The deadline for grant applications passed on 29 November. We’re going through the various projects now. Altogether the 13 projects, coming from all over Britain, are asking for over £84,000. They cover not only a wide period of history but also a broad range of topics.
We will not be able to fund as many of these projects as we would like. To help us fund as many of these projects as possible please donate here:
In a little more detail here are the applications we’ve received:
Cainhoe, Bedfordshire: Through various forms of media such as reconstruction drawings, models and generative AI video and prints, the Greensand Trust aims to provide visitors and educational groups with a better understanding of what this motte and bailey castle looked like, the lived experience there and why it is significant.
Canterbury, Kent: To recreate an interactive digital model of the castle’s keep. The keep is one of the largest surviving from early Norman England dating to the late eleventh / early twelfth century. Now much ruined and not accessible to visitors due to instability the digital reconstruction will use the findings of previous archaeological research to create an interactive model.
Castle Sinclair Girnigoe, Caithness: The castle was the principal seat of the Sinclair Earls of Caithness and was built between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The application is to help publish the results of the archaeological research carried out during the emergency stabilisation of the site between 2002-2011. The grant will be to fund both ceramic and clay pipe analysis as well as some illustrations.
Chester, Cheshire: To create reconstructions of the inner and outer wards of Chester Castle as it may have looked in its heyday to add to the one currently being prepared on the Agricola Tower. Chester was one of the major castles of the Welsh Marches and was the base for Edward I’s campaigns in Wales.
Clavering, Essex: To fund an excavation to help understand the development of the site which was occupied for over 600 years and which could be one of the few pre-conquest castles in the UK. The excavation will build on the extensive survey work carried out by the local group of the site.
Cockermouth, Cumbria: Dating from the mid twelfth century this large northern baronial fortress has seen many periods of development but its evolutionary history has never been subject to systematic or formal assessment. The project will focus upon developing a detailed understanding of the physical fabric of the castle’s superstructure.
Cooling, Kent: Co-funding the creation of a model of Cooling Castle gatehouse. The castle gatehouse is scheduled at Grade 1 by Historic England underlining its importance. The Gatehouse was constructed by Thomas Crump on behalf of Sir John de Cobham in the fourteenth century. The design is interesting in that the towers are horseshoe shaped with no apparent back to them and were one of the first places to incorporate gun loops.
Crookston, Glasgow: A community-led geophysical survey, using multiple techniques, through which the Friends of Crookston Castle in conjunction with HES hope to learn more about Glasgow’s only castle. While the standing remains are believed to date from the early fifteenth century, it is believed that the castle dates back to the twelfth century. The group hopes to discover evidence of that earlier history and whether it was based on an earlier Iron Age hill fort.
Dundonald, Ayrshire: To fund a building survey of what is thought to be primarily the late fourteenth century remains of this baronial castle and perhaps reveal any evidence of the early thirteenth century castle. In addition the grant will help fund community outreach to explain the results.
Ellesmere, Shropshire: Geophysical survey of the large motte and bailey castle in Shropshire which prior to June 2024 had never been surveyed before when the large motte was surveyed by GPR which revealed possible buildings. The resistivity and magnetometry surveys would confirm that, as well as survey the rest of the site which played an active part in the Marcher disputes in the reign of Henry III.
Knepp, West Sussex: An excavation building on a geophysical survey to better understand the site’s development and its relationship to the local area of this important baronial centre thought to be built by the de Braose family. The first documentary evidence is from 1210 when it was under royal control, documenting repairs, while the geophysical survey shows activity that pre-dates the extant stone tower.
Picton, Pembrokshire: To create a detailed reconstruction of the castle as it was first built in the early fourteenth century. This will be largely based on the detailed survey work the Trust funded in 2023.
Translation of C17 Dutch Engineer’s Survey of English castles and fortifications: A joint project between Dutch academic Dr Esther Raamsdonk and English Heritage to do a sample translation of five of the 22 castles and fortifications surveyed in a document called SP 9/99, an early seventeenth-century manuscript of a Dutch surveyor’s examination of the sites, held by the National Archives in Kew. The sample will include Dover, Walmer and Deal. The document is filled with detailed drawings and maps of these fortifications with often lengthy descriptions of their condition.
Starting on 8 October 2024, Philip Poucher of Heneb – Dyfed Archaeology (formerly Dyfed Archaeological Trust) will carry out a laser-scan survey of the gatehouse at Leybourne Castle, near Maidstone in Kent. The survey will be supported by a full programme of research by Neil Ludlow who outlines the importance of such a survey.
