The 2024 excavation season in The Globe Field, Llantwit Major,  will run from 20th May until 14th June.  As in 2023, this is a training dig for Cardiff University archaeologists,  but we will be welcoming volunteers into the project too. Digging will take place on weekdays only.

Background

The blog for the 2023 season contains a lot of background information on the site and links to various internet resources, so anyone interested should check those.

The research goal of the project is to provide some clarity on the nature of the early medieval monastery at Llantwit – and in that endeavour the university is supported by the ‘Dr DG Smith Memorial Fund’. The project started with much geophysical survey and out of that work it was possible to propose a possible extent for the early medieval monastic enclosure.

The excavations in The Globe Field were designed to investigate a series of stone banks or walls, that subdivide this enclosure internally.

Provisional results from the 2023 dig

The results of the 2023 excavations are not yet fully compiled (switching from an August/September dig to a May/June timing meant a rather short winter for the post-excavation studies to be completed!), but a tentative story for the development of the site is emerging (although it might easily be altered by the results of the 2024 season!)..

The earliest activity detected in 2023 was part of what was probably a small gully, containing some metalworking waste and a moderate quantity of charred wheat. This wheat was radiocarbon dated to cal. AD 596 – 664. This date is excitingly early – although significantly later than the time of Illtud (usually interpreted to have lived very approximately AD460 – 525) and Samson (very approximately AD 490-565), it probably predates the visit of Samson’s biographer to Llantwit (probably AD 680×700).

As the fame of Llantwit as the cult centre of Illtud, and probably as a burial ground for the kings of Glywysing, grew so a large area appears to have been given over to burial. West of the stream at the Globe Field there are burials of the mid-7th to late 8th centuries, the 2023 excavation produced an infant burial of the 8th-9th centuries as well as a substantial amount of disarticulated bone eroded from somewhere up slope (including a femur with a similar radiocarbon date to the in-situ infant). Undated burials were found at the Hayes in the 1860s. The late 8th to 9th century is also the period of the inscribed stones now in the Galilee Chapel, suggesting that high status burials were focused on the modern church site.

After the 9th century, the site in The Globe Field appears to have been used for livestock, perhaps pigs, and significant erosion occurred during thee 10th and 11th centuries (including of earlier graves). This occurred at a time when the documentary evidence for Llantwit also breaks down – there are no more written references to an Abbot for instance. The focus of local secular power may have moved eastwards, the forces of Dyfed invaded Glywysing in the mid-10th century and the site may have lost royal patronage.

A complete change of land-organisation and land-use was marked by the creation of a network of drystone field walls (the features that had attracted us to the site in the first place). These walls, each 70-80cm thick, bounded a series of small fields and currently appear to date from around the time of the Norman invasion (c. AD 1100). They may reflect major changes brought to site either following the granting of the church to Tewkesbury Abbey or from the influence of the rise of Llandaff Cathedral. The ‘Life’ of St Illtud, written at around this same time, certainly shows a rather pro-Llandaff agenda, as well as a clear intent to stimulate pilgrimage. These fields show the development of lynchets – in which soil moves downslope (usually because of tillage), eroding at the upper edge of the field and accumulating at the bottom of the field, that developed rapidly during the 12th century.

The network of small arable fields does not appear to have survived long. The build up of the lynchets probably caused the stone walls to collapse by the end of the 13th or early in the 14th century.

The later history of The Globe Field appears to have been mainly as a pasture, except for the eventual subdivision of the field to provide a vegetable garden in its southern half.

Blog

26/6/24: what took over 5 weeks to dig out took less than 5 hours to put back in. Thanks to Billy of Clive Edwards Contracts Ltd for a job neatly done! 10 months, 2 weeks…

20/06/24: the final day of fieldwork for this season. Some fresh work was undertaken in the central area – locating the lower limbs associated with one of the skulls in the adult grave, but also locating two ‘new’ infant burials. This probably means we have 12 or 13 infant burials – subject to detailed osteological examination of the disturbed skulls. Bizarrely, excavation of a hollow thought to be possibly one of the ‘missing’ graves, only produced part of a fish!

In the SE corner work continued on the ditch or gully below the stone dump. No further convincing evidence was found to determine whether this was a natural or cut feature. It contained much iron slag derived from the adjacent smithy, but also copper slag and a large crucible base.

The site has now been carefully overlain with a geotextile membrane in preparation for its imminent backfilling. The best current estimate is 10 months and three weeks until we will be back on site.

I hope that once the last 5 weeks have sunk-in there will be a summary blog post, but for now it only remains to thank everyone who contributed – 309 days from students (on their course or as volunteers), 112 days from the supervising team and a massive 263 days from the volunteer group. Thank you all for your hard work in this exciting project.

