| AGM 2019 |
The AGM on 3rd April 2019 resolved to retain subscriptions for 2019/20 at £12 for individual membership and £18 for families.
Mike Coles has taken over the role of field officer, but as co-ordinator only: members are encouraged to search out fieldwalking sites. Other officers and committee remain unchanged, Terry Dymott becoming an ordinary committee member. |
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| The weather wins again |
| 10/11/2019 |
| The weather was sunny, the wind a little chill but the sodden ground meant a high risk of damaging the growing crop - so no walking at the weekend. We hope to carry on this Sunday but early weather predictions are not so good. However, who knows, they may be different on Saturday. |
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| Interesting finds at a new venue |
| 1/12/2019 |
This weekend took place at a new site to the west of the county, at Eltisley on a field near Manor Farm. We were hoping for some medieval finds on the field nearest the moated site - but things did not turn out quite as expected. The photograph shows a selection of the finds - they ranged from the medieval lovely shell tempered handle with pricked decoration, the shell tempered rim and plenty of oyster shells. However, they were all some way from the moated site. There was also a piece of lava quern stone, glazed redwares, a stoneware neck of a bottle and a little blue and white transfer printed ware.
Next Sunday we will attempt to finish this particular field and to see where the medieval finds lead us. | |  |
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A close up view of the medieval shell tempered handle with a pricked decoration. | |  |
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| 40th Anniversary and Val Whittaker Prize Presentation |
On 6th November 2019 we held a social event at the McDonald Institute to celebrate the Group's 40th anniversary and presented Leigha Crothall,a Cambridge University undergraduate, with the Val Whittaker Memorial Prize for 2019. Leigha's winning paper was on glass trade beads. To read Leigha's paper click here. Photo - Leigha being presented with the award by the chairman.
To read Barrie Fuller, our chairman's words and thanks to those who have supported the Group, made at the event, click here.
Sadly we have to report the death of our treasurer, Dudley Pusey, the following day. Dudley was a long-term member of the Group and will be greatly missed.
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| The finds at Clopton just keep coming |
| 10/11/2019 |
A fine Sunday for a change but the ground was really muddy after yet more overnight rain. The finds just keep coming from the field as we have now covered from the top of the ridge to the A603 and about 100m west of the scheduled area.
As the photos show we have recovered lots more lava quernstone, this thinner (3.3cm thick) piece has a round hole cut through it and may be a top stone. The side shown has a pecked surface | |  |
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| The other finds, shown in the other photo, span quite a period, from the prehistoric flint blade, through lots of shell tempered wares, a handle, through various early glazed wares to some blue and white transfer ware. The finds are getting fewer in number as we go west but a brief look further out in the field still revealed more pottery so more visits still required to find the end. | |  |
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| More finds from our Clopton collection |
| 5/11/2019 |
As we process some of the Clopton finds, we find some slightly unusual things amongst the masses of pot handles and rims. The twisted rope handle is not a common find, nor the large handle in a grey fabric. Among the finds is what appears to be a Hedingham base (on the left). What we have got is masses of shell (and some grit) tempered pottery, as the photograph illustrates.
On this field we have yet to find where the pottery finds peter out at the presumed edge of the settlement. More visits needed and lots of work for our expert to sort through. | |  |
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| Another bonanza day on the Clopton hill |
| 31/10/2019 |
Another day, another 9kg of finds to process. As we moved west out into the field there was not much sign that the finds spread was decreasing, however down near the main road there was definitely a reduction. The finds were basically the same as the previous visit. What was noticeable was the number of pieces of lava quern stone, including the one in the photograph. This has a diameter greater than 40cm and is 5cm thick, thus suggesting it was a hand quern and that it was a bottom stone. The grooving was still very clear and not so worn.
We now have a major processing exercise to undertake - and we still have a lot of field unwalked. Just how much material remains on the field we don't know but it suggests that Clopton village extended a lot further west than the small area that was scheduled. | |  |
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| Further down the hill at Clopton |
| 29/10/2019 |
Today we returned to Clopton to field walk on the field that is to the west of the medieval village site and runs down the hill to the main road. It was astounding - a group of four picked up material that weighed in at nearly 18kg. The material was masses of medieval pottery (including lots of rims and some bases), lots of bones, lava quernstones, Roman tile and Samian ware. The photo shows just some of the rims and the decorated Roman flue tile. This tile is unusual as it is a much more complex pattern than the usual wavy lines and was obviously applied by a stamp.
This mass of material will take some considerable time to process but we intend going out again and moving further west in the field to see where the finds decrease or stop. | |  |
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| A visit to Orwell and a mysterious shape on the Lidar plot |
| 27/10/2019 |
A Lidar plot from Historic England's study revealed a mysterious rectangular banked enclosure at Leaden Hill. A request from the local history society saw us walking there to see if we could determine if it were old, i.e. Iron Age or even earlier.