A small baronial castle, picturesquely sited on a low bluff above the village church, Leybourne has been occupied since it was built in the 11th or 12th century, and is still a private family home. It is not generally open to the public and no structured recording has so far taken place, while no accurate site drawings exist. The work, which is wholly-funded by the Castle Studies Trust, will fill this gap and greatly improve our understanding of this important site.
Fig. 1: Leybourne Castle – the gatehouse from the exterior. Present house to left, latrine turret to right. Copyright Neil Ludlow
Beginning as a circular ringwork of around 0.12 hectares, Leybourne was later given stone defences, with a gatehouse that still dominates the castle. Centuries of alteration have masked much of the rest of the surviving stonework, but the present house – heavily restored during the 1930s in the Arts-and-Crafts manner – is built around the core of the medieval hall and chamber-block. A further building is thought to have been the chapel, while there are the remains of at least one other mural tower.
Fig. 2: Leybourne Castle – the gatehouse from the interior. Latrine turret to left, present house to right. Copyright Neil Ludlow
The date of these works is still uncertain. Our only record is from 1266, when King Henry III granted 4000 freestones to Leybourne’s lord, Roger de Leybourne. They are normally thought to have gone towards the defences, but these are entirely of rubble construction suggesting that the freestone may instead relate to an upgrade of the domestic buildings. So the key to understanding the development of the defences is the gatehouse, which despite alterations through time, and the loss of its rear half, is substantially as built. Nevertheless, its precise form has never been properly established – published accounts are based on drawings produced by Sidney Toy, in 1927, which are somewhat misleading in many important details.
The gatehouse is of unusual design. It has been regarded as transitional between the simple twin-towered gatehouses of the early/mid-13th century and the more complex structures of the late 13th century onwards, but appears to be somewhat later. It is two storeys high, with D-shaped towers flanking a narrow gate-passage that was formerly rib-vaulted. The entry lies beneath a high outer arch and is deeply set back between the towers, characteristics that were both introduced, in Wales, during the 1280s. And the entrance arch lies beneath a horizontal chute outlet, somewhat like a letterbox in outline. This is a feature of debatable function, but which was notably employed at Caerphilly Castle by Gilbert de Clare in the 1270s. In addition, the gatehouse towers are of unequal size and projection, as in the Clare’s gatehouse at Llangibby Castle (Monmouthshire), probably built c.1307-14, while both gatehouses show a D-shaped flanking latrine turret. Incorrectly shown by Sidney Toy, it lies parallel to the towers at Leybourne, unlike Llangibby where it projects at right-angles. And while the arrowloops at Leybourne were restored as fully-oilletted ‘Clare-style’ cross-loops in Toy’s drawings, alteration during the 18th and 19th centuries has in fact masked their original form and the evidence for any original oillets is questionable.
Fig. 3: Leybourne Castle gatehouse – the ‘letterbox’ chute.
So the gatehouse has a highly individual design, which is of international significance. While it may largely be down to personal choice by its patron and master-mason, at least some influence from the Clares is unquestionable. This may have emanated directly from the Clares’ nearby centre at Tonbridge, but Welsh aspects of the Leybourne design may point towards additional input via an intermediate lord such as William de Valence, who also used ‘Clare’ motifs and was very powerful both in Wales and in this part of Kent. At any rate, the combination of features suggests a date long after 1266 and probably in the early 14th century – perhaps under Roger de Leybourne’s son William, or his grandson Thomas, between c.1300 and 1310. However, on current evidence much of this is speculative: these are the key questions the project will seek to answer, in addition to producing survey data.
English Heritage is pleased to be a recipient of a generous grant from the Castle Studies Trust to create a new reconstruction image of Penrith Castle (Cumbria, England). Grant co-awardee Will Wyeth (Properties Historian, English Heritage) discusses this work in the context of the charity’s ambitions for public history.
The castle of Penrith, made of striking red stone, is arranged in four roughly equal ranges bounding a central off-square courtyard. Of the two towers there survives, the Red Tower retains its north-east wall and, and the White Tower a vaulted ground-floor chamber.
Scholarly consensus ascribes three major phases of construction in the castle: a primary phase of the very late 14th century and two 15th-century phases, the latter of which was the more extensive. It is this last phase, credited to Richard Duke of Gloucester, which is the focus of the reconstruction image.
The castle today is thoroughly urban, and sits within a public park popular with residents and visitors alike. There are several panels offering information about the castle, including an aerial reconstruction of the site in the mid-15th century.
The existing reconstruction remains an excellent image. The ranges and towers are carried to full height, the lost courtyard is rebuilt and populated with buildings, while tiny human figures are visible across the site. However, as with many aerial reconstruction images, it has limitations as a device for public history. The image does not aid site orientation for visitors unfamiliar with the ruins or Penrith proper; and life at a human scale is difficult to imagine.
