{"id":766,"date":"2019-08-05T17:28:54","date_gmt":"2019-08-05T16:28:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/?p=766"},"modified":"2020-04-22T17:27:18","modified_gmt":"2020-04-22T16:27:18","slug":"the-shrewsbury-castle-excavation-end-of-dig-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/2019\/08\/05\/the-shrewsbury-castle-excavation-end-of-dig-report\/","title":{"rendered":"The Shrewsbury Castle excavation: end of dig report"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The investigations funded by the Castle Studies Trust at Shrewsbury Castle, one of the most important castles along the Anglo-Welsh border have now finished. Dr Nigel Baker reveals the preliminary findings of those investigations.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the dig began two weeks ago, our geophysics survey showed (with complete accuracy as it turned out) a spread of hard material just under the grass directly opposite the castle hall \u2013 possibly the remains of demolished buildings. Almost immediately the turf was off it became apparent that the hard material was not rubble but a low ridge of gravel, curving slightly as it headed south towards the main gate. Cut into this road surface (as we took it to be) were round, flat-bottomed topsoil-filled cuts, probably Victorian and later flower beds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Excavating\nthrough the gravel immediately revealed further, cleaner gravel, that appeared\nto be of natural\/geological origin; further testing demonstrated that all the\ngravel was natural \u2013 the natural\/geological top of the hill. It had been\nlevelled, planed-off horizontally, in the fairly recent past, possibly in 1925-6\nwhen the castle was restored, and any archaeological layers or building remains\nabove the gravel would have been removed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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However, at the east end of the trench the gravel was found dug away at a 45-degree angle by a single, massive cut, with medieval pottery in the soil within it. The cut was recognised as the edge of the great defensive ditch that formerly encircled the base of the Norman motte. This would have been about 12 metres wide; the geophysics suggests there was probably a bridge over it, just north of the excavation, opposite the present hall entrance. The objects found in the ditch include pottery \u2013 cooking pots and glazed jugs \u2013 from the period roughly 1100-1400, and a large quantity of animal bone from food waste. There were also two arrow heads or crossbow-bolt heads, both of the \u2018bodkin\u2019 type: sharp, square-edged heavy points designed to penetrate armour and clearly for military use rather than hunting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The principal conclusion of the excavation was that, when the castle was first built by the Normans in or just before 1069, the motte, with its defensive ditch, was enormous, and the inner bailey was tiny \u2013 it was little more than an extra layer of fortification wrapped around the approach up to the motte. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The investigations funded by the Castle Studies Trust at Shrewsbury Castle, one of the most important castles along the Anglo-Welsh border have now finished. Dr Nigel Baker reveals the preliminary findings of those investigations. Before the dig began two weeks ago, our geophysics survey showed (with complete accuracy as it turned out) a spread of … Continue reading The Shrewsbury Castle excavation: end of dig report<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":768,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[130,9],"tags":[128],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=766"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":773,"href":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766\/revisions\/773"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}