Additional Lecture

 

We are delighted to add an extra lecture evening to the Spring series. Stephen Dean (Principal Archaeologist, SCC) has kindly agreed to visit SOTMAS and talk to us about field walking, using the latest Hammerwich/Hoard site as an example.  He will also be updating us about the latest Hoard finds.

This lecture will be given in the usual place (see our lectures page for more information) on Friday 24th May 2013 at 7:30 pm.

 

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Before we get started with our field work this year, I am taking the opportunity to complete our record of what we did in 2012. First, our surveys at ...

 

 Audley's Moat, Endon

 

In August 2012 we returned to this site which we had surveyed some years previously, carrying out contour and resistivity surveys. This time we did magnetometry as well as resistivity surveys.

Tradition associates the site with a hall, the seat of Henry, Lord Audley.

Henry had a chapel and chantry in Endon and sometime between 1214 and 1219 he obtained a licence, from the bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, to have his children baptised in the chapel. John Sleigh's History of Leek (1862), quoting an earlier source, says of Henry Lord Audley "[his] seat, as appears from this licence, was at Endon, upon that spot of ground in the way between Endon and Park-Lane, as is most likely, though there be now no remains of any building, nor anything but some signs of a moat."

Here is what the site looks like now (photo by Dave Thomas - click to enlarge it)

 

 

For a more detailed account, more pictures, a link to Sleigh's history as well as the full survey data and report, follow this link to our Audley's Moat page (or go via the Fieldwork and Trips menu on the left)

 

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Happy New Year!

 

We wish all our members and visitors a very happy and prosperous 2013!

 

Spring 2013 Lecture Programme

 

Details of our Spring 2013 Lectures have now been confirmed, and you can see them here (or via the Lectures link in the main menu to the left).

 

Field Walking in the Staffordshire Hoard field

 

At the end of November 2012, the Society were invited to help field walk the field where the Staffordshire Hoard was found. We were asked to look for any evidence of non-modern human occupation. The field had recently been ploughed, and a team of metal detectorists had already been over the field looking for any remaining fragments of the hoard. We had been asked to keep the activity and our involvement secret, but since the results have now been announced on the BBC as well as in the press, both local and national, I feel I am now at liberty to mention it here!

 

Here are some pictures of the field on the day I was there (the Society were there over two days). Click on a picture to enlarge it.

 

 

 

 

I found a few shards of pottery and a couple of clay pipe stems, but nothing older that 18th C, certainly nothing Anglo-Saxon. Unlike the metal detectorists who had had rather more success, as reported on the BBC (here and here) and in the local and national press.

 

The following day, Winston found a flint scraper (pictures below) so maybe there was previous occupation - but rather earlier than Anglo-Saxon! One of the Archaeology Warwickshire team (who were leading the operation) found a piece of silver foil in that part of the field near to where the hoard was originally found.

 

 

 It is extremely unlikely that any more hoard fragments remain to be found after this intensive search.

 

7th January 2013

 

Pictures in this item by (from the top): David Thomas, John Winch, Bryn Gethin (2)

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Opening Dates for 2013

 

The dates of the actual Friday evenings on which the rooms in the Museum will be available for our use next year have now been confirmed, and you can see them here.

 

We are currently arranging the Spring 2013 Lecture Programme for the first few of these Fridays, and when these have been confirmed I will post the details here.

 

3rd December 2012

 

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Roman Shoes Report - Update

The Royal Archaeological Institute have accepted our report about the Roman shoes we found in the well at Tollgate Farm (see item below), and here it is as it appears on their Diamond Jubilee web page.  The Institute have created this web page in honour of their patron, Her Majesty The Queen, and they are inviting reports from local archaeology societies to mark their proudest archaeological or historical achievements of the past 60 years. Read all about it here, where you can follow links to all the submitted reports.

For more pictures of our Roman shoe finds, follow the links from "Fieldwork and Trips" in the menu (on the left) to "Tollgate Farm" and then "Roman Shoes", or go directly to this page.

 

6th November 2012

 

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Roman Shoes Report

 

 

Dave Thomas and Maureen Thomas have written this short report about the roman shoes we found in the Tollgate Farm well. We will be submitting this report to the Royal Archaeological Institute for them to host on their Queen's Diamond Jubilee web page. Submissions will be judged in early 2013, and the best awarded a prize. Watch this space for further news! (see above)

 

8th October 2012

 

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Lectures Autumn/Winter 2012

 

Our programme of 4 lectures covering October and November this year can be found via the "Lectures" link in the menu on the left. There are no lectures in December, as the museum rooms are not available for us that month.

The lecture programme for the beginning of next year is in preparation, and will be posted here when it is available.

 

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Norbury Manor: Survey data and full report

 

Winston Hollins, our Dig Director, has completed his report of the geophysical surveys we carried out at Norbury Manor earlier this year, as mentioned below.

His report, together with files containing all the survey data, can be downloaded from our Norbury Manor page in "Fieldwork and Trips".

 

8th October 2012

 

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Return to Cox Bank Farm 2012

 

This May, we returned to Cox Bank Farm to carry out an excavation on the site of the suspected burnt mound, which we investigated in two small trial trenches this time last year. We confirmed that there was indeed a burnt mound at this location, despite there being no longer any watercourse nearby. We found heat-shattered stones, charcoal, a fossil, and possibly a post hole. For more words and pictures, go to the Coxbank 2012 page (you can also find this page via the Fieldwork & Trips menu to the left).

   

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Survey at Norbury Manor

 

Towards the end of April and into May 2012, we carried out magnetometry and resistivity surveys of a moated platform at Norbury Manor, just to the east of Norbury. Early in the 14th Century, Ralph Butler (or Ralph de Botiller) built a moated manor house here. By the early 19th Century it was in a "ruinous state" and in 1838 it was demolished, much of the stone being used to construct a new house slightly to the south. Here is a view of the moated site now - we are marking out the site for the magnetometry survey.

 

 
For more pictures, a full report, and survey data, go to our Norbury Manor page. You can also reach this page through the Fieldwork and Trips menu on the left.

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The news which previously appeared on the rest of this page related to 2011, and can now be found by following the "More News" link below. Details of all the fieldwork and reports mentioned there can be found via the "Fieldwork and Trips" menu, above.