19/06/24: work continued to finish-up in 3 areas today. In the central area a large, irregular stone filled ‘pit’ was found beneath our barrow run. The fill of this pit resembled that of the base of the overlying post-medieval stone drain. Although the pit could have been a deliberate sump, the irregularity suggests it might have been produced through removal of a root ball during construction of the drain.

Also in the central area work continued on try to understand the infant graves cut by the later N-S adult burial. The partial remains of one infant were lifted – skull surviving to one side of the adult grave and lower legs to the other. At least one, and probably two, further graves were similarly cut by the adult grave. Just to the east, a sixth probable grave at the southern end of the eastern row was recognised – bringing the likely total to nine infant/child graves in the group.

In the SE corner of the site, a sondage was dug across the prominent stone backfill deposit. The main stone fill was fairly shallow – coming down onto our only example so far of solid bedrock, but in the corner of the trench there was a deeper feature. It was unclear whether this was part of the ‘palaeochannel’ or a discrete cut ditch/gully feature.

18/06/24: in the central part of the trench worked continued in the area around the large stone blocks. To the west of these, further large stone blocks appeared, set in an large area of disturbed natural, to the north, a distinct linear cut and to the east, two probable graves, the northern containing the pebble surface bounded by small rock slabs.

In the SE of the trench work continued on a section through the late pre-Norman stone fill. No firm conclusions on this area can yet be drawn, but hte stone deposit did produce a riveted bronze object, perhaps a simple buckle plate.

17/06/24: this was the first of a few days we will spend tidying up the site and resolving any features that might be lost when we backfill over a geotextile membrane. Most of the effort today was in the central area , where the contexts into which the graves had been dug were examined, as was the base of medieval cultivation soils just to the west (there appear to be several hollows filled by bone- and stone-rich fills, as well as a narrow linear feature interpreted as a furrow). In the SE of the trench, a feature expected to be a grave was partially excavated – but that interpretation seems likely to need to be revised.

14/06/24: the final day with the full team!

The shelter allowed the delicate work of lifting the NS burial in the central part of the trench. The body was probably shrouded and was placed in a rather irregular grave.

To the west of the site, a linear zone of stones proved not to be a wall, but to be a scatter of stone overlying soils with large pieces of medieval pottery and to correspond to the position of large stones lying on the surface of the disturbed natural clay. This is tentatively interpreted as a long-lived zone for the disposal of stone between narrow NS zones of medieval cultivation.

To the east of the site, another adult burial was examined. This had been placed in a grave of which less that 100mm depth was preserved below the base of the medieval cultivation soils. Since last year, we have known that 8th-9th century burials were eroded by, and redeposited down, the shallow gully in he south of the site. This burial provides graphic evidence for the extent of that early erosion.

The sequence of features in the central part of the site may perhaps show some interesting parallels with the sequence at St Patrick’s Chapel (Whitesands Bay) – the stone setting with white pebbles, surrounded by a cluster of EW infant burials, in turn cut by a NS adult burial. Today’s work has shown that our cluster of features is underlain by a cereal drying kiln – presumably associated with the charred wheat sampled immediately to its NE that gave a date of cal. AD 596-664 last year. It is a very protracted history of significance for this particular spot over 250 years or so.

Thanks are due to all those who have participated over the last four weeks. I haven’t counted the hours but, rounding up to whole days there have been 602 person-days worked on site so far this year – 256 from students, 102 from staff and 244 from volunteers. Thank you to you all. There will be just a few days of finishing up, tidying, dismantling the site and readying the trench for next year, to come next week.

13/06/24: the weather took a turn for the worse today, so continued work on the complex of graves had to be undertaken beneath one of the shelters that had been moved into the trench. The southern infant grave retained a poorly-preserved partial skeleton, which has now been lifted. The adult skeleton has been cleaned as far as practicable in the conditions. Its grave was very shallow in the south and the disposition of the bones suggests the body had been buried in a shroud.

12/06/24: today was dominated by burial archaeology. The southern of the three investigated infant graves proved to contain a partial skeleton, to its west a N-S oriented adult burial truncated other E-W infant graves and an apparently isolated adult burial was located in the SE of the trench. Elsewhere in the trench there was some possible evidence for bronze-working to the west, increasing evidence for the processing of raw iron blooms in the NE and in the central area the N-S grave contained abundant charred wheat, probably derived from the underlying early feature it cut.

11/06/24: this was another very busy day, dominated by attempts to unravel some particularly complicated burial archaeology. One quieter period involved some filming in the Galilee Chapel – it was so nice to see the stones cleared of all modern obstructions and just to be able to take the time to read all the inscriptions.

The day also necessitated the rapid digestion of all the dates that arrived yesterday. The first key outcome of the new dates is that the iron-working activity (our Phase 2) appears to be mid- to late 7th century (or just possibly into the 8th). Interestingly the dates on the human remains from 2023 Trench 2 (in the woods, across the stream) were identical to this.

