Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society
Newsletters
No 69 Spring - 2004
No 66 Autumn
- 2002
No 67 Spring/Summer - 2003
No 68 Summer-Autumn - 2003
Contents of No 69 Spring - 2004
Editoral
Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture
Banwell Caves
Members Research
Somerset Deer Parks
Puzzle Picture
The Battle of Quatre Bras
The Tudor Tavern, Fore Street, Taunton
Leslie
Brooke, obituary
Somerton
Book Notices
A Guide to the War Memorials of Somerton 1914
- 1945
The War Dead of Norton
Withy, Bush & Reed, A Somerset Levels Legacy
The Land of the Dobunni
Glastonbury: Myth & Archaeology
The Coaching Era
Taunton Deane Borough Council pamphlets
Decorated Medieval Floor Tiles of Somerset
Nature Notes
Clevedon & District Archaeological Society Summer
Study Tour
Visit to Edington House
Visit to Charmouth
Visit to Langport
Blagdon Conference
Sights, Sounds & Boggy Ground
Somerset County Council Quantock Hills Joint Advisory
Committee
Early Christianity in the South-West
Visit to Axbridge
Natural History Social Afternoon
Archaeological Symposium
Origin & Evolution of Flowering plants
Magic Lantern Show
Goodies & Baddies in the Garden
True or False Gentility? - Talk on Visitations to the
Somerset Heraldry Society
Welcome to the Spring 2004 issue of the Society's newsletter. Plans to change the format and design have been in the air for a little while now and at last are coming to fruition. This issue may not be the definitive version but it is the result of a lot of hard work behind the scenes from editor Robin Downes and the Publications Committee, and Betty Cloke who is responsible for its production and distribution. Many thanks to you all!
There have been a number of changes in County Council affairs which, because of our ownership of Taunton Castle and close links with the Record Office and County Museum, do affect us. Our Vice-Chairman Tom Mayberry has become Head of Heritage Services and now has overall responsibility for Archives, Museums, Historic Environment and the Victoria County History.
He will continue as the County Archivist, responsible for our archive collections. Because of this added responsibility Tom feels that he cannot take on the chairmanship of the Society next year and Council have begun to consider alternatives. We are grateful for all he has done for the Society so far and hope he will continue to take an active part in Society affairs.
We were sad to hear that David Dawson has taken early retirement from his post as County Museums Officer. David has served the Society ably as curator of our museum collections and of the Castle for eighteen years and we thank him for everything he has done on our behalf. We hope that he will find that whatever he chooses to do in the future will be fulfilling and that he will continue to be involved with the Society.
With regard to Taunton Castle: as most of you will know, the County Council lease runs out in 2007. We have been involved for some time now in discussions with representatives of the County Council and of Taunton Deane Borough Council, together with other organisations, with regard to a scheme for Taunton which involves a re-organisation of the County's heritage services. The Castle is likely to be a key component in this scheme, a place where the story of Taunton and of Somerset will be displayed in a modern and attractive manner. We hope that the Society will be fully involved with this project and we will let you know once something definitive is known.
The Society depends for its liveliness and smooth running on the work of numerous volunteers: those who hold office or serve on committees, those who help with events and also those who come regularly into the Office to help with numerous tasks such as despatching newsletters and Proceedings. This can be fun! If you think you could help in any way do please contact Betty at the Office.
Finally, we were saddened to hear of the death of Madge Langdon at the beginning of February. Madge had been involved with the Society for many years: she was a Past President and administered the Maltwood Fund most conscientiously until very recently. She was a respected local archaeologist. We send our love and sympathy to her husband Charlie.
Hilary Binding,
Chairman
Notice from the Courtauld Institute
Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture
The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain & Ireland is looking for
volunteer fieldworkers in Somerset to record and photograph sites in the county.
Our project began in 1989 under the initiative of George Zarnecki, the doyen
of Romanesque Sculpture studies in the UK. Our aim is to photograph and record
all the sculpture surviving from the period between 1066 and 1200, making
this important part of our Heritage available to everyone on the Internet.
A team of more than fifty skilled and dedicated volunteer fieldworkers locates and visits sites where Romanesque sculpture survives: describing, measuring and photographing. The editors at the Courtauld Institute of Art convert the raw materials of this research into web pages. At present, the web-site contains reports from sites in Berkshire, Bedfordshire, Warwickshire and Sussex; more material is regularly added. Please visit the site at <www.crsbi.ac.uk> to see the kinds of reports we produce.
Our fieldworkers are volunteers, but we pay travelling expenses and overnight costs if you need to stay away from home, as well as meeting costs of film and processing. Our latest work has been done using high-resolution digital photography in Cambridgeshire (including Ely Cathedral).
If you would
like to help, even by doing just a few sites near your home, please contact:
Sophie Church, Research Assistant, CRSBI, Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset
House, Strand, London WC2 0RN; or e-mail us at <info-crsbi@courtauld.ac.uk>.
In recent years, the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society has
visited Banwell Caves on a few occasions. The site offers interest to several
disciplines: Palaeontology (the bone caves being a type-site for their period);
Natural History (being an SSSI); Architecture (with its collection of follies);
and History (the site being founded by Bishop Law to posit the case for Religion
versus the dangerous new science of Geology).
Group visits
are welcome and can be arranged by ringing 01934 82 0516 or 01934 74 2035.
Occasional Open Days will also be held in 2004 on 23rd May, 20th June and
15th August from 10:30 until 16:30. Refreshments will be available.
A current interest of mine is reading up the history of deer forests &
parks in the historic County. As with all themes, the more one reads the wider
the prospect ! I should be very pleased to hear from anyone else with a similar
interest; David Hunt has already contacted me about the Nailsbourne Park near
Kingston St. Mary: I hope he is just one of several.
No doubt there are many and various sources of this interest but here are three of the more obvious, in chronological order: my study (many decades ago) and teaching (a mere decade or so ago) of the late medieval poem Gawain & the Green Knight, a work whose great subtlety & symbolic resonance suggest a complex significance of hunting in the medieval ethos; secondly, my residence for the past thirty years or so on the edge of Exmoor, where it would be impossible not to notice the continuation of medieval ways of life; finally, my being inspired by an exciting lecture last year by Peter Herring, of Cornish Archaeology, on Cornish deer parks, in which he developed social, economic and political implications of the disposition & management of parks in that county. (I started by wanting to do something similar in respect of Somerset!)
If you want to contact me on this topic, I should prefer an e-mail to <robin.downes@britishlibrary.net>.
To continue hogging the page, I should really like an interpretation of the water-course feature pictured. (This may well have little to do with Archaeology or Natural History, strictly interpreted !) The puzzling detail is the circular structure: what is or was its function ? The location is upstream from Pavyott's Mill, in the present civil parish of East Coker roughly at ST 546.131. (These days, it might be familiar to walkers of `Monarch's Way'.)
from the 1930 six-inch OS map
My main reason
for including this item is to establish a space for Members' queries, not
necessarily accompanied by images.
The Battle of Quatre Bras 16th June 1815
Betty has received the following letter from Mike Robinson of Newark:
`Forgive me for writing without introduction, but I obtained your details from Local History Magazine and I am hoping that you may be able to help me.
`I am writing a book on the Battle of Quatre Bras, fought on 16 June 1815 in Belgium, between an Allied army commanded by the Duke of Wellington and a French army under Marshal Ney. This is due for publication later this year.
`I have been determined, since the outset, to base as much of my work as possible on primary eye-witness accounts. This has led me to research in institutions and private collections in over a dozen countries and has produced some 200 documents thus far.
`I have been fortunate enough to benefit from the knowledge of a number of local historians in unearthing material written by those that fought in the battle and afterwards lived out the rest of their lives in all corners of the British Isles. This has encouraged me to embark on a more systematic approach.
`May I therefore prevail upon you to request that should any of your members have any knowledge of sources of documentary material, photographs, paintings or other artefacts relating to people who served in the Waterloo campaign, they might contact me by phone, email or letter. I would be tremendously grateful for any assistance they might render and would acknowledge it accordingly.'
Mike may
be contacted on 01636 61 0918 or at <robbo29@tinyworld.co.uk>.
The Tudor Tavern, Fore Street, Taunton
The Tudor Tavern is one of Taunton's very few Grade I listed buildings. At risk for over two years after the closing of the pub business, it was bought in 2002 by the Taunton entrepreneurs Simon Mole and Mo Radford, who have been extremely sympathetic towards the building. Last year, a group of Historic Buildings Committee members crawled all over the building with dendrochronologist Dan Miles: they dated the roof timbers to the fourteenth century, thereby placing the roof among the oldest in the county.
Without Grant Aid, the owners have put the building back into good repair. The medium-term lease to Caffè Nero is proving successful and attracts many customers happy to buy coffee and other comestibles just to look at the roof from the inside !
This is a happy development, hopefully guaranteeing good years ahead for this most important building.
Christopher Chanter
Somerset
Wetlands Symposium
Historic Wetlands with a Future?
Saturday July
10 2004
Richard Huish College, Taunton
10.00am - 4.00pm
(SANHS Natural History with English Nature)
Further details & booking from Betty
One of the longest-serving members of SANHS died on Monday 8th December 2003
aged 89. Leslie had been a member for some seventy years, having joined in
the 1930s. Born in Taunton, he moved to Yeovil after the Second World War
to work for The Western Gazette, in 1967 becoming its Chief Graphic Designer,
a post held until retirement in 1979.