The new reconstruction aimed to address these limitations as well as draw in a further source of guidance. The work of looking after and developing the public history of English Heritage’s properties is supported by a worthy army of volunteers. Penrith Castle is lucky to have one such volunteer, Joanna, who is a true steward of the site’s public history and has led several tours of the castle, gathering feedback on visitors’ responses to it, and the available interpretation. Through Joanna’s experience, we realised we needed a new image, and imagining, of the castle and its everyday inhabitants.
It was necessary to start the process of identifying spaces in the castle from scratch. Several 16th-century surveys mention buildings and spaces with attendant measurements, but the detail is misleading. The missing portions of the site fabric today prohibit confidently identifying spaces such as a hall, chamber, kitchen, accommodations, etc. Certain architectural features survive which can help, but a convincing and comprehensive reconstruction was not achievable.
Figure 3. Buck brothers’ image of Penrith Castle, 1739. The segment of walling on the left with three tall round-headed windows probably depicts a better-surviving portion of the column of stone in Figure 1. In the centre of the image is the tall block (tower?) positioned on the western corner of the castle, now almost completely lost.
Some early images help to locate specific buildings. The Buck image of the castle (1739) illustrates the castle in a more complete state than today – including a complete section of walling where only the reveals and partial window-head of the ‘hall’ survives today – but it also testifies to the presence of a lost tall block positioned on the castle’s west corner (Figure 4).
The great hall was identified by the tall windows in Bucks’ image. This is an unorthodox position. It was unusual for a great hall to be positioned so close to the formal entrance to the castle (in the hall’s primary phase, positioned at the east end of the south range; in Gloucester’s time, just west of the hall). The kitchens which serviced it were also on the other side of the enclosure.
Other ideas were mooted. The presence of a chapel identified with some confidence at the upper level of the east corner of the castle precluded identification with this space in that capacity (see Figure 1). It is possible the three-windowed space was a private or state chamber. While feasible, this pushes the necessity of a great hall elsewhere in the castle where there is not space for it. The high wall outer wall of the surviving south-east range has few outer windows of any significance; the south-west range was, it would seem, dominated by the large tower depicted in the Bucks’ image and resting upon masonry identified with Gloucester’s work; while the north-west range in Gloucester’s time had a number of fireplaces at ground floor whose flues would rise through a first-floor hall set above them, making this alternative, hypothetical arrangement unlikely. For want of alternatives the present consensus, that that hall was in the positioned identified by the Bucks’ three-window wall, is probably correct.
The new image was developed in collaboration with artist Pete Urmston from an existing photograph (Figure 4, left). This captured several parts of the site which we wanted to reconstruct – the great hall with access stairs, Red Tower and parts of the Gloucester-era gatehouse. It incorporates the part of the castle most familiar to passers-by – the Red Tower – and an assemblage of standing features which in general visitors find difficult to understand. This perspective also granted greater flexibility to create scenes of human interaction in the foreground of the image which might populate the castle and convey a sense of Penrith’s medieval community.
Figure 4. Base photograph used for reconstruction (top); first draft of reconstruction (bottom). Note the column of stone on the left image with window reveals is replicated (rebuilt) on the right.
The process of reconstruction begins with a line sketch superimposed upon the base photograph (Figure 4), and hereafter a sequence of amendments and insertions ultimately leads to the final image (Figure 5). The cutaway into the great hall, and beyond into the Red Tower, gives some sense of the grandeur and scale of lost interiors. The clerestory in the hall, inferred from antiquarian sketches and some degree of analogy with that at Middleham Castle, is defined by windows set on a wall carried by a projecting corbel table. A two-door timber screen of late 15th-century design covers off the lower part of the hall. The window-heads of the gatehouse first-floor echo surviving dressed stone fragments found at Penrith.
Perhaps most significantly, the castle is populated with a scene from its tenure by Richard of Gloucester – a meeting of castle staff with tenants and poor folk to hear pleas. A single figure who is attested at the castle and whose presence would be in keeping with a day-to-day scene in castle life in the late 15th-century is represented: Sir Christopher Moresby, depicted on the far left standing with a staff and wearing a green coat (Figure 6).
Moresby supervises under-stewards seated on stools and by a trestle table. Just in front of the restored stair block where a figure descends, painted in Gloucester’s colours of white and blue, are two boys sweeping the yard (Figure 7). Their attention has been captured by a black and white cat standing on top of some barrels. Behind them, through the cutaway, are two figures in the hall basement. One is just entering while the other is sampling (perhaps illicitly) the stores of ale.