Deposits of phases 3 and 4 (where at least partially sealed by an overlying Phase 5 wall) contained charcoal particles that were clearly derived from the Phase 2 activity, but dates on wheat grains gave ranges spanning the 11th and early 12th century. Away from the walls, Phase 4 deposits showed probably intrusive wheat grains that gave dates spanning the late 12th and early 13th century (the age of the overlying Phase 6a and 6b cultivation soils on the upslope side of the N-S wall on the basis of their pottery).

West (downslope) of the N-S wall, the deposits of the negative lynchet (Phase 6c) gave dates running from the late 13th century to the late 14th century, suggesting that the collapse of the wall is likely to have been well within the 14th century, slightly later that assumed.

Taken together, the dates we now have on human remains across 3 different areas, with 2 dated individuals from each, do not appear to support a simple outward growth of the area of inhumations southwards from the area of the modern church – but the data cannot discriminate between polyfocal activity and a northward spread. This is fascinating and will guide the choice of future investigations.

10/06/24: an extremely busy day on site today, but good progress with the archaeology right across the trench: continued removal of later medieval cultivation in the west, further investigation of the area of infant burials in the centre, exposure of features below the smithing waste in the east and continued excavation of the channel in the south.

Today also saw the receipt of all the delayed radiocarbon dates from last year. A full account of those will follow another day.

09/06/24: just a small group went out to site today, to prepare for our final, busy, week. The removal of the thin remaining layer of medieval cultivation soil in the west-central part of the trench revealed a rather enigmatic arrangement of large stones with a small area surfaced with small rounded pebbles. Understanding this complex area is just one of the tasks for the next few days…

08/06/24: this was a lovely day for the open day – it just seemed to get hotter as it went on. Sharing the day with the ‘These 3 Streams’ festival meant a constant flow of people popping in to see what we’ve been doing. The first visitors arrived around 9.30 and the last of the well over 200 people who came down to the Globe Field left around 5.30. Thanks to those who came came to help – and to the visitors for all being so engaged!

Besides looking after the visitors the team also found time to work on a grave cut that had been hidden by one of the drystone walls in 2023. The wall was removed this week, so the grave could be investigated. It proved to be very small, with only tiny scraps of bone surviving – perhaps suggesting it was the grave of a very young baby. Transverse slabs of rock protecting the head end of the grave were an interesting feature.

07/06/24: early medieval levels were finally reached across most of the central section of the trench, although two sections of the 12th century walls and a probable soakaway remain in the NE corner. The surface is yet to be thoroughly cleaned but (with the eye of faith) the southern margin of the probable grave cut partially exposed last year may be visible. A N-S alignment of large stones just to the west of the old sondage was unexpected and requires further investigation.

The trench is now ready for tomorrow’s open-day…

06/06/24: today’s main task was the removal of the main sections of drystone wall. The rectangular stone-filled pit in the angle between two of the walls was also investigated – and proved to be a shallow pit lined by very large stone slabs and infilled by large limestone blocks overlain by smaller ones. It appears to be some form of soakaway- and the interstices of the fill yielded various large pottery and bone fragments, as well as a fiddle-key nail. The oval stone patch to the NE appears likely to be somewhat similar.

In the west of the site, a N-S line of stones is still proving enigmatic. In the SE, an inclined layer of large stones may be the same as that found beneath the N-S wall in the southern sondage last year.

05/06/24: today’s main task was to complete removal of the medieval cultivation soils, to leave the drystone walls free, ready for removal. This was slightly thwarted by the complicated stone features in the NE which now appear to be medieval underneath the recent rubble investigated yesterday. The structures include a length of drystone wall perpendicular to the main N-S wall, possibly with a right-angled corner at its E end, and an oval patch of heavy stone to its S. The possibility that this represents part of a building cannot currently be excluded.

Steady progress was also made with sieving – with all four sieves going almost continuously. Other tasks included cutting a new access ramp through the 2023 backfill to allow easy access into the deepening trench. Finally the task of preparing the site for a drone photo took involvement from everyone – so the opportunity was taken for a team photo!

04/06/24: another day of rapid progress – involving great efforts from those digging and from those sieving. Natural was reached down almost the whole E margin of the trench. Much of the centre and east is now down to the level of the base of the Norman walls. A complication arose in the NE trench corner, where substantial stone ‘patches’ and a posthole, probably of 19th to 20th century date, took some time to resolve.

The ‘find of the day’ was a small socketed iron arrowhead, just 50mm long and 12mm wide, with slight barbs and a tip that has been folded-over, presumably by impact. The long socket probably allows for this arrowhead to be placed in Jolley Class MP2 (although it is smaller than many examples). Jolley ascribes a wide 11th to 14th century age for this multipurpose (hunting/military) type, quoting local examples including specimens from Llantrithyd.