Leslie was a prolific author, titles to his credit including Somerset Newspapers 1725-1960, Some West-Country Lock-Ups and Yesterday's Yeovil. His most recent work was his History of the Baptist Church, published in 2003. He was the leading authority on Yeovil's history, his 1978 Book of Yeovil still being the standard reference work.
Leslie was also a prominent and long-serving member of Yeovil Archaeological and Local History Society. Its Journal, Chronicle, was his creation, first appearing in 1978; to date, it has enjoyed an unbroken run of twenty-five years. His contribution to the Yeovil Society over some forty years has been considerable: having served on the Committee for many years, he was Chairman from 1987 to 1991 and then Vice-Chairman. He continued write extensively for the Chronicle after relinquishing the editorship in 1983. For sixteen years from 1985, Leslie served on the Editorial Committee of Somerset & Dorset Notes & Queries, compiling the Indexes to Volumes 29-33. He was a talented artist, exhibiting widely and illustrating his own works.
In recognition of their outstanding contribution to the Yeovil Archaeological & Local History Society, Leslie and his wife Marjorie were made honorary members. He is survived by Marjorie and their sons Peter and David. Leslie will be greatly missed.
Moira Gittos
Somerton
(from a letter of 3 February 2004)
`Inside the church at Somerton is a list of all the men who served in WWI; it was made in 1919 by Mr Beaton. There was no list for WWII so I started to compile one, asking through newspapers for help. Mrs Dyer produced a Toc-H newsletter of 1945 with a list of everyone known to be serving at that time. More Toc-H newsletters appeared with details of when people had joined up and where they were at different dates, and now that list (of about 300 names) is nearly ready fro presentation. Older members of the population are checking it now for repeats—e.g., is Fred Bloggs the same man as Alfred Bloggs? Is Sylvia Jones the same as Sylvia Brown apart from a wedding ring? And so on.
`I am hoping
that on 6th June, D-Day+60, the new lists, properly framed and decorated,
can be dedicated in both the Church and the Parish Rooms, with some sort of
celebration for those who remember. So at present I am collecting memories
of anyone who can remember D-Day, starting with myself as a four-year-old
getting an orange from an American tankee in Bristol. I am hoping to include
the many older people who have moved into Somerton since it started to expand
in about 1960. I already have half a dozen accounts from people who were teenagers
at the time, and will soon be ringing up everyone I know who is over sixty-five
and asking what they were doing. One lady I heard from today was helping the
Highways Surveyor for this part of Somerset find routes for large lorries
carrying wrecked aeroplanes to Bristol for evaluation or repair—no low
bridges, no narrow lanes and as few steep hills as possible. Another remembers
the Americans having pre-cast concrete blocks to put into roadside ditches
so that tanks, guns and lorries could be parked under the hedges and thus
hidden from enemy aircraft. One chap describes what it was like to be in a
house very close to the landing-place of a VI (`doodlebug'). And Somerton
was still recovering from its own disaster—in September 1942 a bomber
scored four direct hits on a factory in the middle of the town,
killing nine people and injuring many more, as well as damaging all the houses
round about. I did not have many eye-witness accounts of that when the book
went to the printer, but they are being given to me now.
`As well as that, I was elected onto the Town Council in May and discovered why there were so few Somerton records in the Taunton Record Office: they were still here, in a rather damp cupboard. So I persuaded the Town Council to lend them to the Somerset Record Office, who can keep them just right, on the condition that I can have them back for transcribing, a few at a time. So far, as well as the two Censuses of 1891 and 1901, I have transcribed the Schedules for Somerton of the 1806 Enclosure Act, the Tithe Award of 1843, the Vestry Minutes from 1862-91, the Parish Council Minutes 1895-1923, Parish Correspondence 1895-1956, the 1925-51 Minutes of the Parochial Committee responsible for drains and water, roads and footpaths, to list the more important.
`Much of it is very dull, but it all gives one a picture of the life of this small town: the tussle to persuade the Earl of Ilchester to hand over the Market Place and Butter Cross to the town; the building of the Lady Smith Hall (the Parish Rooms); the difficulties of water-supply and sewage-disposal; the fortunes of the fire-engines (one early one is in Bristol City Museum); the provision of houses for the `labouring classes'; the recipients of charity; road-widening and the provision of a weighbridge for the Market Place (only a few years before the market ceased!); above all, the coming of the railway in 1905 through a deep cutting which sliced the town in half.
`Other interesting
facts to emerge from the documents are: hints of corruption in the Clerk's
Office (documents for 1891-95 missing); the great generosity of the Pinney
family, who provided Monteclefe School as well as the Parish Rooms; sad ends
to high hopes (bankruptcies, sudden deaths, failed harvests); enormous enterprise
(for example, changing the lie of the land to allow roads from the town down
to the Levels to less steep); and so on.
`The Clerk, Jesse Hunt, was appointed in 1896 and retired on grounds of ill-health
in 1940, dying soon afterwards. There were only two chairmen of the Parish
Council between 1895 and 1956, Mr Valentine and Mr Coggan, so the picture
is of great stability. I have not yet tackled any of the later papers but
Minutes are continuous from 1895 to the present day. After that, there are
old newspapers to search, perhaps the Church Records will be opened for me,
and who knows what other delights lie ahead. I am told that deeds of houses
are becoming obsolete, so I may be able to see some of them before they are
destroyed.'
Something
to be Proud of.
A Guide to the War Memorials of Somerton 1914 - 1945
Nancy Langmaid
This is an affectionately detailed gazette of the people of Somerton whose
untimely deaths in war are commemorated on the town's war memorials (including
those in churches). It is illustrated with forty photographs. Nancy is keen
to emphasise that this book is provisional and that her work on the topic
is ongoing [See Forum in this Newsletter.] In her Acknowledgements, she writes:
`This book was written for the people of Somerton with their help. The work
was supported by the Citizens' Action Millennium Fund, and is an interim account
of what I have discovered so far.'
One incident directly affecting the town involved nine people killed by the `Milk Factory Bomb' on 29th September 1942 (at the Cow & Gate processing factory in Etsome Terrace):
`Many children were on their way to school. One group of little ones was with an older girl who was an evacuee from London; she knew what to do, and pushed all of the children into a garage in Behind Berry and made them lie flat until the blast was over. Chris Edward's father, who lived close by and had the thatched barn in the field behind the Milk Factory, lost most of the tiles off his roof, but being a builder, he was able to put a tarpaulin up before the rain fell. His was one of the many houses damaged by the explosion.'
[published in 2003 by the author at 32 Highfield Way, Somerton, TA11 6SQ; 81 pp. incl. index; £5.]
A member
of the Norton-sub-Hamdon Local History Society, Mr J Jones, has written this
very thorough account. Copies are being bound by the Local History Society
and will be held at the County Record Office & at the village church,
St. Mary's.
Withy, Bush & Reed, A Somerset Levels Legacy
Caroline Bagias
In his foreward to this collection of sharply evocative monochrome photographs,
Barry Lane compares it with the work of Victorian Henry Emerson in Fenland:
`Caroline has . . . manipulated [the images] into sequences and finally given
the whole further depth of meaning by adding captions and text. [The book]
emerges as a complex narrative about special people with skills that most
of us can only marvel at, whose lives are based upon economies that are difficult
to sustain, but who create objects, or take part in acts, of considerable
beauty.'
Caroline Borgias, born in 1948, spent much of her childhood in Northern Rhodesia. An Associate of the Royal Photographic Society, she has exhibited her widely-acclaimed work throughout the South West. She is currently closely involved with The Levels and Moors Partnership, sharing their aim of raising the profile of Somerset's rich and varied heritage.
The sequences mentioned by Barry are: Withy 2000-2; Rush 1998-2002; Reed 1997-2002; Basket Makers South West.
It would seem appropriate to quote from her own introduction:
`Back in 1998, when I first began to photograph the rush cutting on the River Isle, I never imagined that five years later the project would lead to the publication of a book such as this. My interest in social documentary photography must have begun then, for I have continued ever since to find subjects that I felt needed to be photographed.
`As my photography
has progressed I have increasingly come to realise how important it is to
record the simple, everyday events as well as the special occasions. Those
familiar with the work of James Ravilious . . . will understand what I mean.
He has, along with Frank Meadow-Sutcliff and Emerson, recorded every imaginable
aspect of life within his particular community. Traditional monochrome photography
is surely the best medium for this type of work, which is, fortunately, now
enjoying more widespread recognition. Such photography is, alongside some
of the skills documented in this book, a craft in itself which requires greater
recognition.
The modern history of mankind has, to a great extent, been documented in photographs,
mostly by means of the monochrome process. This too could be in danger of
being lost with the advent of modern technologies.
`Many of the individuals portrayed in this book belong to a diminishing group in possession of a rare knowledge of nature and rural skills which have been handed down from generation to generation; a heritage which if not passed on may be lost. In some instances the younger generations continue to follow in their fathers' footsteps. However, many of them will probably find more lucrative ways of earning a living. I was heartened to discover how many young people are actively involved one way or another in these traditional practices. The roots of our local economy undoubtedly lie in the land and with those who clearly still hold many of its secrets. I hope that this body of work will go towards demonstrating how these skills remain very much a part of our rural economy today and that they are not simply regarded as nostalgic relics of the past.
