018, 259). Although no Aylesford- Swarling burials so far discovered in Kent are equal in terms of material wealth to the Welwyn sub-group from north of the Thames, there are several examples with what can be considered high status grave goods: Aylesford (Evans 1890), Boughton Aluph (Philp 2014), Westhawk Farm (Booth, Bingham and Lawrence 2008), A2 Pepperhill Site B (Allen et al. 2012). This may suggest that when the Ayelsford-Swarling rite was introduced to Kent from northern France, it was adopted by the local elite, whilst the Deal rite remained in use by other members of the community.
In addition to Aylesford-Swarling type cremations, the Deal rite occurred alongside another distinct category of inhumation – warrior burials. Warrior burials merely denote the fact that these inhumations were provisioned with weapons. They are a well-studied example of burial, occurring across a large swathe of Britain (Hunter 2005; Inall 2016). At least three are known from Kent; Mill Hill Grave 112 and the two burials from Brisley Farm. A fourth may have existed at Dumpton Gap. The author has proposed elsewhere that warrior burials do not represent a distinct group, but instead a social class or idea which was in widespread use in Britain, and possibly parts of the Atlantic coast of France also (Lamb 2018, 449). Thus, the relative prevalence of warrior burials in Kent (compared to other parts of southern Britain) can be viewed as being partly a reflection of the existence of the Deal rite in the east of the county, as well as the strong maritime connections evident in other aspects of the archaeological record.
Within the broader British context, the Deal rite contributes to the growing evidence for formalised burial during the PRIA (Fitzpatrick 2010, 18-21; Champion 2011, 225). This includes the aforementioned regionally specific rites (Durotrigian, Arras, etc.), but also an increasing number of isolated burials and cemeteries which do not appear to belong to a specific group and, in the case of cemeteries, were likely in use for a few generations at most. Examples include Adanac Park, Hants. (Leivers and Gibson 2011), Suddern Farm, Hants. (Cunliffe and Poole 2000), Bristol East, Glouc. (Evans, Holbrook and McSloy 2004, 7) and Yarnton, Oxon. (Hey, Booth and Timby 2011). Among regionalised groups and isolated cemeteries, it is rare to find more than twenty individuals buried. In this respect, the limited numbers in which the Deal rite is found conforms with the pattern observed elsewhere in Britain.
However, it is the positioning of the deceased which makes the Deal rite stand out when compared to other regional formalised rites in PRIA Britain. As noted, the majority of PRIA British formal inhumations were positioned flexed on their side. For example, of 352 burials examined by Roth (2016, 67, fig. 6.3) little more than a fifth (80 or 22.7 per cent) were in supine, extended positions. (It should be noted that this figure includes non-formal supine, extended burials also.) Map 2 displays those sites in southern Britain where supine, formal burials are known. Additional examples are also recorded to the north of this region, including several examples from East Yorkshire which date to the final phase of the cemeteries there
image
ANDREW W. LAMB
114
Map 2 Other sites in PRIA southern Britain with supine, extended inhumations and their location in relation to the Deal group:
(1) Hailes, Ireley Farm (2) Horndean, Snell’s Corner (3) Eastbourne (4) Maiden Castle (5) Owslebury (6) Shouldham
(7) The Bourne (8) Hinxton Rings (9) Yarnton (10) North Bersted (11) Birdlip
THE DEAL-TYPE INHUMATIONS OF KENT
(Stead 1991, 180). Of those in southern Britain, only in eastern Kent do supine, extended burials constitute the majority of burials at the sites they are recovered from. Elsewhere they occur as isolated, often unique burials, for example at The Bourne, Hampshire (Andrews, Harding and Egging Dinwiddy 2015), or North Bersted, Sussex (Taylor 2014), or as a minority among either crouched/flexed inhumations and/or cremations (Hinxton Rings and Maiden Castle).
When contextualised against the evidence for Britain and the near Continent, specifically Normandy and the Hauts-de-France, the Deal rite displays a variety of contrasts and parallels. Although the near Continent continues to produce a greater quantity of formal burials, the data are not uniform. Areas such as the departments of Pas-de-Calais and Nord, as well as Belgium, are generally devoid of burials until c.250 bc (Leman-Delerive 2014, 125). In Picardy, early La Tène cemeteries, contain large numbers of burials (between 40 and 100+). Over the course of the later Continental PRIA (the La Tène period) cemeteries become progressively more numerous and smaller in size, with quantities comparable to those observed for the Deal cemeteries (Desenne et al. 2009, 30, table 1). A similar trend has also been observed for Lower Normandy (Chanson et al. 2010, 57, fig. 6). The smaller Deal-type cemeteries can thus be seen to be comparable in terms of population sizes to many sites on the near Continent as well as in Britain. The larger cemeteries at Plateau 8 and Mill Hill, Deal find parallels, in terms of size, to cemeteries from third-century bc Picardy, but also some larger British sites such as the aforementioned example of Suddern Farm (Hants.).
The evidence for funerary architecture is equally variable either side of the Channel. In southern Britain it is attested but not ubiquitous. Where enclosures, ring ditches, barrows and other funerary architecture occur, they are usually associated with LPRIA cremation burials, as at Blagden Copse, Hampshire (Hawkes and Dunning 1931, 303, fig. 30), Hinxton Rings, Cambs. (Hill, Evans and Alexander 1999), or King Harry Lane, Herts. (Stead and Rigby 1989). Nevertheless, except- ions are known, such as the LPRIA inhumation cemetery from Adanac Park (Hants.). In Picardy, funerary enclosures and barrows are attested from La Tène A2 (c.425 bc) until the end of the Iron Age (Gransar and Malrain 2009, 147, fig. 7). Although barrows and ring ditches are associated with early La Tène inhumations in Picardy (for example at Bucy-le-Long ‘la Héronnière’) they are predominantly known from later cremation cemeteries, and even then they are not ubiquitous. Of a sample of 687 La Tène period graves examined by Gransair and Malrain (ibid.)
20.8 per cent (n=143) possessed an individual enclosure. A similar pattern occurs in Normandy during the later La Tène. In Nord and Pas-de-Calais it seems that individual enclosures around graves are restricted to cremation graves of the late La Tène period (e.g. Blancquaert and Desfossés 1998, 138, fig. 3), as is the case in South-East England.
Crouched and flexed formal inhumations do occur on the Continent, with examples known as far east as Hungary and Poland, dating to La Tène B (Horvath et al. 1987, 20; Bochnak and Goláňová 2010, 158). Formal crouched/flexed inhumations are likewise known from northern France (Map 3). Flexed inhumations placed on their side are well attested among late early Iron Age/La Tène A (fifth-century bc) sites in Normandy, sometimes being the only position observed at cemeteries (Verney 1993, 98; Fromont et al. 2008, 13; Giraud and Cocollos 2009, 33; Chanson
115
image
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116
Map 3 Sites in northern France with flexed and/or crouched inhumations: (1) Éterville ‘Le Clos des Lilas’ (Hallstatt D/La Tène A)
(2) Chambly ‘La Remise Ronde’ (Hallstatt D/La Tène A) (3) Longueil-Sainte-Marie ‘Près des Grisards’ (4) Canchy ‘Fond Carpentier’
(5) Ifs ‘Object ‘Ifs Sud’ (6) Fontenay-La-Marmion “La Grande Pièce’ (7) Mondeville ‘L’Étoile’ (La Tène B2-C2)
(8) Boves ‘La forêt de Boves’ Zone 1 (La Tène B1-D1 (9) ‘Urville-Naqueville’ (La Tène D) (10) Tournedos-sur-Seine (La Tène)
THE DEAL-TYPE INHUMATIONS OF KENT
et al. 2010, 69). Nevertheless, for the remainder of the La Tène period, extended, supine positions predominate (Chanson et al. 2010, 70). When crouched/flexed formal inhumations are found dating to the middle and late La Tène phases, they represent a minority of burials at the site, for example at Mondeville ‘L’Étoile’ (La Tène B2-C1) (Besnard-Vauterin 2009, 70). It is during the mid and late La Tène phases that cremation became increasingly prominent in Normandy, at the expense of inhumation (Chanson et al. 2010, 71-2). A notable exception is the La Tène D site of Urville-Naqueville where 64 (70 per cent) of burials were inhumations (Lefort and Rotier 2014, 21). Of these, eight were adult, and all were in crouched positions (ibid. 31-6).
In Picardy crouched burials are likewise present in La Tène A-B1 cemeteries, such as at Chambly (Pinard et al. 2000) and Longeuil-Sainte-Marie (Pinard 1997). However, in contrast to contemporary Normandy, they constitute a clear minority during this period. They are likewise uncommon for the remainder of the La Tène period (Pinard et al. 2010, 43). As in Normandy, cremation represents the majority rite in mid and late La Tène period Picardy (Pinard et al. 2009, figs 2 and 5). At the La Tène B1-D1 cemetery of Boves ‘La forêt de Boves’ Zone 1, Somme, inhumation was reserved for infants, although some of these were positioned in crouched and flexed positions (Buchez 2009, 117). In Nord Pas-de-Calais cremation appears to have been the most prevalent rite through the La Tène period, with inhumation burials constituting a distinct minority (Oudry-Braillon 2009, 61, table 1). Thus, whereas crouched burials represent the majority in Britain, they are a minority in northern France for much of the La Tène Iron Age. The Deal rite therefore finds its closest parallels, in terms of body positioning, to graves on the opposite side of the Channel.
As noted, with a few exceptions, grave goods are scarce in Deal-type graves. The provision of grave goods in Britain as a whole is also highly variable. Among the East Yorkshire cemeteries, for example, they vary greatly in terms of variety and quantity; the materially poorest graves were nevertheless provisioned with a single ceramic vessel (Giles 2012, 134). Something which does not occur among the Deal group. From a sample of 215 Durotrigian graves, the quantity of grave goods was typically higher than the Arras and Deal groups, with all ages receiving, on average, between two and three grave goods. Of these one was typically a ceramic vessel (Lamb 2018, 243, fig. 172). The general absence of ceramic vessels from Deal-type graves shows that these objects were not a required an essential component in the rite. It also raises questions about associated acts such as funeral meals, and what ceramic vessels meant to the communities who practice this rite. Parallels may be found elsewhere in southern Britain. For example, at the Bristol cemetery 24 inhumations were discovered in a cemetery dating from c.400 bc to the first century ad. The vast majority were adult burials, with the only grave good being a finger ring on an unsexed adult (Evans, Holbrook and McSloy 2004, 7, table 1). By contrast, in Picardy, early and mid-La Tène inhumation graves possess much higher quantities of items of personal adornment than are found in Deal-type graves (Desenne et al. 2009, 176, fig. 7). The same is likewise true of weaponry, ceramics and cosmetic items (ibid., 177-9, figs 8, 10 and 11). The picture in Lower Normandy appears to be comparable to that in Picardy, and thus unlike that observed in eastern Kent (Chanson et al. 2010, 75, fig. 19).
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Seeking Origins for the Deal Rite
The Deal rite displays a mix of insular and Continental characteristics. As a formalised rite originating in the 5th century bc, there are relatively few parallels attested in the rest of Britain. This clearly contrasts clearly with northern France, where formalised inhumation is much better attested in the period. Other supine, extended PRIA inhumations have been recorded elsewhere in Britain, but they do not occur in the quantity, or for a comparably long period of time, as occurs in Kent. Instead, the closest parallels to long lived cemeteries with supine, extended inhumations, such as at Mill Hill, Deal can be found in Early La Tène northern France. On the other hand, scant evidence for grave goods, conforming to the patterns observed elsewhere in Britain, is at odds with the evidence from early La Tène cemeteries from northern France. Thus, although the Deal rite displays many commonalities with Picardy and Normandy inhumations, it is not a direct parallel. The various similarities between the Deal rite and burials from northern France raises the question of origins. The parallels, in terms of body position and the duration of the rite, has caused some to propose that the rite’s origins can be traced to early La Tène northern France (Parfitt 1995, 157; Champion 2007b, 123; Rady 2010, 8). By contrast, Fitzpatrick et al. (2015, 192) suggests that the rite’s origins are local, and does not represent a new and intrusive ‘foreign’ style of burial. They suggest that the formal rites observed at Cliffs End Farm, Thanet (McKinley et al. 2014), which date to the fifth century bc, indicate that a formalised tradition of inhumation existed in Kent when the first Deal burials were created. The Iron Age burials at Cliffs End Farm, however, were predominantly in crouched or flexed positions (Leivers and McKinley 2014, fig. 2.28). Only two burials were positioned supine, and mostly extended (Graves 3656 and 3651). This author is therefore disinclined to view the Cliffs End Farm as representing a precursor to the Deal rite. However, the presence of formalised burials at Cliffs End Farm does lend support to the idea communities in this part of Kent were receptive to acts of
formalised burial (per Fitzpatrick et al. 2015).
The earliest Deal-type burials belong to Kent’s EPRIA, a time when there is good evidence for contact between this part of Britain and northern France. During this period ceramics in this part of Kent display strong similarities, in terms of form and surface treatment, with wares from northern France (Champion 2011, 165; Fitzpatrick et al. 2015, 193). Added to this is evidence in the form of a La Tène A fibulae from Kent, and early La Tène metalwork from the Thames (Champion 2011, 241; Fitzpatrick et al. 2015, 193). Such contacts, although more difficult to detect, continued into the MPRIA, particularly in eastern Kent, where local ceramics display stylistic affinities with the Pas-de-Calais and Marne regions (Moody 2008, 131-4, figs 77-80). Additional MPRIA evidence for contact occurs in the form of early Gallo-Belgic A and B staters from Kent, the earliest of which can be dated to the third century bc. Evidence for contact even occurs in the form of a fowl (an exotic bird during this period) from a possible shrine at EKA II Zone 13 (Fitzpatrick et al. 2015, 193). The archaeological evidence, in the form of imported metalwork, ceramic forms and surface treatments, and the prevalence of supine, extended inhumations in Early La Tène, supports the idea that the Deal rite has its origins in northern France.
THE DEAL-TYPE INHUMATIONS OF KENT
The archaeological record thus evidences close links between Kent and northern France throughout the PRIA, with exchanges being especially evident in the fifth- fourth centuries bc, and first centuries bc and ad. None of the graves examined in this study contained definite Continental imports, but this does not preclude the possibility that some of the deceased were Continental migrants. Four burials from EKA II Zone 12 cemetery have previously been investigated for strontium and oxygen isotopic evidence for mobility. Oxygen isotopes indicated that one of the females (166004) and two of the males (153027 and 153054), were all living in different environments; environments with a climate which was colder than Thanet (Fitzpatrick et al. 2015, 191). Fitzpatrick (ibid, 193) suggested that the origins of the people may have been in the Alps, whilst Millard and Powell (2015, 431) preferred Norway, southern Sweden or the Baltic as possible origins. Based on the evidence for British-central European contact, a central European, likely Alpine, origin seems more likely (Fitzpatrick 2015, 193). Although further isotopic and genetic analysis is beyond the scope of this paper, there is increasing evidence for long-distance mobility in the Channel area, including to Britain during both the EPRIA and LPRIA (McKinley et al. 2014, 144; Taylor 2014, 120; Fischer et al. 2018, 10; Fischer et al. 2019, 6). Based on these new studies and the aforementioned archaeological links between Kent and the near Continent, it would be unsurprising if further genetic or isotopic tests found evidence for migrants from northern France in Deal-type graves. It would be particularly insightful if the earliest graves in the group were found to contain migrants from northern France.
conclusion
There is sufficient justification to classify the supine, extended burials of PRIA Kent as a distinct, regionalised burial group: the Deal rite. The recurring characteristics of these burials, including body position, orientation, and a lack of associated grave goods and funerary architecture, combined with their localised distribution supports this. Supine, extended inhumations occur elsewhere in southern Britain, but rarely do they represent the majority of burials as they do among the cemeteries from east Kent. Nor do they display geographical clustering observed in this part of the county. The exception to this are burials belonging to the final phase of the Arras culture in East Yorkshire. However, the appearance of such burial positions there appears to be an independent development, unrelated to those from Kent.
The strongest parallels for the distinctive body position of the Deal group are found on the near Continent. The chronology of this rite, combined with parallels between early La Tène wares in Kent and northern France, argue for the rite having been inspired, if not introduced directly, from north-eastern France, likely Picardy. These burials are not, however, entirely Continental in character. The presence of some flexed and crouched burials finds parallels with most other formal Iron Age inhumations from Britain. The same is true of the general lack of associated funerary architecture, which is rare outside of East Yorkshire. Likewise, the paucity of grave goods from these Kentish burials is echoed in the broader insular Iron Age funerary record. Although limited in quantity, the grave goods display much variety. This suggests that grave goods within these communities were included in graves as personal items, as opposed to markers of community identity or idealised
ANDREW W. LAMB
status. The exception to this is Grave 112, the warrior burial, from Mill Hill, Deal, which is argued to represent an insular, if not broader west Atlantic, idea which was adopted and interpreted by the community at Deal. This interpretation would suggest that the Brisley Farm, and potentially Dumpton Gap, warrior burials were also examples of the Deal rite.
The influences which existed in east Kent during this period, which included trade contacts and migrants from both Britain and the Continent, gave rise to a rite which shared much with communities elsewhere. A dedicated isotopic or genetic study of these burials will likely better clarify the relationship these people had with their contemporaries elsewhere in Britain and the Continent. Indeed, the presence of additional migrants in these cemeteries is to be expected. The picture sketched above is a preliminary one, and no doubt new discoveries will alter this picture, perhaps as much as the original excavations at Mill Hill, Deal, did over thirty years ago.
acknowledgements
Special thanks to Timothy Champion, James Holman, Andrew Margetts, Gerald Moody, Keith Parfitt and Lucy Sibun for providing post-excavation assessments from several sites in this study, and Meredith Laing for her assistance in recalibrating radiocarbon dates.
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THE BRICKMAKING INDUSTRY IN KENT c.1825-1900
peter tann
The early history of brickbuilding and brickmaking in Kent is very usefully summarized in Archaeologia Cantiana 136 which examines the use of loc- ally produced bricks in the building of Old St Alban’s Court, Nonington (between 1556-1708).1 This is probably very typical of the pattern of brick use at this earlier period – small-scale for specific building projects by the landed gentry, using locally available raw material.
This new paper, by extreme contrast, is set at the height of the Industrial and the Railway revolutions with population growth at unprecedented levels and the demand for bricks (especially in London) for infrastructure and housing developments now being counted in their scores of millions. It examines the various types of brickmaking businesses created in Kent, illustrated by case studies centred on the Faversham and Sittingbourne districts. Their management, varying character (‘model’), strengths and weaknesses and changing fortunes are described and analysed.
The large brickfields, employing hundreds, were the subject of a number of Official Inquiries into their social conditions. The employment of young boys, some under 10, working long hours was prevalent; girls were also employed in significant numbers, seeing this as a better occupation than being ‘in service’; drunkenness was rife. This aspect of the history of brickmaking in Kent is not further explored in the paper but references to the detailed Official reports on social conditions are provided in a bibliographic note (below).
Despite its importance, a comprehensive history of the regional brickmaking industry has defied historians. This is because few business sources survive. Most brickmasters did not have a long-term stake in the community and thus did not leave much of a documentary imprint. A field robbed of its brickearth was of no further value to the brickmaster, whereas the landowner had the option to return the topsoil for agricultural use or to sell the land for property development. Typically, the industry went almost completely unrecorded in the administrative records of a town, though some brickmasters are identified in church and poor rate assessments in connection with the houses they built for their workers. With few exceptions, local newspapers tended to cover the economic and social impact of the industry only at those times of stress caused by bad weather or by strikes. Trade directories give no indication of the size and scope of a business.
Bankruptcy records, however, can be extraordinarily valuable. Census records,
on the other hand, are too ‘high level’ to be of much help until later in the nineteenth
image
PETER TANN
126
Map 1 The scattered distribution of brickearths in eastern Kent and the band of Gault Clay running across the whole county; together with the main nineteenth-century brick manufacturing sites. Map kindly compiled by Chris Blair-Myers using web map services provided by the British Geological Survey.
THE BRICKMAKING INDUSTRY IN KENT c.1825-1900
century. However, the printed reports of parliamentary commissions of enquiry into a wide range of matters yield a surprisingly rich amount of information about the brick industry, in an almost accidental way. The historian can only lament the repeal of the brick tax in 1850, and with it the single best source of production data nationwide, by county and then by tax collection district.
Brickearth, the essential raw material: its distribution in Kent
Fig. 1 shows the distribution of brickearth deposits in Kent and the location of the major production sites. Loessic brickearths are wind-blown periglacial deposits and are clearly very widespread in north Kent. (Apart from their importance to brickmaking, they constitute fine agricultural soils.) Deposits of Head Brickearth vary greatly in depth reaching up to 8-10ft in the most favoured places. The location of the major brickfields clearly demonstrates the vital importance of nearby access to navigable water to allow the export of this bulky and heavy product, usually to London. Also shown in Fig. 1 is the band of Gault Clay across the county which has also supported brick production at a few centres with access to railway.
The brick tax
In 1830 brickmaking was still largely a cottage industry, as suggested by the fact that in that year, the Board of Excise2 collected duty from no fewer than 5,369 brickmasters in England. For excise duty calculation purposes, the common brick was not to exceed the standard 150 cubic inches (10 x 5 x 3 inches). (Today’s standard brick measures 9 x 4¼ x 2½ inches.) In consequence bricks were made to a more or less standard size; it is this that makes it possible to compare levels of production in different parts of the country before 1850.
After a stuttering start, industrial-scale production (meaning the making of multiple millions of bricks every season from a single brickfield) began in Kent in the mid-1830s. The table below shows that the number of bricks made in Kent in 1845 was nearly double the number made in 1836. But between those dates, production of bricks in Middlesex outstripped that of Kent and Essex combined.3
To put the size of the brick industry in the South-East in the 1830s into sharp perspective, however, let us remind ourselves that brickmasters in Lancashire, Staffordshire, and Cheshire paid duty on a total of 503 million bricks in 1836.4 In 1840, the aggregate production of bricks in the three south-eastern counties represented about 27% of national production.
TABLE 1. BRICK PRODUCTION IN SELECTED SOUTH-EASTERN COUNTIES
1836-1845 (MILLIONS)
1836
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
Essex
42
42
49
49
56
61
38
45
49
Kent
88
83
102
117
106
128
119
121
166
Middlesex
173
169
183
208
190
202
180
221
289
Total
303
294
334
374
352
391
337
387
504
PETER TANN
For administrative reasons, the Board of Excise divided Kent into two ‘collection’ districts. Every parish in Kent was deemed to fall within either the Rochester or the Canterbury collection. The Rochester collection district was much larger extending as far east as Sittingbourne and included the north Kent riverside brickmaking towns and parishes of Strood, Frindsbury, Rainham, Northfleet and Dartford; Faversham was within the Canterbury collection. Unfortunately, parish data relating to brick production are now lost, but at the aggregate level, the records for the years from 1829 to 1849 (below) show, not surprisingly, that production in the Rochester district greatly exceeded that of the Canterbury district.5
TABLE 2. BRICK DUTY PAID IN SELECTED YEARS IN THE EXCISE
COLLECTION DISTRICTS OF ROCHESTER AND CANTERBURY (£).6
1829
1839
1849
Rochester
14,325
24,173
32,285
Canterbury
3,342
4,716
5,967
thebeginningsofindustrial-scalebrickmakinginfavershamandsitting- bourne areas
The earliest documentary evidence (that the author has found) of a substantial brickfield in Faversham, dates from 1808. It relates to a lease of nearly five acres, bounded on the south by ‘the turnpike road called the London Road’ and on the west by the road into the town today called the Mall. The lessee was James Knowler, a brickmaker who may already have been in occupation of the land, ‘part of which is now used as a brickfield’.7 Knowler went bankrupt in 1817 and we do not know if brickmaking on the site was continued.
However, in 1825 local newspapers reported a flurry of new activity in the Sittingbourne and Faversham areas:
The present speculative age for the manufacture of bricks occasions considerable interest at places where new brick-yards have been established. At Milton [Sitting- bourne], a little town of cottages has been erected within these last four months for the convenience of workmen; and a short time since there were thirteen colliers in the Creek at one time, laden with coals and cinders. (Cinders were a key ingredient in the making of stock bricks – see below.) An iron rail-road has also been formed, a quarter of a mile in length, communicating the landing wharfs with the brick- yard, for the purpose of additional facility. At Faversham also great bustle has been created by the manufacture of bricks, but unfortunately much inconvenience arises from the bad state of the Navigation [known locally as the ‘Creek’]. An immense kiln of excellent bricks has already been burnt containing one hundred and seventy- three thousand; and a clamp is now forming to consist of upwards of eighteen hundred thousand.8
We do not know the location or ownership of the brick-yard at Faversham described here. The detailed production figures lend a sense of veracity to the story, but the reference to ‘an immense kiln’ and ‘a clamp’ suggests caution, for reasons we shall
THE BRICKMAKING INDUSTRY IN KENT c.1825-1900
discover. Importantly, the reference to the creek implies that the bricks were made for the ‘export’ market, probably London.
A letter to the Kentish Chronicle dated 25 February 1825 described a different brick field ‘speculation’ (sic), located alongside the line of a proposed canal from Faversham to the Swale designed by Thomas Telford in 1824. The author, who signed himself ‘Navigator’, calculated that at 3d. per 1,000 bricks and 2d. per ton on vessels, the brick trade would bring net additional revenue of £200 p.a. to the navigation. The likely growth in the consumption of bricks made the project ‘so desirable’, and the revenue ‘so certain’ that it was threatened only by the depopulation of the town and its neighbourhood.9
It is probable that this second brickmaking ‘speculation’ was that which was the subject of a lease of ‘pasture and meadow’ land in the Brents, across the creek from Faversham town, in the parish of Preston. Like so much land in east Kent, this was owned by the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury Cathedral; we deduce that in 1825 it was still undeveloped.10 The tenant was Thomas Waller who sub-let fourteen acres in the Upper Brents and twenty acres in the Lower Brents to a partnership of entrepreneurial Faversham businessmen: John Perkins (timber merchant), Edward Cobb (grocer), and John Little (auctioneer). Although their occupations do not suggest any relevant experience, they intended to produce three million bricks a year.11 This was not a particularly ambitious number. A rule of thumb, cited by John Middleton in 1798, was that one acre of brickearth a foot deep would make a million bricks of the usual size. This measure was still used by the Surveyors’ Institution in 1899.12
Brickmaking on the Brents site got off to a very slow start; it was delayed for at least two years by a dispute between Waller and the Dean and Chapter.13 It was also hit by the countrywide banking crisis of 1825, which slowed speculative building activity. Furthermore, Telford’s canal was never built. Nevertheless, some bricks were produced, as shown by the first of two undated maps lodged together with Waller’s lease. Map No. 1 shows four pits having been dug ‘for raising brick earth’. It shows a terrace of six cottages and a short canal to the Faversham creek for the purpose of shipping bricks but ‘having no backwater is constantly filled with mud and … considered useless’. For reasons unknown, the partnership of the three Faversham tradesmen was dissolved by March 1828.14
But this does not mean that brick production on the land ceased. Map No. 2 appears to have been drawn at the same time as No.1, but it tells a different story – ‘intended improvements’, including the site of thirty-three planned cottages and gardens in the Upper Brents. According to Edward Crow, a contemporary Faversham diarist, the building programme started in 1829.15 By 1835, Waller was assessed for Poor rates as the owner of ‘many’ cottages in the Brents, and in 1845 for no fewer than ninety-five cottages; we deduce that most of these, if not all, were built to accommodate brickmakers.16 In 1842, the Poor Law Commissioner reported favourably upon local housing conditions: ‘in the neighbourhood of Faversham, the usual cost of building cottages made of brick varies from £70-
£100. They contain four rooms and a wash-house and are rented at from 1s 6d to 3s a week’. Those in Sittingbourne had a garden of one-eighth of an acre, an early physical indication of that town’s need to attract more workers, perhaps.17
Waller may not have been a brickmaster himself, but his very large investment in
PETER TANN
housing demonstrates that he took a positive view of the prospects for brickmaking over the two decades following his first foray into the industry.18
Housing developments and census returns signal brickmaking growth
Housing development at this period is a valuable indicator of industrial activity. The Municipal Corporations Act commissioner for Faversham reported the great number of houses recently built in ‘Brent Town’ in 1835.19 He recommended that this part of Preston parish should be brought within the new borough of Faversham. ‘It is not unlikely [that these houses] may contain a class of occupants over whom it would be desirable that the magistracy and police of the town should have jurisdiction’.20 He was not referring to the existing communities of oyster dredgers or those who worked the creek navigation; the new occupants were almost certainly brickies and his recommendation was probably based upon their reputation for bad behaviour.
The 1841 Census Report added little of interest. Labourers (as opposed to ‘agricultural labourers’) were largely undifferentiated as to the nature of their work, so we have no idea as to the numbers who worked in the brickfields at that date.
The Census Report for 1851, however, included a section regarding the changes in population and the number of houses between 1801 to 1851, as recorded in the census returns.21 Significant changes warranted an official explanatory footnote. In the case of the parish of Preston, for example, the footnote reads: ‘the increase of population since 1831 is attributed to the building of houses on Davington Hill and at Brent Town’.
By the time of the 1851 census, the catch-all ‘labourers’ was segmented. It recorded seventy-one brickmakers in the Milton registration district, and twenty- three in that of Faversham.22 These numbers seem hopelessly low, and we can only conjecture the reason.
The 1861 Census Report, however, prompted official footnotes about the impact of the brickmaking industry on the population increase since 1851:23
The attractions of Sittingbourne and the district generally, and the improved railway accommodation, have given a great impulse to building; and large brickfields, employing many additional labourers are in active progress in Sittingbourne, Tonge, Milton, Rainham, Upchurch, Lower Halstow etc.
In the northern part of Preston-next-Faversham extensive brickfields have lately been opened causing the erection of several labourers’ cottages. In Luddenham the decrease in population is attributed to migration caused by the demand for brickmakers in Faversham and other parts of the county.
The 1871 census reinforced the point; it showed a significant increase in the population of the Faversham registration district, up from 18,867 in 1861 to 22,238 (+18.4%).24
The population figures for the census registration districts of Faversham and Milton, 1861-1911, show that the greatest growth occurred in the decade to 1871.
THE BRICKMAKING INDUSTRY IN KENT c.1825-1900
TABLE 3. POPULATION FIGURES FORTHE CENSUS REGISTRATION DISTRICTS OF FAVERSHAM AND MILTON, 1861-1911
1861
1871
1881
1891
1901
1911
Faversham
18,867
22,238
24,956
25,770
26,426
24,748
+2,183
+3,371
+2,628
+814
+656
-1678
Milton
14,775
19,236
23,270
24,968
28,169
28,314
+2,750
+4,461
+4,034
+1,696
+3,203
+145
Changes in population were not caused exclusively by the brickmaking industry, of course. But at this very high level, it is still possible to discern some correlation between brickmaking and population change. Faversham’s rate of population growth slowed down considerably in the decade after 1881, when brickmaking slumped. That Faversham did not keep up with the industry’s improvement in the second half of the 1890s is reflected in the fact that in the decade to 1901, Milton’s overall population (up 13%) overtook that of Faversham for the first time (up 2%). Faversham’s role as a place for industrial-scale brickmaking was more or less over by 1901. Faversham’s population declined in the first decade of the new century. In this same decade, the number of people engaged in the brick and tile making industry in the whole county of Kent declined by nearly 38% from 5,135 to 3,305.25
The provision of housing by a brickmaster was not a philanthropic gesture. It tied the brickies to the business and maximized their working hours. Consequently, hundreds of terraced cottages were built in the period 1840-1880 in east Kent. Where they exist today, or where they are shown on nineteenth-century maps, the rows of cottages are a good finding aid for the location of brickfields, because they were built as close as possible to where the bricks were made.26
In 1865 Sittingbourne’s George Smeed, by then the largest brickmaker in the county, stated that ‘All who work in my fields live in cottages which I have built for them; the men bind themselves under agreement for the year… I also give each of them a plot of land on which they grow potatoes and other vegetables’.27
industrialscalebrickmakingtakesoff–thankstolondonandthebarge
Industrial scale brickmaking in the region would simply not have been a commercial proposition were it not for the pull of London and its accessibility by barge. East Kent’s long tradition of supplying heavy or bulky agricultural goods to London by sailing barge served its brick industry well. In turn, London’s network of rivers such as the Lea, and inlets and canals (many now filled in), allowed Thames barges to deliver bricks to ‘inland’ construction sites as far upstream as East Molesey, for example. The barge remained the practical mode of transport of bricks to London throughout the nineteenth century, notwithstanding the occasional accident.28 Unfortunately, no official records concerning the shipment of bricks seem to have survived; it is possible that they were not kept, either by port or by shipper.29
Nothing better describes the symbiotic relationship between brick and barge than the name ‘George Bargebrick’, by which Sittingbourne’s George Smeed was known. He successfully combined his brickmaking business with that of building
PETER TANN
and operating barges.30 Smeed Dean & Co. (incorporated in 1876), carried bricks from Murston to London by barge well into the twentieth century. Their Elsie, bound for Hammersmith, collided and sank with her cargo of bricks in 1923.31
Kent barges accessed London from its coastal creeks. Milton creek served the brickfields of Sittingbourne and Murston. Conyer creek served the brickfields of Teynham and Tonge Mill via private tramways. Butterfly Wharf, located where Conyer creek meets the Swale, served the Conyer Brickworks owned by the very large and acquisitive Eastwood & Co. a lime, cement, and brickmaking company, based in Lambeth.32
Faversham and Oare creeks served the Faversham area.33 But their utility did not compare with that of Milton creek. Faversham creek was long, muddy, and tortuous. We need only to read the preamble to the Faversham Navigation Act of 1842 to see the nature of the problem:
Whereas great obstructions and difficulties are at present occasioned by the navigation of the creek, as well by the sinuosities and irregularities in depth and width of various parts of the said creek, as by the accumulation of mud and sand and the formation of inconvenient banks and shoals, and whereas it would be of great public utility if said obstructions were removed and the navigation of the creek otherwise improved …
Despite improvements to Faversham creek, it still did not compare well with that of Milton. By 1900, Milton creek presented this picture, as remembered by a local author:
‘In the old days there was an enormous barge traffic on Milton creek, sailing to and from the Kentish brickfields, and many a well-known barge was launched into its tidal waters. Fifty years ago it was a not uncommon sight to see as many as forty laden barges leave on one tide’.34
Faversham creek never matched such a tonnage on one tide. This was demonstrated by E.T. Coulter, who represented the East Kent Barge-owners’ Association at Faversham in 1879 (when the brick industry was at its peak). Coulter told a Parliamentary enquiry that there were 180 sailing barges from Faversham and that a round trip to London from Faversham took two weeks.35 This makes 4,680 voyages a year, 2,340 of them out-bound. Assuming no down-time, and a six-day working week, the average number of laden barges leaving Faversham creek on one day would be about eight.
Transportation of bricks by rail was never a practical alternative for the Kent brickmaster who had easy and inexpensive access to the barge. But as the network grew over time and as rolling stock became more robust, rail became the transport of choice for brick and tile manufacturers in the upper Medway valley and central Kent.36 When there was a cyclical decline in demand for bricks in the 1880s, anxious brickmasters in east Kent were keen to offer customers the choice of transport by rail or barge.
The London stock brick
The region’s leading product was the London stock brick. It was a dull brownish
THE BRICKMAKING INDUSTRY IN KENT c.1825-1900
yellow, suggestive of stone; its colour was achieved by adding ash and chalk roughly in the proportion 64% brickearth, 25% ash, and 11% chalk. Throughout most of the nineteenth century, stock bricks were made and dried under the crudest of operating conditions, and invariably by hand. Consequently, they were never a consistent colour (the over-burnt ones could be dark purple), hardly ever square or true, usually pitted, and always flecked with black spots arising from the ash in the mix. Some held that the addition of ash rendered the brick ‘very porous, greatly weakened and generally shaky’.37 The stock brick was useful but not beautiful, and on high-status buildings was used only for internal brickwork.38
This is not to imply that high quality red bricks were not made in east Kent. Faversham’s red bricks, for example, are to be seen in the town’s Almshouses (1860), in the Alexander Centre in Preston Street (1860s) and Rigden’s range of brewery buildings (1874-84). Sittingbourne’s High Street contains many fine buildings beautifully built with red bricks. Faversham was also good at ‘specials’: relatively small runs of profiles, decorative bricks and tiles that show craftsmanship and artistry. But these examples do not reflect the town’s industrial- scale brickmaking; rather, they represent the town’s artisan makers.39
The brickmaking process
The ‘stool’ was the basic unit of production. Each stool was, in effect, a factory.40 This is where the ‘moulder’ would make his bricks. He and the clamp-setter (the man in charge of baking the bricks) were the most highly skilled workers. The raw material was brought to him, and moulded bricks taken away for drying by his team of seven or eight workers, including children. In a good season, the production of 1,000,000 bricks by one moulder sitting at his stool would be considered excellent. In 1877, however, an east Kent newspaper reported that 1,200,000 or even 1,300,000 bricks were made at one stool, and that the combined output of the Sittingbourne and Faversham districts was over 200 million, of which Sittingbourne’s Smeed Dean alone made 60 million.41
Drying: kiln or clamp?
Kent’s stock bricks were typically dried in the traditional way by slow baking in a ‘clamp’, a temporary structure that was made of about thirty long rows of unfired bricks built in the shape of an inverted ‘V’.42 Wood was the main fuel for the fire. Spaces were left between the bricks to facilitate the passage of air under the clamp to allow the even combustion of the fuel. Keeping the fire burning, evenly and slowly for a long time called for much experience and expertise. An unexpected frost or excessive rainfall could be fatal to the process.
This traditional method, however, avoided the capital costs of building a permanent kiln, and reduced operating costs because wet bricks could be dried very close to where they were made, instead of moving them to a (perhaps distant) kiln. The ash and cinders content of the raw brick contained unburnt gases that helped dry the bricks in the process of baking. The fact that the ash was brought ‘free’ from London by an otherwise empty barge made the production of the London stock brick doubly cost-effective. The merit of mixing ash to brickearth had been known to Kentish brickmasters in the late eighteenth century.43
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Ignoring the matter of the noxious fumes given off by London’s rubbish,44 the disadvantage of the clamp was that the drying process was much slower than in a kiln. It was reckoned to take between four and six weeks before a green brick was dry enough to go into either the clamp or the kiln.45 Kiln-dried bricks were ready for delivery within a week.46 The clamp brick, however, was not ready for three or four weeks, during which time much could happen to impair the value of the finished product. This meant that the typical Kent brickmaster incurred not only greater risk, but also had to fund his inventory for an additional two to three weeks, giving him potential cash-flow problems.
Parliamentary Commissioner H.W. Lord’s interviews with the managers of two Faversham brickworks in 1866 provide further details of brickmaking.47 Mr Wilson was the manager of George Wythes’s brickfield at Abbey Fields. He had been in post for four years, and before that he had managed a field in Sittingbourne for fourteen years. Altogether, he had been connected with brick making since 1825:
Wythes’s is a very decent field; the men are unusually steady and respectable. There are sixteen stools here [in Faversham] … that will make our total number at the stools over 120 [locations not given]. We have already (by 15 August) made twelve million bricks this year …
The table below is compiled from data provided by the managers of brickfields in Kent interviewed by Mr Lord. It demonstrates the dominance of George Smeed in the London stocks sector, and it suggests that his business alone made twice as many bricks as were made in Faversham.
TABLE 4. THE MAJOR BRICKFIELDS OF KENT 1866
Brick Works
Stools
Employees
of these:
Male
Female
Age <13
Aylesford & Burham Brick Works
20
289
2
6
Burham Brick & Cement Co (brick only)
n/a
507
16
40
Aylesford Pottery (drainage pipes etc.)
n/a
203
0
7
Smeed, Sittingbourne
59
500+
yes
yes
Scott, Murton
9
n/a
yes
yes
Ashenden, Sittingbourne
10
n/a
yes
yes
Wood, Sittingbourne
16
n/a
12
25
Wythes, Faversham
16
85+
35
yes
Kingsnorth, Faversham
14
n/a
very few
yes
Lucas Bros. Crayford
32
256
48
11
Rutter, Crayford
n/a
332
50
27
industrial scale brickmaking expands rapidly c.1860-1880
Sittingbourne and Faversham were exposed to more or less the same external demand factors. For example, construction work associated with the East Kent
THE BRICKMAKING INDUSTRY IN KENT c.1825-1900
Railway (EKR) in the late 1850s was a stimulant to the industry in both towns. Insofar as the railway tended to boost the population of a town, the need for more houses increased the local demand for bricks. The construction industry was dominated by huge public utilities and transport infrastructure projects. The size of these projects and the impact of demand for bricks is nowhere better described than in the ‘Return’ to Parliament made by Joseph Bazalgette, chief engineer to the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1863.48
Bazalgette sought to explain to Parliament the reasons for the increase in the cost of construction of London’s Main Drainage project. He blamed the ‘unprecedented’ number of very large-scale projects underway at the same time, being the Metropolitan Railway, the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway (successor to the EKR), the Charing Cross Railways and other Metropolitan works and improvements. He wrote that ‘The demand has necessitated the introduction into the London market of bricks of a different make, from places remote from London, at a considerably increased cost’. The same report cites two small transactions with east Kent firms as an indication of upward price pressure: in January 1860, Faversham’s Thomas Kingsnorth supplied 150,000 bricks at 27s. per thousand, and in February 1861, George Smeed supplied 686,000 ‘best picked stocks’ at 40s. per thousand.
In response to the favourable market conditions, extensive brickfields were opened In Faversham in the 1860s, most notably by George Wythes (above), who rented forty-two acres of brickearth land (part of Abbey Farm) from Lord Sondes.49 Brickfields were opened in the adjoining parish of Preston, on land owned by Major Hall, the gunpowder manufacturer: one field was operated by Charles Wood of Milton (est. c.1850), a second by Messrs. Court and Pryer, and a third by William Monk, a Faversham man. London speculators also moved into the industry.
The demand for bricks remained strong to the end of the next decade. In March 1878, The Builder printed a very positive summary of the industry at Sittingbourne and Faversham: ‘The prospects for the future are even more promising than they have been in the past’. Fears that local brickearth was exhausted had proven mistaken, and valuable new finds were found conveniently close to existing brickyards. ‘Landowners from whose fields the brickearth is being taken are making almost fabulous profits … [getting] out of their land double and treble the sum the land originally cost them, still, of course, retaining their ownership of the land’. The expectation was that in 1878, more than 300 million bricks would be made in the Sittingbourne and Faversham district.50 In 1879, when the industry was at or near a peak, it was estimated that London’s annual consumption of bricks was 700 million.51 If these figures were correct (and The Builder was a reputable source), then almost half of all bricks used in London c.1880 came from east Kent.
industrial scale brickmaking declines rapidly: c.1880-1895
The optimism of the late 1870s was misplaced. The 1880s were years of almost unrelieved depression for the region’s brickmaking industry. Kent and Essex brickmasters faced competition from the Midlands and from Belgium. Prices were abnormally low in the middle years of the decade; bad weather almost stopped some fields in 1888.52 In the course of an enquiry into the issue of over-production, Mr Tassell, a senior Faversham solicitor, stated that 450 million stock bricks were
PETER TANN
made each year in north Kent and south east Essex, of which 120 million came from places within three miles of Faversham.53 If Tassell were right, and even allowing for possible differences in the definition of ‘the district’, the figure was very far short of the 300 million estimated in 1878 by The Builder. We should note that the last two decades of the nineteenth century in England were characterized by agricultural depression and falling values in a range of asset classes. Let us explore the characteristics of success and failure in the brickfields.
Industrial-scale brickmaking – the capital investment required
So how much capital did the brickmaster need (measured in terms of shareholders’ equity plus capacity to borrow)?54 There is no exact answer to the question, but brickmaking was an industry that turned its inventory only once a year and thus did not generate cash quickly. The industry was subject to the vagaries of the weather (rain would stop production and a severe frost could destroy a million unburnt bricks). Even in a normal year, the brickmaster had to allow for a significant proportion of poor quality bricks that he had to sell cheaply. In June 1854, The Builder printed a letter outlining the detailed costs of making 1,000 bricks; the writer concluded: ‘I do not believe that good stocks can be sold at less than 28s. per thousand to yield a profit of 20 per cent, which a manufacturer is fully entitled to, who only turns his capital once a year’.55 The same writer overlooked the fact that in times when the market was soft, the brickmaster had to carry his unsold bricks over to the following year. He also excluded the cost of transport from his calculations. Clearly, brickmaking was a slow and risky business. The real answer to the question about the amount of capital required is that it depended very much upon the capacity in which the brickmaster operated: was he a committed businessman (like Smeed), who was a consolidator with a long-term stake in the local community, or was he a ‘contractor’, or was he a ‘speculator’?
The brickmasters: consolidators, contractors, or speculators?
Smeed was an example of a consolidator. He had a stake in his local community. He consolidated his business by the creation of new fields, by acquisition and by investment in related businesses, in plant and in people. Eastwood was another consolidator in the brick industry who took advantage of the industry decline the 1880s. Like Smeed, he was also a large-scale barge builder and barge operator. In addition to expanding his own estate in Kent, in the 1880s he brought together east Kent brickmakers in Teynham, Lower Halstow and Frindsbury, with others in Suffolk and Essex.56 We shall see that his interest in Faversham brickmaking at that time was short-lived and opportunistic – an indication, perhaps, that in the depressed period of the mid-1880s, Faversham was seen, by then, to be a marginal producer, with less favourable prospects.
Contractors were people who undertook large-scale building and infrastructure projects (such as railways). For them, a brickfield was a temporary ‘upstream’ investment, with the primary aim of securing a guaranteed supply of bricks at producer prices.
The two examples that follow have to do with the London Chatham & Dover
THE BRICKMAKING INDUSTRY IN KENT c.1825-1900
Railway (LCDR), whose senior directors were well-known figures from east Kent. It was chaired first by Lord Sondes and then by Lord Harris, both of whom lived near Faversham.
The first example is that of George Wythes (1811-83). We have heard from his manager in Faversham through the report of Mr Lord. Wythes came from a Worcestershire family and became well-known as a national and international railway contractor. He made his reputation, and his first fortune, as contractor to the Eastern Counties Railway (ECR), opened in 1843, from London to Chelmsford. He was then aged only thirty-two. As we have seen, Wythes later became the contractor to the Chappel Viaduct over the Colne, on a branch line of the ECR. It has 32 arches of about 30 feet span, it is 1,066 feet long, and the track is about 80 feet above ground level. The viaduct is built of brick. The relevance to our story is that he established a brickfield within a mile of that viaduct where he made five or six million bricks. Before going to Faversham, Wythes had been appointed contractor to the Sheerness Railway and to the stillborn project of a rail link between Strood and Maidstone.57
Attracted by the planned extension of the railway line from Faversham to Canterbury East, via a long tunnel under Boughton Hill, Wythes contracted to supply the necessary bricks. His choice of a site reflected his prior experience. He rented a portion of Abbey Farm, contiguous with both Faversham Creek and the branch railway line from Standard Quay to the new Faversham station. The Kentish Gazette recorded that ‘It is said that four hundred men are to be set to work immediately, and it is intended to make seventeen million bricks a year’.58 By 1869 Wythes owned thirty-seven cottages in East Street, Faversham.59 He was still described as the owner of extensive brickfields at Faversham in a court case in November 1879.60 But at the time of his death in 1883, the Abbey brickfield was in the hands of Henry Chambers. Whether under the control of Wythes or Chambers is not clear, but by 1887 the acreage of the Abbey brickfield had been extended to seventy-eight acres from forty-two in 1860.61
The second example of the contractor is Joseph Cubitt (son of Sir William), chief engineer and contractor to the LCDR. Cubitt had a fine understanding of his role. The LCDR’s survival depended upon the rapid construction of a line from Strood (across the Medway from Rochester) to Victoria and Blackfriars stations in London. Leaving aside the need for a new bridge, the challenge was to complete the Sydenham tunnel beyond which the line would divide to reach both stations. The following extract is from Cubitt’s report to the LCDR directors, dated August 1861. It describes the mutual benefits obtained from a tied relationship between client and engineer / contractor. Note the use of steam machinery…
The cutting at the east end of Sydenham Junction adjoins a large brickfield (sixteen acres) established by LCDR, now fully working; brick making both by hand moulding and steam machinery is being carried out upon the largest scale and with the utmost rapidity…
At the west end of the tunnel the essential work of brickmaking is being energetically carried on, ten acres of land being appropriated to the purpose and fully supplied with steam machinery and appliances of every kind. In fact, every means is taken and no expenditure spared for securing the supply of bricks, on the regularity and sufficiency of which the whole question of time depends’.62
PETER TANN
Speculators, on the other hand, had no established customer relationships, and no fixed channels of distribution; they were likely to sell to, or through, intermediaries.63 Speculators looked for a quick return on their money and, as a rule, were less likely to invest in capital equipment or to adopt new technology.
The repeal of the Excise duty on bricks in 1850 had the unintended consequence of attracting under-capitalized adventurers into the industry.64 This was because the law had required that duty be paid on the number of bricks made before firing. Firing was at the owners’ risk, so any accident in the firing process meant the cost of the duty was lost. The repeal of the tax eliminated this major financial risk and encouraged speculation.
The Faversham Brickfields Company, based at Uplees, near Faversham is just one example of the speculator. Crucially, it was financed largely by debt rather than by permanent share capital. This new company took over the assets of an existing business, sometime in late 1878, when the market for bricks was buoyant. The company benefited from the fact that the ‘machinery’ was in working order, and that preparations for brick making in the next season were already in progress. On these grounds, the company’s bonds were promoted in a journal called The Limited Liability Review:
There can be hardly any doubt that the profits from the very outset will be large, as the position of the brickfields is such as is rarely equaled, and the quality of the brick making materials has been thoroughly proved.
Cautious investors, however, would have been wary of the generous 10% p.a. interest rate attached to the bonds. They were issued at £25 each and by March 1879 were changing hands at a premium of up to £1.65 They were still traded in the secondary market in the City in 1881, but in February 1882 a petition for the winding up of the company was made. It could be that the investors in the company simply got their timing wrong: they came in near the top of the market and were caught out by the decline in demand for bricks after 1880. But a properly financed business (more capital, less debt) with a good product and experienced management would have been better equipped to survive the downturn.
Mechanization
The assertion that speculators were not likely to invest in capital equipment and new technology, should not imply that long-established successful brickmasters were early adopters of mechanization. How open were the region’s brickmasters to innovation? Did they invest in the new brickmaking machines introduced by British, German, and American firms in a period that saw great advances in industrial engineering?66
There were two sorts of brickmaking machine developed in the mid-nineteenth century: one employed moulds into which dry clay was forced and shaped; the other in which moist or plastic clay was forced through a die in the pug-mill in a continuous string, and cut off by wire to the required size. By the early 1890s, the American Kennedy machine had an advertised daily capacity of 26,000 ‘sharp- edged, solid’ bricks that worked with any type of clay, irrespective of what material might have been mixed with it.67 The machine-made brick was more consistent in
THE BRICKMAKING INDUSTRY IN KENT c.1825-1900
shape and size than the hand-made brick, making it possible for builders to source
their supplies from different makers.
There is very little evidence that respected East Kent brickmasters were quick or keen to adopt new methods of production.68 But they were not alone; brickmaking seems to have been a particularly backward industry. Some traditional brickmasters even adopted strategies to thwart mechanization by others, and in this, the workers collaborated with their masters.69 Consequently, the building trade was complaining about the problems caused by the variation in the size of bricks as late as 1896.70 Yet in 1899, a local publication wrote ‘all Sittingbourne bricks, by the way, [are] made by hand’, as if it were still a craft industry.71
The firm of Eastwood (see above) invested in American machinery and German kilns made by Krupp at its new Conyer works in 1885.72 But Eastwood was the exception to the rule. Indeed, the failure of the industry in Kent and Essex to invest in modern methods of making bricks brought about its long-term demise. At the time of the bargemen’s strike in 1890 (below) Kent and Essex brickmasters found it impossible to agree to higher transport rates on the grounds of their already high manufacturing costs. The Builder put it thus:
The masters urge that they have to meet a new and yearly increasing competition with the machine-made bricks, which at the present time are being offered in the market at a price for which it is impossible to make clamp-burnt bricks. The Kent and Essex brick trade is in a critical condition and any further additions to the heavy burden it has already to bear would probably result in its destruction, while already several of the larger makers are preparing to reduce their make. Trade is paralysed.73
Not all brickmasters in Kent were against progress. Thomas Cubitt (uncle of Joseph), for example, was an early adopter of mechanization. The celebrated developer and builder of Belgravia and Pimlico went into the brickmaking business in order to guarantee his supply of good quality bricks. In the 1850s, late in life, he opened extensive grounds in the parish of Burham, where he set up ‘steam engines and a lofty furnace [kiln] shaft’.74 The raw material in this part of Kent was different. This was the ‘Blue Gault’ district of central Kent (blue Gault Clay underlies the Chalk; London Clay lies above the Chalk). It was said to be more suitable for machines. Here, and around Aylesford in the Medway valley, machinery had for the most part supplanted hand moulding as early as 1865. Further inland, by 1880, the Kent Brick and Tile Company at Pluckley, near Ashford, used a kiln made by Hoffman of Berlin that held 400,000 bricks, and another kiln from Staffordshire for its ‘blue paviors’, as well as a Chamberlain moulding machine.75
It is important to distinguish between the making of bricks by machine and the use of steam powered machinery in other phases of the process. We can be confident that some Faversham brickmasters used steam power because it had already been adopted by the local gunpowder and cement industries to drive their mills.76 We know that Thomas Kingsnorth, for example, used steam to drive the ‘wheels’ of six of his fourteen stools in 1865. Steam power might also have driven Faversham brickmasters’ wash-mills – the place where clay, chalk, and water were mixed into a slurry that was then pumped to the pug-mill, where the water was drained off to leave the clay ready to be worked the next spring. As steam driven pumps became more powerful, they were able to force the liquid slurry through pipes for long
PETER TANN
distances, thus enabling bricks to be made alongside a river or a tramway, located far from the raw material. This brought acreage into use that had hitherto seemed uneconomic to exploit.77 For example, Smeed Dean obtained an enormous supply of fresh brickearth from a property near Tonge Church via a cast-iron pipe to their brickfields nearly two miles away. The pumps were designed to deliver sufficient brickearth to make 1,250,000 bricks per week.78 Milton brickmaster William Wood installed a similar long-distance pipeline to a new field near Milton Church in 1899.79
What we don’t see among brickmakers in the Sittingbourne and Faversham districts is the use of steam to mould, shape, or cut bricks, or to transfer them from the maker to the clamp or kiln. On the other hand, Thomas Cubitt (d.1855) used steam in the process of tile making at Burham, higher up the River Medway. The Cubitt family were builders, engineers and contractors, and the comparison between them and the typical East Kent brickmaker is unfair. Nonetheless, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that whatever may have been the causes of the problems experienced by Kent’s brickmakers after 1880, they were exacerbated by the industry’s own failure to modernize. It is also the case that brickmakers around Bedford and Peterborough were quicker to do so.
the beginning of the end of industrial-scale brickmaking in faversham
We remember the name of Eastwood as a ‘consolidator’ in the brick industry. In 1889, workers at Eastwood’s Shoeburyness brickfields in Essex went on strike for ten weeks, effectively closing the operation. They demanded twice the level of pay-rise given to the workers in Kent. The strike was settled by paying 30% more than the increase paid in Kent.80 It is difficult to imagine the basis upon which the men from Essex claimed and obtained more money than their counterparts in Kent, but it demonstrates both a degree of organization and a flow of information between them.
After the extended period of weak demand in the 1880s, brickmasters needed to compete ever more keenly. Cost savings were imperative. Having failed to squeeze their workers, it was left to put pressure on the barge owners to reduce their rates. Was it coincidental that around the same time, bargemen sought an increase in their wages? Against the background of what became known as the Great Dock Strike in 1889, some people suspected political agitation.
The dispute came to a head in early 1890. It involved all three interest groups: employers, employees and bargemen. The employers and the bargemen organized themselves. The Kent and Essex Brickmasters’ Association resolved that ‘it would prove a great advantage to the industry if brickmasters supplying the London district would co-operate in dealing with the various labour questions as they arise’.81 Separately, the Bargemen’s and Watermen’s Protection Society refused to carry bricks.82 In consequence, the brickmasters had no option but to lock their workers out. Whole communities of brickies found themselves very quickly on the bread line.83
Soup kitchens were set up in Sittingbourne and Milton, where 5,000 people were locked out.84 The Faversham ‘Soup, Bread, and Coal Society’ took the measures implied by their name to relieve the distress. The list of donors included the brewer
THE BRICKMAKING INDUSTRY IN KENT c.1825-1900
W.E. Rigden and his wife, who both promised £5 each week for the duration of the bargemen’s strike (perhaps not as generous as it seems, given their ownership of much of the Kingsfield site). Harry Child, a prominent shopkeeper and the town’s mayor at the time, gave £3. Francis Giraud, the town clerk gave one guinea each week, and so on. Separately, the Faversham Board of Guardians resolved to pay the school fees of one hundred and twenty children during the continuance of the lock-out, the expense to fall upon the respective parishes to which applicants belonged.85
Each employer was asked to furnish a list of those locked out; in those rural areas, where almost nothing but brick making was carried on, that meant practically the entire male population. In January 1891 the Kent and Essex Brickmasters’ Association took an unusual step: they stated that having done their best to relieve the distress in their fields, they felt ‘justified’ in making an appeal to the public, requesting that donations be sent to Eastwood in Lambeth, or to Smeed Dean or to Wills & Packham & Co., both of Sittingbourne.86
We should note, however, that barges engaged in the cement trade, the coal trade, the timber trade, the corn and meal trade and the gunpowder trade were not immediately affected. Of about two hundred and fifty Faversham bargemen who were members of the union, only thirty-two claimed strike pay.87 But in early April the Faversham committee of the Bargemen’s Protection Society called upon members not to accept freights of any kind whatever for delivery in any of the places where their brethren were locked out. This action was considered ‘tyrannous’, and the motion was not carried. Wiser heads saw that a call out of all Kentish bargemen in sympathy with the brick-carriers would worsen the social and economic condition of the whole community. An independent ‘Board of Conciliation’ was formed of the leading townsmen of Sittingbourne, Faversham, Milton, Rainham and Teynham. Faversham was represented by Harry Child and F. Johnson.88
The South East Gazette considered the action of the bargemen ‘suicidal’ to the interests of the brickmaking districts; it saw the trade slowly but surely drifting away, probably never to be regained. A short-term consequence of the lockout was the policy decision by Kentish brickmasters to reduce output in the coming 1891-2 season by 20%. The long-term consequence was that marginal brickmasters went out of business.89 There were knock-on effects on other parts of the economy, of course. For example, a Board of Trade enquiry into coastal shipping in 1896 was told of the decline in tonnage from Faversham.90
The crisis among the brickmasters was not entirely the fault of wage pressure and bolshie bargemen. The industry in the South East was already feeling the pressure of stiff competition from the area around Peterborough. The eponymous Fletton brick was cheaper, in part because the shale oil found in the local brickearth reduced the cost of kiln drying, and in part because of the brickmasters’ investment in new machinery. By April 1889 (i.e. before the strikes) the Great Northern Railway carried 150,000 Flettons daily from its sidings near Peterborough to London.91 It is not a coincidence that an immediate consequence of the strike and lockout was the loss by a Sittingbourne firm of an anticipated order for eighteen million bricks that went instead to Peterborough. By 1897, when the market had picked up, there were seventeen yards around Fletton that employed 1,000 men and turned out 5,000,000 bricks a week.92 The yards were mostly lit by electricity.
PETER TANN
Nonetheless, the gloom in Kent and Essex was overdone. Shortage of supply and a pick-up in the London building trade helped those businesses that had survived. The 1897 season started in March (earlier than usual), and the principal makers increased wages by 10%, adding a net £40,000 to the wage bill over that in Kent and Essex in 1896. The local newspaper reported that the prospects were ‘brighter than at any period since the memorable lockout’.93 Smeed Dean’s confidence on entering the new century was captured by a journalist’s report in 1899:94
Conceive, if the reader can, great fields of labour extending over 500 acres, active with the labours of 1,300 men and youths, and turning out 70 millions of bricks per year, besides vast quantities of other materials for builders’ and contractors’ use. Think, too, of a fleet of upwards of 80 barges, distributing goods by water over a wide area, almost 70 horses assisting the labours of the staff and, further, a colony of 300 well-built houses, used solely for the accommodation of the hands, and some idea will be gained of what the existence of the company means to Sittingbourne … everywhere we come across powerful engines ranging from 80hp to 120hp.
But as Smeed Dean benefited from integration and investment, the rest of the industry declined. Comparative analysis of the census returns of 1901 and 1911 shows a reduction in numbers employed in the brick industry in England and Wales from 63,927 to 51,955 (down 18.7%). The decline was most marked in Kent (down 37.6%) and Essex (down 46.4%).95 Some small part of the decline may have been the result of increased automation. But by 1914 the smaller fields around Faversham and Sittingbourne had closed. Kelly’s Directory for Faversham (1934) listed no company engaged in the brick industry, though we know that the firm of Cremer and Whiting at Oare was in business. It ceased making stock bricks in 1966-67, but it continued to make reds.
The fact that industrial brickmaking in Faversham was relatively early to go, supports the thesis that its utility was always marginal i.e. it was particularly sensitive to changes in demand, rising costs of production and transport, and price competition. It failed to offset these structural disadvantages by innovation and mechanisation. It lacked the big nineteenth-century industrialist, the ‘consolidator’ and ‘integrator’, men like Smeed and Eastwood. But for about fifty years brick- making was Faversham’s major industry. It changed the social mix in and around the town; it also changed the physical appearance of the town and the surrounding countryside forever.
whatphysicalevidenceoftheindustryremainsaroundsittingbourneand faversham?
The most obvious signs are the rows of terraced houses built for brickfield workers, as identified and located by Sydney Twist.96 He produced a list of the brickfields around Sittingbourne and Faversham, together with a very clear description of their geographic location. It would be redundant to replicate that information here. Less obvious to the casual observer, perhaps, are the strange levels in Faversham that resulted from extensive excavation. The best example is at the corner of Stone Street and South Road where the garden-level of houses in South Road is many feet below the level of the pavement in Stone Street. The area of excavation
THE BRICKMAKING INDUSTRY IN KENT c.1825-1900
extends almost the full length of Stone Street, on the north side, as far east as the Cottage Hospital, whose front entrance at street level is reached by a bridge. Light distancing and ranging (LIDAR) technology, uses laser beams from low-flying aircraft to show the extent of excavation, some of it surprisingly close to the centre of the town. The technology allows users to ‘see’ through buildings and vegetation, by making them invisible. In theory, LIDAR enables us to identify all the sites around the town excavated for brickearth or chalk or gravel, but in practice it is not so easy. The Stone Street excavation, however, stands out unmistakably.97
Some architects and engineers specified the source of bricks and other material to be used in the projects under their control. For example, the stock bricks specified for the interior of Westminster Cathedral in the 1890s came from ‘Faversham’, although not from a named maker.98 Elsewhere, Smeed is credited with the supply of bricks to construct ‘the shell of Westminster Cathedral’.99 Both statements could be true. Smeed’s supply of bricks to major London building projects are listed by Perks. They include much of docklands, Tower Bridge and the Law Courts in the Strand.100 One local historian has asserted, however, that the 878 arches of the railway from London Bridge to Greenwich were built entirely with bricks from Faversham in the period 1834-38.101 But the London & Greenwich Railway Company’s own records show that no Faversham brickmaster responded to the original invitation to tender.102 The 3¾ miles stretch of viaduct consumed sixty million bricks.103 It is very difficult to see how Faversham brickyards could have met such huge demand at that early date. Railway historians prefer Sittingbourne as the main source, though the boundaries between them were confusing to most people.104 It is possible that brickmasters in Sittingbourne and Faversham co- operated rather than competed in cases of large-scale London projects.
Brickies, the press and the local community
Newspapers showed little interest in the impact of brickmaking on the local community, except in times of acute hardship brought about, for example, by the severe winter of 1867 and the bargemen’s strike in 1890. In January 1867, after weeks of bad weather, the Mayor convened a meeting (not well attended, except by churchmen) at which he stated that Faversham now contained a greater number of labouring people than it had ever done before, and that the labour was of a class especially prone to the effects of bad weather. Speakers spoke of more distress than they had ever seen before. The town’s charity commissioners organized a soup kitchen and distributed small amounts of money to families until the charity had exhausted its means. The meeting resolved to establish a special relief fund.105 Newspapers were also interested in community matters relating to religion and temperance, but their stories did not show how brickies were integrated into the town’s existing structures; they showed, instead, how independent they were, from top to bottom. The bosses’ initiatives in the social affairs of their workers were born of self-interest. Faversham brickmaster Mr Pryer adopted the temperance movement and was behind the building of a coffee tavern on the Brents for brickmakers, bargemen, and others of the working classes.106 In 1880, up to four hundred Faversham brickmakers convened in the Lecture Hall in East Street in order to ‘express a true friendliness and esteem for each other’, and also to engage
PETER TANN
their sympathies on the side of temperance and religion.107 In 1881, a church was built for the new parish of the Brents. It became known as the brickies’ church because it served the families of local brickworkers.108 However, it was not funded by brickmasters, but by the widow of William Hall, the local gunpowder magnate. In the twentieth century, Sydney Twist knew brickies to be ‘men of strong character, quiet industrious workers, a lot of them church or chapel-goers’.109
In Sittingbourne, George Smeed looked to religion to improve the sobriety and punctuality of his workers and considered the building of churches a good investment. He built All Saints, Murston (for his brick workers) and All Saints, Galley Hill (for his cement workers).
The Faversham Institute was the official organ of Faversham’s establishment and its aspirants. It published a monthly Journal from 1855 into the twentieth century; it never once reflected upon the changes to the town brought about by the brick industry. Although the Institute saw itself as being in the business of education, neither the Journal’s editors nor its contributors concerned themselves in print with the social and educational needs of the adults and children of the brickyards.
bibliographic note
The following reports on social conditions can be consulted:
House of Commons [HCPP], Children’s Employment Commission, Fifth Report, p. 133. Third report into child labour in Kent’s brickfields, conducted by Mr H.W. Lord in 1865. HCPP, 1866 Children’s Employment Commission Report: Brickfields.
endnotes
1 G. Daws and P. Hobbs, ‘The variety of brick types and sizes used at Old St Albans Court,
Nonington’, 281-93.
2 House of Commons Parliamentary Papers online (HCPP), Brick tax returns, 1830-31 [348].
3 HCPP, op. cit. Brick 1846 [397].
4 HCPP, op. cit. Brick Duty, March 1838.
5 There was an unexplained spike in the production of the Canterbury district in 1841 and 1842, when it managed to reach half the level of production in the Rochester collection district.
6 HCPP, op. cit. Brick 1839 [329]; Brick 1846 [82]; Brick 1850 [112].
7 Kent History & Library Centre (KHLC), U1948, T6.
8 The Kentish Weekly Gazette / Canterbury Journal, 1 March 1825.
9 Ibid.
10 Canterbury Cathedral Archives [hereafter CCA], DCc-BB/50/138, 1825.
11 CCA, DCc-BB/50/149 and 150 for coloured plans.
12 J.L. Crouch, ‘The Management and Valuation of Brickfields’, The Surveyors’ Institution Journal, 1899, p. 242.
13 CCA, DCc-BB/50/144,1827.
14 London Gazette, February 1828.
15 E. Crow, Historical Gleanings relative to the town of Faversham, c. 1855, transcribed by Peter Tann, History Research DVD, 2009, p. 363. Crow tells us that ‘the houses forming Brent town commenced in 1829’.
16 CCA, Preston Poor Rate book, U3/249/11/14-27.
17 HCPP, 1842 [007], Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of England, p. 36.
THE BRICKMAKING INDUSTRY IN KENT c.1825-1900
18 His name survives in ‘Waller’s Row’ in Ospringe.
19 Reports from Commissioners on Municipal Corporations in England and Wales, Kent, Faver- sham, 1834, pp. 961-978 (MCA Report Faversham).
20 Ibid., p. 972.
21 HCPP, 1852-53 [1631], vol. 1.
22 The Registration district of Faversham comprised three sub-districts of Boughton, Faversham and Teynham. The Registration district of Milton was not sub-divided. The sub-district of Faversham included the brick-making parishes of Ospringe, Preston, Davington and Oare. The Milton district included the brick-making parishes of Sittingbourne, Tong, Murston and Milton.
23 HCPP, 1872 [C.676.2] Census of England and Wales, 1871.
24 HCPP, 1871 [C.381 table X].
25 HCPP, 1913 [C.7018, 7019].
26 S. Twist, Stock Bricks of Swale, Sittingbourne Papers No. 2, 1984 gives accurate descriptions of the location of brick workers’ cottages, many of which exist today.
27 HCPP, H.W. Lord’s report on children, 1866.
28 The William, of Faversham, a sailing barge, was in a collision on the Thames at Southwark and
sank with her cargo of 30,000 bricks (Morning Post, 12 March 1846).
29 In terms of shipping records, Milton came under the port of Faversham.
30 R.H. Perks, George Bargebrick Esquire, Meresborough Books, 1981, ch. 5 ‘On the Tideway’
gives a very detailed record of ships and shipping involved in the Kent brick trade.
31 East Kent Gazette, 20 January 1923.
32 D.L. Sattin, Just off the Swale…the story of Conyer, Meresborough Books, 1978.
33 Oare creek served the large Faversham brickfield known as Ham Farm, for example.
34 E.J. Marsh, Spritsail barges of Thames and Medway, 1948, p. 72 (self-published).
35 HCPP [C.2338] Thames Traffic Committee, 1879. Evidence of E.T. Coulter and others, questions 9318-9706. A sailing barge from above Rochester would make a round trip to London in a week, but only if they came back empty.
36 The Builder, January 1880, p. 90, reported that the Brick & Tile company in Pluckley sent its
blue paviors to all parts of the country from Pluckley Station.
37 The Builder, 11 October 1884, in a review of Davis, Bricks, Tiles and Terra Cotta, London and
Philadelphia, 1884. See also review of 3rd edition, 1895, The Builder, 26 October 1895, p. 1895.