03/06/24: with just five days work before the open-day, the team rose to the challenge of working out the medieval cultivation soils. The E side of the trench showed two distinct stratigraphic successions – brown stony soils in the S and soils with an elevated content of slag in the N. These slaggy soils proved to overlie disturbed natural at a shallower depth than expected (good news!) and showed hollows or cut features with very dark, charcoal- and slag- rich fills. There was evidence for both ferrous and non-ferrous metalworking.

The brown soils further south produced a tiny strap end (Thomas type J2) with a simple circle and dot ornament, thanks to Steve McGrory’s careful detecting of the spoil. These simple types are difficult to date, but could be early medieval.

31/05/24: today marked the half-way point of the fieldwork. Good progress was made in removing medieval deposits, including cultivation soils in the east and north (where the continuation of the N-S wall was exposed) and wall collapse material in the centre (where the main N-S wall was cleared). The cultivation soils in the E produced a good assemblage of 13th century pottery together with a Henry III halfpenny (this tiny object presents some excellent spotting by the students on the sieves!!).

30/05/24: a day of steady progress across the site. In the SE the level is now down to the medieval cultivation soils, in the centre the kerbing of the post-medieval drain has been removed and in the west, exploration of the sequence towards the stream has started. The most notable progress was probably in the centre where the N-S drystone wall has been located within the mass of stone to the south of the old sondage and, in a somewhat irregular form, to the north of the sondage. Very windy conditions today prevented the taking of any new drone images.

29/05/24: the weather was much better today and the site progressed well. The fills of the post-medieval drains are now removed (apart from the ‘kerb’ stones of the western drain). Both of E-W drystone walls appear to lose their character away from the N-S ‘spine’ wall – which is intriguing and needs further investigation.

28/05/24: much of today was quite wet, which restricted the activities undertaken. Nonetheless, good progress was made, with most of the fills of two post-medieval drains removed. Instead of the expected Norman drystone wall, a apparent spread of stone is appearing in the western arm of the trench.

27/05/24: It was a hive of activity on site today. It was the first day we’ve had a proper pot-washers circle and the trench progressed a long way. The northern sondage from 2023 has now been cleaned, with the hearth, grave, gully and other features re-exposed.

24/05/24: The site was very busy today with over 30 people either in the trench or manning the sieves (we now have three large sieves going continuously) as well as what felt like a continuous stream of visitors. In the deep section of the old trench, the smithing hearth has now been exhumed. To the east, the unexpected stone feature appears to be a second later post-medieval drain and, to the west of the trench, the medieval cultivation soils appear to have been reached. The progress in the first week has been excellent and I hope we will be in ‘fresh’ archaeology across the whole trench by the end of Monday. I had intended to illustrate progress at this point with a drone image, but it was just too gusty at the end of the day.

23/05/24: significant progress was made today on clearing the old trench. The bottom was reached over part of the deep section (the 2023 ‘northern sondage’). Removal of the post-medieval soils continued in both the western and eastern arms of the trench. In the eastern arm, the upslope drystone wall was followed further, but a second stone structure, a few metres to its south, was also found. It is unclear at present what this structure is – but it was imaged clearly by the 2022 resistivity survey.

22/05/24: the process of emptying out the northern end of last year’s trench continued – with the shallower sections now bottomed. The drystone wall heading E upslope was located within the eastern arm of the trench – the first significant ‘new’ archaeology. The post-medieval deposits in the western arm of the the trench have been partially removed down to a level only just above the remnants of the downslope drystone wall in the old trench.

21/05/24: Day 2 of the dig was another hot sunny day (probably the last of those for a while!). Great progress was made on removing the backfill from the 2023 Trench and by the end of the day the 18th/19th century drain and the two stubs of the Norman drystone wall it cut were emerging well in the centre of the trench. To the west of the trench, a start was made on removing the post-medieval stony soil (which, as last year, contained fragments of human bone) and in the east some intriguing stones are starting to show close to last year’s smithing hearth.

20/05/24: the first day with the full team saw the site setup almost completed and a good start made on removing the backfill from the northern end of the 2023 Trench 1.

15/05/24: today saw the removal of the topsoil from the 2024 trench (thanks to Ken from Clive Edwards Contracts Ltd for a job neatly done!). The aim for the 2024 season is to examine a much wider area of the early features than was possible in 2023. To achieve this, the ‘L’-shaped trench will largely avoid the medieval stone walls that were studied in detail in 2023. The ‘L’-shape is intended to provide both a transect down the slope towards the stream as well as an ‘along-slope’ element to join up the areas at either end of the 2023 trench that showed such different sequences. The 2024 trench is 162m2 as opposed to 134m2 for the main trench on 2023 – of which only 21m2 reached natural, whereas we aim to reach natural over the whole area of the 2024 trench.