`My inspiration is Julia Margaret Cameron; I keep reminding myself that she was 48 years old when she took up photography and in only a decade or so produced some of the finest photographic work that exists today. It is my wish to give a voice to people who cannot speak for themselves or whose voices cannot be heard, and, much as I hope that my pictures will be used to inform future generations, I also want them to be enjoyed.'
[224 pp.; published in 2003 by Halsgrove, with the ISBN 1 84114 289 1, at £24.95]
A Series of Papers relating to the Transformation of the Pagan, Pre-Roman, Tribal Lands, into Christian, Anglo-Saxon Gloucestershire & Somerset.
From the
Symposia of 2001 and 2002
Published Jointly by the Committee for Archaeology in Gloucestershire &
the Council for British Archaeology - South West.
Contents:
The Land
of the Dobunni
[Papers presented at the Guildhall, Gloucester, Saturday 10th November 2001]
The First
Problem The
Editors
The Land of the Dobunni Prof.
Tim Darvill
Locating the Dobunni Prof.
Barry Cunliffe
The Canton of the Dobunni Prof.
Michael Fulford
The Dobunnic Area in Post-Roman Times Prof. Philip Rahtz
Sons of Woden
- Soldiers of Christ?
[Papers presented at the University of Gloucestershire, Park Campus, Cheltenham,
Saturday 9th November 2002]
The Next
Problem Prof.
Peter Fowler
The English Conquest of the South-West
- the Literary Evidence The
Editors
Early Monasteries in Somerset
- Models and Agendas Prof.
Mick Aston
The Reformation of the British Church in the
West Country in the 7th century Teresa
Hall
Not Angels but Anglicans
- The Origins of the Christian Church in Gloucestershire Carolyn
Heighway
Migrating Hordes Dr.
Martin Welch
Landscape Studies Dr.
Della Hooks
Whence the Hwicce ? :
Archaeology and Language
Richard Sermon
Facts from the Laboratories Tamara
Rome
Summary Review The
Editors
Editors:
Martin Ecclestone, Keith Gardner, Neil Holbrook & Andrew Smith.
[Committee for Archaeology in Gloucestershire, Princess Royal Cottage, Rodborough,
Stroud, GL5 3UA; 88 pages; £5]
Glastonbury: Myth & Archaeology
Philip Rahtz & Lorna Watts, ed. Bob Croft
To quote the `blurb': `Glastonbury is a familiar name to many. However, its fame lies not simply in its renowned music festival, but in its legendary associations with King Arthur and Joseph of Arimathea, whose staff was supposed to have grown into the Glastonbury Thorn.
`In this comprehensive survey, Philip Rahtz and Lorna Watts use Glastonbury's rich archaeological evidence provided by the lake villages, prehistoric tracks, Abbey and Tor to explain how myth and history are woven together, and attempt to disentangle legend from truth.
`In this
edition, Bob Croft, Somerset County Archaeologist, has sensitively updated
and reillustrated Philip Rahtz's original text, providing a valuable contemporary
guide for both historian and visitor.'
New illustrations: Forester's 1911 reconstruction of Glastonbury lake village;
three examples of stone sculpture from the Abbey; the stone effigy of `Jack
Stagg' from a former market cross; three examples of lead artifacts, including
two bulls (?); two examples of floor tiles from the Abbey; Wheatley's 1840
painting of the view towards Glastonbury from Sharpham.
[Tempus 2003 (updated by Bob Croft from 1993 The English Heritage Book of Glastonbury); 191 pp. include a glossary of Places to Visit, Further Reading, Bibliography, Glossary & Index (all substantial); ISBN 0 7524 2548 x.]
The Coaching Era
Geoffrey Body and Roy Gallop
Stage and mail coach travel in and around Bath, Bristol and Somerset
To quote the `blurb': `From the early 1940s the rapid growth of railways brought to an end two centuries of enterprising and colourful coach travel. Developing from the arduous and tedious journeys by goods waggon into the availability of a wide network of coach links between major towns, the coaching era involved more than just the romantic coach names and the thrill of hearing the horn of the approaching mail coach. This book covers all that, but also delves further into what journeys were like, what they cost and how the services were operated, adding the fascination of people, places and practices to breathe life into the facts about coaching roads, routes and inns.'
A flavour of the pioneering beginning may be tasted in a 1667 advertisement:
Flying Machine
All those desirous to pass from London to Bath,
or any other Place on their Road, let them repair
to the Bell Savage on Ludgate Hill and the
White Lion at Bath, at both which places they may
be received in a Stage Coach every Monday,
Wednesday and Friday, which performs the whole
journey in Three Days (if God permit), and sets forth
at five in the Morning.
Passengers to pay One Pound five Shillings each,
who are allowed to carry fourteen Pounds Weight -
for all above to pay three halfpence per pound.
[Fiducia Press, 2003; Kingsmead Press in association with the Bath Postal Museum
ISBN 0 946217
14 9 [Fiducia]/ 1 85026 019 2 [Kingsmead]; 56 pp. illustrated.]
Taunton Deane Borough Council pamphlets:
The Industrial
Heritage of Taunton Deane
Series Editor: Ian Clark.
Technical Editor: John Perkin
No. 5.
Brewing in Taunton Deane
Mary Miles (including photographs from her own collection)
A historical sketch illustrated with the Milverton bench-end of the Ale Taster & of the 1776 Taunton Ale Brewery established in East Reach. Other breweries mentioned: Hancock's of Wiveliscombe; that at Rowbarton demolished in 1982. Illustrations include: a dray at Hancock's; the Georgian brewer's house in East Reach; the `Bird in Hand' public house; the Hancock family in the late nineteenth century; Harry Frier's 1903 sketch of the West Somerset Brewery on the site of present theatre (from the SANHS collection).
No. 6
Watermills in Taunton Deane
Martin Bodman (with mostly his photos: 14 in all)
A historical sketch with diagrams of workings, many photos and notes on surviving mills including that restored at Bishops Lydeard.
The author
is 'a member of the Mills Section of the Society for the Protection of Ancient
Buildings, the Somerset Industrial Archaeology Society (SIAS) and of the Wessex
Mills Group and he wrote the SIAS publication Mills around Wiveliscombe'.
Decorated Medieval Floor Tiles of Somerset
Barbara J. Lowe
Copies available from SANHS Office @ £14.95, post free.
Barbara's interest in medieval floor tiles was engendered by the large number
of tiles and fragments unearthed in 1961-6 by bulldozers cutting the Keynsham
by-pass through the site of the Norman Abbey.
Her search for information about, and parallels for, these tiles took her first to the Somerset County Museum, then to the British Museum before investigating everywhere in the historic county known to have such tiles.
She was appointed Director for Somerset at the 1970 launch of the National Census of Medieval Floor Tiles. Between 1964 and 1980 almost every church, abbey, priory and museum in historic Somerset was visited, all available tiles being traced, measured and recorded.
The world was different then: people with interesting houses or artefacts took Barbara into their homes, showed her their `treasures' and made her really welcome. So, although the Project involved much driving, prolonged kneeling on cold church floors and crawling into damp and dark corners in order to trace the designs on often very worn tiles, it was exceedingly worthwhile and enjoyable.
Publication
of the census was not immediately possible. Between 1988 and 1995 it was entirely
updated, sites re-visited and new discoveries added.
As in 2002, one feature of the past Summer has been the persistence of song by Chiffchaffs: surprisingly, in early July some males were still in vigorous song, at least in parts of the Quantocks and Exmoor. Of course, singing did decline then, but I heard more in September prior to migration. Chiffchaffs, however, do over-winter in England, at least on occasions; perhaps milder winters will increase this trend.
Speaking of individuals, I came across a Chiffchaff trapped inside a lobby window one June day. As I tried to catch the bird for release, displacement activity set in: the Chiffchaff pecked at dead flies on a sill and then made an aerial sally after a flying insect, with my hand just a few centimetres distant.
Compared with Chiffchaffs, Willow Warblers were not in good numbers last Summer, and the same applied to Wood Warblers; on the Somerset Levels, however, there appeared to be plenty of both Reed and Cetti's Warblers. We have two resident warbler species in Somerset: Cetti's and the Dartford. It is good news that the Dartford Warbler is now present on Exmoor and the Quantocks, frequenting gorse and heather moorland. In spring plumage, the male Dartford Warbler is a most distinctive bird, showing its long grey tail, often cocked, and dark red breast with small white spots: it can hardly be confused with any other species. The male's spring song is a scratchy warble, not unlike that of the Common Whitethroat which itself may well be a summer visitor to the same patch of heathland. We know severe winter weather brings a hard time to any small bird; prolonged ice and snow could well eliminate Dartford Warblers from Somerset, and the results could be the same for the Cetti's Warbler.