38 The Builder, 2 April 1887, pp. 518-519.
39 This category includes tiles, drain-pipes, ridges, chimney pots, and ornamental products, not
forgetting flower pots, and saucers.
40 HCPP [C.745] Report of the Inspector of Factories, 1873, p. 14. ‘Near the bank of the Thames, as far down as the mouth of the Medway, and again, up that river to Maidstone are a nearly continuous series of larger i.e. “factory” fields’, Mr Whymper, sub-Inspector.
41 Whitstable, Tankerton, Herne Bay Herald [hereafter WTHBH], 10 November 1877. Compare these values with the estimate for 1878 cited by The Builder, fn. 34 and the local output stated at an enquiry in c.1883, fn. 36.
42 A. Cox, ‘Bricks to Build a Capital’, in Hobhouse & Saunders, Good and Proper Materials, Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, 1989, p. 9.
43 Ash was a good dressing for agricultural land but was ‘not so much used on account of [its] consumption in the manufacture of bricks’ (Boys, A General View of the Agriculture of the County of Kent, 1796, p. 27.
44 The noxious fumes were of carbonic gas. In 1856, an inquest found that an intoxicated man suffocated as a result of lying down on top of a brick-drying clamp in Kingsnorth’s field, Kentish Gazette, 16 September 1856.
45 The long slow burn of the clamp had its parallel in the ancient method of making of charcoal.
46 HCPP, Eighteenth Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the Excise, 1836, appendix no.
8, 1833.
47 HCPP, 1866 Children’s Employment Commission Report Brickfields.
PETER TANN
48 HCPP, 1863 [411], Metropolitan Board of Works Report.
49 CCA, U3-146/11/345/1.
50 The Builder, 23 March 1878, p. 305.
51 The Builder, 13 September 1879.
52 The Builder, 11 August 1888, p. 109.
53 R.H. Perks, op.cit., p. 40. The date of the enquiry is not given.
54 J.L. Crouch, op.cit. The valuation of brickfields was an important area of the surveyors’ profession.
55 The Builder, 25 September 1854, p. 502.
56 F.G. Willmott, op cit., pp. 1-2.
57 Kentish Gazette, 11 Nov 1856.
58 Kentish Gazette, 14 Jan 1860.
59 Faversham parish rate valuation list, 1869, CCA-U3-146/11/345/1.
60 WTHBH, 31 Jan 1880.
61 CCA, U3-146/11/351, entry no. 2147.
62 The East Kent Railway Company (TNA RAIL 415/1). At the east end of Sydenham tunnel the brickfield extended to sixteen acres.
63 The extensive advertising section of The Builder very rarely carried an advertisement from a Faversham brickmaker, suggesting that speculators did not aim their products directly to the building trade.
64 The Builder, 30 September 1876, p. 961.
65 WTHBH, 22 March 1879.
66 The Builder, 17 August 1878, p. 865, gives a summary of the machinery introduced into the brickmaking industry.
67 The Builder, 14 November 1891, p. 372.
68 This finding is reinforced by Kathleen Watt’s ph.d. thesis, ‘Nineteenth century brickmaking innovations…’, York University, 1990. Machinery was used in tile manufacture in west Kent, but this thesis makes no mention of the area around Faversham or Sittingbourne.
69 The Builder, 20 July 1861. In the Manchester area, the supply of bricks was refused to anyone who countenanced the use of machine-made bricks.
70 The Builder, 4 April 1896, p. 305.
71 The Pictorial Record, April 1899, p. 13.
72 F.G. Willmott, Bricks and Brickies, Rainham, Kent, 1972, p. 23, (privately published).
73 The Builder, March 1890, p. 218.
74 For the story of Cubitt and Burham brickworks, see ‘hereshistorykent.org.uk’. In 1859, after his death, the business was sold to Webster & Co., see ‘cementkilns.co.uk’.
75 The Builder, reference to blue paviors, 17 July 1880, pp. 90-91; Chamberlain’s machine ‘did good work’, but ‘were complicated and needed much repair’. Watt, op. cit. p. 217.6 September 16mplicated and need8ing machines, sixty rods of portable tramway, two turntable, three pug mills and an iron pump i
76 KHLC, U229 B4, Shepherd & Weston cement manufacturing partnership, 1824.
77 The Builder, 24 April 1886, p. 604. Report on Paper on brickmaking given to the Institute of Civil Engineers by Henry Ward.
78 The Builder, 2 April 1867, pp. 518-519.
79 The Pictorial Record, April 1899, pp.13-15.
80 The Builder, 21 December 1889, vol. 57, p. 451.
81 The Builder, March 1890, vol. 58, p. 65.
82 The full name of the Bargemen’s Union was the Rochester, Sittingbourne, Maidstone and Faversham Bargemen and Watermen’s Protection Society.
83 HCPP, Report on the Strikes and Lock-outs of 1890, Board of Trade [C6476] 1890-91. The ‘official’ story.
84 The Builder, March 1890, vol. 58, p. 199.
THE BRICKMAKING INDUSTRY IN KENT c.1825-1900
85 WTHBH, 5 April 1890. In the Brents, a meal of roast beef, vegetables and rice pudding was
provided free for 280 children under fourteen.
86 The Builder, 24 January 1891, vol. 60, p. 63.
87 WTHBH, 29 March 1890.
88 The Builder, 29 March 1890, vol. 58, p. 237.
89 WTHBH, 5 April 1890.
90 HCPP, 1896 Board of Trade Report [C8167], q. 3710.
91 The Builder, 27 April 1889.
92 The Builder, 23 October 1897 and 20 November 1897.
93 The Builder, 3 April 1897, vol. 72, p. 326.
94 The Pictorial Record, April 1899, p. 9.
95 HCPP 1913 [7018].
96 Twist, op. cit.
97 See: ww.swaag.org/LIDAR/LIDAR%20Image%20Processing%20for%20Amateur%20
Archaeology%20Groups.pdf.
98 Winefride L’Hôpital, Westminster Cathedral, London, 1919, vol. 1, p. 70. ‘The building was lined … with Faversham stocks, left rough and unpointed in order to afford a satisfactory surface for the adherence of the shell of marble and mosaic when the time came for its application’.
99 R.H. Perks, op. cit., p. 9.
100 Ibid.
101 A Percival, Faversham Bricks, www.faversham.org.
102 London and Greenwich Railway Company, TNA, RAIL 389.
103 C Wolmar, Fire and Steam, 2007, p. 58.
104 A.R. Bennett, ‘The First Railway in London’, in The Locomotive Magazine, 1912, ‘The bricks were good sound stocks, mostly from Sittingbourne …’; TNA ZLIB 4/226; Turner, John Howard, 1977, The London Brighton and South Coast Railway: 1 Origins and Formation, p. 41.
105 WTHBH, 26 January 1867.
106 WTHBH, 10 May 1879.
107 WTHBH, 21 Feb 1880.
108 The church of St John the Evangelist in the parish of The Brents & Davington was declared
redundant in 2000, and the building sold.
109 Twist, op. cit.
THE HISTORY OF THE CARMELITE PRIORY AT LOSSENHAM, NEWENDEN, c.1243-1538
richard copsey
The first group of hermits from Mount Carmel arrived in England, early in 1242. They were brought back from the Holy Land by two English knights, William de Vescy who provided them with a site at Hulne three miles north of Alnwick in Northumberland and Richard de Grey of Codnor who gave them a place just outside the village of Aylesford in Kent. Of the two, the foundation at Hulne would appear to have been made first and that at Aylesford shortly afterwards.1 Within the next five years, two more foundations were made, one at Lossenham and the other at Burnham Norton in Norfolk. These two houses were in existence by 1247 but the exact dates of their foundation are unknown. The medieval lists of the houses in the English Province, arranged in order of seniority, indicate that the first to be established was Lossenham, 25 miles south of Aylesford (in Newenden parish).
According to an early founders’ list recorded by the sixteenth century Carmelite John Bale, Lossenham was founded by Thomas Aucher (Alcher, Fitz-Aucher, Albuger) in 1241.
Thomas Albuger, knight, of noble blood, was the first founder of the convent of Newenden in the year 1241. His body is buried in the choir of the said convent.2
However, the date in this list is a little early and should possibly be towards the end of 1242 or in 1243. If this is accepted (rather than a later date such as 1246-47), then the members of the first community in Lossenham probably accompanied the other hermits on the journey from the Holy Land. If so, it is likely that they made their way to Lossenham after a brief stay in Aylesford. Allowing that around 5-6 hermits were needed to make a foundation, including at least one or two priests then the overall total of hermits who came to England in the first migration could have numbered around 15-20 individuals.
Lossenham was a small hamlet comprising the manor house of the Aucher family3 and a few surrounding cottages, just under a mile east of the town of Newenden and its parish church of St Peter. The Carmelites were offered a site for their new priory on the open ground on the east side of the moated manor house. At this time, Newenden was a flourishing town with a fair, one of only two in Kent that dated back to Anglo-Saxon period (the other was in Faversham). It was also a busy port which served the sea-going barges which sailed or were towed up the Rother river which runs eastwards below the ridge linking Newenden and Lossenham (until the 16th century the river was called the Limen). These barges would enter the
THE HISTORY OF THE CARMELITE PRIORY AT LOSSENHAM, NEWENDEN, c.1243-1538
mouth of the Limen at the port of New Romney and then make their way up the river around the north side of the Isle of Oxney past Small Hythe which served as a port for Tenterden and then westwards to Newenden, some of them going as far as Bodiam Castle, a further 4 miles west. These boats would collect timber cut from the large forest west of Newenden and also iron made from the furnaces in the Weald. The population of Newenden parish at this time was around 150+ but, as late as the 16th century there were 16 public houses serving the needs of the inhabitants, those working in the port and the crews of the barges.4
On arrival at the site for their new priory, the small group of hermits would have begun to raise the funds for building a suitable priory which included a chapel, cloister, accommodation for the community and kitchen facilities, etc. However, any new religious foundation needed to have formal approval from the local bishop. In this respect, the Carmelite hermits were at a disadvantage, not only were they unknown in the West but they arrived wearing a striped cloak which aroused some amusement among the faithful. They were popularly known as the striped or ‘pied friars’. Episcopal approval was needed if Carmelite chapels were to be open to the public. Chapels belonging to a religious order had to have a bell-tower, which would summon the faithful to mass, and a cemetery where they could bury any of the faithful who so desired. The Carmelite house at Aylesford was kept waiting until January 1247 before the bishop of Rochester granted permission for the community to be formally recognised and to open their chapel to the public. Fortunately, at the same time, he granted an indulgence of 30 days to all the faithful who contributed towards the cost of the new buildings. There is no evidence as to when the archbishop of Canterbury granted a similar permission to the new priory at Lossenham, but it is unlikely to have occurred much before that granted to Aylesford.
Apart from the English foundations, the hermits from Mount Carmel quickly established an increasing number of communities outside the Holy Land, in Cyprus, Sicily, France and Italy. As a consequence, a general chapter was convened in Aylesford in 1247, probably around Pentecost.5 King, Henry III gave a small grant:
The king sends greetings to the vice-constable of Kent. We order that you shall give two marks from the revenue of your county as a gift from us to the brothers of mount Carmel dwelling at Aylesford as a pittance for the day on which they will celebrate their chapter.6
A major reason for convening this chapter was that the hermits foresaw the need for a more formal papal approval of the Rule which the hermits had received from the Albert, the patriarch of Jerusalem, around 1212 with permission for some modifications.7 The move to the West had led to more pastoral involvement by the rapidly growing Order. Even in the Holy Land, the Carmelites from Mount Carmel had heard the confessions of the Templars in the nearby fortress of Athlit and after arriving in Europe, they continued to serve any nearby Templar houses. Also, they were active in collecting funds for the support and defence of the Holy Land.8 In the West, there was a need for a more flexible Rule which allowed for the founding of new communities in urban areas. So, the chapter delegates assembled in Aylesford commissioned two English friars, Reginald and Peter Folsham, to go to the papal curia at Lyons and to request a formal approval and modification of the Carmelite Rule by the Pope Innocent IV.
RICHARD COPSEY
In addition, as the Order was now distributed throughout the Holy Land and Europe, there was a need for a new structure with the creation of provinces to link together the houses in each geographical area. The provinces formed in 1247, in order of seniority, were: 1) The Holy Land and Cyprus, 2) Sicily, 3) England and 4) France. These came under the direction of the first prior general to be elected, Godfrey.9 It is likely that the delegates also approved a set of Constitutions designed to supplement the short Carmelite Rule and containing the procedure to be followed in accepting new vocations, the pattern of community life, the offices in a community, punishments, etc. None of these documents nor the acts of the early general chapters survive. They appear to have been lost when a later prior general, Nicholas the Frenchman, died whilst visiting Cyprus in 1271.
It seems likely that, soon after the general chapter, the delegates from the four houses in the newly formed English province met to elect a provincial prior and to plan future developments. From surviving records, it is known that provincial chapters were held regularly each year, normally meeting for a week around the Feast of the Assumption on 15 August. One of the major decisions at the first provincial chapter held late in 1247 would have been to approve the establishment of two new foundations, the first in London and the second in Cambridge (which offered the opportunity to seek vocations among the students there). The revised Rule, approved by Pope Innocent IV, had been signed on 1 October 1247, included permission for the Order to make foundations in urban areas. The establishment of a house in London, on a site between Fleet Street and the Thames, provided by Sir Richard de Grey (who had given the site for the house in Aylesford), must have been already under consideration and appears to have been put into effect as soon as a copy of the revised Rule reached England. This was followed later in the year by a foundation at Cambridge. The third (and last) Carmelite foundation in Kent at Sandwich did not occur until 1268 and this raised the number of houses in the province up to sixteen.
An early contemporary reference to the presence of the Carmelites in Lossenham comes in the 48th year of King Henry III (Oct 1263-Oct 1264) when the king is recorded as having given a donation: ‘... to the Carmelite friars of Newendene, 3s. 4d’.10 Assuming that the king’s gift was made at the usual rate of 4d. per day per friar, this would indicate a community of ten friars. The building of the new chapel and priory would have been well under way at this time as, on the 16 July 1271, the king granted six oak trees with their branches from the forest clearings around Rolvenden for the building of their priory and church. The following year, the king made a further gift of five good oaks with their branches.11
Sadly the construction of the priory and its chapel was brought to an abrupt halt in 1275 when there is a record of the king giving a commission to:
Master R. de Freningham to enquire into the trespass committed by persons unknown in burning the church and houses of the Carmelite friars at Lessenham, near Newenden, and the sheriffs of Sussex and Kent are to provide a jury.
Freningham conducted his enquiries quickly and there is a record on 4 January 1276 of an inquisition held in Newenden when it was stated that:
James, rector of the church of Werehorne, procured the burning of the houses of the friars of the order of Mount Carmel of Lossenham. William the clerk, his servant,
THE HISTORY OF THE CARMELITE PRIORY AT LOSSENHAM, NEWENDEN, c.1243-1538
was at the burning by his procurement; afterwards the said rector harboured the said William, and retained him in his household; the damage done is estimated at £80.12
The estimated cost of the damages suffered by the Lossenham community would seem to indicate that building of the new priory was well advanced. However, this was not the end of the matter as at a later hearing before the Justices held in Canterbury in 1279, James the rector of Warehorne and his clerk William together with ‘the aforesaid brother Richard’ surrendered themselves, were tried and acquitted.13
This ‘aforesaid brother Richard’ appears to be the Carmelite Richard of Oxford who was named in a previous entry in the court rolls. He stood accused of having had a fight with another brother Thomas of Newenden in the priory cloister which led to the death of Thomas. Richard fled the priory secretly and was declared an outlaw but, being a friar, he left no possessions to be seized by the magistrates.14
The burning of the priory could have been associated with the fact that, at this time, the whole Carmelite Order was going through a difficult period. In 1274, Pope Gregory X had summoned a general church council to meet in Lyons, France. The major item on the agenda was the possibility of a union between the Roman Catholic and the Greek Orthodox churches but a second item for discussion was the concern felt by the bishops over the proliferation of new religious orders. In 1215 the 4th Council of the Lateran had forbidden any new orders to be founded unless they adopted one of the existing approved religious rules. However, this edict had fallen into abeyance and over the years a large number of new orders had emerged which created problems for the bishops and the parochial clergy. Many of the new orders were mendicant orders, that is they lived on alms gathered from the people which detracted from the offerings given to the local parish churches. During the 2nd Council of Lyons, the council fathers decided to take a firm stance and ordered the suppression of all new orders founded since 1215. Only the Franciscan and Dominican Orders were to be spared due to their ‘usefulness to the church’. In theory, the Carmelites were exempt from suppression as they had been founded before 1215 but their foundation was only approved by the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem and they did not receive specific papal approval until 1247.15 However, the council fathers postponed making any final decision on the Carmelite Order and, together with the Augustinian Friars, the two Orders were allowed to continue ‘in their present state’ until it was decided otherwise.16
This decision of the 2nd Council of Lyons acted like a wake-up call for the Carmelites and very quickly steps were taken to ensure the long-term future of the Order. There was an overhaul of the formation programme for young Carmelites which included a new studium generale in Paris and the promotion of suitable young friars to study for the doctorate in theology. The first Carmelite to gain a doctorate in England was Humphrey Necton at Cambridge in 1292 and shortly afterwards Peter Swanyngton incepted in Oxford.
There are no surviving records of the rebuilding of the priory after in 1276 but the fire does not seem to have had any lasting effect on the community and its ability to attract new vocations. Lossenham benefited from the new academic emphasis in the Order which included to the establishment of a studium generale for philosophy in London which offered advanced courses in philosophy. Apart from talented English students, the studium generale attracted many foreign
RICHARD COPSEY
students and there are records of a number of student friars from the Lossenham community studying there.
One other change at that time which would have been particularly noticeable to those living near Lossenham and the other Carmelite houses was the change in the habit worn by the friars. The original striped cloaks which had been worn on Mount Carmel were replaced, with papal approval, by a plain white cloak in 1287. This led to the Carmelites being known as the ‘White Friars’ which was a much more acceptable title.
A different sort of event to disturb the Lossenham community was due to the weather rather than any human intervention. From the time that the priory was established, the Romney Marsh area had been struck by a series of fierce storms, notably in 1250, 1252 and 1271. The most disastrous, though, was the storm of 1287 which changed the whole coastline and the course of the river Rother which ran just below Lossenham. The Rother had been steadily silting up for many years but the effects of the 1287 storm were cataclysmic. New Romney, the port where sea-going ships entered the Rother was silted up and the whole coastline facing the Romney Marsh changed. For some time, the course of the river Rother had been changing and now it made its way south before passing the Isle of Oxney, turning Rye into a major port as the river made its way to the sea.17 The local landowners were keen to ensure that the Rother continued to go round the north of the Isle of Oxney so that Small Hythe could continue to serve as the port for Tenterden and they gained permission to block the new channel bypassing the Isle of Oxney and a dam was built to force the Rother to return to its original northern course (Fig. 1). Lossenham priory, being situated on the rising land above the Rother, was not directly affected by these changes, but the overall result was a slow silting up of the Rother and a loss of navigability for sea-going ships. Barges continued to use the river up to the port of Newenden until the early 16th century but, although the bridge at Newenden remained important as the lowest place to cross the river, the town itself steadily decreased in importance. So Lossenham priory remained well
away from any urban centre and consequently rather small and isolated.
The earliest ordination of a Carmelite at Newenden in the surviving records is that of Roger Berdefeld who was ordained priest in the parish church on 14 March 1321 by the archbishop of Canterbury, Walter Reynolds. However, Berdefeld was listed as a member of the Sandwich community. The earliest ordinations of friars from the Lossenham house occur in 1359 in the chapel of the Archbishop Simon Islip’s manor in Mayfield when John Scot was ordained acolyte and John Waltham ordained priest on 15 June, and Adam Dereham and John Newenden were ordained subdeacon on 21 December, the same year. Clearly there must have been earlier ordinations, but the registers have not survived.18
Many of those who joined the Order in Lossenham would only be 14-16 years of age and they would spend their first years as novices, learning the pattern of life in a religious community. If they hoped to become priests – as the majority did – there would be an emphasis on improving their education, especially in acquiring a good knowledge of Latin as the daily office and all their theological studies were conducted in that language. After their novitiate, the brighter students might be sent to other houses which had more teaching resources. A number of friars from Lossenham were sent to the study house for the London distinction
THE HISTORY OF THE CARMELITE PRIORY AT LOSSENHAM, NEWENDEN, c.1243-1538
image
Fig. 1 Extract from Symonson’s map of Kent (1596) showing the post-1287 course of the Rother around the Isle of Oxney with Newenden at the extreme left. Lossenham Priory lay a short distance north-east of Newenden Church.
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(or region) in Maldon, Essex, and some seem to have gone also to Sandwich. The best students, though, would be sent to the studium generale in London where they could do the basic course of studies for the priesthood and, if talented, they could follow an advanced theology course for the licentiate which would qualify them to teach. Only the very brightest students were selected for university studies for a baccalaureate or doctorate in theology at Oxford or Cambridge. Attendance at these universities was very expensive and took many years. Anyone contemplating going to a university would stand a better chance if they had a benefactor or family resources to help pay for their studies. For most students, the course for a doctor in theology would last around 9-10 years after ordination, although, as all students were priests, not all this time would be spent at the university. The Carmelites, like the other mendicant orders, were only allowed to present one student a year for a doctorate in theology at each university so only the most talented candidates would be put forward. There is a record of only one friar from Lossenham being awarded a doctorate. This was William Sternefeld who lived during the 14th century and studied at Oxford University. He seems to have been the prior in Lossenham for a number of years and died there around 1390. He is noted for having written a history of the priory in Lossenham entitled A Tract on the Beginnings of the Convent of Lossenham or Newenden. The book began: “Since, according to the Philosopher’ (i.e. Aristotle) in his first book of Metaphysics, ‘it is the nature of all men to desire to know’”; and in the first [chapter] of Proverbs, ‘The wise man listens and grows wiser’. The Carmelite John Bale saw this book in the early 16th century but no copy seems to have survived.19
The names of four other priors of the house have been preserved. The earliest was Thomas Dover who was prior on 22 May 1350 when, together with brother Thomas of Thanet, he was given permission to hear confessions in the diocese of Canterbury until the Feast of the Purification next (2 February 1351).20
A second prior recorded is John of Makeseye who was a signatory to a legal agreement before the commissary of the archbishop of Canterbury. The Carmelites of Lossenham had brought an action against Robert, the vicar of Ticehurst (Sussex), a village five miles away. Apparently, the vicar had denied the right of the Carmelites to bury any of the parishioners from his parish. However, the commissary issued a judgement supporting the right of the Carmelites to allow burial in their cemetery to any who requested it.21
In 1391/2, the name of ‘Henry, prior of the Carmelites at Lossenham’ is found in the Dover Plea Rolls.22 Finally, on 2 February 1477, Agnes Igolynden, daughter of Richard Igolynden of Benenden, left a bequest in her will: ‘To Richard, prior of Lossenham, 12d’.23
Inevitably the arrival of the Black Death in 1348 would have had repercussions on the Lossenham community. With a national death rate approaching 60 per cent, there would have been a significant number of deaths in the community and, even when the plague had passed, the number of young people seeking entry into the Order would have seriously diminished. However, there is evidence that the friars recovered their numbers quicker than the older monastic orders. Sadly, there are no records on what happened in Lossenham. The bishops’ registers for this period record that an increased number of friars were enrolled as confessors etc., in order to bring spiritual comfort to those who were suffering and that frequently these
THE HISTORY OF THE CARMELITE PRIORY AT LOSSENHAM, NEWENDEN, c.1243-1538
needed to be replaced, probably due to their predecessors having also died from the plague.
From the surviving records, the priory in Lossenham appears to have attracted a low but steady flow of bequests.24
These can be summarised as follows:
Period
No. of bequests
Value
1368-1400
5
£2
16s.
8d.
1400-1449
8
£3
3s.
6d.
1450-1500
10
£19
2s.
0d.
1500-1538
2
£3
1s.
8d.
These bequests come from wills which were proved in the diocesan court and hence from persons of some substance. Smaller gifts from the faithful who were less well-endowed are not recorded. Most bequests in wills are to the priory but, occasionally there are bequests to individuals, such as that to the prior in 1477 (see above) and, in 1434, instead of a financial bequest, John Kesham left to the friars of Lossenham, ‘a gold ring with a sapphire which is good and healthy for curing the eye’.
Another important source of support for the friars would have come from the Aucher or Fitzaucher family who had provided for the initial foundation of the priory. Thomas Aucher who was head of the family in 1242, was said to have been buried in the Carmelite chapel when he died c.1260. Although the records are scanty, it seems probable that later members of the family would have continued to support the priory as it was an honourable title to be listed as the founder, or a descendant of the founder, of a religious house. The chapel of the priory would have been a logical place for them to be buried. Certainly, Henry Aucher of Lossenham was buried there at the end of the 15th century as his only daughter Anne, who married Walter Colepeper, asked in her will, dated 4 September 1532:
‘... If I happen to dye at Canterbury then I wyll my body to be buryed at the frears there, and yf I happen to dye at Cranbroke then I wyll my body to be buryed at the frears of Lossenham besyde my ffather there buryed ...’25
Over the years, the priory buildings had doubtless increased and improved. One result was that a provincial chapter was held in Lossenham in 1517. Commonly such meetings lasted a week around the feast of the Assumption (15 August). Although the numbers of friars had begun to diminish, with 39 houses and the prior and one or two delegates per house, plus the provincial, his socius and all friars with doctorates in theology, the total attending a chapter would have been 80-100 friars. Provincial chapters would have been presided over by the prior general if he was in the country on visitation but, more commonly, he would appoint a vicar-general. In the chapter held in Lossenham, it seems that the provincial, John Bird, presided himself.26 At a provincial chapter, appointments would be made, and decisions taken on matters affecting the whole province. Each day, at the high mass, one of the doctors of theology present would give a sermon.
RICHARD COPSEY
Sadly, a few years later, on the orders of King Henry VIII, all the houses of the Order were suppressed. Lossenham’s turn came in July 1538, when the bishop of Dover, Richard Ingworth, an ex-Dominican, made his was to Newenden after closing the Carmelite house in Aylesford. In a letter written to Thomas Cromwell on 25 July, Ingworth notes: ‘... went from thence to Lossenham, where he had been before. There be honest men. The stuff is priced at 6l. 10s., with the bell and chalice. The house is poor in building and no lead, but tile, and much of it ready to fall. It is to be let, with the orchard, garden, and land, at 5 mks. a year, and the rent paid till Christmas. There was a lease out for 40s. a year but he has it in again
... ’.27 The inventory of goods which was compiled at the suppression survives and is given in the Appendix (translated into modern English).28
The dispersal of the community was not without its problems, as the bishop of Dover wrote in a letter to Thomas Cromwell after he had suppressed the house:
... Lossenham, the Black friars of Winchelsea, Seylle, the Black, Grey and Austin Friars of Winchester, and the White Friars of Marlborough, are all at the King’s pleasure and Cromwell’s ... Wishes to know what to do with the friars that give up their houses, for their is so much penury that other houses are not able to keep them. In ten houses there are not two able to continue a year. Many that he has passed are ready to give up. In many houses, is obliged to pay all his costs and receive never a penny. It were a charitable deed that capacities were cheaper, so that the friars might make good shift to have them, for none can get them but priors who sell the convent’s goods, or ‘lemytors’ who purchase them with their ‘lemytacions’.29
The capacities mentioned by the bishop were official permissions for a priest in a religious order to go and seek a position in a parish or other appointment. Limiters were the friars who went sent out to collect alms on behalf of the priory. They were given an area to cover (their limits) which ensured that their activities did not clash or overlap with friars from other houses of the same Order. Lossenham priory would have had an agreement with other Carmelite houses nearby, i.e. Aylesford and Shoreham in Sussex, as to the areas in which they would seek alms.
Following the suppression of the community, the priory and its lands were let to William Colepeper, son of Anne Colepeper, for a yearly sum of 46s. 8d. The property was then sold by the king to Richard Lake in 1558 but some time afterwards it was purchased by the Colepeper family who held it and the mansion in Lossenham until 1628 when it was sold to Adrian More who built a new manor house.
The priory building was still standing in 1725 when it was drawn by John Warburton (Fig. 2). Around 1790, some foundations were dug up south of the manor house and a few years later, a stone coffin was dug up, ‘composed of four flat stones, perforated with several holes to let the moisture through’. Portions of the walls remained until 1800 but now there are no visible remains.30
THE HISTORY OF THE CARMELITE PRIORY AT LOSSENHAM, NEWENDEN, c.1243-1538
image
Fig. 2 Drawing made in 1725 of the remains of Lossenham Priory by John Warburton, part of a page of drawings which belonged to Edward Hasted. (Reproduced courtesy of the British Library; BL ADD MS 5480, fo. 90.)
Appendix
Inventory made at the dissolution of St. Mary’s, Lossenham, Carmelite friary.
This stuff belonged to the house of the White Friars of Lossenham valued by sir John Wells, parson of Newington and John Twysden, a farmer there, Harry Loys, Thomas Julyan and John Hope.
Item a white vestment single
5s.
Item a blue vestment
7s.
8d.
Item another vestment with a chasuble
3s.
4d.
Item 2 chasubles
12d.
Item other old hangings and rags
8d.
Item a chalice of 14 ounces
49s.
Item 6 small cushions for the altar
8d.
Item one other cushion
8d.
Item 2 old mattresses
8d.
Item 5 old sheets
2s.
8d.
Item a cross with the attachments
3s.
4d.
Item 4 candlesticks
6s.
8d.
Item a little bell
20d.
Item 2 latten (copper/zinc alloy) basins and pitcher
12d.
Item 2 candlesticks and a socket
8d.
Item 2 chests
2s.
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Item 2 old worthless pans, small
12d.
Item a small brass pot
20d.
Item a broken frying pan
4d.
Item 13 platters and two dishes
6s.
8d.
Item a spit
8d.
Item an old brewing pan
2s.
6d.
Item the bell in the steeple
10s.
Item an old coverlet
12d.
Item 2 old altar cloths
4d.
Item 2 candlesticks upon them
6d.
Item the curtains in the hall
4d.
Item an yearyn [rattle?]
2d.
Item an old cope
6s.
8d.
Item old canopy stained and altar cloth with stained frontal
2s.
Item a holy water stoup
8d.
Item 2 old featherbeds with a bolster nowte [useless?]
6s.
8d.
Item certain old clothes
12d.
Item a cupboard
12d.
Item a book: Catholicon
4d.
Item an old chair
1d.
Received for hay
16d.
Item received for timber from a tree
16d.
Item received for the land at midsummer
20s.
This money spent for a priest and expenses
15s.
Item received for the land at midsummer
20s.
This money spent for a priest and expenses
15s.
Memorandum:
the pasture and orchard are let for 6s. 8d. until Christmas. Memorandum:
Receipt for the land due at Michaelmas next 10s.
and it is to be recorded that the farmer has delivered his lease and will occupy the ground until Christmas without any more payment.
This is the whole Inventory and reckoning of Lossenham and all this stuff rests in the hands of John Twysden except a chalice and such receipts as be crossed before in both indentures
the witnesses:
Sr. John Wells person there Henry Loys
signed John Twysden
THE HISTORY OF THE CARMELITE PRIORY AT LOSSENHAM, NEWENDEN, c.1243-1538
endnotes
1 For a brief scholarly account of the early history of the Carmelites in England, see Keith Egan, ‘An Essay towards a Historiography of the Origin of the Carmelite Province in England’, Carmelus 19:1 (1972), 67-100.
2 Translated from John Bale’s notebook, Brit. Libr., Ms. Cotton Titus D. X., fo. 127.
3 ‘Thomas filius Aukeri’ or ‘Thomas filius Aucheri’ occurs twice in The Book of Fees, Part II, 1242-93 (London, 1923), 658, 681.
4 Åke Nilson, Essays on Early Newenden (Newenden 2013), 20, 49. Newenden today comprises one public house, The White Hart, and a total population of just over 200 persons.
5 The first Carmelite community to be established was at Fortamia, in the hills above Kyrenia in Cyprus around 1238, followed shortly afterwards by a foundation at Messina in Sicily. In France a community was established Les Aygalades just outside Marseilles around 1244. The exact date when the chapter met in 1247 is unknown but later general chapters adopted the practice of meeting around the Feast of Pentecost.
6 `Calendar of Liberate Rolls, III (1245-1251), 163.
7 For the reasons behind this later date for the receipt of the Rule from Albert, see Pat Mullins, The Life of St Albert of Jerusalem. A Documentary Biography, Part 2 (Rome: Edizioni Carmelitane, 2017), chapter 24, especially pp. 482-484, and the present writer’s forthcoming A History of the
Carmelite Holy Land Province 1200-1572.
8 See the letter written by the Grand Masters of the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller in support of the Carmelites in R. Copsey, ‘Two Letters from the Holy Land written in support of the Carmelite Order’, in idem, The Hermits from Mount Carmel, Carmel in Britain, vol. 3 (St. Albert’s Press, 2004), 29-50. The transcripts during the interrogations of the Templars during their trial give many illustrations of Templars going to the Carmelites for confession and of the special relationship between the two Orders; see The Proceedings against the Templars in the British Isles, ed. Helen J. Nicholson (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 2 vols.
9 Earlier histories of the Carmelites mention St Simon Stock as being elected but this is an error and Simon does not become the general until the late 1250s.
10 Calendar of Liberate Rolls, 1267-1272 (London, 1964), vi, 122.
11 Calendar of Close Rolls, 1268-72 (London, 1938), 361, 455.
12 Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1272-1281 (London, 1901), 173; Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellan-
eous (Chancery), vol. 1 (London, 1916), no. 1039 (p. 318).
13 National Archives, Edward I, 1279: JUST 1/369 (AALT IMG0697). [AALT is Anglo-American Legal Tradition, see website, aalt.law.uk.edu]
14 Ibid.
15 Pope Honorius III did give approval of their rule in a papal bull, Ut vivendi normam, on 30 January 1226 but this was evidently not considered sufficient, G. Wessels O.Carm., Analecta Ordinis Carmelitarum, 3 (1914-1916), 218.
16 Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Norman Tanner S.J., Vol. I: Nicaea to Lateran V. (London, 1990), 326-327.
17 Tim Tatton-Brown has argued that the change in the course of the River Rother had begun many years earlier; ‘The Topography of the Walland Marsh area between the eleventh and thirteenth century’, in Jill Eddison and Christopher Green, eds, Romney Marsh: Evolution, Occupation, Reclamation (Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, 1988), chap. 9.
18 Reg. Reynolds, Canterbury, fo. 183v: Reg. Islip, Canterbury, fo. 317v, 318.
19 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Bodley 73, fo. 5v. Later Bale adds a second work Lectures and Sermons but this is a common generic title (Bale, Catalogus, ii, 82).
20 Reg. Islip, Canterbury, fo. 19.
21 Keith Egan, ‘The Aylesford Cartulary’, Carmelus 47 (2000), 226-227.
22 Brit. Libr., Ms. Additional 33883, facing page 79.
23 Archdeaconry of Canterbury, vol. 3, fo. 4.
24 These have been extracted from the transcripts of wills by the KAS
RICHARD COPSEY
25 http://gen.culpepper.com/historical/sussex/4-wigsell.htm (accessed online 16 March 2019).
26 Oxford, Bodl. Libr. Ms. Bodley 73, fo. 82v.
27 Letters and Papers of Henry VIII (London, 1892), xiii, (1), 1456 (p. 538).
28 W. Robertson, 1882, ‘Inventory made at the dissolution of St. Mary’s, Lossenham, Carmelite Friary’, Archaeologia Cantiana, xiv, 311-312.
29 Letters & Papers of Henry VIII (London, 1892), xiii (i), 1457 (p. 539).
30 E. Hasted, ‘The Township and Parish of Newenden’, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, vol. 7 (1798), 163-172.
ROCHESTER CATHEDRAL MASONS’ MARKS
jacob h. scott
Symbols inscribed into dressed stonework, masons’ marks identify the work of the individual or team that quarried or dressed the stone, or else constructed the architectural feature on or near which it is found (Fig. 1). Marks for other purposes can also sometimes fall under this broad term, such as setting-out lines to instruct the dressing of stone or the construction of an architectural feature. Millions of these marks survive on the fabric of cathedrals, castles, churches, fine homes and palaces throughout Europe and beyond.
How or when the use of masons’ marks was introduced to England is unknown. Marks survive on Anglo-Norman Period buildings, but it is not clear if the Normans introduced the use of masons’ marks or if it predates the Conquest (Alexander
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Fig. 1 Twelfth-century mason’s mark in the shape of a trefoil (type 3a282).
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2007). The most numerous masons’ marks found at medieval sites are those of the ‘banker’ mason who was responsible for the final preparation of masonry blocks. Banker marks were used in calculating pay and tracing issues back to source. At least 4,000 banker marks occur on visible surfaces of the twelfth-century fabric of the nave and west front, crypt, quire and cloistral buildings of Rochester Cathedral, then the Cathedral Priory of St Andrew.
This is the last of three reports on a four-year graffiti survey at Rochester Cathedral (see also Scott 2018 and Graham and Scott 2019). This survey of Rochester Cathedral masons’ marks has strived to be the most comprehensive of a building of this size to date, and aimed to develop robust and practical recording and interpretation techniques for replication elsewhere. This study uses the new photographic record of these sequences of marks to establish a relative chronology for the construction of fabric. The feasibility of creating working biographies of these unnamed masons is assessed, in terms of time on site, features and designs worked. This data will be used to corroborate and supplement the absolute (albeit incomplete) chronology provided by architectural-historical models.
Architectural history of Rochester Cathedral
All studies of undated graffiti must work within the absolute chronology provided by architectural-historical models. It is immediately apparent that the standing fabric results from at least two major building campaigns, the largely Romanesque west end and the early Gothic east end. Although the estimated dates of these portions of the structure have long varied, most assessments agree that they were separated by less than a century and were both related to contemporary accounts of two medieval fires in 1139 and 1179.
William St John Hope (1898) produced the first comprehensive architectural history of the cathedral. St John Hope’s study was based partly on first-hand observations during the late nineteenth-century restorations under Sir George Gilbert Scott, of James T. Irvine clerk of the works, and the cathedral precentor Revd Grevile M. Livett (Halsey 2006, 62). Livett was a notable architectural historian of West Kent and a contributor to Archaeologia Cantiana. St John Hope produced the first building phase plan of the cathedral, linking almost contemporary records of the patrons of work, typically the presiding bishops or priors, with the phases and styles observed in the architecture. The patron of the earliest form of the standing building is recorded as Bishop Gundulf (Textus Roffensis c.1123, f. 172). Gundulf’s episcopacy lasted from 1075 to 1108. Livett suggested the west end of the building including the nave arcades, partially constructed in tufa stone, had been cased and redecorated in Caen stone c.1139-1142, although St John Hope revised this to 1114-1124 (1898, 218). Studies of the architectural styles of the Caen stone west front generally agree that it immediately followed the redecoration of the nave arcades, in the 1150s or 1160s (Worssam 2005).
The surviving portions of the chapter house and dorter within the east range of the cloisters have been dated to the episcopacy of Bishop Ernulf (1114-1124), inferred from the accumulation of several plots of land to the east of the cathedral during this time (St John Hope 1900, 7). Subsequent estimates place the architecture of the east range to around 1160 (McNeill 2006, 186), around the time of the
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major cathedral redecoration campaign after 1137 (Worssam 2005). Difference in sculptural decoration is interpreted as evidence that a different workshop produced the surviving east range of the cloister than the almost contemporary work on the nave arcades.
The east end of the cathedral comprises the quire, presbytery, quire transept and crypt. Studies agree the tufa western portion of the crypt dates to the 1080s, with the transept and sanctuary crypt (now referred to as the Ithamar Chapel), generally dated to after the fire of 1179. St John Hope (1898, 233) suggested 1200 to 1215 as Bishop Gilbert de Glanville is recorded as having finished the quire from the proceeds of a new shrine to St William of Perth (d.1201), proposing that this referred to the entire east end of the building except the liturgical quire. St John Hope interprets a 1227 record of the monks’ entry into the quire as referring to the liturgical quire and marking the completion of the east end work. Caen stone and Reigate ashlar are used interchangeably in these parts of the building, with the contrast between the yellow Caen and the grey-green Reigate used for decoration. Recent revisions to St John Hope’s architectural-historical model tend to agree with this division of building phases, although attempt to more closely reconcile the dates for the Romanesque and Early Gothic fabric with contemporary references to two extensive twelfth-century fires. On the 3rd of June 1137, the entire building was said to have been burnt (Gervase of Canterbury c.1200). McAleer (1996, 158) concurred with Livett that the nave campaign was a result of the fire of 1137. McAleer (1985) proposed a building sequence for the nave arcades based on variations in architectural features and perceived changes in design between the piers and the arcades above. The bases of the westernmost piers of the north nave arcade differ from the easternmost pier and all those of the south nave arcade. There is Caen stone decoration on the large arches on the aisle side of the north nave arcade but not on the south. These architectural anomalies were taken as evidence that the south piers were constructed or cased first, then the north piers
and the north arcade, then the south arcade, followed by the west front.
On the 11th of April 1179, fire damaged the east end of the building (Cotton MS. Vespasian A. 22, f. 30.). Recent studies have tended to place the rebuilding of the east end more immediately after the fire than St John Hope (Draper 2006, McAleer 1996). Three forms of evidence are used to suggest that work on the east end began at the junction between the old presbytery and the new quire transept. There is a shift in use from Bethersden marble to Purbeck for the string course that runs throughout the crypt level of the quire transept and sanctuary, roughly in line with the entrance to the Ithamar chapel (Worssam 2000). Local Bethersden was the predominant marble in use in Kent in the twelfth century, being eclipsed by Purbeck marble from Dorset in the thirteenth century. This junction was also the logical place to begin work to maintain levels between the old and new work. Work would then be expected to have largely been concluded by the time of William of Perth’s death in 1201. His shrine is said to have resided in the north quire transept until the Reformation. The quire aisles, nave transept and the three easternmost bays of the nave are dated to the mid-thirteenth century (St John Hope 1898). A large annexe to the south nave transept Lady Chapel dates to the 1490s, concluding the major medieval building campaigns.
Contemporary records exist for buildings in England from most periods in which
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masons’ marks survive. Ample contemporary documentary evidence details the rates of pay for masons and other artisans employed at some cathedral sites, as well as for the tools and techniques used, and the conditions of their employment (Alexander 2008, 22). No such documentation survives from the medieval works at Rochester Cathedral, although as will be discussed, the volume of marks closely resembles buildings with documented banker mark sequences.
Methodology
Academic interest in masons’ marks began in the nineteenth century. These earliest studies traced identical mark types between buildings in an attempt to identify the same masons working at separate sites. However, it became apparent that as the majority of twelfth and thirteenth-century marks are composed of just a few lines, they cannot have been unique to one mason. Instead, the vast majority must be coincidental uses of site-specific or even task-specific marks (Alexander 2007, 63). Recent studies of marks have found more success in focussed investigations
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Fig. 2 Three-dimensional virtual model of nave arcades and west front with masons’ mark types coloured at random.
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Fig. 3 Three-dimensional virtual model of east end with masons’ mark types coloured at random.
of marks within individual structures to identify building phases and significant pauses in work. The simplest of these surveys identify common marks on separate portions of fabric to suggest contemporary building phases. Distinct mark sequences are interpreted as resulting from pauses in construction. However, many of these surveys were conducted from ground-level and so are limited in the data they provide. Modern comprehensive surveys divide structures and sites into individual architectural features, recording all visible marks, and compare and contrast the quantities of mark types within sequences from each feature.
Each mark at Rochester Cathedral has been photographed with a Canon EOS 6D. An index of records spreadsheet records the height from the floor of the bottom edge of each ashlar featuring a mason’s mark. A three-dimensional virtual model (Trimble Inc. Sketchup 2015) of the surviving portions of twelfth-century fabric records the location of each marked stone (Figs 2 and 3). The height of marks and proportions of architectural features out-of-reach of a 3m tape measure were estimated photogrammetrically, resulting in a lower level of accuracy than can be achieved by direct recording, although extending the survey to over 95% of the interior fabric. Plotting the 4,000 visible marks on two-dimensional plans or
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elevations would be hugely impractical, with many marks occurring on the interior faces of arches or shafts. Comprehensive surveying and recording of masons’ marks provides more data than simple comparative analysis between forms and fabric. Banker marks can establish a course-by-course relative chronology for the construction of architectural features, impractical in buildings with thousands of marks without three-dimensional modelling. Distinctions can be confirmed between almost identical mark types by a close investigation of their relationship to one another.
The many masons’ marks above head height were reached with a 10-metre Genie Aerial Work Platform 30S (Fig. 4). Marks higher than this were identified and recorded with a photographic zoom lens and without a scale, including those on the upmost portions of the quire transept clerestory and the interior and exterior triforium level of the west front. The limitations to using raking light from below the inscription to identify out-of-reach marks means it is easier to miss lightly- incised marks.
The coding of masons’ mark types follows a methodology outlined by Alexander (2008, 34). In this system, mark types are coded according to how many lines are used within the symbol and assigned a letter according to their approximate likeness. The last number in each code denotes the number of examples recorded.
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Fig. 4 Using the vertical access platform and raking light to survey masons’ marks on the south arcade of the sanctuary. (Photo: Alex Pitcher.)
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The type of stone on which each masons’ mark occurs is recorded, with a description of sculptural decoration. It can then be ascertained if masons worked exclusively on one type of decoration, for example, or using only Caen or Reigate stone. These fields are recorded in the index of records spreadsheet.
Typology
This section investigates the types of masons’ marks at Rochester Cathedral, regarding both their purpose and form. This survey has recorded 3,912 examples of 73 distinct mark types. The sheer volume of marks suggests that the vast majority, if not all, are banker marks. Marks resulting from those constructing the finished ashlars into their respective architectural features would typically be far fewer in number, perhaps occurring only once on each feature or site. Marks occur on approximately 20% of visible twelfth-century ashlars, in both the east and west of the building (Fig. 5), indicating that the banker masons created them immediately after the dressing of each stone. These marks became redundant once the stones were counted, so the remaining 80% are believed to exist on the obscured faces of stones. Supporting this interpretation are several marks found on the faces of carved stone fragments originating from the cathedral that would not have been visible in situ (Fig. 6, A and B). Many truncated or partially obscured examples also supports their identification as banker marks, created before the final dressing to fit irregular ashlars.
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Fig. 5 Digital trace of masons’ marks on a pier in the crypt. Marks are visible on approximately 20% of twelfth-century ashlars.
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D
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E
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F
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G
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Fig. 6 (A and B) Worked stone fragments featuring masons’ marks recovered from the cloisters. (C to G) Fragments re-used in the north nave transept gable featuring masons’ marks. (H) Pencil number on a nineteenth-century ashlar in the south quire transept gable.
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A complete absence of visible marks in some portions of the building may have resulted from an evolution in the procedure of marking stones. The north nave transept gable was rebuilt in the 1890s under the architect Sir George Gilbert Scott. The rough stonework on the interior of the gable features many re-used worked stone fragments. Several of these feature masons’ marks, all of which would be obscured when the stones were in situ (Fig. 6, C to G). These marks are deeply incised to improve bonding between the stone and mortar. Masons yards today routinely leave marks only on the obscured faces of stones. Several of these marks are in the form of two-letter initials, which is unknown within the major sequences of marks in the nave and quire. The stones re-used in the north nave transept gable are apparently of a later phase than those in the main sequences on the in situ fabric, although a precise provenance has yet to be determined. An evolution in tradition to only leaving marks on obscured faces of ashlars may account for the apparent absence of visible marks in the quire aisles, nave transept and Lady Chapel, although these areas are heavily plastered.
A dozen graphite numbers survive on apparently randomly dispersed ashlars of the nineteenth-century south quire transept repairs, and in the south nave transept gable (Fig. 6, H). These are perhaps notes created during transportation, sorting or storage, although they appear in so few a number that further investigation of their purpose is restricted.
Seventy-seven masons’ mark types form the main sequences on in situ fabric (Fig. 7). Of the 3,912 examples recorded, 197 degraded or partially obscured marks (5%) are illegible. Fifty-four types occur on the surviving portions of the twelfth- century nave and west front. Forty types recorded across the crypt, quire transept, presbytery and cloisters are almost entirely distinct from those in the west end. Fifteen mark types occur across the nave, crypt and the quire. As the earliest date for the construction of the east end provided by architectural-historical models is some twenty years after that of the nave, it seems unlikely that these marks were from the same masons. The fourteen mark-types on the surviving portions of the chapter house and dorter are also apparently of a distinct phase. Of these 77 types 63 are composed of six or fewer lines, indicating a high likelihood of coincidental use. Coincidentally similar mark types can be identified by differences in hand- style, epigraphic execution, or through observing a significant pause in its use.
Fourteen mark types match or closely resemble twelfth-century Latin letters; 2r53, 2r414, 2x2, 2x191, 3h105, 3n215, 4m16, 4m89, 4w14, 5a2, 5a43, 9m13,
10w2 and 12a4. Several of these could conceivably be initials. Mason’s marks from the later Middle Ages more often resemble initials than earlier marks, thought to be a result of an increase in literacy over the period (Hislop 2012, 46). However, the twelfth-century marks at Rochester Cathedral that do resemble letters can often be reflected, or include ‘errors’, such as type 3n215. Many stones in-situ are also in a position that the banker would have known would leave a mark on its side, perhaps indicating at least some of these resemblances to actual letters may be coincidental, or else their recognition was unimportant.
It is also of interest that seven mark types precisely match Anglo-Saxon runes; 2r414 (rad/r), 2x2 and 2x191 (gyfu/g/j or nyd/n), 3f74 (tiw/t), 3n215 (sigel/s), 3s280 (ior/ia/io), 4b386 (daeg/d) and 4m89 (eh/e). Like masons’ marks, runic is comprised of rectilinear characters best suited for inscribing into hard surfaces,
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Fig. 7 Typology of twelfth-century masons’ marks coded by a system outlined by Alexander (2008).
so this could well be coincidental. However, all but ior/ia/io are the initials of the most common male forenames in Britain during the Middle Ages, many of these introduced by the Normans. The use of runes declined after the wider adoption of the Latin alphabet by the eleventh century, but it is conceivable that some masons were familiar with the signs and symbols of their grandparents and great- grandparents. Runes do not constitute a true alphabet, instead seemingly most often used for magical purposes, basic signs, or to represent names.
Six mark types resemble tools or weapons. Mark type 4a1 may represent a pair of tongs. 4p10 could be an axe and 8t1 an axe head. 5p57 and 6b20 may be knives and 6t1 possibly a mallet. 5t15 could represent a bow and arrow. 4s1 is a well- formed sword. Marks resembling tools are not uncommon at other medieval sites. The 42 other mark types are seemingly abstract designs, typically comprised of as
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few lines as possible to be distinct. The average number of lines in the mark types of the west end is five, and the average in the east end is four, perhaps indicating that more complex mark types were required to distinguish between the larger number of masons working on the west end.
Marks 3r4, 5a2 and 5a43 are the only types in the building to feature serifs, a slight projection finishing off a stroke of a character. As mason apprenticeships are believed to be common on medieval building sites, this supports the revision of a traditional interpretation that seriffed marks were used by apprentices to distinguish between the mark of their master (Martin 2005, 379). It does seem that several mark types may have been modified from more commonly-used simple symbols to distinguish between similar marks; 2x191 and 6x95, for example, and 4a1, 5a43 and 9a2. Mark types 10w2 and 12a4, occurring on the west front c.1150, appear to be bold versions of 3n215 and 5a43 respectively. Superficially, it appears as though this could be to distinguish these marks from an identical mark of another mason. These latter marks, however, occur only in the east end of the building and thus antedate 10w2 and 12a4 by several decades.
Of interest to the interpretation of an absence of masons’ marks on later portions of fabric are mark types 1l67 and 2t58. These very basic marks are only distinguishable from incidental marks by their recurring positions on a corner of each ashlar.
Occasionally, two marks occur on a singular ashlar and even more occasionally they can be different types. As these stones do not appear re-used, the cause of this is not immediately apparent. In addition to the main sequences, several unique marks occur on other fabric. 5t1 occurs on the keystone above the bay window of the Chapter Library. When singular marks such as these occur in prominent positions on architectural features, they may be the mark of those constructing the feature. Without any recurrence of the mark, this is difficult to establish. Many could be setting-out lines, quarry marks, or partially legible graffiti.
Biographies
This section addresses the feasibility of establishing biographies of anonymous masons’ work from the recurrence of mark types. Is it possible to estimate the size of the banker mason workforce during each building phase from the number of mark types? Can it be discerned how many masons worked at the cathedral for a considerable duration and how many for a limited time only? Did some or all of the masons specialise in certain designs or types of stone? Tracing each mark type around the building may superficially appear to offer an opportunity to construct a biography of each mason’s work. However, the simplicity of most mark types suggests that several masons used identical designs.
Only one or two examples of marks 2y2, 3r1, 4a1, 4h1, 4p3, 5t1, 6t1, 8n1, 8t1, 9x1 and 11t1 are recorded. Essential to the nature of these marks is an appreciation of their taphonomic circumstances; the extent of their decay, destruction and obscuration. The upper portions of the nave arcades and quire clerestory have seen much whitewashing in the post-medieval era, resulting in fewer marks surviving in these areas. Water ingress has obliterated marks in certain areas. Very few marks survive on the exterior of the building, although those that do suggest that more
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were once present. Such unfavourable taphonomic circumstances could eradicate a significant portion of the evidence of a mason’s work and limits biographical investigations. Several mark types routinely occur on the same corner or face of ashlar blocks. If a mason typically marked the same face of each stone, and only occasionally differed, this could result in the small quantity of marks recorded for many types. However, even given the destruction or obscuration of a high percentage of marks, it seems unlikely that so many masons would dress just a few pieces of stone before leaving the site. Instead, these could be types used for a short time, possibly for the construction of a single architectural feature, and discarded or modified for subsequent projects to avoid confusion between identical marks. Either interpretation means that a simple one-mark-type-equals-one-banker- mason equation for estimating workforce size may not prove accurate and creating a biography of these masons’ work across features impossible. A more accurate estimation of workforce size may result from counting the masons dressing the stone for each feature at any one time. Between fifteen and twenty mark types occur on each of the piers in the nave and between ten and fifteen types are found on the nave arcades. The fewer types higher in the arcades may indicate the loss of more marks from water ingress or whitewashing campaigns. The masons’ marks of the nave suggest a banker mason workforce size of around twenty masons working at any one time, that team then moving to the next feature under construction. The marks of the quire indicate a team of around ten banker masons were at work at any one time. The occurrence of the same mark across almost all fabric within each building phase suggests that one team of banker masons were employed, working on features sequentially.
Despite the evidence of single or limited-use marks, the similarity in hand style of many mark types throughout each major building campaign indicates that many were retained by individual masons, at least for the duration of each campaign. Mark types 2a50, 2b39, 2x191, 3a282, 3h105, 3r4, 3s91, 3s280, 4b386, 4m89,
4w14, 5a43, 5p57, 5s90, 5t15, 6x32 and 6x95 occur throughout the entire nave, across both arcades. These marks occur across a diverse set of designs, from plain square ashlars to the dog-tooth and chevron moulding voussoirs of the arcades and clerestory (Fig. 8), indicating that these masons at least did not specialise in sculptural detail. Work is indicated to have proceeded one feature at a time. One evolving team of banker masons worked on each of the nave and triforium piers and arches consecutively, rather than two teams working in parallel across each arcade or in another more complex arrangement. A contiguous sequence of marks occurs in the lower portions of the east end. Although the evidence for the upper portions and the clerestory is more fragmentary, here it also appears that one team of banker masons were at work.
The nave arcades and west façade are faced entirely in Caen stone. The square ashlar and decorated arches in the east end comprise both Reigate and Caen stone. The surface of Reigate stone degrades faster than Caen, and so many more marks survive on the latter. All mark types that do survive on Reigate also occur on Caen. Although a later building phase for the more exclusively Reigate clerestory of the quire transept and sanctuary is proposed, it appears that masons did not specialise in either material while Reigate and Caen were being used interchangeably in the construction of the interior fabric of the east end.
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Fig. 8 Distribution of masons’ mark types by architectural detail, showing masons did not specialise in any one design or level of complexity.
Estimations of the size of the banker workforce employed at any one time during the work on the east and west ends conclude that frequent reuse and discard of marks complicates the creation of biographies of most individual mason’s work.
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This reuse and discard further complicates the establishing of a relative chronology of building work, requiring the additional evidence provided by the absolute chronological framework based on architectural-historical models, construction logic and stratigraphic relationships between building features.
Chronology
There are many complexities to providing estimates for the time taken to dress and construct portions of the medieval fabric. If the masons were using a stone saw to reduce large blocks from the quarry into ashlars, instead of the older technique of splitting with chisels, wedges and hammers, it would significantly reduce preparation time. Diagonal linear tooling marks characteristic of the use of an axe occur on much of the twelfth-century ashlar, chisels being for finer work. It would be typical for an on-site blacksmith to prepare tools, but factors such as the quality of metal and smelting techniques used can affect the speed of use and wear, and subsequently the time taken to dress stone. A skilled mason can dress stones twice as fast as an apprentice. Documentary evidence indicates most works departments were significantly reduced in winter when frost could damage the partially complete structure (Alexander 2008, 22). Banker masons can, in theory, work year-round, with stone stockpiled in winter for the spring. However, they would only comprise a small portion of the entire workforce at the site. It is not known if construction occurred concurrently with the dressing of stone. Both of the two main building phases would have entailed laying foundations and demolition of significant portions of the standing structure, other unquantifiable pauses in laying ashlar. These variables make estimation of absolute chronologies using banker mark sequences impractical.
A comparative analysis of the marks between each portion of the building has ascertained if they were worked on by the same team of masons. If so, they are presumed to have been working at different times, although within the same building phase. The portions were possibly constructed concurrently if they were worked on by different teams of masons but within a single building phase. In this manner, a relative chronology for the construction of the building can be produced, within the absolute chronology provided by architectural-historical models based on recorded patronage, fires and other events.
An increase in the sculptural complexity of pier capitals and tympana decoration in the nave, as well as some rough work in the aisle-facing spandrels of the north nave arcade, have been interpreted as indicating the course of work in the 1140s (McAleer 1985). There is an intensification in the scalloping of pier capitals between the south and the north arcades of the nave. The bases of the four easternmost piers of the north arcade are floriated, whereas the westernmost pier of the north arcade and all the piers on the south arcade feature a simpler roll moulding. The capitals of the tympana shafts in each arcade are generally more complex to the west. These features have been interpreted by McAleer (1985) as evidence that the arcades were built three bays from the crossing tower, encompassing the fifth- west pier of the north nave arcade. The south arcade piers were then continued, followed by the remaining four piers of the north arcade with foliated bases. Then the north arcade triforium was completed, during which an intention to vault the
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Fig. 9 Seventeen mark types occur throughout the west end (yellow), indicating a single construction phase with no significant pause in work. Thirteen mark types occur almost exclusively on the north arcade (red) and nine types on the south arcade (blue). Three types occur exclusively on the west front (green).
nave aisles was abandoned. The south triforium was then finished, with more effort made to smooth the aisle-facing spandrels on this side now that it was known they would not be covered by vaulting (McAleer 1985, 157).
Seventeen mark types are found almost exclusively on the north nave arcade. Five mark types occur almost exclusively on the south arcade (Fig. 9). The clear differentiation of many mark types between the arcades strongly suggests that one arcade was worked on and finished before the other, in support of the previous architectural-historical models. However, twelve marks occur on both the piers and the triforium: 2a50, 3b89, 3n215, 3s91, 4b386, 4m89, 5a43, 5p57, 5s90, 5t15, 6s49, 7t56, suggesting there was no significant pause in work during the construction of either. It is difficult to interpret this data as supportive of McAleer’s proposed model for the construction of the nave arcades. Instead, they appear to have been worked on consecutively as suggested by previous assessments, after St John Hope (1898). The roughness of the spandrels of the aisle-side of the north nave arcade, in contrast to those of the south, could have resulted from post-medieval repair rather than the change in design interpreted by McAleer. Ultimately, thick plaster and whitewash currently prevent the confirmation of either interpretation.
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At least one altar and one shrine existed in the south nave aisle. St John Hope (1898, 273) proposes an altar at the east end on the architectural evidence for a screen here. Finishing work on the south arcade would have allowed the shrines to function while work continued on the north arcade. The eleventh-century west front is believed to have still been standing at this time, and so the demolition and reconstruction of one arcade at a time would place less stress on the west front while work progressed.
Eight mark types occur only on one bay, or on two adjacent bays: 2a50, 2x191, 3n215, 3p4, 3y20, 4a19, 5t15, 6m28. These limited marks may indicate that around two bays were completed in each working season, March to November. These were presumably the marks of mason teams that were disbanded over the winter and did not return the next year. The eight mark types that occur throughout the entire nave arcades would seem to be a core group of masons retained over the winter months. Difficulties in estimating the time taken for such work notwithstanding, this would seem to be a slow pace for a group of ten to fifteen masons. Eight marks occur fewer than three times throughout the entire arcade: 1b1, 3p4, 3y20, 4a28, 4t10, 4w14, 6b20, 10w2.
Remarkably, 30 marks survive on the greatly weathered and heavily restored west front. Most of the marks here are on the southern tower, in an area that was abutted by a building in the later medieval and early modern period, seemingly providing a degree of preservation. Several of these marks match those from the nave, supporting McAleer’s proposed date of c.1150 for the work on the west front, immediately following on from the reconstruction of the nave arcades beginning after the fire of 1139. The loss of almost all marks on the rest of the west front confounds further attempts to establish a relative chronology for this fabric, although similarities in mark types found in the lowest portions and a few surviving marks in the interior of the upper portions of the centre aisle towers suggests there was no significant pause in work.
Very few marks survive in the cloisters, limited to small portions of ashlar protected from the weather. What survives does not resemble the marks of either the nave or the quire, supporting the architectural interpretation that work on these buildings was carried out by a different workshop than the main body of the cathedral. Of the six marks recorded within Rochester Castle keep, one type closely resembles mark type 4m35 from the cloisters.
There is a clear distinction in mark types in the west end campaign of the 1140s to the 1160s and those of the rebuilt east end, now most often believed to date to after the fire of 1179. This distinction indicates a significant pause in work, of enough time for the banker mason workforce to be disbanded entirely or to have evolved to include few, if any, of the previous masons. The only complex mark type to occur across both campaigns is the trefoil 3a282. This type is one of the most common to occur in the nave campaign but occurs only in the earliest phases of the east end. Although it is tempting to propose a common mason, the trefoil is surely a symbol that every mason would have been aware of. Coincidental use by separate individuals seems more likely. Another possibility is that the mark belonged to an apprentice or family member of a mason working on the earlier campaign.
A contiguous sequence comprised of mark types 2r53, 2r414, 3f74, 3n215, 4a19,
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Fig. 10 Seven mark types occur in all parts of the east end (yellow). Three mark types occur only on the exterior walls, from ground level in the crypt to the arches of the lower windows in the quire above (red). Seventeen types occur across the crossing piers, the triforium and crypt (blue).
4b386 and 4s43 occurs on the walls of the quire transept and sanctuary, from ground level to the string course running below each lower window approximately 6m above the floor of the quire (Fig. 10). There is then a distinction in mark types on the contiguous fabric above this height; comprising eight types. This later sequence also occurs on the east arcade of the quire transept and the eastern portions of the liturgical quire.
Efflorescence damage and general wear has destroyed the majority of visible marks on the walls of the crypt transept and Ithamar Chapel. Not enough marks survive to form firm conclusions as to where work began and finished. Construction logic and the architectural model proposed by Worssam (2006) suggests work started at the junctions between Gundulf/Ernulf’s east end and the new work, moving east. Marks 2r414, 3a282 and 4b386 occur on the north wall of the crypt between the
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two large buttress towers. Marks 2r414, 3f74, 3s280 and 4a28 occur on the walls of the south crypt transept. Although few, these marks broadly correspond with the mark types found on the respective walls of the quire transept above, suggesting the ashlars for each end of the crypt transept were dressed consecutively. Many more marks survive on the dressed ashlar of the wide piers of the east and west arcades of the crypt crossing; of types 2r414, 3f74, 4b386 and 4p10. Mark type 3s280 may be diagnostic in discerning which transept was started first, and in turn, whether the new work began at the north of the building or the south. It does not occur amongst any of the numerous examples on the wide piers in the crypt, nor on the crypt vaulting, yet is almost ubiquities throughout the upper portions of the building and is amongst the few surviving marks in the south crypt transept. Perhaps mason 3s280 joined after work had begun on the north transept exterior walls but before work began on the south transept shortly after. However, the exclusion of just one mark type in an area with so few surviving marks cannot be considered conclusive.
A late medieval fire and modern plaster redecorations have destroyed or obscured all marks on the Ithamar Chapel walls except five examples of mark type 3n215 on the east arcade, a ubiquitous mark in all walls of the quire transept and sanctuary. Two marks of type 3s280 survive on the buttress on the exterior of the south wall of the Ithamar Chapel. Although based on the evidence of very few marks surviving on the walls of the crypt transept and Ithamar Chapel, the occurrence of mark types around the crypt can be seen to support previous interpretations that the rebuilding of the quire began at the west end of the new crossing and encompassed the sanctuary in one campaign.
At other cathedral sites around this time, old work was left standing for as long as possible before being demolished, with the new work often constructed around the old before this occurs. Excavations from 2014 to 2016 confirmed the basic shape of St John Hope’s reconstructed plan of the late eleventh-century east end (1898, plate iii), with a previously unknown annexe on the north (Keevill and Ward 2019). The old east end was levelled before work could begin on the west arcade of the crypt, and the crypt could be vaulted (Fig. 11). There are burnt fragments of Caen stone re-used in these piers, apparently confirming that the old east end was demolished at this point in time and the material re-used in the ongoing construction. The completion of these piers allowed for the vaulting of the crypt, supporting the possibility that fragments of the demolished east end are reused as infill. The discovery of a painted tufa stone fragment re-used in a vault in the Ithamar Chapel during conservation work in 2012 supports this hypothesis (Perry and Lithgow 2014) (Fig. 12). Mark types 2r414, 4b386 and 4p10 survive on the vaulting in the Ithamar Chapel, matching the wide piers forming its west arcade. Marks survive in only one bay of the vaulting of the crypt crossing, all of them type 2r414. Although confounding attempts to establish a relative chronology for the vaulting of the two areas, they suggest one campaign extending throughout, following immediately on from the dressing of the ashlar for the wide piers. Mark types 4b386, 2r414, 3a282, 4a28 and 6b7 occur on this arcade, which includes the partial casing of the two broad tufa piers of the 1080s. Mark types 2x191 and 2r414 occur on the arches of the barrel vaults between these piers.
The upper levels of the quire transept feature far fewer marks than the contiguous
ROCHESTER CATHEDRAL MASONS’ MARKS
image
Fig. 11 Portion of St John Hope’s (1898) conjectural plan of the old east end of the cathedral, confirmed by 2014-2016 excavations.
image
Fig. 12 Stone fragments found re-used in the vaulting in the Ithamar Chapel.
JACOB H. SCOTT
sequence below. This work is more exclusively of Reigate stone which, as noted above, preserves its surface less effectively than Caen stone. Much of this work is in the arches of windows and is only one stone thick, suffering more from variations in temperature and subsequently from efflorescence damage. Despite this, a significant pause between the previous work and these upper portions is apparent. Mark types 2r414, 2d36, 4b386 and 6b7 occur on both the vaulting of the crypt, the work at the east of the blind arcades of the liturgical quire and the wide piers forming the east arcade of the quire transept. This pause may have resulted only from the time required to demolish the old east end and vault the crypt. Several masons’ mark types occur on both the upper portions of the exterior walls, the blind arcades of the liturgical quire and the triforium. Only at this point could the entire east end be vaulted. Much of the stonework for the ribs of the vaulting is far beyond the reach of the 10m vertical access platform used for this survey, although eight mark types occur on the lowest portions abutting the triforium. Though few, these types largely match those of the clerestory. It is possible to interpret this data within the framework provided by the current architectural-historical models for a single building phase construction of the east end. Bishop Gilbert de Glanville (1185-1214) is credited with ‘finishing the quire’ from the proceeds of the shrine of William of Perth, erected shortly after 1201.
Further Study
Thorough surveys at Rochester Castle, Canterbury Cathedral and churches in the Rochester Diocese considering hand-style, architectural detailing and epigraphic execution of marks may identify where the masons that built Rochester Cathedral had worked previously, where they went to, and if other structures were under construction at the same time. Definitive identification is likely to result from matching sequences of marks, rather than individual examples. Rochester Castle keep, just 80m from the west front of the cathedral, was constructed from 1127-1141, in a campaign that would have overlapped with the cathedral redecoration campaign. At this time Archbishop Corbeil possessed the castle. The architectural details of the keep are also in Caen stone. Just six surviving masons’ marks have been identified within the keep, which has lost its roof and has been greatly affected by weathering in the post-medieval era. Although some similarities in marks between the keep and the cathedral occurs, a comprehensive survey of any further surviving marks is still likely to remain inconclusive based on so few marks. It is of interest that at least a third of mark types at Rochester Cathedral identified by this survey match with those identified during a preliminary survey at Canterbury Cathedral.
bibliography
Cotton MS. Vespasian A. 22, c.1200, London, British Library, f. 30.
Gervase of Canterbury, c.1200, Opera Historica, Rolls Series 73, i. 100. London, British Library.
Textus Roffensis, c.1123, Rochester, Cathedral Chapter Library, MS A. 3. 5, f. 172. Alexander, J.S., 2001, ‘The Uses of Masons’ Marks as an Aid to Architectural History’,
in J. Higgitt, K. Forsyth and D. Parsons (eds), Roman, Runes and Ogham: Medieval Inscriptions in the Insular World and on the Continent, Donington, pp. 211-222.
ROCHESTER CATHEDRAL MASONS’ MARKS
Alexander, J.S., 2006, ‘A History of Stonemasons’ Marks and Stone Bonding Methods’, in Andrew Prescott (ed.), Marking Well: essays on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Grand Lodge of Mark Master Masons of England and Wales and its districts and lodges overseas, London, pp. 4-62.