In the hall at first floor are three parallel scenes: well-dressed figures are assembled on a long bench and trestle table in the hall proper. A woman enters the screened area at the low end of the hall from the buttery in the first floor of the Red Tower, visible through the inner cutaway. Leaning upon the sole standing piece of wall that survives in this space today, two servants are bringing down a blue hanging.
The new reconstruction aims to place the people of Penrith Castle at the centre of its re-imagination, while bringing back its lost buildings and interiors. In time the image will feature on a new panel scheme in the castle. In the immediate short-term, Joanna the volunteer is already armed with the image and sharing the new light it brings to the castle with visitors.
On Saturday, 24 August, the Higgins Museum in Bedford hosts an event to mark eight centuries since the town’s castle was subject to an 8-week long siege by the army of the teenage King Henry III (booking details at the end). Dr Peter Purton, FSA, outlines what happened in the siege.
Not much remains now of Bedford Castle – just a degraded and much altered mound near the river Great Ouse in the town centre and a few excavated fragments of stone buildings, making it hard to visualise that it was once a large stone-built fortress with a moat, barbican, two wards and a stone tower on top of the motte which marked the original castle built after the Norman Conquest. A display board nearby reconstructs its possible appearance in 1224.
Image of display board showing how Bedford might have looked in 1224
In that year, Henry III was assembling an army which was to be transported to France in an attempt to recover Poitou, part of the once extensive Angevin empire. This plan unravelled with the rebellion of Fawkes de Breauté. Fawkes had been one of the captains of King John, Henry’s father, and had become rich and powerful. He had been granted Bedford castle and we are told that he had strengthened the fortifications to make it “impregnable”. Rebelling against the crown, he prudently left the country while leaving Bedford in the hands of his brother, who in arresting the justices sent there by the king made it inevitable that he would face royal retribution: this was a direct insult to royal authority and following years of civil war and rebellion following John’s reign, there was no possibility that it could be ignored. The royal army, assembling conveniently nearby at Northampton, was diverted to Bedford. What happened next was recorded in several contemporary chronicles while royal expenditure was detailed in surviving accounts, a combination of evidence which is rare enough and which allows an unusually detailed reconstruction of the siege.
The royal army deployed seven stone-throwing engines (mangonels and petraries) and built two siege towers but the garrison resisted stoutly and inflicted heavy casualties on the attackers. Eventually the barbican and outer ward were breached and captured by royal soldiers then miners, summoned from the Forest of Dean, brought down the wall of the inner bailey and did the same with the tower on the motte, to which the defenders had withdrawn. The prisoners were set free and the entire garrison was hanged as punishment for their rebellion. The castle was then demolished. A period of instability in England was thereby ended, but so too was English rule in Poitou, the French capturing La Rochelle at the same time as Bedford was being besieged.
These events were therefore of international as well as national significance, and through archaeology, it is possible to now know much more about Bedford castle. All these themes will be discussed at the conference on 24 August, the speakers are Professor David Carpenter, expert and author specialising in this period, Dr James Petre who has written about Bedford, Ben Murtagh who has been exploring Bedford Castle, Jeremy Oetgen (Albion Archaeology) who will update us on a long history of archaeology on the site, and the author of this blog who will place the siege in the context of contemporary siege warfare.
Anyone interested in attending can find all the details and book a ticket at the museum website: www.thehigginsbedford.org.uk. Tickets cost £15 and advance booking is encouraged.
Project lead, Steve Parry, looks at what he and the team from MoLA and the Higham Ferrers Archaeology and Research Society hope to achieve during their geophysical survey of the once royal castle of Higham Ferrers starting on Monday 15 July 2024.
Walking through the streets of Higham Ferrers you’d be forgiven for thinking that you are looking at a pretty but provincial town. However, documentary records reveal that Higham Ferrers once played a role on the national stage. During the Middle Ages it had a substantial stone-built castle which served as the headquarters of the extensive Northamptonshire landholdings of the Duchy of Lancaster and from 1399, became a possession of the Crown. This castle, which was also the manor, would have been the focal point of the medieval town along with other fine nearby buildings including the Church of St Mary, the School House, the Bede House or hospital and the College founded by Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury before 1425. While these other buildings have survived to the present day the castle fell into disuse and was demolished in the early sixteenth century, with Henry VIII granting building materials from the site for the rebuilding of Kimbolton Castle. John Norden’s map of 1591 shows the site of the castle (‘b’) as broken masonry and uneven ground adjacent to the church, and all that now remains are a ruined dovecote, fishponds, and rabbit warren.