Last Summer, Blackcaps were plentiful and sang beautifully in most parts of Somerset, especially in woods with good bramble growth. Blackcaps are not uncommon in Winter nowadays, but these normally come from Scandinavia or Eastern Europe. It seems British-bred Blackcaps migrate south in Autumn, although some may over-winter if it becomes sufficiently warm. The cock's song is an interrupted but attractive sequence of musical soprano notes. I thought the Reverend Morris, writing in Victorian times, gave a helpful description, at least for those days: `Its tones, though desultory, are very rich, deep, full, loud, varied, sweetly wild and witching.'
The brownish and rather plain Garden Warbler, a Sylvian species like the Blackcap, also sang well locally last Season, particularly in places with dense low shrubs and tangled vegetation. Garden Warblers arrive later than Blackcaps and often move to higher ground. The flowing contralto song is somewhat similar to that of the Blackcap and, in short bursts, can sometimes be very difficult to tell apart. The low bush nests of
Blackcap and Garden Warbler can best be inspected through autumn bird-nesting, when leaf-cover is reducing and there is no risk of causing desertion. The Blackcap's nest looks rather flimsy, with interwoven fine grass and hair, although the structure is surprisingly strong and easily survives winter storms; often, there is ornamentation round the rim with pieces of spider web. In contrast, the Garden Warbler's nest (built largely by the hen, as with the Blackcap) is more substantial, its woven grass stems of larger calibre. The nests of both species are usually well concealed in low cover such as brambles with nettles growing through, but Blackcaps normally prefer a greater height than Garden Warblers, whose nests are sometimes almost on the ground.
Nest of the Garden Warbler
Once relatively common as a summer visitor to Somerset, the Grasshopper Warbler is a skulking brown bird with dark spots on its upper parts. It may frequent marshy places but sometimes appears in scrubby dry habitats. The bird can run mouse-like through dense vegetation (like the Cetti's Warbler) and is usually identified by its reeling, insect-type, song which is very ventriloqual. Just why Grasshopper Warbler numbers in Somerset have so much declined, despite plenty of suitable habitat, is a mystery. Possibly there have been problems in its African wintering-zones or on its migration routes.
Moving away from warblers, one distinctive summer visitor to Somerset woodlands is the Redstart (classified as a chat or thrush); somehow, I am always sad in August when it disappears from our woods. The poet John Clare called it `firetail' from its frequently quivered orange-red tail. With good fortune, one may watch local Redstarts display in late April or early May, near a possible nesting site, perhaps an old fissured tree. The hen is attracted by the male's rather simple song of two short warbled phrases; if all goes well, the female will be chased by the male who will later fly in and out of the suggested nesting cavity. If the hen is impressed, she will spread her tail and mating should follow. It is well known that Redstart numbers fluctuate from season to season but the species was not scarce over the Quantocks in 2003.
Considering plants for a change, one rather scarce but attractive bush is Spindle. Actually, the close-grained wood really was used to make wheel spindles and may still be. I know many of us admire the four-lobed red fruits which appear in Autumn; they contain red seeds which have to be dispersed if the bush is to spread elsewhere. How does this happen in Nature ? I had a clue when I saw a Robin swallowing the seeds whole one October afternoon. Apparently, Robins disperse Spindle seeds either by subsequent regurgitation or by passing them undigested. The seeds themselves are poisonous but are surrounded by a nutrient coat known as an `aril'. Certain birds will pull off fragments of
the aril without eating the seeds, one notable example being the Long-Tailed Tit; the sight of a party in a well-fruited Spindle bush is one of the delights of Autumn. Incidentally, while thinking of Robins, I saw one in mid-October posturing aggressively in a lane before a discarded red carnation !
Another common bird which surprised me recently was a Rook: one afternoon a cottage chimney was discharging unpleasantly acrid smoke when a Rook swooped to pass through it; soon other Rooks joined in. Did they get a thrill from this activity ? Further, in late Summer, I saw a Rook fly at a House Martin feeding peacefully high up. They grappled with each other before separating, the Martin flying off at speed.
Amongst insects, Humming-Bird Hawk Moths have been relatively common during the recent late hot Summer. These are migrants from across the English Channel; they really do resemble miniature humming-birds as they feed, proboscis extended, sucking nectar from various flowers. I watched at least four feeding from Valerian, wings beating at remarkable speed. The energy requirements represented by their long flights and hovering for feeding must be considerable; all depends on the contraction-efficiency of the wing muscles.
Like several others, I much enjoyed the Geological Outing to Charmouth in late September; looking at cliff formations and searching for shore fossils made the journey well worthwhile. Further, the occasion was notable for me because, while I was staring at a massive mudstone bulge, a Rock Pipit hovered before landing just in front of me. I was able to admire the bird's stocky build, heavy plumage-streaking and near-black legs (the legs of both Meadow and Tree Pipit being pinkish). The bill is very dark compared with the lighter tone in other pipits. Rock Pipits, usually cliff nesters, are sometimes chosen as egg-hosts by Cuckoos (not as frequently as other pipits). The eggs are flecked or mottled with brown or grey, not unlike those of the Meadow. In contrast, however, Tree Pipit eggs, in a ground or bank nest, show remarkable variation between individuals; beautifully freckled or stippled with grey, red or brown, they may be blotched with similar colour shades. Doubtless, individual Tree Pipit females have their own characteristic egg pattern and colouring.
I saw few fungi on the Quantocks last Autumn, due to the dry and hot late Summer. However, autumn leaves have had unusually bright colours, some people asserting these never having been surpassed. This illustrates that leaf chlorophyll consists not only of green pigments: other pigments are red or yellow, as carotin or xanthophyll. The green pigments alone contain magnesium. Whatever the chemistry, autumn deciduous trees in red and gold were strikingly beautiful in afternoon sunshine, particularly Quantock beeches.
Clevedon
& District Archaeological Society
Summer Study Tour
Our annual study visit, from 14th to 18th August 2003, was greatly enjoyed
by twenty-five members and friends. Based at the Lakes Court Hotel in Carlisle,
we were well placed to visit a variety of sites on Hadrian's Wall and also
in South West Scotland. We travelled by coach, our first stop being for lunch
at the delightful Levens Hall. This is probably the finest Elizabethan house
in Cumbria and also boasts famous topiary gardens.
The following day, our first stop was at Hexham, a place of Christian worship since 674. The Abbey church dates from the twelfth century but its Saxon crypt is perhaps the most moving part of the church, with its primitive simplicity and walls built entirely from Roman masonry (presumably from the nearest Roman town at Corbridge, three miles away). Also special is the Frith Stool, a seventh-century bishop's throne carved from a single block. There is only one other such stool extant in England—the undecorated one at Beverley Minster.
We then proceeded to Hadrian's Wall, to be guided round the Roman fort and civilian settlement of Vindolanda before lunch at the excellent site museum. At Housesteads Roman fort we were guided by Georgina Plowright, our Honorary Member who is now with English Heritage in the North. Several of our members then walked part of the Wall at Steel Rigg (`steep ridge'), whence there are good views of it snaking up and down the landscape.
View eastwards along the Wall from west of Housesteads
photo by Robin Downes
That evening, a talk by Tim Padley of the Tullie House Museum in Carlisle gave us a great deal more information about the archaeology of the area (including the statistic that there are more stone circles here than in any other county) and made us realise how interesting is Carlisle itself.
The next day was spent in South West Scotland (Dumfries & Galloway), commencing with the seventh-century eighteen-feet high Anglian cross at Ruthwell. Sculptured in high relief, it is considered a major monument of Dark Age Europe.
Ruthwell Cross Detail
photo by Robin Downes
Our next visit, in the village of New Abbey, was to the splendid ruin of the late thirteenth-century Sweetheart Abbey, with its well-preserved precinct wall. A surprise bonus was the carefully renovated water-powered oatmeal mill, now in working order. We then went to the fifteenth-century tower house of Cardoness Castle, four storeys high, on a rocky platform above the Water of Fleet.
Leaving the less active members to enjoy a rest in this picturesque setting, several of us enjoyed a walk up a farm road to two impressive Neolithic chambered tombs, Cairnholy I and II, which belong to the Galloway group of the Clyde-Carlingford type. The day ended with a visit to the beautiful ruins of the Cistercian Dundrennan Abbey founded by David I in 1142, where Mary Queen of Scots spent her last night on her native soil.
Carlisle Castle proved to contain much more of interest than I had expected. Parts date to the twelfth century and the new exhibition `The Castle Roman Dig' was fascinating, especially the details of the spectacular finds of Roman armour. We could have spent much longer at the excellent Tullie House Museum with its new underground Millennium Gallery, but were due to be guided round Birdoswald Roman fort before walking to examine one of the best-preserved milecastles above Poltross Burn by Gilsland village.
We very reluctantly
left Carlisle on our fourth day, but stopped on our way south to visit the
third largest stone- circle in Britain—Long Meg and Her Daughters. The
Long Meg menhir is an impressive twelve feet high, its north-east face profusely
decorated with spiral and cup-and-ring motifs. We then went to Brougham Castle,
east of Penrith. This formidable medieval fortress is dominated by its thirteenth-century
moated keep. Our final sites visited were the two henges at Eamont Bridge—King
Arthur's Round Table and Mayburgh Henge, 300 and 360 feet in diameter. The
rampart of Mayburgh, its height varying between
eight and fifteen feet, was constructed by collecting surface stones rather
than by the more usual method of digging a ditch on the inside.