Alexander, J.S., 2007, ‘The Introduction and Use of Masons’ Marks in Romanesque
Buildings in England’, Medieval Archaeology, 51, 63-81.
Alexander, J.S., 2008, ‘2: Masons’ Marks and the Working Practices of Medieval Stone Masons’, in P.S. Barnwell and A. Pacey (eds), Who Built Beverley Minster?, Reading: Spire Books, pp. 21-40.
Alexander, J., 2013, ‘Signed in Stone’, Country Life, 13 February 2013.
Carden and Godfrey Architects, 2009, Rochester Cathedral – Metric Survey, Job No. 3081/21, unpubl. archive report.
Devolder, M., 2018, ‘The functions of masons’ marks in the Bronze Age palace at Malia,
Crete’, American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 122, no. 3, 343-366.
Draper, P., 2006, ‘The Late Twelfth-Century East End of Rochester Cathedral’, in Ayers,
T. and T. Tatton-Brown (eds), Medieval Art, Architecture and Archaeology at Rochester,
pp. 97-113.
Graham, D. and Scott, J.H., 2019, ‘Alphanumeric graffiti at Rochester Cathedral’,
Archaeologia Cantiana, cxl, 181-199.
Halsey, R., 2006, ‘The Twelfth-Century Nave of Rochester Cathedral’, in Ayers, T. and
T. Tatton-Brown (eds), Medieval Art, Architecture and Archaeology at Rochester, pp. 61-84.
Hislop, M., 2012, How to build a cathedral, London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Keevill, G. and Ward, A., 2019, ‘Hidden Treasures, Fresh Expressions; Archaeological Surveys, Excavations and Watching Briefs at Rochester Cathedral 2011-2017’, archive report.
Martin, T., 2005, ‘Reading the walls: Masons’ marks and the archaeology of architecture at San Isidoro, Leon’, Essays on Medieval Spain in Honor of John Williams, T. Martin and
J.A. Harris (eds), Leiden, pp. 373-412.
McAleer, P., 1985, Some observations on the building sequence of the nave of Rochester
Cathedral, Archaeologia Cantiana, cii, 149-170.
McAleer, P., 1996, ‘The Medieval Fabric’, in Yates, N and Welsby, P. (eds), Faith and Fabric; A History of Rochester Cathedral 604-1994, Rochester: Boydell and Brewer, Friends of Rochester Cathedral.
McNeill, J., 2006, ‘The East Cloister Range of Rochester Cathedral Priory.’, in Ayers, T. and T. Tatton-Brown (eds), Medieval Art, Architecture and Archaeology at Rochester,
pp. 97-113.
Moss, R.A., 2000, ‘Medieval jigsaw puzzle; the ancient stones of Christ Church’,
Archaeology Ireland, vol. 14, no. 2, 20-23.
Münchmeyer, A., 2013, ‘The masons’ marks in the western part of the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela: an approach to its construction history’, Construction History, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 1-22.
Perry, M. and Lithgow, R., 2014, ‘Rochester Cathedral Crypt Medieval Paintings and
Plasters – Conservation Project’, The Perry Lithgow Partnership Ltd, archive report. Scott, J.H., 2018, ‘Pictorial and symbolic graffiti at Rochester Cathedral’, Archaeologia
Cantiana, cxxxix, 47-74.
St John Hope, W.H., 1898, ‘The Architectural History of the Cathedral Church and Monastery of St. Andrew at Rochester; 1. The Cathedral Church’, Archaeologia Cantiana, xxiii, 194-328.
St John Hope, W.H., 1900, ‘The Architectural History of the Cathedral Church and Monastery of St. Andrew at Rochester; 2. The Monastery’, Archaeologia Cantiana, xxiv, 1-85.
JACOB H. SCOTT
Worssam, B., 2000, ‘The building stones of Rochester Cathedral crypt’, Archaeologia Cantiana, cxx, 1-22.
COMMUNITYCARE: CIVIC CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS IN THE KENTISH CINQUE PORTS, c.1300-c.1500
sheila sweetinburgh
In the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries there was pressure by Lollard and other reformers to replace moribund hospitals, which were viewed as ecclesiastical-run institutions, with new foundations under lay control to provide community care for the vulnerable. In some cases these new almshouses actively involved the local civic authorities. The evidence for such civic- controlled hospitals in Kent is especially good for the Head Ports of the Cinque Ports confederation, and these institutions pre-date the calls for reform in the reigns of Richard II and his successors. Moreover, the hospital records not only highlight matters relating to the foundation of such establishments but also their developing character during the fifteenth century and beyond. The new hospital foundations (sometimes re-foundations) examined in detail in this paper are:
Hythe: St Andrew, later St John’s
St Bartholomew, Saltwood by Hythe Sandwich
St Bartholomew St John
St Thomas New Romney
St John
The role taken by government, especially local civic authorities, in caring for the vulnerable within society is again under the spotlight in twenty-first-century Britain. This provision is offered through a mix of private and public organisations and, even though charities may be involved, the role of ecclesiastical and other religious bodies is tiny. Today, moreover, due to a variety of factors, the ability to sustain the level of care required by government and society at large has been questioned, such problems relating partly to financial issues, but also to the competency and integrity of those involved in the day-to-day organisation of these establishments and those charged with their oversight.
Just over six hundred years ago not dissimilar worries were raised in England, and it was the hospitals that came under scrutiny, although for the main reformers it was the Church that was seen to be at fault, not the government. As Margaret Aston highlighted, John Wycliffe and his Lollard followers raised considerable controversies in Richard II’s reign regarding their desire to deprive the Church
SHEILA SWEETINBURGH
of its worldly possessions, as well as their condemnation of what they saw as the unjust relationship between benefactions to friars and almsgiving to the poor in late medieval society.1 Among the issues she discussed was how Lollards envisaged the poor using Wycliffe’s biblical designation of the poor feeble, the poor lame and the poor blind, who should be aided through direct almsgiving or through charitable institutions.2 For Lollards, therefore, hospitals were key to helping the poor whose miseries were not their own fault, those John Henderson has labelled the episodic (elderly and chronically sick), epidemic (those suddenly forced below subsistence level due to severe dearth or epidemic disease) and endemic (life-cycle poverty) poor, provided these establishments were taken out of the Church’s control.3
During the 1410s the same issues were raised again on several occasions in and around Parliament, including the call to take the Church’s assets and establish a hundred new almshouses, each with an income of a hundred marks to be used to feed the poor inmates, the management of these new almshouses to be the responsibility of ‘good and true secular persons’.4 Nevertheless, as Nicholas Orme and Margaret Webster describe, little happened in terms of legislation but, as Carole Rawcliffe has explored recently, these ideas did elicit a wider response in that certain patrons did tackle abuses in their hospitals, while the desire to establish new houses for the elderly and reputable poor became more prevalent.5 Many of these founders were wealthy merchants or members of the aristocracy, but organisations, including guilds, sought to provide for their less fortunate members.6 Furthermore, these houses were characteristically under lay control, in some cases involving the local civic authorities, a situation that is often seen as innovatory compared to hospitals founded in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.7
Yet, whether the Lollards and these early fifteenth-century almshouse founders were quite as ground-breaking is a moot point. As Sharon Farmer discusses in her study on poor relief organised in Paris, even though the major shift to secular oversight seemingly occurred in the early sixteenth century, the roots of such changes can be found as early as the mid thirteenth century.8 Nor was this confined to Paris, and she believes that ‘municipal authorities began to assume direct responsibility for local hospitals at some point between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries’ in southern France and the Mediterranean countries of Italy and Spain.9 Nor were comparable shifts unknown in England, and in her study of urban communal health Rawcliffe provides examples of English hospitals (leprosaria, ‘common’ hospitals, almshouses and maisons Dieu) that were under civic governance by the later fourteenth century.10 Furthermore, although a civic leper house, St Mary Magdalen’s at Exeter was accommodating the blind and aged by the mid thirteenth century, persons not dissimilar to those who would populate almshouses in the fifteenth century.11 Notwithstanding these studies, as noted above, the common perception remains that the earlier medieval hospitals were mainly, if not exclusively, religious houses founded by churchmen, aristocrats or the king, which were under ecclesiastical or royal patronage.12 In contrast, the presence of this admittedly small corpus of civic charitable institutions in England from at least the thirteenth century is important because they offer insights into civic attitudes towards the poor, the role of urban authorities as governors, their concerns regarding communal responsibility, and the construction of a civic identity that incorporated social memory, Christian duty and secular authority.13
COMMUNITY CARE: CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS IN THE KENTISH CINQUE PORTS
The evidence for such hospitals in Kent is especially good for the Head Ports of the Cinque Ports confederation, albeit they were not the only hospitals in the ports.14 Across the county boundary in Hastings and the two Ancient Towns of Rye and Winchelsea, the civic authorities were similarly involved in some of their hospitals.15 In part this is due to the ancient collective nature of the Cinque Ports’ organisation whose members developed common practices regarding matters such as civic elections and customary regulations, as well as shared attitudes towards outside lordship, and responsibility for the poor within their communities. Additionally, this evidence not only highlights matters relating to the foundation of such establishments, but also the continuing development of these Cinque Port hospitals during the fifteenth century and therefore how comparable they were to the almshouses advocated by the Lollard petitioners in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. The best documented of these hospitals are two at Sandwich, but there was at least one civic hospital at New Romney.16 For Hythe it is the early fourteenth-century foundation records that are especially valuable because they demonstrate the inter-relationship between the ecclesiastical founder (or refounder) and the civic authorities as managers of the town’s hospitals.17 Interestingly, Dover’s civic-governed almshouses are only known from the late fifteenth century, although whether this was due to the presence of earlier hospitals in the town under the patronage of Dover Priory and the Crown is unclear.18 Consequently, Dover’s hospitals are not considered further here.19
Foundations
Turning first to Hythe, the instigator of the mid fourteenth-century foundations (or more likely refoundations) in the town was Bishop Hamo of Rochester, who had been born there and whose family held lands in the town. On 11 May 1336, he acquired a licence from Edward III to alienate lands and tenements not held in chief that would contribute £10 per annum for the establishment of a hospital.20 Five months later he had a charter drawn up regarding his proposed hospital, which was to be located on his family’s lands. For this analysis, the key features in his charter are his instructions that the hospital was for ten local old people of good character, who had fallen on hard times through no fault of their own; the hospital was not given its own chapel or chaplain, rather the brothers and sisters were to attend Mass and other services daily at St Leonard’s parish church, which was the parish where the hospital was located as well as being the church used for the holding of civic elections; at other times the old people were expected to follow the trade or craft they had undertaken before they entered the hospital; one man was installed as the master, he was to be chosen from among the ten as the most able, and his deputy, a woman, was to be chosen similarly; when the master died, if there was no suitable man at the hospital, the wardens could select a candidate from outside the hospital; about the time of Michaelmas annually the master was to render an account of the financial state of the hospital to the wardens and two or three of the brothers; oversight of the hospital was in the hands of the three wardens, and, as well as the finances, these men chose the new brothers and sisters. If they were unable to agree upon a candidate, the master had the final say. The master was also responsible for the weekly distribution of 4d. to each of the brothers and sisters,
SHEILA SWEETINBURGH
a practice that the wardens might attend if this was thought necessary. Tellingly, the three wardens were to be senior civic officials; that is, they were to be jurats and the holders of the town’s common seal.21 The commonalty of Hythe also had the power to institute new regulations for the good governance of the hospital, a responsibility they held jointly with the diocesan officials, and finally, as well as Hamo’s seal, the charter was sealed by the town using the common seal and this agreement between Hamo and the civic authorities was completed two weeks after the bishop’s charter had been drawn up.
The hospital seems to have struggled because Hamo was again seeking a licence from the king in 1342 to establish a hospital in Hythe and seven years later, on 6 January 1349, he drew up another foundation charter.22 Like his first foundation, his ‘new’ hospital was dedicated to St Andrew. Furthermore, hospital charters from 1334, that is before Hamo’s first hospital, also refer to this same saint.23 Taking this evidence together, it suggests that he was seeking to refound the earlier institution. Consequently, in 1349, perhaps as a means to ensure his hospital’s survival, he intended that the endowment would incorporate the revenues of the town’s ‘moribund’ leper hospital dedicated to St Bartholomew, as well as a few further assets. This he believed would provide sufficient resources to extend the hospital to accommodate thirteen poor persons rather than the original ten, and it was to be known as the hospital of St Andrew and St Bartholomew. Of greater importance, however, is that again the civic authorities ratified Bishop Hamo’s new arrangements, which they did using the town’s common seal on 10 January that year.24
Yet it seems Hamo’s intention to appropriate St Bartholomew’s hospital was unsuccessful (see below), while his chosen dedication to St Andrew appears to have been short-lived because in 1356 and 1357 Gilbert de Sende seemingly granted rents to this hospital, although the dedication is not mentioned.25 At what stage the dedication changed to St John is unknown, although it had occurred by the early 1460s.26 Nevertheless, of greater significance is the claim in Archbishop Parker’s visitation of 1562 that St John’s hospital had been founded, ordered and charitably maintained by the jurats and commonalty.27 Nevertheless, whether the wardens had fulfilled their assigned roles during the later Middle Ages is unknown because the early master’s accounts do not survive, albeit the later visitation record implies that locally this was believed to have been the case.
Furthermore, even though St Bartholomew’s hospital was in Saltwood to the north of Hythe and was an ancient leper hospital, by the mid fourteenth century it was accommodating at least some poor men and women and the Hythe civic authorities appear to have been involved in its management by the same date.28 For example, when John Stace of Hythe granted a lease for fifty-five years concerning two pieces of land in 1356 to the poor brothers and sisters of St Bartholomew’s hospital, the town’s bailiff was the first witness.29 Subsequent bailiffs continued to act as witnesses, probably playing an even more active managerial role when the prior or master at St Bartholomew’s leased out the hospital’s lands. For example, when John Smith received a 101-year lease of a piece of land belonging to the hospital in 1418, the first witness was William at Mede, the town’s bailiff.30 Moreover, by the later decades of the century the bailiff was frequently joined by several of the town’s jurats, as in 1467, when the first three witnesses were Richard Smalwode, bailiff, and John Lake and Thomas Stace, jurats.31
COMMUNITY CARE: CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS IN THE KENTISH CINQUE PORTS
Yet, even if the records for St John’s hospital at New Romney are fragmentary and for Hythe the evidence is not conclusive concerning lay governance of the town’s hospitals from the mid fourteenth century, they do suggest that the civic authorities were important as active patrons of these hospitals before the Lollards and the 1410 parliamentary petition.32 Furthermore, for Sandwich the evidence is clear regarding lay, that is civic, oversight of two of the town’s hospitals from at least the early fourteenth century, and lay, if not civic, involvement in the governance of a third from later in the same century. Leaving aside the narrative concerning the (re)foundation of St Bartholomew’s hospital in 1217, Sandwich’s late fourteenth- century custumal offers considerable detail regarding the management of this hospital and similarly the other civic hospital dedicated to St John. In addition, Justin Croft has postulated that this extant custumal is largely a copy of that produced in 1301, and, as both hospitals according to the custumal were under the patronage of the mayor and jurats, the civic authorities were seemingly governing the town’s major charitable institutions from at least the late thirteenth century.32 Moreover, this relationship between the civic officers and their two hospitals was displayed publicly, visual and other markers used to demonstrate the mayor and jurats’ benevolence towards the town’s poor and needy as part of the construction of Sandwich’s civic identity.
For St Bartholomew’s, the senior hospital in Sandwich, the custumal reports that every 24 August, that is the saint’s feast day and the day St Bartholomew had aided the portsmen to overcome the French at the battle of Sandwich in 1217, the mayor and jurats with the commonalty processed from the central parish church of St Peter to the hospital.34 Some played musical instruments, others carried tapers provided by the civic authorities, the laity followed by the town’s clergy who also carried tapers and chanted as they went in procession to the hospital’s chapel, where the rector of St Peter’s or another cleric designated by the mayor celebrated High Mass. The tapers given by the mayor and jurats were offered to the hospital, presumably at the altar, and after this service and those following during the next seven days to the octave, the remaining tapers were stored in a box. One of the jurats held the key to this box, which meant that the civic authorities acted as both benefactors and beneficiaries in the gift-giving between the town and its hospital. Presumably the mayor and jurats were fully aware of the symbolic implications of this ritual, and it is feasible that others were too, especially those at the hospital, the local townspeople and members of the local nobility, who were similarly allowed to present tapers at the chapel.35
The custumal also reveals some practical aspects of this patronal relationship. For example, the master at St Bartholomew’s was expected to present his accounts to the mayor and jurats when required, including an inventory of the hospital’s corn, livestock and other assets. The civic authorities also appointed the master and, even though the hospital did have its own seal, the master and community were not allowed to purchase or sell any property without the consent of the mayor and jurats. Similarly, those seeking to enter the hospital had to apply to the mayor and jurats. To formalise this relationship publicly, each new brother or sister had to swear an oath before the mayor who then introduced the candidate to the community, the newcomer paying his or her fee before entering the hospital. Discipline was also in the hands of the civic authorities, who visited the hospital four times a year and
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punished wrongdoers at St Bartholomew’s by firstly withholding their allowance, although other sanctions might be used if the person did not follow the mayor’s ruling.36
Founded perhaps a century after St Bartholomew’s hospital, the town’s other civic hospital of St John was equally strictly governed by the mayor and jurats.37 Again, this is recorded in the Sandwich custumal, and among the regulatory activities undertaken by the civic officers was the appointing of the master, who was answerable for the state of the hospital’s buildings as well as other matters, any repairs to be completed under the mayor’s direction. To ensure the hospital was managed competently, as at St Bartholomew’s, mayoral visitations were to take place where the state of its household and other goods were assessed, including those used by the poor in the three rooms at the back of the hospital called the ‘harbinge’. Furthermore, the financial health of St John’s was examined, the mayor and jurats having the power to stop the allowances to the brothers and sisters. Discipline was another aspect of the civic authorities’ remit, in part because on admission new brothers and sisters were required to swear an oath before the mayor regarding their subsequent conduct. A further public acknowledgement of this hierarchical relationship between the civic authorities and the hospital was the mayor’s gift of the town’s standard bushel to St John’s for the use of foreign merchants.38
Turning to St Thomas’ hospital, its founder Thomas Elys was a wealthy draper and merchant who had acquired considerable landholdings locally. In addition, as a former mayor (in 1370 and 1382), in the early 1390s he would have been acutely aware of the relationships between St Bartholomew’s and St John’s hospitals and the civic authorities, both regarding their governance and their value as places for the town and its hinterland’s elderly and poorer inhabitants. Consequently, Elys’ new hospital appears to have much in common with Sandwich’s earlier charitable provision because it provided a further twelve places for similarly needy persons.39 Moreover, although the hospital’s original statutes do not survive, Elys’ appointment of four feoffees to administer the hospital’s considerable endowment, of whom two were leading local citizens, suggests that he valued such lay governance.40
There is nothing to indicate that the new hospital included a chapel, or that the brothers and sisters were to act as Elys’ almspeople, yet Elys’ appointment of these same leading townsmen as feoffees of his chantry of three priests at St Peter’s church seems to highlight both his concern for commemoration by his clerics and his confidence in his fellow citizens as guardians of his almsfolk.41 In many ways this was in keeping with the limited emphasis placed in the fourteenth-century custumal at the two older hospitals on this aspect of hospital life. For even though both hospitals had a chapel, the undertaking of Masses and other commemorative spiritual services for the souls of benefactors and founders was the primary duty of the priest at St John’s and the three priest brothers at St Bartholomew’s. Thus, albeit Elys’ twin complementary foundations were not on the scale of some almshouses and associated colleges, such as Richard Whittington’s London establishment, the daily lives of Elys’ two communities in Sandwich appear to demonstrate some similarity to Whittington’s a generation before his institution.42
Consequently, in probably three of the four Kentish Head Ports by the late fourteenth century there were civic-governed charitable institutions that were
COMMUNITY CARE: CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS IN THE KENTISH CINQUE PORTS
intended for the care of poor people as categorised by Wycliffe, the civic authorities envisaging such hospitals as reciprocal exchange partners between themselves and their respective towns whereby they demonstrated social responsibility and good governance to those inside and outside the town. For the brothers and sisters, too, Hamo’s charters and Sandwich’s custumal indicate that in exchange for a personal allowance, as well as certain items in common, their lives were to be governed primarily by communal activities for the maintenance of their hospital, rather than spiritual duties for the souls of the hospital’s benefactors, even though the latter duties were not to be forgotten. As noted above, when not at their prayers, those at the Hythe hospital were expected to work on craft or other activities. At St Bartholomew’s in Sandwich the sisters were to work in the dairy, brewhouse and bakehouse, the brothers engaged on the hospital’s home farm, while at St John’s the brothers collected alms in cash and kind in the town and more occasionally further afield, the sisters washing, preparing food and caring for poor, sick people, who were accommodated for short periods at the hospital.43
Later developments in the fifteenth century
Notwithstanding these civic Cinque Port hospitals had much in common with the almshouses advocated in the 1410 parliamentary petition, not all of them retained these characteristics thereafter, which may partly explain their different histories in the early sixteenth century. However, of these hospitals the only casualty by, or at, the Dissolution was St John’s hospital in New Romney. Nevertheless, a century earlier the hospital had apparently been aiding local poorer people, its revenue the result of alms-collecting in exchange for indulgences, rents and produce from its gardens and other lands, which allowed the brothers and sisters to receive 6d. or 8d. a week, an allocation that was more generous than at some houses elsewhere in the county.44 Whether this was authorised by the civic authorities is not clear, but the master’s allowance of £10 yearly may have been received directly from the bailiff or jurats because the sum was recorded in the town accounts.45
Exactly when this situation started to change is uncertain, but in the second quarter of the fifteenth century the hospital’s landholding was reduced, which may reflect a decline in the number of inmates.46 Furthermore, from the mid- century the master was known as the prior, and, even though elsewhere this did not reflect a changing role, the reference that the prior’s allowance of 20s. was for his wages and for soap to wash the vestments seems to imply that he was primarily, and perhaps exclusively, officiating at the hospital’s chapel.47 Whether this only involved commemorative spiritual services cannot be ascertained, but interment in the hospital chapel’s burial ground was requested by a sizeable number from the town of New Romney, which presumably provided the prior with a supplementary livelihood.48 In addition, about a quarter of those who sought burial in St John’s churchyard also gave bequests to the chapel, including 8d. from George Halsnoth (1488) for church repairs and a cow or its monetary value from Joan Robyn (1507).49 Such a change in the hospital’s function, as well as the civic authorities’ policy of renting out St John’s buildings and land, may reflect not only the shrinkage of the hospital’s community but also that of the town’s population.50 Nevertheless, why the jurats seemingly allowed their hospital to decline over the later fifteenth and
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early sixteenth centuries so that it disappeared, perhaps even before the 1530s, is unclear.51 Yet if testamentary bequests are an indicator of charitable concerns for the poor, the townspeople of New Romney do not appear to have seen them as a high priority. It is feasible the poor received alms from part of the residue of the testator’s estate, but in terms of specific bequests to paupers these only occur in 13% of wills between 1400 and 1510.52 In contrast, for the same period 29% of Hythe’s testators specifically remembered the poor, and, even though the percentage in Romney is comparable to Sandwich, in the latter town, as well as remembering the poor, some of these donors and other testators remembered the four Sandwich hospitals (see below).53
Thus, unlike New Romney, the civic authorities at Sandwich and Hythe in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries apparently remained committed to maintaining their hospitals, thereby fulfilling their charitable responsibilities to their respective communities. Even though at Hythe evidence of this concern is only available indirectly because the master’s accounts for neither St John’s nor St Bartholomew’s hospitals survive for the period before the late sixteenth century, as noted above the bailiff and jurats were often present when St Bartholomew’s hospital leased out its lands in the fifteenth century.54 Furthermore, unusually for an early foundation, St Bartholomew’s hospital continued to receive at least some grants of land throughout the same period, as well as twenty-six testamentary bequests between 1400 and 1510. Not all these donors had been or were jurats at the time of their death, and there were four women among the benefactors. Yet for Agnes Badell, whose husband had been a jurat, her bequest of 6s. 8d. to St Bartholomew’s in 1484 may have reflected John’s concern for the hospital’s wellbeing in addition to her own.55
For St John’s hospital in Hythe, it is likely that the bailiff and jurats continued to appoint three of their number to act as wardens and that they fulfilled their duties throughout the fifteenth century as Bishop Hamo had envisaged. By 1546 their number had been reduced to two, yet their presence in the Chantry Certificates highlights the value the civic authorities placed on their hospital and this more direct governance may partly explain the more muted level of testamentary support St John’s received compared to St Bartholomew’s.56 In all it received gifts from seven testators, half of whom provided land, which may have been viewed as more valuable than cash, while William Legh (1499) not only intended the hospital should receive £2 from the sale of a house but also sufficient to purchase three coverlets.57 Further evidence of the type and level of governance exercised by Hythe’s civic authorities is extremely difficult to ascertain because, unlike its namesake at New Romney, the master, brothers and sisters at St John’s in Hythe did not receive their allowances from the bailiff and jurats, and thus such sums were not recorded in the town accounts. Instead the hospital was seemingly self- sufficient, and, even though the rents St John’s received were less than those received by St Bartholomew’s, they were presumably enough to sustain the poor living at the hospital, including paying 8s. per annum to the master for his fee.58
In contrast, during the fifteenth century the mayor and jurats at Sandwich apparently adopted a more proactive stance towards their hospitals. As part of the annual procession to St Bartholomew’s hospital on 24 August, the civic officers covered the cost of the wax tapers, but also supported other aspects of
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the commemoration of the town’s saintly saviour by apparently parading a giant puppet of Eustace the Monk, the town’s and England’s enemy in 1217.59 Such a spectacle was presumably enjoyed by the inhabitants, and may have drawn visitors to the town, thereby increasing the hospital’s fame and enhancing the relationship between Sandwich, St Bartholomew and the town’s charitable institution. Although this annual celebration, including the service and feast at St Bartholomew’s was the most prestigious visitation, the leading civic officers continued to visit the hospital to inspect the master’s accounts, and presumably also to admit new brothers and sisters. On these latter occasions, they would have witnessed the swearing of the oath of obedience and the paying, wholly or partially, of the required entry fee.60
Moreover, like the selection of the new inmates and their subsequent lives as hospital brothers and sisters, aspects of this ceremony were under the control of the civic authorities. For example, the oath was revised during the mayoralty of John Westclyve in the later fifteenth century, and probably at the same time there appears to have been a change of emphasis on the role of the community at St Bartholomew’s, the brothers and sisters expected to attend divine service daily, to say two psalters of Our Lady, and to say prayers for the hospital’s benefactors and patrons.61 In part this may reflect the difficulties of attracting priest brothers to St Bartholomew’s, requiring a corresponding greater involvement of the brothers and sisters to act as beadsmen and women for the civic authorities collectively and individually. This might indicate a move towards the stance advocated by Whittington and his fellow almshouse founders who placed special emphasis on the devotional duties of their almsfolk.62 However, such developments do not appear to have markedly altered the daily activities of the inmates at the hospital, who continued to labour on the home farm, undertake associated work, and some apparently maintained at least part of their business interests outside St Bartholomew’s.63 The civic authorities generally seem to have tolerated this situation, as a means, perhaps, to attract those they saw as suitably worthy inmates, who were able to pay the required fee.64 This latter point is significant because the authorities sometimes used the fees for town works on behalf of the commonalty, which suggests that generally they continued to hold similar views to the 1410 parliamentary petitioners.65
Yet how and where the selection process of new inmates was conducted is not recorded, but changes to the regulations governing the type of person who might enter St Bartholomew’s and associated issues are entered in the civic books.66 These show that the civic authorities did introduce amendments during the fifteenth century, including the ruling, in 1482, that no man could become or remain a brother at St Bartholomew’s, St John’s or St Thomas’ hospitals if he held any office in the town.67 However, most of the new rules adopted concerned those governing St Bartholomew’s hospital, as in 1435 when it was decreed that the mayor could only sell corrodies in his role as patron of the hospital. This coincided with a period of financial difficulty for St Bartholomew’s, and suggests that some within the town government had been prepared to abuse their position. Whether further abuses regarding patronage were thought to have occurred thirty years later is unclear, but in 1467 the common assembly reduced the mayor’s power by decreeing that thereafter all new brothers and sisters at the hospital would be chosen by them alone. Furthermore, in an attempt to reduce the dangers of influence, it was decreed that others from the hospital were not to be present at the election.68 The
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common assembly, probably in response to further problems regarding recruiting priests to St Bartholomew’s, altered the composition of the community in 1480, decreeing that thereafter the hospital should house two priests, eight brothers and five sisters; and introduced a second ordinance that joint corrodies for husbands and wives were no longer permitted, including those that had been previously issued.69 By the following year, the mayor and jurats seem to have regained control of the patronage of St Bartholomew’s and continued to exercise this right into the sixteenth century.70
Notwithstanding these possible abuses as patrons by some amongst the senior office holders, others within this group displayed considerable concern for the hospital’s well-being. In 1449, the mayor Richard Cok gave a corrody at St Bartholomew’s to John Serle the common clerk in recognition of ‘his good service and his future labour’.71 As common clerk, Serle was responsible for the town records and the admissions’ register at St John’s hospital (see below), but for the benefit of St Bartholomew’s hospital he compiled a register containing copies of over seventy deeds (1227-1445), a copied rental from 1427, and the hospital ordinances, including the revised oaths to be taken by the master and inmates.72 Even though it is not known whether he knew of similar clerical activities in London respecting the capital’s late medieval almshouses, it is possible because of the commercial and administrative links between Sandwich and London.73 Moreover, presumably he had read Adam Champney’s preamble to Sandwich’s first custumal and was well aware of the pragmatic use of such property records, as well as their value as a means of placing the hospital and its holdings within Sandwich, a form of textual mapping that demonstrated the long-standing and ongoing relationship between the town and its hospital.74 In addition, it is feasible that the French raid on the town in 1457, which included the theft of records from one of Sandwich’s parish churches, was a catalyst for at least part of Serle’s endeavour, because this attack highlighted the fragility of documentary sources and the consequent need to ensure the preservation of this important knowledge about the town’s senior civic hospital.75
Turning to the relationship between St John’s hospital and the civic authorities, visitations similarly offered the mayor and jurats close oversight of the organisation of this institution, the hospital’s admissions’ book indicates how frequently the mayor, often accompanied by two jurats and the common clerk, witnessed the entry of a new brother or sister. Due to the nature of these visitations, their frequency varied annually and between 1400 and 1510 no visitations were conducted in fourteen years (13%). Nevertheless, in over 62% of the years in this period between one and three visitations per annum took place, and in the remaining years visitations were even more frequent, including six years when there were either eight or nine visits each year. This peak occurred between the mid-1440s and the late 1450s, which may reflect a difficult period for the hospital and the town more broadly, although there was a more minor rise in the mid-1430s and immediately after 1500. As well as providing an idea regarding the civic authorities’ concern that the correct procedures were enacted at the oath-taking, these events and their recording in the hospital’s register, perhaps by the town’s common clerk, suggest that respective mayors were also keen to ensure the new inmate paid his or her fee. Such concerns may in part reflect the relatively precarious nature of the hospital’s
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finances because it had comparatively little property, much of it from the early fifteenth century on long-term lease, and other income was probably heavily reliant on casual alms and testamentary bequests. Most entry fees were paid in cash, sometimes specifically allocated towards repairing the hospital.76 Yet payment in kind, building materials or labour, was accepted occasionally. For example, two new sisters in the early 1460s gave in total 3,000 tiles, and on rare occasions in the mid-century a mattress and items of bedding were seen as sufficient, but whether it was the civic authorities or the master who sanctioned such cases is not stated. However, it seems more likely that the mayor claimed this authority, and similarly the amount and conditions of payment, which meant the civic authorities were acutely aware of the decline in the level of entry fee collected over the century, a problem compounded by the growing number of brothers and sisters who sought to pay by instalments.
The admissions’ book also shows that sometimes the mayoral visitations were used to distribute allowances to the brothers and sisters, especially in the early decades of the fifteenth century; to hear the master’s accounts; to oversee the election of office holders (master and harbinger, who was responsible for the short- stay inmates who were housed at the rear of the hospital); to punish offenders, and to conduct enquires about the hospital’s goods, including the drawing up of detailed inventories of the chapel and the harbinge. Regarding these latter supervisory activities by the mayor and his brethren, they seem to have becoming increasingly important in the later fifteenth century, leading presumably to the new regulation, in 1479, against unruly behaviour at the hospital, although such issues became even more pressing in the early sixteenth century.77 Nonetheless, whether the civic authorities saw these issues regarding fees – falling amounts, instalments and defaulting; as well as the rise in disciplinary matters at this time, as symptomatic of the type of people admitted is unclear, but certain mayors apparently sought to improve the spiritual life of their hospital. Firstly, the brothers and sisters were expected to spend more time at their prayers in the chapel, saying two psalters of Our Lady daily, and this pious commitment was seemingly matched by the importance placed on the care of sick-poor in the harbinge. By placing these twin requirements on the brothers and sisters at St John’s, the civic authorities collectively were publicly discharging their charitable Christian duty to the town, as might be perceived in Lollard-terms, while simultaneously providing beadsmen and women who could offer prayers for the souls of the hospital’s benefactors.78 Yet, if the testamentary records are representative of the demand for intercessory services by individuals in Sandwich, this was negligible because only two testators specifically requested the prayers of the brothers and sisters, in 1466 and almost thirty years later.79 It is feasible more of the hospital’s testamentary benefactors (in total twenty-eight bequests in 167 wills) believed such prayers would be forthcoming without the need for an explicit request, and the most frequent gift of 12d. may denote the use of the symbolism of numbers, often found in funeral doles, because the number of inmates at St John’s over this period varied between eleven and fifteen. Nevertheless, the hospital’s charitable activities were seemingly also recognised by a few Sandwich testators because among the twenty-eight bequests were gifts of bedding. For example, Nicholas Burton provided such items as one of his two bequests to St John’s hospital, which may have been used in the harbinge;
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albeit these isolated gifts may imply that for most testators, maintenance of the community at St John’s, as a civic establishment, was envisaged as the mayor’s responsibility.
Thus collectively and individually, even though there seems to have been a slight shift in the later fifteenth century regarding how the civic authorities in Sandwich envisaged the roles of the hospital communities at St Bartholomew’s and St John’s, broadly the focus remained on these institutions as houses for respectable poorer and perhaps elderly persons from the town and its east Kent hinterland. Furthermore, for much of the fifteenth century these hospitals were under the guardianship of the mayor and jurats, and, even when they lost control of the selection of the inmates at St Bartholomew’s, this continued to be in lay hands. Similarly, at St Thomas’ hospital and Elys’ chantry laymen, and more importantly senior civic officers, continued to act as feoffees during the fifteenth century, John Grene serving as mayor three times, his fellow feoffee John Swan twice, and both men also represented the town in Parliament on various occasions over five decades.80 This level of lay involvement seems to have been considered sufficient by the civic authorities and, even though the evidence is meagre, the lives of the brothers and sisters may have resembled those of their counterparts at St John’s and St Bartholomew’s.81 Consequently, probably much of their time was devoted to working for the community, although by the late fifteenth century at all three hospitals the move towards individual accommodation may have begun.82 However, at both Elys’ hospital and chantry the civic authorities in the early sixteenth century apparently sought direct involvement in the management of these institutions, as well as in other aspects of the town’s religious life, but still there is nothing to suggest that Elys’ chantry priests and his almsfolk undertook joint intercessory activities, unlike those as many late medieval almshouses.83
In conclusion, historians are not entirely correct in believing that the call by late fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century reformers for almshouses to be under lay control was in many ways innovative. Indeed, the value of lay governorship had been recognised in a few towns before this movement, and this had included the role of the local civic authorities as hospital patrons, who saw themselves as demonstrating their social and charitable responsibility towards the town’s poor. The Kentish Cinque Ports of Sandwich, Hythe and New Romney together offer a fascinating case study regarding such earlier medieval corporate provision through the ports’ civic hospitals, as well as insights respecting how the priorities of the civic authorities changed over the fifteenth century as they responded to current circumstances. Moreover, through their governance of these institutions, in conjunction with other regulations on matters including pricing of staple commodities, waste disposal from shambles and the provision of common latrines, the town officers demonstrated their social responsibility for the well-being of their communities, which was all part of the construction and maintenance of civic identity, as important in the Middle Ages as it is today.
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endnotes
1 Although, as she also pointed out, this was not an exclusively Lollard agenda; M. Aston, ‘‘Caim’s Castles’: Poverty, Politics, and Disendowment’, in The Church, Politics and Patronage in the Fifteenth Century, ed. Barrie Dobson (Gloucester, 1984), pp. 45-81; reprinted in eadem, Faith and Fire: Popular and Unpopular Religion, 1350-1600 (London and Rio Grande, 1993), pp. 102, 103 n. 22.
2 Aston, Faith and Fire, pp. 111-13.
3 Ibid., pp. 128-31; J. Henderson, Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence (Chicago and London, 1997), p. 246.
4 Aston, Faith and Fire, p. 112.
5 N. Orme and M. Webster, The English Hospital 1070-1570 (New Haven and London, 1995),
pp. 131-6; they, too, examine late medieval almshouse foundations, 136-46. C. Rawcliffe, ‘A Crisis of Confidence? Parliament and the demand for hospital reform in early-15th and early 16th-century England’, Parliamentary History, 35 (2016), pp. 88-96.
6 C. Rawcliffe, ‘Dives Redeemed? The Guild Almshouses of Later Medieval England’, in The Fifteenth Century VIII: Rule, Redemption and Representation in Late Medieval England and France, ed. L. Clark (Woodbridge, 2008), pp. 1-27; eadem, Urban Bodies: Communal Health in Late Medieval English Towns and Cities (Woodbridge, 2013), pp. 314-15; C. Barron, London in the Later Middle Ages: Government and People 1200-1500 (Oxford, 2004), pp. 294-5, 298-300. In Kent, the Corpus Christi guild at Maidstone had its own almshouse; Kent History & Library Centre [hereafter KHLC], Md/G/12; P. Clark and L. Murfin, The History of Maidstone: the making of a modern county town (Stroud, 1995), pp. 35-7. For parish almshouses: P. Horden, ‘Small Beer? The Parish and the Poor and Sick in Later Medieval England’, in The Parish in Late Medieval England, ed. C. Burgess and E. Duffy (Donington, 2006), pp. 346-9, 355, 359.
7 A. Appleford, Learning to Die in London, 1380-1540 (Philadelphia, 2015), pp. 66-71; Rawcliffe, ‘Crisis of Confidence’, pp. 96-8.
8 S. Farmer, ‘From Personal Charity to Centralised Poor Relief: The Evolution of Responses to the Poor in Paris, c.1250-1600’, in Experiences of Charity, 1250-1650, ed. A.M. Scott (Farnham, 2015), pp. 22, 30-1.
9 Ibid., p. 31.
10 Rawcliffe, Urban Bodies, pp. 320-1, 325, 329-31, 335, 338, 341, 344.
11 Ibid., p. 319.
12 Rawcliffe, ‘Crisis of Confidence’, p. 86.
13 C. Rawcliffe, ‘Communities of the living and the dead: hospital confraternities in the later Middle Ages’, in Hospitals and Communities, 1100-1960, ed. C. Bonfield, J. Reinarz and T. Huguet- Termes (Bern, 2013), pp. 133-4; Orme and Webster, English Hospital (New Haven and London, 1995), pp. 35, 69-70; S. Sweetinburgh, The Role of the Hospital in Medieval England: Gift-giving and the Spiritual Economy (Dublin, 2004), pp. 39, 42.
14 There was a leper hospital at each of the Ports: St Anthony’s at Sandwich, St Bartholomew’s at Dover, a house at Saltwood to the north of Hythe that may have been dedicated to St Bartholomew from an early date, and St Stephen and St Thomas’ hospital at Romney. As was usual concerning such hospitals, they were located by main roads and some distance from the town centre; Sweetinburgh, Role of the Hospital, pp. 71 n. 7, 136, 187 n. 15.
15 The civic authorities were involved in the management of hospitals at Hastings (St Mary Magdalen), Winchelsea (St Bartholomew, and St John, but not Holy Cross), and to a more limited extent at Rye (St Bartholomew ‘outside Rye’ at Playden). As at Sandwich, the town custumals include matters relating to the governance of these establishments ; W. Page, ed., The Victoria County History: Sussex (London, 1907), pp. 103, 104-5, 107 [available online at: British History Online http://www. british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol2/ ]. See also; G. Draper et al., Rye. A History of a Sussex Cinque Port to 1660 (Chichester, 2009), pp. 144-50; D. Martin and B. Martin, New Winchelsea Sussex: A Medieval Port Town (King’s Lynn, 2004), pp. 90-3.
16 St John’s hospital, New Romney, may owe its origins to the archbishop of Canterbury because in the later thirteenth century it is known to have owed a salt rent as part of the archbishop’s bailiwick of Aldington; K. Witney (trans. and ed.), The Survey of Archbishop Pecham’s Kentish Manors 1283- 85, Kent Records 28 (Maidstone, 2000), p. 242.
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17 The author would like to thank Mr Tim Lawrence, clerk, and the trustees of the Hythe hospitals of St Bartholomew and St John for access to their medieval archives, especially the charters, and the unpublished catalogue of the hospitals’ muniments.
18 Sweetinburgh, Role of the Hospital, p. 167.
19 For Dover’s hospitals, see Sweetinburgh, Role of the Hospital, pp. 127–82.
20 CPR, 1334-1338, p. 264.
21 KHLC, EK/Ch23/5; EK/Ch23/14/1.
22 CPR, 1340-1343, p. 427.
23 In 1334, five Hythe men had each granted rents to a hospital dedicated to St Andrew, and in three of the grants there are references to a previous grant by Thomas de Brokhelle who had given land to sustain the poor men, which means he should probably be seen as the founder; KHLC, EK/ Ch23/21/2; EK/Ch23/26a; EK/Ch23/29; EK/Ch23/56/1; EK/Ch23/56/2.
24 KHLC, EK/Ch23/28; EK/Ch23/14/2.
25 KHLC, EK/Ch23/44/1; EK/Ch23/44/2.
26 In a reversionary bequest Henry Skynner referred to the house of St John the Baptist in his will dated 1461; KHLC, PRC 32/2, fol. 51. Yet the memory of the double dedication did survive because an indenture dated 1545 between the prior and Thomas Hales of Thanington, near Canterbury, refers to the hospital of St Andrew and St Bartholomew the Apostle near Hythe; KHLC, EK/Ch23/321.
27 W. Page, ed., Victoria County History: Kent, vol. 2 (London, 1926), p. 221.
28 Even though the only surviving will made by one of the brothers at St Bartholomew’s hospital dates from 1498, his bequests suggest he was a relatively poor person from the locality and, therefore, the sort of person who might find a place at an almshouse; KHLC, PRC 32/5, fol. 7.
29 KHLC, EK/Ch23/30.
30 The double dedication seemingly disappeared extremely quickly and within a year of Hamo’s intended amalgamation of the hospitals. The charter evidence showing that St Bartholomew’s hospital continued to receive gifts under this dedication in the later fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; KHLC, EK/Ch23/37; EK/Ch23/40; EK/Ch23/65; EK/Ch23/69; EK/Ch23/68.
31 KHLC, EK/Ch23/59.
32 G. Draper and F. Meddens, The Sea and the Marsh: The Medieval Cinque Port of New Romney, Pre-Construct Archaeology Ltd, Monograph 10 (London, 2009), pp. 52, 53.
33 J. Croft, ‘The custumals of the Cinque Ports c.1290-c.1500: studies in the cultural production of the urban record’ (Kent Univ. ph.d.. thesis, 1997), p. 348.
34 KHLC, Sa/LC 1, fol. 15v.
35 Sweetinburgh, Role of the Hospital, pp. 188-90.
36 KHLC, Sa/LC 1, fols 16-19v.
37 KHLC, Sa/LC 1, fol. 20.
38 KHLC, Sa/LC 1, fols, 20-21v.
39 CPR, 1391-96, p. 109.
40 The two lay feoffees were John Godard and Richard Benge. Godard had been mayor in 1379, 1383, 1384-6, 1392, and would be again in 1403-6, as well as serving in Parliament during Richard II’s reign on several occasions. Benge, too, would serve as mayor in 1407-8, and he had attended Parliament during Richard II’s reign; W. Boys, Collections of an History of Sandwich in Kent, with Notices of the other Cinque Ports and Members and of Richborough (Canterbury, 1792), p. 166; Croft, ‘Custumals’, p. 135.
41 A. Hussey, ed., Kent Chantries, Kent Records 12 (Ashford, 1936), p. 264.
42 Appleford, Learning to Die, pp. 65-73.
43 In an inventory, dated 1490, the chambers of the harbinge comprised the ‘chambre of harber for strange women’, the gentilmen chambre’ and the ‘longe harbur chambre’; KHLC, EK/Ch/10J/A1.
44 Draper and Meddens, Sea and the Marsh, p. 53.
45 Ibid., pp. 53-4.
46 Very few testators from Romney remembered the hospital: in 1488 John Lane bequeathed two sheets, and a further 26s. 8d. as a reversionary gift; KHLC, PRC 32/3, fol. 201. Just over a decade
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later in 1502 Margaret Swanne also gave a pair of sheets to St John’s; KHLC, PRC 32/7, fol. 83.
47 Draper and Meddens, Sea and the Marsh, p. 54.
48 Ibid., p. 117. Almost all the testators who sought burial in St John’s churchyard said they were
of St Laurence’s parish, the two exceptions were testators from St Nicholas’ parish.
49 George Halsnoth; KHLC, PRC 32/3, fol. 196; Joan Robyn; KHLC, PRC 32/9, fol. 66.
50 Draper and Meddens, Sea and the Marsh, pp. 54-5.
51 The site of the hospital was later used by the Southland family, a leading Romney family, for their almshouse; Draper and Meddens, Sea and the Marsh, pp. 55, 118.
52 This represents 13 testators in a total of 97 Romney wills up to 1510.
53 For Hythe the figures are 53 testators in a total of 181 wills for the same period, and for
Sandwich 31 testators in 243 wills.
54 The earliest accounts book for St John’s starts in 1597, and although there is an apparently similarly dated book for St Bartholomew’s hospital, the first in which the dates are known begins in 1647; KHLC, EK/Ch23/books/2; 3; 6.
55 KHLC, PRC 32/2, fol. 621.
56 According to the chantry certificates, the two wardens received an annual fee for supervising
the almshouse; Hussey, Kent Chantries, p. 163.
57 William Legh; KHLC, PRC 32/5, fol. 24.
58 Hussey, Kent Chantries, p. 165.
59 The amount spent on wax by the civic treasurer varied but was generally about 5s.; KHLC, Sa/ FAt 2-9.
60 Although variable, £10 was the highest during this period, but it did increase steeply in the sixteenth century, almost doubling to £19 in 1535. Yet this is comparable to that required at St Leonard’s, York in the late fourteenth century; P. Cullum, ‘Hospitals and charitable provision in medieval Yorkshire’ (York Univ. d.phil. thesis 1990), p. 177.
61 KHLC, Sa/LC 2, fol. 70v.
62 Appleford, Learning to Die, pp. 66-72; Sweetinburgh, Role of the Hospital, pp. 214, 232.
63 Robert Sherve (1473); KHLC, PRC 32/2, fol. 512.
64 However, in the early sixteenth century William Baldock, a brother at St Bartholomew’s, was penalised for the engaging in his own affairs to the detriment of the hospital; KHLC, Sa/AC 2, fols 279v, 363; Sweetinburgh, Role of the Hospital, pp. 214, 216 n. 51.
65 For example, in 1483, the civic authorities agreed to use the fees from the next corrody for work
on the town conduit; KHLC, Sa/AC 1, fol. 287.
66 Occasionally the name of a new brother or sister was noted in the town book, for example, John
Paston in 1455; KHLC, Sa/AC 1, fol. 97v.
67 KHLC, Sa/AC 1, fol. 280.
68 KHLC, Sa/AC 1, fol. 170v.
69 KHLC, Sa/AC 1, fol. 257.
70 In the town book under 1481 it was recorded that the mayor and jurats had agreed that Joan Brygge should have a corrody as a sister at St Bartholomew’s hospital, paying 10 marks over four years; KHLC, Sa/AC 1, fol. 264.
71 KHLC, Sa/AC 1, fol. 76v.
72 KHLC, EK/Ch10/B/A1.
73 Appleford, Learning to Die, pp. 77-8; see also, H. Carrel, ‘Food, drink and public order in the London Liber Albus’, Urban History, 33 (2006), 176-94.
74 S. Sweetinburgh, ‘Writing the town in mid fifteenth-century Sandwich: the contribution of John Serle, common clerk’, in Book Culture in Provincial Communities: Contexts for Reading and Writing 1450-1650, ed. C. Bartram (Bern, 2020). For a general survey, see, C. Rawcliffe, ‘Passports to Paradise: how English Medieval Hospitals and Almshouses kept their Archives’, Archives 27 (2002), pp. 2-5, 11-22.
75 Although responding to a different form of conflict, the production of hospital registers at Canterbury may provide a useful comparison; S. Sweetinburgh, ‘Placing the hospital: the production of St Lawrence’s hospital registers in fifteenth-century Canterbury’, in The Fifteenth Century
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XIII. Exploring the Evidence: Commemoration, Administration and Economy, ed. Linda Clark (Woodbridge, 2014), pp. 110, 119.
76 Among these were several new inmates in the 1450s, such as John Boryver who paid 10s. in two instalments, a further entry regarding two elms in crossed out; KHLC, EK/Ch/10J/A1.
77 The regulation stated that on the first occasion when ‘ungodly’ language was used the guilty party was to pay two pounds of wax, the next time four pounds, and the third time banished from the hospital; KHLC, EK/Ch/10J/A1.
78 For the civic authorities care for the poor, whether inside or outside the hospital, was apparently predicated on the idea of helping those from Sandwich. This policy became more blatant from the early decades of the sixteenth century, itinerant paupers seen as a threat to the well-being of the town; Sweetinburgh, Role of the Hospital, 210-13.
79 John Kenet (1466) and Thomas Colman (1494); KHLC, PRC 17/1, fol. 341; PRC 17/6, fol. 90.
80 Boys, Sandwich, pp. 406-8, 417-18.
81 Although a brother at St Thomas’ in the sixteenth century, John Newman’s testament includes references to his allowances and his own fuel wood, as well as the idea of communal leisure activities; KHLC, PRC 17/23, fol. 56.
82 S. Sweetinburgh, ‘Joining the sisters: female inmates of the late medieval hospitals in east Kent’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 123 (2003), 31.
83 In 1509, the mayor instructed the common clerk to make a copy of the chantry’s foundation charter in the town book, and four years later the mayor chose the entrant at St Thomas’ hospital; KHLC, Sa/AC 2, fols 166v-67; 207. See also; S. Sweetinburgh, ‘Discord in the public arena: processes and meanings of the St Bartholomew’s Day festivities in early sixteenth-century Sandwich’, in Negotiating the Political in Northern European Urban Society, c.1400-c.1600, ed. S. Sweetinburgh (Tempe, Arizona and Turnhout, 2013), pp. 71-97.
RECONSTRUCTING THE PREHISTORIC LANDSCAPES OF THE LITTLEBROOK POWER STATION SITE, DARTFORD
phil stastney
with contributions from
Graham Spurr (geoarchaeological fieldwork and initial reporting), Rob Scaife (pollen), John Whittaker (ostracods and foraminifera) and Enid Allison (insects)
Analysis of the thick Holocene sediment sequences at the site of Littlebrook Power station, Dartford, has revealed an archive of environmental change spanning much of the Holocene, from the Early Mesolithic to the historic period. Analysis of core samples from the site, along with modelling of stratigraphic data from nearby boreholes, has allowed the past environments of Littlebrook to be reconstructed. Whilst changing on-site depositional environments were largely driven by relative sea level rise, there was intensifying human influence on the surrounding landscape, beginning with the first evidence of cereal cultivation during the Neolithic and followed by a marked expansion of pastoralism from the Roman period onwards.
The Lower Thames Estuary, along with its adjoining swathes of flat marshland, dominates the landscape of north Kent, physically defining the county’s border with Essex, and shaping much of the region’s history. Given the well-documented relationship between the Estuary and the economic, social, and military history of the region (Addison 1954; Bowler 1969; VCH 1974; Bull 1996; Galloway 2009; Lichtenstein 2017), it is perhaps not surprising that there is a long tradition of enquiry into the natural history of the Estuary itself. Whilst in other parts of the country the landscape can sometimes be imagined as a constant, unchanging backdrop to the development of human civilisation (Muir 1999; Daniels 2009; Gammon and Elkington 2015), even the earliest studies of the Thames Estuary acknowledged the profound changes that the river and its margins have undergone over timescales commensurate with the human history of the region (e.g. Spurrell 1885).
The history of study of the sedimentary sequence of the Thames Estuary reaches back to the late 19th century with Flaxman C.J. Spurrell’s (1889a) paper given at the Geologists’ Association; even at this early stage, Spurrell was plainly aware of the importance of long-term changes in sea-level and the effects that these had on the archaeology of the region, both in terms of understanding where, and how deeply buried, archaeological remains might be found, and the changing environmental context of past human occupation (Spurrell 1885, 1889b).
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In the 20th century, a series of landmark studies carried out by Devoy (1977, 1979, 1980, 1982, 2000), elucidated in detail a complex sequence of changes in relative sea level during the Holocene Epoch (the last 11,700 years, after the ‘ice ages’ of the Pleistocene Epoch). Through the application of pollen analysis and radiocarbon dating, Devoy (1980) was also able to understand in greater detail the complex interaction between phases of marine transgression and regression and patterns of human activity and vegetation change in the wider landscape, and thus begin to place these processes within the framework of climatic change during the Holocene. The importance of understanding these processes and patterns has taken on greater significance in the light of a new focus on ‘sustainable development’ enshrined in the National Planning Policy Framework (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government 2018).
In 2014 and 2015, MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) carried out a programme of geoarchaeological investigations at Littlebrook Power Station, Dartford, in advance of redevelopment.1 The work involved multiple phases of borehole sampling, laboratory analysis and deposit modelling in order to explore the Holocene environmental history of the site and provide evidence for past human activity in that part of the Lower Thames Estuary.
The redevelopment site at Littlebrook (centred at NGR TQ 56000 76160) covers approximately 30ha in an area of reclaimed marshland, south-east of the present Dartford Marshes, and lies on the south bank of the River Thames, approximately
2.5km downstream from the confluence of the River Darent / Dartford Creek (Fig. 1).
The site is underlain by bedrock of the Late Cretaceous White Chalk Subgroup (BGS 1998), which is locally folded upwards (the ‘Purfleet anticline’; Gibbard 1994; Schreve et al. 2002), forming east-west trending ridges within which the present course of the Thames is confined to a relatively narrow valley between Erith and Cliffe. Across the whole of the site and its vicinity the bedrock is overlain by a thick sequence of Holocene alluvial and intertidal silts and clays, capped by a thick raft of made ground upon which the former power station was constructed, whilst 400m further to the south-west the chalk is instead overlain by the Taplow Gravel terrace. A total of nine boreholes (BH1-BH9; see Fig. 1) were put down across the site using a Comacchio dynamic drilling rig, in order to collect continuous sequences of core samples from the present ground surface to the top of the underlying Pleistocene gravel deposits. In the laboratory, the cores were opened and the sediments were described according to standard geological criteria (Tucker 1982; Jones et al. 1999). The sediment descriptions and surveyed positions of the nine geoarchaeological boreholes, along with information from nearby archaeological sites and open-source data available on the British Geological Survey (BGS) website, were entered into digital databases (RockWorks 15 and ArcGIS 10); these were then used to model the below-ground surfaces of key stratigraphic units. The cores containing the thickest and least disturbed sedimentary sequences (BH3 and BH9) were then subsampled for analysis of fossil pollen, plant macro-remains, insects, ostracods, and foraminifera, as well as radiocarbon dating. Samples for dating were submitted to BETA Analytic Inc., Miami, for AMS 14C measurement; dates were calibrated and then converted to calendar dates (in years ‘cal. bc’ or
‘cal. ad’) using the IntCal13 calibration curve (Reimer et al. 2013).2
PREHISTORIC LANDSCAPES OF THE LITTLEBROOK POWER STATION SITE, DARTFORD
image
Fig. 1 Location of the site and boreholes (building arrangement as in 2014; since superseded by redevelopment).
The deposits
To facilitate their discussion, the deposits have been grouped into sets of broadly synchronous strata representing changing depositional environments at the site. These are described in turn, from earliest to latest.
Chalk bedrock and terrace gravels: to the south-west of the site, the surface of the chalk is overlain by deposits of dense sandy flint gravels up to 10m thick, creating a more or less horizontal terrace at around 5m od. The surface of these
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image
Fig. 2 Borehole transect across the site.
gravels represents the remains of a river braid plain, laid down by the forerunner to the present Thames during the Late Pleistocene, now forming a raised terrace (relative to the modern river level) as a result of progressive tectonic uplift combined with subsequent river incision. The older terrace gravels are generally absent within the site, having been removed by subsequent downcutting of the Thames during the latest (Devensian) Stage of the Pleistocene, when the river incised down to -15m od (Fig. 2).
Two boreholes within the site, however, encountered chalk bedrock outcrop- ping at elevations of 0m and 2m od (BH1 and BH6, respectively; see Fig. 2). During the Late Devensian (or, archaeologically, during the Late Upper Palae- olithic), at c.10,000 bc, these localised highpoints would have been prominent features in the landscape, standing more than 10m above the rest of the river valley and remaining prominent features in the landscape for several millennia.
Floodplain gravels (Upper Palaeolithic): following the most recent phase of river downcutting, which occurred in the Devensian Stage, c.80,000-11,650 years
PREHISTORIC LANDSCAPES OF THE LITTLEBROOK POWER STATION SITE, DARTFORD
before present (bp), deposits of sand and gravel began to accumulate on the valley floor. These gravels were typically laid down in a cold-climate, high- energy braid plain environment similar to that in which the older, higher, gravel terraces had formed earlier in the Pleistocene. Large seasonal variations in river output and high sediment loads from the sparsely-vegetated tundra- type landscape resulted in a characteristic topography of multiple braided river channels separated by shifting sand bars and gravel islands that today underlies the whole of the present floodplain of the Thames.
The Early Holocene surface model is shown in Fig. 3, which illustrates the topography around the site at the beginning of the present interglacial. The modelled relief can be considered the template onto which subsequent deposi- tional environments were overlaid. As shown in Fig. 3, the site occupies part of the southern edge of the former Thames braid plain, the buried surface of which typically lies at between -15m and -8m od, rising in the south and west of the site towards the edge of the higher and older terrace gravel. Within the site limits, there are two conspicuous high points representing the chalk outcrops described above.
Basal peat (Early Mesolithic): the beginning of the Holocene at 11,650 bp (9700 bc) (Walker et al. 2009), coincident with the beginning of the Mesolithic, was characterised by rapidly warming climatic conditions and accompanied by large-scale changes in local flora and fauna. As a result of melting of the ice sheets that once covered much of the northern hemisphere, sea levels, estimated to be at approximately -30m od at the start of the Holocene (Devoy 1982), began to rise rapidly. As the climate became more temperate, the seasonal fluctuations in river discharge became less pronounced and, in response to the rising sea levels, finer-grained alluvium typical of lower-energy deposition began to accumulate within parts of the floodplain.
At the beginning of this phase, any alluvial deposition would have been con- centrated towards the centre of the floodplain, with the more marginal parts of the valley, such as the present [Littlebrook] site, being covered by wood- land and marginal riparian wetlands. These environments are represented by a 0.16m-thick layer of woody peat, radiocarbon dated to 8430-8240 cal. bc,3 overlying the floodplain gravels in BH9 at -12.12m od. This basal peat layer contained a typical Early Holocene ‘Boreal’ pollen assemblage, indicating local woodland cover dominated by pine with smaller amounts of hazel and oak, with some birch possibly representing local remnants of the earliest post-glacial pi- oneer woodland (Birks 1989).
Lower alluvium (Late Mesolithic): during the Middle Holocene, broadly coincident with the late Mesolithic, continued inundation of the floodplain led to the deposition of a series of silty clays interspersed with occasional beds of silty peat. Pollen assemblages from these sediments indicate a change to mixed broadleaf woodland, dominated by elm, oak, hazel, and with some lime, on the surrounding drylands, whilst alder carr began to colonise the floodplain. Based on comparisons with other nearby sites (Devoy 1979), the pollen evidence suggests a Middle Holocene date for these deposits, indicating that a gap,
PHIL STASTNEY
image
Fig. 3 Palaeotopographical model of the Early Holocene land surface.
PREHISTORIC LANDSCAPES OF THE LITTLEBROOK POWER STATION SITE, DARTFORD
perhaps of 1,000 to 2,000 years, may have separated the formation of the basal peat and its later inundation and burial.
The presence of brackish-water ostracods and foraminifera throughout these late Mesolithic alluvial deposits indicates some estuarine influence, although salinity was initially very low, as shown by the dominance of freshwater os- tracods4 and the presence of testate amoebae5 in the deposits below -10m od. Above this level, species typical of brackish conditions6 dominated, indicat- ing encroachment of tidal mudflats and high saltmarsh (i.e., above mean high water) in this part of the floodplain during this time. The pattern of increasing estuarine influence is interrupted at the end of the Mesolithic period, however, with the disappearance of all brackish indicators, and the return of freshwater ostracods at -6.3m od.7
The lower alluvial deposits are assigned to the Late Mesolithic on stratigraph- ic grounds, since strata securely dated to the Early Mesolithic and to the early Neolithic were found above and below. Pieces of roundwood from within the lower alluvium of both BH3 and BH9 were submitted for radiocarbon dating, but the resultant Neolithic dates – with ranges between c.3650 and 3350 cal. bc8 – are taken to be unacceptably young. The somewhat earlier Neolithic dates from the overlying peats are deemed the more secure, whilst the dates on these roundwood fragments are thought to pertain not to the (older) sediment they are within, but instead to the later colonisation of the floodplain by woodland during the Neolithic.
Organic beds (Neolithic to Bronze Age): at -5.37m od, the freshwater alluvium in BH9 was overlain by a dark reddish-brown wood peat, dated to 4230-3970 cal. bc11 (at -5.19m od). Similar peats, often interbedded with organic silty clays, were widespread across the site. Closer to the edge of the floodplain, in BH3, these strata returned a date of 3970-3800 cal. bc12 at -4.20m od. Collectively these strata represent a mosaic of freshwater environments: mainly alder carr, but with some marginal areas of reedswamp and alluvial floodplain. Ostracods and foraminifera were entirely absent in these strata, although beetle and bug assemblages indicative of freshwater muddy streams in wooded environments were found in both BH3 and BH9.13
Pollen assemblages in BH9 generally indicated the dominance of alder carr within the floodplain and, initially, the persistence of the Middle Holocene mixed deciduous woodland on the surrounding dry land, although abundances of elm pollen began to decline permanently at -5.12m od. BH3 contained a sim- ilar record of vegetation cover, albeit with slightly greater representation of her- baceous plants and, above -4.20m od, intermittent presence of small amounts of cereal pollen; these small differences in pollen content are due to the position of BH3 on the edge of the densely vegetated floodplain at this time.
Upper alluvium (Bronze Age onwards): the organic-rich deposits across the site were overlain by 2-3m of predominantly minerogenic alluvium, marking a return to sediment deposition on an open estuarine floodplain environment in response to rising relative sea level. The base of the upper alluvium was at
-3.39m od in BH9 and -2.74m od in BH3. Although not directly dated, linear
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interpolation of the age vs. depth models for the two cores suggest a Middle to Late Bronze Age date (i.e., between c.1500 and 800 bc) is likely for the return to estuarine conditions at the site, which accords well with regional models for sedimentation in the Lower Thames (Bates and Whittaker 2004; Stafford et al. 2012). In the lower part of these estuarine deposits, high saltmarsh conditions are indicated, both by the presence of agglutinating foraminifera14 and by occasional thin discontinuous beds of fibrous peat, the uppermost of which were dated to cal. ad 175-38515 and ad 425-61016 in BH3 and BH9, respectively. Above these organic beds, foraminifera indicative of low saltmarsh and tidal flats17 become dominant, indicating ever increasing marine influence from the early medieval period onwards.
Pollen from both BH3 and BH9 indicate open conditions, both on the flood- plain and on the surrounding dry land. Pollen of herbaceous plants and grasses becomes increasingly abundant into the historic period. Although cereal pollen continued to be present in small amounts in BH3, the general opening of the landscape evident from the Roman period onwards was not associated with any significant increase in evidence for cereal cultivation; instead the appearance of pollen associated with pastoral habitats18 illustrates the greater importance of livestock farming over arable agriculture into the historic period.
Evidence for Neolithic agriculture
The first evidence for human disturbance of the natural vegetation cover around Littlebrook occurs during the early Neolithic in the form of a reduction in elm (Ulmus) pollen at -5.12m od in BH9. Given that this is associated with an increase in ash (Fraxinus) and a reduction in lime (Tilia) pollen, this may be indicative of the ‘Elm Decline’ – a widespread event in north-western Europe commonly associated with early agriculture during the Neolithic (Scaife 1988; Parker et al. 2002; Batchelor et al. 2014). In BH3, closer to the margins of the floodplain, evidence for some cultivation in the surrounding landscape is provided in the form of the intermittent presence of cereal pollen above -4.20m od. Cereal pollen was absent in BH9, although cultivated cereals do not tend to disperse large volumes of pollen across the surrounding landscape, so this apparent absence is almost certainly due to the dense alder carr vegetation drowning out any faint traces of cereal cultivation in that sampling location.
The decline in elm pollen in BH9 occurs just above the horizon dated to 4230- 3970 cal. bc,19 and age vs. depth modelling provides an age estimate for the onset of the event of c.4195-3850 cal. bc (95% confidence),20 which is within the typical range observed elsewhere in the British Isles (Parker et al. 2002). The two most common explanations put forward for the elm decline are either deliberate human deforestation, which (due to preference for particular soils favoured by elm or some other factor) disproportionately affected elm over other types of tree, or a widespread outbreak of Dutch elm disease. The main vectors for Dutch elm disease are the two species of European elm bark beetle (Scolytus scolytus and S. multistriatus) and remains of these insects have been found in direct association with evidence for an unusually early21 decline in elm at Horton Kirby, 8km south of the site (Batchelor et al. 2014). There was no evidence for the presence of
PREHISTORIC LANDSCAPES OF THE LITTLEBROOK POWER STATION SITE, DARTFORD
Scolytus at the Littlebrook site, but the first positive evidence for cereal cultivation near the site is dated to soon after the local elm decline, at 3970-3800 cal. bc.22 This evidence suggests that, at least in this part of the Thames Estuary, human activity associated with early Neolithic agriculture may have been the principal driver of the decline in elm woodland at the beginning of the Late Holocene. The small increase in ash coincident with the elm decline is typically interpreted as the result of secondary woodland recolonizing clearings left by the removal of elm, and elsewhere in the British Isles this is often put forward as evidence for a pattern of cultivation in shifting clearances (‘landnam’; Iversen 1941; Scaife 1988; Caseldine and Fyfe 2006).
Reconstructing lost landscapes
Geoarchaeological deposit models are increasingly recognised as important tools to help understand and visualise complex sedimentary sequences, and are of particular use when assessing the archaeological and palaeo-environmental potential of sites in alluvial floodplain environments such as the Lower Thames Estuary (Howard and Macklin 1999; Carey et al. 2018). Fig. 3 is an example of such an approach, and illustrates how it can be used to better understand the buried topography of a site; the Early Holocene surface represents the initial topographic ‘template’ onto which all subsequent sedimentation at Littlebrook has been superimposed, and shows a clear distinction between areas of higher terrace gravels and the deeper Thames floodplain. By combining this model with radiocarbon-based age vs depth models, and interpretation of the sedimentary and palaeo-environmental evidence obtained from the samples, it has been possible to produce interpretative palaeo- geographic reconstructions, shown in Fig. 4. These reconstructions were generated for six discreet ‘time slices’ to illustrate the patterns of environmental change at Littlebrook, and provide valuable insights that may inform future archaeological research in the region.
The reconstruction maps show that the greatest magnitude of environmental change occurred during the Mesolithic period. The map for c.8500 bc shows the relict braid plain, inherited from the Pleistocene Thames, still defining the topography of the river valley, potentially still with multiple braided streams, and the characteristic Boreal pine forest on the surrounding drylands. By c.7000 bc, as a result of a rapidly warming climate and rising sea levels, the pine forests had been replaced by warmth-loving mixed broadleaf woodland (Birks 1989), the floodplain began to be colonised by alder carr, and alluvial sedimentation began across some parts of the site. A thousand years later, by c.6000 bc, further sea level rise led to expansion of the active floodplain, and increasingly brackish estuarine conditions.
A further environmental shift occurred at the beginning of the Neolithic period, as the riverine environment shifted back to freshwater conditions, leading to a re-expansion of alder carr woodland across much of the floodplain, as shown in the reconstruction c.3500 bc. Based on current evidence it is not clear if this return to freshwater conditions was caused by a ‘regression’ phase of falling sea levels (Devoy 1982), merely a slowing down in the rate of sea level rise (Bates and Whittaker 2004; Stafford et al. 2012), or alternatively, if this was a localised
PHIL STASTNEY
image
Fig. 4 Landscape reconstructions: Early Mesolithic to c.ad 100.
PREHISTORIC LANDSCAPES OF THE LITTLEBROOK POWER STATION SITE, DARTFORD
phenomenon related to the hydrology of the Darent and Mardyke streams that are both confluent with the Thames immediately upstream of the site. Whatever the cause, the change in salinity had a significant effect on the local landscape during this time. As discussed above, this period is also coincident with the first clear evidence for human impact on the landscape, in the form of small woodland clearances and small-scale cereal cultivation.
During the Bronze Age, brackish conditions once again became established at the site in response to rising sea levels. At this stage, as illustrated in the reconstruction for c.1500 bc, there was a diverse range of wetland habitats on site, with mudflats, saltmarsh and alder carr all represented locally. The deposit modelling also suggests that it is during this period that the distinctive outcrops of chalk bedrock at the site began to be submerged; for some time during later prehistory, these would have formed small islands of drier ground within the growing marshland.