From the sky the overlap between the new and old trenches shows clearly. The backfill of the N end of the2023 trench shows as a much darker tone compared with undisturbed deposits around it.

15/04/24: after a busy weekend at the Cardiff University Conference on Medieval Wales, at which a summary of last year’s work was presented, focus now shifts to this season. It is getting hard(er!) to move around the office as the deliveries of consumables for the excavation arrive. The students arrive on site 5 weeks today.

The 2023 excavations at Llantwit Major

(scroll down for the blog)

2024 blog now available here.

The 2023 Cardiff University excavations at Llantwit Major will be running from 21st August until 15th September. The main trench is sited in the ‘Globe Field’, so-called because it was previously owned in conjunction with the former ‘The Globe’ pub.

The field lies just to the south of Llantwit Major church, which is generally believed to be  on or near the site of an important early medieval monastery associated with Illtud (or Eltutus) who lived in the late 5th to early 6th century.  His pupil, Samson, travelled in what is now France and was a signatory to the Synod of Paris in c.568.  The monastic centre rose to prominence in the subsequent centuries, with Samson’s biographer describing it as ‘magnificent’ when he visited (probably in the late 7th century). From the late 8th to the early 10th century, the heyday of the site saw it become a royal burial ground and the wonderful inscribed stones, now displayed in the Stones Museum in the church, were erected. The centre decreased rapidly in influence during the 10th century and c.1100 the remnant properties of the clas church were gifted to Tewkesbury Abbey by Robert Fitzhamon after the Norman invasion. Tewkesbury Abbey’s facilities for the collection of tithe and management of the estate include the dovecote and gatehouse of the 13th century, still visible on the hill to the west of the church.

The present archaeological work forms part of the ‘Dr D.G. Smith Memorial Project’ which is intended to increase understanding of the early medieval monastery at Llantwit. This project has entailed extensive geophysical survey of relevant areas around Llantwit, together with a reappraisal of the historical evidence. Out of this, a working hypothesis of the possible extent of the monastic enclosure of the 7th-10th centuries has been developed. Geophysical survey in the Globe Field has produced evidence that suggests one of the subdivisions of the enclosure underlies the field. The 2023 excavation’s main trench is sited to test this geophysical anomaly and to test a swathe of ground as close to the church as we can currently investigate.

A second component of the 2023 season will be test-pits on the western side of the valley to investigate the extent of early medieval activity there.

We are very grateful for permission to excavate from the various landowners involved and for the continued support of the ‘Dr D.G. Smith Memorial Project’.

Resources for participants

The following resources may provide useful background information for participants:

• Research design for the 2023 season
• Geophysical survey report
• The Vita Prima Samsonis may be found at:   https://archive.org/details/lifeofstsamsonof00sams
• An online version of the Life of St illtud (c. 1140) after the version in Vitae Sanctorum Britanniae et Genealogiae. ed. A. W. Wade-Evans. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1944. may be found at:
  http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/illtud.html
• The Stones Museum leaflet

Other reading:

• Knight, J. K. (2005). From Villa to Monastery: Llandough in Context. Medieval Archaeology 49. Vol 49, pp. 93-107.  https://doi.org/10.5284/1071963 
• Knight, J.K. (2013). South Wales from the Romans to the Normans: Christianity, Literacy & Lordship. Amberley Pub (ISBN 10: 1445604477 / ISBN 13: 9781445604473) 
• Morris, P. (2022). Llanilltud – The Story of a Celtic Christian Community. Y Lolfa. (ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1784617539 / ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1784617530) 
• Nash-Williams, V E, 1952. The medieval settlement at Llantwit Major, Glamorgan. Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, 14, 313-33. 

Blog

22/12/23: in what is likely to the last post of the year, I am delighted to be able to share the news of the first two radiocarbon dates – on the two sets of human remains mentioned in my post of 29.9.23 below. A partial rib from infant skeleton (164) has produced a data of cal. AD 700-740 (4.9%)/770-900 (88.3%) / 920-950 (2.1%) (Beta-682558; 1200 +/- 30 BP) and a femur from context (169) gave a data of cal. AD 700-740 (9.5%) / 770-900 (85.9%) (Beta-682559; 1210 +/- 30 BP). In short, both remains belonged to people who lived in the period between the late 8th century and the end of the 9th. This is the heyday of the royal burial ground at the modern church – and is later than the burials on the west side of the valley. This is another important step forward. I hope we will be able to date the metalworking activity in Trench 1 early in the New Year.

3/10/23: trench 1 is backfilled and the topsoil spread. If the speed of growth of the vegetation on the spoil dumps is anything to go by, then this will have returned to nature very soon.