This was another stimulating, informative and most enjoyable study visit. Our Society is once again indebted to our past Chairman Christine Anderson for all her excellent arrangements. This is the fifteenth annual study tour she has organised for us !
The 2004 Study Tour will be to Ireland, from the 12th to the 16th of August. This will be by coach and we will be staying in a decent hotel on the outskirts of Dublin. Sites to be visited include the Boyne Valley megalithic tombs (Newgrange etc.) and Celtic monasteries. The tour is not yet fully planned but is expected to cost £275-£300 to include transport and four nights accommodation at half board. We would welcome some members of SANHS if any would care to join our friendly group.
Jean Dagnall
[A `Frith-stool',
named after the Anglo-Saxon frið meaning `peace; freedom from molestation;
protection; safety; security' (OED) afforded privilege of sanctuary and is
defined in OED as `a seat, usually of stone, formerly placed near the altar
in some churches, which afforded inviolable protection to those who sought
privilege of sanctuary.' Ed.]
Vist
to Edington House, A Sedgemoor Jewel
20th September
On a fine day, over thirty-five members came to a hidden jewel in Sedgemoor. Edington House dates from the seventeenth century but was greatly enlarged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by a Bristol merchant: the result was a small but fine country house.
We were welcomed by Robert and Inge Sprawson, owners since 1992. They and their long-term house-guest Viscount Boyle conducted us most thoroughly. The tour included a trip to the leads which gave a fine view of the Moors as well as the opportunity to look at well-planned lead work and guttering, storm-water provision and the excellent decorative finials which surmount the front elevation.
A splendid tea finished a most enjoyable afternoon, which was most encouraging in its attendance.
Christopher
Chanter
Visit to Charmouth, Jurassic Park Revisited
28th September 03
If you enjoyed that ridiculous film Jurassic Park then you would have enjoyed
the Natural History group expedition on 27th September to Charmouth.
Here, on our World Heritage coastline, we were looking at real Jurassic rocks topped with a layer of Cretaceous flint and chert. Before going on to the beach we watched a short video in the Visitors Centre and listened to a talk by our guide. After passing round specimens for us to handle, she took us to a good spot on the beach in which to hunt for fossils.
The grey, messy-looking cliffs, unstable and frequently slipping towards the sea, hide quantities of fossils. The slippages bring these out on to the beach, where the sea scours away the débris. No need to scramble dangerously on the cliff—the best specimens are found amongst the pebbles. The hopeful fossil-hunter turns these over in expectation of treasures, of maybe finding an ichthyosaur snout poking up from the sand, but with the certainty of discovering the little curled ammonites. Some, of course, are huge—but we were not allowed to take great boulders on the minibus.
To pick up these fossils is to touch the distant past, to wonder that millions of years ago ancient warm seas were inhabited by vast numbers of creatures that we would know nothing about were it not for their fossil remains.
Belemnites, bullet-shaped `stones', all that remains of the internal shell of a squid-like animal, are also commonly found, as are bits of crinoid `stem'. The latter are five-rayed branching organisms related to the modern starfish and feather-stars. The educated eyes of the geologists leading the expedition could spot these and many other things, such as fossil wood, tube worms, shells and footprints—with luck! A more remarkable find would have been a nautilus for its descendants still roam the seas: creatures like dragonflies, so successful they have stuck in an evolutionary niche.
It was a beautiful day: Golden Cap shining in the sun, the sea breaking gently on the shore, gulls squabbling, everything engendering an unscientific feeling of eternity. The ice-creams were very good too!
Derek Briggs organised all this and drove the minibus, so a great big thank-you to him for a super day.
Roger Lines
Visit to Langport
Saturday 4th October 2003
The neglected Stuckey and Bagehot warehouse is late eighteenth-century although the site is an ancient trading post on the river Parrett. The Old Store, on two floors, is built with Bridgwater bricks in English bond. There are rows of arched windows on both floors, with the remains of wooden stanchions instead of glazing. The structure is a series of king-post trusses with hipped end bays. The timbers are unusually long, of straight and sturdy pitch pine from the New World.
Attached behind the Old Store is the single-storey New Store, also in English bond and dating from about 1820. The aisled roof covers a span of forty feet. Post-frames, purlins and rafters interlace in a unified structure to form a kind of arcade plate, but the eastern aisle is more modern.
Then there is the single-storey Office Wing, adjoining to the east, built in the more modern Flemish bond. This can be accurately dated to 1837 as it is not on an 1836 map but is on one of 1838. Only one roof truss, broken on the ground, is left as a memento. By the fireplace are three safes which presumably stored the ledgers overnight.
The whole site is now owned by the Somerset Trust for Sustainable Development, who have agreed to restore the warehouse for public benefit in partnership with the Langport Area Development Trust. It is hoped the warehouse will be developed as a gallery for the Somerset Guild of Craftsmen, providing space for exhibitions and events as well as room for a bistro and for some workspace for craft- or design-related businesses.
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Between the warehouse and the river is the old harbour, used until the end of the nineteenth century when it was filled in. Perhaps this will be dredged so that boats, large as well as small, will again ply the Parrett, for pleasure if not commerce, and the old stone wharf will return to life ?
We walked
excitedly along Bow Street, to see a house rebuilt in 1645, when Langport
was fired by retreating Royalists after the battle reported to Parliament
by Cromwell as `The Long Sutton Mercy' fought at the unusually named `Pissbury
Bottom'. The whole roof had been lifted several feet in the early nineteenth
century when the façade and rear elevations were rebuilt in the later
Georgian style. The west gable-end clearly shows the former roof-line.
Further on is the Town Hall, dating from 1732. We looked at the covered market with its hamstone columns supporting the Court Room where the judges sat before the Courts were moved to Somerton. When they moved again, to Axbridge, the canvas of the Royal Arms became redundant; it now hangs in the Council Chamber. The Arms date from the early Georgian period, to judge by the fourth quarter which incorporates the Arms of Hanover as used until 1801. Some ventured up a ladder, like sailors up rigging, into the roof-space in order to admire the enormous girth of the timbers and the fine movement of the clock which hangs over Cheapside.
Splendid tea and cake were enjoyed at the Grammar House, which is Georgian although much restored. The earliest deeds of this property indicate it was already standing in 1780. However, given its propinquity to the town wall, being the first extra-mural house on the west side, it is likely the site had been inhabited from much earlier.
Alex Findlater
& Anthony Bruce
Standing Conference of Associated Societies AGM
The 2003 Standing Conference was held in Blagdon, in glorious sunshine, on 11th October, hosted by the Blagdon Local History Society. Regaled with coffee and biscuits on arrival, society representatives attended the short AGM, business being quickly dispatched by Hilary Binding, SANHS Chairman.
It was reported that the Publications Workshop requested by an earlier standing conference had been established in May and was proving most helpful. The Chairman gave an update on progress on the future of Taunton Castle, and the Administrator distributed copies of the Calendar of Events which had not been included in the last Newsletter. Jean Dagnall was re-elected Representative of the Associated Societies on the SANHS Council. Once again, only one society had brought copies of its newsletter to exchange with other societies.
The main lecture of the morning by Nick Corcos, Landscape Archaeologist, focused on his research into the origins of Bourne and Burrington [see Proceedings 144]. At the time of the 904 Charter, the area was part of the Wrington estate which passed to Glastonbury Abbey later in the tenth century. There was already a hamlet at Bourne by this time, but probably no settlement at Burrington. Nick argued conclusively that originally Bourne was the more important settlement, and that Burrington was a new, planned, foundation—an estate carved out of Glastonbury as a knight's fee in the later tenth or early eleventh century. In support of this thesis, he showed many interesting early maps.
Andrew Addicot completed the morning programme by showing most interesting slides of Blagdon and surrounding villages in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
In the afternoon,
John Chamberlain conducted us round Coombe Lodge, built in 1931 by
Sir George Oakley for the Wills family. He shared with us his intimate knowledge
of the unusual concrete and steel construction of the house, and the details
of the superb craftsmanship and the finest materials used throughout. The
house is also fascinating in exemplifying the social mores of the time—in
particular, in the
arrangement of its rooms separating servants from masters and mistresses.
Tea and biscuits, most welcome at the end of a full and interesting day, were kindly provided by the owners.
We can now look forward to the 2004 Standing Conference hosted by the Bridgwater Archaeological Society.
Jean Dagnall
Sights,
Sounds & Boggy Ground
Natural History
Symposium
Edington, 18th October 2003
What a shame more people were not able to attend what turned out to be a fascinating
insight into the interests and activities of individuals and organisations
concerned with the study and conservation of wildlife in Somerset, especially
on the Levels and Moors.
About thirty members, including the Society's Chairman Hilary Binding, gathered informally in the comfortable Edington Village Hall for a day of talks and presentations which took us on a virtual journey through some 8,000 years of changes in flora, fauna and man's activities, right up to the dramatic effects of a dry summer on one of our rarest and most threatened animals, as revealed that very day.
The Hall itself was set out with a variety of interesting displays ranging from professionally-printed panels provided by corporate bodies and organisations to equally informative collages lovingly prepared by enthusiasts and volunteers from smaller groups and societies.
