Northern Archaeology Today issue 9

NORTHERN ARCHAEOLOGY TODAY YORK ARCHAEOLOGICAL TRUST MAGAZINE

This issue:

Rutson Hospital, Northallerton Nottinghamshire Coalfields Swinegate Coffins Weave Parkhead

Issue 9

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ontents

issue 9 May 2016

Welcome!

In this issue Toby Kendall and Jayne Rimmer report on work at the former Rutson Hospital in Northallerton, which has revealed a long history of occupation on the site in a project involving both excavation and building recording of this fine Georgian landmark.

The Former Rutson Hospital 1 Weave Parkhead!

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Coffin Fit

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Campaign Canute

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Physical Landscape Legacy 21

Ingrid Shearer of Northlight Heritage tells us about an intriguing project to represent the heritage of Parkland, Glasgow through the medium of textiles – an appropriate form for this weaving community.

Steve Allen of YAT’s Conservation Laboratory has been looking at the wooden coffins from the AngloScandinavian churchyard of St Benet’s in York, while Glyn Davies introduces a large-scale landscape project on the Nottinghamshire Coalfields currently being undertaken by ArcHeritage.

We also hear about the effect of York’s winter floods on Jorvik Viking Centre, and how you can help revitalise the Centre for the 21st century!

Editor: Peter Connelly Layout and design: Lesley Collett Printed by B&B Press, Parkgate, Rotherham Northern Archaeology Today is published twice a year: UK subscriptions £10.00 per year, Overseas subscriptions £14.00 (sterling) per year.

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Northern Archaeology Today is published by York Archaeological Trust. Editorial and contributors’ views are independent and do not necessarily reflect the official view of the Trust. Copyright of all original YAT material reserved: reproduction by prior editorial permission only.

© York Archaeological Trust 2016 Cover picture: Excavation in progress at the site of the former

York Archaeological Trust is a Registered Charity In England & Wales (No.509060) and Scotland

Rutson Hospital, Northallerton

(SCO42846) and a company limited by guarantee without share capital in England, number 1430801

ISSN: 2049-5897

The Former Rutson Hospital, Northallerton

by Toby Kendall and Jayne Rimmer

Toby Kendall and Jayne Rimmer

The YAT team busily at work: west end of Area 1 excavation

From July to November 2015 the former Rutson Hospital building and grounds in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, were subjected to a multidisciplinary study by the York based field team. This work was undertaken for a redevelopment proposal that incorporated renovation, demolition and new building work. The team had to ensure that the above and below ground archaeology was investigated and recorded both before and whilst the work was underway.

Working with the developer Jomast, to a written scheme of investigation created by the archaeological consultants ArchaeoEnvironment Ltd, there were three distinct elements to the project: Building Recording, which examined, in varying degrees, the standing buildings across the site; Watching Brief, which made sure that any below ground archaeology disturbed during the construction work was properly recorded; Archaeological Excavation, which was undertaken in areas where previous evaluation had suggested that there were more significant archaeological deposits below ground.

trench, looking west

These three elements frequently overlapped in time and scope, providing a holistic approach to recording the evolution of the site.

The site occupied a roughly rectangular space bounded by High Street to the west, Friarage Street to the south and Brompton Road to the east. The previous history of the site had been investigated in detail by the team at Archaeo-Environment as part of their Heritage Statement, with trial trenching undertaken by Pre-Construct Archaeology. This had revealed the potential for the survival of medieval burgage plots and parts of a Carmelite Friary within the confines of the site. The western part of the site, fronting on to High Street, may have been occupied by buildings during the 16th and 17th centuries and there was the possibility that northern archaeology today

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these may have been incorporated into the later, standing, Georgian buildings during the 18th century. From 1877 onwards these buildings were incorporated into a hospital, which again may have left key features to be examined.

NORTHALLERTON

YORK LEEDS

Building Recording Rutson Hospital is a multipart building made up of several different structures constructed over an extended period of time. The oldest building, dating to the 17th–18th century, is a long, two-storey rectangular range situated on High Street. It has a large chimneystack with four large chimneypots. In the 18th century, a taller, two-storey building was erected alongside it. A further two-storey range was constructed to the rear, at right-angles to the High Street buildings.

This range incorporated a hallway with impressive staircase landing and additional rooms. The whole complex was re-fitted with grand Georgian interiors. The 18th century was

Rutson Hospital Site

Š Crown copyright

Above: Site Location Below: Building Recording, Watching Brief and Excavation location plan

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Site outline Excavation areas Watching brief area Building recording areas Buildings within site area

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Above: A line drawing of Vine House in 1790 clearly showing the large vine sprawling across the front of the building facing High Street Right: The Georgian entranceway into the Rutson Hospital

a period of prosperity in Northallerton and many houses were remodelled with fashionable Georgian interiors. The open area to the rear was landscaped and also laid out as a garden with paths and other features, including an ornamental niche within the brick garden wall.