Finally, as shown in the reconstruction for c.ad 100, continued sea level rise led to further expansion of mudflats and saltmarsh. During the Roman period, the ongoing accumulation of estuarine sediments finally buried all traces of the former Early Holocene topography of the site. From the beginning of the historic period onwards, the familiar uniform marshland of the Lower Thames Estuary became established, a landscape that largely persisted until reclamation and development in the twentieth century.
Conclusions
The geoarchaeological and palaeo-environmental work at Littlebrook Power Station has allowed the reconstruction of a complex story of changing landscapes and environments spanning the last 10,000 years. These environmental changes show a range of influences: global climatic conditions, changes in relative sea level, and the impacts of human activity. Pollen from the site has shown evidence for cereal cultivation dating from 3970-3800 cal. bc onwards, and this occurs soon after a decrease in elm, suggesting a probable human cause for the elm decline in this area. Other insights provided by the data from Littlebrook also pose new questions to be answered by future research. The evidence for a return to freshwater conditions during the Neolithic is striking but as yet not fully understood: data from other nearby sites, including well dated ‘sea level index points’ (Shennan and Horton 2002; Edwards 2006),23 are needed to determine if this is related to regionally- significant changes in relative sea level or a more localised phenomenon related to
local tributary streams.
Finally, the work at Littlebrook has illustrated the use of geoarchaeological deposit modelling as a tool for revealing deeply buried topography and hidden landscapes, and, when combined with other palaeo-environmental information, as a means of illustrating and visualising past landscapes.
acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Jamie West of Prologis UK Ltd for commissioning the geoarchaeological investigation and Wendy Rogers of Kent County Council for advice and guidance. Illustrations were prepared by Juan José Fuldain González.
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This project was managed for MOLA by Craig Halsey and Mike Tetreau, both of whom provided valuable insights and editorial advice.
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endnotes
PHIL STASTNEY
1 The investigation and its archive have been assigned archaeological site code KT-LPS14.
2 Using the Clam software package (Blaauw 2010); the age vs. depth models were developed using the Bacon software package (Blaauw and Christen 2011).
3 BETA-418111, 9100±40 bp, δ13C -26.5‰, woody plant remains, 8430-8240 cal. bc (95% confidence).
4 Especially Candona neglecta, with other species including Cyclocypris ovum and Ilocypris gibba.
5 Testate amoebae are usually present only in the very highest parts of saltmarshes but are more usually associated with freshwater habitats (Barnett et al. 2017).
6 Brackish foraminifera Jadammina macrescens, Arenoparrella maxicana, Ammonia sp., and the brackish ostracod Leptocythere porcellanea.
7 Cryptocandona vavrai and Cyclocypris ovum.
8 BH3 -5.5m od: BETA-439234, 4640±30 bp, δ13C -26.9‰, roundwood, 3520-3350 cal. bc (95%
confidence); BH3 -6.8m od: BETA-418109, 4720±30 bp, δ13C -27.8‰, roundwood, 3635-3375 cal. bc (95% confidence); BH9 -8.8m od: BETA-439236, 4790±30 bp, δ13C -29.0‰, roundwood, 3645- 3520 cal. bc (95% confidence).
11 BETA-439235, 5250±30 bp, δ13C -26.8‰, woody plant remains, 4230-3970 cal. bc (95% confidence).
12 BETA-439233, 5100±30 bp, δ13C -23.8‰, woody plant remains, 3970-3800 cal. bc (95% confidence).
13 Hydraena nigrita and H. tesacea, both species typical of still or slowing flowing water, and the birch catkin bug Kleidocerys resedae, and red-legged shield bug Penatoma rufipe, both indicative of woodland.
14 Jadammina macrescens.
15 BH3 -1.2m od: BETA-418108, 1760±30, δ13C -26.2‰, c.f. Phragmites, cal. ad 175-385 (95%
confidence).
16 BH9 -2.13m od: BETA-418110, 1520±30, δ13C -27.1‰, c.f. Phragmites, cal. ad 425-610 (95%
confidence).
17 Ammonia sp., Haynesina germanica and Elphidium williamsoni.
18 Dandelion type (Lactuoideae), ribwort plantain (Plantago lanceolata), clovers/vetches (Trifolium type) and docks (Rumex spp.).
19 BETA-439235 – see note 11 above for details.
20 Age estimates derived from the age vs. depth model are given in italics.
21 7329-7240 cal. bp = 5379-5290 cal. bc.
22 BETA-439233, see note 12 above for details.
23. Sea level index points are ‘known points’ used to reconstruct past sea level changes. Shennan and Horton (2002) have proposed a set of criteria for defining valid index points.
UNDERSTANDING BECKET’S CANTERBURY: THE LEGACY OF WILLIAM URRY
cressida williams
During this year, which marks 850 years since the murder of St Thomas Becket in 1170, and 800 years since the translation of his remains to the new shrine in the Trinity Chapel in 1220, there will be many occasions to reflect on the legacy for Canterbury of its most famous saint. The cult of pilgrimage to his shrine shaped the city, underpinning Canterbury’s economy in the Middle Ages and introducing pilgrim inns and hostels to its streets. The study of Canterbury in Becket’s day and in the early decades of his cult owes a huge amount to one of the city’s greatest historians, William Urry; it is utterly appropriate to reflect on his work and legacy in this anniversary year.
Urry’s main contribution towards the understanding of Becket’s Canterbury is
image
Fig. 1 Detail from CCAL-DCc/Rental 31, transcribed in Angevin Kings as Rental B.
CRESSIDA WILLIAMS
his monumental work Canterbury under the Angevin Kings. This was published in 1967 as a revision of his doctoral thesis for Birkbeck College, entitled ‘Early Rentals and Charters Relating to the Borough of Canterbury’, which he prepared between 1946 and 1955.1 Thus, the work was 21 years in the making. The title of Angevin Kings is deceptive: Urry was not aiming to write a general history of Canterbury during the period.2 Instead, the book is very much led by the sources which he chose for his thesis. Urry had exceptional skills in working with documents, assisted by his first degree in Latin, French and Anglo-Saxon and his History Honours degree, both secured whilst working at the University of London Library.3 The 1967 publication included transcriptions of seven rentals datable from the mid 12th century to about 1206, and transcriptions of 70 charters from the late 11th century to 1236. This material makes up over 220 pages of Angevin Kings, half of the text of the volume.
With Canterbury, Urry chose one of the English cities which is best documented for the Angevin period. It was the city in which he had grown up, and where from 1946 he worked in the Cathedral Library. His knowledge of the city and its history was legendary. By the year 1200, Canterbury Cathedral Priory owned between a third and a half of the domestic property of the city. The archive of the cathedral priory survives well and was available for Urry, albeit in temporary accommodation, as the Victorian library building had been destroyed by bombing in 1942, with rebuilding not completed until 1954.4 Urry also examined documents from the archive of Eastbridge Hospital, some documents from the city’s archive and evidence from Domesday Book. The records enabled him to cover the topics of land ownership and tenure, administration, trades and occupations, and the relationships between cathedral priory and city. Woven through everything is people-rich detail. In Angevin Kings, Urry brought the streets of Canterbury to life, by identifying the occupants of buildings and telling their stories and those of their families. He also added personal detail to the Becket story, through the section on ‘minor actors in the story of Thomas Becket’.
Urry’s text was accompanied by a set of maps drawn in his very distinctive hand. These reconstructed the city in various sections building by building and tenement by tenement, eleven maps for Canterbury in about 1166, thus four years after Becket became Archbishop, and twelve maps for the city in about 1200, thus during the early decades of Becket’s cult. The detail is often densely packed, with the inhabitant or owner noted, and other detail marked, such as notes on streets and buildings, measurements and the location of wells. These maps are an extraordinary accomplishment. The 1166 map of the cathedral precincts draws heavily from the ‘Waterworks Drawing’ of the 1160s in the Eadwine Psalter.5 At the west end of the cathedral, Urry adds a diagram and explanation of the movements of Becket and the knights on the day of the murder, even plotting on the map the mulberry tree under which it is recorded that the knights left their tunics. Urry’s great skill was in linking the events and people of history to the cityscape itself.
With his use of maps, Urry followed in the footsteps of the Rev. H.E. Salter (1863-1951), whose Map of Medieval Oxford was published in 1934, informed by extensive documentary study. Urry’s work should also be seen in the context of an emerging interest in the medieval archaeology of towns and cities; previously, the main focus had been on the Roman archaeology of such settlements. One factor
image
UNDERSTANDING BECKET’S CANTERBURY: THE LEGACY OF WILLIAM URRY
215
Fig. 2 Detail from the map of the precincts in about 1166, with a diagram showing the story of Becket’s murder.
Reproduced with permission from the Urry family.
CRESSIDA WILLIAMS
contributing to the widening of horizons was the devastation of the bombing of World War II, which provided opportunities for excavations in affected cities such as London and Canterbury. Another factor was the rising interest in local history. The Department of English Local History at the University of Leicester was founded in 1948 by William Hoskins, whose seminal work The Making of the English Landscape was published in 1955. Hoskins advocated the importance of combining visual evidence, fieldwork and the study of documents, an approach reflected in Urry’s work. The Society for Medieval Archaeology was formed in 1957, with the intention of encouraging cross-disciplinary collaboration.6 Professor Sheppard Frere, Director of Excavations for the Canterbury Excavations Committee from 1946, supported the formation of the society, while retaining his main interest in Roman archaeology. As Martin Biddle has remarked, there was very little academic interest in the post-Roman archaeology of any towns or cities in the 1960s, when he himself started his programme of excavations in Winchester.7 When Angevin Kings was published, the opinion of reviewers was overwhelmingly positive and the work was considered to be ground-breaking. Geoffrey Martin, who in 1982 would become Keeper of the Public Record Office in London, wrote in his review: ‘[Urry’s] treatment of the evidence is exemplary, and the whole work is a powerful illumination of the medieval town’.8 Urry’s ability to bring together the skills of different disciplines is reflected in the observations on the book by the historian F.R.H. Du Boulay, who wrote: ‘The book is the work of a great archivist, topographer, and antiquary, with local lessons for the economic and social historian interested in an age of swelling population and changing differentiations of wealth’.9 Jane Sayers, diplomatic historian and sometime Deputy Archivist at Lambeth Palace Library, contrasted Urry’s work with the ‘sterile’ approach adopted by the Victoria County History.10 W.A. Pantin (1902-1972), medieval historian at Oxford who built on Salter’s work, remarked on Urry’s focus on the real people of history. He also noted that the work ‘comes providentially at a very appropriate time … for the towns are being threatened more seriously than ever before, and town-plans which have hardly been altered since the 12th century are being obliterated’.11 The 1950s and 1960s in Canterbury saw the clearing and development of areas damaged during World War II, as well as the construction of the ring road and slum clearance. Similarly in Oxford, historic buildings were demolished for redevelopment from the 1930s to the 1950s, Pantin surveying them
before demolition.
Angevin Kings has informed all work on 12th- and 13th-century Canterbury in the decades since its publication, and it has been widely cited in works on social, economic and urban history. In an obituary after Urry’s death in 1981, Jane Sayers noted that no English town had anything to compare with it.12 Urry’s work has also provided an invaluable foundation for excavations by the Canterbury Archaeological Trust since its formation in 1976, with archaeologists able to refer to his documentary studies when interpreting their findings. Biddle has noted how fortunate Canterbury’s archaeologists have been to have Urry’s solid documentary work in place before embarking on excavations. In Winchester, documentary study followed excavation.13
Urry would have been thrilled to have witnessed the excavation of the house of Terric the Goldsmith by the Archaeological Trust in 1990. Terric leased two
UNDERSTANDING BECKET’S CANTERBURY: THE LEGACY OF WILLIAM URRY
properties and a stone house from the cathedral priory in the Buttermarket area and features regularly in Angevin Kings, to the extent that Urry noted in the book’s preface that his wife and family had been compelled to live in his company for a long time.14
Angevin Kings has an academic style; in his later writings, Urry’s style is lighter and more accessible, moving away from the requirements of a doctoral thesis and reflecting the experience he had gained through lecturing. What Angevin Kings doesn’t convey is Urry’s wit, his sense of fun, his ability to engage and inspire, and his skills as a speaker and teacher. That shines through accounts of him by family and friends, which are full of admiration and affection.15 Many recall walking with him through the streets of Canterbury, with Urry recounting stories about individual buildings and the people who lived there. There is evidence in his papers now held at the Cathedral Archives of his generous assistance of many historians and academics, and his friendship with them. Urry’s great passion was for the medieval, but his interests were wide-ranging. He saw himself as a successor to William Somner, 17th-century historian and antiquarian of Canterbury, an edition of whose Antiquities he published in 1977. He published many articles on a range of topics in the Kentish Gazette, the Beaney’s Good Books series, the Friends of the Cathedral’s Chronicle and also (of course) this journal, thus making Canterbury’s history better known to the general public. Two books were published posthumously: Christopher Marlowe and Canterbury in 1988, edited by Andrew Butcher, and Thomas Becket: his last days in 1999, edited by Peter Rowe. In the preface to Angevin Kings, Urry states that he considered the book to be ‘a contribution towards a future History of Canterbury’. Had Urry’s life not been interrupted and cut short by illness, he would no doubt have made many more very significant contributions.16 In addition to his publishing and lecturing activity, he carried out an extraordinary amount of work on the archives in his care at the Cathedral Archives and Library, sorting and cataloguing them, collaborating with the conservator and bookbinder, Jack Maple, in matters relating to the physical care of the collections.
It is ironic that Urry should be so significant for the understanding of Becket’s Canterbury, as he was known to have disliked Becket intensely, without any clear reason for this.17 However, this dislike did not hinder him from writing and lecturing extensively on Becket. Urry moved from Canterbury to Oxford in 1969 to take up the post of Reader in Medieval Western Palaeography, and his lectures on Becket proved inspirational, with students queuing to attend. In 1970, when Becket’s anniversary was marked with a full programme across Canterbury, Urry returned to give a lecture at the then new University of Kent. His son recalls that the lecture was delivered with no notes, with diagrams drawn on the whiteboard. Those attending would have filled the lecture hall twice over; an adjacent lecture hall was used for the overspill.18
There are many ways in which Urry’s legacy can be built on and developed. Jake Weekes of the Canterbury Archaeological Trust has reflected that there is the potential to build on Urry’s ‘extraordinary topography’ of Canterbury through exploring further archaeological evidence for the ‘obscure, poor or disenfranchised’ who are missing from the historic written records and thus also from Urry’s work.19 The proposed Canterbury map in the British Historic Towns Atlas series would
CRESSIDA WILLIAMS
image
Fig. 3 Plaque commemorating William Urry in the Cloister at Canterbury Cathedral. It reads: ‘Remember before God William George Urry, Archivist of this Metropolitical Church and of the City of Canterbury, Reader in Palaeography at Oxford, Fellow of St Edmund Hall, 1913-1981’.
be a worthy heir to Urry’s contribution to interpreting the city through mapping. Modern technologies, such as mobile apps and virtual reality applications, would help share the history of Canterbury more widely with younger generations. Urry made the most of the technology available to him, even building his own photostat machine, made from lenses, old tins and fishing weights.20 It is likely that Urry would have embraced up-to-date technology to inspire others with his love of history and of Canterbury.
UNDERSTANDING BECKET’S CANTERBURY: THE LEGACY OF WILLIAM URRY
‘It is a happiness of local historians that, however slight, their work is never entirely replaced and by the time another comes to write their particular efforts, the original has assumed an antiquarian value all of its own’.21 Thus writes Urry in the introduction to his edition of Somner’s Antiquities. Urry’s work could never be described as slight, and will certainly never be replaced: it holds a firm place in the understanding of Canterbury and indeed of English medieval cities. Angevin Kings and Urry’s other published works will remain heavily used and treasured volumes on the shelves of the Cathedral Archives, a building he saw rise from the ground, which houses collections he cared for with expertise and passion, and near which his ashes now lie. In his review of Angevin Kings for this journal, the late Allen Grove wrote that Canterbury ‘ought to be most grateful’ to Urry. This article is a sign of that gratitude.
acknowledgement
The author is grateful for the assistance of many provided during the preparation of this article, in particular Professor Louise Wilkinson of Canterbury Christ Church University, Bill Urry and Elizabeth Wheatley, son and daughter of William Urry, Professor Paul Bennett of the Canterbury Archaeological Trust, Nathalie Cohen, Canterbury Cathedral Archaeologist, and Ken Reedie.
endnotes
1 Urry pasted a description of the background to his thesis and its publication in the copy which he deposited in the Cathedral Archives and Library.
2 Angevin Kings, p. ix.
3 For a general outline of Urry’s life, see the address given at his memorial service by Dr Henry Mayr-Harting, reprinted as the foreword in William Urry (edited by Peter A. Rowe), Thomas Becket, his last days (1999).
4 The records he studied form part of the archive collection of Christ Church Priory which was inscribed on the UNESCO UK Memory of the World Register in 2016.
5 Trinity College Cambridge MS R.17.1.
6 For a history of the Society, see https://medievalarchaeology.co.uk/the-sma/sma-retrospect- and-prospect/ (accessed October 2019).
7 Martin Biddle, ‘The study of Winchester: archaeology and history in a British Town, 1961- 1983’, in Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. 69 (1984), here p. 95.
8 Review in History, vol. 55, no. 184 (1970), p. 238.
9 Review in Economic History Review, vol. 21 (Apr 1968), p. 170.
10 Press cutting amongst reviews in CCAL-U543 (William Urry papers); publication not known.
11 Review in Medieval Archaeology, vol. 13 (1969), pp. 289-90.
12 Obituary in the Journal of the Society of Archivists, vol. 6, no. 8 (Oct 1981), p. 534.
13 ‘Archaeology and the history of British towns Canterbury and Winchester’, recording of open lecture delivered at the University of Kent on 30 May 1969 (available at University of Kent Special Collections and Archives).
14 Angevin Kings, p. xi.
15 See for example Marjorie Lyle, ‘William Urry, a talk … to the Canterbury Recorder Talking Newspaper’ [no date], available at http://www.canterbury-archaeology.org.uk/ (accessed October 2019). In May 2017, a day to commemorate William Urry was held at the Cathedral Archives. Those sharing their recollections included his son, Bill Urry, Professor Jane Sayers and Marjorie Lyle.
16 Urry was first diagnosed with cancer in 1960, and received drastic treatment for two years. The
treatment proved successful, but cancer returned in 1971.
CRESSIDA WILLIAMS
17 See, for example, Mayr-Harting’s address reprinted in Thomas Becket, his last days (1999), p. vii.
18 Recollections at the ‘Remembering William Urry’ day in May 2017.
19 Jake Weekes, ‘Residues, rentals and social topography in Angevin Canterbury’, in Sheila Sweetinburgh (ed.), Early medieval Kent 899-1200 (2016), pp. 227-44, here pp. 227-8.
20 Recollections by Bill Urry at the ‘Remembering William Urry’ day in May 2017.
21 The Antiquities of Canterbury by William Somner, with a new introduction by William Urry
(1977), p. xvii.
A ROMAN TILE-KILN AND AN ASSOCIATED THIRD- CENTURY HOARD OF SESTERTII AT BIRCHOLT FARM,
BRABOURNE
ernest black
with contributions by Ian Betts and David Rudling
In the summer of 2018 the author contacted the Secretary of the Ashford Archaeological and Historical Society in an attempt to discover material relating to the excavation of a Roman tile-kiln at Bircholt in 1983. The kiln was not listed in the Historic Environment Record at Maidstone nor was any information recorded by Historic England except for an unpublished 1984 report on the fabric of some tiles and a clay sample from the kiln by Dr David Williams as part of the Ceramic Petrology Project of the Department of the Environment.
John Hammon, the then president of the Ashford society, was contacted who confirmed that the excavation had been directed by the late Jim Bradshaw. He added that the material (finds and perhaps also records and plans) from the excavation had been stored in a shed at Bircholt Farm and were lost when this was destroyed.
Very fortunately, however, two sources of information do survive and form the basis of this paper. One is a small number of tiles which had been given to the author on his visit to the site in 1983 recently examined by Dr Ian Betts (MOLA) and compared with known fabrics in the MOLA fabric series for Roman Ceramic Building Material.
The second source is a series of photographs taken by Mr Eddie Garrett during the excavation which were made available to the author recently. The most informative are reproduced below by kind permission of Mr Garrett. Apart from details of the structure of the kiln and its products, one of them shows five coins whose dates suggest that this particular kiln probably ceased production c.ad 265-75; another photo allows the location of the kiln to be pinpointed.
Brabourne is midway between Ashford and Folkestone in south-east Kent (Map 1). Bircholt is in the northern part of the parish. Hammon described the tile-kiln as located ‘about 3-4 hundred yards north-east of Bircholt Farm House, say half way between the farm and the road’. Bircholt Farm House is marked on the 6-inch Ordnance Survey map as Bircholt Court (TR 075 412). One of the surviving
ERNEST BLACK
image
Map 1 Map showing the location of the Bircholt kiln and other sites mentioned in the text (drawn by E. Holloway).
photographs is helpful as it shows the excavated kiln beyond which is a boundary with an angle in it where it changes direction away from the kiln (Fig. 1). Behind the boundary line are trees. This setting seemed to locate the site of the tile-kiln in a field immediately south of Bircholt Wood and this was confirmed to the writer by Mr Peter Joules who currently farms the field. The Google Earth photo for 1990 shows the boundary of Bircholt Wood as it appears in the photograph. However, in the Google Earth photo taken in 1960 the wood is shown extending south-south- west of this boundary along approximately the western third of the field where Mr Garrett’s photograph shows that the kiln is located. This part of the wood was therefore removed at some point between 1960 and 1983 when the pulling out of tree-stumps led to the discovery of the kiln at a point towards the eastern side of the cleared area. The site of the kiln can be given as approximately at TR 0771 4160 and lies about 425m north-north-east of Bircholt farmhouse and about 275m south-west of the road that runs west-north-west from Bircholt Forstal, acceptably close to the estimated location recalled by Hammon.
The photographic evidence
This section provides a commentary on Mr Garrett’s photographs which enables a fairly clear picture to be constructed of the original form and structure of the kiln although precise measurements are not possible and some details remain uncertain. The terminology used in the description follows that in Alan McWhirr’s introduction to his gazetteer of tile-kilns in Roman Britain (McWhirr 1979, 98).
Fig. 1. The photograph was taken after heavy rain had destroyed part of the wall
ROMAN TILE-KILN AND THIRD-CENTURY HOARD OF SESTERTII AT BIRCHOLT FARM
image image
Fig. 1 The Bircholt kiln (E. Garrett).
Scales: 1m.
Fig. 2 The stoke-hole and surviving arch
of the kiln (E. Garrett).
of the main flue and caused the collapse of one of the piers supporting an arch that originally spanned the flue (to the left of the vertical ranging-rod). In the background is a field boundary lined with trees and this has enabled the site to be located. The kiln was aligned roughly north-south with its stoke-hole to the north. The one-metre scales show that the depth of the main flue was c.600- 700mm from the top of the side-walls and the width between the walls at this point c.600mm.The interior width of the kiln between the outer edges of the arch-piers immediately in front of the horizontal ranging-rod can be estimated at c.1.3-1.4m. If the grid-pegs shown here and in Fig. 2 were spaced at three metres apart, this allows the length of the kiln and the stoke-hole area combined to be estimated at c.6m and the length of the kiln itself at c.3.5m. The section at the rear of the trench seems to be cut though a feature filled with dark soil at the back of the stoke-hole. This may be an unexcavated part of the stoking-area or a distinct feature. Areas of the field-surface behind the trench also seem to have a dark appearance.
Fig. 2. This is a view towards the surviving arch spanning the main flue with the filling left in place below it to prevent it collapsing. In front of the arch is the stoke-hole which has been sectioned and the outer part removed (shown filled with water). This seems to show that the northern limit of the stoke-hole was located and that the dark fill visible in the section in Fig.1was a distinct feature. Part of the fill of the stoke-hole remains in place and is dark in colour, presumably incorporating much burnt material. It seems likely, however, that
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most, if not all, of this was re-deposited material since stoking could not have been carried out if it was in place during the working of the kiln. No trace remains of the oven floor and combustion chamber which were evidently rectangular in form. The arch which survives, partly collapsed, next to the stoke-hole was one of a series which spanned the main flue. The base of another of the arches can be seen on the left edge of the main flue. The heated air was drawn along the main flue and rose through a series of vents between the arches to fire the tiles stacked on the oven floor above. No recognisable remains of the oven floor seem to have been located in the excavation. Mr Garrett reports that some of the tiles found in the kiln ‘were only half baked’ and at the time of the excavation it was thought that the kiln had been abandoned after the last firing had been interrupted in some way. He cannot recall seeing these tiles himself and does not know whether they were identifiable as particular tile types.
Fig. 3. This shows a slot across the fill of the stoke-hole beside the surviving arch. The arch seems to have been displaced from its supporting piers, most clearly seen on the right side of the photograph. The wall of the flue is seen on the left, with the vertical ranging-rod resting on the surviving top of the wall. The fill of the main flue shows stones immediately below the tiles of the collapsed arch and resting on top of a band of dark soil. Below this, pieces of tile are present in the dark soil. Behind the arch is a concentrated spread of tile fragments and some stones. The arch is constructed of tile fragments of varying thicknesses
image
Fig. 3 Close-up of the surviving arch (E. Garrett). Scales: 1m and 2m.
ROMAN TILE-KILN AND THIRD-CENTURY HOARD OF SESTERTII AT BIRCHOLT FARM
and therefore of different tile types. The tiles in the arch do not seem to have been mortared and they were presumably held in place by clay packed between them. The horizontal ranging-rod indicates that the width of the arch will have been c.1.5m or slightly less. Some of the tile fragments behind the arch seem to be pitched at an angle in a similar way to those forming the surviving arch and among them are stones similar to those seen immediately below the tiles of the arch. It is tentatively suggested that this material is all re-deposited to form a hard surface to consolidate the fill of the flue beneath it. It is further suggested that, rather than being brought from elsewhere, the stones may have come from a footing for a clay wall forming the outer wall of the kiln of which no trace seems to have been found in the excavation.
Fig. 4. This view is taken from the end of the main flue looking back towards the arch adjoining the stoke-hole. The filling of the flue in front of the arch and below the uppermost dark fill capped by the spread of stones and tile fragments is largely light in colour and contains frequent tile fragments. This could be clay from the oven floor and other structural elements of the kiln. The lowest part of the fill seen in the section is dark in contrast to the lighter deposit above it and slopes downwards at an angle from right to left (i.e. from east to west). This presumably contained much burnt material. The base of the main flue seems not to have been fully cleared and the material remaining is also dark in colour, suggesting that the layer seen in the section extended along the full length of the main flue. About half-way along the bottom of the flue, a deposit of what seem
image
Fig. 4 The main flue of the kiln (E. Garrett).
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image
Fig. 5 Arch bases and the tile wall of the main flue (E. Garrett).
to be large tile fragments is visible and may represent part of a collapsed arch. The sides of the main flue are lined with rectangular tiles, probably largely flat lydion tiles. Resting on top of this lining are settings of tiles set at an angle and forming the bases of arches that spanned the main flue and supported the oven floor. The tiles seen here (and in Fig. 5) seem to vary in size and some seem to be rectangular rather than square, indicating that they are not complete bessalis tiles, the type used to form pilae stacks in hypocausts, but more probably other types of tile that have been trimmed to the approximate size required. Two such bases can be seen on the edge of the flue on the right of the picture. The spacing of the latter illustrates the narrow width of the channels between them for the passage of heated air from the main flue.
The succession of layers seen in the section of the main flue supports the theory attributed to Jim Bradshaw by Mr Garrett that the kiln may have been abandoned after a misfiring. It seems unlikely that the deposit of burnt material visible in section and at the bottom of the main flue would have been allowed to accumulate during the normal operation of the kiln and the uneven depth of the material within the flue with a much greater volume on its right (eastern) side may suggest that the firing of the kiln had gone awry. What would be more usual is seen at the early second-century tile-kiln at Great Cansiron Farm, Hartfield, in Sussex where a layer of ash and charcoal, consistently 50mm in thickness, extended from the stoke-hole along the whole length of the main flue (Rudling 1986, 196 and fig. 5, section A-B).
ROMAN TILE-KILN AND THIRD-CENTURY HOARD OF SESTERTII AT BIRCHOLT FARM
Fig. 5. This shows the main flue with a total of nine or ten courses of tiles visible in the lining. A tile lining is also present at the inner end of the flue to the left of the picture. It is difficult to be sure how many tiles are present in each course in the photograph. Lydion tiles have a thickness of c.40mm, a length of c.400mm, and a width of c.280mm (Brodribb 1987, 142). If seven lydion tiles were set lengthwise in each course, this would give a length of c.2.8m for the part of the flue shown here between the end wall and the section in front of the surviving arch. However, it is necessary to bear in mind that some tiles may have been set with their shorter edges facing the flue or parts of tiles of unknown length may have been used and such detailed information is just not available. The bases of the arches spanning the main flue are also visible and the narrow width of the channels between them can be clearly seen. Clay seems to have been used to bond the tiles forming the bases and was presumably also used between the courses of tiles in the side-walls of the flue. What is missing is any sign of the cross-walls that were a usual feature in the combustion chambers of Romano- British kilns and would be expected to continue the line of the arches. The section behind the bases of the arches shows an apparently uniform layer of light soil, presumably clay, without any indication of the presence of cross- walls. It is possible that the cross-walls were constructed solely of clay and that what were originally the cross-flues were filled with this material at the time the kiln was demolished. It is more likely that cross-walls and cross-flues did not exist in the Bircholt kiln. (For further discussion see below). Although it is difficult to be certain, it seems that the arch-bases were set on the top of the tile-lining of the main flue and that the channels between them therefore had flat bases. Judging by the spacing of the three arch bases on the right of the picture, a total of six or seven arches may once have existed spanning the main flue although none survived towards its southern end.
image
Fig. 6. The photograph shows the junction between the southern end wall of the main flue and its eastern side wall. The tile-courses forming the east wall of the flue had the inner edges scorched by heat and, like those in the west wall
Fig. 6 The south-east corner of the main flue (E. Garrett).
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seen in Figs 4 and 5, they were not set directly one on top of another to form a vertical face but each course was recessed slightly back from the one below. At the junction of the two walls a slot has been excavated down to the level of the fourth course of tiles forming the east wall. The soil left in place below this level contains a single projecting fragment of tile with another left in place at the base of the slot but there is no continuation of the tile courses in the lower part of the wall beside it. It seems likely that there was a feature here which the archaeological slot was designed to examine. The dark fill of the unexcavated lower part of the slot resembles the lowest dark fill of the main flue, though the section at the east end of the slot shows the vertical edge of a feature with a grey filling. The detailed interpretation of this is uncertain but the location of the slot at one of the corners of the main flue furthest from the stoke-hole raises the possibility that a vent or chimney once existed here and was designed to draw the heated air along the main flue from the stoke-hole. A possible parallel is known from the kiln at St Stephen’s Road, Canterbury (Jenkins 1956, 41-2 figs 1 and 2). This kiln was probably very similar to that at Bircholt but no traces of arch-bases or any of the superstructure survived. However at the opposite end of the main flue from the stoke-hole and at right angles to the flue, one on each side, were two vents. These sloped upwards from a point just above the floor of the main flue and were presumably intended to draw the heated air along the flue. A large fragment of flat tile is seen in front of the stack of tiles lining the main flue and presumably formed part of a tiled floor in the flue. Further, less distinct, flooring-tiles can be seen towards the bottom of the photograph and at the foot
of the wall at the end of the flue.
Fig. 7. The photograph again shows the end of the main flue but taken from the opposite side looking west. When it was taken much less of the flue had been cleared than is seen in Fig. 4. The section on the right of the photograph is the same as that seen in Fig. 6 and shows a thick layer of black, presumably burnt, debris at the base of the flue with large fragments of what seem to be burnt tile projecting close to the junction with the west wall of the flue. These may represent a similar deposit to the burnt tiles seen at the base of the flue in Fig. 4 and, like them, probably represent material from one of the arches that spanned the flue. Above the dark deposit a large part of the fill is made up of a yellow soil with an admixture of small stones, perhaps derived from the superstructure of the kiln. This is capped by a layer of larger stones which may represent an attempt to consolidate the fill, also probably seen in the area of the surviving arch (Fig. 3). As suggested above, these stones may originally have formed a footing for an outer clay wall of the kiln. The tile-lining seems to have survived to a greater height on the eastern side of the flue than on the western side and the western side may have lacked the feature inferred in the slot on the eastern side at the junction of the side wall and end wall.
Fig. 8. The photograph shows one wall of the main flue constructed of tiles and fronted by rectangular tiles flooring the flue. These seem to be of varying size and their surfaces show evidence of burning. They seem to be set at a slight angle to the line of the wall. It is uncertain what part of the flue appears in the photograph. There seems to be a junction, either with the end wall or with a section across the flue, on the left side of the photograph. If the former is the
ROMAN TILE-KILN AND THIRD-CENTURY HOARD OF SESTERTII AT BIRCHOLT FARM
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Fig. 7 The south-west corner of the main flue (E. Garrett).
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Fig. 8 The floor of the main flue (E. Garrett).
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Fig. 9 Finds from the 1983 excavation (E. Garrett).
case, then the wall in the photograph will be the western wall of the flue; if the
latter, it will be the eastern wall.
Fig. 9. The photograph shows a selection of finds from the excavation. Part of the upper half of a quern-stone and an iron object, thought at the time of excavation to be the iron cutting edge fitted onto a wooden spade, are shown and Mr Garrett has informed the writer that both were found in the stoking-area where he himself was working. They are resting on top of two tegulae. Part of an imbrex is set over the edge of one of these tegulae and of another tile which is part of a third tegula. With the imbrex is a fragment of tile with its upper broken edge forming a semi-circle. There are two fragments of combed tile. That to the left of the quern-stone seems to have three bands of combing and may be the same fragment seen in Fig. 1 resting against the arch base on the right in front of the horizontal ranging-rod. Here it partly rests on a newspaper on which are laid about a dozen pottery fragments. To the right of the pottery is a complete base or top of a combed voussoir tile with combing in the form of a St Andrew’s Cross and done with a comb of four or five teeth. Behind this tile and resting on a fragment of tegula is a small book on which are placed five coins. It seems likely that the fragments of combed tile were used in the arch bases that formed part of the structure of the kiln and the tegulae and imbrex tiles may also have been used in structural features of the kiln (see below).
Fig. 10. The photograph is a closer view of the tegulae and some of the other finds seen in Fig. 9. One of the tegulae can be seen to be complete with a single groove semi-circular ‘signature’ at its lower end and that next to its long side
ROMAN TILE-KILN AND THIRD-CENTURY HOARD OF SESTERTII AT BIRCHOLT FARM
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Fig. 10 Close-up of tiles from the 1983 excavation (E. Garrett).
has been cut or broken longitudinally to a straight edge and is just over half- complete. This too has a semi-circular ‘signature’ but with what appear to be three finger grooves. The tile fragment lying on the second tegula seems to have two straight edges forming a corner and a broken edge shaped to a semi-circle. It could be the top right corner of a tegula base. The tegula above and to the left of the book bearing the coins originally matched the size of the complete tegula but about half of it has been removed with a broken edge extending diagonally across the tile. It is unfortunate that there is no scale in the photograph. The size of the complete tegula can only be estimated very approximately from the coins. Four of these are second century sestertii (see below) with a diameter in the range c.30-33mm. Since the coins are worn, they are here assigned an approximate diameter of 30mm. On this basis, the length of the complete tegula can be estimated at c.402mm and its greater (upper) width at c.264mm. At Lime Street in London tegulae of very similar size were found associated with the construction of a major town house or public building (Building F/G) dated to the mid-late second century (Hartle 2017, 39).
Fig. 11. The photograph is a close-up of the five coins. All five show the obverse with the heads of emperors or other imperial personages. All are abraded, some severely, and there is no information about the designs of the reverses. According to Mr Garrett the coins were found close together as if they had been contained in a purse but he does not know where in the kiln this was. A detailed report on these coins by Dr David Rudling follows.
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Fig. 11 The coins from the 1983 excavation (E. Garrett).
Fig. 12. The photograph shows a close-up view of about 22 or 23 potsherds, some teeth and bone fragments and what seems to be an iron nail with a circular head from the kiln. A corner of the adjacent piece of combed tile also seen in
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Fig. 12 The pottery from the 1983 excavation (E. Garrett).
ROMAN TILE-KILN AND THIRD-CENTURY HOARD OF SESTERTII AT BIRCHOLT FARM
Fig. 9 can be seen to have two curving bands of combing done using a comb of six teeth. The photograph was shown to Dr Matt Loughton of the Colchester Archaeological Trust who was able to recognise a sherd of grey folded beaker with one surviving indentation and with raised dimples on the surface to each side. Two or possibly three sherds of black burnished ware or of imitation black burnished ware were also identified. Dr Loughton (pers. comm.) considers that a third-century date would be feasible for this assemblage.
A hoard of sestertii from the tile-kiln at Bircholt Farm, Brabourne by Dr D. Rudling
As reported above, finds from the excavations at Bircholt in 1983 included five Roman coins, all being brass sestertii (Fig. 11). Whilst the current location of these coins is unknown, their obverses were fortunately photographed. This report is based on observations of scans of these images. More precise identifications are impossible due to the quality of the images and the absence of any reverse images.
Top left: Probably a coin of Antoninus Pius (ad 138-61). Legend illegible;
laureate bust right.
Top right: Postumus (ad 260-69: i.e. the dating proposed by Drinkwater (1987, 24 and 34-5)). Legend: VIRTVS] POSTVMI [AVG; helmeted bust left, holding shield and spear. Mint of Lugdunum. Dr Sam Moorhead of the Portable Antiquities Scheme of the British Museum has informed me that the BM has two coins (RIC 133 and RIC 171) with helmeted busts facing left, both of which appear to share the same die as the coin from Bircholt. Dr Moorhead also states that the BM does not have examples of two other types of Postumus sestertius with helmeted left busts (RIC 108 and RIC 145) and that the Bircholt coin is a scarce type. Postumus struck sestertii during the first two years of his reign, i.e. 260-262 (Bland 2018, 64).
Middle left: Trajan (98-117). Legend illegible; laureate bust right.
Middle right: Antoninus Pius (138-161). Legend illegible; laureate bust right.
Bottom: Marcus Aurelius (161-180). Legend: M ANTO]NINVS AVG [ARM] PARTH [MAX; laureate bust right. This coin was issued in 165-9.
In view of Mr Garrett’s statement that the five sestertii were found close together, it is reasonable to assume that they represent a small hoard. In the absence of an obvious container, any such item may have been made of organic material, perhaps leather, cloth or wood, which has not survived. The period of issue of the coins spans the period from Trajan (ad 98-117) to Postumus (ad 260-69), and the four earliest coins are very worn. The sestertius of Postumus, which also shows signs of wear, is especially interesting as sestertii of this Gallic Empire ruler were the last minting of this coin denomination. From the 270s (Abdy 2002, 39) these and earlier issues of sestertii and their divisions (asses and dupondii) went out of use when the antoninianus, a coin of officially greater value than the sestertius, became little more than a small bronze coin and therefore intrinsically much less valuable than the considerably larger sestertius made of brass. The date of deposition of the Bircholt coins is thus likely to have been c.ad 265-275. The purpose of the hoard is likely to have been votive, a ‘rite of termination’ when the tile-kiln went
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out of use (Merrifield 1987, 49-50) rather than as a wealth or savings deposit, or a casual loss or losses or deposited after such coins were demonetised following the 260s. The composition of the hoard, being mainly very worn coins of the second century, indicates that the coins were obtained from those in circulation in the mid third century (Bland 2018, 59). The long tradition of making coin or metal votive offerings during both later prehistory and Roman times in Britain is now well documented (e.g. see Moorhead et al. 2010; Rudling 2014, 69).
Anne Robertson (2000) in her Inventory of Romano-British Coin hoards lists three other coin hoards found in Kent which end with a coin or coins of Postumus. The earliest such discovery was made during ploughing in 1777 at Stowting. About 400 ‘large brass Roman Medals’ (i.e. coins) were found in ‘an Oaken Box’. The emperor list begins with Vespasian (ad 69-79) and ends with Postumus (a coin ‘so worn as not to have a legible letter’). The other two hoards were both found in 1969. One was discovered ‘whilst digging for worm bait’ at Leysdown, Isle of Sheppey. This comprised a total of 492 sestertii and eight cast copies (one sestertius and seven asses). The emperor list begins with seven coins of Titus (ad 79-81) and ends with two issues of Postumus. No traces of a container were found. The other hoard of sestertii found in 1969 was discovered whilst laying gas-pipes at Ramsgate. Twenty-seven of a possible thirty-four sestertii were recovered and recorded. The earliest were two coins of Hadrian (ad 117-38) and the most recent a single coin of Postumus. Again, no traces of a container were observed.
The Tile Fabrics – Initial investigation by Dr Williams in 1984
Bircholt is situated on Lower Greensand and Gault deposits with Lower Chalk nearby (Smart et al. 1966). Dr Williams identified four of the five tiles submitted to him (see Introduction) as belonging to a fabric comprising ‘a groundmass of subangular quartz grains, average size below 0.10mm, with a few slightly larger grains, flecks of mica, iron ore, a little argillaceous material and the odd piece of ferruginous sandstone and grain of plagioclase feldspar and ?glauconite/ cellophane’ (Williams 1984). The fabric of the fifth tile is described as: ‘similar to the above group, but with more frequent large quartz grains (up to 1mm across) scattered throughout the clay matrix’. The clay sample came from material forming a capping to the main flue of the kiln and had presumably been taken from close to the tile arch over the flue seen in Figs 2 and 3. It is described as ‘coarser than the tile samples from the site, but composed basically of the same range and size of inclusions. There is a groundmass of subangular quartz grains below 0.10mm in size, a scatter of larger quartz grains, iron ore, mica and argillaceous material. The latter inclusions are larger and more frequent than those in the tile samples, suggesting less preparation of the clay before use’.
Dr Williams concluded: ‘the textural similarity of the Bircholt tile samples with the clay sample from the structure of the kiln suggests that a local clay at no great distance from the site was utilised. In view of the possibility of glauconite/ cellophane inclusions, this was probably either obtained from the Folkestone Beds, or perhaps more likely from the Gault’.
The tile fragments from Bircholt in Black’s possession were submitted to Ian
Betts in 2018 so that they could be assigned to the MOLA fabric series with the
ROMAN TILE-KILN AND THIRD-CENTURY HOARD OF SESTERTII AT BIRCHOLT FARM
potential to facilitate comparison with assemblages of tile from excavated sites and to plot the distribution of the Bircholt products. When he obtained the tiles in 1983, the author marked each of them with its provenance and the year of excavation followed by an individual number for each tile, e.g. ‘Bircholt, Brabourne 1983
(7)’. These are the numbers given to the tiles in Dr Betts’ report below. One of the imbrex fragments (no. 3) has been retained in the MOLA reference collection and the other tiles have been deposited in Ashford Borough Museum. In May 2019 Mr Garrett provided four additional tile fragments (samples 8-11) which he had collected from the vicinity of the kiln in 1983 and these were also examined by Dr Betts. These tiles remain in Mr Garrett’s possession.
Report on the Bircholt Fabrics 2018 by Dr I.M. Betts
All are finished products rather than kiln waste material. They can be placed into four fabric groups. Most of the tiles are orange or light brown in colour and some have a grey core. Normal size moulding sand (with the majority of quartz up to 0.8mm) is attached to the bases and sides.
Fabric 1: MOLA fabric group 2815 (individual fabric 2452); Kent fabric K6
A fine fabric with occasional quartz (up to 0.2mm), occasional dark red and black iron oxide (up to 1mm) and cream silty inclusions (up to 0.8mm) and small thin cream silty lenses.
Sample 1(tegula): (Fig. 13, A) part of a tegula measuring 17mm in thickness (excluding flanged area). The tegula is orange-brown with a grey core and has part of a semi-circular three finger signature mark in the top surface. The corner has MOLA cutaway type B (Warry type: C); external height of
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Fig. 13 A: tegula (sample 1). B: tegula (sample 5). C: box-tile (sample 2) (drawn by E. Holloway).
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flange 45mm. There is a slight groove at the junction of base and flange. Its thickness would suggest that the tile is a smaller tegula type, indicating a probable mid-second century or later date.
Sample 3 (imbrex): orange with grey core.
Sample 4 (brick): a corner fragment 39/40mm in thickness with part of a curving ‘signature’; orange with part of a grey core. The thickness suggests it is of square bessalis or rectangular lydion type. The top surface has what appears to be the bottom of a four-finger semi-circular signature mark.
Sample 6 (imbrex): light orange-brown with grey core.
Sample 8 (imbrex): orange surface with grey core.
Sample 9 (tegula): part of a tegula base measuring 17/18mm in thickness. The surface colour is light orange-brown with a grey core. The external height of the attached flange is 43/45mm. There is a groove c.15mm wide at the junction of base and flange. As with sample 1, the thickness suggests a mid- second century or later date.
Sample 10 (tegula): part of a tegula base measuring 17/18mm in thickness. The surface colour is orange with a grey core. The external height of the attached flange measures c.44mm. There is a prominent groove c.15mm wide at 15mm from the junction of base and flange. As with samples 1 and 9, the thickness suggests a mid-second century or later date.
Sample 11 (box-tile): the tile has two intersecting bands of straight combing using a comb of at least five teeth measuring c.26/27 mm across. It has a thickness of 15-20 mm and the surface colour is light brown with a grey core. On the sanded inner surface are shallow impressions of three lines. One is straight and a second is roughly parallel to it but curves away towards one end. They are c.20 mm apart. The third line crosses them at approximately ninety degrees. Since it is on the inner surface of the tile, this marking was presumably formed before the clay was shaped to form the box-tile. It seems most likely to have occurred when the clay was laid onto a surface on which this pattern was protruding.
Fabric 2: MOLA fabric group 2815 (individual fabric 3006); Kent fabric K7 Fairly common quartz (up to 0.8mm) with a scatter of red and black iron oxide (up to 1mm).
Sample 7 (box-tile or voussoir): a small fragment of tile with part of a band of combed keying measuring c.15mm across three surviving tooth-marks; the surface colour is light brown; the thickness incomplete.
Fabric 3: MOLA fabric group 2815 (individual fabric 3004); Kent fabric K67 Sandy fabric with frequent quartz (up to 0.8mm) with occasional dark reddish- brown iron oxide (up to 2mm), cream silty inclusions and a possible rock fragment (up to 1.5mm). The clay matrix has a scatter of very small black iron oxide (up to 0.01mm) with occasional white calcium carbonate (?chalk, up to 0.4mm).
Sample 5 (tegula) (Fig. 13, B): part of an orange and cream tegula measuring
23mm in thickness (excluding flange area) with MOLA cutaway type B
ROMAN TILE-KILN AND THIRD-CENTURY HOARD OF SESTERTII AT BIRCHOLT FARM
(Warrry type: C); external height of flange 45mm. There is no groove at the junction of base and flange. Based on the thickness, the tile can be tentatively dated to the first to early/mid second century.
Fabric 4: MOLA fabric 3025 with certain similarities to Kent fabric K39
The fabric is similar to Fabric 1 but includes a scatter of thin cream silty lenses with occasional cream silty inclusions (up to 0.5mm). It may be a variant of the local clay. It has a finer background clay matrix than fabric K39.
Sample 2 (box-tile or voussoir) (Fig. 13, C): the tile is orange-brown in colour and keyed with a four-tooth comb measuring 21/22mm across. Part of a band of combing lies close to one edge of the fragment. A second band is approximately at right angles to this. A third band lies at an angle to the first two bands resembling the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle. The complete pattern may have involved a St Andrew’s Cross framed and bisected by further bands of combing. The thickness is 14/15mm and this suggests that the fragment was from a box-tile rather than a voussoir.
Comparison with fabric types identified by thin-section analysis
Williams (1984) undertook thin-section petrology on five samples of fired ceramic Roman building material from the Bircholt kiln, plus a thin-section of a clay sample from the kiln structure which was found capping the main flue. The writer has not seen the actual thin-sections, so this comparison is based on written descriptions of each fabric in Williams’ unpublished report (see above).
The majority of tiles in Betts’ fabric 1 (MOLA fabric 2452) have relatively few inclusions present and in this respect they resemble the petrology of the four tiles in Williams’ first fabric group obtained through thin-section analysis. The tile types belonging to Williams’ first fabric group were a combed box-tile / voussoir, imbrex, brick and tegula, all of which match tile types in Betts’ fabric group 1. The tile in Betts’ fabric 2, which has more frequent quartz, may match Williams’ fabric group 2.
Betts’ Fabric 3, the coarser fabric tegula, may be similar to the clay sample from the kiln structure examined by Williams, although it is difficult to be sure without seeing the actual thin-section and clay sample. The clay sample was different from the tiles he examined, suggesting that the clay may well have been used not for tile-making but for another purpose, such as bonding the tiles making up the kiln structure.
There is no fabric match for Betts’ Fabric 4 in Williams’ report but this could be a variant of the local clay used to produce fabrics 1 and 2 and the tile in Fabric 4 is probably also a product of the Bircholt kiln.
Discussion of fabric comparisons
If the four types examined by both Betts and Dr Williams were produced at the tilery at Bircholt Farm this was producing the standard range of tiles, namely tegula and imbrex roofing tiles, bricks and either box-flue or voussoir tiles,
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probably a mixture of both. However, a caveat is necessary here since none of the tile fragments examined can be identified as a waster and some might represent material made elsewhere that was brought to the site of the kiln (e.g. sample 5, see below).
The cessation of production may be dated by the group of five coins from an unknown context in the 1983 excavation (see above). Keying of tiles using standard size combs seems to have been introduced into the London area sometime around the beginning of the second century. Combed keying is found in the late first century but this is undertaken with much larger combs such as those used on tiles in the so-called ‘London-Sussex’ tile group (Betts et al. 1997, 10). A clearer indication of dating is the presence of a thinner, smaller sized tegula (samples 1, 9 and 10). These are generally a late Roman type. In London smaller sized tegulae first appear around the mid second century. The Bircholt kiln is therefore probably mid second century or later in date.
One puzzle is the thicker tegula (sample 5) which is more likely to be of earlier date. This is in fabric 3 and does not match any of the other samples examined or any of those thin-sectioned by Williams so that there must be some doubt as to whether this tile was actually made at the Bircholt kiln. Tiles may have been required initially to cover various buildings associated with the running of the tile- kiln, such as a drying-shed and perhaps accommodation for the tile-makers, before the first firing of the kiln. These tiles would have had to be obtained from another kiln elsewhere and, if the use of the Bircholt kiln was confined to a period in the third quarter of the third century, perhaps involved re-use from an earlier building. Chemical analysis may establish if the tile was indeed made at another tilery.
More work is required to establish where the products of the Bircholt kiln were distributed. Unfortunately, the majority of the tiles examined are in common non- diagnostic fabrics so it may require chemical analysis to confirm any definite link with ceramic building material from elsewhere.
general discussion and conclusions
Only approximate dimensions can be given for the Bircholt kiln. The length of the main flue was perhaps c.3.5m, its width c.0.6m and its depth c.0.6-0.7m; the span of the surviving arch was estimated at c.1.5m or slightly less and the distance between the outer edges of opposing arch piers at c.1.3-1.4m. The lining of the main flue seems to have been made up of nine or ten courses of flat tiles (probably lydion tiles) but there is no detailed information about whether these were laid side- on or end-on or if they were all complete tiles. They probably had clay packing laid between the tiles in each course and those in the course above.
The Bircholt kiln can be assigned to Type II in McWhirr’s classification of Romano-British tile-kilns. This corresponds to Type IIE.ii in Le Ny’s classification of Gallo-Roman tile-kilns (Le Ny 1988, 41 and 43-4 figs 22b and 23). Kilns of this type have cross-flues with flat bases opening from and level with the top of the main flue and cross-walls continuing the line of the arches spanning the main flue are absent. Only three Romano-British kilns of this type were known to McWhirr: Arbury 1 in Warwickshire; Colchester 7 in Essex; Wiston in Sussex (McWhirr 1979, 98-99). In the case of Colchester 7 and Wiston the depth of the main flue
ROMAN TILE-KILN AND THIRD-CENTURY HOARD OF SESTERTII AT BIRCHOLT FARM
is comparatively slight (c.300 and c.350mm respectively) but at Arbury 1 it is 900mm (McWhirr 1979, figs 6.8, 6.27 and 6.29). The depth of the main flue at Bircholt, estimated at c.600-700mm, falls between these two measurements.
It was noted above that the bases of the arches that crossed the main flue at Bircholt seemed to be composed of tile fragments bonded in clay, like the surviving arch adjoining the stoke-hole. No cross-walls seem to have been present continuing from these bases to the limits of the combustion chamber. Since cross-walls are lacking, the arches spanning the main flue were the only supports for the floor of the firing chamber and presumably the width of the latter would correspond to the width of the arches, estimated on the basis of Fig. 1 to have been c.1.3-
1.4m. The Colchester 7 kiln seems to have such an arrangement with its arch piers (c.300mm square) set directly against the outer walls of the combustion chamber. No trace of walls enclosing the combustion chamber and the firing chamber above it was found in situ at Bircholt. It is possible that these were constructed of clay blocks and that they were demolished and used to back-fill the kiln at the end of its productive life. The ‘half-baked tiles’ that were noted in the fill of the kiln at the time of excavation may have been part of this material and it was suggested above that the larger stones seen in the sections across the fill of the main flue may originally have formed a footing for such walling. On this basis the width of the combustion chamber is estimated at c.1.35m and its length is taken as c.3.5m. The area of the combustion chamber would have been c.4.7m2 which would place it in the lower level of the size-range of Romano-British tile-kilns. McWhirr (1979, 104-107 table 6.1) lists ten kilns with an internal width of less than 2m, one of which is Colchester 7 with a width of 1.4m which is very close to that suggested for the Bircholt kiln.
The tegulae and the imbrex seen in Fig. 9 do not appear to be wasters and it is possible that they were used in structural features associated with the working of the kiln. At Ashtead in Surrey an earlier tile-kiln was replaced at a higher level by a new kiln probably in the late second century and certain features of the older kiln were preserved. These included a box-like structure built of tegulae set on end in front of the stoke-hole of the main flue. Access to the flue was limited to a small gap in the outer wall of the box. If the box had been roofed, the gap in its outer wall could have been blocked or kept open as required to regulate the supply of air to the kiln during each firing (Bird 2016, 319, fig. 2; 321-2, figs 6 and 7). The tegulae from Bircholt seen in Figs 9 and 10 may have been used with others to form a simple structure or may simply have been set at the mouth of the stoke-hole with the same purpose. It is tempting to identify the partial tegula base with its curved broken edge as deliberately shaped to fit immediately under the stoke-hole arch but, apart from the shaping of the tile, there is no support for this suggestion. Nothing is known of the context(s) in which the tiles seen in Figs 9 and 10 were found.
At the opposite (inner) end of the Ashtead kiln, close to the south-west corner, a gap through the kiln-wall was lined with imbrices; it is possible that a similar feature had once existed at the north-west corner but had not survived (Bird 2016, 319, fig. 2; 322-3, fig. 8). The excavator suggested that the purpose of the vent (or vents), like that of the vents at St Stephen’s Road, Canterbury discussed above, was to draw the fire right through the kiln. We have seen in the discussion of Fig. 6
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that a vent with a similar purpose may have existed in the south-east corner of the Bircholt kiln. If so, it is possible that the imbrex seen in Fig. 9 may have been used in lining this vent. It must be stressed that this, just like the use suggested here for the tegulae in Fig. 9, is speculative since the disappearance of any record made of their context(s) in 1983 has robbed us of any relevant evidence.
Had evidence for the arches above the main flue not survived at Bircholt, all that would have remained of the kiln would have been the main flue and the stoke-hole. This is precisely what is found at a number of sites noted by McWhirr (1979, 101). It seems possible that at least some of these were kilns of the Bircholt type where traces of the arches spanning the main flue did not survive.
The fortunate recording of the small hoard of five coins from the Bircholt kiln has enabled Dr Rudling to propose a date of c.265 -275 for the end of tile production at the site. It seems likely that the coins represent a termination deposit, a thanks- offering to a god for the resources employed and the products manufactured there. However, if the final firing of the kiln had gone wrong, as the excavator deduced from the presence of half- baked tiles in the fill of the kiln, the coins may also have been a propitiatory offering to avert the supposed anger of the gods.
A date of 265-275 for the end of tile production at the kiln coincides with the end of high-status occupation of the villa at East Wear Bay, Folkestone, which is placed before c.270 (Richardson 2013, 58). It seems very unlikely that the Bircholt kiln would have been supplying tiles to the villa for new building in the period of decline that preceded this. Tiles in MOLA fabric 2452, the predominant fabric represented in the tiles surviving from the Bircholt kiln, are certainly present at Folkestone among the keyed tiles studied by the writer but some certainly, and perhaps all, can be assigned a date before the third quarter of the third century. The dating also raises issues in determining what tiles were products of the kiln. Dr Betts’ identification of the fabrics of tiles retained from the excavation of 1983 has shown that most belong to a coherent group of fabrics (samples1-4 and 6-11) which could have been products of a single kiln using closely similar deposits of clay (Table 1). One tegula fragment (sample 5) was in a different fabric and also had a thicker base than the other tegulae (samples 1, 9 and 10) belonging to the first group of fabrics. Sample 5 is likely to have been made in the late first or the first half of the second century while samples 1, 9 and 10 were made after c.150. Dr Betts suggested that sample 5 may have been manufactured elsewhere and used in a building pre-dating the construction of the kiln while the main group of fabrics might represent the tiles produced at the Bircholt kiln.
It is possible, however, that the matter is more complicated. Two fragments of box-flue tile among the main group of fabrics (samples 2 and 11) have a wall- thickness of 14/15mm and 15-20mm respectively. Work by the writer on the keyed tiles from the Folkestone villa indicates that this style of combing, which does not provide an overall keying to the surface of the tile but employs bands of combing to produce a simple pattern, seems to be used in the later second century and later. This fits the dating assigned to the later tegulae (samples 1, 9 and 10). However, the thickness of sample 2 at least is more appropriate for a box-tile made in the second century rather than in the third century when the thickness tends to be greater than 20mm. It is possible either that the tile-makers at Bircholt were still producing box-tiles with a thickness that had been the second-century norm in
ROMAN TILE-KILN AND THIRD-CENTURY HOARD OF SESTERTII AT BIRCHOLT FARM
TABLE 1. THE FABRIC TYPES OF THE ELEVEN SAMPLES FROM BIRCHOLT FARM
Sample
Product
MoLA Fabric
Group
MoLA individual
CAT
fabric
Comments
1
tegula
2815
2452 (K6)
1, 2
2
box-tile or voussoir
3025 (c.K39)
wall-thickness 14-15m;
2nd- century?
3
imbrex
2815
2452 (K6)
1, 2
4
brick
2815
2452 (K6)
1, 2
5
tegula
2815
3004 (K67)
13
2nd-century
6
imbrex
2815
2452 (K6)
1, 2
7
box-tile or voussoir
2815
3006 (K7)
3, 6
8
imbrex
2815
2452 (K6)
1, 2
9
tegula
2815
2452 (K6)
1, 2
10
tegula
2815
2452 (K6)
1, 2
11
box-tile
2815
2452 (K6)
1, 2
wall-thickness 15-20mm
the third quarter of the third century or that the box-tile fragments recorded here, like the tegula (sample 5), did indeed belong to an earlier period, perhaps deriving from an earlier phase of tile-making somewhere in the vicinity of the known kiln. It was noted that Dr Williams thought it likely that the clay that he examined from the structure of the kiln was similar to the fabric of the tiles found at the kiln and that these were likely to have been manufactured using clay from a local source. In view of this, it seems most likely that all the fabrics sampled except 3004 (sample 5) were products of the Bircholt kiln, or a possible predecessor. It is to be hoped that waster-material will eventually be recovered and its fabric(s) analysed to confirm this. [table here somewhere]
The Bircholt tile-kiln is situated c.8km east-north-east of the Roman roadside settlement at Westhawk Farm on the outskirts of Ashford. Excavations conducted there in 1998-9 showed that in the excavated area (Area B) large-scale occupation began soon after the Roman conquest and had ceased by c.ad 250 (Booth et al. 2008, 388-89). The publication includes a report on the tile found (Harrison 2008, 259-66). None of the tile had come from a building within the excavated area of the settlement but the presence of fragments of box-tile and voussoir in the assemblage suggested the existence of a bath-building somewhere in the vicinity. All of the tile recovered could have derived from such a building and there is no reason to suppose that any other building in the settlement employed tile in its construction. The assemblage, however, does include keyed tiles and tegulae of different dates and so probably indicates at least three structural periods in the history of a single bath-house rather than the existence of more than one such building.
The Westhawk Farm report uses the Canterbury Archaeological Trust (CAT) classification of fabrics and CAT fabrics 1-3 are well represented at the site by Phase 3 (ad 70-150) (Harrison 2008, 265, table 6.22). These are the same as MOLA
ERNEST BLACK
fabrics 2452 and 3006, both represented at Bircholt. It is therefore possible that tiles supplied to Westhawk Farm in this period were made at a kiln of earlier date in the vicinity of the known kiln at Bircholt. However, tiles in these fabrics could be the products of other kilns elsewhere and consideration of the Westhawk Farm assemblage as a whole makes this seem more likely.
A fragment of combed box-tile from Westhawk Farm, unfortunately not illustrated, is described as 10mm in thickness (Harrison 2008, 261 type 29). It was not possible to find this in a brief search of the Westhawk Farm tile assemblage held in store at Oxford in December 2018 but two joining fragments of a similar tile 11-12mm in thickness were located. These were from Context 8473 and the fabric has been identified as MOLA 3006 (Betts 2019). These can be recognised as fragments of ‘thin-walled box-tile’, a type in use in baths in the first century ad, usually with scored lattice keying (Black 1997, 60-61 and 64 illus. 1). The tiles from Westhawk Farm have combed keying and may attest a bath-house constructed in the early second century.
Other box-tiles from Westhawk Farm were also examined by Dr Betts in his study. A fragment of combed box-tile 15mm thick in MOLA fabric 3006 and another 15-16mm thick in MOLA fabric 3050 (both from Context 675) have a thickness that suggests a second-century date, the tile in fabric 3050 possibly made at the kiln at Reigate in Surrey which was supplying tiles to London in the period 140-230. Again of second-century date and probably made before 150, is a knife- scored box-tile 17-18mm thick from Context 417 in a fabric similar to MOLA 3238. A further example from Context 406 is illustrated in the Westhawk tile report and is assigned to CAT fabric 23 (Harrison 2008, 262 fig. 6.17 no. 2). It is clear that these tiles replaced the thin-walled box-tiles originally used in the Westhawk bath- building later in the second century but the number of different fabrics represented, and especially the presence of a tile that may have originated from Reigate, suggest that the box-tiles may have been supplied to the site from the stock of a builders’ merchant rather than directly from a number of different local tileries.
The third phase of the Westhawk bath-house is represented by a group of tiles illustrated in the report and others examined by Dr Betts (Harrison 2008, 261-3, figs 6.17, nos 3-5 and 6.18, no. 6; Betts 2019). These have a thickness in the range of c.20-22mm and can be dated to the third century; none is in MOLA fabric 2452. The most striking difference between the fabrics present at Westhawk Farm and those from the Bircholt kiln is the much wider range represented at the former site. This probably reflects the employment of builders’ merchants to supply tiles that were sourced from several tileries for work in successive building phases of what was probably a bath-building intended for the use of personnel travelling on official business on behalf of the civitas Cantiacorum or the provincial governor. Given these circumstances, the proximity of the Bircholt kiln to the Westhawk Farm settlement may have been a less important factor than already-existing deals between the builders’ merchants and their accustomed suppliers. While samples 2 and 5 from the Bircholt kiln are likely to have been manufactured in the second century long before the known kiln was in operation, samples 1, 3, 4 and 6-11 are in fabrics (MOLA 2452 and 3006) that could have been used for tiles being made at a single kiln and it seems
most likely that they are products of the (later) excavated kiln at Bircholt.
It seems likely that the third-century tile-kiln at Bircholt was producing tiles for
ROMAN TILE-KILN AND THIRD-CENTURY HOARD OF SESTERTII AT BIRCHOLT FARM
use in a local villa or villas. At least some villas in east Kent were in decline or deserted during the third century, including those at East Wear Bay, Folkestone, and at Marwood Farm, Aldington (Map 1). Both of these villas lay close to the coast and their desertion has been attributed to the insecurity caused by piratical raids, perhaps linked to the effects of a wider economic decline in this period (Davies 2018, 275-77). The area may well have suffered in a general economic decline resulting from the closure of the bases of the Classis Britannica at Dover and Lympne in the early third century and the subsequent run-down of the Wealden iron-working industry that presumably affected agricultural production and services that had been dependent on these activities. The third-century desertion of the excavated area of the settlement at Westhawk Farm is explained in this way by the excavator (Booth et al. 2008, 394-96).
If the coins from the kiln do represent a termination / propitiatory deposit, we have seen that the kiln will have been in operation until sometime in the period c.265-275. The implication is that its products were required for new building preceding this period. The kiln seems to have had a limited capacity and this new building may not have been on a very large scale. Such new construction may have been a purely local initiative but it may indicate the beginnings of an economic recovery following the decline and desertion of sites in the area in the mid third century. It can be suggested that major building projects (defences at Richborough and Canterbury) provided a further stimulus to agricultural production in areas of east Kent that had begun under the Gallic Empire with investment in new buildings like those supplied with tiles from the Bircholt tile-kiln.
acknowledgements
Thanks are due to Mrs Marion Pont and her fellow-members of the Ashford Archaeological and Historical Society, especially to Mr Eddie Garrett who, as noted in the introduction, provided much of the basic evidence on which this paper relies. In addition to their specialist contributions, Dr Ian Betts and Dr David Rudling have joined in discussion of the wider significance of the site and have contributed greatly to the ideas put forward in the paper. Dr Sam Moorhead of the Portable Antiquities Scheme at the British Museum gave generous assistance with the coins and Paul Booth of Oxford Archaeology South kindly arranged access to the tile assemblage from Westhawk Farm. Historic England gave permission to make use of Dr D.F. Williams’ unpublished report on the fabrics of tiles from the Bircholt kiln and Mrs Emma Holloway of the Colchester Archaeological Trust provided the drawings in Fig. 13 and Map 1, as well as providing assistance with some technical aspects of its production. Dr Philip Crummy of the Colchester Archaeological Trust. assisted in locating the kiln in the landscape as it was in 1983 and Mr Peter Joules of Bircholt Farm provided confirmation of the proposed location.
bibliography
Abdy, R. A., 2002, Romano-British Coin Hoards, Princes Risborough, Shire.
Betts, I. M., 2019, Roman building material from Westhawk Farm, Ashford, Kent (AWF99).
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Betts, I., Black, E.W. and Gower, J., 1997, ‘A Corpus of Roman Relief-Patterned Tile in Britain’, Journal of Roman Pottery Studies, 7, Oxford.
Bird, D.G., 2016, ‘Ashtead Common, Surrey (England): Roman Tileworks’, Rei Cretariae Romanae Fautorum Acta, 44, 317-25.
Black, E.W., 1997, ‘Box Flue-Tiles in Britain: the Spread of Roman Bathing in the First
and Second Centuries’, Archaeol. J., 153 (1996), 60-78.
Bland, R.F., 2018, Coin Hoards and Hoarding in Roman Britain AD 43-c.498, British Numismatic Society Special Publication 13, London, Spink & Son.
Booth, P., Bingham, A-M. and Lawrence, S., 2008, The Roman Roadside Settlement at Westhawk Farm Ashford, Kent. Excavations 1998-9, Oxford Archaeology.
Brodribb, G., 1987, Roman Brick and Tile, Gloucester, Alan Sutton.
Davies, M., 2018, ‘A Roman Villa at Marwood Farm, Falconhurst, Aldington’, Archaeologia Cantiana, cxxxix, 269-79.
Drinkwater, J.F., 1987, The Gallic Empire, Historia Monograph 52, Stuttgart.
Harrison, L., 2008, ‘Roman Brick and Tile’, in Booth, Bingham and Lawrence, 259-66.
Hartle, R., 2017, ‘Further evidence for development east of the Roman forum-basilica: excavations at Asia House, 31-33 Lime Street, EC3’, London Archaeologist, 15, no. 2 (Autumn), 37-40.
Jenkins, F., 1956, ‘A Roman Tilery and Two Pottery-Kilns at Durovernum (Canterbury)’,
Antiq. Journ., 36, 40-56.
Le Ny, F., 1988, Les fours de tuiliers gallo-romains, Documents d’Archéologie Française, 12, Paris.
McWhirr, A., 1979, ‘Roman Tile-Kilns in Britain’, in A. McWhirr (ed.) Roman Brick and Tile, BAR International Series 68.
Merrifield, R., 1987, The Archaeology of Ritual and Magic, London, Guild Publishing.
Moorhead, S., Bland, R. and Pett, D., 2010, ‘Hoarding in Ancient Britain’, Current Archaeology, 248, 12-15.
RIC Webb, P.H., 1933, The Roman Imperial Coinage, Volume V, Part II, London, Spink & Son.
Richardson, A., 2013, ‘Late Roman and Anglo-Saxon Folkestone’, in I. Coulson (ed.),
Folkestone to 1500: A Town Unearthed, CAT, 55-76,
Robertson, A.S., 2000, An Inventory of Romano-British Coin Hoards, Royal Numismatic
Society Special Publication 29, London.
Rudling, D., 1986, ‘The Excavation of a Roman Tilery on Great Cansiron Farm, Hartfield,
East Sussex’, Britannia 17, 191-230.
Rudling, D., 2014, ‘Bullock Down Revisited: The Romano-British Farm’, in M.J. Allen (ed.) Eastbourne, aspects of archaeology, history and heritage, Eastbourne Natural History and Archaeology Society, 64-75.
Smart, J.G.O., Bisson, G. and Worssam, B.C., 1966, Geology of the Country round Canterbury and Folkestone, London, HMSO.
Williams, D.F., 1984, ‘Roman tile from the tile-kiln at Bircholt, Brabourne, Kent and from Ashtead Common villa, Surrey’, unpubl. Ancient Monuments Laboratory Report 4436, December 1984.
