Author: Erik Matthews

Erik is currently Field Officer of the Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland responsible for organising and co-ordinating the Society’s Fieldwork activities. This has enabled him to fully develop his interest in the Archaeology of the Late Medieval Elite Residence with a detailed survey of the tower house site at Lammerside Castle in Mallerstang Cumbria (former Westmoreland), on-going project to excavate the Late Medieval Pleasaunce and earlier Manorial site at Hornby Castle in Wensleydale North Yorkshire. He is also Archaeological Advisor to the Sockburn Hall Project near Darlington Co Durham.

Kirkby Fleetham Castle- Hidden Hunting Lodge in the Vale of York

The earthwork site at Kirkby Fleetham just to the east of the A1 near Bedale in North Yorkshire is generally taken to be the hunting lodge given a licence to crenellate for Henry Le Scrope in 1308. However, recent finds in an adjacent domestic garden together with a reappraisal of the surviving documentary evidence give a more nuanced picture of life at the site.

Work in the garden of a house directly to the north east in Spring 2019 has located the foundations of a coursed rubble stone wall approximately 1.3 metres wide with a series of looped windows, an internal mortar floor and traces of external white rendering. Traces of a cobbled yard have also been identified running between it and the castle earthworks to the south west. It has yielded a range of pottery including body sherds from Humberware jugs of the 14^th Century along with several sherds of Cistercian ware from the early 16^th Century. What is also significant is the volume of material dating to the Late 11^th/12^th Century including Coarse Sandy Gritty Wares from the York Area.

In terms of the castle remains two sections of stone revetment for a moat survive otherwise the site consists of two earthwork enclosures one slightly higher than the other surrounded by the drained site of two large artificial lakes running to the west and north west. The unseasonable dry weather in Spring 2020 allowed for a number of clear stone building platforms to appear marked in the vegetation. These suggest a peripheral curtain wall surrounding the inner mound with a series of buildings leading off it. Erosion by rabbits in the outer enclosure reveals a series of cobbled surfaces with sherds of pottery from further south in the Vale of York dating from the 12^th through to the 14^th Centuries. A series of building platforms clearly track off into neighbouring gardens including the one where the recent discoveries have been made.

Wall excavated in garden next to Kirby Fleetham castle

The documented history of the site together with the surviving pottery suggests a much longer period of occupation than has previously been suggested. The Domesday Book tenant is referred to as Odo the Chamberlain of the Duke of Brittany with references to his former holding throughout the documentary record in the 12^th Century. In the mid to late 13^th Century the owner is referred to as Sir Henry Fitz Conan who had a licence for a park awarded in 1271. The decline of the site is poorly documented although there is evidence of continued occupation into the early 16^th Century and the documents show it held as a hunting lodge by Lord Grey of Codnor in 1417 when the estate was briefly forfeited by the Scropes.

In terms of the building in the adjacent garden, its design and location suggest a half-timbered superstructure above a stone basement and from its location a court house or similar use such as survives at Danby in the North York Moors can be hypothesised.

For more information about the excavation please contact Erik Matthews on rubyna dot matthews at btinternet dot com

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All photographs copyright Erik Matthews.

Hornby Castle Project – from Pre-Conquest to War of the Roses and beyond

Castle Studies Trust’s expert grant assessor Erik Matthews reveals the findings of the 10 years (and counting) excavation he has been directing of Hornby Castle in Wensleydale North Yorkshire.

A programme of archaeological fieldwork involving excavation with some building recording has been in progress since 2010 with the new season due to commence as soon as conditions will allow. It has focussed on the site of a moated hunting lodge of the Dukes of Brittany referred to in a Charter dated to 1115. It was subsequently used as a “pleasaunce” for first the Nevilles of Redbourne in Lincolnshire and later the Conyers before its destruction in a military attack at the end of the Wars of the Roses.

Pre-conquest origins

Recent work has focussed on the kitchen where oven structures have been recovered with traces of a wooden tank for holding live fish prior to their cooking. A stone sink with a wooden drain leading into the moat to the north has been found with a cherry stone recovered from it. There was also traces of a fireplace which collapsed with the remainder of the building sending a plume of ash into the room. Following the discovery of residual artefacts of Pre-Conquest date from the kitchen floor including a carved walrus ivory handle, a sherd of Pre Conquest glazed pottery made in Northern Germany and piece of fine worked bone casket, it was decided to section the floor to find evidence of an earlier structure beneath. Evidence of a wooden floored, stave walled structure was found which may be associated with the immediate Pre-Conquest tenant Arnekill who was of noble birth and related to the Earls of Northumbria.