The building became known as Vine House, after a large vine that grew right across the front elevation. A print of 1790 clearly shows the vine growing across the front of the building facing on to High Street. As well as functioning as a private house, from 1720 to 1770 Vine House was used for the Quarter Sessions.

A cottage hospital was established in Vine House in 1877. In the late 19th century, a number of changes were made to the site in order to improve the hospital accommodation. Part of the right-angled range was demolished in order to make way for a new building known as the Dundas Wing. A number of amendments were northern archaeology today

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Part of the surviving Georgian interior in the Rutson Hospital

also made in the taller of the two buildings on High Street, including the addition of the oriel window. A terrace of smaller properties was also constructed along Friarage Street. In 1905, the hospital was re-named the Rutson Hospital following a generous bequest by Mr Henry Rutson of Newby Wiske. The building continued to be changed and adapted across the 20th century. In the 1930s the Dundas Wing was extended and underwent an extensive refit. Finally, in the 1990s a new programme of works included the further extension of the Hospital buildings.

Watching Brief During August and September 2015 the watching brief part of the project began as the modern, unlisted, buildings were demolished and ground works started. The watching brief work also continued all the way through the excavation phase, recording archaeological details that were being worked on outside of the two main excavation trenches.

During this phase of work holes excavated for hoarding on the eastern perimeter of the site revealed an earlier boundary wall foundation.

This was made of re-used stone and post4

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medieval bricks. It is highly likely that this stonework was originally from the Carmelite Friary that had been previously found on the opposite side of Brompton Road.

One intriguing element that the watching brief unexpectedly turned up was a stone-lined cess pit that had been backfilled and closed during the mid-18th century.

The process of tidying up an area in the western half of the site, where the late 19th century building had been demolished, required a machine-cut edge to take the foundations of a new back wall. Whilst observing these works a large amount of pottery and glass suddenly appeared in the spoil, revealing that the machine had clearly gone into a previously unseen feature. At this point machining stopped and further excavation by hand was undertaken.

Within minutes ten buckets full of pottery, glass, shell and animal bone were retrieved from the base of the cess pit.

It was clear from the work that this was once a bigger feature and it had been truncated by later building work. The largest quantity of

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Re-used stone in old boundary wall 76c

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Cess pit

Watching brief results illustrating stone wall and stone-lined cess pit locations Early/mid-18th century decorated plate recovered from the

finds was recovered from the lowest 300mm of fill.The upper deposits predominantly consisted of mortar from the building alterations that sealed it. All the evidence pointed towards this large cess pit being in use during the early 18th century; it had then gone out of use when the rear range of the house was extended.

stone-lined cess pit (left, as found and right, after cleaning).

Diameter 35cm

A total of c. 1000 fragments of pottery, over 160 pieces of glass, and over 100 fragments of bone, crab and other shellfish were retrieved from what remained of the cess pit.

One of the finest pieces within this assemblage was a complete early/mid-18th century plate northern archaeology today

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from the Donyatt potteries, Somerset. It had been broken into six pieces before deposition, but once pieced together the sgraffito decorations and image of a bird come to life.

Excavation In late September 2015 the last phase of works with machine stripping and excavation started. Two main areas that had shown the best potential for medieval archaeology were targeted; Area 1 ran across the north of the site and was positioned to hopefully pick up medieval remains, including any traces of burgage plots across the site; Area 2 focussed on a smaller courtyard area as close to the back of the standing buildings as possible and was intended to investigate medieval activity linked with buildings facing onto the High Street.

The earliest archaeology found at the site dated to the 12th century and was represented by a whole series of pits and possible post holes.

This pattern continued all the way through the medieval period. Most of this activity was concentrated towards the west of the site, in a band of pits set to the rear of buildings which would have fronted onto the medieval street. This was very similar to the pit concentrations seen on Hungate and other medieval sites in York.

The pits themselves ranged in size up to 2m wide and 1.5m deep and they contained pottery and other finds suggesting they were used for general waste disposal. From one of the pit samples, processed by the team at the Dickson Laboratory, evidence for coprolite was recovered, revealing that at least one of the pits was used as a cess pit as well!

By the 16th century activity across the site appears to have stopped, or at least changed in character so that it was no longer leaving evidence that would survive as archaeology. It was not until the 18th century that surviving

Plan of excavation results, showing three main phases of activity visible in the archaeology

19th-century greenhouse heater

13th-century well

Key Medieval 18th century 19th century

14th-century waste pit

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Detail of 13th-century well, showing stone lining at the base

evidence for activity appeared in the archaeological record again. This phase was linked with Georgian rebuilding of properties to the front (west) and landscaping to the rear (east) of the site. A substantial garden wall was constructed, of which some elements survive, and a series of paths were laid out inside the garden. Evidence for two recesses next to the paths was discovered; these may have been used for displaying large planters or statues. It was during this phase of the site that the stonelined cess pit, revealed during the watching brief, was constructed and later infilled.