DOVER CASTLE AND ROYAL POWER IN TWELFTH- CENTURY KENT
richard eales
Dover castle may well have been, in strictly military terms, the ‘key to England’ in the civil war of 1216-1217, as claimed by Hubert de Burgh, who held the castle for King John and his son in that conflict, and reported by the chronicler Matthew Paris: at least many modern historians seem to agree.1 Hubert had every reason to maintain such a claim subsequently, as he was in effect burnishing his own record as a military commander, and perhaps justifying the vast expenditure lavished once more on the castle under his own custody in the 1220s. Understandably, the phrase has been much quoted, not always in context, by the authors of guidebooks and textbooks alike. Yet what value it has for the longer-term history of Dover, let alone English royal castles or castles in general, remains debatable. The needs of coastal defence, even if assumed to be real, fluctuated over time and were combined with other aims, especially in contemplating an expensive and prolonged building campaign like Henry II’s at Dover a generation before the famous sieges of 1216-17. What Henry aimed to achieve, or thought he had achieved, by pouring such resources into the construction of Dover, and above all its great tower, in the 1180s, emerges as a complex issue in recent research. Modern writers have greatly expanded the range of possible influences to be considered, and many of these approaches are complementary, even if a single agreed conclusion is unlikely. The aim in this paper is to set Dover in its regional context of Kent and south-east England in the twelfth century.
Dover Castle and castle studies
The specific study of a major monument like Dover castle creates areas of debate, approached from different viewpoints by historians and archaeologists, with their own agenda of enquiry. Site-specific research is evidently of prime importance, but even at Dover it has tended to be intermittent, pursued as opportunity arose. Thus in the 1960s the end of military residence in the castle and a major reassessment of the documentation for the publication of the first two volumes of The King’s Works in 1963 was followed by two important excavations outside the inner bailey, conducted respectively by Stuart Rigold and Martin Biddle.2 Only recently, through the English Heritage project initiated in 2009, has there been much more detailed survey work on the Henry II inner bailey walls, the rebuilt ranges within them, and above all on the great tower itself. The conclusion to
RICHARD EALES
be drawn from this is how much is still unknown about the development of the site as a whole, and how difficult it will be to fill in many of the gaps. That is despite the fact that Dover is a major royal castle, constructed almost entirely, so far as its surviving fabric is concerned, in the Angevin ‘post-pipe roll’ period, with chancery and account materials to supply more information for the thirteenth century.3 This contrasts with the other royal great towers in Kent at Canterbury and Rochester, built earlier and with no such documentation. Yet the very scale of the later rebuilding means that it is almost impossible to say what was within the presumed Iron Age enclosure at Dover before Henry II’s builders set to work in about 1168, presumably to remedy its shortcomings. Biddle could reach only tentative, though entirely plausible, conclusions about early earthworks around the Roman pharos and St Mary’s church south of the inner bailey, the possible, though still speculative, original core of the castle.4
More surprising, there remain many unknowns about the staging of Henry II’s own campaigns of 1168-73 and 1179-1189. The construction of the keep in the 1180s, evidenced by the weight of expenditure and a handful of specific references, including those to the presumed designer Maurice the Engineer, is secure.5 Much more doubt though attaches to the progress of the walled enclosures: the inner bailey and the early phases of the outer walls to the east. Rigold’s discovery of the footings of slightly earlier structures just south of the inner bailey supplied more information but also more questions to which there are no obvious answers. Were these the products of Henry II’s first works of 1168-1173 or pre-existing features? There are consequent problems if almost all the rest of the surviving Henrician work has to be accommodated within the later phase of 1179-1189, which must already include the keep. Was there a single outline plan from the first or a radically evolving one? Was it conceivable, at any stage, that Dover could have remained as a keepless castle or can it be assumed that the inner bailey was intended from the first as the setting for an exceptionally large great tower and was constructed with it?6 The central importance of the work initiated in the 1180s remains, especially as the keep alone accounted for more than 60 per cent of Henry II’s total expenditure on the site, but much else is less clear.
Further interpretation of site-specific research, even for a comparatively well- documented site like Dover, therefore demands wider comparisons and larger contexts. If the needs of coastal defence, as in 1215-17, and to a lesser extent in the 1260s, cannot just be read back into the twelfth century, then how significant were they? What exactly was Dover the ‘key’ to in the reign of Henry II, or his predecessors back to William I? Here debates about national political history mesh in with debates in castle studies over the last generation. Among those who have contributed most to the study of Dover, and Angevin castle policy as a whole, Allen Brown never really doubted its primary military purpose. He applied this analysis equally to the keep itself, though curiously arguing that its designer, as well as presumably the king and his advisers, failed to incorporate ‘new principles of military architecture’ already evident elsewhere. Accordingly, despite the huge resources expended on it, the Dover great tower ‘like a conventional battleship in the atomic age, was in fact obsolete almost as soon as it was built’.7 Such an analysis presents obvious problems when it comes to making sense of royal policy, though it should be said that Brown never suggested that castles only ever served
DOVER CASTLE AND ROYAL POWER IN TWELFTH-CENTURY KENT
military purposes. Like many others he was propounding a model of multiple functions for castles, but with an assumed priority given to defence, especially in their design, which he certainly had no hesitation in applying to Dover.
The shift which followed after the 1970s was increasingly towards a similarly multi-functional but less weighted scheme of interpretation, in which the always-admitted roles of castles as residences, centres of government and estate administration, or as symbols of wealth and power, were just as important as their military functions. Charles Coulson, challenging the ‘militarist’ interpretation of castles in a pioneering article, drew attention to a letter of 1247 in which Henry III ordered his constable of Dover, about to receive a diplomatic visitor from France, ‘to show the castle off in eloquent style, so that the magnificence of the castle shall be fully apparent to him and that he shall see no defects in it’.8 Yet even Coulson, writing in 1979, was prepared to contrast this with events directly after the fall of Normandy in 1204, seeing military needs then as relatively more significant, even before French invasion actually materialized and led to the siege of 1216-17.9
In recent years more radically revised interpretations have been argued, implicitly or explicitly challenging the presumption of any military rationale for most English castles and largely severing the study of castellated buildings and their social importance from the history of war.10 Such conclusions have indeed long been advanced for the later middle ages, but usually on a basis that was compatible with the traditional interpretation. The assumption tended to be that these were ‘fortified’ houses rather than castles, or that at some date, variously placed in the fourteenth or fifteenth century, castles began to ‘decline’ and, in most cases at least, to lose their earlier roles of directly providing defence and security behind their walls. Reading back these ideas into the pre-1300 period constitutes a more fundamental reappraisal, in effect challenging those who take a contrary view, including political historians studying specific episodes of conflict, to re- state their case. Such a debate should be welcomed, but one potential problem with it is the danger of juxtaposing current social or architectural history with outdated analyses of politics or warfare. A narrative formed simply by linking together battles and sieges has limited value, but so does a reaction which merely points out that such events were rare or untypical, for individual sites or in general. Instead it is necessary to employ broader and more inclusive concepts of power in medieval society. To proclaim status and wealth by architectural or other display might in itself imply consequent threats of force to back them up, if only as a last resort; these categories of action were not easily segregated in practice or even in law. Almost by definition, such assertions of hierarchy or authority if successful should not lead to actual violence. But there is little more basis here to postulate the peaceful nature of castles as a general rule than there was to associate all castles with ‘feudal anarchy’ under older interpretations: in reality almost all depends on the specifics of time and place. Some medieval societies were more peaceful than others. Wider debates have thus enriched the range of ideas which can be brought to bear on a particular example like Dover, but the key problem remains that of identifying the actual circumstances which led Henry II to rebuild it. Much the same can be said of the ‘debate-within-the-debate’ on the role of great towers in castles of this period. Recent writers have again become increasingly confident in assigning largely residential and ceremonial functions to these grand
RICHARD EALES
and expensive buildings, so leaving Allen Brown’s ‘battleship’ not only obsolete but scarcely ever afloat.11 But this shift of categories in itself hardly begins to answer the specific question of what return the king expected to get for his huge outlay on the tower at Dover
Dover Castle in the context of Kent
A potential intermediate line of enquiry into castles lies between site-specific research and wider national or international generalisations. That is the regional context: in the case of Dover, Norman and Angevin Kent or South-East England. Examination of this context, both before and after Henry II’s reign, raises issues about similarities and differences between Dover and the other major royal castles in the county, about the influences exerted by castles of other lords, and more generally about the recurrent specific problems of governing the region. Regional studies of castles, in East Anglia and the South-West, as well as in parts of Wales, the Midlands and northern England have featured in recent literature and have addressed these kinds of problems, but have not so far been attempted for the South-East before the late medieval period.12
Much writing about Kent naturally emphasizes the strategic position of its setting in south-east England; a contact point with the Continent whether by armed invasion or peaceful influence. Such assumptions can be read back to Julius Caesar or St Augustine, back from Napoleon or Hitler. F.W. Maitland, dismissing the idea that distinctive traditions in later medieval Kent could be explained just by survival from earlier customs, wrote that the county ‘was no remote fastness … it is the garden of England, of all English counties that which is most exposed to foreign influences’.13
In relation to the Norman period a narrative can be constructed by linking individual crises from before 1066 onwards: the naval role of Sandwich in the Godwin civil war of 1051-52 and in earlier eleventh-century regime changes, William of Normandy’s decision to move east after the battle of Hastings, taking and fortifying Dover, which then had to be held against an attempted revolt by Count Eustace of Boulogne the following year. Stephen, having traversed Kent to launch his bid for the throne in 1135, left Dover and Leeds castles in the hands of his potential rival Earl Robert of Gloucester, who had been entrusted with them by Henry I. But on Robert’s defection in 1138, he was compelled to besiege and capture them to secure the county once more as a crucial base and a link to his lordship of Boulogne.14
Handled uncritically, this leads back to Dover as ‘the key to England’, not just in the special circumstances of 1216 but throughout the middle ages and beyond, as a fact of geography. Thus in David Cathcart-King’s Castellarium Anglicanum of 1983 Kent is discussed under the tell-tale heading, redolent of the 1940s, of ‘The Invasion Coast’. Continuity is certainly assumed so far as castles are concerned between the Norman period and the invasion fears of the Hundred Years War from the 1330s onwards, as well as later periods. Puzzlingly, given the almost universal view that castles in war had only a limited and relative capacity to block the passage of larger hostile forces, a verdict seemingly borne out by the events of 1216 or the successful French raid on Dover in 1295, he also argued that Dover,
DOVER CASTLE AND ROYAL POWER IN TWELFTH-CENTURY KENT
uniquely among the castles of the area, ‘stood on what is arguably the best invasion route of all, and effectively blocked it’.15 More recent scholars have been rightly sceptical of this kind of geographical and military determinism. The narrative can be read in different ways, rather than just by highlighting selected episodes of threatened though rarely realized invasion. Thus relations between English rulers and the counts of Flanders and of Boulogne were complex and fluctuating in the twelfth century, including the elaborate treaties of 1101 and 1110 between Henry I and Robert of Flanders, revived and revised in Henry II’s treaty with Thierry of Flanders in 1163.16 All these agreements, it should be noted, were promulgated in Dover, whatever the limitations of the castle in that period.
Anglo-Flemish relations are especially crucial for any assessment of Continental links passing through Kent and Dover, in part because this was never the natural route for kings and lords crossing to Normandy in the twelfth century, Portsmouth being the commonest embarkation point.17 The conclusion is that this was a history not of consistent strategic needs but of constantly shifting priorities, which alone can explain the commitment of large resources to Dover castle at a particular date like the 1180s, or in the aftermath of the civil war at the end of John’s reign, the 1220s.
But the history of twelfth-century Kent, or of Dover castle, cannot be based only on an analysis of external influences on the region, even a more sophisticated analysis. There is also the question of its internal politics. The real answer to the ‘Invasion Coast’ view of medieval Kent is to recognise that the history of the region was characterized by interactions between such external influences, including increasingly that of London on the west and north of the county, and its complex internal structure. This process conditioned all kinds of political decisions in the twelfth century, from relations between kings and archbishops, the privileges of towns including the Cinque Ports, local loyalties in general as highlighted in Stephen’s reign, to the rebuilding of Dover castle. But though the outcomes were complex, some main features of Norman Kent can be simply summarized.18 First, there was the high proportion of the county’s lands held in ecclesiastical lordship, approaching 50 per cent by value in Domesday and subsequent estimates, a figure exceeded only in Worcestershire. This made Kent unpropitious for baronial power- building on a large scale, and in particular created problems for those exercising comital or pseudo-comital authority in the county: Odo of Bayeux under William I, William of Ypres under Stephen, Hubert de Burgh in Henry III’s minority, and so on. Second, after Odo’s fall in 1082, made permanent by his revolt against William Rufus in 1088, a pattern of lesser baronial estates, mostly now held directly of the Crown, was established across Kent by the early twelfth century. It would be too much to call these local baronies, as many of their lords also had significant holdings outside Kent, but they were small or medium sized in scale. Only one baronial family of national magnate rank held a Kentish lordship all through the period, the Clares in Tonbridge.19 Many of these baronies owed castle-guard service at Rochester or Dover in the twelfth century, like the eight baronies owing a total of 116 fees to Dover, copied in several variant forms into the Red Book of the Exchequer and other thirteenth-century registers.20 There was also considerable tenurial intermixing; a majority of Odo’s Domesday tenants held lands from the archbishopric too; one reason why so few of them followed him into revolt and
RICHARD EALES
dispossession in 1088.21 This created a legacy of uncertainty over multiple claims to overlordship in some cases. Third, there were in Kent an unusually large number of significant, and significantly privileged, towns: Canterbury and Rochester, the two major ports of Sandwich and Dover, the smaller ones at Hythe and Romney. All these coastal towns, later members of the formalised Cinque Ports confederation, owed some sort of individual ship service to the king by William I’s reign, and all possessed early mints. Recent research has tended to increase estimates for the likely population sizes of all the Kent towns in this period, giving Kent an unusually high ratio of urban to rural population in the twelfth century, though of course these categories are always debatable.22 Other distinctive local features could be added, such as the Kentish customs later allowed as an exception in common law, the diverse topography of the county with its large areas of woodland and coastal marshes, and the scale of fishing and coastal trade.
From the king’s point of view, however, the issue was governance, and it can be suggested that there were broadly two different approaches which could be adopted in varying degrees. The first was for rulers to co-operate with and rely on the officials of the archbishop’s lordship, if not so much in routine administration and revenue collection, then certainly in the operation of local courts, as witness the preponderance of Kentish hundreds in ecclesiastical hands, and in more informal decision making. All through the period, whenever the sources permit, royal sheriffs and other officials can be seen doing exactly this. Even late in Stephen’s reign, when his relations with Archbishop Theobald (Abp 1138-61) were notoriously strained, the sheriff of Kent Ralph Picot, who retained office until 1160 under Henry II and had strong local connections, was brokering such working agreements, a process no doubt contributing to his own durability in office.23 The apogee of this approach in castle policy was Henry I’s grant of Rochester castle as a perpetual custody to Archbishop William of Corbeil (Abp 1123-36) in 1127, with permission to erect a turris there.24 The outcome was the construction of the massive Rochester keep over the succeeding decade or so, probably by the archbishop’s death in 1136 and presumably at his expense; at least there is nothing in the 1130 Pipe Roll or other sources to indicate royal subsidy, though the possibility of undocumented arrangements cannot be ruled out. This added a link to the chain of royal great towers: London, Canterbury, Rochester and Dover, which was to be completed by the 1180s and was built in that order, the date of the Canterbury tower, though still debated, lying almost certainly within the range 1090 to 1120.25
But there was an alternative royal system, of falling back on a pattern of secular control in Kent, relying on the direct use of the king’s officials, and more informally on patronage and influence over secular lords, as practised in many other parts of England. The most obvious reason to adopt this approach was the breakdown of the king’s working relationship with a particular archbishop, as with Henry II and Thomas Becket in the 1160s, though the precedents are clear in Anselm’s two exiles between 1097 and 1106, and the most drastic example of all was the Interdict of 1208-1214 in John’s reign. In these extreme cases the outcome was temporary confiscation of ecclesiastical lands and rights of lordship: if Stephen exercised some restraint over such action between 1148 and 1153 then Henry II was not so patient.26 Temporary extensions of royal authority could also arise periodically and less violently through archiepiscopal vacancies. But even in more
DOVER CASTLE AND ROYAL POWER IN TWELFTH-CENTURY KENT
normal conditions, the royal castles, Rochester and Dover as well as Canterbury, which was the sheriff’s main base, were centres from which political control could be managed, with castle-guard services one point of contact and reinforcement of local lordship, in parallel with court attendances. Even the 1127 perpetual grant of Rochester, which transferred the castle-guard services to the archbishop, fell short of outright alienation, as it was made saving all allegiance owed to the king.27 Eventually the betrayal of Rochester to the rebels in 1215 by Reginald of Cornhill, who was both royal sheriff and the archbishop’s constable, ended a final attempt to maintain local peace by sharing power along these lines, initiating civil war and the siege of the castle in October to November 1215. Rochester was apparently a royal base in Henry II’s reign as in Stephen’s; one account even claiming that Becket’s murderers in December 1170 attempted to summon the garrison of the castle to their aid.28
The overall pattern of castles inherited from the Norman settlement in Kent is also compatible with this analysis. Odo of Bayeux himself built no castles on the demesne manors of his huge Kent lordship, but like later earls based his power on custody of royal castles, one reason why he was so vulnerable to any loss of royal favour, as were William of Ypres and Hubert de Burgh after him. In contrast, many of his tenants or their successors built lesser castles on their own lands, as at Folkestone, Coldred and in a band across west Kent south of Rochester: at Stockbury, Binbury, Thurnham, Leeds and probably others. A smaller number of castles was held of the archbishop’s lordship, notably at Saltwood, Eynesford and Stowting. In all these cases early dates are only probabilities, given the lack of documentary confirmation; it is well-known that a large proportion of archaeologically evident Norman castle sites across England lack any pre-1200 written history.29 Those which have documented later histories tended naturally to be those which were rebuilt more elaborately in stone, like Leeds, Allington and Sutton Valence. Tonbridge, though eventually acknowledged to be held from the archbishopric in a compromise agreement, was long in dispute and functioned effectively as an independent centre of power under its Clare lords.30 The distribution of castles reflects the balance of power in Norman Kent: royal authority variable because sometimes heavily delegated, great ecclesiastical estates, and a network of smaller lordships rarely in the hands of major magnates.
Henry II’s rule in Kent
A review of Henry II’s government of Kent through his reign therefore contributes to explaining his investment in castle-building in the region, culminating in the quite exceptional reconstruction of Dover and its great tower in the 1180s. It begins with the question of what Henry inherited from Stephen in 1154 and the restoration of royal power, so far as it was required in Kent.31 The prevalent view of Kent in Stephen’s reign used to be that it remained essentially peaceful and untroubled through the ‘anarchy’ because it consistently supported the king, and that such disturbance as did occur was mostly caused by Stephen’s importation of Flemish soldiers under the command of William of Ypres to bolster his campaigns elsewhere. The author has argued that this is clearly an oversimplification, which does not make sufficient allowance for the ecclesiastical, and Canterbury-centred,
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bias of many sources. Local loyalties were always more complicated than this, and relative peace also owed much to ‘a balance of local forces … kept in being by compromises and alliances’ between leading figures, as already instanced in the royal sheriff’s close relationship with Archbishop Theobald and his household. There are indications that even William of Ypres participated in such arrangements too and was much more than a predatory alien in the county.32 The support of the Kentish lords for Stephen was also not quite as consistent as was assumed by earlier historians. At least three of the Kent barons: William de Crevequer, Hugh of Dover and William Patrick, two owing service in Dover castle and the third at Rochester, had gone over to Normandy and witnessed charters for the newly-installed Duke Henry by 1151, two years before his successful invasion of England and succession agreement with his rival.33 When Henry conducted his final meetings with Stephen early in 1154 to discuss the implementation of that treaty, at Canterbury and Dover, he was not necessarily entering a hostile zone, despite the story later told by Gervase of Canterbury that he returned to London because of a plot to kill him on the part of Stephen’s Flemish followers. The count of Flanders also joined the meeting at Dover, and was there again for a further meeting with Stephen later in the year.34
More convincing chronicle evidence tells us that William of Ypres, and presumably many of his followers, left Kent in 1155, soon after Henry II’s succession.35 But, as in many other regions, Henry took some time to assert his authority, first consolidating relations with Archbishop Theobald and appointing his archdeacon Thomas Becket as the new royal chancellor. Only in 1157 did Henry discontinue payments to William of Ypres from the Kent farm and compensate Faramus of Boulogne, another Fleming who had held the custody of Dover and its castle, for the loss of his position in Kent. Faramus, though, remained in England and apparently in royal favour, retaining his lands in East Anglia, so Henry’s decision was specifically one about the rule of the South-East. Apart from the Flemish withdrawal, there was actually much continuity of administration. Stephen’s sheriff retained office to 1160, and county farms were relatively stable in the post-1157 pipe rolls.36 As king, Henry naturally wished to maintain good working relations with Flanders itself, which he managed to do until the late 1160s. After the death of Stephen’s surviving son William in 1159, Henry was instrumental in arranging the important marriage of the old king’s daughter to Matthew younger son of Thierry count of Flanders, so confirming him as count of Boulogne in 1160, the formal treaty with Count Thierry following in 1163.37 During the central period of Henry’s reign, between the onset of the Becket dispute in 1163 and the aftermath of the 1173-74 revolt, this general stability and continuity in Kent came under threat. Both its elements: the balancing of overlapping interests within the county and the diplomatic resolution of problems with outside Continental powers, were called into question. In the event though, the previous system of control was eventually restored by the king along more-or-less the same lines when circumstances permitted.
The importance of local and Kent problems in the early stages of the Becket conflict is perhaps often underestimated, because they were so soon overtaken by wider ecclesiastical issues. It is clear that Henry would have expected Becket (Abp 1162-70) to assume the same role as previous archbishops as a collaborator
DOVER CASTLE AND ROYAL POWER IN TWELFTH-CENTURY KENT
in governing the region, and indeed to be much more sensitive to the king’s aims than Theobald had been. In these circumstances the flurry of demands issued by Becket in 1163 relating to long-running local disputes must have seemed like a deliberate rebuff. They included the requests for homage from Earl Roger de Clare for Tonbridge castle, and homage from William de Ros, holder of one of the Kent baronies appurtenant to Dover castle, for fees in Maidstone and the return of two fees in Saltwood, crucially including the castle there, as well as a reiteration of the archbishop’s rights at Rochester.38 These were not jurisdictional niceties but potentially significant moves in terms of local power. W.L. Warren saw them as typical of a series of ‘grand gestures’ of defiance by which Becket initiated his quarrel with the king.39 Anne Duggan, using the same evidence but giving more weight to the account of Ralph of Diceto, drew an almost exactly opposite conclusion: that Henry had already abandoned Becket and denied him royal favour by the beginning of 1163, encouraging all subsequent attacks on him, so that the archbishop was almost entirely the innocent party and in local terms was simply demanding what was owed to him.40 Study of the Kent tenurial claims themselves, and the tangled allegiances attached to them, makes this cut-and-dried assessment of legality unconvincing. In the Ros case Henry got a judgement in his favour, though Diceto claimed that the judges were biased. The division of the various Saltwood fees and the status of the castles there and in Tonbridge are also far from clear in the surviving evidence, making claims about them negotiable and ambivalent. It is more plausible to follow Frank Barlow in the wider conclusion that this was a drift towards ruptured relations fuelled by provocations on both sides, rather than a matter of right and wrong.41
The effects on the royal government of Kent and its castles were however potentially wide-ranging. While it can be argued that for Henry’s wider plans the Becket exile was little more than a distraction right up until its denouement in 1170, this was hardly the case in Kent, where the archiepiscopal and monastic lands of Canterbury were already seized by the king after 1165 and put into the hands of unsavoury agents like Ranulf de Broc. These local disruptions coincided with worsening relations with Flanders, as Matthew count of Boulogne demanded compensation in England for his wife’s inheritance claims. By 1167 he was rumoured to be planning actual attacks on Kent, though Gervase of Canterbury’s later account of his preparations, involving the use of 600 ships, is hard to credit.42 It came to nothing, probably because Henry II was too successful in defending Normandy against the allied threat from Louis VII of France. Given the entanglement of Anglo-Flemish negotiations and attempts to resolve the Becket dispute, it was no surprise that when opportunity presented itself the new count Philip of Flanders and his brother threw themselves into the Young King’s revolt against Henry in 1173. According to Roger of Howden, Count Philip was promised Kent with the castles of Dover and Rochester as his reward, but though Flemish forces fought unsuccessfully in East Anglia in 1173, no serious attack on, or revolt in, Kent actually materialized.43 Henry’s penance in Canterbury cathedral in 1174, to which he attributed the almost-simultaneous capture of the king of Scots near Alnwick, must qualify as the most significant narrative event in Kent during the whole crisis. There was also administrative continuity during and after the revolt. The royal sheriff Gervase of Cornhill retained office all through these events
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from 1168 to 1176, as the ecclesiastical confiscations were unwound and a new archbishop Richard prior of Dover, a man with impeccable local experience and acceptable to the Canterbury monks as a former member of their community, was elected with royal approval in 1173.44
What really happened over these years in the 1160s and 1170s, even setting aside the temporary confiscations, was a strengthening of royal secular control in Kent. To an extent this simply mirrored the national trends of Angevin ‘reform’, with legal assizes, revived judicial eyres, the Cartae Baronum of 1166, the 1170 Inquest of Sheriffs and so on, but the South-East was one of the regions most specifically affected. In some respects the process was opportunistic. One holder of a barony owing service to Dover, Manasser Arsic, died in 1171 or 1172, and his lands came into the king’s hands in wardship. Two others, William of Avranches and Daniel Crevequer, died later in the 1170s with similar consequences. William Patrick, whose lordship owed service at Rochester, was unusual in actually joining the revolt or in giving grounds for suspicion; his lands were in the sheriff’s hands in 1173-75.45 Also in 1175, Saltwood castle was ‘destroyed’ while in royal hands, perhaps anticipating a future need to return it to the archbishopric, and Allington castle was apparently treated the same way.46 But the most revealing case is that of the barony of Chilham, whose lord Hugh of Dover, sheriff of Kent 1160-68, died in about 1170. Though his heir, his nephew John, was allowed to succeed, and no evidence survives of royal disfavour towards him, Henry retained Chilham castle and rebuilt it at a cost of about £428 recorded in the pipe rolls between 1171 and 1174, constructing the small polygonal great tower which still survives in a damaged and altered form just over five miles from Canterbury. Not surprisingly, after this investment, it remained in royal hands whatever the legal justification may have been, until it was eventually returned to John of Dover’s granddaughter and heiress on her marriage to King John’s illegitimate son Richard.47
In effect these individual actions formed part of a royal castle policy in Kent between 1168 and 1175, which included recorded expenditure, as well as the £428 at Chilham, of £102 at Canterbury, £132 at Rochester and almost £500 at Dover. Few specific details are given about the Dover works in the pipe roll accounts though it is clear that masonry was constructed as well as earthworks, the names of several ‘viewers’ (assessors) and the mason Ralph being mentioned.48 Given the wider pattern, it is hard to see the expenditure at Dover before 1173 as solely a military response to renewed threats of Flemish invasion by Philip of Flanders or Matthew of Boulogne. It also contributed to strengthening and displaying royal power in Kent during a period in which the king could not count on an archbishop of Canterbury as a reliable partner. It was designed to address internal as well as external problems in south-east England. So far as pipe roll evidence is concerned there was almost no expenditure on castles in Kent between 1154 and 1167, but there was little after 1175 too, except for the extraordinary sums committed to Dover: the second campaign there, including the great tower, costing almost
£6,000 in 1180-88. This was something new and in clear contrast to 1168-1173: spending on Dover alone and on an unprecedented scale. More normal and modest work at Canterbury resumed only in 1191 after the Dover operations had come to a temporary close.49
It might be argued from the sheer cost of Dover castle in the 1180s, as well as
DOVER CASTLE AND ROYAL POWER IN TWELFTH-CENTURY KENT
the impressiveness of the outcome, that it was rebuilt to reflect national rather than local priorities. But all of the motives which have been attributed to Henry II in constructing it also testify to importance of the local and regional setting. In the debate over military and non-military motives for castle-building, Dover great tower, and even the new defences around it, are rarely now interpreted in straightforwardly military terms. Whatever Henry II’s mounting Continental problems, and it remains debatable whether he was in serious difficulties until the very end of his life, there is little reason to propose that outside threats to South- East England in the 1180s necessitated such massive expenditure on Dover for defensive reasons. Any danger then was less pressing than in the 1170s, much less so than in John’s reign. Henry II’s castle was certainly strongly defensible, but it could have been made so at less dramatic cost. This leaves it open to argue that the great tower was demonstrative building, constructed to symbolize and provide a very visible setting for displays of royal authority, to celebrate Henry’s successful rule rather than as means to fight for it. This conclusion could be reached for Dover as an individual case, on the basis of where and when it was built, though naturally welcome to those who interpret great towers in general in this way.50 A case has also been made for seeing Dover keep as a specific architectural response of secular magnificence to the Becket cult, then attracting high status visitors to Kent, and the rebuilding of Canterbury cathedral after the 1174 fire, well advanced at the time when the castle works started.51 This may also be more compelling if placed in the context of local status and cooperation outlined here.
The functional use of keeps of this period is still debatable, as documentation is almost entirely lacking and interpretations typically rely on imaginative reconstructions from surviving fabric, inevitably some more persuasive than others. Royal itineraries give some indication of when kings actually visited their castles and how often, though it is not always easy to identify consistent purpose from responses to political exigencies. It has already been observed that twelfth- century kings had many opportunities to observe the shortcomings of Dover castle for themselves, before Henry II decided to take action on the grandest scale late in his reign. Gervase of Canterbury gives a rare specific example of the use made of another new royal castle in Kent when he described the subprior of Canterbury Christ Church going out to visit the king at Chilham in 1187, during the bitter dispute between the monks and Archbishop Baldwin. It seems Henry was conducting negotiations at his own base outside the city before entering it, the castle serving as the setting for an episode of political management.52 This is interesting, though far from a basis for arguing that he had built Chilham with just such a purpose in mind fifteen years before.
In general it is better to allow for multiple uses and shifting priorities rather than trying to define a single purpose for the existence of individual castles, let alone the buildings or rooms within them. Part at least of the explanation for the extraordinary phenomenon of what was built at Dover in the 1180s must lie in the inheritance of earlier royal policies towards Kent and its castles, at Canterbury, Rochester and other sites as well as Dover. Most recently, this had led to a resumption of castle building across the county within the decade 1165-1175. But it seems that the 1180s also brought new motives and requirements, as later did events after 1200.
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Pragmatic adaptability can be seen in almost every aspect of the reigns of the Angevin kings, and certainly in their castle policies.
endnotes
1 H.R. Luard (ed.), Matthaei Parisiensis, Chronica Majora, Rolls Series, 57, vol. III, 1876, 28. For a summary of Hubert de Burgh’s career, with full references, see F.J. West, ‘Burgh, Hubert de, earl of Kent (c.1170-1243)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, 2004.
2 S.E. Rigold, ‘Excavations at Dover Castle 1964-1966’, Journal of the Archaeological Association, third series, XXX, 1967, 87-121; M. Biddle, ‘The earthworks around St Mary in Castro’, Report of the summer meeting of the Royal Archaeological Institute at Canterbury in 1969, Archaeological Journal, 126, 1969, 264-65. See also A.M. Cook, D.C. Mynard and S.E. Rigold, ‘Excavations at Dover Castle, principally in the inner bailey’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, third series, XXXII, 1969, 54-104. The full summary of the documentary sources by Brown and Colvin, still invaluable despite growing disagreements over some of its conclusions, is in
R.A. Brown, H.M. Colvin and A.J. Taylor, The History of the King’s Works, vol. II, The Middle Ages, London, 1963, 629-41.
3 The 2009 English Heritage project focused on the great tower included extensive surveys of the fabric as well as full contextual studies. It was edited for publication in 2011 and again in 2016, but has yet to appear. It was preceded by a preliminary report by C. Phillpotts, Dover Castle Great Tower: Revised Documentary Research Report, English Heritage (Properties Presentation Department), 2008. Some other more recent work has been published online. P. Dixon, The Great Tower at Dover, Philip Dixon Associates, 2009, includes a wider discussion of ‘the great tower during the 12th century, with emphasis on the design function of these buildings’. See also two titles in the English Heritage Research Department Report Series (available online or in paper copy): A. Brodie, Arthur’s Hall, Dover Castle, Kent, 40, 2011; A. Brodie and G. Higgott, Inner Bailey, Dover Castle, Kent, 41, 2011. This is by no means a full list of continuing research on aspects of Dover castle. As always, recent English Heritage guidebooks contain useful summaries: J. Coad, Dover Castle, 2007; S. Brindle, Dover Castle, 2012, and subsequent editions.
4 Biddle, ‘The earthworks …’, 264-65.
5 Brown and Colvin, in The History of the King’s Works, vol. II, 630-32, and 746 on the earlier employment of ‘Maurice’ at Newcastle in the 1170s. D.F. Renn, ‘The Avranches traverse at Dover castle’, Archaeologia Cantiana, lxxxiv, 1969, 79-92, is a valuable fuller discussion with an annotated table of recorded pipe roll expenditure on Dover at 90-92.
6 J. Coad, English Heritage Book of Dover Castle, London, 1995, summarises a range of views on Henry II’s work at Dover before the initiation of recent research, with tentative suggestions about the order of construction of the keep and inner bailey at 23-24. Renn, ‘The Avranches traverse’, 88-91, proposes the prior construction of the keep with more confidence. But on the evidence then given, none of these attempts to attribute more precise dates to the building history can be regarded as certain.
7 Brown and Colvin, in The History of the King’s Works, vol. I, 72-75, quotation at 75. It may be reasonable to attribute this to Allen Brown in view of his extensive work on Dover, and similar opinions expressed elsewhere. See his full and influential guidebook: Dover Castle, Department of the Environment, 1966, and subsequent editions.
8 C. Coulson, ‘Structural symbolism in medieval castle architecture’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, CXXXII, 1979, 73-90, quotation and translation at 75.
9 Ibid., 75. For his more recent views, see C. Coulson, ‘Peaceable power in English castles’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 23, 2001, 69-95, with discussion of Dover at 69-75. Compare John Goodall’s views on Dover in ‘The key of England’ and ‘In the powerhouse of Kent’, Country Life, 193, 1999, 44-47 and 110-13, with the military narrative which informs his analysis of (some of) the architecture in ‘Dover castle and the great siege of 1216’, Chateau Gaillard, XIX, 2000, 91-102.
10 Among the large and growing list of ‘revisionist’ works, there are useful bibliographies and guides to debate in C. Coulson, Castles in Medieval Society: Fortresses in England, France and Ireland in the Central Middle Ages, Oxford, 2003; O.H. Creighton, Castles and Landscapes, London,
DOVER CASTLE AND ROYAL POWER IN TWELFTH-CENTURY KENT
2002: R. Liddiard, Castles in Context: Power, Symbolism and Lordship, 1066 to 1500, Bollington, 2005; J. Goodall, The English Castle, London, 2011.
11 See especially the surveys and individual studies of Philip Dixon and Pamela Marshall. Their general conclusions are stated in P. Dixon, ‘The influence of the White Tower on the great towers of the twelfth century’, in E. Impey (ed.), The White Tower, New Haven and London, 2008, 243-75;
P. Marshall, ‘The ceremonial function of the donjon in the twelfth century’, Chateau Gaillard, XX, 2002, 140-51; P. Marshall, ‘The great tower as residence’, in G. Meirion-Jones, E. Impey and M. Jones (eds), The Seigneurial Residence in Western Europe AD c.800-1500, BAR International Series, Oxford, 2002, 27-44. Other views are still possible, of course, but the shift in interpretation is clear. See, for example, the range of opinions in J.A. Davies, A. Riley, J-M. Levesque and C. Lapiche (eds), Castles and the Anglo-Norman World, Oxford, 2016.
12 R. Higham, ‘Public and private defence in the medieval South-West: town, castle and fort’, in
R. Higham (ed.), Security and Defence in South-West England before 1800, Exeter, 1987, 27-49, was in some ways pioneering in asking ‘regional’ questions rather than providing a gazetteer of sites. The regional landscape approach is exemplified in R. Liddiard, Landscapes of Lordship: Norman Castles and the Countryside in Medieval Norfolk, 1066 -1200, BAR British Series, 309, 2000 and in O.H. Creighton, Castles and Landscapes. C. Coulson, ‘On crenellating, in Kent and beyond: a retrospection’, The Castle Studies Group Journal, 21, 2007-8, 189-202, deals with Kent in the later middle ages.
13 F. Pollock and F.W. Maitland, The History of English Law, 2nd edn, Cambridge, 1898, vol. I, 187.
14 On these events, see R. Eales, ‘Local loyalties in Norman England: Kent in Stephen’s reign’, Anglo-Norman Studies, VIII, 1985, 88-108; and on the Boulogne connection, H.J. Tanner, Families, Friends and Allies: Boulogne and Politics in Northern France and England c.879-1160, Leiden and Boston, 2004, 181-243.
15 D.J. Cathcart King, Castellarium Anglicanum, New York, 1983, vol. I, l-lv, quotation at li.
16 The texts of these treaties are conveniently printed together in P. Chaplais (ed.), Diplomatic Documents Preserved in the Public Record Office, vol. I, 1101-1272, London, 1964, 1-14 (nos 1-4). See also E. Oksanen, Flanders and the Anglo-Norman World 1066-1216, Cambridge, 2012, on the long-running diplomatic engagement behind these agreements.
17 J. Le Patourel, The Norman Empire, Oxford, 1976, 163-78, brought together a discussion of such Anglo-Norman ‘transfretations’. Oksanen, ibid., 158, points out that it was only in the final years of his reign that for Henry II ‘Dover to Wissant and back was among the king’s favoured Channel crossings’. For further discussion, see D. Gilmour, ‘Bekesbourne and the King’s esnecca 1110-1445’, Archaeologia Cantiana, cxxxii, 2012, 315-25. Ecclesiastics, on the other hand, usually preferred the shorter passage via Kent.
18 For the background to this, see R. Eales, ‘An Introduction to the Kent Domesday’, in The Kent Domesday, London, 1992, 1-49; C. Flight, The Survey of Kent: Documents relating to the survey of the county conducted in 1086, BAR British Series, 506, Oxford, 2010.
19 Eales, ‘Kent Domesday’, 45-49; ‘Local loyalties’, 94-98. On the tenants of the archbishopric,
D.C. Douglas (ed.), The Domesday Monachorum of Christ Church Canterbury, London, 1944;
F.R.H. Du Boulay, The Lordship of Canterbury, London, 1966. On Tonbridge, J. Ward, ‘The lowy of Tonbridge and the lands of the Clare family in Kent, 1066-1217’, Archaeologia Cantiana, xcvi, 1980, 119-31.
20 H. Hall (ed.), The Red Book of the Exchequer, Rolls Series, 99, vol. II, 1897, 613-18, 706-12, 717-22. On the wider background, J.S. Moore, ‘Anglo-Norman garrisons’, Anglo-Norman Studies, XXII, 1999, 205-59.
21 See note 19 above. F. Barlow, William Rufus, London, 1983, 53-98, and W.M. Aird, Robert Curthose Duke of Normandy (c.1050-1134), Woodbridge, 2008, 99-117, are the fullest accounts of the 1088 revolt.
22 Eales, ‘Kent Domesday’, 27-34. D. Keene, ‘The South-East of England’, in D.M. Palliser (ed.), The Cambridge Urban History of Britain, vol. I, 600-1540, Cambridge, 2000, 545-82, covers wider issues.
23 Eales, ‘Local loyalties’, 102-105.
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24 C. Johnson and H.A. Cronne (eds), Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum 1066-1154, vol. II, Regesta Henrici Primi 1100-1135, Oxford, 1956, 203 (calendar), 356 (text). Henry subsequently confirmed the archbishop’s right to exact castle-guard service at Rochester, ibid., 230. On the implications of the Rochester grant, see I.W. Rowlands, ‘King John, Stephen Langton and Rochester castle, 1213-15’, in C. Harper-Bill, C. Holdsworth and J.L. Nelson (eds), Studies in Medieval History Presented to R. Allen Brown, Woodbridge, 1989, 267-79.
25 D.F. Renn, ‘Canterbury castle in the early middle ages’, in P. Bennett, S.S. Frere and S. Stow (eds), The Archaeology of Canterbury, vol. I, Excavations at Canterbury Castle, Maidstone, 1982, 70-88, broadly accepted by more recent writers. The order of construction in Kent (Canterbury, Rochester, Dover) is precisely the opposite of later medieval priorities in maintaining these sites.
26 John of Salisbury commented on the fact that Stephen did not victimise Theobald’s ‘friends or fideles’, M. Chibnall (ed.), The Historia Pontificalis of John of Salisbury, London, 1956, 42. He and other members of the Becket circle later came to adopt a very different view of Henry II. On the earlier precedents, see B. Golding, ‘Tribulationes Ecclesiae Christi: the disruption caused at Canterbury by royal confiscations in the time of St Anselm’, in R. Foreville (ed.), Les Mutations Socio-Culturelles au Tournant des XIe-XIIe Siecles, Paris, 1984.
27 As pointed out by Rowlands, ‘King John’, 268-69.
28 J.C. Robertson (ed.), Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, Rolls Series, 67, vol. III, 1877, 131. This account of William Fitzstephen brackets Rochester with the castles of Canterbury, Dover, Saltwood and Bletchingley (Surrey), a possession of the Clare family.
29 Cathcart King, Castellarium Anglicanum, vol. I, 227-42, provides a map and outline account of these sites in Kent. More could be done with the evidence.
30 See note 19 above. Du Boulay, Lordship of Canterbury, 85-87, surveys the history of relations
down to the agreement between Archbishop Boniface of Savoy and Earl Richard de Clare in 1259.
31 See E. Amt, The Accession of Henry II in England: Royal Government Restored 1149-1159, Woodbridge, 1993; G.J. White, Restoration and Reform 1153-1165: Recovery from Civil War in England, Cambridge, 2000.
32 Eales, ‘Local loyalties’, quotation at 108, and on William of Ypres 100-102. See also Amt, Accession of Henry II, 82-93, chapter on ‘The Anglo-Flemish community’; Tanner, Family, Friends and Allies; Oksanen, Flanders and the Anglo-Norman World.
33 Eales, ‘Local loyalties’, 106.
34 W. Stubbs (ed.), The Historical Works of Gervase of Canterbury, Rolls Series, 73, vol. I, 1879,
158. D. Crouch, The Reign of King Stephen 1135-1154, London, 2000, 278-89.
35 Notably William of Newburgh, Robert of Torigni and Ralph Diceto, as well as Gervase of
Canterbury: references in Amt, Accession of Henry II, 90.
36 Amt, Accession of Henry II, 84-87, 91.
37 Eales, ‘Local loyalties’, 107-108, Tanner, Families, Friends and Allies, 200-203. Oksanen, Flanders and the Anglo-Norman World, 33-34, 100-102, argues that the marriage led to a ‘brief crisis’ in relations between Henry II and Thierry Count of Flanders in 1160, largely because of Thierry’s own strained relations with his son Matthew, though it was soon resolved.
38 Gervase of Canterbury, vol. I, 174, vol. II, 1880, 391 (Actus Pontificum Cantuarensis Ecclesiae); Herbert of Bosham, Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, vol. III, 251-52; represent the Canterbury tradition of these matters. F. Barlow, Thomas Becket, 1986, 83-84, 98, gives full references to other sources.
39 W.L. Warren, Henry II, 453-59, quotation at 455. Warren does describe these issues as
‘peripheral’ at 459, but that is a judgement of selective hindsight.
40 A. Duggan, Thomas Becket, 33-37; W. Stubbs (ed.), The Historical Works of Master Ralph de Diceto, Rolls Series, 68, vol. I, 1876, 308-12. Thus at 35, Duggan says ‘there is no doubt that Henry was not justified in this action’, in retaining Saltwood, since it ‘belonged to the archbishopric’. This was admittedly the strongest of Becket’s claims, despite some confusion over the division of the fees there.
41 Barlow, Thomas Becket, 83-84, 88-89. On some of the complications which led to compromises
over Tonbridge, see Du Boulay, Lordship of Canterbury, 85-87, 295-96, 334, and on Saltwood, 367.
42 Gervase of Canterbury, vol. I, 203.
DOVER CASTLE AND ROYAL POWER IN TWELFTH-CENTURY KENT
43 W. Stubbs (ed.), Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, Rolls Series, 49, vol. I, 1867, 43-45. Warren’s account of the 1173-74 revolt in Henry II, 117-36, is now succeeded by that of M. Strickland, Henry the Young King 1155-1183, New Haven and London, 2016, 151-205, which is fuller and more alert to the motives of all the participants. At 194, Strickland argues that there was, at least briefly, a real threat of a Flemish invasion of Kent, at the time of Henry II’s famous Canterbury penance for the murder of Thomas Becket in July 1174. But the case is boosted by the hagiographer William of Canterbury’s natural desire to magnify dangers from which the region was delivered by the martyr (such as the implausible claim that ‘King Henry ordered the people of Kent to remove their belongings beyond the Medway for fear of the invading forces’) and evidence otherwise is thin. The only force to leave Flanders at this time was directed instead to the North-East, landing near Durham.
44 Rowlands, ‘King John’, 270, comments on the power of the Cornhill ‘dynasty’, though this has to be seen in the context of other local interests.
45 The basic information is in I.J. Sanders, English Baronies: a Study of their Origin and Descent 1086-1327, Oxford, 1960, 36 (Cogges/Arsic), 45 (Folkestone/ Avranches), 31 (Chatham/Crevequer), 135 (Patricksbourne/Patrick). See also the notes on the descent of individual Kent baronies in Flight, The Survey of Kent, 245-63. The Kent returns to the 1166 royal inquiry into knights’ fees have now been re-edited and annotated in N. Stacey (ed.), Cartae Baronum, Pipe Roll Society New Series 62, 2019, 5-13.
46 The Great Roll of the Pipe for the Twenty-first Year of the Reign of King Henry the Second, Pipe
Roll Society, 22, 1897, 109, 112.
47 Sanders, English Baronies, 111. Brown and Colvin, in The History of the King’s Works, vol. II, 613.
48 The tabulated figures are in R. Allen Brown, ‘Royal castle-building in England 1154-1216’, in Castles, Conquest and Charters: Collected Papers, Woodbridge, 1989, 55-57. Renn, ‘The Avranches traverse’, 86-89, gives more details on the Dover entries.
49 R. Allen Brown, ibid., 56, 58-59.
50 See note 11 above, and many of the chapters in Impey (ed.), The White Tower, on the general issues. Strickland, Henry the Young King, 301, suggested that ‘repairs’ at some castles in 1183 reflected Henry II’s renewed fears of insurrection in England as his sons again revolted against him in France, but it is hard to make such a case for Dover, given the intensive building there all through the decade.
51 See note 9 above for these views as advanced by Charles Coulson and John Goodall. It has been suggested, speculatively but plausibly, that Henry II’s hastily arranged reception at Dover of Louis VII, when the French king made a pilgrimage to Canterbury to seek the recovery of his sick son (Philip Augustus, who was to succeed him in 1180) may have precipitated his decision to rebuild Dover Castle.
52 Gervase of Canterbury, vol. I, 353.
EXCAVATIONS IN WESTGATE GARDENS, CANTERBURY, REVEALING THE CHANGING CHARACTER OF ROMAN WATLING STREET, AND DUROVERNUM’S EVOLVING
STREET LAYOUT
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In the summers of 2014, 2015 and 2016, volunteers from the Friends of Westgate Parks and the wider community carried out excavations to investigate the Roman Road (later known as Watling Street) projected to pass through Westgate Gardens adjacent to the Rheims Way underpass. The site generated significant new evidence not only of the construction and development of one of the main Roman streets in Canterbury, but also of early roadside occupation, and later changes of use which saw this St Dunstan’s area become isolated beyond the late Roman walled circuit, and therefore outside the town.
The new evidence from the Westgate Gardens digs is here compared with that from earlier excavations along Watling Street in Canterbury (Figs 1 and 2), and this has reinvigorated discussion of the chronology and purpose of the road, and indeed the developmental stages of Romano-British Can- terbury in general. How did the street system and therefore the town form, and why and when did it change? Road and ribbon development buildings, wear and tear, road re-surfacing and abandonments are all important clues strung out across the urban space; can these lead to a better understanding of Durovernum’s urban development?
The depth to which the archaeology could be recorded was curtailed by the water table at the edge of the Stour flood plain, but a clear sequence could still be established. Silty clays (G1) were seen at the base of the 2014/15 excavation, at around 8m aod (approximately 1m beneath the present ground surface) at the south-west end of the trench; these were yellowish grey and appeared sterile in terms of anthropogenic material. It is possible that at least some of these deposits were partly formed of water lain material from an old course of the Stour. The succession of road surface levels uncovered in the Westgate Gardens digs are given a simple 1-3 numbering in this report.
Road level 1
The earliest road metalling seen (G5) was only partially visible at the limit of the 2015 excavation, its upper surface at around 8.4m aod. This was mainly a
EXCAVATIONS IN WESTGATE GARDENS, CANTERBURY REVEALING WATLING STREET
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Fig. 1 Location of Westgate Gardens dig and the comparative sites (numbered) along the route of Roman Watling Street through the City.
compacted metalling of medium sized flint gravel, but had occasional patches of a reddish hue indicating the presence of crushed daub or other ceramic building material within the sandy clay matrix. The largest area of this surface recorded was an irregular patch, c.1.2 by 2m, but of unknown thickness since it was only visible where it had been exposed by erosion of later surfaces. For the sake of this report this road surface is referred to as Road level 1.
Gravel metallings (G8) were also uncovered on both sides of the road alignment, to the south-west (S15) and north-east (S17; S41). The roadside surface in the southernmost corner of the trench, at 8.36m aod, was formed of compact medium- sized gravel in a grey, gritty, silty matrix, at least 0.3m thick. Material derived
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Fig. 2 Plan of the 2014/15 and 2016 trenches, showing the widest road (Road level 2), roadside ditch and roadside metallings.
from this context included fragments of tile and animal bone, and four sherds of pot dated to the first century. Approximately 2.0 by 0.35m of the other truncated metalled surface (S17) in the north-east corner of the trench was seen at the limit of excavation. This was at least 0.3m thick, and formed of very compacted small to medium sized gravel in a gritty clay matrix coated by a remnant clay floor with burnt daub inclusions (171); the upper surface here lay at 8.42m aod.
EXCAVATIONS IN WESTGATE GARDENS, CANTERBURY REVEALING WATLING STREET
A few metres to the north-west, a further metalled surface (S41) encountered in the 2014 evaluation test pit for the project is thought to be contemporary. This was clearly formed of very compacted medium-to-large flint gravel mixed with Roman-period ceramic building material. The surface covered the base of the 1.0 by 1.0m test pit at 0.8m beneath the surface (approximately 8.3m aod).
Near surface S15, in the south-west corner of the 2014/15 trench, a thin dump or demolition deposit overlay the early silty clays (S4) at approximately 8.15m aod. This was formed of lenses of burnt clay/daub, flint/pebble fragments, potsherds and some tile and oyster tile fragments. The pot assemblage, of 77 sherds, included seven of Canterbury sandywares, two of Upchurch-type finewares, two key sherds of possible transitional B2/R1 grog-tempered ware (second-century) along with a copper alloy coin probably minted in the reign of Commodus (180-192), dating deposition to the late second century at the earliest.
Above this deposit, a friable greenish brown silty clay soil (G2; sets 8 and 10), 0.25-0.3m thick, subsequently built up across most of the southern half of the 2014/15 trench, abutting the early metalling, and containing fragments of pottery, imbrex, tegula, other tile, daub and animal bone. An initial trowel-clean across the surface of the buried soils in this area (at between 8.34 and 8.4m aod) produced sherds of pottery spot dated not later than the late second/third century, but the soil had certainly continued to accumulate in later phases (see below), and the area was subsequently eroded, rendering all dated material assigned to the context questionable.
Soils (G3; G6) were also building to the north-west of the road. Reworked alluvial or possibly dumped make-up deposits (G3: S16; S23) were the earliest seen here, lying at between 8.0 and 8.15m aod, formed of moderately firm sandy silty clays, light greenish brown. These contexts yielded six late first-century potsherds, fragments of tile and animal bone and a further copper alloy coin, again probably minted in the reign of Commodus (180-192). This material was overlain by a firmer greenish brown silty clay (G6: S24), largely sterile in terms of inclusions but yielding a piece of Roman period tile. The deposit covered most of the northern part of the trench and was up to 0.3m thick; its surface, at 8.52m aod at the northern end of the trench, dropped to approximately 8.3m aod towards the line and level of the road.
Road level 2
The earlier road surfaces were next covered by an extensive new surface in a coarser gravel with a prominent camber (G9; Fig. 3) and ditch (G7) on its south- west side. This road, referred to here as Road level 2, was much wider than any previous, at approximately 7m. At the south-west side, where eroded, the gravel matrix could be seen to lie on a clayey bedding material. This metalling was the main feature of the 2014/15 trench, its largest extant area (S22) being c.2.5 by
4.66m in extent, and at least 0.2m thick. It was formed of very compact gravel in a silty clay matrix and its surface lay at 8.26m aod at the northern edge, rising to 8.46m aod at its highest point in the middle of the road. The remnant of the road camber (S21) was revealed on the south-west side of the road, formed of very compact medium sized gravel in a dark brown sandy clay silt (122), 2.84
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Fig. 3 South-east facing section of the 2016 trench.
by 1.34m in extent and 0.1m thick, embedded in a clay silt lens (157). The top of the camber lay at 8.41m aod, dropping to 8.3m to the south-west. The same road surface (S18) was in the adjacent 2016 trench only detected by shovel just beneath the water table, the enforced limit of excavation (Set 18), at 8.25m aod, on the north-east side of the alignment.1 Residual material within the metalling deposit for Road 2 represented a narrow date range from the mid-first to early second century, but several layers of some longevity were likely represented by this context as recorded. The roadside ditch (G7) was cut from 8.3m aod along the south-west side of the road; it was 1.35m wide with steep sides to a concave base 0.45m deep. The ditch was was filled by clayey silt run off that included domestic material (as well as a coin of Claudius 1, either residual or deposited long after it entered circulation); perhaps significantly, pottery from ditch fills dated from late second to third centuries and no later.
A pit (G12; S31) was dug through the roadside metalled surface (S41) to the north-west of the road. The pit, sub-rectangular as seen (0.8m by 0.7m), with initially steep sides cutting from 8.42m aod to a dished base at 8.05m aod, was filled by loamy silts of various similar hues, as well as tips of disturbed burnt daub and refuse (148; 158; 159; 160; 161; 149). The upper fill (149), produced 65 potsherds, imbrex, tegula, tile, daub, shell fragments, animal bone, wood charcoal and stone fragments. The pottery from deposit 149 dated to the late second-mid third century. This fill also contained an assemblage of cattle horn cores, evidently deposited soon after processing, that have been radiocarbon dated to cal ad 134- 332 (at 95.4 per cent probability; 1786+/-33 bp; UBA-38435). A third-century date for backfilling of the pit appears most likely therefore.
Road level 3 (a series of later resurfacings)
The next road resurfacings (G17) (only seen in the 2016 excavation) did not cover the width of the existing road (see Fig. 3). This change of width or alignment is referred to here as Road level 3. The earliest surface in this sequence (S12) seen at the limit of excavation, at 8.36m aod, and was probably not much more than 0.05m thick. It was topped by further thin surface (S13) another shallow layer of very compacted small to medium gravel in an orangey brown sandy matrix,
EXCAVATIONS IN WESTGATE GARDENS, CANTERBURY REVEALING WATLING STREET
which only extended 1m into the 2016 trench, and was again only 0.07m thick, the surface lying at 8.43m aod. Road surface S14 was yet further shallow patching of very compacted small to medium sized gravel in a greyish brown sandy matrix, covering the same area as S13, and only 0.05m thick. The surface of this lay at
8.48m aod.
Further soils (G10) then built up along either side of Road 3. An area of the soil build-up overlay the Road 2 camber on the south-west side of the road, as well as roadside metalling and the infilled roadside ditch. A friable slightly compacted loamy silt (S28), this soil was 2.5m by at least 0.8m in extent and 0.08m thick, yielding second- to early third-century potsherds, but also a copper alloy coin (SF66), dated c. ad 330-402. The upper surface of the soil lay at 8.44m aod. Further soil abutted new surfaces seen in the 2016 trench, overlying Road 2 on the north-west side (S30; Fig. 3), a loamy silt, up to 0.15m deep. The surface of the soil sloped away northwards from 8.53m to 8.33m aod. If the soil build-ups either side of Road 3 give a clue to its narrower width, it was about 4m wide.
Finally in this sequence, the Road 3 was slightly widened, at least on the north- west side and within the area covered by the 2016 trench, by addition of a small to medium compacted gravel in a sandy silt matrix (S29) above and beyond preceding layers, extending to 1.4m into the 2016 the trench. This surface was slightly cambered, and between 0.07 and 0.2m thick. The upper surface lay at
8.55m aod.
The final phases
In its final phase (G13) the road was in fact a very compacted soil containing gravel and other solid materials,2 and is perhaps better considered a ‘track’ rather than a ‘road’ per se, into which a wheel rut (S35) was worn, c.0.1m deep and c.0.60m across. The road/track was still extensive though, approximately 2.95 by 1.75m in extent as seen (Fig. 3) and up to 0.3m thick, complete with camber, dropping from
8.73m aod (barely 0.3m beneath the modern turf) to 8.33m aod. The surface is represented in the 2014/15 trench by deposit 110 and related contexts (S32; S33), and of particular note is the concentration of coins that was retrieved from this horizon, with many dating to the mid-late fourth century.
Perhaps during the late fourth century but more likely after, a large hollow (G11), was worn into the southern edge of the road. The wear mark (S26) eroded all road surfaces from about 8.7m aod downwards and was approximately 5 by 2.5m (extending beyond the limit of excavation) and to a depth of 0.3m. The hollow was filled by various silty soil deposits (129; 115; 118). Key later fabrics present were later Roman sandyware, late Roman grog-tempered ware, Nene valley type and Oxfordshire colour-coated and parchment wares, Mayen ware (at least 3 different pots), and some later Roman sandywares, all dating to the fourth or early fifth century. There was some evidence that the hollow had been sporadically patched, and in particular with a patch (S27) formed of a clay bedding layer topped with various re-used Roman period tile and brick and medium sized chalk fragments and occasional pottery dated to the fourth to early fifth century, and probably no earlier than mid-fourth century. The material was compacted, and 1.3 by 1.16m in extent and 0.15 thick, the surface at 8.49m aod.
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Over succeeding centuries, track and hollow, became covered by soils that were eventually worked into a garden topsoil in the post-medieval period, and only later disturbed by sporadic dumping of twentieth century building materials, at least some probably derived from recorded clearance of City Centre bomb damage.
Interpretation; comparisons with earlier findings along Watling Street in the City
Material from within a gravel metalling cannot be argued to provide a date for the laying of the surface, but rather a terminus post quem (TPQ), a time after which a given surface was laid. It is important to clearly state this basic approach at the outset as some earlier published interpretations have been clearly driven by a twentieth-century tendency to ‘fit’ Roman period evidence within a projected history of the Roman Empire, rather than letting archaeological information speak for itself. This is a significant bias that must now be addressed if we are to compare the Westgate Gardens phases with those seen at other points along the route. The locations of comparative sites are numbered on Fig. 1.
Road level 1
At Westgate Gardens we have no evidence to date the earliest form of Watling Street to the first century. This might be due to the limitations of the excavation: the high water table and, to a lesser effect, time constraints, meant that the road could not be fully excavated. Perhaps earlier road phases were missed. It could also be that the earliest surface that was seen, Road level 1, was indeed first century in date. An alternative explanation, however, that the road was not even there and had not been built at this period, needs to be pursued, as it is now accepted that the street, much later to be called ‘Roman Watling Street’, was the in fact the most south-westerly street of a layout built around the beginning of the second century (see below).
First-century material recovered on the Westgate Gardens site, in particular pottery and coinage, was undoubtedly residual; the first-century pottery within the matrix of the roadside metalling to the south-west of the road alignment (S15), gives it a construction date of at least the late first century at the earliest, but an early second-century date, based on the building of the road, is surely more likely. ‘Watling Street’ passing through St Dunstan’s was subjected to various excavations in the 1950s in the Whitehall Road area (see Frere et al. 1987, 44ff), between 75m and 100m to the north-west of the Westgate Gardens dig (see Fig. 1, site ‘1’). Several trenches were excavated here that ‘encountered the Roman Watling Street as it ascended the valley-side from the crossing of the Stour towards Rochester’ (ibid., 45). Moreover, the same report details roadside timber buildings constructed with metalled yard or floor surfaces abutting the road, and surmises that ‘in the second century there seems to have been a suburb here’ (ibid.). So, it would seem the metalled surfaces at either side of the road alignment seen in Westgate Gardens fit a
broader pattern, for which a second-century date is acceptable.
However, we should first note that the St Dunstan’s area can hardly be called a ‘suburb’ at this early stage, as it had not yet been redefined by the third-century wall that made the area ‘suburban’. More significantly, the road itself was interpreted at
EXCAVATIONS IN WESTGATE GARDENS, CANTERBURY REVEALING WATLING STREET
Whitehall Road as having been built in the first century, on the basis of a historical bias. In trench W13 for example,
The old plough soil, through which the first road had been inserted c. A.D. 43 had remained open and contained material down to the Flavian period… Overlying was some dark earthy loam … an occupation layer containing charcoal and pottery… dating to the period c. 80-115, and this was sealed by a floor bounding a row of post- holes along the street… (ibid., 52).
The same bias can be seen in the description of trench WII at Whitehall Road, where material is dated in contradictory ways, again in order to fit a dominant historical narrative:
The first [road] surface … was bordered on the south side by a timber with pebble floor … which contained Claudian samian … and an early group of coarse pottery. The second road-surface … contained a sherd of Flavian-Trajanic Samian … and coarse pottery of the first half of the second century … and was laid perhaps in the reign of Hadrian (ibid., 54).
The first surface is implied as Claudian, or first-century, on the basis of residual material within an adjacent layer: the second as Hadrianic because of the combined dating of residual materials within. Neither surface need be as early as suggested, and the same goes for the associated structures. The road in trench WII was described as 5.32m wide and formed of three layers in total, those already referred to being topped by a third, apparently containing a surfeit of nails, and dated ‘probably not later than the Antonine period to judge by the pottery found at this level in [trench] W1’ (ibid.). It may be that the initial phases of this road at least are the same as ‘Road 1’, partially seen at the base of in the Westgate Gardens sequence, but the dating of the latest level is again problematical, in that a TPQ from a partial excavation through a possibly related surface has been used as a method of dating the construction.
This is all worthy of note because the archaeological evidence could in fact support a much later date for the building of this stretch of road up the hill towards the London road, perhaps even after the town was walled in the late third century or beyond (see below).
The nearest location eastwards of the Westgate Gardens digs where the earliest form of ‘Roman Watling Street’ has certainly been recorded is at the intra-mural Stour river frontage, some 300m north-east, at ‘Stour Street 1986 B’ (Fig. 1, site ‘4’). This excavation was sadly only reported on at a very summary level (Rady 1986), but the archive (SS86A; Archive number 93) in fact contains a detailed west-facing section drawing from this trench that includes the first Roman period street. The drawing suggests the first road surface at this low point in the terrain was mounded up on a primary gravel layer 0.25m thick (context 110); this base was approximately 6m across, while the road surface within the camber on each side looks to have been about 4.6m wide. This early surface was capped (or dressed?) by re-metallings (92 and 91). Roadside metallings are again recorded early in the sequence here, to the north of the road (context 85, interpreted as a possible track heading north away from Watling St).
Another 330m or so further east, nearer the Riding Gate on the east side of
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the Roman town, further evidence of the earliest ‘Roman Watling Street’ comes from a 1953 excavation at 44 Watling Street (site ‘5’; Frere et al. 1987, 117ff). The writers point out that ‘Belgic [sic] sherds and a rim sherd of an early Roman cordoned jar were found in the metalling, suggesting it was laid down fairly soon after the conquest’ (ibid.). The width of this street, reported at ‘33ft’ or about 10m, is also unconvincing, since metallings in separate trenches I and III have been identified as a continuation (cf. ibid, figs 43-44) but do not appear to match; rather the alignment of ‘Street 1’, looks in section C-D (ibid., fig. 44) to lie fully in trench III, with a maximum width of c.6m. The metalling in Trench I was more likely another roadside metalling as we have seen elsewhere along the route. The first street metalling in trench III was at most 0.1m thick, with succeeding surfaces of similar thickness on the north side but deepening to the south: the chronology of these resurfacings is again narrowed by the writers’ insistence that a TPQ is equivalent to a date of construction.
It is very interesting to note at this point that ‘Roman Watling Street’ was not subsequently a permanent fixture along its entire course, for the next stratigraphic event in the sequence at 44 Watling Street is perhaps a surprise. Following construction of ‘Street 1’ and some resurfacing (‘Streets 2 and 3’), a structure with two rooms and an opus signinum floor was built right across the entire street (ibid., 119; fig. 44)! This significant hiatus is yet to be explained, but could for example either represent encroachment by a domestic dwelling on a little used thoroughfare, some sort of alternative funnelling of visitors through the town centre, during the second century, or a combination of both. The writers of the 44 Watling Street report date this strange occurrence to the second half of the second century, although a third-century date is equally viable on the basis of the evidence presented.
Road level 2
While dating evidence for the wider ‘Road level 2’ at Westgate Gardens is not conclusive, this development certainly seem to correlate with the earliest metalling seen in the 1950s excavations at the nearby London Gate (Site ‘2’), where the surface lay at the limit of excavation and was not further investigated, but was clearly earlier and much wider than the gate itself (Frere et al. 1982, 33; see figs 2 and 6), so a terminus ante quem (TAQ) of about ad 270-290 is provided.4
The same wide road in fact seems to be that recorded in evaluation trenches during the Tannery development (Site ‘3’), where roadway was recorded in trenches 2/5 and 7 and just over 7m wide, and is probably the metalling recorded as deposit 32 in the 1986 section drawing from Stour Street B (site ‘4’; ibid.), at just over 7m width, in this case eroding into a wood lined drain along the southern edge. At site ‘5’, 44 Watling Street, ‘Street 4’, again at a very similar width, appears to correspond. This was laid immediately above the opus signinum floor that had been built over the earlier surfaces (ibid., 119, fig. 44). According to the dating of the sequence here, this would have to be in the late second or early third century, but a date later in the third century is equally afforded by the evidence.
Excavation of Roman Watling Street as part of the Whitefriars development early this century (site ‘6’, where it was labelled ‘Road 1’) recorded the digging of a ditch through the second-century version of the road along northern side.
EXCAVATIONS IN WESTGATE GARDENS, CANTERBURY REVEALING WATLING STREET
The ditch was infilled and covered with an again much wider street after 200, and quite possibly later, given a date range of 170/200-250 suggested for this sub- period of activity (Alison Hicks and Mark Houliston, pers. comm.). Again, the double-arched Roman-period gate at Riding Gate (site ‘7’), built as an entrance to the town from the Dover direction along with the new wall in 270-290, certainly accommodated a pre-existing wider road (ibid., 43ff; 49).
It thus seems likely that ‘Road level 2’ at Westgate Gardens was part of an early to mid third-century scheme of road widening across the town. Turning back to the north-west of the Westgate Gardens excavations, however, and heading away from the town centre, it is very interesting therefore that the wider road is not reported in the Whitehall Road sites (site ‘1’); was the third-century road widening project curtailed at some point before the road climbed away through St Dunstans? Did the road even go that far at this period, or was it the narrower road represented by Road level 3 that made its way up the valley side?
Road level 3
Westgate Gardens ‘Road level 3’ surfaces seem to represent a distinct narrowing of the road design, perhaps in the first half of the fourth century. As has already been noted, the St Dunstan’s stretch of road is recorded as narrower: whether this was indeed the same road as ‘Road level 3’, or an earlier version, awaits further archaeological testing. To the east, the route through London Gate (ibid., site ‘2’) was indeed decidedly narrow and it is further interesting to note that a similar pattern of narrow latter surfaces was seen in subsequent metallings at 44 Watling Street (site ‘5’; ibid., ‘Streets 5 to 8’). The Whitefriars team report a pit and then a building encroaching on the road by ad 355, blocking the northern half (site ‘6’; Alison Hicks and Mark Houliston, pers. comm.), and at Riding Gate, the smaller foot-passage arch on the southern side of the road ‘was at some point in the fourth century blocked and incorporated in an encroaching building (site ‘7’, ibid., 51).
Late fourth-century and beyond
The later phases of the road in Westgate Gardens, the dirt track and hollow way erosion tentatively dated to the late fourth and fifth centuries, are impossible to correlate even in broad terms with the intra-mural sequences. For a time there would seem to have been a pattern of coinage deposition on approaching river and town, or on leaving, but the road in Westgate Gardens would then have had a very neglected appearance in the second half of the fourth century and, later still, seems to have been put to a different use, perhaps as an opportune place to cross the river amid a rising water table. The latter was a late antique environmental difficulty that has been seen elsewhere in the Stour flood plain, and in particular at the Tannery (Simon Pratt, pers. comm.).
Roman Watling Street and Roman Canterbury
While particular sections of roads can be subject to very localised change that would appear only in an individual excavation, roads are also extensive linear features that are built and maintained by more general projects; might we be
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Fig. 4 Conjectural map of ‘Town 1’, c.ad 90-110 based on currently available evidence.
able to discern patterns of road development in other excavations along Roman Watling Street? The Westgate Gardens evidence (so far) in comparison with that of other archaeological encounters along its route, lends some further weight to an emerging view of the development Roman Canterbury. Much of this narrative (see Figs 4-6), while it accords with an embryonic archaeological consensus (see Millet 2008, 156ff, for example), remains a hypothesis, but it is one within which the Westgate Gardens evidence can be posited. The story begins in the first century with as yet no Roman road through Westgate Gardens or St Dunstan’s.