A detail of John Norden’s Map of Higham Ferrers 1591
Thanks to a generous grant from the Castle Studies Trust, Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA), will work with Finham Heritage and members of the Higham Ferrers Archaeology and Research Society (HiFARS) to reveal Higham Ferrers’ royal connections through a series of geophysical surveys. We will use a magnetometer to identify any substantial ditches around the castle, as well as the buried remains of internal features such as robbed-out walls, hearths, and pits. Alongside this, the team will use ground penetrating radar to locate the principal buildings of the castle confirming (or denying!) what our documentary sources tell us – that this substantial medieval building included a hall, chapel, tower house, King’s and Queen’s Chambers, not forgetting three substantial gates. Finally, a resistivity survey will be undertaken, with the particular support of HiFARS members, to provide further detailed information on any buried wall foundations or other structural remains. The surveys will be undertaken in the various plots shown in this photograph from the 1980s extending from the church (top centre) to the small wood (bottom left-hand corner).
Aerial photograph of Higham Ferrers NCC9668_004 Reproduced by permission of Northamptonshire HER
Together with the documentary sources, the geophysical surveys will, we hope, shed light on the evolution of the site by:
Seeking evidence of a late Saxon and early medieval manor pre-dating the construction of the castle.
Testing the widespread assumption that a motte and bailey castle was built by William Peveril, who held the manor in 1086.
Attempting to map the layout of the late medieval stone castle.
The findings of the surveys will be considered alongside those of limited excavations in 1992, to see how the castle and its associated buildings fit within the development of Higham Ferrers from a Saxon administrative centre to medieval market town. The results and conclusions will be shared via a public lecture and published as a report on the Castle Studies Trust website.
We had found it quite difficult since Monday to find the cut of the ditches from the natural, despite the clarity of their profile from outside of the trenches. While we had the JCB back on site, we thought it would be worthwhile to cut a little deeper into the ditch cuts on both Trench 1 and Trench 2 to determine more about them and their relationship to each other. Certainly, in Trench 1, we seem to have been able to find the extent of the cut and were able to record its measurements and draw sketches which will help us better interpret the nature of the earthworks as a whole. From this, it would appear that the mound was predominantly natural but had been reworked with an accompanying ditch cut around its perimeter.
Again, with the aid of our JCB, we set to work backfilling the two trenches and making sure that the site was returned as much to the state it had been in prior to our arrival. After the welfare unit had been collected, we packed up the car with our equipment, and ensured that the finds would be safely transported back to the office ready for the next phase of our project. We also had a visit from the farmer who was able to point out some other features on the broader site that he had been aware, including a much smaller mound to the north in the adjacent field which had existed until it had been ploughed out some years before.
Now that the fieldwork has been completed, we hope to bring you more information in the coming weeks about what we have found. We are hoping that the picture will become clearer in the post-excavation phase, but Newhouse has undoubtedly proven to be a site even more intriguing than we had first thought it to have been.
Figure 1: Digging deeper into the ditch cut in Trench 1Figure 2: The ditch profile in Trench 1Figure 3: Trench 1 and Trench 2 were both backfilled before the end of the day
Dr Ryan Prescott updates us on what happened on day four of their dig
Today we have resumed our efforts in Trench 1.
The two features that garnered our attention in day three required more investigation, so we set to work to try and find the underlying cause of what was going on. We had managed to recover the pot from Trench 1 yesterday, and it remains safely packed for analysis but today we focused on the feature in the centre of the trench where the piece of leather had been found. At first, it seemed that the find had been sitting on a bed of charcoal. However, upon closer inspection (and much more digging!) it revealed to be a deposit of textile material which has remarkably survived and will provide a fantastic source of dating evidence, together with the pot. Small fragments of medieval pottery were also identified in both Trench 1 and Trench 2, as well as further pieces of flint and small animal bone.
Before the end of the day, we also had a visit from the Lincolnshire Historic Environment Record, as well as Peter Connelly from Humber Field Archaeology and showed our visitors what we had found so far. We have all been sharing our interpretations on what we believe may have happened at Newhouse and we have all agreed that the site is far more complex than anticipated. Previous research on the site had only acknowledged its medieval history, chiefly the construction of the abbey on the site of an ‘Anarchy’ period castle. However, it does seem that the mound may have had a much longer pedigree of human occupation which would have been an attractive prospect for Peter of Goxhill who was only too aware of the castles and monasteries which were being founded by nearby lords at Barrow and Barton upon Humber, and was keen to emulate their efforts. We are hoping that the picture will become clearer in the post-excavation phase, but Newhouse certainly has an important story to tell.
We have one more day to wrap up our work at Newhouse for this year, but we have much more work to do before we leave site, so it is shaping up to be a busy day.