The photo shows some of the finds which have a very post-medieval look about them. The usual suite of Staffordshire ware, stoneware, red glazed ware and a piece of blue and white transfer print date the finds to that era. There was a couple of possible medieval wares and some poor quality flint - but not enough to place the enclosure to those periods. The musketball-like object is actually a ceramic boiling bead or cooking piece.
However, the discovery of a number of pieces of coprolite lying on the surface suggests that the enclosure may relate to activities carried out here during the 19th C coprolite workings. It could be a washing settlement tank used to wash the coprolite material before it was processed. Further work will be necessary to prove this theory. | |  |
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| Finishing Field 42 at Comberton |
| 21/10/2019 |
| We finished the Field 42 in Comberton that we had started last year. Then we found a Roman cluster that mapped onto the Historic England Lidar/aerial interpretation at the western end of the field. This time we found very little apart from a thin scatter of post-medieval pottery and brick/tile. This really confirms that surface traces suggest the Roman cluster does not extend back towards Long Road, a straight road that may have Roman connections. |
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| Another good day at Clopton |
| 17/10/2019 |
Weather gods cheated again!! Another good sunny day at Clopton where we managed to complete walking the field and answered our questions. The pottery gradually diminishes as you move west and more or less stops by the end of New Forest. Finds became polarised - as the photo shows. We had post-medieval glazed ware and a carborundum whetstone at one end and quite a few prehistoric flints at the other, including some fine blades. Medieval finds were still found but in only small numbers.
Our next option is to seek permission to head down hill and find where the southern limit is.
We are going to try and finish the Comberton field this Sunday - weather permitting, of course | |  |
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| Another lost Sunday but joy on Tuesday |
| 15/10/2019 |
Yet another Sunday lost to wet weather - however we cheated the weather gods by going out on a Tuesday to Clopton, near the DMV site. This was a very busy morning and resulted in the collection of 92 bags of mostly medieval pottery. There were other things like a clay pipe, a thick tile (or a thin brick) plus a number of pieces of lava stone. Some items are shown in the photograph here.
The purpose of our investigation is to find how far from the western boundary of the scheduled area this pottery scatter goes. Although the amount of pottery found has decreased, we are still finding material at a distance of about 0.5km from the boundary. | |  |
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| Weather fine so had to go walking |
| 9/10/2019 |
The weather has been fine for a couple of days so it felt we had to go field walking at Comberton on a Wednesday. The conditions were ideal although the surface was partly obscured by straw. There were not many finds, mostly very abraded post-medieval pot. However there was a nice worked flint blade, as shown in the photograph.
We hope to be out at the weekend but yet again the weather forecast is not good - perhaps we need to go out on any day but a Sunday at present. | |  |
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| And still the Sunday rains continue |
| 6/10/2019 |
The Autumn of 2019 is becoming a wash out, especially on Sunday mornings it seems. The weather radar map shown here for 9am this morning shows the extent of the rain clouds and how heavy the rain has been (red = heaviest, of course) over Cambridge. The typical heavy Cambridgeshire clay soils are more or less unwalkable under these conditions.
The long range forecast for next Sunday still indicates more rain is likely, so perhaps we need to choose another day of the week to escape it. Let us keep our fingers crossed and hope for a change in the weather soon. | |  |
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| It's a weather conspiracy!! |
| 30/9/2019 |
| Yet another weekend lost to the inclement weather and a coming weekend that looks very similar. We will try to get to Comberton this coming weekend but the predicted weather is bad. Please contact us before you head out to the site. The parking instructions are the same as before. |
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| First field walking effort a write-off |
| 22/9/2019 |
| We had planned our first field walking exercise at the weekend on land in Comberton, this was to complete sites we had started last year. However, as they say, Man proposes, Mother Nature disposes. The persistent rain both before and on the day made walking on the clay soils too difficult. So we look forward to next weekend when we try again - keep your fingers crossed!! |
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| Some of the interesting finds from our processing |
| 23/8/2019 |
| As we carry on processing the finds we have found only a small number of bricks, mostly a small fragments. However, the photograph shows one of the substantial pieces of brick which is interesting. This brick shows signs pf glaze on the flat top and one of the long sides. Whether the long side glaze is material that has dribbled down from the flat top while being fired is unclear. The brick also has a substantial amount of mortar on the short side and the underside opposite the glazed portion. Dimensions that can be measured are 103.2mm wide and 54mm deep. The glaze looks very medieval in colour. | |  |
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| Processing continues |
| 10/7/2019 |
Our work on the Ickleton material continues. We have now finished sorting and washing the tile and brick. The amount of tile is amazing - 16 bags of tile weighing a total of 46.78 kilos is the total so far but with more to be bagged and weighed. As an example, one bag from context 1902 weighed 5.095k and contained 656 pieces of tile and brick!!
All the other material has been washed but now needs to be catalogued.
UPDATE: The total weight of the tile and brick after processing came to 76.65 kilos. |
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