Traces surviving in the archaeology suggest that at the end of the 18th century buildings were constructed in the garden and at the east end of the site. In the 19th century further development took place with a greenhouse being constructed in the garden, as well as building work at the east of the site. On the whole only traces of these structures survived, but work around the greenhouse revealed interesting evidence for a brick and stone built heater.

Finds from the excavation phase of work were relatively sparse compared to what was recovered from the watching brief cess pit, with the assemblage dominated by pottery and animal bone, all of which appears to point at waste disposal. Tantalisingly an isolated

flake of prehistoric flint was found in much later garden soils. Artefacts recovered from the greenhouse included glass fragments, plant-pot sherds and a slate pencil. The more substantial assemblages from the excavation were bottle glass and animal bone from the 18th century, which had obvious parallels with those found in the watching brief cess pit.

Open Days During the excavation phase of work the team were able to run two open days, one at the mid-point and one at the end. Even though the weather was not exceptional for both open days, the local interest in the site was incredible and the team was amazed by the numbers of people wanting to come and see what had been discovered (more than 300 people visited the site on the first day alone). This included people of all ages, all backgrounds and even local councillors, curious to see what was being done on the site.

Having these open days was very helpful in allaying any worries that the archaeology on the site was not being looked at in enough detail, as well as giving people a better understanding of the archaeological process. One young man even added to the archaeological record, his keen eyes spotting a 1921 George V sixpence in the old cobble pathway running across the north of the site. northern archaeology today

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19th-century brickbuilt greenhouse heater

Discussion With the excavation work complete the project team can now offer a relatively clear narrative of the site from the 12th century onwards. It has been conclusively proven that the Carmelite Friary did not extend onto the site, but there was clear occupation, probably domestic in origin, through the medieval period.

Activity in the immediate post-medieval period was absent from the site and any buildings which existed were either demolished or incorporated into the grand Georgian buildings which still stand today. The rest of the site underwent comprehensive landscaping, becoming a set of gardens and pathways which matched the status of the buildings to which they belonged.

Finally, snippets of archaeological information from the 19th century and early 20th century reflect the later use of the site as a hospital.

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The former Rutson Hospital was a place which was held dear by many people in and around Northallerton. Many life-changing events which took place there had given the site far more gravity than many of the projects YAT have worked upon. With the use of different techniques and an intelligent, staggered approach to the mitigation of the built and below ground archaeology it was possible to retrieve the maximum amount of information from the site, with no delay to the overall development schedule. The project was able to engage the public with the archaeological process and add details to the past chapters of the site as a new chapter commences.

Many thanks must be given to the developers Jomast for funding the works and consultants Archaeo-Environment Ltd for their guidance and input. Thanks also to all the people working within YAT who contributed to the project.

Weave Parkhead!

Ingrid Shearer Weave Parkhead! is a collaboration between Northlight Heritage, textile artists, local schools and community groups to create a series of four woven panels celebrating the history and heritage of Parkhead, a district in the east end of Glasgow. The project is part of the Parkhead Cross Townscape Heritage Initiative (THI), which is funded by Glasgow City Council, Heritage Lottery Fund and Historic Environment Scotland.

Parkhead Past

Today, Parkhead is probably best known as home to Celtic Football Club; Celtic Park was located here in 1892. However, Parkhead has its origins as a small weaving and mining village which grew up along one of the main roads leading eastwards out of Glasgow. In the late 1700s, when Parkhead first appears on historic maps, the lands to the east of the Glasgow were still largely rural in character, peppered by farms, small hamlets and the country estates of the town’s mercantile class.

Coal miners settled along the route of Westmuir Street in the 1780s, while a small

community of handloom weavers colonised a series of cottages, locally known as ‘Shinty Ha’, along the Tollcross Road to the south. The two communities were initially discrete settlements that expanded to the west, eventually meeting at the ‘The Sheddens’ – modern Parkhead Cross. In a similar vein to coal mining, handloom weaving was an important local industry, though its role and significance in Parkhead’s history has been largely forgotten. The local weavers produced linen and woollen cloth at home for the domestic market, but with the growth of mechanisation in the textile industry, handloom weaving in the area went into decline.

Row of weavers cottages at ‘Shinty Ha’. The loom shops were on the ground floor and the family lived above

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Parkhead Forge foundry and iron works opened in 1837, however it was not until William Beardmore and Co.’s takeover in 1860s that major investment and expansion was carried out. By 1896 Parkhead Forge had grown to become the largest steel works in Scotland, specialising in the manufacture of armaments and armour plate for warships. At its peak during World War I it employed over 20,000 workers. Other major manufacturers in the area included William Arrol’s Crane Works, Springfield Wire Works and A. G. Barr’s Aerated Water Factory (home to Scotland’s second-favourite beverage, Irn Bru).

