Christchurch Archaeology – 50 years Ago!

One of our long-standing members has kindly given me his collection of newspaper cuttings relating to the history and archaeology of Christchurch. I particularly noticed that it was just 50 years ago, in 1973, that the first evidence of the western defences of the burh of Christchurch-Twynham was discovered in the excavation at the south end of Druitt Gardens. Arising from this discovery and related excavations came the listing of a portion of the Gardens as a Scheduled Ancient Monument and provided the inspiration for the later geophysical investigations of the Gardens carried out by TCA and others.

The newspaper article is noted as dating from January 1973 and probably comes from the Bournemouth Evening Echo. The accompanying photograph shows a rather precarious trench with evidence of several collapses of the face of the trench, The trench actually extended some 60 metres from the back of the Regent Centre across what is now the northern end of Wick Lane Car Park, but formerly within the boundary of Druitt Gardens. Cllr Michael Hodges, at that time a member of the former Christchurch Brough Council, is shown posing, in the rain, on the tumble of ironstone boulders discovered in the trench and now assumed to have been the remains of the revetment of the earthen bank of the defences of the burh of Anglo-Saxon burh of Twynham. (In recent years, Michael, now sadly deceased, was a member and supporter of TCA).

A further newspaper cutting, dated to April 1971 described the discovery of the remains of substantial northern defences to the burh. However, prior to the discoveries in Druitt Gardens, the assumption had been that the eastern and western defences relied on the rivers and marshland which bordered the town. Clearly the 1973 excavation was beset by wet weather and constrained by time pressures – the article notes that the excavation has to be completed by February 1973. A detailed description of the trench can of course be found in the classic work of Christchurch archaeology, ‘Excavation in Christchurch 1969-1980’, by Keith Jarvis, DNH&AS Monograph 5.

TCA Annual General Meeting June 2023

A reminder that our Annual General Meeting for 2023 will take place by Zoom at 8pm on Tuesday 20 June 2023. All members should have received the joining instructions for the meeting and the agenda. We have some important issues to discuss so please join in if you can. If you are unable to be present online but would still like your view to be recorded, please contact the Secretary.

TCA Spring 2023 Newsletter

Our editor has now finished her work on our Spring 2023 Newsletter and this is now being posted or delivered to all members. It should be with you within the next few days and we hope you enjoy reading your copy. Our previous issue, the Bumper Summer 2022 issue, will now be archived onto the ‘Newsletter’ page of our website.

If you would like to support our activities, non-members may obtain a copy of the latest issue by application to the Secretary, at a suggested donation of £1 plus the cost of postage.

Sample for Tree-ring Dating

Some years ago members may remember that we submitted a sample of the ancient timbers we discovered buried at Millhams for tree-ring dating and we were delighted to receive a report that a portion of the huge beam was constructed of oak felled circa 1280. Over recent years we have continued to investigate the same beam, and with further excavation in a re-opened Pit 20, found an extension, crudely jointed to the main structure which appeared to be even older, In our quest to push back the date of the structure, for some weeks we have attempted to obtain a sample of this earlier extension for additional tree-ring dating. Obtaining the sample proved very difficult given the restricted working conditions in Pit 20 and the high water table which meant that the pit had to be pumped out before and during any work on the beam. Finally however we have achieved success! with a wedge of timber cut across the top surface of the beam, as shown below (photograph courtesy of Steve Fox).

The photograph shows the width of beam, about 450mm, and the lighting shows clearly the rings in the trunk of the oak tree which formed the structure. On the left can be seen the evidence of two earlier attempts to extract a sample by drilling into the beam. This proved unsuccessful in that the rings were running in the wrong direction in the sample and also the samples proved quite unstable as they dried. We understand that 50 rings are required for a confident dating and we estimate that we now have that sort of number. The present sample appears quite dense and stable and we hope to be able to dry it successfully without shrinkage prior to submission.

An Unusual Find from the Spoil Heap

Our 2022 season at Little Millhams started with the completion of recording of Pit 62 left over from last year and the subsequent backfilling. As the backfilling proceeded we were fortunate to recover from the spoil heap a very unusual find. Although medieval pottery sherds occur regularly on site we were surprised to find a small piece of highly-decorated and glazed pottery in the medieval layer of Pit 62.

The two photographs to the left, taken by member Steve Fox, show the fragment, approximately 40mm square. It is glazed and decorated by a brown slip on which are applied pellets picked out in a greenish-yellow colour.

As shown by the lower photograph, the fragment appears to be a flake about 3mm thick from the outer surface of the original vessel. The broken surface reveals a fine chalky fabric with some quartz inclusions. It is altogether a much finer piece than the run-of-the-mill fragments of domestic pottery we are used to finding.