Although there had been no attempt, apart from the implications of the event's title, to influence or co-ordinate the themes and content of the displays, there was a notable emphasis on personal and community involvement in nature conservation. There was much to be learnt from the displays of Butterfly Conservation and the Somerset Wildlife Trust about the establishment and management of gardens, ponds and other small but valuable conservation areas; whilst the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Levels and Moors Partnership emphasised the importance of both structured and less formal activities, encouraging community and children's groups actually to do something to help value and conserve our wildlife heritage.
A high standard of photography was apparent throughout the displays. Keith Gould's stunning insect pictures are well known to the Society, and it was nice to see a selection of Den Bridel's work representing many hours of patient research and observation.
English Nature
took the opportunity to launch what, if their recently announced proposed
démise comes about, may prove to be their first and last colour guide
to Shapwick Heath Nature Reserve
—who knows, it may become a collector's item ! The Bristol Naturalists
Society displayed a number of excellent publications including volumes on
the Mendip Hills and Avon Gorge.
Youth and audience participation were a feature of the first of the four main events. Pat Hill-Cottingham, Chairman for the day, introduced the RSPB's Avalon Marshes Schools and Community Officer Amanda Wilkinson.
Amanda's lively and innovative approach set the tone for the rest of the day. She first introduced five pupils from Meare Primary School who told us about their project work drawing local attention to the advantages of recycling waste. The children took us through a well-rehearsed presentation of their newsletters, signs, poetry anthology and posters. The conclusion was an amusing but poignant `rap' performance which they clearly enjoyed as much as the audience.
As the children left, there was a buzz of expectancy as Amanda handed out labelled cylindrical `time-capsules', making it plain that involvement of the recipients was going to be required. The `workshop' started with the opening of the `8,000 year-old' capsule. This revealed a model puffin, an eagle's feather and a pot of muddy water ! Amanda used screen-projection to build up a picture of the area where we were sitting as it had been at the end of the last Ice Age, when marine-clays were being deposited and seabirds and eagles flew overhead. The `6,000 year-old' capsule contained dry clay, pieces of reed and a photograph of a bittern. Gradually, with the aid of carefully selected objects and background illustrations, we worked our way through time as members of the audience produced evidence for the drying out of reed-beds, the establishment of willow, ash and alder woodlands, and the eventual growth of peat-bogs as Britain entered a period of heavy rainfall. Man's appearance was marked by a small pot of hazelnuts similar to that found during the excavation of the Sweet Track. Plastic animals and a flint tool represented the expansion of farming in the area about 2,000 years ago. Drainage, the working and uses of peat were treated in a similar way until the last participant opened a capsule labelled `The Future'. He was confronted with a small mirror effectively bringing home the message that it is our activities that will determine what treasures the area will attract and retain in years to come.
Moving from the general to the specific, the next speaker, Graham Rix, Chairman of Somerset Wildlife Trust's Peat Moors Committee, gave a detailed history of Sharpham Moor Plot Nature Reserve, using aerial photographs, maps and carefully-researched pictures.
Sharpham Moor is the oldest nature reserve in Somerset, established in 1923 when the then Society for the Promotion of Nature Reserves bought it for £45 (about £2,000 in today's money). The main objective of acquisition was to protect its interesting sedge flora, in particular the rare slender Carex filiformis (now known as C. lasiocarpa) and its hybrid with the Greater Pond Sedge (C. riparia) known as C. x evoluta. The first discovery in Britain of this latter sedge was made by the Clifton botanist H Stuart Thompson in 1915 at Sharpham. It was last seen there in 1955 when Professor Willis and John Hope-Simpson, of Bristol University Botany Department, visited the site. John Hope-Simpson knew the site well as he had been warden in the 1950s.
Graham is well known for his attention to detail and his persistence in tracking down interesting and relevant documents to aid his research. Sharpham is no exception, and the audience was treated to a fascinating series of slides and anecdotes about the site. These included correspondence between early naturalists, the tracing of herbarium specimens in museum collections and photographs and notes recording the visit to Sharpham of one of the fathers of British ecology, Sir Arthur Tansley, on June 23rd 1923.
Field recording in ecology has moved on since Sir Arthur's visit. Weatherproof recording-sheets, digital cameras and hand-held mini tape-recorders are now commonplace. In contrast, Graham told us how the great man carefully drew his field-vegetation map on the back of a laundry-ticket ! This, together with faded photographs of men in long coats amongst dense vegetation combined to take us back all those years so we could almost smell the wet moss and feel the water around our ankles.
A series of colour slides taken by Graham, who has known the site since the early 1960s, demonstrated changes on the reserve. In addition to flowers, insects, fungi, trees and shrubs, the sequence recorded the gradual disintegration of the reserve gate originally installed by the Society for the Protection of Nature Reserves which formed a useful `permanent' location point. Sharpham Moor is still a Somerset Wildlife Trust reserve; Carex x evoluta, rediscovered at Street Heath in the mid 1990s, is still there and one day will hopefully be relocated to its old Sharpham locality.
Graham Rix further contributed to the success of the day by providing a virtual treasure of some fifty or so Natural History curiosities against which people could pit their knowledge in a game of identification. Having collected since boyhood, he provided an intriguing range of specimens: items from the Antipodes to the Arctic, from Tropic Seas to the Thames, sat alongside deer-ticks from the Quantocks and fossils from Dorset. The lunch-break gave participants plenty of time to look at them, swap news and discuss current issues.
After lunch, it was the turn of Doctor Philip Radford and we were then treated to a taste of Summer as the calls of Somerset warblers echoed around the hall. Philip has been collecting the songs and calls of birds for many years and patiently recording them on spools of tape which he played to the audience whilst giving his own relaxed style of commentary.
Starting with the Whitethroat, he took us through song and alarm calls of ten or more species. The explosive call of the now-established Cetti's Warbler contrasted with the melodic contralto singing of the Garden Warbler and the more soprano notes of the Blackcap.
Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff were used to demonstrate anxiety calls in the presence of Cuckoos, culminating in a seldom-heard screaming from Willow Warblers as a Cuckoo entered the nest to lay.
Philip had succeeded in gathering together four different alarm calls of the Wood Warbler which he played before attempting to confuse us all with a recording of a Reed Warbler mimicking a House Sparrow !
The quality of the recordings was excellent throughout and was clearly demonstrated by the rapt attention of the audience in this sometimes difficult after-lunch slot and by the fact that copies of the tapes are in the National Sound Archive.
Philip Radford, as Vice-Chairman, then introduced the final speaker of the day, Pat Hill-Cottingham, whose account of her PhD study of the Shining Ram's Horn was to inject a final drama to the day.
The Shining
Ram's-horn Segmentina nitida is a rare water-snail which appeared in 1997
in one of two ditches
excavated on the Catcott North Reserve in the 1980s. The snail was known from
sites north of the Mendips in the nineteenth century and there are records
of sub-fossil 2,000 year-old specimens from south of the Poldens near Greylake.
(There is a population in East Sussex differing from the Somerset specimens
in the size and shape of shell aperture.)
The Shining Ram's-horn feeds on the submerged Ivy-leaved Duckweed Lemna trisulca which is itself not a common plant as it cannot compete with surface duckweeds. Pat told us how the snail had been discovered at Catcott almost by chance during a project by a student under her supervision. More recently, this tiny animal had attracted the attention of TV's Bill Oddie in a Natural History programme about the Somerset Levels and Moors.
Pat's study had been intensive. Fluctuations in snail numbers, along with those of other aquatic creatures in the ditches, were recorded by examining twenty-six examples each month for a year. Each snail was noted, measured and returned the next morning to the exact find-spot. Daily observations of the snail's activities revealed features such as its relationship with a predatory leech Glossiphonia heteroclita. We were shown slides illustrating the gradual digestion of the snail by the leech—all in vivid colour. The ultimate purpose of amassing all this information is to conserve the species—to keep it safe for others to see and enjoy in years to come, and to maintain its position in the general biodiversity of Somerset.
It was then that Pat dropped the bombshell that made everyone sit up in disbelief; the stunned silence must have been heard in Bridgwater ! After outlining the autoecology, population dynamics and dispersal mechanisms of the species, it had been her intention that we should be treated to projected images of live Shining Ram's-horns on the screen. To this end, Tony Smith had been dispatched to Catcott to collect specimens during the lunch-break—only to return with the news that the ditches were dry and only dead specimens could be found. It seems that our wonderful sunny Summer may have caused the snail's disappearance from Somerset. But for Pat's work, we might never have known of its existence.
We all left
reflecting on the possible future of the Shining Ram's-horn in Somerset. Unfortunately,
this snail gives birth to live young; it does not deposit
eggs like other molluscs. No live adults—no live young: did this mean
that all the work and strategy-planning for the future of the species was
all for nothing ? Watch this space !
Russell Gomm
EPILOGUE
Shining Ram's-horn is known to be able to withstand low levels of water but the ditch on the reserve had been empty for at least seven weeks, leaving the weak peat substratum exposed to the sun and I was very pessimistic about the Snail's survival. Immediately after the Symposium, David Reid, Somerset Wildlife Trust's Peat Moors Officer, set about removing barriers and channelling water from neighbouring ditches. When I visited the site on December 3rd, the ditch contained water—and living Shining Ram's-horns ! Given this resilience, Somerset Wildlife Trust can now activate a conservation strategy for the species; we hope the population will gradually colonise the new interconnecting ditches as they become sufficiently vegetated to suit the snail.