Throughout the late 1800s Parkhead’s population rose dramatically as workers were drawn to the new industries. Red sandstone tenements ousted the weavers cottages and miners rows. Grand civic buildings were constructed at Parkhead Cross and a number of schools, churches, cinemas and sporting venues sprang up in support of the expanding population. By the early 1900s Parkhead had established its own unique identity as a thriving industrial suburb of Glasgow.

Designs on Parkhead

Over the past year, the Weave Parkhead! team have delivered a series of workshops and events in and around Parkhead. These have combined weaving, creative craft skills and historical research with the aim of uncovering and examining the spirit of Parkhead – the stories, people and places that make it unique. In total, the project team delivered over 20 workshops, working with local primary schools, youth groups and the local library. Drop-in sessions were also held in partnership with the local housing association, community gardens and The Forge shopping centre. The conversations generated during these sessions have informed and inspired the design of the four panels.

In 1831, a group of local weavers and miners, headed by handloom weaver William Thomson, founded the Parkhead and Westmuir Economical Society, one of the earliest co-operative societies in Britain. Thomson went on to found a further 10

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30 co-operatives in Scotland and was a leading light of the early socialist movement. The society built new premises at 64 Westmuir Street, and the society’s crest, featuring a beehive, can still be seen today.

The beehive crest at 64 Westmuir Street

The beehive crest became a key motif for the project, symbolizing the cooperative spirit of the weavers and the community spirit of present-day Parkhead. Like many neighbourhoods with an industrial past, Parkhead faces significant challenges. The slow decline and eventual demise of heavy industry in the area, in particular the closure of the Parkhead Forge steel works in 1976, has had a devastating impact. The blow to the local community was not simply in terms of the loss of a major employer, but also impacted on a sense of collective identity intimately connected to pride in their manufacturing heritage. The team felt from the outset that it was important that celebrating the heritage of the area did not equate to simply charting what had been lost, but also embodied something of the local community’s hopes and aspirations for the future.

As part of this ethos, the team worked in close partnership with several local groups to integrate

workshops in support of local initiatives, including ‘All In For Parkhead’ community garden and Parkhead Libraries children’s panel project. Workshops were designed as creative, hands-on experiences and community members were given the opportunity to input directly to the design process of the panels and contribute to materials for the exhibition.

This process of creative co-production helped identify aspects of Parkhead’s history and heritage that were meaningful to the people who live there. The designs for the four panels follow a thematic thread, with each individual panel addressing a part of the area’s history – radical politics; place, landscape and geology; manufacturing and industry; and Parkhead’s favourite places and buildings. The materials and technology used in each panel reflect and complement these themes.

The panels have utilised a diverse range of materials and techniques, and each individual artist has brought their own particular style and process to the work. Maintaining a cohesive look across the four panels has been a major challenge. To ensure that the panels worked as a group, as well as stand-alone pieces, the Screen printing Parkhead’s architectural heritage

A participant contributes another few inches to a continuous length of cloth which has been woven by the people of Parkhead during workshops

team decided early in the design process to restrict the colour palette to monochromes and a yellow shade (in honour of the bees on the co-operative crest and the community gardens under development by ‘All In For Parkhead’).

The yellow wool yarns, silk threads, and cotton bases were dyed using Weld by dyer Kathy Becket of Colour Ecology during a community ‘wild weaving’ event at the community gardens. The other main unifying elements were the use of the geometric shapes found in the local architecture, industrial buildings and machinery, as well as the use of hexagons, which reference the cell structures of honeycomb and chemical formulas for carbon.

The completed panels, with accompanying pop-up exhibition, are due to be unveiled in spring 2016 and will eventually be installed in the foyer of the former Parkhead Primary School. Renovation works on the Category B-Listed school are due to begin in the spring of 2016 and the building will open as a local enterprise centre in 2017. northern archaeology today

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Theme: Radical Parkhead Materials: wool (natural dyes - Weld) Technology: handwoven Artist/Designer: Angharad McLaren (weaver and textile designer) The ‘radical Parkhead’ panel was handwoven by textile designer and weaver Angharad McLaren, using a textured ‘honeycomb’ weave. This creates a dense, cellular structure to the fabric which pays homage to the skills of the early handloom weavers, utilising one of the most complex and technically challenging weaves. The gradations of colour reference the ‘bee’ yellow of the weavers, merging softly into the silver flecked charcoal hues of the miners.

Detail of the ‘honeycomb’ weave

Theme: Landscape and Geology Materials: cotton warp, wool weft Technology: Jacquard woven by Humphries Weaving Artist/Designer: Shielagh Tacey (weaver and textile designer) Parkhead grew up along an ancient routeway that pre-existed the settlement.