The ‘first town’
It has long been noted that the theatre and early phases of public baths at the core of the town, as well as the roads associated with them, differ in alignment from the later established layout of Roman Canterbury, probably as a result of two distinct phases of development (cf. Figs 4 and 5). It has also been rightly suggested that the first theatre and baths in fact reflect early Roman respect for a late Iron Age topography, and a ritualized one at that (cf. Millett 2008, 158). This sort of thing was not uncommon in the Gallo-Roman sphere, especially where existing water or other cults were ‘tectonized’ as sanctuaries (cf. ‘Springhead’; see Millet 2008, 160-1). Furthermore, the theatre may enclose a spring line heading towards the Stour flood plain, as contours suggest (Simon Pratt, pers. comm.): another potential clue. The direct association of theatre with temple also attests to Gallo-Roman influence5 and axially aligned water features graced the (perhaps
EXCAVATIONS IN WESTGATE GARDENS, CANTERBURY REVEALING WATLING STREET
image
Fig. 5 Conjectural map of ‘Town 2’, c.ad 110-290, based on currently available evidence.
slightly later) precinct (see Bennett 1980, 12). Along with the early baths, theatre and associated road, an extensive late Iron Age ditch system in St Dunstan’s (not as yet reconstructed or planned), elements of which have been recorded to the north-east of the Westgate Gardens site, also lies at the same alternative angle. The early road in from Richborough crossed valley and river (Fig. 4) and clearly went along the north-west side of this ditch system heading for London (today the line of London Road). Pottery and tile kilns near the river in St Dunstan’s may have started production in the first century, and there is evidence of a late conquest period fortlet, sporadically occupied, to the south-west of the embryonic settlement (see Bennett 1982). An early cremation cemetery formed here, and anothet in the outer plots of the St Dunstan’s ditch system. Meanwhile early town houses within the same quarter as the theatre and baths, seen in the Marlowe Car Park and Whitefriars excavations (Blockley et al. 1995; Alison Hicks and Mark Houliston, pers. comm.), also aligned with this early grain of the landscape. The Whitefriars site even uncovered two early streets that cohere with the early theatre and baths axis. This embryonic and organic development of an urban-style settlement based on existing landscape and perhaps ritual influences was not to be the permanent template of the town, however.
The ‘second town’ and Roads 1 and 2 at Westgate Gardens
In the early second century the new grid (Fig. 5), or rather ‘ladder’ of roads, was set out at intervals of 500 Roman feet (Pratt 2004, 22), at Canterbury, superseding the previous, more organic layout. While this pattern of development is actually
JAKE WEEKES
comparable with Roman towns at St Albans and Silchester, for example, it is notable that those towns developed their established systems 20 or perhaps as much as 40 years earlier than Canterbury (see Millet 1990, 77-79; Mattingly 2006, 266-71). It suggests that Canterbury probably only became a Civitas capital at the beginning of the second century, perhaps a reflection of its people having been of continuing subaltern status to hegemonic centres north of the Thames and in Sussex, before and for some time after the Roman invasion in 43, at least in terms of Imperial recognition (cf. ibid., 68-80; cf. figure 4 therein; cf. Champion 2016, 162ff; 165). The most north-easterly road of the new arrangement at Canterbury was the already existing road from Richborough, probably the first Roman road to Canterbury, which seems therefore to have provided the start-line for the new layout. The road we call ‘Watling Street’ aligned with it 1000 Roman feet to the south-west. An intervening street, 500 Roman feet from both, is also dated to this period (Blockley et al. 1995, 84-8); the newly angled baths palaestra cut into its metallings. New streets in the Whitefriars area (Alison Hicks and Mark Houliston, pers. comm.) and beyond would now be based on this second-century pattern. What was to become ‘Roman Watling Street’, therefore, bounded the theatre and temple precincts within the new arrangement, in the process short-cutting the London Road towards the developing
port of Dubris (Dover), which may well have been part of its raison d’etre.
It would seem from the available evidence that it was the construction of the road we call Roman Watling Street in the early second century that led to new buildings and roadside metallings into the Tannery and St Dunstan’s area, so it became something like a nascent south-west quarter of the town with a possible mansio and a developing ceramics industry. The roadside surfaces in Westgate Gardens might be associated with the latter, and the cemeteries next to the London Road at the top of the hill could even have reached their apogee in the late second- to mid- third-centuries as the last port of call for some of south-west area’s inhabitants (see Frere et al. 1987, 56ff; Weekes 2017).
But the St Dunstan’s ‘project’ does not seem to have ‘stuck’, and may not have lasted much more than a century. It is notable, for example at Westgate Gardens that the road ditch of the third-century Road 2 cut through the roadside metalling on its south-west side, and that a pit was hacked through the roadside metalling on the north-west side at a similar date. This pattern of perhaps dwindling occupation of the St Dunstan’s area being underway by the late second or early third century has been noted elsewhere (Duffy et al. forthcoming). Did the building of the wall on the other side of the Stour merely confirm the St Dunstan’s area as lying ‘outside the town’? Moreover, as we have noted, the narrower version of the road climbing up the valley side in St Dunstan’s could, on the basis of archaeological evidence, be later.
The re-establishment of the line of the road as a wide main thoroughfare, as late as the third century, seems to be evidenced in the Westgate Gardens excavation as ‘Road level 2’, however. Fascinatingly this looks to have been a road building scheme across the third-century town, a period that saw the second theatre replace the first and probably the further development north-east of the Richborough road. It is very interesting that the ‘Watling Street road widening scheme’ scheme does not seem to have been continued much into St Dunstan’s, at least beyond the flood plain. Again, was this area already in the third century considered ‘outside the town’, long before the wall was built?
EXCAVATIONS IN WESTGATE GARDENS, CANTERBURY REVEALING WATLING STREET
image
Fig 6 Map of ‘Town 3’, after c.ad 270-400, based on currently available evidence
(after S. Pratt, in prep.).
The ‘third town’ and later: Road level 3 and final phases
The walling of the town in the late third century underlined the St Dunstan’s area as ‘outside the town’. In Westgate Gardens, the narrowing of the ‘Road 3’ in the fourth century is similar to later developments within the walled circuit, but perhaps not as directly identifiable with narrower late surfaces at 44 Watling Street, for example. It seems more likely that such resurfacings were by now more sporadic and localised, and that the road narrowed more by encroachment and ‘accident’ than by any ‘grand design’. By the time fourth-century coinage was being deposited near river and gate in Westgate Gardens, later cemeteries were formed closer to the wall and the St Dunstan’s ‘suburb’ was truly becoming a place for the dead. The road became a track, and was then, through alternative use, eroded and soon abandoned in the sub-Roman period.
acknowledgements
Huge thanks to Anna Bell, the Westgate Parks Officer, to Ian Cameron Fleming of Canterbury City Council who managed the Westgate Parks Project, and to the Friends of Westgate Parks and all their excellent volunteers for making these excavations such a success. Colleagues from the Canterbury Archaeological Trust as well as volunteers Richard White and Fred Birkbeck were brilliant co- excavators, and the work was funded by the National Lottery. Over 60 locals and
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visitors of all ages took part in the digs, and over a 1000, including many families, and primary and secondary school classes, received the ‘grand tour’ while we were on site. We hope to be back! Thanks also to Simon Pratt, Alison Hicks, Peter Atkinson and Mark Houliston for assistance with archives and drawings.
bibliography
Blockley, K., Blockley, M., Blockley, P., Frere, S.S., and Stow, S., 1995, Excavations in the Marlowe Car Park and Surrounding Areas, CAT.
Champion, T.C., ‘Britain before the Romans’, in M. Millett, L. Revell and A. Moore (eds),
The Oxford Handbook of Roman Britain, OUP, 150-78.
Duffy, W., Gollop, A. and Weekes, J., forthcoming, ‘New cemetery evidence from Late Roman Canterbury: the former Hallet’s Garage site in context’, in Late Antique Archaeology.
Frere, S.S., Stow, S. and Bennett, P., 1982, Excavations on the Roman and Medieval Defences of Canterbury, Maidstone, KAS.
Frere, S.S., Bennett, P., Rady, J. and Stow, S., 1987, Canterbury Excavations: Intra- and Extra-Mural Sites, 1949-55 and 1980-84, Maidstone, KAS.
Mattingly, D., 2006, An Imperial Possession. Britain in the Roman Empire. Penguin Books. Millett, M., 1990, The Romanization of Britain. An Essay in Archaeological Interpretation,
CUP.
Millett, M., 2008, ‘Roman Kent’, in J. Williams (ed.), 2007, The Archaeology of Kent to AD 800. Kent History Project 8, The Boydell Press.
Pratt, S., 2004, ‘Canterbury (Durovernum Cantiacorum)’, in T. Lawson and D. Killingray
(eds), An Historical Atlas of Kent, Phillimore, 21-3.
Rady, J., 1986, ‘Nos 36-7 Stour Street’, Canterbury Archaeological Trust Annual Report 1985-86, CAT, 15-16.
Weekes, J., 2017, ‘Funerary Archaeology at St Dunstan’s Terrace, Canterbury’. in Pearce and Weekes (eds), Death as a Process: The Archaeology of the Roman Funeral, Oxbow Books.
endnotes
1 The water table happened to be considerably higher in 2016 than in previous excavations in 2014 and 2015.
2 It was indeed only recognised as a surface because the 2016 trench was hand dug rather than being initially machined.
3 Unfortunately trench ‘WIII’ marked on the plan in this report (see fig 13), is not described in the text, since it seems to have been nicely placed across the line of the road…
4 According to the accepted date for the building of the defences and gates published in Frere et al. (1982, 17-18).
5 Pers. comm. the late T.F.C. Blagg: see Gros 1996, 272-98.
TWO NEIGHBOURING KENT ESTATES NEAR HYTHE AND THEIR REMARKABLE ARTISTIC CONNECTIONS IN THE MID EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
rodney griffiths
In 1719 Johannes Kip’s (1653-1722) engravings of Kent’s country houses and their surrounding estates were published in Harris’s History of Kent.1 At Mount Morris, Monks Horton, and Beachborough Manor, Newington by Hythe, Kip found two large neighbouring estates with fine houses that were just three miles apart, each surrounded by a manicured garden, parkland and fields in which livestock could graze, interspersed with woodland which afforded shelter for deer (Plates I and II). Both estates lay close to the coast, not far from Hythe, a bonfire lit on Beachborough Hill, later renamed Summerhouse Hill, being visible from France.
Mount Morris was at that time the country seat of Morris Drake Morris (1695- 1723) who in 1717 had inherited the estate from his grandfather, Thomas Morris, the original builder of the 7-bay house of c.1695. In 1723 when Morris Drake Morris died, unmarried and without a direct heir, under the terms of his grandfather’s will2 a lifetime interest in his properties passed to his sister Elizabeth Robinson (née Drake, 1693-1746) but with the proviso that upon her death that they should then pass directly to her eldest son. In 1711 Elizabeth Drake had married Matthew Robinson (1693-1778), a Cambridge law student.3 He forsook his studies and the young couple moved north, near to where Matthew had grown up, where they raised a large family. In 1733 the family moved to Kent to reside at Mount Morris – which is when the estate’s artistic connections began.
Matthew Robinson was an amateur artist of repute – his grandson, Matthew
Montagu (1762-1831), wrote of his grandfather in 1809;4
A person of great intellectual endowments, and much admired for his talents in conversation, and for his taste in the fine arts, particularly in painting, in which he acquired so great a proficiency as to excel most of the professed artists of his day particularly in landscape.
It is difficult for Robinson’s artistic merit to be assessed today as only two of his works appear to have survived. They are capriccios of Italianate rural scenes redolent of the style of Giovanni Battista Busiri (1698-1757) and were recorded in a list of paintings at Welbeck Abbey in 1747.5
Robinson was a restless figure who longed for the hustle and bustle of London, frequenting the coffee houses and taverns with his artist friends. In 1735 a group of artists, including Robinson, subscribed 4 guineas each to assist the promising but
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PLATE I
image
Mount Morris the seat of Morris Drake Morris Esq engraved by Johannes Kip (1653- 1722), c.1719. Copper engraving, 41 x 34cm. Published in J. Harris’s, History of Kent, 1719, vol. 1. © Rodney Griffiths.
impoverished Scottish artist Gawen Hamilton (c.1697-1737) by commissioning him to paint their group portrait, which they subsequently raffled amongst themselves.6 This painting, A Conversation of Virtuosis at the Kings Arms, one of the most iconic British paintings of the eighteenth century, now hangs in The National Portrait Gallery, London. It depicts the leading professional artists, sculptors and architects of the day and seated at the very centre of them is Matthew Robinson.
Hamilton was further assisted by Robinson who commissioned him to visit Mount Morris to paint a double portrait of him and his wife in their drawing room and to depict over the mantelpiece between them an imagined group portrait of their nine children (Plate III). He also commissioned Hamilton to paint a small scale, full length portrait of himself seated before an easel painting a landscape, both of these works being completed c.1735. Unfortunately, despite the assistance of his fellow artists and the patronage of Robinson, Hamilton died of a fever in 1737.
TWO NEIGHBOURING KENT ESTATES NEAR HYTHE IN THE MID EIGHTEENTH CENT.
PLATE II
image
Beachborough the seat of William Brockman engraved by Johannes Kip (1653-1722), c.1719. Copper engraving, 41 x 34cm. Published in J. Harris’s, History of Kent, 1719, vol. 1. © Rodney Griffiths.
By 1740 Robinson was promoting the interests of another artist, Edward Haytley (1713-1762).7 The young Haytley had come to settle in London from his native Shropshire and, like Hamilton before him, specialised in painting groups of friends or families in relaxed settings in a small scale, whole length format, known as a ‘conversation piece’. Haytley received a number of commissions from the Robinson family. In c.1754 Robinson’s elder daughter Mrs Elizabeth Montagu (1720-1800) commissioned Haytley to paint a small scale, full length portrait of herself and this remains one of the finest single-figure works of his oeuvre. Robinson continued to sing Haytley’s praises – when his wife asked him how Haytley was able to capture such a true likeness on such a small scale, he simply replied ‘it is his genius’.8
Robinson also introduced Haytley to his neighbour James Brockman (1696- 1767). Following the death of his father, William Brockman, in 1742, James inherited the Beachborough Manor estate, one of Kent’s largest, which he had been managing on his father’s behalf since 1733. The house was built in the early
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PLATE III
image
A double portrait of Matthew Robinson and his wife Elizabeth Drake by Gawen Hamilton
(c.1697-1737), c.1735. Oil on canvas, 63.5 x 76.8cm. © Rodney Griffiths.
seventeenth century. Matthew Robinson and James Brockman could not have been more different – Robinson flamboyant, talkative, restless and preferring the metropolis to the country – while Brockman was measured, conservative and meticulous, residing at Beachborough as a bachelor until his death. Yet despite their very different personalities the two neighbours seemed to get along well. Throughout his life Brockman kept account ledgers where he recorded every last farthing of expenditure.9 These cash books, today held in the British Library, are a rich source for social historians – they record how on one occasion Robinson lent Brockman some wine and on another how Robinson had done some shopping for Brockman in London and on yet another occasion Robinson had hired Brockman’s carriage from him for a trip to London.
From 1740 onwards Edward Haytley’s name begins to appear in Brockman’s ledgers. At first Haytley is employed to do repair work on some of the pictures and their frames at Beachborough and Brockman also purchases a watercolour from Haytley. Then, in 1746, Haytley received payment for a major commission. Brockman had been remodelling his park and garden, he had an ornamental pond
TWO NEIGHBOURING KENT ESTATES NEAR HYTHE IN THE MID EIGHTEENTH CENT.
PLATE IV
image
The Brockman Family beside Temple Pond, Beachborough Manor, Kent by Edward Haytley (1713-1762), c.1746. Oil on canvas, 52.7 x 65.0cm.
© National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia.
dug and a rotunda was to be built and he commissioned Haytley to paint two pictures of this new scene, populated by Brockman and his friends (Plate IV). The resulting works now hang in The National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, and are undoubtedly the crowning achievements of Haytley’s career.
Brockman’s ledgers show that in 1744 he also commissioned Haytley to paint small-scale portraits of himself inside the Manor and of his cousin, Elizabeth Brockman from nearby Cheriton, standing in the parkland. Elizabeth’s sister, Caroline, had married the Reverend Ralph Drake who was later to inherit the Beachborough estate upon James Brockman’s death. Another intriguing entry which records Brockman paying Haytley for ‘a Canaletto’ does not make it clear if the painting referred to is by the hand of the Italian master himself, that Haytley had perhaps procured for Brockman in London, or if in fact it was for a copy of a Canaletto from the hand of Haytley. That Haytley may have been supplementing his income as a copyist is yet to be determined by art historians.
In Haytley’s painting, The Brockman Family beside Temple Pond, Beachborough
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Manor, Kent (Plate IV), standing beside the Reverend Edmund Parker, the vicar of nearby Newington, and holding a fishing pole, is Susanna Highmore (1725-1812). Susanna, an artist and poet, was the daughter of Joseph Highmore (1692-1780) one of England’s leading portrait painters. She and her family were frequent visitors to Beachborough and sketches made by her of the estate and its environs are held by the Tate Gallery, London.10
The catalogue of a sale held by Christie’s, London, indicates that Joseph Highmore painted James Brockman’s portrait.11 An entry in 1750 in the latter’s cash book records Brockman paying Highmore the sum of 12 guineas to settle a bill which most probably relates to this portrait. Although the Christie’s catalogue is unillustrated a contemporary photograph, taken in 1931, of this painting is held in the Witt Library of The Courtauld Institute of Art, London.
In 1750 the Welsh artist Richard Wilson (1714-1782) travelled to Italy where he spent seven years honing his artistic skills before returning to England in 1757. Upon his return he concentrated on landscape painting and became the pre- eminent British artist of the time in this genre. When he left for Italy he travelled down to the Kent coast to cross the Channel, stopping off at Beachborough where he sketched Brockman’s Bushes which he noted on the flyleaf of his Italian sketch book.12
In 1746 Robinson’s wife Elizabeth died and, in accordance with the terms of Thomas Morris’s will, Mount Morris passed to their eldest son Matthew (1713- 1800) who in 1794 became 2nd Lord Rokeby. Robinson lost little time in leaving Kent and setting up house in London where he resided until his death in 1778.13 A line engraving of 1809 by W. Angus depicts Mount Morris (wrongly entitled Mount Norris), standing, at least when viewed from outside, in its glory – but this was not to be for much longer. As 2nd Lord Rokeby became older he became more and more eccentric. He let his beard grow long and white, fed on raw meat, took several cold baths a day in his greenhouse and let the parkland of Mount Morris return to nature and the house fall into disrepair. He died unmarried in 1800. When Brayley14 published his Beauties of England and Wales in 1808 he noted that at Mount Morris, on a panel in the book-room, was a portrait of Matthew Robinson’s elder daughter Elizabeth, by William Hoare (1707-1792). By 1819 when Fussell made his journey documenting the houses along the Kent coast he wrote of Mount Morris:15
The staircase, once decorated with paintings, like all the rest of the apartments, has lost its splendour; and the wind whistled dismally through the broken sashes.
Although all of the furniture, save one bookcase, had been removed, many paintings by Matthew Robinson, executed on the rooms’ panelling, remained. Fussell describes his work:
the hall of Mount Morris contains many excellent specimens of his ability as a portrait painter, in various copies from Rubens, Vandyke, and other great masters, upon panel; some of them but little inferior to the originals.
By 1838 Greenwood tells us, ‘Mount Morris is entirely disparked and the house in a deserted ruinous state’.16 Today no trace remains of this former fine house (located at NGR TR 1270 3967) and its estate.
TWO NEIGHBOURING KENT ESTATES NEAR HYTHE IN THE MID EIGHTEENTH CENT.
When James Brockman died in 1767 he bequeathed Beachborough to his nephew, the Reverend Ralph Drake on the proviso that the latter changed his surname to Drake-Brockman. This he did by an Act of Parliament. Beachborough then passed down through generations of Drake-Brockmans. In 1813 James Drake-Brockman (1763-1832) rebuilt and extended Beachborough to form an even grander residence. In 1786 he had married Catherine Tatton and her uncle commissioned Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) to paint her portrait which now hangs in The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.17 It was not until 1911 that the house was sold out of the family, although the grounds of the estate were held within the family until 1971 when they were also finally sold. In the 1950s a devastating fire swept through the house and much of it was destroyed. Today all that remains is a part of the original east wing that is run as a bed and breakfast establishment located at NGR TR 1690 3813. Part of the original estate grounds survives as Beachborough Park with its main feature being the distinctive Summerhouse Hill.
The twenty works of art referred to in this article (listed below) were all created in the mid eighteenth century by some of the most accomplished artists of the era and are notable in that they all have connections with either Mount Morris or Beachborough.
Johannes Kip’s engravings Mount Morris the Seat of Morris Drake Morris Esq and
Beachborough the Seat of William Brockman;
Matthew Robinson’s capriccios Landscape and View of a Lake;
Gawen Hamilton’s A Conversation of Virtuosis at the Kings Arms; A Double Portrait of Matthew Robinson and his wife Elizabeth Drake and Matthew Robinson seated at an Easel;
Edward Haytley’s Elizabeth Brockman of Cheriton; James Brockman of Beachbor- ough, Kent; Mrs Elizabeth Montagu; Lady and Gentleman with their Daughter in the Grounds of an Estate; Mrs Sarah Scott nee Robinson; The Brockman Family in the Rotunda at Temple Pond, Beachborough Manor, Kent; The Brockman Family beside Temple Pond, Beachborough Manor, Kent; A View of Sandleford Priory, the Montagu Family in the foreground;
Susanna Highmore’s sketch A View of Beachborough Hill, with Figures in the Fore- ground;
Joseph Highmore’s Portrait of James Brockman; Richard Wilson’s drawing Brockman’s Copse; William Hoare’s Portrait of Mrs Elizabeth Montagu; Thomas Gainsborough’s Portrait of Catherine Tatton.
endnotes
1 John Harris, 1719, The History of Kent, London, vol. 1.
2 ‘Will of Thomas Morris of Monckshorton, Kent’, National Archives, PROB 11/559/40.
3 John W. Clay, 1899, The Registers of St Paul’s Cathedral, Harleian Society, London, p. 31.
4 Matthew Montagu, The Letters of Mrs Elizabeth Montagu, London, 1809, vol 1, p. 4.
5 Catalogue of the Collection of Pictures belonging to the Rt. Hon’ble Henrietta Cavendishe Holles Countess of Oxford at her Seat at Welbeck in the County of Nottingham. MS Welbeck 6 Novr. 1747.
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6 George Vertue, Notebooks, 111, pp. 71-2.
7 Rodney Griffiths, 2012, The Life and Works of Edward Haytley, Walpole Society, vol. LXXIV,
pp. 1-60.
8 Quoted by Mrs Robinson in a letter to her elder daughter Mrs Elizabeth Montagu on 8 May 1745.
9 James Brockman, Account Books, held in the British Library Add. MS 42708.
10 Susanna Duncombe (née Highmore), A View of Beachborough Hill, with Figures in the Foreground, Tate Britain, London, T04283.
11 Christie’s, London, 31 July 1931, Lot 11.
12 Richard Wilson, Italian Sketchbook, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut,
USA, Paul Mellon Collection, Accession Number B1977.14.359.
13 It was only then that he finally returned permanently to Kent as his body was interred in the family vault in the church at Monks Horton, close to Mount Morris. Bishop’s Transcripts for the parish of Monks Horton, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, film no. 1751982.
14 Edward Wedlake Brayley, 1808, The Beauties of England and Wales, London, vol. VIII, pp. 1126-31.
15 L. Fussell, 1818, A Journey Round the Coast of Kent, London, pp. 214-7.
16 C. Greenwood, 1838, An Epitome of County History, London, vol. 1, p. 310.
17 Thomas Gainsborough, Miss Catherine Tatton, 1786, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 1937.1.99.
RESEARCHES AND DISCOVERIES
A NEOLITHIC POLISHED FLINT AXE FROM EAST WEAR BAY, FOLKESTONE
Whilst checking for any further Iron Age and Roman material having been eroded from the cliffs at East Wear Bay, Folkestone, below the site of the Roman villa, following a series of violent storms in December 2013, the writer discovered part of a Neolithic polished flint axe (Fig. 1). The axe was found in one of a number of temporary streams which had developed as a result of heavy rain, and which had cut channels into the beach at the base of the slumped cliff. It exhibits some evidence of water-rolling, suggesting that it may have been on the beach for some time rather than having been recently brought down by the stream. On a further visit a few days later, it was noted that the channels had by then disappeared and the appearance of the beach at this point was much changed.
What survives is a mid-section across the axe, probably towards the butt end, although neither end is now present. The flint is grey, darker on one side than the other, with some brown staining. The dimensions are:
Length: 69.0mm (maximum surviving) Width: 40.0-47.5mm
Thickness: 26.5mm (maximum) Weight: 121gm
A number of original (pre-polishing?) flake scars are present along both edges. Longitudinal striations caused by the polishing of the surfaces are visible on both faces and a small patch of surviving cortex has also been smoothed. Both edges have the standard squaring which prevented splitting of the haft. The butt end has been
image
Fig. 1 Neolithic polished flint axe (part) from East Wear Bay, Folkestone.
RESEARCHES AND DISCOVERIES
broken away by a single blow. The cutting edge may have broken off during use, for what survives at this end shows evidence of crude reworking at some later stage. Neolithic flint material has been recovered during recent excavations on the East Cliff at Folkestone, immediately above the findspot of this axe and it may well be that it derived from here, significant erosion having taken place over a very long period of time.1 In addition, a Neolithic chipped flint axe has also previously been
recovered from the base of the cliff (A. Weston, pers. comm.).
Further incomplete polished axes have been recorded from the high ground to the north of Folkestone, notably along Crete Road East near the escarpment of the North Downs and within 2km of East Wear Bay.2 A near-complete polished flint axe was recovered in 2012 during work ahead of construction at the Battle of Britain memorial at Capel.3
The current find has been recorded with the Portable Antiquities Scheme, reference KENT-19465E.
david holman
references
Coulson, I. (ed.), 2013, Folkestone to 1500: a town unearthed, Canterbury Archaeological Trust,
Canterbury, 16.
Hoskins, R., 1997, ‘Flint Artefacts from Folkestone’, KAR, 130, 241-243; Keene, M., 2005, ‘Flint Artefacts from the North Downs near Folkestone’, KAR, 159, 215-216.
Parfitt, K., 2012, ‘Battle of Britain Memorial Site, Capel-Le-Ferne, Kent’, CAT Evaluation Report 2012/188.
APREVIOUSLY UNRECORDED PREHISTORIC BARROW ON COXHILLMOUNT, RIVER, NEAR DOVER
During an archaeological survey of Kearsney Abbey Park at River, near Dover, an artificial mound was identified on Coxhill Mount, overlooking the Dour valley. (NGR TR 28729 43427, centred.) The weathered profile clearly indicated that this was a long-established landscape feature (Fig. 1), which could potentially represent a previously unrecognised round barrow (Parfitt 2015).
As part Dover District Council’s Kearsney Parks enhancement project, it was possible (in April 2018) to undertake some limited investigation of the site by means of two hand-dug evaluation trenches. The work was conducted by local volunteers, led by the Canterbury Archaeological Trust, and provided sufficient evidence to show that the mound was indeed a round barrow of prehistoric date. As such, it joins a number of other similar monuments surviving on the sides of the Dour valley and adjacent ridge-tops (Grinsell 1992) but there are no specific antiquarian records noting the present site.
Located on the summit of Coxhill Mount some 325m west of River parish church, the mound occupies the north-eastern end of a chalkland ridge, which is defined on three sides by steep slopes associated with the Dour valley system. Today, the site is partially covered by scrub but this has developed since the Second World War. There is no evidence that the area has ever been ploughed, nor does the mound appear ever to have been dug into.
RESEARCHES AND DISCOVERIES
image
Fig. 1 General view of the mound from the north.
The mound itself lies on sloping ground and stands at an elevation of between
78.25 and 82.50m aod. It was seemingly deliberately situated at the break of slope on the hillside to take full advantage of the natural fall of the land here. Thus, it is most impressive when viewed from downhill, on the north-eastern side, where it appears 2-3m high (Fig. 1); on the uphill south-west side, however, it merges imperceptibly with the summit of the ridge.
The mound is roughly circular in shape, with a diameter of about 25-26m. There are no surface indications of any enclosing ditch or outer bank but the two evaluation trenches, cut around the edge of the mound, established that it was encircled by a flat-bottomed ditch, with an estimated diameter of about 21.50m, indicating that the visible mound has spread slightly from its original footprint.
The ditch was best preserved on the south-western, uphill side in Trench 1 where it was about 1.90m wide and 1.00m deep, with convexly sloping sides and a flat base. On the downhill side, Trench 2 showed that when the ditch was partially filled, it had been cut into by a broad irregular pit, apparently dug as a quarry to obtain flints for knapping. The filling of this pit produced large amounts of prehistoric struck flint (60kg), including a series of nodules tested for their suitability as raw material to be further worked. Stylistically, the flint assemblage appears to be later Bronze Age.
Although the construction date of the barrow is not certain, it does seem clear that
RESEARCHES AND DISCOVERIES
the finished monument had later seen activity concerned with the procurement and preparation of raw flint material for knapping. A mound of early Bronze Age origin which subsequently saw an episode of flint exploitation during the late Bronze Age is suggested and this follows a sequence of events generally quite well-known on such prehistoric monuments across southern Britain.
Several of the Dour valley-side barrows exhibit careful utilisation of a natural hill-slope position so that they appear impressively large from the downhill side, but are hardly visible when viewed from uphill. The implication would thus seem to be that these monuments were designed to be both viewed and approached from the downhill side. It could thus follow that the settlements associated with these monuments should be sought on the lower slopes and in the bottom of the adjacent valley.
Two small fragments of Ebbsfleet style decorated pottery (c.3350-2800 bc) and part of a Neolithic chipped axe found as residual material in the upper ditch fill of Trench 1 suggest there had been occasional Neolithic activity in the area long before the barrow was erected.
keith parfitt
references
Grinsell, L.V., 1992, ‘The Bronze Age Round Barrows of Kent’, PPS, 58, 355-384.
Parfitt, K., 2015, ‘Russell Gardens and Kearsney Abbey, Dover: Archaeological survey and desk-top study with outline activity plan’ (CAT archive report, April).
Parfitt, K., 2018, ‘Evaluation trenching on Coxhill Mount, River, Dover, 2018’ (CAT archive report no. 4096; December).
THE PLACE NAME KENT AND WELSH CANT ‘RIM; WALL’
Pride in Kent is nothing new. The antiquary John Leland celebrated the place in Henry VIII’s day, noting how ‘The King hymself was borne yn Kent [in 1491, at Greenwich]’.1 Others will have the same warm feeling, especially if (like the present writer) they were educated in Kent at an outstanding school.2 However, even if Kentish patriotism is not in doubt, the actual name Kent is. Its meaning has been obscure and deserves investigation.
In this paper British-Latin Cantium or Kent is discussed in the light of the Celtic
languages, with the material in four parts:
the Cantiaci or Britons of Kent;
comparison of Cantiaci ‘people of Kent’ and Cantium ‘Kent’ with other names in
Cant-;
further comparison with Welsh cant ‘rim; wall’;
arguments for Cantium ‘territory with an edge, land with a rim’ as alluding not to the coastal fringe but to the North Downs, running the length of the county. Their name would echo that of hills elsewhere, including the Quantocks of Somerset and Cantabrian Mountains of Spain. Interpretation of Cantium as ‘territory with a ridge- edge, land by a hill-rim’ will have equivalents beyond Kent.
We start with Cantiaci, the area’s ancient people. Leo Rivet here made a crucial
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observation. Cantium, mentioned by Diodorus Siculus (in the first century bce) after Pytheas (in the late fourth), predates Cantiaci by three hundred years. On ethnological and archaeological grounds, Rivet thought it ‘unlikely that the same tribal name persisted here’ for so long. He took Cantium as coming first and Cantiaci as derived from it much later, noting that Caesar used not a tribal name but a periphrasis (ei qui Cantium incolunt). Cantiaci will be a neologism, devised when the canton emerged as ‘an artifical creation of the Romans’.3 There is further evidence. When Caesar campaigned north of the Thames on his second invasion, Cassivellaunus ordered ‘four kings who ruled in Kent’ to attack the Roman ships and camp at (as now believed, see below) Ebbsfleet, by Pegwell Bay.4 If Kent had petty kings loyal to an over-king, it was neither politically united nor independent. There was no king or kingdom of Cantium. Its rulers were subservient. Even when Cassivellaunus was in a desperate position, they rallied to him. They did not revolt. Others accepted Rivet’s case. Frere called the Cantiaci the one civitas in Roman Britain ‘to adopt not a tribal but a geographical title’ and considered that, because Kent received many immigrants in the pre-Roman period, the Cantiaci were ‘probably an artifical grouping of these elements, created by Rome’ for administrative convenience.5 Hence, it seems, Rome’s lumping together of Canterbury and Rochester (as capitals of different tribelands) into one region. Those polities have a curious afterlife in Anglicanism, where their territories survive as the dioceses of Canterbury and Rochester. The Church of England preserves a
governance older than Kent County Council, older even than Roman Britain.
The composite origins of the Cantiaci were further accepted by John Wacher. Amongst Roman Britain’s twenty-three known tribal peoples, they were unusual in being formed from ‘a number of smaller tribes’ (the same perhaps true of the Regnenses around Chichester and Belgae around Winchester).6 As for Caesar’s beachhead camp attacked by local kings, it was previously located near Worth, on the old coastline inland from Sandwich Bay (although archaeological discoveries in late 2017 put it to the north, at Ebbsfleet on the Isle of Thanet).7 We actually know what the kings were called: Cingetorix, Carvilius, Taximagalus, and Segovax.8
This sketch of Kentish Britons ends with two warnings and a map. Warning number one is about communications and is implied by a history of Rochester Bridge. Until Roman engineers started busying themselves with roads, Kent’s major east-west routes were what later became called the Pilgrims’ Way at the foot of the North Downs and the Greenway south of it. Travellers on them forded the Medway respectively at Lower Halling and four miles upstream at Aylesford.9 Progressing with their wares and flocks, they did not think of Kent as an outline on a map. They had never seen maps. What they saw was the edge of the North Downs, extending all the way to the sea. We must remember that. Warning number two concerns an altar at Colchester. It was put up by Similis, son of Attus, called ‘a tribesman of the Cantii’.10 Similis, a well-to-do pagan, left Kent for a better life in Essex. But the ‘Cantii’ given has no authority. The inscription reads CANT, more logically expanded as CANTIACORUM, which had proper legal significance. As for the map, a recent one shows KANTION between Stour and Medway, with the territory of the Segontiaci in east Kent, the Ancalites in the Low Weald south-west of Ashford, the Bibroci west of them, near Tonbridge, and the Cassi to the south, in the High Weald of modern Sussex (Fig. 1).11 We again recall that in pre-Roman
image
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288
Fig. 1 Territories of the tribes of Kent (after Koch, 2007, An Atlas for Celtic Studies: extract from map 15.6, reproduced with permission). © Oxbow Books and John T. Koch. (Note: the large capital letters marked at various points on the map designate toponym elements. M refers to ‘magus’ or ‘plain’; R to ‘duro’ or ‘stronghold’; S to ‘sego’ or ‘strong’.)
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times Kent was (as Metternich said of Italy) a geographical expression. It was not a political unity.
After discussing Kent’s ancient peoples, we now examine Cantiaci and other Celtic names. The essential form here is Welsh cant ‘outer circle, rim; hoop; fence, surrounding wall, enclosure’. Good examples are Cantsfield and Cant Beck (SD 6374) on the old Lancashire-Yorkshire border, where (despite Ekwall’s doubts) a Celtic origin for the first element is certain.12 Why cant might designate a stream as well as hills is explained below.
Kent itself attracted influential (if hazy) statements from Ekwall, who repeated three previous suggestions: ‘rim, border’ and thus possibly ‘border country’; ‘white’and so perhaps ‘clearing’. A better solution was yet implied by his entries for Queen Camel and the Quantock Hills, both in Somerset, both possessing long ridges, and therefore related to Gaulish cantus ‘rim of a wheel, tyre’ and Welsh cant ‘edge; wall’.13 Queen Camel and the Quantocks being away from the sea, the Britons regarded their ridges as ‘rims’ like the iron tyre of a waggon. But the lesson has not been learnt for Kent.
In an important paper, some of Ekwall’s misconceptions were cleared up by Kenneth Jackson (who then added some of his own). Jackson rejected cant ‘white’ as a lexicographical ghost, preferring cant ‘rim; tyre’ for Kent, but unfortunately relating this to the peninsula’s outline on the map.14 His prestige was such that the notion, alien to the way that ancient peoples considered territory, continues to mislead. Jackson later restated his belief that Cantium derived from the tribal name Cantii.15 Because Rivet ruled out ideas of tribal unity in Kent, this view should likewise be discounted. Earlier assertions on Kent as ‘rim, border’ and thus ‘border country’ (a border between what? one asks) and ‘white’ and so ‘clearing’ (a very large one, we might think) were repeated by Reaney.16
At this point comes a first glimpse of what is argued below. With Ekwall as his authority, the poet and topographer Geoffrey Grigson referred Kent (and the Quantocks of Somerset) to a Celtic form meaning ‘edge’ or ‘rim’. Noting English- named hills called ‘edge’ (like Wenlock Edge in Shropshire), he wondered if the Celtic word was used first of ‘the long edge or rim of the North Downs’ and then ‘extended to the Kent stretching out underneath?’.17 His suggestion was admirably sensible and has been totally ignored.
Place-name scholars, looking neither to right nor left, went on repeating the derivations of their predecessors. Margaret Gelling, correctly translating Canterbury as ‘town of the people of Kent’, echoed Jackson on Kent as probably meaning ‘coastal district’.18 So, regrettably, did Rivet and Smith in a fundamental account of the forms. Besides those for Kent was one on ‘Canza’ in the Ravenna Cosmography, which they rightly emended to Cantia, then citing Jackson on possible senses ‘encircled (seagirt) land’ or ‘borderland’ or ‘land of army hosts’, where they preferred the first. They repeated his stern denial of any Celtic form cant ‘white’. With the conception ‘circle’ in mind, they hence plumped for the interpretation ‘corner land, land on the edge’ and concluded that the place, though not precisely located, was surely in south-west Britain, because it figures with Lindinis or Ilchester in south Somerset. (We say here that Cantia is the Quantock Hills. A Roman road ran from Ilchester towards that ridge of Devonian slates and
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hard red sandstones, twenty-five miles to the north-west, but conspicuous across the intervening levels. Ravenna’s Cantia is here for the first time equated with the Quantocks.) As for Cantiaci, Rivet and Smith very reasonably took it as postdating Cantium, which they then unreasonably understood as ‘corner land, land on the edge’.19 This even though such a sense is unsupported by Welsh uses of cant and is foreign to the mentality of early peoples, who knew nothing of cartography.
Popular scholarship and its opposite thereafter presented an interesting prospect. John Field, a good researcher, proposed ‘borderland, land on the rim’, because Celtic forms in cant mean ‘rim, border, periphery’ and that ‘fits the geography of the county’.20 But his thinking was anachronistic. Adrian Room offered an inaccurate summary of Rivet and Smith, with the translation ‘border, edge’ related to Kent’s ‘coastal situation’ or even the North Foreland, Thanet.21 He forgot that, pre-modern Thanet being an island, the North Foreland was not on the Kent mainland.
Later commentators add little. Dr Parsons even retreats from what is known. He gives no explanation for Cantium and thinks that it may not be British.22 The Cambridge dictionary has the received rendering ‘corner land, land on the edge’ after Jackson, as well as ‘river at the edge, corner stream’ for Cant Beck, Lancashire.23 Dr Falileyev, who interprets cant- as ‘circle, rim, border’, as also ‘angle, corner’, has a useful mention of Cant Hill (SW 9474), a mile-long ridge overlooking the Camel Estuary, near Padstow.24 This Cornish eminence has ob- vious parallels with the Quantocks and Queen Camel of Somerset or North Downs of Kent.
After place-names in Cant-, we move to ordinary words in cant(-) as a surer guide to meaning. The emphasis is on Celtic forms.
As regards the Welsh noun cant, it occurs in varied contexts: law, chronicle, religious lyric, love-story. A medieval legal tract defines the rights of a royal smith, who can demand payment for three things: the edge (cant) of a coulter, the socket of an axe, the head of a spear. All these suffered heavy use. If they broke, the consequences were irksome (or worse). Resilience was essential. However, cant cwllter ‘counter’s rim’ in the original triad was corrupted in late manuscripts, with scribes creating a fourth item, the rim (cant) of a cauldron.25 Modifying or correcting that idea of cant as ‘outer circle; rim’ is heb dor, heb gant ‘without door, without wall’ in a thirteenth-century Franciscan lyric (to which we shall return) on the stable at Bethlehem.26
A sense ‘wall’ for cant in that Nativity poem is confirmed by another law tract, co-edited by the politician Enoch Powell. It has a passage on a barn with a repaired cant.27 The meaning is ‘wall’, protecting the corn inside from cattle, and is so defined by the University of Wales dictionary (with Latin canthus ‘iron tyre on a wheel’ and Greek kanthós ‘felloe; outer part of a wheel’ further noted as borrowings from Celtic).28
The cant or ‘wall’ of the barn would be straight. That understood, we return to coulters, described at length in a monograph on the Welsh plough. A coulter is a vertical iron or steel bar placed before the share; it cuts into the soil, which the share then turns over. If long enough, it will remove deep roots; it must then be especially robust, because of encounters with buried stones. Its upper part may in addition have a sharp edge to slice through uplifted roots. Like the heads of axe
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or spear, a coulter needed skill in the making. Iron Age and Roman coulters were straight; later ones had a 135-degree bend, to raise roots to the surface; others were curved, though less so than a sickle.29 So a coulter could be straight or bent or curving, but not ring-like or circular. A Welsh cant cwllter ‘edge of a coulter’ therefore has implications for the name of Kent. Cant- being used of things which were not circular, we need not apply it to the Kent coast, going round three points of the compass.
After barns and coulters, war and religion. A battle recorded in the ninth-century Historia Brittonum, and the Franciscan Christmas poem already mentioned, together offer information on cant. The battle was in 634, when Welsh invaders were massacred near Hexham, which is given the Old Welsh name Cantscaul. The Old English name of Hexham being Hagustaldesham ‘young warrior’s settlement’, Cantscaul will be its Welsh translation ‘champion’s enclosure’.30 The implication is clear. Welsh cant there meant the hedge or stockade around a homestead. It was a raised feature or structure, like the barn-wall of the laws. It was not flat, like an outline on a map.
As for the lyric, it was written in about 1250 by Friar Madog ap Gwallter (known from other sources). He described how the Three Kings found Jesus in a stable that was doorless and heb gant, translated as ‘no rampart’, which cannot be right.31 Castles have ramparts, stables do not. Madog’s heb gant means not ‘without a rampart’ but ‘without a wall’. He may have meant that there was no wall inside, which is why the Holy Family were accompanied by ych ac assen ‘ox and ass’. Or he may have had in mind the missing wall of a Nativity scene, with the stable open on one side, a convention perhaps coming from St Francis himself.32 In either case, cant means ‘wall’.
Now for the fourth and final section, with conclusions for Kent and beyond. Translations of Kent as ‘corner land, land on the edge’ must be jettisoned. The sense will be ‘land of the Edge’, the long inland cliff or escarpment of the North Downs. There are three reasons for this, as follows:
The fundamental sense of Celtic cant- is not ‘corner’ or ‘circle’ but ‘rim, edge; wall’. Hence the cant ‘edge’ of a coulter, which may be straight or bent or curved, yet never circular. Hence also cant of the wall of a barn, stable, or royal hall.
Although Britons today regard Kent as on the edge, Iron Age people would not visu- alize it in that way, being innocent of maps. Nor would they think of it as a peninsula outlined from above, as we do. What they recalled was the cant- ‘edge’ of the North Downs overlooking ancient trackways.
That interpretaion is paralleled by the Quantocks (= the Ravenna Cosmography’s Cantia) and Queen Camel in Somerset, as also Cant Hill in Cornwall, and Cant Beck in Lancashire. In each case the notion is not of circularity but of a more-or- less straight edge. Cant Hill is on the edge of the Camel Estuary. Cant Beck, close to the old border of Lancashire and Yorkshire, may have been so called in pre-English times, or else after the tenth-century occupation of Cumbria by Cumbric-speakers from Strathclyde. This is why Cant- is applied to walls, streams, and hills, all of which delineate space. The same interpretation applies to names of hills and rivers on the Continent, including that of Cantabria in northern Spain, where mountains impede communications from the coast to the interior.
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Old ideas of Kent as denoting a circle or periphery may be set aside. The correct sense will be ‘land of (the) Edge’ meaning not the coast but the Downs from Westerham to the Straits of Dover. That, we submit, provides a coherent and rational explanation of the evidence. It may enhance pride in the county as well. A modern hill-figure of the White Horse of Kent, cut into the chalk west of Folkestone, proves that the Downs are regarded highly by Kentish people. Given that local patriotism, it may be fitting if (as maintained here) Celtic cant- ‘rim, edge’ were long ago used of those hills, then giving Cantium ‘territory of (the) Edge’ as the name of the region, and so modern Kent.
andrew breeze
1 The Itinerary of John Leland in or about the Years 1535-1543: Parts VII and VIII, ed. L.T.
Smith (London, 1909), 57.
2 John Cavell and Brian Kennett, 1963, A History of Sir Roger Manwood’s School, Sandwich
(London), 176-9.
3 A.L.F. Rivet, 1958, Town and Country in Roman Britain (London), 144.
4 Sheppard Frere, 1967, Britannia (London), 37.
5 Sheppard Frere, 1970, ‘Cantiaci’, in The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2nd edn, ed. N.G.L. Hammond and H.H. Scullard (Oxford), 202.
6 John Wacher, 1974, The Towns of Roman Britain (London), 22.
7 Christopher Hawkes, 1977, ‘Britain and Julius Caesar’, Proceedings of the British Academy,
lxiii, 125-92, at 159, 171.
8 Peter Salway, 1981, Roman Britain (Oxford), 36.
9 Nigel Yates and J.M. Gibson, 1994, Traffic and Politics (Woodbridge), 3.
10 Stanley Ireland, 1996, Roman Britain: A Sourcebook, 2nd edn (London), 188.
11 John T. Koch, 2007, An Atlas for Celtic Studies (Oxford), map 15.6.
12 Eilert Ekwall, 1922, The Place-Names of Lancashire (Manchester), 169, 183.
13 Eilert Ekwall, 1936, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names (Oxford), 80, 259, 358.
14 K.H. Jackson, 1948, ‘On Some Romano-British Place-Names’, Journal of Roman Studies,
xxxviii, 54-8.
15 K.H. Jackson, 1953, Language and History in Early Britain (Edinburgh), 39.
16 R.H. Reaney, 1960, The Origin of English Place-Names (London), 71.
17 Geoffrey Grigson, 1962, The Shell Country Book (London), 116.
18 Margaret Gelling, 1970, ‘Canterbury’, in The Names of Towns and Cities in Britain, ed. W.F.H.
Nicolaisen (London), 66-7.
19 A.L.F. Rivet and Colin Smith, 1979, The Place-Names of Roman Britain (Princeton), 299-300.
20 John Field, 1980, Place-Names of Great Britain and Ireland (Newton Abbot), 93-4.
21 Adrian Room, 1988, Dictionary of Place-Names in the British Isles (London), 192.
22 D.N. Parsons, 2000, ‘Classifying Ptolemy’s English Place-Names’, in Ptolemy: Towards a Linguistic Atlas of the Earliest Celtic Place-Names of Europe, ed. D.N. Parsons and Patrick Sims- Williams (Aberystwyth), 169-78.
23 Victor Watts (ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names (Cambridge), 114, 340.
24 Alexander Falileyev, 2010, Dictionary of Continental Celtic Place-Names (Aberystwyth), 13, 89-90.
25 The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales, ed. Owen Jones, Edward Williams, and W.O. Pughe, 2nd edn (Denbigh, 1870), 973, 1025.
26 Hen Gerddi Crefyddol, ed. Henry Lewis (Caerdydd, 1931), 106.
27 Cyfreithiau Hywel Dda, ed. S.J. Williams and J. Enoch Powell (Caerdydd, 1942), 95.
28 Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru (Caerdydd, 1950-2002), 418.
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29 F.G. Payne, 1954, Yr Aradr Gymreig (Caerdydd), 82.
30 Kenneth Jackson, 1963, ‘On the Northern British Section in Nennius’, in Celt and Saxon, ed.
N.K. Chadwick (Cambridge), 20-62.
31 J.P. Clancy, 1970, The Earliest Welsh Poetry (London), 165.
32 Douglas Gray, 1972, Themes and Images in the Medieval English Religious Lyric (London), 113.
A LATE ELEVENTH-CENTURY ROCHESTER MANUSCRIPT APPARENTLY ECHOING THE POLITICAL MESSAGE OF THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY
In this article, based on long-term research, the author presents the case that various of the decorated initials in a manuscript book produced at the Rochester scriptorium in the 1080s were quite deliberately designed to reinforce the underlying political message of the Bayeux Tapestry.1 Which is that the Norman Conquest was inflicted to punish the Anglo-Saxons for crowning Harold Godwineson who had broken his sacred oath that William, Duke of the Normans, should be king after Edward the Confessor.
To help reconcile Anglo-Saxons to the Norman ascendancy some major figure – believed to be Lanfranc – who had had a hand in making the Tapestry in the 1070s conceived the idea in the following decade of making an illuminated copy at Rochester of Books 17-35 of Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Job, which, it is argued, can be dated by the iconography of its decorated initials to the 1080s. Scribes and artists who came to work in England from the abbey of Mont-St- Michel in Normandy are pivotal to the understanding of both works.
The starting point for the research into this question was the Textus Roffensis and the earliest extant post-Conquest book catalogue from any English monastic house.2 This catalogue lists the 93 manuscript books that were in the library of Rochester Cathedral Priory in 1123, of which forty-three are extant and in the safekeeping of the British Library.3 Waller carried out a palaeographic study of these manuscripts in 1980 and found that during the early episcopacy of Gundulf,
i.e. from 1077, a number of manuscripts were produced at Rochester Priory by a handful of scribes whose style suggested they had been trained by a Norman.4
The manuscript book in question held at the BL is Royal MS 6C. vi which contains books 17-35 of Gregory the Great’s 6th-century Moralia in Job. The author concluded that it had been copied in the Rochester scriptorium in the 1080s,5 having previously been dated to the twelfth century when many manuscripts of this work were copied in England and in Normandy. Of course, Gregory’s centuries earlier text does not refer directly to the invasion, but the subtext could do so. And indeed, it can be shown that the Rochester manuscript is unique with its series of seventeen richly decorated initials, some historiated, i.e. showing the image of a person, and some zoomorphic designs.
The fact that the designer of this manuscript chose to copy and illuminate the latter books of the Moralia in Job and not the earlier ones, which were copied later,6 is significant. The earlier books by contrast are simply produced with sparse decoration or use of colour presumably because the story these relate describing the early rather dissolute life of Job did not provide the designer with an iconographic theme relevant to the Norman Conquest.
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The Rochester Manuscript – an interpretation of the decorated initials and rubrication The following are the eight initials in question:
Job in a state of penitence (Plate I): Book 17 of the Moralia in Job relates the story of Job in a state of penitence and in the first decorated initial he is shown, with his wife, shirtless, covered with boils, encircled by serpents. The red/blue rubrication of alternate words or parts of words immediately below the bowl of the initial is noteworthy. Job in Christian iconography represents the suffering of Christ and
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Plate I Job in a state of penitence; BL Royal MS 6C. vi, fol. 6.
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his Holy Church. The initial seems to be suggesting that the Anglo-Saxon Church had been in a state of sin, perhaps because of Harold’s broken oath at Bayeux; Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury until 1070, had committed the gravest sin by wresting the See of Canterbury from Robert of Jumièges during Robert’s lifetime, making both Stigand’s appointment and his consecration of Harold Godwineson as King irregular. In the decorated initial the church penitent is being offered the eucharistic bread,7 the body of Christ.
The Lamb of God (Plate II): the second decorated initial is an early depiction of
image
Plate II The Lamb of God; note the dotted ẏ on mẏstica and hẏstoria (lines 2 and 3); BL Royal MS 6C. vi, fol. 15.
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image
Plate III Bayeux Tapestry: Harold reports back to the elderly, childless King Edward that William will be the next King of England.
the Agnus Dei portrayed with a cross resembling a sword. Earlier, from the fifth century, the Lamb of God had usually been depicted solely with a halo. This Agnus Dei with a sword is about ‘the taking away of the sins of the world’, through the death of Harold Godwineson at the Battle of Hastings and the enthronement of a legally consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury, Lanfranc in 1070. The distinctive three-pronged markings on the Lamb are similar to those on the canopy above King Edward in the Tapestry when Harold Godwineson is reporting back to him after his visit to William in Normandy (Plate III).
The Archangel St Michael (Plate IV): the rubrication with its alternate red/green lettering (as in the later inscriptions in the Bayeux Tapestry, see below) reads: QUID MIRUM si aeterna Dei sapientia conspici non valet (Is it any wonder that the eternal wisdom of God may not be seen?). St Michael is a well-established figure in Christian iconography, but in the context of this manuscript seems to refer to the invasion, for in 1066 the Norman fleet had set off from West Normandy and had been blown into St. Valéry-sur-Somme, having lost men, if not ships. The fleet remained storm-bound by a fortnight of stormy weather and contrary winds. It was when the feast of St Michael was about to be celebrated, towards the end of September that the weather changed. William was able to sail out from St. Valéry- sur-Somme, across to Pevensey and thence to battle at Hastings.8 The archangel seems to be almost leaping out of the confines of the decorated initial carrying sword and shield as he fights the dragon. This exuberance and creative energy,
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Plate IV The Archangel St Michael; BL Royal MS 6C. vi, fol. 33v.
that might have been thought impossible to demonstrate in the space available to the artist in a decorated initial, is referred to by Monique Dosdat in her book about manuscripts at Mont-St-Michel particularly in the chapter she calls L’Age D’Or (1050-1075).9 Note also the archangel’s very large hands and feet and the patterning on his robe, reminiscent of a depiction of St Michael in a manuscript made between 980-1000 in the scriptorium at Mont-St-Michel where Lanfranc worked when he first came to Normandy (Plate V).10 Harold, having received arms from William when he was a prisoner in Normandy, and having become his liegeman, campaigned with him in Brittany. This is one reason for the inclusion of Mont-St-Michel in the Bayeux Tapestry. Note the three-pronged scroll patterning on the stylised depiction of the mount which, nevertheless, is recognisable as Mont-St-Michel (Plate VI).
The Stag (Plate VII): Gregory’s text at this point refers to people who distress the church. A young male deer is depicted (again with three-pronged markings on its body), its antlers do not branch, so it is not the older hart. This stag may have referred to Odo, whose help in providing ships for the invasion and in subduing the Anglo-Saxons, as well as deputising for the king when he was in Normandy, had been so important to William I, but who in the event had proved to be so disloyal an ally that by 1082 the king had him exiled and imprisoned in Rouen. Line four demonstrates the distinctive Rochester scriptorium housestyle abbreviation for prae, p with an open a over the top in the word praedicat (preach).
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Plate V A depiction of St Michael in a manuscript made between 980-1000 in the scriptorium at Mont-St-Michel where Lanfranc worked when he first came to Normandy; Avranches, Bibliothèque patrimoniale MS 50 fol. 1.
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Plate VI Bayeux Tapestry: here Duke William and his army came to Mont-St-Michel and
here they crossed the river Couesnon.
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Plate VII The Stag; BL Royal MS 6C. vi, fol. 45v.
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The Armed and Mounted Norman Knight (Plate VIII): wearing chain-mail armour down to his knees and a conical helmet, half-standing in his stirrups with lance under his arm, this mounted knight is similar to those depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry although as his lance appears to be couched, the date would be slightly later and the 1080s would seem right. He is depicted accurately accoutred in contemporary armour.
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Plate VIII The Armed and Mounted Norman Knight; BL Royal MS 6C. vi, fol. 79v.
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Plate IX Pope Gregory; BL Royal MS 6C. vi, fol. 128.
His stylised white steed, however, is lined with wavy brown stripes. Similarly, some of the horses in the Tapestry are extravagantly embroidered. As there is no precedent in any eleventh-century manuscript for a Norman knight, it might be deduced that it was taken partly from the Bayeux Tapestry and, perhaps, from contemporary life. People in Rochester would have seen such figures practising their military skills around Rochester Castle. Gregory the Great in the Moralia compared horses ready for battle with righteous people ready for trial.
Pope Gregory (Plate IX): Book 27 of the Moralia deals with the establishment of a system of Christian doctrine and ethics. The miniature in Byzantine style is of a man carrying a holy book. Waller thought the figure represented a bust of Christ.11 However, the figure has a black beaded halo which denotes the death of an apostle or, in the apostolic line, a pope. In the textual context and in the context of the other decorated initials it seems to refer to Gregorian reform and to the recent death of Pope Gregory VII, who instituted the reform, in 1085. The following year Archbishop Lanfranc founded St Gregory’s Priory in Canterbury.12 People may also have thought of the author of the Moralia, Gregory the Great. They may also have been reminded of papal support for the Norman Conquest of England for it is generally believed that Pope Alexander II gave his blessing to the Norman invasion of England.
The nimbed Eagle (Plate X): this stylised representation is of the eagle of St John with turned head. Book 31 of the Moralia equates the eagle with ‘earthly power’. As the eagle is perched securely on a Bible this suggests earthly power brought about by the Church. Or is it indeed an eagle? Eagles in earlier manuscripts are
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usually naturalistically draw and coloured. This parrot-like bird has an intricate, multi-coloured, patterned, harp-shaped wing in which a central stripe of red feathers predominates. It is not unlike some of the birds shown in the borders of the Bayeux Tapestry or those described by the Dean of St Quentin in the dream of Rollo.13 Birds in Book 19 of the Moralia are seen sometimes as forces of good and sometimes evil. The alternate red and green lines of rubricated text, that refer to the misfortunes of Job, but are so applicable to the Norman Conquest are here at the beginning of Book 28, the text reads: POST DĂNA RERŬ after loss of possessions (looting) POST
image
Plate X The nimbed Eagle; BL Royal MS 6C. vi, fol. 142v.
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FUNERA PIGNORUM after breaking of oaths (Harold Godwineson’s broken oath that William should succeed to the throne of England) POST VULNERA CORPORIS after wounds of the body (the Battle of Hastings itself)
Only one manuscript of the Moralia rubricates this passage similarly, MS Média- thèque Municipale de Bayeux 58, which abbreviates the Latin word dampna/ damna as dāna (Plate XI). The text of the Moralia at this point, although referring to the
image
Plate XI Only one manuscript of the Moralia rubricates this passage similarly, MS Médiathèque Municipale de Bayeux 58, fol. 114v. which abbreviates the Latin word dampna/damna as dāna.
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image
Plate XII Samson; BL Royal MS 6C. vi, fol. 152v.
misfortunes of Job, was also applicable to 1066. People were being encouraged to accept the Conquest as the will of God, almost as divine right of providence, in the way that Job had learnt with patience to accept his afflictions as the will of God.
Samson (Plate XII): a long-haired Samson with bees in his hair (straight from Judges Ch. 40) is depicted at the beginning of Book 29, astride a lion, with his hand in the lion’s mouth. He is encircled by a beaded serpent.14 This Samson seems to refer to the eleventh-century Samson, Norman by birth, protégé of Odo, Canon, Treasurer and, possibly, Dean of the Cathedral Chapter of Bayeux, later Bishop of Worcester. It is possible that he was associated with the Domesday survey set underway in 108515 and was the recipient of the letter from Lanfranc to Samson in which Lanfranc confirms that in the counties which Samson had been assigned the duty of making a survey he had no demesne land. This Samson was a strong survivor, like his biblical namesake; he did not lose his English lands when Odo fell into disgrace after 1082, but at that time it was perhaps thought appropriate to depict him with his hand in a lion’s mouth.
In 1980 Waller had shown that this manuscript clearly stood apart from the first group produced in the new scriptorium at Rochester Priory, but she did not explain why this might be so. It was not until four years later that she published an article entitled ‘Rochester Cathedral Library; an English book collection based on Norman models’. By then she had noticed the Norman nature of the decorative initials but still had not noticed the iconographic theme and its possible relationship to the Norman Conquest.16
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Summing up, the rubrication, the coloured headlines and the richly decorated initials in the Rochester manuscript appear to have been used as a propaganda vehicle to justify the Norman Conquest of England using an iconography that Anglo- Saxon Christian people might recognize. A brilliant mind, who knew Gregory’s text from an intimate study of it, conceived the idea to use the latter part of the work for this purpose. Gregory the Great had stressed that the role of the Church was to teach, advocating a threefold method of interpretation of the Scriptures, historical, allegorical and moral. He had said ‘painting is used in churches so that those who do not know letters may at least by looking on the walls read what they cannot read in books’.17 The manuscript book may have been used by priests in Rochester Cathedral to justify the Norman invasion in the still unstable political climate of the 1080s, for it is the folios with the historiated initials that are the well-thumbed ones. The second half of this paper briefly examines the provenance of the Bayeux Tapestry itself and the likely roles of Lanfranc and personnel from the celebrated scriptorium at Mont-St-Michel in the design and execution of the Rochester manuscript.
The Bayeux Tapestry
During the second half of the twentieth century most European specialists accepted that the embroidery worked in wools on linen known as the Bayeux Tapestry was produced in England, most likely at Canterbury even if it was intended for the consecration of Bishop Odo’s cathedral in Bayeux (in 1077). Evidence of an English origin rested in the forms of certain words, ceastra, the word for an Old English castle or township, and the use of the Old English eth (ð) in the spelling of Gyrð (Harold’s brother), Old English ash (æ) and the dotted ẏ in Ælfgẏva. Together with a number of stylistic similarities with Canterbury manuscript illuminations, especially an illustration in a sixth-century manuscript of The Gospels of St Augustine of Canterbury made either in Italy or Gaul that was held by St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury and was certainly in England by the late seventh century.18 It seems that the designer of the Tapestry took from this manuscript the idea of the semi-circular table portrayed in the composition of The Last Supper, Cena Domini, and used it in his depiction of the ‘Feast before the Battle’ (Plate XIII). He must have been a churchman of some standing in England to have known of this manuscript.19
This table scene also marks a significant point of change in the character of the inscriptions in the Tapestry. Those letters which had been embroidered in black are subsequently coloured alternately in red and green. Multicoloured script, typical of continental illuminations, are indicative of Norman designers/scribes working in England and this style is encountered, later, in some of the rubrication in the Rochester manuscript.
In the last two decades there have been two major international conferences on the Bayeux Tapestry. At the conclusion of the Caen conference (1999) François Neveux reported that there was general agreement that William the Conqueror’s half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux and Earl of Kent, should be considered the patron of the Tapestry and that it was worked by a team of people which included
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image
Plate XIII To the left the Last Supper Cena Domini; Cambridge, Corpus Christi MS 286 fol. 125; to the right ‘Feast before the Battle’ in the Bayeux Tapestry.
Anglo-Saxons, Normans and other Frenchmen.20 The proceedings of the second conference, held in the British Museum in 2008, included a particularly interesting paper tabled by David S. Spear about the role of Robert of Mortain, the younger brother of Odo and half-brother of William, who held much of the land near the abbey of Mont-St-Michel and also valuable manors around Pevensey.21 Neither conference delivered a definitive view on provenance.
In Canterbury, as Earl of Kent, Odo may have been able to call on the creative skills of several religious communities. In 1997 the art historian Richard Gameson, formerly at the University of Kent, argued for a Canterbury provenance.22 In 2006 he qualified his opinion stating that the designer of the Tapestry certainly had a connection with Canterbury, but that there is no indication in the work of where it was carried out.23 Whilst Canterbury illuminated manuscripts seem to have influenced the Bayeux Tapestry’s designer, the possibility that it was worked elsewhere cannot be excluded. Canterbury’s Anglo-Saxon cathedral had been burnt down in 1067 and the archives containing the title deeds to its lands and privileges destroyed. Monks and nuns there were bitterly hostile to the Normans and a resurgence of love and loyalty for everything Anglo-Saxon took place. Scholars who argue for the Englishness of the Tapestry think that it may have been made at this time at St Augustine’s Abbey but apart from a significant number of stylistic similarities with Canterbury manuscript illuminations there is no other evidence. Certainly the Tapestry was not made at Christ Church for studies by Teresa Webber have shown that the earliest post-Conquest manuscripts written there, previously dated to the twelfth century, were written in the 1090s.24 However it is possible that some of Christ Church’s pre-Conquest manuscripts survived the fire in some safe house and were used by the Bayeux Tapestry designer.
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Lanfranc – Archbishop of Canterbury 1070-89
When he arrived in Normandy, around 1039, from his home in North Italy Lanfranc established himself as a teacher in the abbey of Mont-St-Michel where several north Italian scholars had already settled. With the patronage of the Norman Dukes, and particularly during the long abbacy of Suppo of Fruttaria, Mont-St-Michel prospered. Lanfranc would have been at Mont-St-Michel when the north Italian Suppo was abbot, a time when, according to J.J.G. Alexander, ‘the scriptorium reaches its highest point of activity and excellence’.25 Its artists’ illuminations achieved an unequalled position in the world of manuscripts of that time.26
Lanfranc moved on to the Abbey of Bec where he was converted, became a monk and then prior from 1045 until 1063, leading a ‘cloister school’ which became extra- claustral, educating the intelligentsia of Norman society. Little was written at Bec until the middle of the twelfth century.27 He moved on in 1063 to become Abbot of St Étienne, Caen. At heart an academic, with a legal cast of mind, he gained his reputation by commenting on and annotating patristic texts, the writings of the early church fathers, Gregory the Great, Augustine, Jerome and Ambrose, using examples from Isidore’s Etymologiae, of which there were many manuscripts in western Europe. It was whilst he was at St Étienne that he made what Gibson terms his ‘only excursion into theology proper’,28 his debate with Berengar on the nature of the Eucharist, defending the peace and unity of the church and establishing his own reputation in Western Europe as a master theologian.
The monk Gundulph had followed Lanfranc first to Bec and then to Caen in 1063 where he acted as prior to Lanfranc for seven years, following him to England in 1070 and becoming bishop of Rochester in 1076.29 Scollandus (Scotland in English sources) whose work as a scribe is acknowledged in a colophon in a Mont-St-Michel manuscript, also followed him.30 He was to become abbot of St Augustine’s, Canterbury, in 1072.31
By 1083 Gundulph had replaced a depleted Chapter with a community of Benedictine monks at Rochester as happened at Christ Church, Canterbury, around the same date. Several scholars have commented that relations between the two embryonic cathedral priories were then very close and that Lanfranc shared in the project of establishing them. Some monks from Christ Church were allowed to transfer to Rochester to avoid the continuing friction between Norman and Anglo- Saxon elements in Canterbury32 and there must have been many occasions when Lanfranc found that he had to spend time in Rochester not least when he was sorting out the land disputes between Canterbury and Rochester.
Mont-St-Michel
It is in Canterbury soon after their arrival in England in 1067 that the group of scribes and artists from Mont-St-Michel, which included both Scollandus and Lanfranc, may have drawn the cartoons for the Bayeux Tapestry. They would have consulted the body of manuscripts available to them in Canterbury together with whatever manuscripts or working sketchbooks they brought with them from Mont-St-Michel. For it is the artistic style apparent in some of Mont-St-Michel’s tenth- and early eleventh-century manuscripts that is seen in the Bayeux Tapestry, and later in the
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Rochester manuscript. It seems apparent that the same designer was involved in both works, thus explaining the similarities argued for here between the two.
To give an example of the stylistic influence exercised by Mont-St-Michel the depiction of the seated position of powerful figures, with knees wide apart, appears to be a characteristic of its manuscripts in the two decades before 1066. Plate XIV shows the seated positions of the powerful figures in the Bayeux Tapestry, Edward the Confessor (in the first scene), Duke William, Bishop Odo, Robert of Mortain, even Guy of Ponthieu (when he has Harold in his clutches). They are seated on
image
Plate XIV Bayeux Tapestry: the seated positions of powerful figures.
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image
Fig. I Tracings from manuscripts written and illuminated in the abbey at Mont-St-Michel dated before 1060.
fairly elaborate throne-like chairs with knees wide apart and feet (not crossed) but placed firmly on footstools or the like. These seated powerful figures were basic to the design of the Tapestry. Compare these with the tracings of seated figures in manuscripts written and illuminated in Mont-St-Michel (Fig. 1). The one on the left showing Saint Augustine explaining the book of Genesis is from Avranches, Bibliothèque patrimoniale MS 75, fol. 1v., is dated before 1060.33 The one in the middle depicting Faustus listening to Augustine is from Avranches, Bibliothèque patrimoniale MS 90, fol. 1 and is dated before 1060.34 The tracing on the right from Avranches, Bibliothèque patrimoniale MS 72 fol. 97 dated 1040-1055, depicts Saint Augustine preaching against Arianism.35
The first full-page illumination in Avranches, Bibliothèque patrimoniale MS 50 fol. 1 (Plate V) was an important manuscript for Mont-St-Michel. This manuscript has been dated by Dosdat to between 980 and 1000.36 This refoundation charter celebrates the refounding of the monastery by Duke Richard I of Normandy (William’s great grandfather) in 966 and it provided the model for the designer in his depiction of the abbey in the Bayeux Tapestry. It shows the abbey’s ‘protecting saint’ (patron saint) standing on a representation of the abbey. This has previously been interpreted as a scabellum or footstool.37 St Michael stands within an arch supported by columns. He is clutching his shield in one hand whilst spearing a devil with the other. The shield has chequerboard patterning of squares of gold, white and green. Compare this with the depiction of Mont-St-Michel in the Bayeux Tapestry (Plate VI). The designer of the Tapestry would have first sketched the outline of the abbey and then embroiderers would have filled in his outline with decorated arches, two little turrets, and gold and green chequerboard colouring together with some dark colour (it is impossible to be sure what) on the roof which is topped with two crosses. The crosses, as the turrets and some of the roof colouring may, of course, have been added later. Both illustrations depict the arches of the abbey with blocks of stone in the background and both depict chequerboard decoration, the first on
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the shield and the surround of the arches and the second on the tiling of the roof. The columns in the refoundation manuscript are decorated with coloured spiral pattern not unlike the decoration on the columns between which Ælfgyva and the clergyman are standing in the Tapestry. Mont-St-Michel is a significant part of the story related in the Bayeux Tapestry and in the Rochester Royal manuscript, not just because it was around St Michael’s Day that the wind is said to have turned south enabling the Norman fleet to sail across the Channel to Pevensey but because of the abbey’s intimate involvement with and support of the Norman Conquest of England culminating in the sending of monks from the abbey to England.