Ryan Prescott gives an update on what happened on the first day of digging at Newhouse
The first day of our excavations at Newhouse has provided some promising results already. This week we are excavating two trenches across the earthwork identified last year from geophysical survey (please look at our aims for this year on the CST Blog).
Trench 1 was swiftly opened with the aid of our JCB. It was hoped that this trench would help corroborate twelfth-century sources that a castle had existed prior to Newsham Abbey, founded here during ‘the Anarchy’. This trench was excavated diagonally from the west to the south-east of the earthwork in order to cut across two of its sides. However, we decided to extend our work in this trench with a perpendicular channel to the southern boundary. At a length of over 40m and 2m wide, the trench has yielded large quantities of flint, some of which appears to have been worked. We have also recovered evidence of burning and pottery finds which we will investigate further as the week progresses.
Figure 1: Trench 1 looking south.
To provide more comprehensive insight into the nature of this three-sided earthwork, Trench 2 was dug across the eastern side of the raised platform and extends from its middle into the ditch on this side at a length of around 25m, slightly longer than initially planned. At first, this trench appeared to show little of interest. Undeterred, we decided to dig deeper into the ditch, and much like in Trench 1, it is clear from this that the earthwork would have been higher than the remains which are left behind. We plan to dig deeper into this later in the week. We cleaned the rest of this trench and discovered a masonry slab, hoping to have a better view of any potential finds and features on our second day when we return to focus on this trench.
Figure 2: Trench 2 looking west with a view of the masonry slab found there.Figure 3: The ditch being opened up in Trench 2 looking east
We are excited to see what the second day of the excavations reveals and will be posting updates as soon as we can.
In Week Fourth and final week of the Lowther Medieval Castle and Village Project 2024, the team moved into the UCLan labs. This crucial phase allows us to draw together the evidence we’ve collected last year and this, from the recording of trenches to the analysis of soil samples.
A major part of this process is the transfer of trench plans onto a Geographic Information System (GIS). During excavations, the dig team thoroughly recorded the contents of trenches in situ. This included the painstaking task of drawing the cobbled surfaces found inside the ringwork castle at 1:20 scale. Now, these hand drawings are transferred to the GIS and the outline of every cobblestone is traced digitally so that the archaeological contexts within the trenches be plotted with pinpoint accuracy.
Figure 1 Both last year and this, student archaeologists painstakingly recorded by hand the contents of all trenchesFigure 2 With hand drawings of trenches transferred to the project GIS, each component of the drawing needs to be traced digitally
Meanwhile, the team is also plotting onto the GIS hundreds of data points from around the ringwork castle taken using a Global Positioning System (GPS). This allows us to create a three-dimensional digital model of the ringwork castle, in order to investigate its form and plot the positioning and contents of trenches from this year and last, building up our picture of the castle, its features and finds.
Figure 3 Taking hundreds of data points via the GPS enables the team to construct a 3D digital model of the ringwork castleFigure 4 Trenches from both phases of excavation can be plotted onto the 3D model of the ringwork castle using the GIS
While one cohort of student archaeologists has been busy in the computer labs, another has been hard at work processing soil samples. Throughout the excavation, the team has been collecting bulk soil samples of 40 litres from all trenches. These samples have now been processed using water flotation, in order to recover charred plant remains, as well as small bones and artefacts. This has so far yielded environmental evidence such as tiny snail shells, which can be analysed to reconstruct the surrounding environment at the time the ringwork castle was built.
Figure 5 Dozens of soil samples have been processed using water flotationFigure 6 Soil sample processing yields environmental evidence, such as tiny snail shells
Now that Phase Two investigations are drawing to a close, the team has also been able to take stock of the small finds garnered this year. As discussed in our last Dig Diary, this year’s finds have included cockle shells and gritty ware pottery, both of which will help us to date the castle and trace activity at Lowther in the Middle Ages. This builds on intriguing earlier finds this year of animal bones, including an articulated fetlock (discussed in our first Dig Diary this year). We can now add to this a bone bead, small but delicately carved, which looks to be dateable to the Middle Ages.
Figure 7 A small carved bone bead found during this year’s excavation
Work on analysing these finds – and the broader phase of analysis – is ongoing, and will be compiled into the project’s second interim report in due course.
Jo Kirton and Graeme Young, co-director of the Bamburgh Research Project (BRP) outlines what happened during their 2023 season and what the CST funded part of the research at this iconic castle revealed.
Throughout July 2023 BRP staff ran our annual field school at Bamburgh Castle, which is currently exploring the medieval outworks at the northern tip of the castle. We also welcomed several experts to site, funded by our CST grant, to undertake complementary survey alongside our excavation.