The roadway and junctions at Parkhead Cross are a key motif in this panel. The design merges elements drawn from historic and geological maps, using different weave textures to highlight the relationships between the natural and cultural environment of the area. This panel is currently being woven on a Jacquard loom by Humphries Weaving Mill in Suffolk, representing a move to the mechanised era of weaving.

Source material – the OS 1st Edition map of 1858, showing Parkhead around ‘The Cross’ and the still essentially rural nature of the surrounding countryside

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Theme: Manufacturing and Industry Materials: woven steel base, silk embroidery Technology: Machine woven steel and hand embroidery Artist/Designer: Lauren Day (embroiderer) The woven steel base was kindly donated by Graeme Cousland of Begg Cousland, whose family founded the Springfield Wire Works in Parkhead in 1881. The woven wire is cut from the last roll produced at the factory in Parkhead. Lauren took inspiration from the great steam hammers of Beardmore Forge and the latticework of industrial cranes/gantries to create a striking, geometric design. This juxtaposition of a machine-woven industrial textile, with the time intensive, highly skilled labour of the embroiderer is an aspect which particularly appealed to the artist – each individual square contains around 2000 individual stitches!

Detail of the panel, showing the intricate nature of the embroidery and tessellation effect of the combination of silk thread on metal

Theme: People and Place Materials: cotton, natural dyed with Weld Technology: Silk screen printed Artist/Designer: Bespoke Atelier (textile designers and pattern makers) Bespoke Atelier’s design was developed through a series of screen printing workshops with the local community. Taking inspiration from old photos and drawings, as well as current buildings and architectural features around Parkhead Cross, participants picked out their favourite designs to create their own stencils for printing. The final design, a bold pattern-based collage of architectural features around Parkhead, has been informed by these sessions and individual conversations with community members. This panel also incorporates features from many of the fine Victorian and Edwardian buildings encompassed within the Parkhead Cross THI renewal and renovation programme.

Draft design for the final panel – spot the buildings!

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COFFIN FIT

Anglo-Scandinavian wooden burial furniture from St Benet’s, York

Steve Allen

In 1989–90, excavations in and around Swinegate, in the heart of York, revealed part of the cemetery from the lost church of St Benet’s. YAT’s archaeological work had been intended to target the remains of the Legionary fortress suspected to lie in the area. The extent of the cemetery and the level of preservation were unexpected while the areas available for investigation were limited by time, funding and the projected groundwork scheme for the new building. Nonetheless, much valuable information was recorded by the field team led by Nick Pearson, Jane McComish and Mark Whyman.

Over 100 burials were identified within the excavated areas. The relatively high local water table had resulted in the waterlogging and preservation of wooden grave furniture in 44 of these. Normally, wood decays in the ground and all that is left for archaeologists are soil stains, perhaps a straight sided ‘edge’ to the deposit immediately around the body, and any metal fittings like nails, so having any surviving parts of wooden grave furniture was a discovery of major importance.

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Location of Swinegate Excavations, York, 1989–1990

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There were not many complete examples recovered from the excavation. Sometimes this was because the upper parts had not been fully waterlogged and had decayed or collapsed. In most cases though, burials extended beyond the area available for excavation and it was not possible to recover a burial beyond the edge of the trench. On the whole lots of foot ends, lots of head ends, some with legs missing, some with heads and shoulders missing were preserved, but by looking carefully at what was recovered quite a lot can be said about Anglo-Scandinavian coffins.

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Burials Plank

All the dates from the wood and from the skeletons, as well as the position in the stratigraphic sequence, shows that the burials with coffins or other wooden grave furniture date from the tenth to Trench plan showing the positions of burials found

eleventh centuries AD, very definitely AngloScandinavian. There is no evidence for reused timber. These burials are definitely within a relatively narrow time frame.

So far I have been referring to ‘wooden grave furniture’ rather than ‘coffins’. This is due to the fact that although 37 of the burials were placed in coffins built from boards, wood was not always used in this way. Five bodies had been laid in their graves with a cover board laid over them and there was one further board which might have come from such a burial, but the site record is unclear on this point. The boards were simple, plain and parallel-sided, with no evidence for fixings, cut to about the same length as the body they covered. The one unusual example from this group was the cover board that has a ‘ninemen’s-morels’ gaming grid scratched into its surface. This isn’t primarily a game board, the shape is somewhat inconvenient for that. If this isn’t casual graffiti it might be significant that this board was placed to cover the burial of a child. Perhaps there is a message here from the family that has been lost through time.

Three burials were thought at the time of excavation to have been laid in the ground on top of boards used to carry or lower them into the ground. However, having analysed these in post-excavation it becomes clear that they are the base boards from coffins whose sides and ends have been lost.