Conclusion
It is the view of most scholars that the Bayeux Tapestry was commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux and Earl of Kent and fashioned in England. It may have been worked in Canterbury in spite of the turmoil after the firing of the cathedral in 1067. There is no evidence that the Tapestry was worked in Rochester. The influence of the scribes and artists from Mont-St-Michel in its design can be clearly demonstrated.
The stories from Books 17-35 of Gregory the Great’s Moralia were used to great effect in the manuscript. Who would have thought to put the latter part of his work to use in this way? Only a distinguished European scholar like Lanfranc who in addition had first-hand knowledge of the island monastery of Mont-St-Michel and the environment because he had lived and worked there.
It is probable that the Rochester manuscript was created to replace the Bayeux Tapestry that was transferred to Bayeux in 1082 when its patron, Odo, was exiled and imprisoned in Rouen. Sporadic periods of unrest in England continued into the 1080s and thus there was still a need to explain to the English people why the Norman invasion of England had happened. Lanfranc, the scholar and peacemaker appears to have chosen this vehicle for the purpose. London, British Library Royal MS 6C. vi is certainly more easily handled than the Bayeux Tapestry. It never strayed far from the place of its birth, the scriptorium at Rochester Cathedral Priory until it became part of the Old Royal Library. It was presented to the British Museum by George II in 1757.
APPENDIX
In her earlier researches the author noted that other copies of Moralia in Job had been made before the end of the eleventh century, one in Rouen and one in Bayeux and that all three copies conclude, as the Rochester one does, with notes written by Lanfranc. The decorated initials in the Bayeux Moralia, of which the patron was almost certainly Odo, do not relate to the invasion and are, strangely, unfinished. The spaces for the decorated initials are outlined but not all of them are completed. Poor materials were used, compared to the richness of the materials used to rubricate and decorate the Rochester Royal manuscript. The Préaux Moralia, Bibliothèque Municipale Rouen MS 498 seems to be conveying a message in one or two of its decorated initials, but has no iconographic theme running throughout. Only the Rochester manuscript book containing the latter part of the Moralia is rubricated and decorated throughout to tell the story of the Norman Conquest of England.
acknowledgements
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The decorated initials from British Library Royal Manuscript 6C.vi are published with the kind permission of the British Library. The image from Cambridge, Corpus Christi MS 286 fol. 125 is published with the kind permission of the Parker Library. Images from the Bayeux Tapestry are published with special permission from the City of Bayeux. The image from Chapître de Bayeux MS 58 fol. 114v is published with permission of the Médiathèque Municipale de Bayeux. The image of MS Avranches, Bibliothèque patrimoniale 50 fol. 1 is published with permission of the City of Avranches. The Friends of Rochester Cathedral for allowing her to use material from her article ‘A Rochester Manuscript used as Norman Propaganda to Justify the Norman Conquest of England’first published in their Report for 1992/3. The late and much revered Professor A.C. de la Mare, Professor of Palaeography, University of London, for inspirational teaching.
christine grainge
1 This connection had been perceived earlier by George Garnett: see Garnett, G., 1985, ‘Coronation and Propaganda: some implications of the Norman claim to the throne of England in 1066’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, vol. 35, pp. 91-116.
2 Set out in Archaeologia Cantiana, vi, 1866.
3 Coates, R.P., 1866, ‘Catalogue of the Library of the Priory of St Andrew, Rochester, the Textus
Roffensis’, Archaeologia Cantiana, vi, 120-8.
4 Waller, K.M.,1980, ‘The Library, Scriptorium and Community of Rochester Priory c. 1080- 1150’, unpubl. ph.d.. thesis, University of Liverpool, p. 134.
5 The author is suggesting an earlier dating for Royal MS 6C.vi which would accord with the death of Pope Gregory VII in 1085, who is represented in one of the initials. Grainge, C., 1993, ‘A Rochester Manuscript used as Norman Propaganda to Justify the Norman Conquest of England’, Friends of Rochester Cathedral, Report for 1993/4, pp. 12-19 and fol. 142v on the back cover.
6 The earlier part of the work, books 1-16, also in the BL (Royal MS 6C.xii) were certainly copied in the twelfth century.
7 The British Library in 1993 were kind enough to conduct a test to show the author that the ‘bread’ painted with white lead had oxidized over the centuries and now appeared black.
8 Morton and Muntz (eds), 1972, The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio, pp. 8-9.
9 Dosdat, M., 1991, L’emluminure romane au Mont Saint-Michel Xe-XIIe Siècles (Association des Amis de la Bibliothèque Patrimoniale d’Avranches/Éditions Ouest-France), p. 51.
10 The author visited Avranches, Bibliothèque Patrimoniale which contains more than sixty tenth- and eleventh-century manuscripts copied in the scriptorium of Mont-St-Michel from where they were transferred after the secularisation of the abbey at the time of the French Revolution. See Alexander, J.J.G., 1970, Norman Illumination at Mont St Michel 966-1100 (Clarendon Press, Oxford); for MS 50, see p. 215 and Plate 17b.
11 Waller, 1980, p. 108.
12 Emms, R., 1995, ‘The Historical Traditions of St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury’, in Eales R. and Sharpe R. (eds), Canterbury and the Norman Conquest (Hambledon, London), pp. 160-168, at
p. 160.
13 Dudo of St Quentin, Lair, J. (ed.), 1865, De Moribus et actis primorum Normanniae Ducum auctore Dudone Sancti Quintini Decano (Société des Antiquaires de Normandie, Caen).
14 Waller, 1980, ‘Library of Rochester Priory’, p. 108.
15 Galbraith, V.H., 1967, ‘Notes on the Career of Samson, Bishop of Worcester (1096-1112)’, The English Historical Review, vol. 83, pp. 86-101.
16 Waller, K.M., 1984, ‘Rochester Cathedral Library; an English book collection based on Norman models’, in Foreville, R., ed., Les Mutations socio-culturelles au tournant des XIe-XIIe
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siècles (C.R.N.S., Paris), pp. 237-50, esp. p. 246; Gullick, M., ‘Manuscrits et Copistes Normands en Angleterre (xie-xiie siècles)’ pp. 83-91 in Manuscrits et Enluminures dans Le Monde Normand (Xe
-XVe) siècles. For the initials in Royal 6C.vi, see Kauffmann, C.M., 1975, Romanesque Manuscripts 1066-1190 (London, Harvey Miller), no. 16.
17 Migne, J.P. (ed.), Patriologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina (P.L.), vol. 77, col. 1027, Epistola CV, Ad Serenum Massiliensem Episcopum: ‘Id circo enim pictura in Ecclesiis adhibetur, ut hi qui litterras nesciunt, saltem in parietibus videndo legant quae legere in Codicibus non valent’.
18 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 286 fol. 125; for a description of this folio, see McKitterick, R., 2005, ‘The Coming of Christianity: 1 The Gospels of St Augustine of Canterbury’, in Binski, P. and Panayotova, S. (eds), The Cambridge Illuminations, Catalogue (Harvey Miller, London and Turnhout), pp. 47-8.
19 Gullick, M., 1998, ‘Professional Scribes in Eleventh and Twelfth-Century England’, in English Manuscript Studies vol. 7, Beal, P. and Griffiths, J. (eds), pp. 1-24. Very slight evidence of scribes who were not churchmen is cited; two pieces of evidence only from pre-Conquest England, both from Worcester.
20 Bouet, P., Levy, B. and Neveux, F. (eds), 2004, The Bayeux Tapestry: Embroidering the Facts of History (Presses Universitaires, Caen), p. 406.
21 Spear, D.S., 2011, ‘Robert of Mortain and the Bayeux Tapestry’, in Lewis, M.J., Owen-Crocker,
G.R. and Terkla, D. (eds), 2011, The Bayeux Tapestry, New Approaches (Oxbow Books, Oxford),
pp. 75-79.
22 Gameson, R., 1997, ‘The Origin, Art and Message of the Bayeux Tapestry’, in Gameson, R. (ed.), The Study of the Bayeux Tapestry, pp. 157-212 (Boydell, Woodbridge).
23 Gameson, R., 2006, review article of Beech, G., Was the Bayeux Tapestry made in France? The Case for St Florent of Saumur (Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2005), The English Historical Review, vol. 121, no. 493, pp. 1162-4.
24 Webber, T., 1999, ‘Les manuscrits de Christ Church (Cantorbéry) et de Salisbury à la fin du XIe siėcle’, in Bouet, P. et Dosdat, M. (eds), Les Manuscrits et Enluminures dans le Monde Normand, (Presses Universitaires, Caen, 1999), pp. 95-105, at p. 95; Webber, T., 1995, ‘Script and Manuscript Production at Christ Church, Canterbury, after the Norman Conquest’, in Eales, R. and Sharpe, R. (eds), Canterbury and the Norman Conquest (Hambledon, London), pp. 145-58.
25 Alexander, J.J.G., 1970, Norman Illumination at Mont St Michel 966-1100 (Clarendon Press, Oxford), p. 11.
26 Dosdat 1991, p. 52.
27 Véronique Gazeau, Université du Maine told the author that the monastery of Bec was very poor in the eleventh century and that little was written there until the mid-twelfth century.
28 Gibson, M., 1978, Lanfranc of Bec (Oxford University Press), pp. 62-97.
29 Smith, R.A.L., 1943, ‘The Place of Gundulf in the Anglo-Norman Church’, English Historical Review, vol. 58, no. 231, pp. 257-72.
30 A colophon at the end of a manuscript of Gregory’s Dialogues, written at Mont-St-Michel, now Avranches B.M. MS 103, states that Scollandus was one of six scribes who wrote this manuscript: see Alexander, 1970, pp. 17-18.
31 See Brett, M., 1995, ‘Gundulf and the Cathedral Communities of Canterbury and Rochester’, in Eales R. and Sharpe R. (eds), Canterbury and the Norman Conquest (Hambledon, London), p. 23,
n. 37; Alexander, 1970, p. 17.
32 Waller, 1980, quotes Stubbs, W. (ed.) Memorials of Saint Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury
(Rolls Series 63), pp. 234-8.
33 Dosdat 1991, p. 53, fig. 2.
34 Idem., p. 57, fig. 5.
35 Idem., p. 59, fig. 6.
36 Idem., p. 19. The author met Monique Dosdat in Avranches in July 1992. She confirmed the
dating of Plate V.
37 Alexander 1970, p. 86.
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A 1261 CHARTER, A SEAL AND A DEPICTION OF CANTERBURY’S PRE-1380 WESTGATE
The City of Canterbury’s charters were placed in the care of Canterbury Cathedral Archives in 1884 and have remained there since. There is now a total of sixty-six of which sixty-three are medieval and post-medieval charters; three have been added in the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. In 1951 the Cathedral Archivist, William Urry, was also named City Archivist and care of the city’s records, including the charters, remains with the cathedral under the present Cathedral and City Archivist. This has not only ensured the safe-keeping of the royal and other city charters but has meant that they have been conserved and are stored according to current best practice.
All but two of the charters deposited in 1884 were charters issued by the reigning king or queen, or by Oliver Cromwell. One of these two other charters is an agreement about boundaries between the city and Canterbury Cathedral Priory. The other takes the form of a letter, dated 1261, from the leading citizens of Canterbury to their fellow citizens and it is this document (CCA-CC-A/A/6 in the Canterbury Cathedral Archives catalogue) which is the subject of this paper.
The 1261 charter
The charter is one of a collection of charters belonging to the then County Borough of Canterbury deposited in the Cathedral Archives and, as stated on the label on the back, it came from Canterbury’s Royal Museum (now the Beaney House of Knowledge), and was numbered 2973. It is dated 28 September 1261 and concerns revocation of a local tax on bread. The charter is shown in Fig 1.
The charter is highly unusual in several ways:
The charter is a letter addressed to the citizens of Canterbury by the aldermen appointed by the king and the jurats elected by the freemen of Canterbury to form the burghmote or borough council.1 It was not a burghmote document, although it referred to a tax almost certainly imposed by the burghmote, and so would not have been recorded in the burghmote record.
The seal is described in the charter as ‘a common seal’ of those from whom
the letter is addressed.
The seal is attached by silk cords rather a parchment tab, indicating its
higher status.
The following is not a translation as such but conveys the meaning of the letter in modern rather than contemporary terms:
To all men who will see or hear these present letters: Master Hamo Doge then alderman of Westgate, Thomas Chiche then bailiff of Canterbury and alderman of Burgate, Robert Polre then alderman of Northgate, James de la Porte then alderman of Newengate, John son of William Cok[in] alderman of Worthgate, Daniel son of Hubert, John Terry, Peter Durant, Simon Payable then bailiff, Thomas Man, Stephen and Laurence Chich, William Burre, Peter de Malling, John Hubert, Stephen Petit, Anselm le Furmager and Stephen le Taillur together with our community of Canterbury – eternal greetings in the Lord.
For as recently some of our citizens in the community have indicated that a certain
payment which has been raised is an especial burden on the poor, namely that of one
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image
Fig. 1 The 1261 charter with its seal (Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library)
penny on bread sold from any basket or any window between the feast of Pentecost and the feast of St Michael the Archangel [29 September], we have unanimously and with the consent and assent of all and singular our citizens of Canterbury for the salvation of our predecessors and for the souls of our heirs and for the alleviation of the poor of our city remitted for ever the said custom as far as it is in our power and do also quash any further revocation of this our decree.
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And lest by us or our heirs or successors the said custom may be further revoked without the presence of our common seal, we have caused to be affixed this sign of permanent confirmation so that there may never be any further revocation. And further we wish and grant for us and our heirs to the aforesaid free citizens that they may pay at the Burghmote six pence annually just as they are accustomed to have paid in past times unless as a default.
Authorised and sealed on Wednesday within the vigil of the blessed Michael the Archangel. In the forty-sixth year of the reign of King Henry son of John in the month of September.2
This is the only surviving Canterbury local borough charter. It is addressed solely to citizens of Canterbury by the chief citizens of the day: five aldermen, one of whom was a bailiff, a second bailiff and 12 jurats. The emphasis on the unanimity of the men in whose names the charter was issued may be the result of an earlier dispute. Pleas heard before the king on 12 and 18 November 1259 were brought by John Dodekere, alleging that he had been elected bailiff by the citizens of Canterbury but was ejected from office by 16 men, presumably aldermen and jurats, on the grounds that he was not properly elected. Dodekere was a prosperous land-owner and businessman in and around Canterbury. A second election held on 21 September 1259 when Thomas Chiche and Daniel le Draper were elected bailiffs. Despite Hamo Doge the lawyer administering the oath to Dodekere after the citizens had gone away, he was not allowed to perform the duties of bailiff. The case went against Dodekere. The rather bland court case could have hidden long- standing disunity and given rise to this show of unity. Dodekere was rehabilitated and served as alderman of Newengate in 1268.3
Some details of the leading citizens named
Alderman Doge: is a fascinating character and was involved in many aspects of Canterbury’s civic and ecclesiastical life as well as carrying out commissions for central royal administration elsewhere in Kent.4 He appears in Canterbury documents as both an alderman (of the Westgate) and an official of the archdeacon from 1252 and disappears again after 1275.5 He was styled Master implying that he was a graduate, possibly in canon law. His father’s name is known from donations to St Augustine’s Abbey and the setting up of a chantry in 1264 but nothing is known of the date or place of his birth or the date of his death.6 Hamo Doge administered oaths to bailiffs and appears as the first-named not only in this charter but in witness lists for other charters implying that he may be responsible for drafting them. Hamo Doge never served as bailiff though several others named in the charter did (see below).
Chiche Family: Thomas Chiche is shown as bailiff no fewer than eight times between 1260 and 1323 in William Somner’s list of bailiffs with John Chiche listed as bailiff in 1352 implying service by at least three and probably four in generations of the family.7 Another Thomas is listed in 1404.8 Stephen Chiche served as a bailiff in 1275.9 The family were moneyers and goldsmiths and there was more than one branch documented as holding land in a number of wards in Canterbury from 1180.10 In the mid-thirteenth century, the family lived in the parish of St George. Members of the Chiche family frequently witnessed Canterbury Christ Church Cathedral Priory charters. They were clearly at the forefront of Canterbury society from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries.
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Simon Paable or Payable: was bailiff in 1271-2 and 1277.11 He witnessed a number of charters of Canterbury Christ Church Cathedral Priory and is mentioned in other Priory documents.
Robert Polre: alderman of Northgate was bailiff.12 The family name appears in Canterbury Christ Church Cathedral Priory rentals from before 1200.
James de la Porte: alderman of Newengate, was also know as James of the Gate. He witnessed many charters in Canterbury for a variety of institutions. He may be a descendent of the James of the Gate who was active in Canterbury and alderman of Northgate ward around 1215.
John son of William Cokin: was alderman of Worthgate and of Northgate and bailiff in 1250, 1266 and 1267.
Daniel son of Hubert: was bailiff in 1272-3 and 1275.13
John Terry: his family was formerly called Terric and were goldsmiths. The family is first mentioned in Canterbury Cathedral Priory rentals in about 1180. The family was known to have owned stone houses and continued their trade until well into the fourteenth century.
Peter Durant: was bailiff in 1275 and again in 1277. He witnessed donations to Christ Church priory in which he is named as bailiff.14
Thomas Man: was named as a bailiff in the Liberate Rolls dated 2 October 1267.15
The charter was possibly drafted by Alderman Doge. He was a lawyer, familiar with Latin who worked as an archdeacon’s official assisting the archdeacon in his legal duties. However, most unusually, the name of the scribe is almost certainly known from comparing the hand with other charters where ‘Richard the clerk’ is named.16
The tax does indeed seem onerous. Bread was a staple at that time and the price of a loaf was around a penny so an additional penny would have been a burden on the poor. The tax imposed must have been locally introduced, although no record of that has survived. The revocation of the tax was clearly an important decision and one that perhaps had given rise to some earlier debate. Unfortunately, no minutes of Burghmote meetings survive from this date.
The seal
The seal is round, double-sided and 6cm in diameter.17 The image on the seal shows a gate with a stream flowing in front of it and an impression of a city wall around the edge (Fig. 2). There is no surviving inscription. There is a cast of the Canterbury seal in the extensive seal and cast collection at the Society of Antiquaries which is almost certainly from CCA-CC-A/A/6 as casts were made of seals in the Canterbury collections as traces of plaster on some show (Fig. 3). Images of town gates were used by a number of cities and boroughs on their seals at around this time across Europe. That the seal is attached with red thread rather than a parchment tab is an indication of its importance.
The counterseal is most likely Hamo Doge’s personal seal as he was the first- named on the charter (Fig. 4). No other example has been found that may be Hamo Doge’s personal seal, although some may have been one attached to other charters with which he was associated but where the seal is now lost. His name does not appear on the counterseal but his is the leading name on the charter. It is rounded and the oval in the centre is approximately 3 x 2cm. The legend is incomplete, but seems to be a general form often used on private seals expressing friendship with
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Fig. 2 The seal.
image
Fig. 3 Castes of the seal and counterseal taken in the nineteenth century
(Society of Antiquaries, London).
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image
Fig. 4 The counterseal.
clasped hands. It is not immediately identifiable as one that might have been used by Hamo Doge in his capacity as an archdeacon’s official.
An earlier version of the Cathedral Archives catalogue said that the seal showed ‘a city surrounded by a moat’. Some have suggested that it shows Canterbury castle, which is an early twelfth-century keep. The water is clearly flowing in front of the building and not around it or the walls. Canterbury castle was neither surrounded by a moat nor did it have a river flowing in front of it.
However, the building fits the description of the pre-1380 Westgate as having a small chapel built on it. The West Gate was completely rebuilt at this time on the site of the earlier gate above which was the original church of Holy Cross.18 The pre-1380 gate was demolished as part of the late fourteenth-century plan to strengthen Canterbury’s defences during the Hundred Years’ war when the threat of invasion from France was a real one.
Canterbury’s Westgate
On the Canterbury seal the chapel is somewhat out of scale, possibly to make the point that it existed but the gate would have been deep enough to accommodate not only the chapel but a guardroom and other accommodation.19 Dr Hubert Pragnell has kindly produced a possible reconstruction drawing (Fig. 5). The footprint of the gate built around 1380 is probably much the same as the earlier one. The church that replaced the chapel was built alongside the gate and is now Canterbury’s Guildhall.
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Fig. 5 Reconstruction drawing of the thirteenth century Westgate (Dr Hubert Pragnell).
Canterbury was first walled by the Romans and the extensive run of wall that still survives follows the same line. There were eight gates in the Roman circuit including the West Gate. The footings of the London Gate over Watling Street are recorded as being in the Westgate gardens. Though, nothing survives of the Roman West Gate, one of the town’s earliest major streets left the town here and the existence of an early gateway is undisputed. By that time the Romans were well established and the route from the Channel to London, Watling Street, was a very important thoroughfare. No Roman city gate survives to any extent in England.20
It was Canterbury’s Roman west gate that was repaired, strengthened and used first by the Anglo-Saxons and then the Normans and a chapel constructed on the top of the gate. It was common practice at that time to include a chapel either over or beside a gate so that travellers could pray for a safe journey or give thanks for their safe arrival and the Westgate was no exception.
No similar depiction of the pre-1380 Westgate is known but its importance is clear. On the north-west side of the river from the gate was the Archbishop of Canterbury’s estate that took its name from the gate. Henry II walked through the gate on his way from St Dunstan’s Church to do penance at Thomas Becket’s tomb in the cathedral on 12 July 1174, and the great funeral procession of Edward Prince of Wales, the Black Prince, passed through two centuries later on 29 September 1376. This was to be the last, and possibly the grandest, of the public occasions featuring the earlier gate before its demolition. The Black Prince knew that he was near death for many months and his will included very specific instructions for his funeral. His body was to be taken through the town of Canterbury to the priory. There were details about the immediate party and money was allocated for the prince’s five or six hundred retainers to follow, all wearing the prince’s livery.
Conclusion
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Not only is this charter unique in the Canterbury city collection but no comparable charter has been found among the catalogues of other collections during the course of research for this paper. The wording and the emphatic sealing clause specifically forbidding further revocation is also unusual and indicates that it was drafted for a particular purpose, possibly by Hamo Doge the lawyer who was also the Westgate alderman. It seems unlikely that the sole purpose was the revocation of a local bread tax but that it aimed to stress the unity and authority of those named.
The charter and its seal provide a valuable snapshot of Canterbury and its civic life in 1261. Its size and lack of inscription mean that it cannot be proved conclusively, but the seal seems to show an image of the Westgate before it was demolished towards the end of the fourteenth century and, as such is a representation of the Roman gate rebuilt by the Anglo-Saxons and the Normans.
Acknowledgements
The writer is very grateful for help and support from the staff at Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library, Canterbury Archaeological Trust, Dr Sheila Sweetinburgh, Professor Paul Harvey, Dr Lloyd de Beer (British Museum), Dr David Wright, Professor Louise Wilkinson and Dean Irwin as well as many others who provided advice and encouragement.
mary berg
1 In the thirteenth century the burghmote was a fortnightly meeting of the business of the borough.
2 The writer is grateful to Dr David Wright for invaluable translation assistance.
3 CCA-DCc/ChAnt/C/838.
4 For a detailed biography of Hamo Doge, see ‘Master Hamo Doge, founder of the chantry’, by William Urry in The Parish of St Martin and St Paul Canterbury, ed. Margaret Sparks (Canterbury, 1980), pp. 36-40.
5 He served as an official of the archdeacon at the same time as Master Omer and the latter was apparently the senior official as a stone house that still exists in the precincts was built for him. Archdeacons had a judicial role and his officials provided legal support.
6 Hamo Doge established a chantry near St Paul’s church, Canterbury in 1264 covering a large area, including a dwelling house with a chapel and other outbuildings with a frontage on one side of 26.67 metres. The area was subjected to bombing in World War II but almshouses constructed on the site in 1900 survived and are still in use today. Rents from the tenants of the buildings on the site helped to fund Doge’s charity and Doge’s own house was included in the site. The site of Doge’s chantry appeared on maps into the nineteenth century and the street is still called Chantry Lane.
7 Somner, W., 2nd edn (London, 1703), p. 80. The years are 1260, 1261, 1262, 1265, 1270, 1271,
1272, 1281 and 1323.
8 Hasted, E., vol. 12 (Kent County Library, 1972), p. 603.
9 Somner, p. 180.
10 Urry, W., Canterbury Under the Angevin Kings (London, 1967).
11 Somner, p. 180.
12 Somner, W., 2nd edn (London, 1703), 180. For example, in the years 1248, 1249, 1250, 1257,
1258, 1265, 1266, 1267 and 1269.
13 Archaeologia Cantiana, 38 (London 1926), p. 167.
14 Ibid.
15 Calender of Liberate Rolls, HMSO, VI, p. 47.
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16 The writer is very grateful to Dean Irwin for sharing the information he has found about Richard and looks forward to learning more from his forthcoming ph.d. thesis.
17 The practice of sealing in post-Roman Britain is known to date from the seventh century and to have been used as a means of validation since the mid-eleventh century and was an important means of authentication. New, Elizabeth A., Seals and Sealing Practices (London 2010).
18 Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1377-81, HMSO, p. 450. Frere, S.S., Stow, S. and Bennett, P., 1982, Excavations on the Roman and Medieval Defences of Canterbury, The Archaeology of Canterbury, vol. II, KAS, 22, fn.40.
19 Charters relating to Eastbridge Hospital situated in Westgate ward were ‘written at the Westgate’ in the thirteenth century (CAA-U24).
20 The Porta Negra at Trier is the largest surviving Roman gate north of the Alps but this is much grander and more robust than any contemporary gate in the Canterbury walls, among other reasons because of the availability of good quality local stone.
ROMAN, MEDIEVAL AND POST-MEDIEVAL ACTIVITY AT COURT LODGE
ROAD, APPLEDORE
Archaeology South-East undertook a programme of archaeological investigations in Appledore in June-July 2016 in advance of the construction of residential dwellings on the site (Fig. 1) (TQ 95616 29263). The excavation uncovered low- level evidence of prehistoric activity, with residual flintwork recovered from within later features. Most of these pieces of flint were not closely dateable, except for a single blade of probable Mesolithic or Early Neolithic origin. Evidence suggests transient use of the coastal margins during this time.
The earliest cut features encountered at the site date from the Late Iron Age to Early Roman period and comprise several boundary or enclosure ditches containing a small number of pottery fragments including one from a 1st-century bead rim jar. Associated carbon remains were dated to 40 cal bc – cal ad 80 (1970 ± 30 bp, Beta- 455030). Two possible ore roasting pits were also noted, although their dating and association is uncertain.
Later Roman activity was represented by the excavation of two pits. Possible structured deposits were revealed with the inclusion of near-complete vessels within the assemblage, probably indicating part of an everyday domestic form of votive practice. These findings suggest Appledore as an area suitable for agricultural activities and small-scale production of iron for local consumption, with the position of the site appropriate for both riverine and coastal trade.
There was a subsequent hiatus in activity until the mid-12th/mid-13th century, when a small amount of residual pottery was encountered in addition to a single pit. The lack of remains suggests the site’s use as an open area at that date, perhaps on the periphery of a settlement. From the mid-13th to 14th centuries activity increased with more formalised pitting occurring and evidence of the area being divided to correspond with tenement properties fronting ‘The Street’ (TP1-TP4, Fig. 2). The frequency of this pitting increased into the mid-15th and earlier 16th centuries when activity appeared to be at its greatest. A high incidence of disposal of household waste was apparent within these features, along with occasional small-scale quarry pits possibly for building materials. Several complete animal burials also occurred during this time and individual plots relating to holdings were inferred by the spatial patterning of features (Fig. 2).
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Fig. 1 Site location.
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Fig. 2 Conjectured medieval property boundaries.
A good-sized assemblage of 14th-century CBM was recovered in even quantities from across the site suggesting a single episode of deposition. This physical evidence might correspond with documentary evidence of the French raid of 1380, which is reported to have razed Appledore and its church. If the destruction of (undefended) Appledore was extensive, material from both domestic structures and the church would have been distributed across the town, as evidenced by the recovery of a fragment of mass dial tile (Fig. 3) which is discussed in greater detail in the Appendix – although this might have equally derived from later Reformation activity.
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Fig. 3 Fragment of mass dial tile.
Artefactual evidence generally corroborates that of documentary research. Appledore was home to a population, at least near its centre, who were most likely well-connected merchants attaining a comparative degree of wealth thanks to their links with regional and continental trade networks. A situation which carried on into the 15th century.
After the 16th century, activity markedly decreased at the site, which is probably a direct result of the silting of the River Rother. This eventually served to cut waterborne trade routes and produced a general decline in the fortunes of Appledore. Nevertheless, some remodelling of the property boundaries occurred at this time, especially towards the western end of the plots. Activity further declined through into the 20th century, until a number of refuse pits of Second World War date were excavated, possibly relating to the oral history of Home Guard activity described by local residents.
[The full report is available at Kent Archaeological Reports online.]
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APPENDIX
The Pre-Reformation mass dial
The most significant find amongst the ceramic building material collected from Appledore, and indeed from the site as a whole, was a fragment of a ceramic mass dial tile (Fig. 3). It was found during the evaluation phase of work, and whilst mass dials are not an uncommon feature of medieval churches, this one is unusual in that it was ceramic whereas they are far more typically carved into stone. Mass dials were installed on the south wall of a church, next to the entrance, where they would provide an indication of the canonical hours at which people were expected to attend prayer.
Many mass dials still remain in situ in many churches, or are found having been reincorporated into another part of the church structure at a later time. Reinstating historical features on medieval churches was particularly popular during the Victorian period (Rumley 2013). Although some examples include a full circular dial, akin to a sundial, a semi-circular form is more common. The example found at Appledore is approximately a quarter of the full or half mass dial, the original scheme of the mass dial not being clear from the remaining fragment.
During research carried out for the current article, no other definitive example of a ceramic mass tile was found. There were some examples of ceramic sundials, including one on display at St Augustine’s Priory, Canterbury, which is of 14th- or 15th-century date and most probably made in the Low Countries. A glazed tile in The Herbert Museum, Coventry, shows the remains of a circular dial, inscribed with Roman numerals. These could either be IX or XI depending on the orientation of the tile, which is not immediately obvious from the surviving fragment. The presence of numerals could suggest a time keeping function, and if the number represented was IX rather than XI then this tile could also be liturgical in nature as there was a ninth hour for prayer but not an eleventh.
Mass dials appear to have enjoyed a long tradition. They are commonly found on churches dating to the 13th/14th centuries, and examples include the Church of St Bartholomew in Ubley, Somerset; St Mary’s, Sixpenny Handley, Dorset; and the Church of St Mary, Marston Moreteyne, Bedfordshire to name but a few. The earliest known mass dial from Britain is believed to be installed on the south wall of the Saxon church (c.700) at Escombe, County Durham (Rumley 2013).
The mass dial was found in evaluation trench (TR1), approximately 0.6km from the parish church in Appledore, St Peter & St Paul, which is where the tile is believed to have originally been installed. Whilst there is little doubt that this mass tile was initially installed in the structure of St Peter & St Paul, what is less clear is whether it was discarded as a result of the French invasion in 1380 as described by English chronicler Raphael Holinshed (Winnifrith 1983, 15), or as a consequence of the reformation during the 1550s.
The feature producing the mass tile pit [1/006] – is dated to the medieval period up to c.1550. Much of the clearly medieval building debris from site is believed to be associated with the French invasion, and in some cases this is probable based on the date of the building materials. The Flemish brick, for example, is most likely to be of 13th/14th century date (Ryan 1996, 31) and therefore very unlikely to
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have been used after 1380. However, although extensive damage by the French is known to have destroyed much of the church structure – the north wall in particular is known to have required rebuilding – there is cumulative evidence that indicates the broken mass tile can be associated with the later destruction relating to the reformation.
The main basis for this assertion is the style of the tile, which is far more similar in dimensions and fabric to the 15th/16th-century floor tiles imported from the Low Countries than their smaller predecessors. The sandy, slightly calcareous quality apparent in the fabric matrix is most common amongst Low Country imports, and considering its location Appledore would have been in a prime position to receive goods straight from the Continent. There is no indication that the mass dial was originally glazed, which again places it during the Tudor period or later when tiles were less commonly glazed.
Only a single fragment of pottery was found in the pit fill alongside the mass dial, and this was a sherd of post-medieval metallic glazed earthenware (Lydd fabric PM1a). Similar pottery was found during the excavations at Lydd Quarry where it was dated as being in use from the mid-16th/17th century (Barber and Priestley-Bell 2008, 127). This dating compliments a time-frame of the mid-later 16th century for the deposit of both the pottery sherd and the mass dial, during the Reformation.
tom munnery
Barber, L. and Priestley-Bell, G., 2008, Medieval Adaptation, Settlement and Economy of a Coastal Wetland: The evidence from around Lydd, Romney Marsh, Kent, Oxford, Oxbow Books.
Rumley, T.J., 2013, Medieval Mass Dials Decoded. Historic Churches 20. Available online: http://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/mass-dials/mass-dials.htm (last accessed: 5/6/18)
Ryan, P., 1996, Brick in Essex from the Roman Conquest to the Reformation, Pat Ryan, Chelmsford.
Winnifrith, J., 1983, A History of Appledore (2nd edn), Chichester, Phillimore and Co.
THE CONUNDRUM OF THE APEX WINDOW AT ST MARY THE VIRGIN
CHURCH, EASTRY
Among the papers left by the late Dr Charles Coulson is a brief note (dated 25 January 2017) on the so-called apex window of Eastry Church. This note is set out below as a matter of record, an addendum to his major article on the church in the 2018 volume of Archaeologia Cantiana.1 Some wording in square brackets added for clarification or extra detail.
In the east gable of the Chancel, masked by the late nineteenth-century roof, is a window the modern term for which is the ‘Apex window’.
Outline description: a painted glass panel (apparently) without leaded cames in the body, except for one vertical line extending from the hair of the infant Christ clipping the Virgin’s outermost nimbus, through the red/purple leaf background,
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Fig. 1 Madonna and Child in the Eastry window. (Photo by Dr M. Kinns.)
to the (visible) top-limit of the panel. [The panel is an estimated 33cm wide and
48.5cm high.2]
Subject: Madonna and Child – photographed from the Choir’s Stall (RHS) by Dr Michael Kinns and showing the greatest area visible between the beams (collars), top and bottom (Fig. 1).
Architectural Context: set in an upright rectangular frame, integral with the barely altered masonry of the Monastic Church (Canterbury Cathedral Priory) ascribed tentatively to the mid thirteenth century. The lintel-head, slightly chamfered, and surround, above the central triple lancet (restored 1856) are clear outside. Nine corroded thin vertical bars, strengthened by four substantial ‘Victorian’ horizontal bars, remain. In the lower half of the ‘window’ is a translucent sheet and enigmatic curving bars which are not part of the painted glass panel. Above
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them a curved frame, on the plane of the panel apparently, can be made out in
a good light.
The Problem of the Madonna Panel: no [other?] medieval glass survives (?). [The Panel’s] inaccessibility cannot be a sufficient explanation. The quality and allure of the Panel would focus iconoclasm. Its superb condition (insofar as remote appreciation allows) remains hard to explain. Subsequent alteration of any kind would seem to be highly unlikely.
The Roof hypothesis: a watercolour drawing (kept in the Nave) executed before 1854 shows that the Nave and (probably) the North Aisle had inserted ceilings. That on the Nave, seen from the Tower Arch, cut off the Roof entirely. Very probably the ceiling was of lath-and-plaster fixed to tie-beams of the original roof. No doubt the Chancel was similarly ceiled (as at Barfrestone). An early post-Dissolution (1535) date3 [for the ceiling insertion] would have meant that the Apex Window would have been invisible for over three centuries, covering the whole of the Classical period. It will have been revealed at the time suggested by the four [Victorian] horizontal bars across the exterior aperture, but too late for the design of the Victorian roof (1869), where it abuts the Chancel gable, to display the Painting fittingly.
Some remaining difficulties:
The stylistic and technical date of the Apex Window (and Chancel).
Dateable nature of the translucent screen, inside the vertical corroded bars, to the
external aperture at the top of the gable.
Internal and external access for inspection and evaluation.
Future conservation of the Apex Window is considered appropriate. [Note ends.]
terence lawson
1 Charles Coulson, 2018, ‘Prior Henry (1285-1331): Rescuer of Eastry Church’, Archaeologia Cantiana, cxxxix, 199-223.
2 Estimated by Dr M. Kinns when photographing exterior of east gable.
3 Dr Coulson subsequently added ‘(say 1556)’ here. At this time Mary Tudor was Queen of
England and trying to reverse the English Reformation.
SOME FURTHER BEE BOLES FOUND IN KENT AT OLD ST ALBANS COURT,
NONINGTON
Bee boles, the recesses in stone or brick walls used to house the skeps of coiled straw or wicker in which most bee keepers kept their bees before the arrival of moveable frame hives in 1862,1 are not particularly numerous in Kent. Archaeologia Cantiana has over time assiduously published all the major information relating to those in Kent;2 this note adds a little to an already fairly comprehensive record. Old St Albans Court is fortunate in its documentation so we know that in 1556, Sir Thomas Hammond rebuilt a substantial part of his ancient manor house in brick.3 This included providing a Walled Garden to the West, the south-east facing wall
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Fig. 1 The bee bole structure at Old St Albans Court, Nonington.
of which, closest to the north- western end of the house, contains three triangular topped bee boles, each of which is identical in construction to the ones recorded (IBRA Register 288) at the south end of the boundary wall in the Cathedral Close at Canterbury. This boundary wall dates probably from 1547 when a house was built on the south side of the plot.4
Our bole structures (Fig. 1) are of red brick, three bricks deep for each side for the main body, with two bricks slanting to the triangular top above. The slanting bricks have been rubbed at each end to edge together both at the top and above the side bricks; a small point but elsewhere, except in the ones mentioned above in Canterbury, photos seem to show the equivalent bricks being laid head to head at an angle of 90° which requires no shaping of the brick. The dimensions of the Nonington bee boles are: height (to apex) 12in. x width 9in. x depth 12in. They are formed by three bricks on either side each with a fill in ¼ brick at the ends abutting an end course which is part of the fabric of the other side of the wall and from the slight difference in the brick, assessed as part of the 1666 works on the house extension behind.5 The base of the bee boles is approximately 4ft above the present ground level which is judged to be about where it always was. The bricks themselves were almost certainly made on site: burning fields are recorded,6 and the Dover Archaeological Group have revealed the remains of seventeenth- century brick clamps nearby.7 The modern mortaring belongs to some time in the last century.
Planning permission was received to insert a door in the south- eastern facing wall to facilitate entrance to the Walled Garden and, to our surprise, this revealed a further bee bole. In 1790, William Hammond had lavished a large sum on
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refurbishing and up dating his mansion8 and this included building greenhouses in his Tudor Walled Garden, all the base kitchen garden aspects of which were removed to an entirely newly built and even larger Walled Garden at the side of his Malt House about a quarter of a mile away. The south-eastern facing wall of this new Garden has been demolished but there is no village memory of it having bee boles in it. At St Albans Court, the Tudor Garden wall was extended upwards, rendered in cement with moveable wooden ventilation shutters built in at the top, a dedicated heating boiler system provided and a large greenhouse built against it. The 1790 render had covered over this newly found bee bole, certainly two others nearer the house, and possibly more to the south. This is suggested because our existing bee boles were at 7ft intervals and the demolished one exactly conformed to being one of a line as well as in height in the wall.
Looking further it was known that a section of the wall had been extended upwards in 1666 as part of other major works on the house and was then supported by a buttress – 7ft from the nearest bee bole – which probably therefore also masks another bee bole.
It is clear therefore that a line of six bee boles was made in 1556 with the possibility when looking at the wall of another three, or possibly four. The render will in time reveal how many as it decays – the 1790 greenhouses were mostly demolished in the 1960s with one free standing one remaining.
In present times, the walled garden has big variations in temperature, not infrequently touching 40°C in summer and going below -10°C in winter. The prevailing winds are from the west and rainfall is markedly lower than within a few miles in every direction. However, birds nest in the bee boles and honey bees are in the ventilation slots in the wall above so the Tudor siting remains valid.
It would seem highly likely that the detailed execution of the desired form of bee boles was left to the individual craftsman. The Cathedral Close bee boles were inserted in the 1547 wall by outside contractors and in this stretch of wall, there are two clusters of bee boles which look similar but actually on inspection are of markedly different construction. (There are more – IBRA 288 – in the Memorial Garden beyond, again of a distinctly different and more complex structure.) Scrutinising the published photos of other recorded bee boles, some are similar but none are identical to Nonington’s. Perhaps it was the same itinerant bricklayer, or his apprentice, that was engaged by Hammond for his Nonington project nearly a decade later?
The IBRA Register records a total of 1591 bee boles in the UK (2017) of which 57 are in Kent. Penelope Walker noted that there seemed to be none south of a line from Sandwich to Ashford and beyond.9 We sit on that line and the observation still broadly holds true in terms of the current Register. However, the Dover Archaeological Group recorded a fine set of bee boles at Winkland Oakes Farm in Sutton,10 well south, and it seems likely that alert and observant eyes would yield more.
peter hobbs
1 R.M. Duruz and E.E. Crane, 1953, English Bee Boles: National Beekeeping Museum Pamphlet No. 1, 6.
2 V.F. Desborough, 1955, ‘Bee Boles and Beehouses’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 69, 90-95; 1956,
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‘Further Bee Boles in Kent’, Archaeologia Cantiana 70, 237-240; 1958, ‘Kentish Bee Boles; Further Note’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 72, 234; 1960, ‘More Kentish Bee Boles’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 74, 91-94; Penelope Walker, 1988, ‘Bee Boles in Kent’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 106, 107-127.
3 Topographical Miscellanies, London, 1792, Vol. 1, Kent, St Albans Court, Nonington in the
Hundred of Wingham.
4 Personal communication with Dr Margaret Sparks and Prof. Paul Bennett, 2018.
5 J. Britton and E.W. Brayley, 1801, The Beauties of England and Wales, viii, London, 1086.
6 Peter Hobbs, 2005, ‘Old St Albans Court, Nonington’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 125, 273-290,
note 50.
7 Awaiting publication by Dover Archaeological Group.
8 Hobbs, ‘Old St Albans Court’, 280.
9 Walker, ‘Bee Boles in Kent’, 109-10.
10 Dover Archaeological Group unpublished archive report.
AN EXAMPLE OF THE KENT PARISH RETURNS LISTING CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED FOR THE DISTRESSED PROTESTANTS OF IRELAND 1642: THOSE FOR ELHAM
Because of the vagaries of record keeping during the start of the English Civil War any parish listings for the 1640s is a welcome resource for the historian.1 They include:
the 1641 Poll Tax or Subsidy returns
the Protestation returns, the outcome of a resolution of the House of Commons on the 30 July 1641
The Solemn League and Covenant appointed to be taken throughout the whole kingdom on the 27 June 1643
An Act, 8 February 1642, for the relief of distressed Irish subjects of the
kingdom.2
Parish listings from all these four sources for Kent survive but their coverage is patchy at best, the Solemn League and Covenant particularly so, providing only about a half-dozen parish listings.3
Whilst parliament discussed measures to relieve the Protestants in Ireland in December 1641 it was not until the 1642 Act of Parliament that a collection throughout England took place. The act commences with the following words:
Whereas sithence the begining of the late Rebellion in Ireland diverse cruell Murthers and Massacres of the Protestants there have beene and are daily comitted by Popish Rebells in that Kingdome by occasion whereof great multitudes of godly and religious people there inhabiting togeather with theire wives children and families for the pres- ervation of theire lives have been inforced to forsake theire habitations meanes and livelihood in that kingdome and to flee for succour into severall parts of his Majesties Realme of England and Dominion of Wales having nothing left to depend upon but the charitable benevolence of well disposed persons.
Churchwardens and overseers were to gather the gifts and charitable benevolences, before the 1 July 1642:
RESEARCHES AND DISCOVERIES
image
Fig. 1 The first page of the Elham return.
togeather with the persons names that shall give the same they or some or one of them to set downe in a note in writing in words at large and not in figures and the same note togeather with the said summs of money forthwith to pay and deliver to the severall High Constables of every hundred.
The money was then to be collected by the sheriffs and they to deliver the money and notes to the receivers. The distribution was to be by both houses of parliament according to the act. The act also called for the notes or schedules to be printed and published but this never seems to have taken place. ‘A variety of public exhortations to charity, prayer and activism buttressed these works’.4
The events in Ireland which prompted these nationwide donations are well documented. Whilst there were cases of fabrication there were also tales of the most horrendous savagery exacted by both sides. For those that would know more about these atrocities there are 31 handwritten volumes of embittered 17th-
RESEARCHES AND DISCOVERIES
century testimony taken after the Irish rebellion and massacres of 1641. The 1641 Depositions (Trinity College Dublin, MSS 809-841) have been transcribed and are available online.5 ‘This body of material is unparalleled anywhere in early modern Europe, and provides a unique source of information for the causes and events surrounding the 1641 rebellion and for the social, economic, cultural, religious, and political history of seventeenth-century Ireland, England and Scotland’.6
A slightly inaccurate listing for Goudhurst of money collected for the distressed protestants in Ireland is provided in Archaeologia Cantiana, xxviii, 16-21 (but called it a Lay Subsidy listing because it was stored amongst such records).7 Whilst there are other parishes in the E 179 series the bulk of the returns for Kent are at TNA: SP 28/192.
The author is currently transcribing all the Kent returns to make them available for researchers. No Protestation or Solemn League and Covenant appears to have survived for Elham but there is a 1641 subsidy for the Upper & Lower Hundred of Loningborough (TNA: E 179/128/643) yet to be transcribed.
A transcribed version of the Elham return from SP 28/192 is presented below:
[The spelling of the names has been retained, although sometimes it is difficult to decide what letter the scribe has used. All figures, spelt out in full, have been reduced to an Arabic number followed by £, s, d.]
Shepway: Loningborough Upper [Half Hundred] Shepway: Loningborough Lower and Upper 9£ 10s 2½d
ELHAM
1642. A noate of the somme of money gathered in the parish of Elham as a benevolence towards the reliefe of Ireland as followeth.
John Hogben gentleman
5s
John Eeverinden
6d
John Beane
12d
Thomas Chappen
2d
Richerd Woollett gentleman
5s
Thomas Carden
6d
Thomas Ginder
12d
Luke Spayne
6d
Daniell Rucke
12d
Thomas Stokes
6d
William Smith
2s 6d
Thomas Ladd
6d
Thomas Ladd
12d
William Gibbons
6d
David Boughton
12d
Thomas Hammon
2d
Giles Brett
6d
Richard Harbert
6d
John Hayman
6d
Thomas Rogers
2d
John Worly
12d
Michaell Horne
3d
Edmund Boughton
12d
William Griffen
2d
William Tucker
2s
Alexander Cooke
3d
William Spayne
12d
Nicholas Gouldfynch
6d
Michaell Lad
12d
Thomas Blacklockes
2d
RESEARCHES AND DISCOVERIES
Clement Jancocke
4d
Isaack Pitcher
3d
Abraham Worrey
4d
Peter Harvye
2d
Thomas Laurence
3d
Thomas Stace
2d
William Bell
3d 1
Thomas Hawkins
2d
Mr Woodcocke vicar
4s
James Wells
2d
William Ouldfeild
2d
Samuell Wells
1d
Thomas Baker
2d
Thomas Bartlett
3d
Stephen Hobday
2d
James Buttrice
1d
Thomas Stroud
1d
Richerd Dann
2d
Thomas Jancocke
3d
Daniell Cheesman
2d
Robert Hawkins
3d
Widow Ginder
6d
George Wood
3d
Thomas Maunger
2d
Robert Denton
3d
Moyses Sharpe
3d
Roger Pay
4d
John Rogers
2d
John Stace
12d
Thomas Carden
6d
Edward Hogben
6d
Richerd Hayes
6d
Richard Craft
3d
Austen Spayne
6d
John Hart
6d
Thomas Rigden
2d
Richerd Brett
6d
Richerd Cheesman
3d
Richerd Baker
2d
Clement Ouldfeild
6d
William Woollett
6d
Thomas Saunder
6d
William Smith
12d
Edward Haies
2d
Daniell Woollet
12d
Clement Georg
4d
Ingram Woollett
12d
William Carder
2d
George Smith
6d
William Partridge
3d
John Marsh
6d
William Beane
1s
Edward Soale
2d
John Pilcher
6d
William Symons
2s
John Saunder
5s
Henry Boughton
12d
Richerd Symons
2s
Nicholas Soale
2d
Edward Hogben
2s
Nicholas Browneing
2d
Richerd Fox
4d
John Sturdy
2d
John Baylye
6d
Fraunces Gammon
4d
John Wattes
6d
James Whitewood
1d
George Christian
1s
Stephen Whatly
2d
George Christian junior
6d
image
John Adden
3d 2
John Lion
6d 3
William Brooke
3d
image
1 Total of first column £1-11-0
2 Total of second column 17s 10d. 3 Total of third column £1-0-5.
RESEARCHES AND DISCOVERIES
John Hile
2d
Richerd Ouldfeild
3d
Clement Pilcher
3d
Thomas Nevet
4d
John Godden
3d
John Norton
1d
David Pilcher
3d
William Epse
2d
John Tompson
3d
Ould Wells
2d
William Saunder
3d
William Fox junior
1d
Thomas Ouldfeild
18d
Richerd Hogben
6d
John Saunder junior
3d
Robert Preble
2d
Henry Saunder
3d
Richerd Rogers
2d
Clement Rogers
3d
Richerd Robinson
2d
Henry Pilcher
3d
Thomas Rigden junior
6d
Edward Gill
2d
Thomas Andrew
1d
John Kite
2d
Widow Boughton
4d
William Stickles
2d
William Ouldfeild
6d
John Stephens
2d
Jonathan Eastland
3d
Sum total
3£-17s-10d
duncan harrington
1 Lawrence Stone, 1972, The causes of the English Revolution 1529-1642 (Harper), p. 136 et alia.
2 Charles I, 1640: An Act for a speedie contribuc[i]on and loan towards the releife of his Majesties distressed Subjects of the Kingdome of Ireland, in Statutes of the Realm: Volume 5, 1628-80, ed. John Raithby (s.l, 1819), pp. 141-143.
3 For details of the Protestation and the Solemn League and Covenant, see S.R. Gardiner, The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution 1625-1660 (Oxford, 1936) pp. 155-56, 267-271.
4 Joseph Cope, England and the 1641 Irish rebellion (Boydell, 2009), p. 12.
5 http://1641.tcd.ie.
6 C.V. Wedgwood, The King’s War 1641-1647 (Collins, 1958), pp. 72-73, points out that ‘cold and hunger in the long hard winter destroyed more of the fleeing settlers than the Irish killed, either in fight or in cold blood’. Recounting some of the tales she says, ‘These fearfull tales proliferated from seeds of truth’.
7 TNA: E179/249/9.
RESEARCHES AND DISCOVERIES
REVIEWS
Chalk Hill, Neolithic and Bronze Age discoveries at Ramsgate, Kent. By P. Clark,
G. Shand and J. Weekes. 282 pp., 99 figs, 18 colour and b/w plates. Sidestone Press, 2019. Softback £33.50, hardback £101.00 and pdf format £8.40. ISBN 978- 90-8890-608-4 and 978-90-8890-609-1.
This monograph presents the results of excavations carried out between 1997 and 1998 at Chalk Hill, to the west of Ramsgate on the Isle of Thanet, in advance of a new road from the A253 to Ramsgate Harbour. The focus of the excavation was the concentric arcs of multi-phase pit clusters, with rich assemblages of finds, superficially conforming to the model of a Causewayed Enclosure monument, whose short period of occupation ended around 3600 cal bc. The Causewayed Enclosure was targeted for investigation by Aerial Photographic evidence and interpretation which located the feature within the route of the new road.
The publication is structured to deal with a multi-period site, where one period element proved to be extraordinarily complex. The modular structure of the report reflects the difficulty archaeologists face in creating a single narrative from the evidence of a long spaced out occupation, compelled to try to use imperfect data to tell a story, with a beginning, middle and an end, rather than employ floating discussions of the most coherent evidence. Occasionally this problem is reflected in the discussion of minor elements of this site, which diminish in the wake of the mass of data presented for the main show, although they may have significance to a wider survey of the periods they represent. The report also contains information on significant Early Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon features, useful as comparatives for other Thanet sites. Understandably publication cost leads to the compression of text without differentiation, at the expense of whitespace, increasing the cognitive load of reading dense descriptive sequences.
An introduction to the excavation programme in section 1 discusses the decisions behind the presentation of excavation data in the report. The general differentiation of the description of the period landscapes in separate sections in the monograph is refreshing for the reader. Three following sections of the monograph are period- based discussions, followed by two interpretative essays and three well laid out appendices containing tabulated stratigraphic and ceramic sherd grouping data. A comprehensive list of references extends over 26 pages at the end. The inclusion of specific discussions in the later sections separates raw data from interpretation and in part, speculation.
An introduction to the landscape context of the excavation site is given in section
1. Elements of the reviewer’s baseline survey of the landscape and the heritage of archaeological investigation in Thanet are given in this discussion, contributing to the acknowledgement of the extent of change to the landscape under investigation and to the presentation of the geological process underlying the formation of
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the landscape, as well as ongoing and radical change from coastal erosion and deposition. A fully justified caution is made that understanding the site in the past requires an act of reconstruction rather than a phenomenological appreciation of the present state of the landscape.
Most importantly, in section 2 the report publishes an archaeological sequence for a ‘Causewayed Enclosure’ which differs considerably from the prevailing archaeological model, which the excavation tested and found to be flawed, with significant implications for the received interpretation for other such sites that have generally been identified from Aerial Photographic evidence or by excavation. The evidence presented ‘contributes a more nuanced understanding of the heterogeneity of monumental architecture in the early Neolithic of the British Isles’. The comparison of the Chalk Hill results with a small site with similarly structured features and assemblages at Pegwell, on a similar chalk rise on the opposite side of a valley, suggests the form of the Chalk Hill features is more than an isolated phenomenon.
The descriptive text is dense and complex, reflecting the complexity of the features that compose the monument group. Along with the varied assemblages of finds, the stratigraphic evidence indicates the level and duration of the occupation that formed the monument, prompting a revision of the excavation evidence and questioning the interpretation of other ‘typical’ Causewayed Enclosure monuments. Following a description of some minor features, the excavation of a more typical Beaker/Early Bronze Age Round barrow and four associated barrows runs on in the text from the preceding section. These could have been differentiated by a more prominent title/section break, as would the following series of thematic descriptions and discussions of the paleo-environmental evidence, carbon dating
and associated finds reports.
Section 3 describes ditches and enclosure representing a later Prehistoric landscape of Mid to Late Bronze Age and Early to Late Iron Age in similar well illustrated descriptive format, followed by period specific discussions and specialist reports. Early historic landscapes, section 4, describes a single Anglo- Saxon sunken featured building, medieval field systems and associated finds and specialist reports.
Section 5 is reserved for a discussion and interpretation by Dr Jake Weekes, presenting a detailed appreciation of the features of the putative Causewayed Enclosure at Chalk Hill, its antecedents in a pre-Neolithic environment and the influences behind its final form and possible functions. This is a refreshing overview of what is a very complex, but necessary, technical presentation of the field data in the main body of section 3.
Section 6 is an essay in three parts by Peter Clark, analysing all the features in their prehistoric and historical context. The first a discussion of the Causewayed Enclosure phenomenon in archaeological and cultural terms, with an extensive comparison of the finds assemblages and depositional patterns at comparable sites. The second and third elements are less detailed summaries of the two other broad period landscapes. The first section is most significant in its examination of the concepts of the Causewayed Enclosure model in local, national and European contexts, reviewing the excavation evidence, form and possible functions of all such monuments, comparing them with the Chalk Hill excavation results. This
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consideration prompts the question whether this ‘monument class is so loose … that it is of little use’.
The essential intellectual struggle in the two reflective sections is over whether the Causewayed Enclosure at Chalk Hill is a variant of a wider cultural conception of a monumental form, which differs in its construction methods from Continental models, dividing space based on the spread of a formal design executed in a regional style. Or whether Causewayed Enclosures as we read them are unplanned phenomena of an innovative Neolithic cultural practice, which unconsciously shaped a pattern of deposition. Function following form, or form following function. Peter Clark suggests that the Chalk Hill Causewayed Enclosure and an apparently similar site sampled at Pegwell, represent a local expression of whatever cultural practice had entered from the Continent, whose form drew on existing practices that involved pit digging and deposition of a varied range of cultural material, the Thanet monuments representing a synthesis of old and new practices. Local form following traditional pit digging practices were adapted to serve an imported function which focussed that activity, creating the larger monumental structure.
In 2003, when the reviewer arrived in Thanet, little formal publication was available to provide a baseline to understand the archaeology of the area. In a general survey of the long history of archaeological investigation in Thanet published in 2007, the imminent publication of several major archaeological monographs associated with infrastructure projects on Thanet were noted. With the addition of this monograph to the list, the publication landscape of Thanet has altered beyond recognition. The acknowledgements in this monograph refer to the ‘long awaited report’, however, time has enabled the wealth of new data from large scale investigation as well as international research to be combined with the significant results of this excavation.
The Chalk Hill publication is concise and thoughtful, with a general outward looking tone to the text and discussions. The discussions place the excavations, and an important part of Thanet’s archaeology into its European context. With the academic publication apparatus of summaries presented in French and German, the publication signals the international significance of the archaeological discoveries on a publicly funded infrastructure project.
GES MOODY
Beyond the Wantsum: Archaeological investigations in South Thanet, Kent. By G. Dawkes, D. Hart, K. Grant and D. Swift. 116 pp. SpoilHeap Publications Mono- graph. Lavenham Press, 2019. Paperback, £20.00. ISBN 978-1-912331-12-3.
This is the twenty-second monograph in the SpoilHeap Publications series, a joint venture of Archaeology South-East and the Surrey County Archaeological Unit. It presents the results of four developer-funded excavations in the southern part of the Isle of Thanet undertaken by Archaeology South-East between 2005 and 2013. At Broadstairs, a relatively small excavation at Bradstow School revealed a small late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age ring ditch (just under 6m in diameter) that encircled a group of three inhumation burials radiocarbon dated to 1775-1660 cal bc, along with three pits, two of which contained fragments of infant crania and
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might also have been graves. To the south of this, and slightly later in date (Middle Bronze Age, c.1500-1150 bc) was a very large ring ditch (around 32m in diameter), though no burials were associated with this feature. Also in Broadstairs, a modest excavation at Hereson School, just to the west of Bradstow School uncovered a badly disturbed Middle Bronze Age inhumation, radiocarbon dated to around 1406-1145 cal bc.
Further to the south, another minor excavation at St Lawrence College, just east of Ramsgate railway station revealed some Late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age enclosure ditches and a small medieval sunken featured bakery or kitchen, possibly an outbuilding of a farmstead dating between the 12th-14th centuries ad. Lastly, a larger open-area excavation to the west at Manston Road uncovered an interesting multi-phase sequence; a small Middle Bronze Age cremation cemetery, a late Bronze Age enclosure ditch and a Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age droveway and associated field system. The latter was supplanted later in the Iron Age by a new field system on a different alignment. In the Roman period (late 1st to early 2nd centuries ad) two small mortuary enclosures were established at the northern end of the site, associated with a number of cremation burials. Three Anglo-Saxon sunken featured buildings were also found, possibly outliers of the small Anglo- Saxon settlement excavated to the south-west in 1996. Two other sunken-featured buildings were found to be medieval in date (mid 11th-early 13th centuries), one with a well-preserved oven set against its southern side, reminiscent of the many examples found at the Thanet Earth excavations in 2007-2012.
Overall the report is admirably clear with a simple and spacious layout and many figures, most of which are in colour. After a brief introductory overview, each site is described in a series of four chapters each presenting a summary site description followed by short finds and environmental reports and (where appropriate) a general site discussion. A final ‘Conclusions’ chapter outlines the contributions of the sites to the research themes of the archaeological narrative of the Isle of Thanet.
The authors have adopted a summary approach to presenting this evidence, eschewing detailed blow-by-blow stratigraphic descriptions of every feature and every fill. Indeed, individual context number are rarely mentioned (although they do appear on section drawings); descriptions are often presented at the group or structure level. This approach has much to recommend it, making the report more approachable to the general, non-specialist reader. This reviewer welcomes this move to summary integrated and synthetic archaeological reports, in keeping with the recommendations of the Southport Group report,1 which highlighted the need for the archaeological profession to engage with a wider public audience. It is encouraging to see commercial archaeological units adopting a new style of presentation of results that may result in the wider dissemination of knowledge and a more inclusive appreciation of, and engagement with, our historic heritage. However, this is a new skill, and a number of minor inconsistencies in this report suggests that perhaps archaeologists have not yet perfected this summary style of presentation.
First, there seems to be some inconsistency on the level of detail being presented. For example, descriptions of the detailed methodology of radiocarbon analysis and calibration (which is repeated almost verbatim in chapters 2 and 5) may not
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be of great interest to anybody but a (small) audience of specialists. Similarly, some finds catalogues offer the provenance of an object to a specific context, but this is sometimes not cross-referenced with the site description. Thus we are told of a flint core that came from context (35) at Hereson School, but nowhere is the reader told what context (35) is. It is perhaps a missed opportunity that the detailed stratigraphic and specialist reports that no doubt underpin this published account have not been made available on-line (or if they have, no mention of them is made in this report). This would have meant that such technical information would be available to those few specialists who needed it, allowing the authors of the present volume to focus on results. Secondly, and perhaps relatedly, the brevity of the text sometimes means that discussion and interpretation are underdeveloped; for example, it is baldly stated that the Late Bronze Age enclosure ditch at Manston Road ‘held some special or ritual purpose’ with no explanation why this should be so.
But these are minor irritations in well-presented report that offers a modest yet important contribution to our knowledge of the archaeology of Thanet.
PETER CLARK
1 Southport Group, 2011, Realising the benefits of planning-led investigation in the historic environment: a framework for delivery, London.
Living by the Creek. Excavations at Kemsley near Sittingbourne, Kent. By G. Dawkes. 76pp., 49 figs, 14 tables. SpoilHeap Occasional Paper 10, Lavenham Press, 2019. Paperback, £10.00. ISBN 978-1912331116.
This volume provides another addition to the archaeology of the Swale region, furthering our still developing understanding of the area. Funded by Kent County Council, a team from Archaeology South-East undertook three phases of work on a site that lay on London Clay formation capped by Head deposits and Alluvium. Activity demonstrating landscape use from the Neolithic to Roman periods was identified though, as has been noted across much of north Kent, there is an apparent hiatus in activity between the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age.
As indicated in the preface the most significant periods archaeologically were the middle Bronze Age and Romano-British. The former period contained a ring-ditch with central cremation, probably associated with the nearby settlement at Kemsley Down. The Roman activity included four cremation burials, with several post- holes representing potential markers. Perhaps of greater significance was a saltern which is of particular interest as it represents one of only a few examples in the Thames Estuary region that have been subject to modern excavation techniques.
Overall, the volume is nicely designed and well written, consisting of four chapters with good use of figures and plates. The results are contained in chapter 2 with finds and environmental data incorporated where relevant and providing interesting detail without overwhelming the reader. A discussion is provided at the end of the descriptive text for each period, with a more overarching synthesis presented in chapter 4.
Specialist analyses are presented in chapter 3 with interesting sections on the
pottery, human remains, plant remains and geo-archaeological aspects. As is often the case, the sections on geoarchaeology/landscape characterisation and soil micromorphology are welcome inclusions but are in places quite complicated.
The discussion chapter places the site in its local context, providing a brief overview of settlement in the lower lying areas of the Swale/Sittingbourne district. Of particular note is the section on salt-working activity and how this potentially related to nearby villas, or whether it was under imperial jurisdiction. As the author notes, at present this question cannot easily be answered, but it seems likely that the villa estates must have had some sort of role given their close proximity to the marsh. This slimline volume is another positive contribution to local archaeology from the commercial sector. It provides user-friendly research material and it is welcome
that the production of such volumes continues.
JAMES HOLMAN
Culture and Society at Lullingstone Roman Villa. By Caroline K. Mackenzie. 64
pp. Archaeopress, 2019. Paperback £14.99. ISBN 978-1-78969-290-7; ISBN 978-
1-78969-291-4 (e-Pdf)
Kent has evidence for many Roman villas although, as in other areas of Britain, these are remarkably poorly understood. Some remain un- or only partially excavated while many of those that have been unearthed were found long before modern standards of excavation and recording. Moreover, the general tendency to regard Roman villas as an unproblematic class of rural elite dwelling (the foci of agricultural estates) inhibits further analysis. Modern scholarship has, in fact, started to interrogate the evidence in different ways and here Caroline Mackenzie seeks to apply some of these techniques to Kent’s best-known example.
In this concise, attractive and well-illustrated volume the author uses two perspectives to explore the ways in which Lullingstone’s inhabitants used their dwelling as a means of creating and asserting their cultural and socio-economic identity. The first of these is the villa’s landscape setting and the second the use of domestic space, both in the layout of the rooms and in their internal decoration, particularly the mosaics. The villa’s location, terraced into the hill-slope, gave it a commanding view over the river valley and lands below and asserted the owner’s right to tame the landscape. The position of the master, seated in his reception hall, contrasted with that of visitors, whose access was controlled and whose experience would vary from that of the petitioner, admitted only to the threshold, to that of the honoured guest at a convivium who would be able fully to appreciate the floor mosaics. These spoke of the owner’s education and cultural aspirations. The erection of a temple-mausoleum and monumental granary reinforced the grandeur of the villa and its owner’s wealth and position.
The author uses comparison with various other sites to place Lullingstone within a group of admittedly ‘exceptional’ grand and affluent villas. It is perhaps telling that these comparators are almost entirely from central southern/western England. There is much that is exceptional about Lullingstone, particularly in comparison to other villas in Kent: it has, for example, the only figurative 4th-century mosaics known in the county.
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A volume of this size, specific in its aims, can only begin to address the many questions that we might ask about culture and society at this, or indeed any other Roman villa, and this stimulating approach raises many more in the mind of this commentator. This accessible study complements the original site report of Col. Meates (published by the KAS) and can be recommended to the general reader who wants to understand how modern scholarship approaches such issues; being based on the author’s m.a. dissertation, it is fully referenced and should be read by any scholars interested in the site and of the nature of Kent in the late Roman period.
ELIZABETH BLANNING
Twelfth-Century Sculptural Finds at Canterbury Cathedral and the Cult of Thomas Becket. By Carolyn Marino Malone. xiii + 265 pp., 304 illustrations and figures. Oxbow books, 2019. Hardback, £55.00. ISBN: 9781789252309.
This book is an important addition to the literature on the medieval history of Canterbury Cathedral, whether or not one agrees with all the author’s conclusions. It is a comprehensive study of a collection of late twelfth-century limestone sculptures which were later re-used as filling stones after the demolition of the structures on which they were originally installed, and which were only rediscovered in recent times. Nearly all were found in the vaults and walls of the west walk of the Great Cloister during renovation work between about 1968 and 1973. They had been there since the cloister was rebuilt by Prior Chillenden in the 1390s, when presumably they became available as products of his masons’ demolition of the previous cloister or of other buildings nearby as the huge project of constructing the new nave proceeded. The extant corpus consists of ‘four intact quatrefoils, ten roundels, three segments of statues, and twenty-three architectural fragments’, all related in style despite some differences, and attributed to the same date. Some, especially the relief figures in the five quatrefoils (one came to light as early as the eighteenth century from a different context) and the roundels are of the highest quality, and have been discussed as such by art historians including Jean Bony, George Zarnecki and Deborah Kahn since their rediscovery, though with no agreement on their original provenance or function. The author herself first became aware of the discoveries at an early stage of her career, in 1970, and ‘returned many times’ to photograph them and study them as further finds emerged to 1973, but only ‘returned to the Canterbury project in earnest’ in 2011. All this is lucidly set out in her Introduction and first chapter, along with a very fair account of earlier research and acknowledgements of assistance from other scholars, in Canterbury and elsewhere. Here then is an essential value of this book: its Part II (pp. 165-252) comprises for the first time a full descriptive catalogue of the objects, with photographs, and all available information about their original find spots and present locations. This is the more important because ‘at least fifteen’ of the itemised fragments have been lost since 1973 and the rest are currently stored at a variety of places in the Cathedral precincts or in its masons’ yard, and hard to access even for research. The author’s claim that her catalogue ‘is essential to any future study’ is therefore undeniable.
But as she also says, since the 1970s ‘many interpretations have been offered’
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for the original use of the sculptures but none of them ‘correspond to my own hypotheses’. Malone’s interpretation is now set out in her Part I: Screens and the Cult of St Thomas. How compelling is it? Negatively, she rejects the view of art historians up to Deborah Kahn in 1991 that the sculpture came from a choir screen (of c.1180?) along the eastern side of the crossing, because that screen was replaced in two operations c.1300 and c.1440, neither of which would have provided material for re-use in the 1390s. The more recent proposal of Jeffrey West (1997, 2013) and Peter Fergusson (2011) that the finds came from the earlier cloister, and specifically from the lavatorium attached to its north walk shown on the famous ‘waterworks plan’ of c.1160, is also rejected, largely because many of the sculptures are too unweathered to have been exposed in external settings, though this is not entirely conclusive. Instead she attributes them to screens constructed across the south-west transept and on the western and southern sides of the crossing in the early 1170s, the very first years of the Becket pilgrimage cult, just before or after the papal decree of canonisation in February 1173. Their role, linked to the construction of a tunnel under the crossing giving access to the crypt (precursor of the present fifteenth- century one), was to create a manageable circulation system for pilgrims between Becket’s tomb and the martyrdom, screening it off (literally) from the monks’ access to their cloister and choir. Hypothetical reconstruction of these screens also serves as the basis for discussion of the meaning and iconography of the sculptures, notably the two portrayals of kings and two of prophets among the quatrefoils, and the intriguing heads of ‘lions, demons, Jew and a pagan’ among the roundels. Theological links are made with works attributed to Odo, prior of Christ Church 1168-75, who must have played a key role as patron of the building operations if Malone’s date is accepted.