Examination of the remains of the kitchen front wall yielded evidence of the ferocity of the destruction of the complex with the recovery of a large stone cannon ball (below)from a heavy calibre cannon which had become embedded in it. Close by a carved Nidderdale marble capital was found which has been dated to the 12^th Century and which may have come from a chapel in nearby.

Stone canon ball found in the kitchen front wall (copyright Erik Matthews)

The Great Tower – post medieval survival?

The 2019 season focussed on a section of the moat which located traces of a stone bridge abutment and wooden foot bridge surviving in the moat silts heading towards an earthwork in an adjacent field. The main discovery has however been evidence of an ashlar clad stone Great Tower. Two wall foundations 2.8 metres wide sunk into a rock clad mortar embankment rising some 1.2 metres have been located to the north and west. The north wall includes the remains of a robbed out spiral stair. Internal features include an internal chamber with very thick walls which may have been a strong room, also a corridor from the floor of which an iron knife was recovered blade down! Evidence of an external doorway heading to the north towards the area of the most bank has been recovered and a small section of roofing lead together with lime slurry suggests an impressive structure. The close proximity of the foundations to the modern ground surface suggest tantalisingly that the structure may have survived as a ruin into the relatively recent past.

For more information about the excavation please contact Erik Matthews on rubyna dot matthews at btinternet dot com

Appleby Castle: Gracious Living on the Wild Frontier

This guest post was written by Erik Matthews, Fieldwork Officer for the Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland.

Appleby Castle in Cumbria (formerly Westmoreland) is much less well known and certainly much less studied than its neighbours at Brougham, Brough or Carlisle. Yet it is substantially intact with masonry elements from at least three periods (12^th, 13^th and late 15^th centuries) together with an extensive area of possibly earlier earthworks.

The castle’s early history is tied to the kings of England: it is mentioned in the Pipe Roll of King Henry I in 1129-1130 and then it was seized by King Henry II as part of his re-occupation of the area from the Scots in 1157. Later the castle was held by the Viponts in the 13^th century and then by the Clifford’s in the 14^th and 15^thcenturies.

Along with Skipton, Pendragon, Brough and Brougham it formed a major element of the former Clifford landholding in the North West in the later medieval and early post-medieval periods. As such there are clear parallels between the 12^th-century keep “Caesar’s Tower” and the great tower at Brough as well as between the late 15^th-century hall range and the work of the Henry Clifford the 1^st Earl of Cumberland at Skipton.

The 12th-century great tower. Photo ©Erik Matthews.

The site has recently re-opened after a protracted period of closure since the 1990s and is the centrepiece of a Heritage Action Zone recently designated by Historic England as a means of attracting investment into the area following on from the devastating floods of winter 2015. This gives a welcome opportunity to undertake a fresh study of the site which was last seriously examined by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England back in the 1930s. Further study of “Caesar’s Tower” is particularly over-due as recent research into similar structures in the UK, Ireland and France have changed our understanding of them.^[1]

Historic England are funding consolidation works on “Caesar’s Tower” and the associated curtain wall. It is hoped this will include a photogrammetric survey of and a geophysical survey of the area between the curtain wall, the tower, and the later 15^th-century hall range. Further detailed building recording surveys may be possible in the long term to disentangle the later 15^th-century and mid 17^th-century work associated with Lady Anne Clifford from earlier work within the Hall. The presence of what appears to be the remains of a postern gate with portcullis groove within the north wall and a curious bottle shaped tower at the western end give a hint of what might readily be identified.

Part of the castle earthworks. Photo ©Erik Matthews.

The curtain wall is of a characteristic early form with a low un-crennelated wall walk without towers. Rather than curving, it has angular changes of alignment and may have been built at the same time as the keep. It is unclear how the keep was arranged inside when it was built, but a drain from a sink or laver at third floor indicates there may have been a chapel or oratory. We also are uncertain where the original entrance was. The two earthwork baileys run roughly north to south and north-west to south-east and cover a large area. Investigation may reveal evidence of earlier structures from amongst the ephemeral remains of more recent activity.

This section of the curtain wall may have been built at the same time as the keep on the right. Photo ©Erik Matthews.

The project if successful holds out the prospect of answering a whole range of interesting questions about this fascinating and presently poorly understood site.

^[1] “Some thoughts on the use of the Anglo Norman Donjon” Pamela Marshall. Pgs 159-176. Castles and the Anglo Norman World. John Davies, Angela Riley, JM Leveque, Charlotte Lepiche eds. Oxbow 2016.