One log coffin was discovered at the site.

This was a hollowed-out tree trunk in which the body was placed. While any lid originally present had been lost to decay, the log had been deliberately shaped and it was one of the earliest burials seen on this site. A similar log coffin burial of this date was excavated at St. Peter’s, Barton on Humber, although whether this practice had any particular significance is currently unknown.

This means that most of the wooden grave furniture consists of coffins, rectangular wooden boxes built from boards. Each box was made up from six boards: a base, two sides, two ends

YORYM 1990.1. [14004] ST322

Head end

Upper face 0

Foot end

Lower face 250mm

and a lid. These were one piece components, not composites. One lid, from coffin no. 3 had a batten pegged across the inside surface of its lid just above the knees of the occupant. This did not fasten together two different boards to make the lid but was a repair spanning a developing split in the board.

Line drawing of the cover board with grid for ‘Ninemens-morels’ game (Drawing: SJ Allen)

Almost all of the wood was oak. Oak is the primary timber exploited for structural use in North West Europe and can readily be split into boards. The dendrochronological analysis done by Talya Bagwell and Ian Tyers suggests the oak used in these coffins came from local sources. One coffin had a base cut from Alder and one coffin may have had a lid cut from Pine, although this piece was too decayed to study.

Most of the pegs were oak with some made from hazel. northern archaeology today

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Coffin 3- Line drawing of the most complete of the Swinegate coffins. (Drawing: SJ Allen)

YORYM 1989.28 Coffin 3 ST148–150, 153–157 Reconstructed

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cross section 149 Lid 148 Lid

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None of these boards had been sawn, all having been split from their parent tree. Localised axe dressing was occasionally present where an irregularity in the surface, such as a knot, had been trimmed to create a flush surface. The wood 16

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was generally straight grained and of good, but not outstanding quality. No marking out lines were observed and there was no standardisation in length or width. Each coffin seems to have been made as an individual piece for a specific burial.

Skewed pegging: St Benet’s, York

Face Pegging: St Laurence Jewry

‘Tying Dowel’: St Peter’s, Barton on Humber

Cross section diagrams comparing pegging methods at St Benet’s (Swinegate), St Laurence Jewry (City of London) and St Peter’s (Barton on Humber). (Drawing: SJ Allen)

The construction is simple, straightforward and displays no unusual or complex methods.

Making such a box would have been well within the capabilities of a competent woodworker or carpenter, so this does not represent evidence for specialist coffin makers.

So how were these coffins constructed? The maker started with a single-piece base board, either parallel-sided or with a barely perceptible

narrowing towards the foot end. The head and foot ends, each slightly shorter than the width of the base, were attached next, about 50mm or so in from each end of the baseboard. This was done by auguring a pair of holes through the base and into the lower edge of each head and foot end. A peg tapped into each hole fastened these end boards to the base.

The left and right sides of the coffin were then

The conserved coffin 3 reassembled for display

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added, with the lower edge of each side resting on the upper face of the base and the inner face resting against the head and foot boards. A peg hole was augured through the face of each side into the end grain of the head and footboards and pegs driven into place to hold the sides to the end boards. Then one or more further holes were augured through the face of each side angled downwards through the side and into the baseboard and pegged. These skewed pegs were an economical way of stopping parts of the coffin being pulled apart when it was moved.

With the body in place, the lid was then laid resting on the upper edges of each side and ends, and secured in place with more pegs placed in augured holes. The number and arrangement of this latter pegging is not fully apparent due to poor survival. In the best preserved example (coffin 3) the left side upper edge has three such peg holes, evenly spacedone towards each end and one near the midpoint. All of the pegs were oak apart from a few examples of hazel. Only one coffin, no. 40, was of nailed construction and the placement of the sides relative to the base was asymmetric.

Why this was done is unknown as nails were not cheaper than wooden pegs and required a separate set of specialist skills to fabricate. They might reflect a different status for the occupant, but this is not certain.

Similar, but slightly later coffins, have been excavated at St. Peter’s, Barton on Humber and at St Lawrence Jewry, City of London.

The major differences are that at St Peter’s’, instead of skewed pegs, the makers used ‘tying dowels’- rods spanning the width of the coffin at each end held in place with wedges, and at St Laurence Jewry the pegs are not skewed. Our closest parallel is a coffin from Beverley Minster (see Yorkshire Archaeology Today No 6).

The softening of the wood by waterlogging had an unexpected effect within the coffins.

The weight of overlying soil had often pressed the harder human bone into the surface of the wood. When the bones were removed, the impressions left could clearly be seen, showing 18

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Impression of bones in base of coffin 3 (detail showing impressions of knee joints)

exactly where the major bones lay within the coffin. Fortuitously this allowed for their exact replacement in coffin 3 when it was prepared for display last year.