29/9/23: the first stage of backfilling was undertaken today and the rest will follow next week, so today seems like time to catch up on events over the two weeks since the dig ‘finished’. As described in my last post, further work on the northern sondage produced several significant and early features.

Firstly, there was the burial of an infant – approximately 18-24 months old we think, subject to the proper osteological work to be done shortly. The grave was aligned approximately SW-NE, with the head at the SW.

Secondly, less than 2m to the east of the grave there was a metalworking hearth. This was probably mainly for the smithing of iron, although there was some evidence for the working of copper-alloy in the general area. The hearth was a small (550x750mm) clay-lined bowl, originally blown from the SE side. Both the burial and the hearth (together with several nearby postholes and stakeholes) were overlain by the dark slag-rich soil that underlay the stone walls.

Whilst work progressed on the northern sondage, we decided to pursue the southern one further too. The sequence below the stone wall was very different here. The thick sequence underneath the wall is currently interpreted as a formerly wet area including some very minor channel-like features. The difficulty that we had in locating the natural in this sondage seems to be caused by its surface locally being heavily poached, presumably by the feet of farm animals, when it was wet and soft. To counter this, several discrete dumps of stone had been dumped onto the edgse of the channel. That water flowed in these channels, at least on occasion, was suggested by horizons of flat limestone pebbles. Upon one of these pebble layers were two human femurs, end to end, and apparently aligned by the flow of water.

Determining what all this means is going to be a slow process over the coming months, as we first process our samples to look for suitable materials, and then obtain radiocarbon dates. At this stage, it provisionally appears that there were three distinct phases of early medieval activity: the earliest with both burial and metalworking in the north of the trench, but with an intermittently wet area at the south end, a second with a build-up of dark soils across the area whole trench, possibly indicating cultivation, and then a third phase with the area sub-divided by stone walls, the use of which appears to have continued as late as the 13th century.

18/9/23: a small group were on site today to do the final bit of recording and to prepare for the backfilling. It didn’t quite work out that way. The wetting of the whole site by the weekend’s rain allowed the soil colours to show much better – and it quickly became clear that there were suspect areas in the northern sondage. A quick trowel of the most prominent produced a nice metalworking hearth and there are probably other features too. The backfilling is now postponed…

15/9/23: the last day of the excavation was as busy, frantic and full of unexpected things as last days always are. It has been a very productive four weeks – not only did we find the wall we were looking for, but multiple walls defining part of a field system. The lynchet that accumulated along the N-S wall preserved the history of its formation passing back through the medieval period into aceramic deposits. Those early deposits produced evidence for extensive metalworking, mainly of iron but with some copper alloy work too. Some possible evidence for glass working may also have been found. Most surprisingly, the earliest phase of soils with metalworking residues underlay the walls of the field system entirely.

To the south-west of the main site, trench 2 also produced good results, with evidence for burials, even if they had been disturbed by later activity.

More surprisingly, sharp eyes watching the finds coming out of trench 1 spotted some human remains there too – with several bones and at least five teeth. These may suggest that the medieval agriculture on the east side of the valley may have disturbed burials there too.

Of course, we won’t know how old any of these things actually are until the post-ex programme produces its results. I will report on progress in due course.

Finally, it just remains, for now, for me to thank all those who have taken part in the years work – the supervisors, the Cardiff undergrads, the volunteers from Cardiff, those from further afield and those from Llantwit itself; those who dug, those who processed finds (including persevering with scrubbing all that slag!) and those who supported us in other ways – with particular thanks to the landowners for their permission to undertake the work. Thank you to you all! You have all been fantastic to work with!

The sun sets down the Bristol Channel at the end of the last day of the 2023 excavation. To the west of the site and church lie the surviving dovecote and gatehouse of Tewkesbury Abbey’s rectory, overlying an earlier field system, the fields that formed the core of the monastic estate, and then the cliffs around St Donats and the Nash Point lighthouse. In the far distance the N Devon coast is visible.

14/9/23: work today suffered from the distractions of backfilling trenches 2 and 3, as well as managing the safe return of the security fencing that had to be carried back up into the village centre for collection.

In trench 1, we concentrated (during the remaining time) on further reducing the eastern part of the northern sondage, removing the east-west wall in the central sondage and on examining the deposits below the north-south wall in the southern sondage. None of these tasks was completed, but progress was made.

13/9/23: digging was concentrated on three areas in trench 1: the northern and southern sondages and a new central area (with areas taken down either side of the wall running uphill. In the northern and southern sondages the north-south wall was removed, to permit sampling beneath.