Historic Building Consultant Peter Ryder joined us to undertake a preliminary masonry survey of the extant outworks while Tony Liddel from Vindomora Solutions created several 3D models of the standing outworks and internal structures of Elmund’s Tower and our associated trenches. Dr Kristian Strutt and his team from the University of Southampton undertook a geophysical survey of the castle ditch and explored how this interacts with the outworks, as well as identifying related features and access ways to St Oswald’s Gate. BRP staff and students worked with the team, trying their hand at GPR, resistivity and magnetometry.
The reports from the masonry and geophysical survey, plus the associated3D models have now been completed and incorporated into the BRP’s Interim Report on Work on the Outworks Beyond St Oswald’s Gate. This is a summary.
Background
The Bamburgh Research Project (BRP) was set up in 1996-97 to undertake archaeological investigation of Bamburgh Castle and its environs. The area immediately within St Oswald’s Gate was investigated in an effort to identify early elements of the fortification and structures associated with the entrance; documentary evidence indicates that this gate was the principal, and perhaps only, entrance to the fortress in the 8th century AD and likely remained such until the main gate was relocated to its present position in the 12th century.
The rock outcrop on which Bamburgh Castle stands is comprised of volcanic dolerite that rises some 30m above the external ground surface. The surface of the plateau is c.3 hectares in area. It undulates in height, sloping downwards from the Inner Ward area at the south-east, which reaches 45m OD, to the north-west end of the West Ward where St Oswald’s Gate lies. Here a natural cleft in the bedrock on the landward side leads out and down the slope of the plateau. This has formed a natural route up to the summit from earliest times bridging, if awkwardly, the height difference between the West Ward at some 22m above sea level and the surrounding ground surface that lay at 13m OD. St Oswald’s Gate is written about as the entrance to the fortress of Bamburgh in the 8th century AD (Symeon HK, III. pg 37) and was very likely the earliest route up onto the rock plateau.
The present phase of work began in the summer of 2021. We are investigating the entrance, the access routes up to the entrance and the structures and outworks built to control this route over many generations. One area of focus was the recovery of the site of the Tower of Elmund’s Well, named in records from the 13th century (Colvin, H. M. 1973, 556) and onto which a cottage was constructed in the late 18th century.
The plan outline of the cottage/tower structure was quickly revealed during the first phase of investigation by the removal of foliage and a modest volume of aeolian sand. One of the first exciting discoveries during the 2022 excavation was the presence of two splayed lights (open window-like features) in two of the walls.
Figure 1: Aerial photo of the outworks with the cottage/tower seen in the top right corner. The steps that lead back to St Oswald’s Gate, through the Wing Wall, at the bottom of the photo. Facing west. Copyright Bamburgh Research Project
The elements of the cottage are now exposed fully in plan and when interpreted alongside the available cartographic evidence would suggest that the entrance was re-aligned due to the build-up of sand deposits in the area that have been slowly burying the standing structures during the post-medieval period. Two short flights of more recent stairs, each turning through a right angle, lead to a long straight set of stairs of older character and showing substantial wear, that extended down through the arch to the basement of the tower where we know from cartographic evidence the well was once present, in what is now a basement room. Here excavation must be getting close to the floor level and some four phases of build are seen in the exposed walls that now reach almost two storeys. The lower two of these phases are likely to be elements of the medieval tower and the upper, by default, phases of the cottage that was built on and into the tower from the 18th century.
There was further work on the postern gate that lies beyond St Oswald’s Gate that leads out to the village which had been subject to limited survey and excavation in previous seasons. Continued excavation immediately behind the wall that leads back to the castle rock has uncovered more of the structure. We intended to uncover more of the wall, recover some datable finds and identify the level from which it was constructed. The structure as uncovered is a single well-constructed feature of coursed squared masonry that ended abruptly and deliberately short of the rock. A further constructed face abutted the bedrock and the gap between the two faces is a little more than 1m wide, forming what must have been a second gate. The eastern of the two is likely the earlier of them and must have led to a timber stair as it is well above ground level. The western, that is currently still in use, may have replaced it as more practical as it is closer to ground level, though still reached by stairs, the current version of which appear to be late post-medieval. This wall extends well to the west where a form of it turns to the north towards the tower/cottage. All the elements that are currently exposed appear to be late in date and the medieval wall must lie beneath the current ground level.
In 2023 we opened Trench 5E, sited outside of the wall with the postern gate and the outworks. It was placed next to a short length of wall that we investigated last season to see if it had once extended further. It has revealed a stone alignment that extends parallel to the two standing walls. Those of the outworks and the short wall length. So far only the upper level has been uncovered, so it is possible that it could be either a wall top or a foundation or the surface of a narrow path.