Steve Fox undertook the research on the find using internet resources. We are grateful to a very knowledgeable contributor to a Facebook group who gave us a convincing identification of the piece, accompanied by a photograph of a similarly-decorated complete jug from his own collection

It would appear that the sherd comes from an item of Rouen ware – “jugs made in Rouen in Normandy imported along the English south coast during 13th century, quite possibly as part of the wine trade”. In open publications, images most closely resembling these items can be found, for example, in the British Museum collection. The suggested dating fits quite well with the few other definite dates we have been able to obtain for the site, most notably from a coin (early 14th century) and the tree-ring dating on the buried remains of the oak timber mill frame (felling date circa 1280). Quite an encouraging early result from the start of our 2022 season!

Award for TCA Member

Peter Fenning, long-standing member of TCA, has recently been honoured by the Christchurch Town Council at its full council meeting on 17 Jan 2022 with an award under its Meritorious Awards scheme.  Peter’s citation for this year’s individual award (see https://www.christchurch-tc.gov.uk/2022/01/council-meritorious-awards/ ), reads “This Year the Council gave the individual award to Mr Peter Fenning in recognition of his services to ecology and heritage and his works for many voluntary organisations within Christchurch over 20 years”. 

Those of us who work with Peter within TCA would like to congratulate Peter on this well-deserved award, and appreciate his energy and enthusiasm which he brings to local affairs.  As well as being a TCA member, Peter is also a leading light in the Friends of Druitt Gardens which aims to make the Gardens a nature-friendly place.

Readers of our blog will have noticed that Peter has been instrumental in procuring funding from the Borough Council (and subsequently the Town Council) and also in organising the work TCA has done in Druitt Gardens, firstly with the multi-mode geophysical survey in 2019/2020, followed up with the coring work in late 2021.

Coring Project in Druitt Gardens, Christchurch

Dando Terrier Rig in Operation at Druitt Gardens

We had a good day in Druitt Gardens on Thursday 28 October 2021 when our drilling contractor was on site for the next phase of our archaeological coring project in Druitt Gardens. The cores were drilled by a small, self-mobile, drilling rig called a Dando Terrier which was delivered to site in a small van.

Four boreholes were drilled of varying depths which depended on an inspection of the cores as they were removed. Cores were taken in black plastic sleeves but the end of the core could be inspected and assessed before the sleeve was capped. Of the four boreholes, two were taken at the site of the geophysical anomaly detected in our previous geophysical survey of 2019/2020, and the remaining two were spaced at the bottom of the slope to obtain if possible a sample from the potential ditch which was identified from the archaeological excavations of the 1970s.

The on-site operations were directed by our archaeological contractor, Dr. Martin Bates of the University of Wales, and he has taken the cores back to the laboratory for processing and analysis.

Druitt Gardens Coring Project

Selecting the coring sites

Earlier this year TCA was very pleased to receive a grant of funding from Christchurch Town Council in order to make further investigations of the geophysical anomalies discovered in our survey of 2019/2020. The type of investigation we proposed was by archaeological coring – small boreholes at the positions of interest. After a successful application to Historic England for Scheduled Monument Consent to carry put this type of work on the scheduled site, we are now pleased to be in a position to go ahead with the coring exercise.

The work will be carried out on 21 October 2021 under the supervision of Dr Martin Bates of the University of Wales, using a small self-mobile drilling rig. It is our intention to obtain two 100mm cores from the positions of the geophysical anomalies which we interpreted as possible bank and ditch features from the results of our survey and if time permits to obtain a third core from the position of the ditch found in the archaeological excavation of the 1970s.

The Christchurch Antiquarians 2021 AGM

A reminder that the 2021 AGM of TCA will be held via Zoom on Wednesday 18 August 2021 starting at 7.30pm. All members should have received an email or letter providing a link with which to join the meeting – please contact the Secretary if you haven’t received any notification of the joining instructions. The joining instructions also include the relevant paperwork for the meeting. If you are unable to join the meeting but still wish to comment on the various reports to be presented please contact the Secretary with those comments or any proxy votes you wish to make on the resolutions to be considered by the meeting.

Druitt Gardens Coring Project

In January 2021, we applied to Christchurch Town Council for funding to carry out further investigation of the geophysical anomaly which showed up during our 2019/2020 geophysical survey in Druitt Gardens. Part of Druitt Gardens is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, being the site of the town’s medieval defensive wall and ditch.

Our project plan involved involved drilling and analysing a small number of 100mm cores across the area of the anomaly and also one along the line of original 1980 archaeological excavation. The coring work would be carried out under the supervision of Dr. Martin Bates from the University of Wales Trinity St. David and who was also responsible for some of the geophysics work in 2020. In March 2021, we were delighted to be awarded substantial funding towards this project by the Council following the recommendation of the Community Grant Working Group.

We have now cleared another hurdle by applying for and receiving Scheduled Monument Consent for the coring work from Historic England using delegated authority from the Secretary of State. We expect to be able carry out the work in around October of this year, weather and pandemic permitting.