The two faces of the north-south wall in the southern sondage proved to have separated, with the eastern more or less coherent but the western had slipped downslope, so that a lot of fine soil had filled the gap between the two. The wall is shown from the north-east below before its removal. Provisionally, the stone rubble dipping downslope from the wall overlies deposits with pottery of not later than the 13th century suggesting early degradation of the structure.

12/9/23: there was great progress on both the trench 1 sondages today. In both sondages the base of the drystone walls can be seen, and in both the surface of the disturbed natural (presumably) can be seen. In the southern sondage the situation looks a little complicated, and there appears to b a considerable height difference in the agricultural soils across the line of the wall. In the northern sondage, the succession appears simpler and the narrow drystone walls there appear founded 200mm above the natural – so they do not belong to the earliest phase of cultivation. More will be revealed tomorrow, as the walls are taken out.

Trench 3 is now down to natural and there was no significant archaeology.

11/9/23: its hard to believe we are into the last week and there are only a couple of digging days left.

Trench 1 made good progress in the northern and southern sondages. In the northern, the stone fill of the drain is now almost removed, the east-west wall largely exposed and the dark soils to the east of the north-south have been bottomed. The lower part of the dark soils only produced some very rare fragments of samian ware – which is promising.

In the southern sondage, the area east of the north-south wall shows similar dark, potentially early medieval cultivation soils (13th century pottery at the top of the layer, no pottery at the base) resting on either a layer with reworked lumps of natural clay or stony material. To the west of the wall, the wall collapse lies on a layer rich in 13th century local pottery, which in turn seems to overlie a deposit rich in charcoal.

9/9/23: today’s ‘open-day’ was busy – so busy I forgot to take any photos (so the one below is one of Geoff’s)! Approximately 120 people came onto the site and saw what has been achieved so far. Explaining the project many times over only reinforced quite how much there is still to do in the next few days. Thank you to all the project team, especially the volunteers, who worked so hard in the heat to make it a successful day.

8/9/23: with trench 2 almost wound-down, a larger team could be thrown at trench 1 today. Both northern and southern sondages made good progress. The deposits east of the main North-South wall are similar – and apparently early, yielding lots of slag but almost no pottery. W of the wall in the South the level of excavation is still producing plenty of 13th or 14th century pottery.

West of that wall in the northern sondage, work is still at a higher level. The stone feature here previously interpreted as the field boundary on the Tithe Map is now looking much more like a drain (which presumably ran alongside the field boundary) – and this cuts a wall running west from the main north-south wall.

Tomorrow, we will be welcoming visitors to the site between 10:00 and 4:00 – and after that we will be into our final week, still with much to do!

7/9/23: the promised blue sky never came – the day however remained very hot and extremely humid with occasional large drops of rain full of Saharan dust. The students on trenches 2 and 3 received instruction from Steve on recording with only a small amount of fresh excavation.

Our osteoarchaeologist, Bethan, visited today and gave her initial thoughts on the bones from trench 2. It seems they are likely to include bones from both a young child and an adult.

In trench 1 work continued at both the north and south ends. In the north the various short lengths of wall are continuing to be a challenge to interpret. In the south the wall is slowly making sense – the west face shows extensive collapse and rotation of the lowest visible blocks, the east face is lightly curved and now appears to overlies deeper stonework. The west face in the area we have excavated is not in-line with the apparent face just visible through the overlying stones just a few metres to the north. One possible explanation for this, which we must now test, is that the entire wall in the are of the sondage has been pushed westwards, downslope, by the weight of the lynchet to its east, so that the upper courses of the wall (yellow) have been displaced westwards over the lower courses (orange) by perhaps 400 or 500mm.

6/9/23: it was another very hot day, so one of the covers was moved over the end of trench 1 to give some shade. Work continued on exposing the wall at the south end of the trench, but it seems the west face had collapsed in that area.

To the north, some tentative investigations were started around the complicated area with multiple walls, but the trench was too short-staffed today to make great progress (four of the team were off today).

Trench 2 appears to have more or less completed to natural, just leaving some recording for tomorrow and trench 3 has arrived at disturbed natural only just below the topsoil.

It was very busy day for site visitors! The process of advertising our informal open day on Saturday has begun – with visitors invited to see the site between 10 and 4.

5/9/23: with the cleaning finished, work started on the first of a series of targeted sondages in trench 1. To the west (left in the aerial image) the stone rubble dropped away and became rather sparser. To the east (right in the aerial image), the upslope side, a sequence of dark soils has accumulated against the wall. This sequence is effectively a lynchet – and is precisely the sort of accumulation that we hoped to find here. The work was undertaken with a small team as both trenches 2 and 3 were active today. Trench 2 produced some more disturbed human bones and Trench 3 has been begun, but is not yet down to ancient levels.

We had an excellent turn out of volunteers to join the finds washing team today – thank you so much for your efforts!