Pat Hill-Cottingham
Somerset County Council Quantock Hills Joint Advisory Committee
I attended meetings of this Committee, as Society representative, on 24th January, 11th April, 18th July (with representatives of the Consultative Bodies) and 7th November 2003.
At these meetings, the Rangers gave helpful reports on commons management, as well as arrangements regarding moorland and woodland access. Driving on the Hills by owners of motor-bikes and four-wheel-drive vehicles has given some problems which are under consideration. Other matters considered have been the welfare of grazing sheep and the timing of the cutting of roadside verges so that wild flowers are allowed to bloom.
The A.O.N.B. Officer has reported in detail on the Management Plan for the Quantocks, as well as on various requests for planning permission which might affect the character of the area.
I believe it is important that a Society representative continue to attend these meetings.
Philip Radford
Early Christianity in the South-West
Conference at Bishop Fox's School, Taunton
18th October 2003
Professor
Charles Thomas
Chairman's Introduction
Professor Thomas set the scene for the conference by commenting on early monastic sites in Cornwall and the enigmatic high-status site at Tintagel. He suggested that Hartland, Cerne Abbas and Malmesbury were all worthy of further investigation. Much had been discovered since Philip Rahtz's paper Pagan and Christian by the Severn Sea [pp. 3-37 in The Archaeology and History of Glastonbury Abbey by L Abrams & J P Carley; 1991, Boydell Press].
Chris Webster
The Evidence from Somerset
Chris drew our attention to the recent evidence for early Christianity in Shepton Mallet and Cheddar. Intriguing discoveries had also been made at the possible site of an early monastery at Carhampton. On the Quantocks, at Stoneage Barton Farm, he had helped excavate a small cemetery of Christian-type burials with a calibrated date of 650 AD. Each grave, or pair of graves, was surrounded by a small ditched enclosure.
Christopher Sparey-Green
Poundbury - from Christian Cemetery to Monastic Foundation
At Poundbury,
a hillfort on the North-Western outskirts of Dorchester, two kinds of Late
Roman and Post-Roman burials had been identified: the first aligned North—South
and randomly distributed; the second East—West, more numerous and arranged
to an orderly plan. From a possible chapel a fragment of wall-plaster bearing
traces of an image of Jerusalem had been retrieved. African slipware dating
from 450-650 AD had been found. Was it a Christian Authority, a bishop perhaps,
who had enforced the orderly planning of the cemetery ? Was there an early
monastery there which later moved across the river Frome to Charminster, several
miles to the North ?
Doctor Andrew Reynolds
The Original Buckfast Abbey: Excavations at Holy Trinity Church, Buckfastleigh
Holy Trinity burning down in 1992 had provided a rare opportunity of excavating a medieval church. Ground-penetrating radar survey had suggested an earlier church with an apse, lying mainly within extant walls; excavation confirmed and refined that interpretation. The church is contained within an ancient oval burial enclosure. It had been concluded that the small church was the site of the first pre-Norman Benedictine monastery and that, after the Cistercians took over in the twelfth century, a new and grander abbey had been built on a new site (that of the present Abbey). The old church had then been rebuilt as the parish church and re-dedicated to the Holy Trinity.
Sam Turner
Making a Christian Landscape: Early Medieval South-West England
As Christianity grew, so a particular view of the landscape had become established. The Inner Circle, centred on minsters and royal vills, was thereby civilised and suitable for Christian burials. The Outer Circle of hills and moors was dangerous and evil, the place of Pagan burials, where gallows were set up and criminals interred. Inscribed stones were erected on tracks in the Outer Circle to act as territory-markers. To illustrate his thesis, Sam used examples from Cornwall, Devon and Somerset.
Doctor Martin Henig
The Cultural Influence of Paganism in South-Western Britain
The strength of Pagan religion in the fourth century is attested by the number of Romano-Celtic temples of the cella type found in the South of England. The many offerings found at these temples are evidence for their being popular centres of pilgrimage. Celtic spirits were often associated with Roman gods (e.g., the Bath temple dedicated to Sulis Minerva). Seven miles along the Foss Way to the North-East of Bath, there had been at Nettleton a temple dedicated to the hunting deities Diana and Apollo Cunemagnos. Dedications of single temples to several deities were probably common, as suggested for example by the statuettes of several Roman gods having been found at the Lamyatt Beacon site.
Evidence of the growing popularity of Christianity had come from the mosaic art of the rich fourth century villas. The Dorset mosaic at Hinton St. Mary, with its chi-rho, head of Christ and pomegranates, is direct in its symbolism. In others, classical themes may serve a dual purpose: Venus could mean Christian Love and Dido could embody Self-Sacrifice. Although Christianity had become a major force in the fourth century, it still had to coexist with Pagan ideas.
Doctor David Howlett
Intellectual Life: Evidence from Inscriptions & Literature
The intellectual achievements of early Christian times in Britain, unfamiliar to most modern minds, require some effort to understand. In those times, Number was considered the model of the Universe. Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy and Music (the four Mathematical sciences in the Quadrivium organisation of Scholarship) were at the highest curriculum level.
In the fifth century Pelagius, the great British heretic, and St. Patrick both used high-register Latin (despite the latter's profession of ignorance !). At Lullingstone Villa in Kent, the Latin couplet accompanying the mosaic depicting Europa hides the owner's name and the word `IESUS' encoded within it (a further example of Pagan/Christian dualism). Alternative messages concealed in mathematical codes characterise many of the 1,300 post-Roman inscribed stones found in Britain. We were shown several fascinating examples.
Little has survived of British Latin Literature of the sixth century except for the enigmatic writings of St. Gildas. Once they had been Christianised, the incoming English soon established monasteries which became centres of Learning. In the seventh century, St. Aldhelm of Malmesbury was a great Latin scholar. In the next century, St. Boniface of Devon wrote on Latin Grammar before embarking on his successful missions to Germany.
Doctor David Petts
Christianity & Burial in the Roman & Sub-Roman South-West
Recent work had divided Late Roman burials into two groups:
1 Burials
aligned North—South; some have hobnails, some are decapitated and some
are crouched.
2 East—West alignment; no grave goods; possibly a coffin or stone lining
to the grave.
At Ilchester Group 2 burials had been found at Northover, flanking the Foss Way outside the Roman town. Group 1 burials to the South, obscured by buildings, appeared to be of lower status than the Group 2 graves. (The situation at Poundbury has already been mentioned: Group 2 burials in a managed cemetery contrasted with scattered Group 1 burials.)
During the fifth and sixth centuries, moving south-west into the region occupied by present-day Cornwall, Group 2 burials became the dominant type. Group 1 burials became associated with Anglo-Saxon graves with goods. The obvious conclusion is that Group 2 burials originated in Christian practices, including decently-organised cemeteries.
Discussion and Summing-Up
After the Chairman's summing-up there followed a wide-ranging question-and-answer session when a number of useful points was made.
David Baker
Visit
to Axbridge
Saturday 8th November 2003
Having met our leader John Page in the Square, we went to what used to be
called Pook Lane to look at a fine roof in what is now called Premier House
but was recorded by Commander Williams as a barn of the manor house.
John, our man in Axbridge, investigating Premier House
We were not entirely convinced by that attribution—because of the quality of the structure which incorporated one true and one jointed cruck. It is not dendro-dateable because made from fast-growing oak. I am confused by this term because that would seem to mean that in some places trees grew so fast that timber was used with far fewer than fifty rings - the level currently considered the minimum threshold for reliable matching. On closer examination, it seemed the roof may have been re-used, as many joints had been re-numbered. The building would appear to be late fourteenth century and possibly associated with the mill along the former Port Lake. Thanks to owners John and Jane Frizzwell.
Cruck and (aargh) monitor
Next we looked at the former almshouse in Moorland Street, now a restaurant. It seems to have been modified in the sixteenth century, when two fireplaces were installed on each floor. There is evidence of a possible garderobe in the middle of the first floor at the back. The roof is a collar-and-tie structure. We indulged in some technical discussion, particularly on the method of raising a roof, before moving to the Lamb, hoping the aromas there would be as enticing as those at the restaurant. Thanks to restaurateurs John and Alex Thompson.
After enjoying
early features, good honest food and excellent beer and cider, we moved to
Holmlea in St. Mary's Street (anciently East Street). This was the only unlisted
building we saw. Its garden runs up to the church and so is perhaps in the
oldest part of the town. It had been substantially re-modelled in the Georgian
period, features of which remain downstairs. Upstairs is more medieval, although
ceilings are a recent insertion. In the front east room, there are deeply
chamfered ceiling beams and a dentilated wall-plate with an ogee scroll surmounting
a hollow chamfer. The roof-structure is no longer load-bearing, but vestiges
of an arch-braced collar-beam
can be seen. The property is listed as Guild property in a Stentar of 1467/8.
(A `stentar' is the record of properties for a `stent', an occasional local
tax.) Thanks to owners Ian and Katie Weare.