In 1989–90 there was little in the way of funding to prepare a full publication report on the project, though the more interesting coffin pieces were conserved anticipating future display. Thanks to funding from the Museums Resilience Project, secured by Sarah Maltby, the YAT team have been able to pull together the records from this project and bring this important group of material to wider attention.

On June 15th, Steve Allen and Jane McComish will be presenting a talk on the Swinegate project and coffins as part of the York Festival of Ideas from 7pm at Barley Hall. For those who want to see it first hand, coffin no. 3 will be on display at St Mary Castlegate as part of the JORVIK ‘Home and Abroad’ exhibition opening on June 11th 2016.

Flooding At The JORVIK Viking Centre: An Update Readers familiar with York and its archaeology will know that the heart of the city, embraced by the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss, has regularly suffered from floods over the centuries. The last chapter in this centuries-old tale was written in December 2015 when the worst floods in living memory caused millions of pounds worth of damage to residents and businesses. Only now, three months later, are parts of the city, such as the lower reaches of Fossgate, recovering from this inundation. Sadly, one of the attractions worst hit by this large-scale flooding was YAT’s own JORVIK Viking Centre.

The winter floodwater first started to rise and edge closer towards the Coppergate Centre, where JORVIK is situated, on 27th December, and immediately this prompted the roll-out of the JORVIK disaster management plan. The plan required every single Viking-age object housed in the attraction, the large majority of them unique, to be removed from the Centre before any signs of water egress started. In all over 1000 objects were removed to a safe, higher and drier location. Considering this happened between Christmas and New Year it was testament to the hard work of YAT staff and the efficiency of the management plan that this was carried out without a single hitch. The floodwater entered JORVIK during the evening of the 27th and by the next day parts of the recreated Viking-Age streets were under one metre of water.

Floodwater gets everywhere, as many people in York will tell you, and in JORVIK it was no

different. The water damaged not only the animatronics, mannequins and set but it also got into electrics, ducting, plaster board and the entire behind-the-scenes infrastructure that visitors never see. Since the flood JORVIK has remained closed while the damage has been assessed. The Attractions team have been working closely with the insurers over the last three months and the great news is that the JORVIK Viking Centre will reopen in Spring 2017.

With Every Grey Cloud‌

In the run-up to this edition of Northern Archaeology Today going to press, the Attractions team have stripped out those parts of JORVIK that were affected by the flood and at the same time a large-scale cleaning and drying process has taken place. This time has also allowed the team to stand back, take stock of the situation and look to the future.

The mannequins of gaming children before and during the flood

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Insurance will reinstate JORVIK to its condition ‘one minute before flooding’ and even though YAT would be very happy to continue in the same vein the Senior Management team have approached the disaster as representing an opportunity to re-imagine JORVIK Viking Centre for the 21st century.

With visitors increasingly familiar with advances in visual imagery, extreme experiences and digital technology, a major challenge for the rebuild is to keep the JORVIK experience current, relevant and engaging for its wide-ranging worldwide audience. To meet this challenge YAT recently launched a fundraising initiative called ‘Campaign Canute’ to not only help raise additional funds allowing JORVIK to embrace advancements in museum interpretation but also to give the opportunity for JORVIK’s worldwide audience to get involved with this re-imagining. Using Canute the Great as a Viking-Age related figurehead for this campaign is not only fortuitous because 2016 represents the 1000th anniversary of Canute becoming King of England but also because of the famous story of ‘King Canute and the Waves’. In the story Canute shows his courtiers that even he cannot hold back the tide because his power is nothing when compared to that of God, which reflects the JORVIK Viking Centre’s modern day experience of an ‘Act of God’.

Over the coming months the Attractions team will be meeting with Viking-Age experts to ensure that the latest research is also incorporated into the rebuild. There has been considerable groundbreaking work undertaken in Viking Age studies over the last decade and the team

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The bare bones of JORVIK! Since the flood everything has had to be stripped out, the space cleaned and dried out

want to ensure that this new research will be incorporated into the new JORVIK experience for everyone to enjoy.

If you would like to get involved with Campaign Canute and make a donation, or you would like to find out more about the plans for the JORVIK Viking Centre, visit www.jorvik-vikingcentre.co.uk. You can also sign up to the Campaign Canute newsletter on the website.

For anyone visiting York over the next year and wanting a Viking experience, YAT is working with partners across the city on a programme of Viking-themed exhibitions.

The Attractions team will be revealing the events in the next few months, with the first due to open at the Theatre Royal this Spring. There will also be Vikings on the door at JORVIK Viking Centre and at the city’s Visitor Information Centre so visitors to York will still get their Viking ‘fix’ whilst JORVIK is closed. For further updates keep checking back to www.jorvik-viking-centre.co.uk.