At the least this is a rich and debatable interpretation, which demands much fuller discussion than can be given here, so what follows is just a series of queries and observations. First, her theory requires an extremely precise stylistic attribution for the sculpture, later than Prior Wibert’s work of the 1160s but earlier than the rebuilding which followed the fire of September 1174 – she repeatedly uses the phrase ‘around 1173’ but in fact there is very little margin for disagreement. Second there is an inevitable circular element to her contextual analysis – the pressure of early pilgrimage means screens must have been built, the ‘fact’ that screens were built in turn throws new and ‘previously ignored’ light on early pilgrimage. The possibility that more improvised structures were used to control space in this initial period rather than carved stone ones is not really considered. Doubts might also be raised about just how feasible it was for the Christ Church community to have carried through such an elaborate campaign during the confusion and uncertainties of the early 1170s, despite claims that ‘the screens could have been finished quickly’ and ‘construction of the tunnel and crossing stairs was not a complicated process’. Finally an analysis of verb tenses in Gervase of Canterbury’s celebrated later account of the rebuilding after the 1174 fire is far from conclusive as a way of providing answers about what was there just before it. To say this is only to suggest that other interpretations remain possible, and anyone who proposes them will have learnt much from this book. But one of the author’s views that should command general acceptance is her hope that ‘an exhibition area for this exceptional sculpture’ might be created in Canterbury.
RICHARD EALES
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Adventure in Iron: the blast furnace and its spread from Namur to northern France, England and North America, 1450-1650: a technological, political and genealogical investigation. By B. Awty. Edited by J. Hodgkinson and C. Whittick. xviii + 977 pp., 37 b/w figures and maps. Wealden Iron Research Group, 2019. Two vols. Hardback. Contact books@hodgers.com, or write to The Editors, Adventure in Iron, 3 Saxon Road, Worth, Crawley, UK, RH10 7SA. ISBN 978-1-9160423-0-8.
The production of these two comprehensive volumes, supported by the Allen Grove Fund, is a tour de force by the editors, reflecting their respect and admiration of the work of research done by the late Brian Awty. Most historians of Kent will have a rudimentary knowledge and understanding of the importance of the Wealden iron industry in the late middle ages and early modern period, and perhaps a smaller number will understand the specifics of the technology and economic framework within which it functioned. But this fully contextualised study is to be welcomed as an accessible resource clarifying the international nature of the capital, skills, trades, and migrations involved in the technological innovation in early modern Europe and its later transmission, via the Weald of Kent and Sussex to North America. The manuscript, in a diversity of forms, was originally completed in the early 1990s, but was not considered a commercial prospect by publishers. As a member of the Wealden Iron Research Group, Awty made his material available to researchers, including genealogists and its importance encouraged the editors, under the auspices of the Research Group and with some generous private funding, to bring all the material together and prepare it for publication.
The first volume is principally an historical study of the ironworks on the near Continent, particularly the beginnings in Namur and the Burgundian territories leading to full-scale establishment in Normandy-Beauvaisis, and the Pays de Bray, where iron had been worked since the early thirteenth century. The industry continued until its decline in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, when iron makers and workers migrated to the Kent and Sussex Weald as local wood supplies for charcoal dwindled and rents began to be raised. Awty suggests that some of the forge masters might also have lost some of the technical expertise handed down through the generations and lost to the Weald where the industry was better placed to invest in new developments. This European context to the development of the Wealden iron industry inevitably leads the reader to appreciate the importance of the relations between Normandy and England throughout the medieval period, and therefore the story of the French forges is an integral part of the expansion into Kent and Sussex.
Awty’s study starts with the transition in the later middle ages from the centuries old bloomery direct process of iron smelting to the development of the water- powered (hydraulic) bellows for casting iron for the increasing demand for firearms and cannons. The development of water-powered smelting throughout parts of Europe (Italy, Sweden and Germany) and particularly in Namur was well-established by 1400 and this is where Awty’s in-depth study of the industry really begins, interwoven with the complex European politics involving the newly dominant Burgundian state, in alliance with England, and the second half of the Hundred Years’ War between England and France. It was in French-speaking Burgundian Namur that the expansion really took off in the fifteenth century with
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the introduction of the finery hammer process. It is noted that the development of ironworks tended to be in politically unstable areas as the close links with military activity was its bedrock. But Awty tempers this by ascribing the first Walloon migration to the Weald in the 1490s to the wish to leave danger areas, in the same way as ironmaking moved further north in France and into the German Ardennes. The core of the two volumes is, however, the genealogical study of the iron makers and their workers with a short chapter once again setting the historical context at the beginning of volume two. Awty draws together the evidence for movement from northern France to the Weald with comparison of family names, speculating for example on the possible translation of the name ‘Hue’, to ‘Huet’ to ‘Huget’, and thence to ‘Hewgate’ or ‘Hugget’, within a time frame and geographical context in the first half of the sixteenth century, that apparently supports his hypothesis. After a very detailed and immaculately researched, study of the families in the French ironworking industry the trend for influential families moving to the Weald was soon supported by seasonal workers looking for greater job security and a new life. This study of the Wealden migrations, settlements and families from the end of the fifteenth into the seventeenth century is probably best used as a gazetteer based on the comprehensive indexes at the end of volume two: of Places and Subjects; and of Personal Names. While the whole industry, along with many of the family names, became Anglicised, there is throughout a continuation of identifiable French names and influence. Awty’s detailed research into determining the progress of family and industry wide links, paints a clear picture of the social, economic, cultural and political infrastructures within which the iron makers, foundry owners and workers lived. The final chapter deals with the migrations and transmission of ironmaking technology and skills to North America, as well as looking briefly at the evidence for the later seventeenth century and the more diverse activities of some of the migrants. In both the final chapter and the appendices, there is yet more background information to enhance the overall complex picture of those
involved at all levels in the iron industry.
In the current world of publishing, there could be a good case for arguing that such a comprehensive resource should be available online and in future this could perhaps happen, but there is also a lot to be welcomed in having everything easily accessible in two well-indexed volumes, rather than a website with an almost unmanageable complexity of links.
ELIZABETH EDWARDS
Tudor Sandwich: A Social History. By T.L. Richardson. 24 pp. Sandwich Local History Society, 2019. Paperback, £2.50 + £2.00 p&p, from the Society, The Chanter’s House, 11 Strand Street, Sandwich CT13 9DX, email: jacuilinning@ aol.com. ISBN9542424-7-5.
It is always a pleasure to receive one of T.L. Richardson’s Sandwich booklets and this one does not disappoint. In just twenty-four short pages a fascinating picture of life in Tudor Sandwich is painted and carefully set within the context of the consequences of the silting up of the Stour at the end of the fifteenth century: the drop in the town’s population, the transition to a more coastal and near-Continental
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trade, smaller ships unloading at sea, the mid-sixteenth century arrival of the Dutch ‘strangers’ and the new cloth industry. Richardson takes as his main theme the links between the public enjoyment of visiting entertainment troupes, blood sports and a ‘propensity for lawless behaviour of all kinds’ by the townsfolk and the mayor and jurats’ response to petty theft, to murder and all shades of crime in between. This led to a very violent time on the streets of Sandwich, particularly when fairs were taking place, and resulted in punishments made to fit the crime, the worst offences resulting in many executions. For the more minor offences Richardson describes often very unpleasant retribution including seven years’ banishment for having an ‘evil disposition’ or the humiliation of walking around the town with a wooden mortar, which seems to have been a common punishment for women who disturbed the public peace. The wide range of petty and more serious crimes were added to by the crews of the ships and their propensity for ‘prostitution and fornication’ to the extent that the authorities founded a brothel in 1473 in St Clement’s parish which only partially addressed the problem.
The entertainments which the townsfolk enjoyed were no doubt contributory to the riotous behaviour, bearbaiting as an example of the viciousness of a period which Richardson sees as cruel and violent and indifferent to the suffering of man or animals. These activities were often encouraged and patronised by all strata of society from the monarchy downwards, with bearbaiting given special privileges and support by the mayor and jurats. The picture does however become a little more sedate with some of the strolling players and minstrels, as many of their entertainments fitted in with the festivals of the church year. Performers were drawn from locals and from the wider regions of east Kent and the troupes often toured beyond Kent to East Sussex and Essex. The minstrels had an additional role in the sea trade as they would walk around the town at night playing their instruments and shouting out a rudimentary weather forecast for the ships.
This concise study displays all Richardson’s usual comprehensive research and full involvement in his subject and in conclusion he argues that the vibrant small town of Sandwich was able to forestall the decline of the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with a shift in its economy and the contribution of the ‘strangers’ making the Tudor age a period of prosperity – and crime.
Minnis Memories and More. Edited by Ros Shefford. viii + 88 pp., b/w and colour photographs throughout. Canterley Publishing, 2019. Paperback £10.00
+ £2.00 p&p from Stelling Minnis and Upper Hardres History Group, email: rosalindshefford@gmail.com. ISBN 978-1-9-9164981-2-9.
This second volume of memories of Stelling Minnis, Bossingham, Upper Hardres and Wheelbarrow Town, the villages of the ‘Minnis’, compiled with support from the Allen Grove Fund, is a well-produced volume with a fine mix of topics for those interested in this varied and in many respects unusual part of rural Kent, set in the North Downs. Beginning with the anachronistic Minnis Common, the most well- known feature to outsiders, David McDine perfectly sets the scene exploring its status as a private estate owned by the Trustees of the estate of the last Lord of the Manor (Lord Tomlin), and explains that ‘technically, the Tomlin Trustees continue
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to be Lords of the Manor’. For those who have got lost on the Minnis, and there are many, Robert Veltman’s footpath section builds on McDine’s contribution as he describes his researches, both walking and documentary, to clarify the evolving history of the Minnis and its public rights of way. After a brief consideration of the lepidoptera by Jacqui Smith, a number of local residents have contributed to the core sections which deal with some of the more notable buildings, churches, farms, schools and of course the easily recognisable windmill, and their contributions to the villages’ social, economic and cultural life.
The second half of this well-illustrated study, is the ‘memory’ part of the volume with local people providing their own impressions of their environment with an understanding only possible from those immersed within it, a mixture of personal and reported memories of people, places and events. The final few sections return to an eclectic mix of places and amenities as they have developed over the past hundred years or so, including a history of the telephone service as well as clubs and societies and contemporary businesses. Ros Shefford has succeeded in bringing all the contributions from a wide range of local people smoothly together into a comprehensive picture of a twenty-first century rural area in Kent, with the support of high-quality photographs and reproductions. For those who have managed to find their way across the Minnis and located St Mary’s Church in the fields near Bossingham, this little volume will broaden their understanding of the area considerably.
OBITUARY
lawrence lyle, m.a., m.b.e.
Lawrence Lyle died in December 2019 at the age of 96. Born in Maidstone he was educated at the local Boys Grammar School and at Merton College, Oxford. He was called up for war service in 1942 serving in the RAF as a navigator in Lancaster bombers. His teaching career began in London before a move to Canterbury in 1955 to take up the post of Head of History at the Simon Langton Boys School which he held until his retirement in 1983.
Since childhood Lawrence had an abiding interest in the study of history, local history and archaeology. Soon after arriving in Canterbury he began to work as a volunteer on archaeological excavations run by the Canterbury Excavations Committee assisting such luminaries as Sheppard Frere, John Watcher and Frank Jenkins. Lawrence was among these and other pioneers who laid the foundations for our present knowledge of the city. In the 1970s he helped to re-establish the Canterbury Branch of the Historical Association and it continues today as a con- sequence of his good stewardship. Lawrence was the longest serving member of the Canterbury Archaeological Society – now the Canterbury Historical and Archaeological Society.
He joined the Kent Archaeological Society in 1958 and was among its longest serving members; he served on the Council from 1968-2005 and as Honorary Treasurer from 1972-1986. As Treasurer he was responsible for large sums donated to the Society and for the establishment of an investment policy that has served the organization well up to the present day. He was elected an Honorary Member of the Society in 1988 and became a Vice President in 1991 until stepping down in 2005.
Lawrence played a very major part in the setting up of the Canterbury Archaeolog- ical Trust. In the early 1970s there were calls for a full-time archaeological unit for the city. Lawrence was a founder member of a pressure group, the ‘Archaeological Committee for Canterbury’, convened to achieve this aim. In 1975 he organised an Open Meeting with the support of the City Council and leading academics which brought the Canterbury Archaeological Trust into being the following year, with Tim Tatton-Brown as the first Director and Lawrence as Honorary Secretary. The early 1980s were years of regular crises for the Trust when even its continued existence was often in doubt. Lawrence proved an enormous source of strength in devising various initiatives to underpin the organization’s finances. So, from small beginnings, he helped to found and run a professional Archaeological Company and a Registered Charity, serving for thirty-three years as Honorary Secretary, Company Secretary and Trustee. He has stewarded the development of the CAT to its present status as one of the UK’s premier archaeological contractors with over fifty full-time archaeologists and support staff.
OBITUARY
Lawrence and his wife, Marjorie – who celebrated 70 years of marriage in 2019 – both worked tirelessly within the Canterbury community for over sixty years. As Historians, and in a very fruitful partnership, they produced eight popular books on the history and archaeology of Canterbury. (See, for example, the review of their Canterbury and the Gothic Revival in Archaeologia Cantiana, cxxxiv, 2014,
pp. 316-7.) Lawrence published the History of Simon Langton School for Boys in 1984 and the History of Canterbury Archaeological Trust – Great Oaks from Little Acorns Grow – in 2008.
Lawrence was a soft-spoken, unassuming gentleman who never sought the lime- light, but was always there to offer freely of his time and labour without thought of reward or personal aggrandisement. He often referred to himself as ‘a back- room boy’ – but he was much more than that; a driving force at the very heart of whatever organisation or cause he was working for.
In 2013 he was appointed m.b.e. for services to History and Archaeology.
paul bennett
NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS
Enid Allison, b.sc., d.phil., mcifa: has worked for the Canterbury Archaeological Trust since 1995, with responsibility for the co-ordination and management of environmental sampling, processing and post-excavation analysis from sites in Kent. She specialises in the analysis of insect remains from Holocene sites throughout Britain.
Mary Berg, m.a., m.sc., m.b.e., f.s.a.: is a volunteer in Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library where she is engaged in cataloguing collections of medieval and immediately post-medieval charters.
Ernest Black, m.a., f.s.a.: has been involved in publishing research on Roman Britain since the 1980s and has contributed to several studies of Roman tiles including material from Canterbury. He has most recently been working on the keyed tile assemblage from the excavation of the Roman villa at East Wear Bay, Folkestone.
David Boston, o.b.e., m.a. (cantab.), f.m.a., f.r.a.i., f.r.s.a.: first studied Tudor history under Sir Geoffrey Elton before pursuing African archaeology and history as a post- graduate at Cape Town University. His subsequent museum career covered ethnography in Liverpool and New World archaeology in the BM before he became Director of the Horniman Museum and Gardens. In retirement he returned to historical interests as the Curator and Joint Tenant of the NT’s Quebec House in Westerham where he was invited by the Canadian and Quebec Governments to undertake research into General Wolfe’s military career. More recently he was invited to mount an exhibition for St Mary’s Church, Westerham, and Sevenoaks Museum exploring the crucial role of the four knights of Kent in opposing King John that came to light in a letter from the Barons of Runnymede to the Sheriff of Kent, rediscovered in Lambeth Palace Library in 2015.
Andrew Breeze, m.a., dip.celt.stud., ph.d., f.s.a., f.r.hist.s.:, was educated at Sir Roger Manwood’s School, Sandwich, and at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Married with six children, he has taught since 1987 at the University of Navarre, Pamplona. His most recent book is British Battles 493-937: Mount Badon to Brunanburh (Anthem Press), giving for the first time the correct locations of many armed conflicts in this period. It also proves the historicity of Arthur, a British warrior (not a king) who fought in North Britain and was killed near Carlisle in 537 ce.
Richard Copsey, o. carm., ph.d.: is a Carmelite friar who taught physics before entering the Order in Aylesford. After studying for the priesthood in Ireland and gaining a ph.d. in Psychology at University College, Dublin, he was a teacher and lecturer for many years. Currently he is researching the early history of the Carmelites and has published several books. A Biographical Register of Carmelites in England and Wales 1240-1540 will appear shortly.
Richard Eales: was lecturer and senior lecturer in medieval history at the University of Kent from 1976 until his retirement in 2004, having previously taught at the universities of
CONTRIBUTORS
Cambridge and East Anglia. He is the author of studies of politics, and especially castles, in Norman and Angevin England, An Introduction to the Kent Domesday, and Chess: the History of a Game.
Christine Grainge, b.a., m.a.: took her first degree, in History, at the University of Kent in 1990. She obtained an m.a. (with distinction) in European and Literary Studies from King’s College, London in 1991. She first published in Archaeologia Cantiana in 2005. Her major work on Carolingian economies in the Rhineland after the division of the Empire, using evidence written in the hugely-landed Carolingian abbeys, was published in The Agricultural History Review in 2006. She is currently working on an article concerning the identity of the designer of the Bayeux tapestry.
Rodney Griffiths: retired some twenty years ago from a career in high tech to pursue his passion for collecting British eighteenth-century portraiture. He holds a Masters Degree in Art History and continues to conduct research allied to eighteenth-century British art, the results of which are regularly published by scholarly journals.
Duncan Harrington: is both a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and the Society of Genealogists and President of the Kent Family History Society. He is a freelance historian and compiles the Kent Records New Series for the KAS. With the late Patricia Hyde he produced two important books on the history of Faversham, Faversham Oyster Fishery and The Early Town Books of Faversham. He has recently published (on CD) Collections for the History of Faversham Abbey which includes a transcript and translation of the Faversham Abbey Leiger Book.
Peter Hobbs, m.a. (oxon.), f.r.s.a., ccipd, dr hc imc: formerly the first non-police Inspector of Constabulary, a Director of the Wellcome Foundation and Wellcome plc. and of the Home Office Forensic Science Service. Founder Chairman of the Employers’ Forum on Disability, he is a Director of the Learning from Experience Trust, the Industrial Buildings Preservation Trust and the CAT. Has worked with the Dover Archaeological Group and Keith Parfitt for many years and co-authored with him.
David Holman: a full-time civil servant, he has been an amateur archaeologist with the Dover Archaeological Group since 1984 and a member of the British Numismatic Society since 1990. He has worked on many sites in Kent, mainly for DAG, and also assisted professional units. His specialist subject is coins. He has been active in analysing coin assemblages from various sites and has worked on Iron Age potin hoards, resulting in the creation of a new classification system for Flat Linear potins.
Anthea Jones, m.a., ph.d.: her ph.d. thesis was on social and demographic history of some east Kent parishes centred on Ash-next-Sandwich and she maintains an interest in the parish’s history. She was a lecturer at Christ Church Canterbury before moving to be head of history, and latterly also director of studies at Cheltenham Ladies’ College. She has written several books on Gloucestershire local history, A thousand years of the English parish (2000), and edited Dissenters’ Meeting-house certificates and registrations for Bristol and Gloucestershire (2018). Articles based on Mary Yorke’s letters from Wales, Gloucester and Ely have previously been published.
Alison Klevnäs, ph.d.: is a researcher in the Department of Archaeology at Stockholm University, where she has been teaching since completing her ph.d. at the University of Cambridge in 2010. She is currently leading a project funded by the Swedish Research Council called ‘Interacting with the dead. Belief and conflict in Early Medieval Europe (AD 450-750)’.
CONTRIBUTORS
Andrew Lamb: is an archaeologist who works on the Pre-Roman Iron Age. His interests are varied, including migration theory, La Tène art and maritime connections, although his primary focus and area of specialty is mortuary archaeology. He is currently co-editor for the Later Prehistoric Finds Group, having previously studied at Leicester, Edinburgh and Queen’s University Belfast.
Barbara Martin: was a member of the Rape of Hastings Architectural Survey team from 1974 until 1992 when, with her husband, David (q.v.), she joined Archaeology South- East, Institute of Archaeology, University College London. Now retired, she continues her research work unabated. Publications (under joint authorship with her husband and others) include ten volumes on the buildings of the High Weald, based on detailed analysis funded by English Heritage, University College London, and others.
David Martin, f.s.a., i.h.b.c.: was, until his retirement, a Senior Buildings Archaeologist at Archaeology South-East, and is now a Research Fellow of UCL. Prior to joining the university in 1992 he was Director of the Rape of Hastings Architectural Survey; as such, in association with his wife, Barbara (q.v.), he was responsible for recording a large body of historical buildings in eastern Sussex. He is a past president of the Vernacular Architecture Group (1999-2001).
Tom Munnery, b.sc., m.a.: has worked in developer-led archaeology in South East England for over 15 years and has been Senior Archaeologist at Archaeology South-East since 2014. He has led excavations across Surrey, Sussex and Kent and published a number of monographs and journal articles on and within the region.
Keith Parfitt, b.a., f.s.a., mcifa: has been excavating in Kent for over 45 years. Hons degree in British Archaeology at University College, Cardiff, 1978. Employed with Kent Archaeological Rescue Unit between 1978 and 1990. Moved to Canterbury Archaeological Trust in 1990 and worked on the Dover A20 project, which culminated in discovery of the Bronze Age Boat in 1992. Running parallel with full-time career, Director of Excavations for amateur Dover Archaeological Group, also since 1978. Has served on KAS Fieldwork Committee since 1992 and acted as Director for KAS excavations at Minster Roman villa, 2002-2004. Elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London 2000. Co-directed joint project between Canterbury Trust and British Museum excavating the complex Bronze Age barrow site at Ringlemere, 2002-2006. Engaged in overseeing major excavations in the centre of medieval Dover, 2015-2017. Presently undertaking fieldwork for the KAS Lees Court Estate project.
Rob Scaife, b.sc., ph.d.: is visiting Professor of Palaeoecology and Archaeobotany at the University of Southampton and Honorary Research Associate of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge. He specialises in palynology and the study of plant remains from archaeological sites, and is also involved in research projects spanning Patagonia, The Falklands, Easter Island and Turkey. Growing up in Kent, he first dug at Springhead as a school boy in the early 1960s.
Jacob H. Scott, b.a. (hons), acifa: has worked at the cathedral in the events and maintenance department for nine years and is director of the Rochester Cathedral Research Guild. He is currently studying for an Archaeology m.a. at the University of Leicester. The Research Guild is comprised of staff and volunteers at the cathedral and new members are always welcome.
Graham Spurr, b.sc. (hons), m.sc.: has worked at MOLA for over 20 years with a focus on sedimentary analysis and palaeoenvironmental research. Much of his early work in
CONTRIBUTORS
archaeology included multiple sites along the length of the original HS1 route through Kent as well as sites upon the Isle of Thanet and at Littlebrook. Currently Head of Geoarcheaology at MOLA, continuing to undertake developer-funded work across London and the South-East.
Phil Stastney, b.a., m.sc., ph.d.: has over 10 years’ experience in archaeology and geo- archaeology in both the developer-funded and academic sectors, joining MOLA in 2017. His principal research interests are past human-environment interactions, the reconstruction of prehistoric landscapes and Holocene climate variability. Ongoing work at MOLA focuses on sites in South-East England and Greater London, especially the Lower Thames Valley; he has previously worked in Ireland and the western Mediterranean.
Sheila Sweetinburgh, ph.d.: is a Principal Research Fellow in the Centre for Kent History & Heritage at Canterbury Christ Church University and an Associate Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Kent. She has published The Role of the Hospital in Medieval England: Gift-giving and the Spiritual Economy (2004), and three edited collections: Early Medieval Kent, 800-1220 (2016); Later Medieval Kent, 1220-1540 (2010); and Negotiating the Political in Northern European Urban Society, c.1400-c.1600 (2013); as well as numerous articles on medieval and Tudor Kent deploying an interdisciplinary approach to explore a wide range of topics. She is currently editing a volume with Stuart Bligh and Elizabeth Edwards on ‘Maritime Kent through the Ages’.
Peter Tann: is a retired international banker and businessman. He has history degrees from Cambridge and London universities. He was for many years secretary of the KAS Publications Committee. He has written on the hop industry and the iron industry for Archaeologia Cantiana and produced a large-format book on the Royal Charters of Faversham to coincide with the town’s celebrations of Magna Carta in 2015. He is working on a new book on competition between Kentish railways in the mid-nineteenth century.
Jake Weekes, b.a. (hons), ph.d.: studied at the University of Kent from 1999-2005 and was a part-time lecturer there in Classical and Archaeological Studies and Comparative Literary Studies from 1999-2007. He co-ordinated the South East Research Framework for the Historic Environment from 2007-8 (writing the Resource Assessment and Research Agenda for the medieval period in Kent, Sussex and Surrey). He has since worked as a Project Manager at the Canterbury Archaeological Trust. In recent years, he contributed to the Kent History Project volume on Early Medieval Kent (AD 800-1220), co-devised and edited a book on funerary practice in the Roman world, is author of the chapter on cemeteries and funerary practice in The Oxford Handbook of Roman Britain and co-author of Chalk Hill, Neolithic and Bronze Age Discoveries at Ramsgate, Kent.
Adrian Weston: was born in east Kent and has been studying the East Wear Bay settlement at Folkestone for over twenty years. He worked as a volunteer on the 2010-11 ‘A Town Unearthed’ excavations at East Wear Bay, before moving in 2011 to the island of Sanday in Orkney. Specialising in ceramic finds, his main interests are Roman ceramic building materials and late Republican Roman amphorae.
John Whittaker, b.sc., ph.d.: joined the Natural History Museum, London, nearly 50 years ago and during his career was Head of the Micropalaeontology Division between 1988 and 2005. Since official retirement he continues to work, perhaps uniquely, on both the Foraminifera and the Ostracoda. Presently he collaborates primarily with arch- aeologists, including MOLA, using both groups to reconstruct Pleistocene and Holocene palaeoenvironments. To this end he has published many papers and contributed to several noteworthy UK monographs.
CONTRIBUTORS
Cressida Williams: is Head of Archives and Library at Canterbury Cathedral. An archivist by profession, she has particular interests in ecclesiastical archives, medieval charters and seals. She has been involved in the planning of a number of events to mark Becket2020, in particular the annual Canterbury Medieval Pageant and Family Trail.
David Wright, m.a., ph.d., f.s.a., f.s.g.: has been a genealogist and historian for some forty years. He has written and lectured widely on Kentish records, and after translating the Faversham town charters produced a life of Bryan Faussett, the archaeologist and antiquary, in 2015. His doctoral thesis on Pliny’s Natural History has led to much work on early documents and also to the teaching of Latin in London and Canterbury.
COMMITTEES OF THE SOCIETY
chairman
secretary
contact email address
Education
Mrs E.A. Palmer
Miss M. Green
lyn.palmer@kentarchaeology.org.uk
Fieldwork
K. Parfitt
C. Blair-Myers
keith.parfitt@kentarchaeology.org.uk
Finance
Hon. Treasurer
treasurer@kentarchaeology.org.uk
Publications
Dr E.C. Edwards honeditor@kentarchaeology.org.uk
special interest groups
Brand and Communications
F. Birkbeck (Manager) fred.birkbeck@kentarchaeology.org
S. Rogers (Webmaster) simon.rogers@kentarchaeology.org
Churches
Hon. General Secretary J. Scott secretary@kentarchaeology.org
Historic Buildings
Mrs D.J. Goacher
D. Carder
deborah.goacher@kentarchaeology.org.uk
Historic Defences
V.T.C. Smith
P. Cuming
victor.smith@kentarchaeology.org.uk
Industrial Archaeology
J. Preston
M.L.M. Clinch
mike.clinch@kentarchaeology.org.uk
Lees Court Estate
Hon. General Secretary
secretary@kentarchaeology.org.uk
Marshes Study
Mrs P. Jardine Rose
paula.jardine-rose@kentarchaeology.org.uk
Place Names
Dr M. Bateson
Mrs A.L. Thompson
mark.bateson@kentarchaeology.org.uk
Social Media
Facebook
A. Mayfield
andrew.mayfield@kentarchaeology.org.uk
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M. Curtis
michael.curtis@kentarchaeology.org.uk
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GENERAL INDEX
Illustrations are denoted by page numbers in italics or by illus where figures are scattered throughout the text. The letter n following a page number indicates that the reference will be found in a note.
abbeys/religious houses see Aylesford; Bec; Cant- erbury (Christ Church priory; St Augustine; St Gregory); Dover; Lossenham under New- enden; Mont-St-Michel; Rochester; Sandwich
Adanac Park (Hants), burials 113, 115
Adden, John 334
Ælfgyva 310
Aelfric 28
Aldey, Edward 41
Aldington
bailiwick 195n16 Marwood Farm villa 243
Alexander II 301
Allington, castle 251, 254
almshouses, late medieval 184, 185, 194
Ancalites 287
Andrew, Thomas 335
Angus, W. 280
Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury 250 Anselm le Furmager 313
Appledore
church of SS Peter & Paul 323, 325
Court Lodge Road, excavations 321–6, 322,
323, 324
French raid 1380 323
Arundel family 29
Ashenden Brickworks 134
Ashford
archbishop’s visitation 1774 68n14 Westhawk Farm
Iron Age burials 113 tiles 241–2, 243
Ashmole, Elias 28, 29, 38
Aucher family 155
Anne 155
Anthony 28
Henry 155
Thomas 148, 155
Augustine, St 309, 309
Avranches (France) 309
Awty, B., Adventure in Iron: the blast furnace and its spread from Namur to northern
France, England and North America, 1450‒1650: a technological, political and genealogical investigation, reviewed 345–6
axe, Neolithic 283–4, 283
Aylesford
brickmaking 134, 139 burials, Iron Age 113
Carmelite house 148, 149, 156 Aylesford & Burnham Brick Works 134 Aylesford Pottery 134
Aylesford-Swarling burials 98, 99, 103, 112–13
Badell, John and Agnes 190 Baker, Richerd 334
Baker, Thomas 334 Baldock, William 197n64
Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury 255 Bale, John 148, 154
barge transport
Faversham/Sittingbourne 131–2, 136, 140, 141
Newenden 148–9, 152
Bargemen’s and Watermen’s Protection Society 140, 141
Bargrave, Isaac 41
barrows
prehistoric 284–6, 285
Iron Age 103‒4
Anglo-Saxon 7–8
Bartlett, Thomas 334
Battely, Nicholas 39
Bayeux (France) 304, 305, 310
Bayeux Tapestry (illus) 293, 297, 301, 302,
305–6, 307–8, 309‒10
Baylye, John 334
Bazalgette, Joseph 135
Beachborough Manor see Newington by Hythe
beads, Anglo-Saxon 19, 20–1
Beane, John 333
Beane, William 334
Bec (France), abbey 307 Bee, Cornelius 42
bee boles 328–30, 329
GENERAL INDEX
Bekesbourne, cemetery II, disturbed graves 4 Bell, William 334
Benenden, Igolynden family 154 Benge, Richard 196n40
Benson, Thomas 32–3 Benson, William, abbot 88 Berdefeld, Roger 152
Berg, Mary, ‘A 1261 Charter, a Seal and a Depiction of Canterbury’s Pre-1380 West- gate’ 313–21
Berkeley, Mrs 63–5, 66 Berkeley, George 66, 68n13 Besborough, Lord 59–61 Bethersden, building stone 163 Bibroci 287
Binbury, castle 251
Bircholt Farm see Brabourne
Bird, John 155
Black, Ernest, ‘A Roman Tile-Kiln and an Associated Third-Century Hoard of Sestertii at Bircholt Farm, Brabourne’ 221–44
Black Death 154–5
Black Heath (Greenwich/Lewisham) 59 Blacklockes, Thomas 333
Blagden Copse (Hants), burials 115 Blanning, Elizabeth, book review by 342–3 Boryver, John 198n76
Boston, David M., ‘England’s Earliest Painted and Framed Royal Coat of Arms (Edward VI, 1547‒53) in St Mary’s Church, Westerham: the Work of a Low Countries’Artist Commissioned by the Gresham Family’ 84–97
Bosworth, Joseph 33
Boughton, David 333
Boughton, Edmund 333
Boughton, Henry 334
Boughton, John 35
Boughton, Widow 335
Boughton Aluph, Iron Age burials 113 Boughton Hill, tunnel 137
The Bourne (Hants), burials 115
Bourne Park, cemetery, disturbed graves 4 Boves (France), burials 117
Boys, John 28, 42
Brabourne, Bircholt Farm, excavation background and location 221–2, 222
coin hoard 233–4
discussion 238–43
photographic evidence (illus) 222–33 tile fabrics 234–8
Bracton, Henry de 42 Brayley, Edward Wedlake 280
Breeze, Andrew, ‘The Place Name Kent and
Welsh Cant ‘rim; wall’ 286–93 Brent, Sir Nathaniel 42
Brents and Davington, church of St John 144
Brett, Giles 333
Brett, Richerd 334
brickmaking, c.1825‒1900 125–7
brick tax 127–8
brickearth distribution 126, 127 capital investment required 136–8 history of
beginnings of industrial production in Faversham/Sittingbourne areas 128–31
expansion 1860‒80 134–5
decline and end of 135–6, 140–2 market and transport 131–2 mechanization 138–40
physical evidence 142–4 process and products 132–4
Broadstairs
Bradstow School cemetery, disturbed graves 2, 3, 4
backfilling 17
dating 10, 11
markers 7
spatial distribution 13
Dumpton Gap, Iron Age burials 103, 113, 120 Kingsgate, Holland House 63
St Peter’s cemetery, disturbed graves 3, 4 backfilling 13, 17
dating 10
dimensions 6
grave-goods 18, 19, 20
markers 7, 8
reopening methods 11, 12
spatial distribution 13, 15
Brockman family Elizabeth 279
James 277–80, 281
William 277
brooches, Anglo-Saxon, grave-robbed 18, 19,
20–1
Brooke, William 334
Browne, Barbara (née Dawson) 35
Browne, Edward 35
Browneing, Nicholas 334 Bruges (Belgium), cathedral 91 Brygge, Joan 197n70
Burgh, Hubert de 245, 249, 251
Burham, brickmaking 134, 139, 140 Burham Brick & Cement Co. 134
burials see cremations; grave robbery; inhum-
ations
Burnham Norton (Norfolk), Carmelite hermits 148
Burre, William 313
Burton, Nicholas 193
Buttrice, James 334 Bysshe, Sir Edward 38
Caen (France), St Étienne 307 Calcraft, John 68n6
GENERAL INDEX
Calvert, Dr 66
canal, Faversham‒Swale 129
cant 290–1
Canterbury
archbishops of see Anselm; Baldwin; Corbeil, William; Cornwallis, Frederick; Islip, Simon; Juxon, William; Lanfranc; Parker, Matthew; Reynolds, Walter; Richard; Sheldon, Gilbert; Stigand; Sumner, John Bird; Theobald; Thomas Becket, St;
Ussher, James
archbishop’s visitation 1774 63–5, 66–7, 68n14 Augustine House, Iron Age burial 100, 103,
111
castle 246, 250, 251, 254, 255, 318
Castle Street 35 Charles II at 37
charter, 1261 313–20, 314, 317, 318
Christ Church
bee boles 329, 330
Henry II’s penance 253, 319
masons’ marks 180
observations 1774 63
properties 129
rebuilding, post-1174 255
royal arms 84, 84
Somner and 35, 36, 37–8, 39, 41–3
Urry’s study of 213, 214, 215, 218
Christ Church priory chapter replaced 307
charters 313, 315, 316
properties 88, 214, 217 churches
Holy Cross 318
St Andrew 41
St Dunstan 319
St Margaret 39, 40, 43 Doge’s chantry 320n6 hospitals
Eastbridge 214, 321n19
St John 37
St Lawrence 197n75 King’s School 35, 37, 43
Newengate 316
Northgate 316
place name 289
St Augustine’s abbey 305, 306, 307, 315, 325 St Gregory’s priory 301
St Margaret’s Street 39
St Stephen’s Road, kiln 228, 239
street layout, Roman 269–73, 270, 271, 273
Urry, William, legacy of 213–19, 213, 215
Watling Street, excavations discussion 269–73, 270, 271, 273
excavation evidence 260–6, 261, 262, 264
interpretation 266–9
Westgate 315, 318–20, 319
Canterbury (cont.)
Westgate Gardens, excavations discussion 269–73, 270, 271, 273
excavation evidence 260–6, 262, 264
interpretation 266–9
location 261
Worthgate 316
Cantiaci 286–7, 289–90
Cantii 287, 289
Cantium 286, 287–9
Carden, Thomas 333, 334
Carder, William 334
Carvilius 287
Casaubon, Meric 26, 29, 34, 37, 42
Cassi 287
Cassivellaunus 287
castles see Allington; Binbury; Canterbury; Chil- ham; Coldred; Deal; Dover; Eynesford; Folkes- tone; Leeds; Rochester; Saltwood; Stockbury; Stowting; Sutton Valence; Thurnham; Tonbridge
Caxton, William 95
cemeteries, Anglo-Saxon see grave robbery
ceramic building material, medieval 323, 324,
325–6; see also tiles, Roman
Chambers, Henry 137
Champney, Adam 192 chantries
Canterbury 315
Sandwich 188, 194
Chappen, Thomas 333
Charles II 36–7
Charles the Bold 91–2, 93
Chartham
animal bones 39
Somner property 35, 39, 43 chatelaine sets, Anglo-Saxon 20
Chatham, archbishop’s visitation 1774 61
Cheesman, Daniell 334
Cheesman, Richerd 334
Chiche, John 315
Chiche, Lawrence 313
Chiche, Stephen 313, 315
Chiche, Thomas 313, 315
Child, Harry 141
Chilham, castle 254, 255
Christian, George & George jnr 334
Cingetorix 287 Cinque Ports
community care c.1300‒c.1500 183–98 ship service 250
Clare family 249, 251
Roger de 253 Clark, Peter
book review by 339–41
Shand, G. & Weekes, J., Chalk Hill, Neolithic and Bronze Age discoveries at Ramsgate, reviewed 337–9
GENERAL INDEX
Cobb, Edward 129
coin hoard, Roman, Bircholt Farm (illus) 230, 231, 233–4, 240, 243
coins, Roman 263, 264, 265
Cok, Richard 192
Coldred, castle 251
Colepeper, Anne (née Aucher) 155, 156
Colepeper, Walter 155
Colepeper, William 156 Colman, Thomas 198n79 Conyer, brickmaking 132, 139
Conyer creek 132
Cooke, Alexander 333
Copsey, Richard, ‘The History of the Carmelite Priory at Lossenham, Newenden, c.1243‒ 1538’ 148–60
Corbeil, William, archbishop of Canterbury 180, 250
Cornwallis, Caroline (née Townshend) 63, 65,
66, 67
Cornwallis, Frederick, archbishop of Canterbury 59, 61, 65–7
Cottington Hill, Iron Age burials 100, 102 Cotton, Sir Thomas 27, 28, 29, 35
Coulter, E.T. 132
Court & Pryer, Messrs 135 Coustain, Pierre 93
Craft, Richard 334
Crayford, brickmaking 134 cremations
Iron Age 98, 99, 100, 102, 112–13
Roman 100
Cremer & Whiting 142 Crevequer, Daniel 254 Crevequer, William de 252 Cromwell, Thomas 156
Crow, Edward 129
Cubitt, Joseph 137, 139
Cubitt, Thomas 137, 139, 140
Daniel son of Hubert 313, 316
Dann, Richerd 334 Darenth Park, cemetery 4 Dartford
brickmaking 128
Littlebrook Power Station site background and location 199–200, 201
deposits 201–6, 202, 204
discussion 209
landscape reconstruction 207–9, 208
Neolithic agriculture, evidence for 206–7 Dashorst, Anthonis Mor Van 95
Dawkes, G.
Living by the Creek. Excavations at Kemsley near Sittingbourne, Kent, reviewed 341– 2
Hart, D., Grant, K. & Swift, D., Beyond the
Wantsum: Archaeological investigations
in South Thanet, Kent, reviewed 339‒41 Dawson, Barbara, m.1 Edward Browne, m.2
William Somner, m.3 Henry Hannington 35, 39, 41, 43
Dawson, John 35 Deal
castle 37
Mill Hill cemetery
burials, Iron Age, 98–100 character 103, 104‒9, 105‒7
chronology 111, 112
context 112, 113, 115
dataset 102
discussion 120
origins 118
burials, Anglo-Saxon 4, 7
observations 1774 63
Denton, Robert 334
Dereham, Adam 152
dictionary, Anglo-Saxon 25–33
Diodorus Siculus 287
Dodekere, John 315
Doge, Hamo 313, 315, 316–18, 320
Dover
almshouses 185
archbishop’s visitation 1774 67, 68n14 bishop of see Ingworth, Richard Buckland cemetery 4
castle 245–56
hospital of St Bartholomew 195n14 Maison Dieu House 69n19 observations, 1774 63
priory 185, 254
ship service 250
Drake, Caroline (née Brockman) 279
Drake, Revd Ralph (later Drake-Brockman) 279, 281
Drake-Brockman family 281
James 281 Draper, Daniel le 315
Du Boulay, F.R.H. 216
Dugdale, William 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 35, 36, 42 Duncannon, Viscount William 68n6
Durant, Peter 313, 316
Eales, Richard
‘Dover Castle and Royal Power in Twelfth-
Century Kent’ 245–56 book review by 343–4
East Kent Access Road excavations
Iron Age burials 100, 102, 104, 111, 112, 119
Anglo-Saxon burials 2
East Kent Barge-owners’ Association 132 East Kent Railway 134–5
East Peckham, Twysden residence 27, 36
Eastland, Jonathan 335
GENERAL INDEX
Eastry
church of St Mary, window 326–8, 327
Church Whitfield, Iron Age burial 100, 104, 111
Updown cemetery, Anglo-Saxon burials 4 Eastwood & Co. 132, 136, 139, 140, 141, 142
Ebbsfleet, Weatherlees WTW, Iron Age burials 100, 111, 112
Edenbridge, manor 88
Edward the Confessor 296, 296, 308
Edward IV 91–3, 92, 93, 94, 95
Edward VI 85–95, 86, 90
Edward, Black Prince 319
Edwards, Elizabeth, book review by 345–6
Eeverinden, John 333
Ekwall, E. 289
Elham
archbishop’s visitation 1774 68n14 church of St Mary 35
clergy 43
parish returns 1642 331–5, 332
surgeon 35
elm decline 206, 209 Elms Farm (Essex) 50 Elsie (barge) 132
Elys, Thomas 188, 194
Epse, William 335
Ernulf, bishop of Rochester 162 Eustace of Boulogne 248 Eustace the Monk 191
D’Ewes, Sir Simonds 26, 29, 30
Eynesford, castle 251
Falileyev, A. 290 Faramus of Boulogne 252 Faustus 309, 309 Faversham
Abbey Fields 134, 135, 137
Alexander Centre 133
almshouses 133
archbishop’s visitation 1774 68n14 brewery 133
brickmaking 128–31, 132, 133–44
East Street 137
fair 148
Institute 144
South Road/Stone Street 142–3 Faversham Brickfields Co. 138 Faversham creek 132
Field, John 290
Finglesham, cemetery, disturbed graves 2, 3
backfilling 13, 16–17
dating 9, 10
grave-goods 19, 20
markers 8
quantified 4
spatial distribution 13, 14
flint
Mesolithic‒Neolithic, Appledore 321 Bronze Age, Coxhill Mount 285–6 see also axe
Flud, Mr 83n5 Folkestone
castle 251 East Wear Bay
amphorae 47–57, 47, 51–3, 56
axe, Neolithic 283–4, 283
villa 48, 57, 240, 243
foraminifera analysis 205, 206
Fotheringhay (Northants), church of St Mary & All Saints 93, 94
Fox, Henry, Baron Holland 68n10 Fox, Richerd 334
Fox, William jnr 335 Foxe, John 91 Freningham, R. de 150 Frere, Sheppard 216
Frindsbury, brickmaking 128, 136
Fussell, L. 280
Gainsborough, Thomas 281
Gammon, Fraunces 334
gavelkind 33–5
Gelling, Margaret 289
Geoffrey, friar 43
Georg, Clement 334
Gervase of Canterbury 42, 163, 252, 253, 255 Gervase of Cornhill 253
Gibbons, William 333
Gill, Edward 335
Ginder, Thomas 333
Ginder, Widow 334
Giraud, Francis 141
Glanville, Gilbert de, bishop of Rochester 163, 180
Godard, John 196n40
Godden, John 335
Godfrey, prior 150
Godfrey, Margaret (née Lambarde) 42 Godfrey, Thomas 28, 42
Godwin family 248 Goldfinch see Gouldfynch Goudhurst, parish return 333 Gough, Richard 43
Gouldfynch, Nicholas 333
Grainge, Christine, ‘A Late Eleventh-Century Rochester Manuscript Apparently Echoing the Political Message of the Bayeux Tapestry’ 293–312
grave markers Iron Age 103‒4
Anglo-Saxon 7–9
grave robbery, 7th century 1–4 affected graves 4–9
GENERAL INDEX
grave robbery, 7th century (cont.) backfilling 13–17, 16
dating 9–11
discussion 20–1
geographic distribution 4, 5
grave-goods 17–20
reopening methods 11–12, 12
spatial distribution 12–13, 14–15
Gravesend
A2 Activity Park, Iron Age burials 100–2 Pepperhill, Iron Age burials 113
Great Dock Strike 1889 140–1 Greenhithe, Ingress 68n6 Green see Grene
Greenwood, C. 280
Gregory the Great 301, 301, 305
Gregory X 151
Grene, John 194
Gresham family 85, 87, 94
John 87–90, 91
Richard 87–8, 94
Thomas 88, 89, 90–1, 94–5
De Grey family
Amabel, letter to 59, 64, 65–7
Jemima, Marchioness, letters to 59–61, 62–5
Richard de 148, 150
Griffen, William 333
Griffiths, Rodney, ‘Two Neighbouring Kent Estates Near Hythe and their Remarkable Artistic Connections in the Mid Eighteenth Century’ 275–82
Grigson, Geoffrey 289
Gundulf, bishop of Rochester 162, 293, 307 Guy of Ponthieu 308
Haies, Edward 334 Hales, Thomas 196n26 Hall, William 135
widow of 144
Halsnoth, George 189
Hamilton, Gawen 276, 278, 281
Hammon, Thomas 333 Hammond, Sir Thomas 328 Hammond, William 329–`30
Hamo, bishop of Rochester 185, 186 Hannington, Barbara (née Dawson) 43 Hannington, Henry 43
Harbert, Richard 333
Harbledown, hospital 37
Harold 293, 295–6, 296, 297, 303
Harrington, Duncan, ‘An Example of the Kent Parish Returns Listing Contributions Re- ceived for the Distressed Protestants of Ireland 1642: Those for Elham’ 331–5
Harris, Lord 137
Hart, John 334
Hartfield (Sussex), Great Cansiron Farm, kiln 226
Harvye, Peter 334
Hastings (Sussex), St Mary Magdalen hospital 185
Hatton, ‒ 29
Hawkins, Robert 334
Hawkins, Thomas 334
Hayes, Richerd 334
Hayman, John 333
Haytley, Edward 277, 278–80, 281
Hengistbury Head (Dorset) 48, 50, 53
Henry I 248, 249, 250
Henry II 245, 246, 247, 249, 250, 251–5, 319
Henry III 149, 150, 247, 249
Henry VIII 84–5, 84, 85, 88, 94
Henry, prior 154
Hickes, George 26, 31
Highmore, Joseph 280, 281
Highmore, Susanna 279, 280, 281
Hile, John 335
Hinxton Rings (Cambs), burials 115 Hoare, William 280, 281
Hobbs, Peter, ‘Some Further Bee Boles Found in Kent at Old St Albans Court, Nonington’ 328–31
Hobday, Stephen 334
Hogben, Edward 334
Hogben, John 333
Hogben, Richerd 335
Holman, David, ‘A Neolithic Polished Flint Axe from East Wear Bay, Folkestone’ 283–4
Holman, James, book review by 341–2 Hope, John 157
Horn, Andrew 42
horn cores 264
Horne, Michaell 333
Horton Kirby, elm decline 206 Hoskins, William 216
hospitals, medieval, Cinque Ports 183–5 foundations 185–9
later developments in 15th century 189–94 Hubert, John 313
Hugh of Dover 252, 254
Hulne (Northumb), Carmelite hermits 148
Hume-Campbell, Alexander, Lord Polwarth 64
Hythe
archbishop’s visitations 68n14, 186 church of St Leonard 185
hospitals 185, 190
St Bartholomew 186–7, 190
St John (SS Andrew & Bartholomew) 185– 7, 189, 190
ship service 250
Igolynden, Agnes 154
Igolynden, Richard 154
Ingworth, Richard, bishop of Dover 156
GENERAL INDEX
inhumations, Iron Age, Deal-type 98–100, 99
characterising 103–9, 105–8
chronology 109–12
context 112–17, 114, 116
discussion 119–20
origins 118–19
selection criteria and dataset 100–3, 101
Innocent IV 149, 150 Irvine, James T. 162
Islip, Simon, archbishop of Canterbury 152
Jackson, Kenneth 289, 290
James, rector 150–1
James de la Porte (of the Gate) 313, 316 Jancocke, Clement 334
Jancocke, Thomas 334
Jean, Philip 60
John (King) 245, 250 John of Dover 254
John of Makeseye, prior 154 John of Salisbury 258n26
John son of William Cokin 313, 316 Johnson, F. 141
Jones, Anthea, ‘Three Weeks of Journeys, Eccles- iastical Ceremony and Entertainment in Kent: Letters from Mary Yorke, 1774’ 59–69
Joscelyn, John 25, 26, 28–9, 30
Julius Caesar, 287
Jullieberrie’s Grave, Iron Age burials 102, 103 Julyan, Thomas 157
Junius 26, 28, 29, 33
Juxon, George 37
Juxon, William, archbishop of Canterbury 37
Kenet, John 198n79
Kennett, White 26, 27, 35, 36–7, 39, 42
Kent, place name 286, 289, 291–2 Kent Brick & Tile Co. 139
Kent and Essex Brickmasters’ Association 140, 141
Kesham, John 155
Kilburne, Richard 42
kiln, Roman, Bircholt Farm background and location 221–2, 222
discussion 238–43
photographic evidence (illus) 222–34 tile fabrics 234–38
King Harry Lane (Herts), burials 115 Kingsnorth, Brisley Farm, Iron Age‒Roman
burials 100, 103, 113, 120
Kingsnorth, Thomas 134, 135, 139, 145n44
Kip, Johannes, engravings by 275, 276, 277,
281
Kite, John 335
Klevnäs, Alison, ‘‘Robbed in Antiquity’: Grave Opening in Seventh-Century East Kent – Stim- ulated by Cross-Channel Influences’ 1–24
Knatchbull, Norton 28
Knowler, James 128
Lad, Michael 333
Ladd, Thomas 333
Lake, John 186
Lake, Richard 156
Lamb, Andrew W., ‘The Deal-type Inhumations of Kent: Defining an Iron Age Mortuary Group in Light of New Discoveries’ 98–124
Lambarde, Margaret 42
Lambarde, William 25, 28, 34, 42 Lane, John 196n46
Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury 293, 296,
297, 301, 304, 305, 307, 310
Langbaine, Gerard 27
Laurence, Thomas 334
Lawson, Terence, ‘The Conundrum of the Apex Window at St Mary the Virgin Church, Eastry’ 326‒8
Leeds, castle 248, 251
Legh, William 190
Leland, John 286
Lenham, archbishop’s visitation 1774 68n14
Leysdown
coin hoard 234
Leysdown Road, Iron Age burial 100
Lion, John 334
Lisle, William 42
Little, John 129
Livett, Revd Grevile M. 162, 163
Lollardy 183–4
London
Law Courts 143
Tower Bridge 143
Westminster Cathedral 143
London, Chatham and Dover Railway 135, 136–7
London & Greenwich Railway Co. 143 Longeuil-Sainte-Marie (France), burials 117 Lord, H.W. 134, 137
Lossenham see under Newenden
Louis VII 259n51
Lower Halstow, brickmaking 130, 136
Loys, Harry (Henry) 157, 158
Lucas Bros. 134
Ludd, John 42
Luddenham, population decline 130
Lye, Edward 33 Lyminge
cemetery, disturbed graves 3, 4
backfilling 13
dating 9, 10, 11
gender 6
markers 7, 8
spatial distribution 13
clergy 35
GENERAL INDEX
Mackenzie, Caroline K., Culture and Society at
Lullingstone Roman Villa, reviewed 342–3 Maddox, Isaac, bishop of Worcester 67 Madog ap Gwallter, Friar 291
Maiden Castle (Dorset), burials 115 Maidstone
almshouse 195n6
archbishop’s visitation 1774 68n14 Knightrider Street
No 13, The Foresters Arms 70–2
No 15
discussion 82–3
location and setting 70–2, 71, 72
survey and description (illus) 72–82 Old Vicarage 82
Mote Park 69n17
Maidstone‒Strood Railway (unbuilt) 137 Malling, Peter de 313
Malone, Carolyn Marino, Twelfth-Century Sculpt- ural Finds at Canterbury Cathedral and the Cult of Thomas Becket, reviewed 343–4
Man, Thomas 313, 316
Manasser Arsic 254
Manning, Owen 33
Maple, Jack 217
Margaret of York 91, 95 Margate
cemetery, disturbed graves 3 observations 1774 63
Marsh, John 334
Marshall, ‒ 26
Marsham, Charles, Baron Romney 65 Marsham, John 42
Martin
David & Barbara, ‘An Unusual Fifteenth- Century Building with a Special First- Floor ‘Meeting Room’ ‒ 15 Knightrider Street, Maidstone’ 70–83
Geoffrey 216
Mary, Queen 91
masons’ marks see Rochester cathedral mass dial 323, 324, 325–6
Matthew, count of Boulogne 253, 254 Matthew of Flanders 252
Matthew Paris 245
Maunger, Thomas 334 Maurice the Engineer 246 Mayfield, manor 152 Mede, William at 186 Mercers’ Company 94
Michael, St 309
Middleton, John 129
Milton, brickmaking 130–1, 132, 140, 141
Milton creek 132 Minster in Thanet
Hoo Farm, cemetery 4 Thorne Farm, cemetery 4
Tothill Street, Iron Age burials 100, 102, 103,
104, 109
Mondeville ‘L’Etoile’ (France), burials 117 Monier, Jean-Laurent 62
Monins, Edward 28
Monk, William 135
Monks Horton, Mount Morris 275–6, 276, 280,
281
Monkton
cemetery, Anglo-Saxon 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11
Thanet Earth, Iron Age burials 100, 102, 103,
104, 109, 115
Mont-St-Michel (France), abbey 293, 297, 298,
299, 306, 307–10
Montagu, Elizabeth (née Robinson) 277 Montagu, Matthew 275
Moody, Ges, book review by 337–9 Moore, Catherine (née Eden) 65 Moore, John 69n16
More, Adrian 156
Morris, Morris Drake 275 Morris, Thomas 275
Mount Morris see Monks Horton
Munnery, Tom, ‘Roman, Medieval and Post- Medieval Activity at Court Lodge Road, Appledore’ 321–6
Murston
brickmaking 132, 144 church of All Saints 144
nail, Roman 232, 232
Necton, Humphrey 151 Nettlestead frontispiece Nevet, Thomas 335 New Romney
almshouse 197n51
archbishop’s visitation 1774 68n14 port 149, 152
St John’s hospital 187, 189‒90, 195n16
Newenden
church of St Peter 148 fair 148
Lossenham
manor house 148, 156
priory 148–58, 157
Newenden, John 152
Newington by Hythe, Beachborough Manor 275, 277–80, 277, 279, 281
Newman, John 198n81
Nicholas the Frenchman, prior 150
Nonington, Old St Albans Court, bee boles 328– 30, 329
North Bersted (Sussex), burials 115 North Downs Way 48
Northfleet, brickmaking 128
Norton, John 335
Nowell, Laurence 25, 26, 28, 30
GENERAL INDEX
Oare, brickmaking 142
Oare creek 132 Odo of Bayeux
and Bayeux Tapestry 297, 304, 305, 308, 308,
310
revolt 249–50, 251 Old Romney
hospital of SS Stephen and Thomas 195n14 ship service 250
Oldfield see Ouldfeild Omer, Master 320n5
Order of the Toison d’Or 91–2 ore roasting, Roman 321 ostracod analysis 205
Ouldfeild, Clement 334
Ouldfeild, Richerd 335
Ouldfeild, Thomas 335
Ouldfeild, William 334, 335
Ozengell, cemetery, disturbed graves 3 backfilling 16, 16, 17
dating 10
dimensions 6
markers 7, 8‒9
quantified 4
Page, Sir Gregory 59 Palmer, Henry 28
Pantin, W.A. 216
Parfitt, Keith, ‘A Previously Unrecorded Pre- historic Barrow on Coxhill Mount, River, near Dover’ 284–6
Parker, Revd Edmund 279, 280
Parker, Matthew, archbishop of Canterbury 25, 28, 186
Parsons, D.N. 290
Partridge, William 334 Paston, John 197n66 Pay, Roger 334
Payable (Paable), Simon 313, 316
pendants, Anglo-Saxon 19–20, 20–1
Perkins, David 2
Perkins, John 129
Peter Folsham, friar 149 Petit, Stephen 313
Philip, count of Flanders 253, 254
Philipot, John 42
Pilcher, Clement 335
Pilcher, David 335
Pilcher, Henry 335
Pilcher, John 334
Pitcher, Isaack 334
Pluckley, brickmaking 134n36, 139 Polhill, cemetery 4
pollen analysis 203–5, 206–7, 209
Polre, Robert 313, 316
pottery
Neolithic, Coxhill Mount 286
Iron Age, Saltwood Tunnel 109, 110
Roman
Appledore 321
Bircholt Farm (Brabourne) 232–3, 232
Canterbury 263, 265
East Wear Bay (Folkestone) 48–57, 49,
51–3, 56
pottery stamps, Roman 51, 54, 56
Preble, Robert 335 Preston
brickmaking 129–30, 135
Davington Hill 130
Preston (Suffolk), royal arms 96n5 Pryer, Mr 143
querns
Iron Age‒Roman 47–8, 57
Roman 230, 230
railways, brick transport 132 Rainham, brickmaking 128, 130, 141
Ralph (mason) 254
Ralph Diceto 253, 258n35 Ralph Picot 250 Ramsgate
archbishop’s visitation 1774 68n14 Cliff’s End Farm, cemetery
Iron Age burials 118
Anglo-Saxon burials 4
coin hoard 234
observations 1774 63 Ranulf de Broc 253 Reginald, friar 149 Reginald of Cornhill 251
Reynolds, Walter, archbishop of Canterbury 152
Richard I, duke of Normandy 309 Richard, archbishop of Canterbury 254 Richard (son of King John) 254 Richard, prior 154
Richard the clerk 316 Richard of Oxford 151
Richardson, T.L., Tudor Sandwich: A Social History, reviewed 346–7
Rigden, Thomas 334 Rigden, Thomas jnr 335 Rigden, W.E. 141
ring ditches, Iron Age 103
River, Coxhill Mount, barrow 284–6, 285
Rivet, Leo 286–7, 289, 290
road, Roman see Watling Street Robert, earl of Gloucester 248 Robert, vicar of Ticehurst 154 Robert of Flanders 249
Robert of Jumièges, archbishop of Canterbury 295
Robert of Mortain 306, 308, 308
GENERAL INDEX
Robert of Torigni 258n35 Robinson, Richerd 335
Robinson, Thomas 35
Robinson family of Mount Morris
Elizabeth (née Drake) 275, 277, 278, 280 Elizabeth (daughter of Matthew) 280 Matthew (1693‒1778) 275–8, 278, 280, 281
Matthew (1713‒1800), 2nd Lord Rokeby 280
Robyn, Joan 189 Rochester
archbishop’s visitation 1774 61
bishops of see Ernulf; Glanville, Gilbert de;
Gundulf; Hamo
castle
masons’ marks 176, 180
and 12th-century royal power 246, 249,
250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255
cathedral, masons’ marks 161–2, 161
architectural history 162–4
biographies 171–4, 173
chronology 174–80, 175, 177, 179
further study 180
methodology 164–7, 164, 165, 166
typology 167–71, 167–8, 170
cathedral priory Bayeux Tapestry 310
chapter replacement 307
manuscript, 11th-century (illus) 293–305, 308, 310
Roger of Howden 253
Rogers, Clement 335
Rogers, John 334
Rogers, Richerd 335
Rogers, Thomas 333
Rolvenden, timber 150
Romney see New Romney; Old Romney Romney, George 69n19
Room, Adrian 290 Ros, William de 253
Rother (Limen), River 148–9, 152, 153, 324
Rucke, Daniell 333
runes 169–70
Rushbrooke (Suffolk), royal arms 85, 85, 95n4 Russell, Michael 67
Rye (Sussex) port 152
St Bartholomew’s hospital 185
St John Hope, William 162–3
St Margaret’s at Cliffe, Townsend Road cemetery
4
Salter, Revd H.E. 214
Saltwood
castle 251, 253, 254, 258n28
St Bartholomew’s hospital 186, 195n14
Saltwood Tunnel, Iron Age burials 99, 100, 102,
103–4, 109, 110, 111
Samson, bishop of Worcester 304
Samuell, James 334
Sandwich
archbishop’s visitation 1774 68n14 Carmelite house 150, 152, 154
church of St Peter 187, 188 Godwin civil war 248 hospitals 187, 190
St Anthony 195n14
St Bartholomew 187–8, 189, 190–2, 194
St John 187, 188, 189, 191, 192–4
St Thomas 188, 191, 194
ship service 250
Sarre, cemetery, disturbed graves 2, 3
backfilling 13–16
dating 10
dimensions 6
grave-goods 18, 19–20
markers 7, 8
Saunder, Henry 335
Saunder, John 334 Saunder, John jnr 335 Saunder, Thomas 334
Saunder, William 335
Sayers, Jane 216
Schetz, Gaspar 94
Scollandus 307
Scot, John 152
Scott, Sir George Gilbert 162, 169
Scott, Jacob H., ‘Rochester Cathedral Masons’ Marks’ 161–82
Scott Brickfield 134
seal, medieval 314, 316–18, 317, 318
Segontiaci 287
Segovax 287
Selden, ‒ 26, 27, 29
Sellindge, Hodiford 42 Sende, Gilbert de 186 Serle, John 192
Seymour, Edward, Lord Protector 89 Sharpe, Moyses 334
Sheerness Railway 137
Shefford, Ros (ed), Minnis Memories and More,
reviewed 347–8
Sheldon, Gilbert, archbishop of Canterbury 37 Sheldwich, Lees Court 68n15
Sherman, William 37 Sherve, Robert 197n63 Similis son of Attus 287 Simon Stock, St 159n9 Sittingbourne
archbishop’s visitation 1774 61
brickmaking 128–31, 132, 133–6, 139–43, 144
Galley Hill, All Saints church 144 Highstead, Iron Age burials 99, 102, 112
Milton, brickmaking 128 Rose Inn 68n9
GENERAL INDEX
Skynner, Henry 196n26 Small Hythe, port 152 Smalwode, Richard 186
Smeed (brickmaker/barge operator), George 131– 2, 134, 135, 136, 144
Smeed Dean & Co. 132, 133, 140, 141, 142, 143
Smith, George 334
Smith, John 186
Smith, Miles 37
Smith, William 333, 334
Soale, Edward 334
Soale, Nicholas 334
Society for Medieval Archaeology 216
Somner family
Barbara (née Dawson) 35, 39, 41, 43 Barbara (daughter of William) 35 Francis 35
John (brother of William) 38–9 John (son of William) 35 William (father of William) 43 William (1606‒69)
arms 38–9, 38
chronology 44
library 41–3
marriage 35
maturity and last years 35–9, 40 restoration of monarchy 36–9 works 44–5, 217
Anglo-Saxon dictionary 25–33 treatise of Gavelkind 33–5
William (son of William) 35 Sondes, Lord 65, 135, 137 Southland family 197n51 Spayne, Austen 334
Spayne, Luke 333
Spayne, William 333
Spelman, Sir Henry 26, 27, 29, 35, 36, 42
Spelman, John 29
Spelman, Roger 29
St-Valéry-sur-Somme (France) 296
Stace, John 186, 334
Stace, Thomas (of Elham) 334 Stace, Thomas (of Hythe) 186
stained and painted glass, Eastry 326–8, 327
Stastney, Phil, ‘Reconstructing the Prehistoric Landscapes of the Littlebrook Power Station Site, Dartford’ 199–212
Stephen 248, 249, 250, 251–2
Stephen le Taillur 313 Stephens, Jeremy 27
Stephens, John 335
Sternefeld, William 154
Stickles, William 335
Stigand, archbishop of Canterbury 295 Stockbury, castle 251
Stokes, Thomas 333
storm, 1287 152
Stowting
castle 251
coin hoard 234
Strood, brickmaking 128 Strood‒Maidstone Railway (unbuilt) 137 Stroud, Thomas 334
Sturdy, John 334
Suddern Farm (Hants), burials 113, 115 Sumner, John Bird, archbishop of Canterbury 39 Suppo of Fruttaria 307
Sutton, Winkland Oakes Farm, bee boles 330 Sutton Valence, castle 251
Swan, John 194
Swanne, Margaret 197n46 Swanyngton, Peter 151
Sweet, Henry 31–2
Sweetinburgh, Sheila, ‘Community Care: Civic Charitable Institutions in the Kentish Cinque Ports, c.1300‒c.1500’ 183–98
swords, Anglo-Saxon, grave-robbed 18–19, 20–1
Sydenham, tunnel 137
Symons, Richerd 334
Symons, William 334
Tann, Peter, ‘The Brickmaking Industry in Kent
c.1825‒1900’ 125–47
Tassell, Mr 135–6
Tatton, Catherine 281
Taximagalus 287
Taylor, Francis 42
Taylor, Silas 35, 42
Telford, Thomas 129
Tenterden, archbishop’s visitation 1774 68n14 Terric the Goldsmith 216–17
Terry (Terric), John 313, 316
Teynham, brickmaking 132, 136, 141
Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury 250, 252, 258n26
Thierry of Flanders 249, 252
Thomas Becket, St 213–15, 217, 250, 251, 252–
3, 319
Thomas de Brokhelle 196n23 Thomas Dover, prior 154 Thomas of Newenden 151 Thomas of Thanet, brother 154 Thorne, William 42
Thurnham, castle 251
Thwaites, Edward 33
Ticehurst (Sussex), clergy 154
tiles, Roman, Bircholt Farm (illus) 226, 227, 230–1, 232–3, 234–8, 239, 240–2
Toller, T.N. 33
Tompson, John 335 Tonbridge
castle 251, 253
Clare family 249, 251
GENERAL INDEX
Tonge, brickmaking 130, 132, 140 Townshend, Caroline see Cornwallis Townshend, Charles, Viscount Townshend 67 Townshend, William 67
trade, Iron Age 48, 50, 53, 57
tribal territories, Iron Age 287–9, 288
Tucker, William 333
Twist, Sydney 142, 144
Twysden, John 157, 158
Twysden, Sir Roger 27, 28, 29, 36, 42
Upchurch, brickmaking 130
Uplees, brickmaking 138
Urry, William 39, 213–19, 218, 313 Urville-Naqueville (France), burials 117
Ussher, James, archbishop of Canterbury 27, 33
Vaughan, Mr 39
Verstegan 43
Vescy, William de 148
villas, Roman see Aldington, Marwood Farm; Folkestone, East Wear Bay
Vossius, Gerard 43 votive deposition, Roman
Appledore 321
Bircholt Farm 233–4, 240, 243
Waller, Thomas 129–30 Walmer, Iron Age burial 103 Waltham, John 152
Wanley, Humphrey 33, 42
Warburton, John 156, 157
Warehorne, rector 150–1 Watling Street, excavations
discussion 269–73, 270, 271, 273
excavation evidence 260–6, 261, 262, 264
interpretation 266–9
Wattes, John 334 Webster & Co. 146n74
Weekes, Jake, ‘Excavations in Westgate Gardens, Canterbury, Revealing the Changing Character of Roman Watling Street, and Durovernum’s Evolving Street Layout’ 260– 74
Wells, James 334
Wells, Sir John 157, 158
Wells, Ould 335
Westclyve, John 191 Westerham
church of St Mary, royal arms 85‒95, 86
Grasshopper 87
manor 88
rectory 88
Weston, Adrian, ‘Republican Dressel I Amphorae from East Wear Bay, Folkestone’ 47–58
Whatly, Stephen 334 wheel rut, Roman 265
Wheeloc, Abraham 26, 27, 30
Whitewood, James 334
Whittington, Richard 191
Wilkie, James 39 William I
Bayeux Tapestry 293, 297, 299, 303, 308, 308
Dover castle 248, 249, 250
William II 249
William (barge) 145n28 William of Avranches 254 William the clerk 150–151 William Fitzstephen 258n28 William of Newburgh 258n35 William Patrick 252, 254
William of Perth, St 163, 180
William of Ypres 249, 251–2
Williams, Cressida, ‘Understanding Becket’s Canterbury: the Legacy of William Urry’ 213–20
Wills & Packham & Co. 141 Wilson, Mr 134
Wilson, Richard 280, 281 Winchelsea (Sussex), hospitals 185 Winston, Giles 43
Wolsey, Cardinal Thomas 88 Wood, Charles 135
Wood, George 334
Wood, William 140
Wood Brickworks 134 Woodcocke, Mr (vicar) 334 Woollet, Daniell 334
Woollett, Ingram 334
Woollett, Richerd 333
Woollett, William 334
Worly, John 333
Worrey, Abraham 334
Wright, David, ‘William Somner (1606‒1669): Part II’ 25–46
Wycliffe, John 183–4, 189
Wythes, George 134, 135, 137
Yarnton (Oxon), burials 113
Yorke, James, bishop of St Davids 59, 61, 62,
63, 65‒6, 67, 68n12
Yorke, Mary (née Maddox) 59–67, 60
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