The last visit was to the Old Drug Store in the High Street (formerly West Street), thanks to owners Soraya Schofield and Barry Cawston. This is completely timber-framed and also jettied, possibly dating to the mid sixteenth century - probably later than King John's Hunting Lodge. At the front it is close-studded, but the studs were more widely spaced on the gable-ends. (A recent owner has added studs to `improve the look'.) The main roof is a collar-beam post-and-truss structure, but one truss has notched side-lapped collars and is not dove-tailed. Commander Williams said this was the first of its kind to be noted. There is much alteration in the internal dispositions, which gave ample scope to the forensic archaeology in which our group excels !
After the buildings, we walked around two possible circuits of the Saxon town walls. It seemed clear to John and myself that Batt's proposal is intrinsically most unlikely: that the ancient burh was near Moor Lane and the Port Lake. Higher land, not so susceptible to flooding, would more likely have been chosen by the royal military engineers. As the street west of the Square is clearly laid out in burgage plots, I proposed the burh to its east. It would thus have run along the southern edge of the churchyard before diverting south to form the southern boundary of Jerry Wiggins' property (following an established footpath) and returning to a corner of the Square following a property-boundary wall behind the Almshouse. This circuit would provide a length appropriate to the 400 hides attached to the town, according to the formula 1 hide = 41/8 feet of wall. It has to be seen whether John is persuaded of this! However, we must thank him for an excellent day, full of information, wit and good cheer.
Alex Maxwell
Findlater
Natural History Social Afternoon
15th November
Held in November each year, in the Municipal Hall, this social event has assumed
a recurrent pattern of four fifteen-minute talks interspersed with refreshments
contributed by participants.
Each year, we have a varied mixture of talks covering all things natural both at home and abroad. This year was no exception. Roger Lines spoke about Beer Wood and productive educational activities for children. Derek Briggs followed with a fascinating account of `dinobirds'.
After refreshments, we then had the opportunity to look at displays which included a specimen of the large ferocious spider Segestria florentina found in holes in walls (especially common in Bishops Lydeard !).
To complete the afternoon, we heard about Russell Gomm's experiences visiting a Spanish nature reserve before Pat Hill-Cottingham gave a résumé of recent changes in weather patterns and their effect on wildlife. All present were thanked for their contributions to an entertaining afternoon.
The Committee would like to take this opportunity of thanking all speakers and leaders of walks for their invaluable contributions to Natural History activities over the past year. We should like to invite members of the Society who have not yet sampled Natural History to join us in 2004 and visit the delights of the natural world !
Pat Hill-Cottingham
Archaeological
Symposium
Bishop Fox's School, Taunton
22nd November 2003
The morning session was really a County Council roadshow, with contributions from many of the County archaeological staff—offered to the accompaniment of regular score-updates on the Rugby World Cup !
Bob Croft
The Big Dig and Whitestaunton
The Big Dig was a controversial proposal, but SCC had decided to participate and did so at Zinch, Stogumber. A small scale pit turned into a Time-Team excursion ! Hill wash covered the site, concealing any medieval features although much medieval pottery and a twelfth-century beam-slot were retrieved.
Time-Team went to Whitestaunton Roman site to re-excavate a putative villa first reported in the nineteenth century: the final verdict was that it had not been a villa but rather a bath-suite, enhanced in the nineteenth century by an Elton owner importing stone columns from Bath !
Talya Bagwell
Unlocking Somerset's Historic Environment
The County Council web-site (www.somerset.gov.uk/heritage) aims to inform planning decisions and to support the research of individual students and societies. The current 21,000 records comprise 12,000 sites of archaeological significance, 6,000 buildings and other structures, 37 parks and gardens, and 2 battlefields. Some are large (e.g., Quantock field-systems); some small (e.g., the arrowhead find-spot at Hundredstone on the northern edge of Yeovil in the parish of Mudford, catalogued under the latter village name); some old (e.g., Gough's Cave); and some very new (e.g., the Yeovil Observer Headquarters). The web-site is multi-active and information can be accessed under many headings.
Steve Membery
Bridgwater Friary
The site
of Greyfriars, begun by William Brewer in 1245, was partly known from work
in 1934 and 1990. A deep ditch containing musket balls was probably a Civil
War defence. Elsewhere, wall-lines were shown by robber trenches and roof
slates lying where they had fallen during demolition. Comparisons with the
Bristol Greyfriars and with the pace-
measurements of William of Worcester suggested that the church, Lady and Chantry
chapels and cloister-walk can be confidently located.
Steve also explained his rôle in vetting planning applications for their archaeological implications, and taking suitable action in advance of development.
Corstaidh Hayward Trevarthen
Changes in the Treasure Act and Recent Acquisitions under the Portable
Antiquities Scheme
The Scheme has funding until 2006 and a second post has been created for Somerset/Dorset. The scope of the Act has been widened to include more objects. Recent finds include Roman coin-hoards (at Shapwick, Stogursey, North Petherton and West Bagborough), jewellery (e.g., rings from Roughmoor, Cannington, Stoke Trister and Brewham), dress accessories, a silver whistle and a Tudor thimble. Since 1997, there have been nineteen Treasure Trove inquests, resulting in thirteen acquisitions by the County Museum and one by the British Museum.
Richard Brunning
A Slow Death for Somerset's Wetlands Archaeology
The drying-out of the Wetlands has resulted in an annual loss of two to three centimetres of peat, so that wooden structures in some places are degrading at an increasingly rapid rate—for example, at Meare and the Glastonbury lake-villages. The picture is not so gloomy elsewhere: on the coast, work on fishtraps in the inter-tidal zone marked on the OS 1:25,000 map as `Stert Flats' north of Stolford and Steart had discovered examples of wood dating to the tenth century.
Stert Flats Fish Trap
photo County Archaeological Service
Before lunch, Barbara Lowe's book Decorated Floor Tiles of Somerset was launched.
The culmination of forty years work, this project had its origin in the 1960s
excavations at Keynsham Abbey.
Frank Willy
After lunch, Somerset County Council gave way to English Heritage for presentations
under the heading:
Aerial Photography in Britain & Beyond
The first
speaker was Bob Bewley, Head of the Aerial Survey department of English Heritage.
His account of the rôle
of aerial photography in archaeology was truly comprehensive both in time
and space. Starting with a pigeon-borne camera (which really worked), he continued
with the 1906 view of Stonehenge taken from a balloon which had inspired Osbert
Crawford (usually known, of course, as `O G S Crawford') to take up flying
in his archaeological investigations.
Archaeology marched with military observation during the First World War. Even when captured, Crawford maintained his interest—by recruiting German pilots ! During and after the War, German and French aerial photographers made innovative surveys in the Balkans and Middle East. In 1928 OGS published the seminal Wessex from the Air with Alexander Keiller.
The Second World War trained many archaeologists in the interpretation of aerial photographs including J K St. Joseph, who became famous as head of the Cambridge Aerial Photography Unit. The warnings given in A Matter of Time about threats to archaeological features are as relevant today as when it was published in the 1960s.
Jerash
Maan
photos Bob Bewley, Head of English Heritage Aerial Survey
Taking the right shots from the air is a prerequisite, but 80% of the work involves mapping and interpretation. Bob explained the difference between crop marks and shadow sites, using plenty of examples. An Exmoor photo showed effective clarification of detail by a light dusting of snow.
Aerial photography is now spreading worldwide. In New Zealand, Maori sites are important. In China, foreigners are allowed to help while Chinese Nationals do the flying. We were shown remarkable shots from Eastern Europe, Israel and Jordan including gazelle-hunting enclosures dating from 6-7,000 BC. Around the World, local archaeologists are being trained in aerial photography.
Mapping and Interpretation
The second speaker was Helen Winton, who works for English Heritage on the mapping and interpretation of aerial photographs of Somerset. She showed us many sites ranging in time from a Neolithic cursus to the Cribbs Causeway shopping complex. She was now plotting air photos for the Quantock Hills Archaeological Survey, a project requested by the AONB. Hazel Riley is finding the sites on the ground. King Alfred's College of Winchester is surveying and excavating sites in the South Quantock area.
Broomfield enclosure
From the Trendle Ring to Hinckley
Bossington
Hill field system
Low Ham
Garden remains
Her area of interest includes a wide variety of sites ranging from the inter-tidal
zone and coastal features to World War Two defences and Prisoner of War Camps.
On the Quantocks, recent growth of bracken and scrub is obscuring some sites,
making old air photos even more valuable. The Survey has discovered and plotted
a very extensive field-system of narrow ridge-and-furrow on the hilltops probably
dating to the seventeenth century.
Air photos from all over the country are being collected and plotted on area maps in the National Mapping Project; Somerset is well ahead in this. We were shown a map of the Norton Fitzwarren area which revealed a henge and other diverse features: a brilliant example of the work in hand.
The Cothelstone Area
Finally Hazel Riley focused on Cothelstone. Higher Castles, probably an Iron Age settlement, lies west of Broomfield. On Cothelstone Hill there are Bronze Age round barrows, a pillow-mound (rabbit bury) and landscaping tree-rings like the well-known Seven Sisters. The ruined Beacon Tower, a 1770 folly, lies on a linear bank of unknown antiquity also overlain by the ubiquitous ridge-and-furrow previously mentioned. There is also a secret Home Guard bunker.
Cothelstone Manor was held for many centuries by the Stawell family but sold