Work supported by funding from the CST
CST funded BRP to undertake additional non-invasive survey work to offer additional context to the excavation outlined above. Initially, and to better frame the results of the geophysics and limited excavation a walk over study was undertaken by BRP and Peter Ryder. This aimed to provide a description of the standing structures in their historical context, as they are currently understood and was supported by selected areas of photogrammetry survey.
St Oswald’s Gate itself extends out through the curtain wall to the landward side at the northern end of the castle. It passes through a vaulted tunnel to the gate and appears to represent two phases of medieval build with a third – post-medieval – phase represented by internal and external refacing, likely of the late 18th century.
One of the most enigmatic features is the Wing Wall (W2 (see Figure 2) that forms a partial barrier to the route down from the gate. It appears to be one of the older elements of the defences with at least four phases of masonry (see Figure 3) and is relatively narrow compared to the later medieval defensive walls, such as the South Wall (W2) that cuts and post-dates it. It also contains an unusual arched doorway of early form that may be reused from elsewhere.
Figure 2: The northern extent of Bamburgh Castle showing the site of the outworks and the silted tidal port. Copyright Bamburgh Research ProjectFigure 3: The narrow ‘Wing Wall’ showing the narrow archway and multiple phases of construction, facing north-west Copyright Bamburgh Research Project
The south Wall (W1 and W3) comprised at least two build elements that joined with an overlapping joint. The wall as we now know through excavation had two postern gates that would have led to the village.
In addition to the masonry and photogrammetry survey, Dr Kristian Strutt undertook magnetometry, resistivity and Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) survey of areas of the Cricket Ground to the west of Bamburgh Castle. The results indicate the possible presence of a large ditch, some 45m across, immediately to the west of the outcrop, in addition to trackways, walls and other features.
Figure 4: GPR survey under way across the Cricket Ground using an Impulse Raptor 8-channel system and GPS (photo: K. Strutt)
One of the principal questions we were hoping to address with the geophysics was if the castle ditch extended across the sports field at the base of the castle rock. A ditch cut through sandstone can been traced in the area of the modern entrance that is at the site of the 12th century gate. This feature extends across the front of the castle as far as the sandstone ridge. The results of the GPR seem to strongly indicate a large feature in the area where we would anticipate the castle ditch to be and the magnetometry and resistance surveys seem to support this. It is intended to conduct further fieldwork, starting with coring, to confirm this.
In addition, several features seen on the 1865 1st Edition Ordnance Survey (Accessed via National Library of Scotland online 23/04/2024) appear to be picked up on the surveys. Two trackways are evident, that lead to St Oswald’s Gate and to a cleft in the castle rock called the ‘Miller’s Nick’, which allowed people to scramble up to the West Ward in the 19th century. The second is an S-shaped path that meandered towards the area of St Oswald’s Gate, perhaps originally skirting around the edge of the ditch feature. One further route-way or path extends across the field parallel to the road in the village to the south, called the Wynding, that appears from records to have had a medieval origin. This path runs alongside a linear plot boundary and field boundaries and it will be interesting to see if more can be made from a number of anomalies within the enclosure areas to the south and west of the plot.
The resistivity and ground penetrating radar surveys so far cover a more limited area, due to time constraints and public access. There is an area of low resistance that lies just where the ditch would lie and matches up to the path towards the Miller’s Nick. The enclosure areas picked up in the magnetometry to the south-west also seems to be present on the resistivity. Notably, there is a high resistance feature that the S-shaped pathway may curve deliberately to avoid at the south part of the plot. A further T-shaped high resistance feature is present in the north-east extending from the area of the modern pavilion that will bear further study. The GPR further reinforces the presence of some of these features and indicates some depth to the anomaly that is interpreted as the ditch, though the signal attenuates before it could indicate a true depth.
Together, the on-going excavation and non-invasive survey work undertaken in 2023 are providing us with the opportunity to better understand the castle outworks, north of the castle, and the wider environs in which they were situated. That this area of the castle was its original entrance, and for a time gave access to a modest port, ensures that there is much yet to be discovered and understood.
Interim Report
If you would like to read more about the excavation, masonry survey & 3D models and/or the results of the geophysical survey with accompanying discussion, please take a look at
Ryder, P. 2024. Preliminary Assessment of the Standing Masonry Elements: St Oswald’s Gate, the Western Outwork and St Elmund’s Well Tower, Bamburgh Castle, Unpublished Report
Strutt, K and Barker, D. 2024. Report on the Geophysical Survey at Bamburgh, Northumberland, July 2023Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton: Unpublished Report
Symeon, H. K. Historia regum Anglorum et Dacorum (trans. J. Stevenson), 1858, Church Historians of England