Physical Landscape Legacy: The Heritage of the Nottinghamshire Coalfields

Glyn Davies

This short article introduces the readers of Northern Archaeology Today to one of the large-scale landscape projects currently being carried out by ArcHeritage. The project is an assessment and investigation of the Nottinghamshire Coalfield that will help provide a positive future for this often overlooked industrial landscape.

The Nottinghamshire Coalfield is a landscape that has been shaped by its industrial history leaving a footprint visible through both surviving monuments and human landscape features, such as settlement, architecture, transport and land ownership. The often underappreciated nature of this landscape leaves it at risk of loss through neglect and development. The Physical Landscape Legacy project, funded

by Historic England and undertaken in conjunction with Nottinghamshire County Council, has been developed to assess the

condition and vulnerability of what is left of the coalfield landscape.

The project has been devised to assess the physical remains of the former Nottinghamshire coal industry to provide baseline data, as well as historical and archaeological context, for the coalfield. The data will then aid the management, promotion and appreciation of this landscape.

The first stage of the project, the snappily titled ‘The Physical Landscape Legacy: an assessment

Hucknall Colliery at the turn of the 20th century

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Map showing coal-related heritage features and their date

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Clifton Colliery waggonway, late 19th century

of the Nottinghamshire Coalfields’, assessed the quantity, character and interpretative potential of documentary evidence relating to the landscape heritage of the coalfields. It also identified gaps in available information.

The assessment was undertaken through the consideration of a number of general themes: industry, transport, settlement, economics, relationship with the wider world, landscape and society. It also identified what information, pertinent to these themes, was available from different sources and archives. The study identified the distribution and date of coal industry heritage across the coalfield and how this reflected the expansion of the industry through time. Early extraction from bell pits started along the eastern edge of Nottinghamshire on the exposed coal measures in the 16th to 18th centuries, spread slowly eastwards onto the

buried coalfield in the 19th century as collieries developed, before the development of deep mining and associated designed pit villages, further east, during the 20th century. Associated with this development in mining were developments in transport infrastructure with early canals and tramways in the west and minerals railways in the east.

The second stage of the project, currently in progress, builds on the results of the assessment and will further investigate the coalfields landscape through analysis at two levels. Research will continue at the large scale while more detailed analysis will be undertaken on six study areas. These case study areas were chosen to reflect the temporal and spatial variation in the distribution of this coalfield heritage across the landscape and how this relates to its expansion east as technology developed with time. northern archaeology today

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The case studies are: 1. Strelley – Erewash Valley: early mining, bell pits and tramways 2. Portland: early mining, collieries developed from the late 18th century continuing through to the 20th century 3. Eastwood: more developed mining influencing the growth of small existing towns, birthplace of D.H. Lawrence 4. Hucknall: more developed mining influencing the growth of small existing towns 5. Clipstone: deep mining, planned colliery and pit village.

6. Thorsby: deep mining, planned colliery and pit village, the last Nottinghamshire colliery.

The study areas are being investigated through a combination of documentary

s d n e i fr

research, walkover survey and community engagement. The community engagement will take the form of six workshops undertaken with local community heritage groups. These will be used to identify community interest in and perceptions of coal industry heritage and act as a springboard to look at the potential for future community-based heritage projects.

On the whole the project will provide a strategic overview of Nottinghamshire’s coal mining heritage. It will support the protection and conservation of the remaining coal industry heritage, as well as the landscape it inhabits, providing a framework within which to develop and assess future management, development and community proposals. ArcHeritage looks forward to updating the readers of NAT with our results at the end of the second stage of this project.

JOIN THE

of YORK ARCHAEOLOGICAL TRUST

The Friends of York Archaeological Trust (YAT) is an independent charity supporting the work of one of Britain’s leading archaeological organisations.

With offices in York, Sheffield, Nottingham and Glasgow as well as five attractions in York (including the world-famous JORVIK Viking Centre) York Archaeological Trust is at the forefront of accessible and public archaeology in Britain.

By joining the Friends of York Archaeological Trust you not only support this work but also get access to the following: • Free entry to JORVIK, DIG, BARLEY HALL and the RICHARD III & HENRY VII EXPERIENCES • Free entry to MANX HERITAGE properties on the Isle of Man • Free entry to specific Destination Viking attractions, when available • ‘Northern Archaeology Today’ the magazine of YAT posted to your home twice a year • Access to the Trust’s lunchtime lectures • A special programme of visits, lectures and site tours led by YAT archaeologists • 10% discount in all YAT attraction gift shops • 30% discount on the Trust’s academic publications when purchased direct (one publication per person) • Discounted Archaeology Live! training fees.

For further details e-mail: foyatcontact@gmail.com

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The Church www.barleyhall.co.uk 2 Coffee Yard | Off Stonegate | York | YO1 8AR Barley Hall is owned by York Archaeological Trust a registered Charity in England & Wales (No. 509060) and Scotland (SCO42846).