4/9/23: the cleaning of trench 1 was finally completed under very hot and humid conditions. There are one or two rough areas, but we can now progress to the next stage with this trench. Thanks to everyone for their hard work under the conditions!

There was no progress with trench 2 today – work on that will restart tomorrow. Over the weekend the bone fragments from last week were cleaned, and images seen by a human bone specialist who confirmed their ID. There are skull, knee and foot fragments – potentially from a single adult.

1/9/23: the cleaning of trench 1 progressed well and the end of defining the stone features is finally in sight. The whole team will be relieved when there is no more stone pile to clean!! Some structure is appearing within the pile, with a stone wall-facing being over overlain by unstructured stones spilling over it and down to the west. The deposits east of this bank produced a lovely green-glazed decorated jug fragment. I think this is a horse (despite looking more like a comedy donkey…), but it also resembles some of the Ham Green wares with hunting scenes – so could also be a deer.

Trench 2 produced a shallow, probably post-medieval gully, the fill of which seems to contain a few scraps of reworked human bone. The trench continues to yield large numbers of whelks, limpets and winkles, perhaps accompanied by a little prehistoric pottery.

The image below shows some of the animals on 13th century vessels in Ham Green ware from near Bristol, with stags to the left (37) and a horse on the right (41). The description of the technique of applied strip decoration like our example mentions how it was applied over a decoration of horizontal grooves – just as in our piece.

31/8/23: rained off…

30/8/23: today was a much brighter day and a lot was achieved in both trenches. The southern end of trench 1 is completed to the base of the main agricultural soil, as are some of the northern parts. The extension has had the bulk of the agricultural soils removed and awaits trowelling.

When the final clean-up of the surface was done in the south of Trench 1, substantial fragments of Roman pottery were recovered both to east (a large sherd of red ware mortarium) and west (a jar rim) of the stone bank. This raises some interesting questions about what may lie beneath…

Trench 2 also progressed well, reaching a layer (possibly partly disturbed) of the natural white marl below the cultivated soils of the old allotments. The nicest find from Trench 2 was the mouthpiece (fipple) of a tin whistle or similar instrument.

29/8/23: It was a somewhat wet day, so progress in Trench 1 was slower than desirable. The trench is really turning into two halves – half with ‘simple’ structures and half with a an array of short lengths of ‘wall’ that are not, yet, resolving into anything coherent. Time will tell…

Trench 1 also gained a new finds tent today (thank you Gail!) – so we are better prepared for the even worse weather later in the week.

Trench 2 also progressed, and is well down into the subsoil. The woods are providing some shelter from the rain here, but it is getting very soft underfoot. Geoff provided us with a lovely aerial postcard view showing the site of trench 2 as vegetable gardens in the 1920s/30s.

28/8/23: We only had trench 1 working today, so good progress was made with the larger team. The ‘late’ wall is now well over half cleared. A short length of wall on the north side of the extension appears to run parallel to it. The possible EW wall in the S of the extension has yet to be exposed. Clearance of cultivation soils from over the southern part of the ‘early’ wall/bank shows the stones extend further west than suspected. What appears to be a stone-packed posthole is apparently cut through the cultivation soils 4m or so from the S of the trench.

25/8/23: having considered the possibilities concerning the complexities east of the early ‘wall’, I decided the appropriate action was to open an extension to their east, so they could be examined properly. Today was a wet day anyway, so activity in trench 1 entailed an approximately 6.75m x 3.5m extension.

Across the valley, trench 2 was opened – the location under the trees avoided the worst of the rain. Interestingly, this is yielding reasonable numbers of limpet and whelk shells, just like the soils retained by the wall on the edge of the Great Ley above – and the spoil from the badger sett. The date (and location) of the primary shell middens is not known.

24/8/23: this was probably the last day that we have the full team working on trench 1. Both ‘walls’ are now appearing along much of their lengths. The early wall seems to stop abruptly about 3.5m from the N end of the trench, in the area of the complexities to its east.

Finds today included two late medieval to early post-medieval copper alloy lace tags (aiglets).

The report on the human bone assemblage recovered during spring 2023 also arrived today. This raises the MNI from two to four, greatly increasing the likelihood that the badger sett lies on a cemetery, rather than just isolated burials.

23/8/23: our first full day of archaeology saw plenty of progress made across the trench. The later wall produced a nice architectural detail in Sutton stone – possibly a component of a small compound pillar (resembling the early 13th century examples below the church tower, but smaller). The earlier wall seems to have perpendicular walls to its east, possibly indicating a small abutting building.

22/8/23: the delayed heras fencing was delivered in the morning, with the hiab lifting the heavy loads over a new car, next to a historical building and within centimetres of overhead cables. Then the fences (and the steel frames they are delivered in) had to be carried down to site – and the fences erected. The later part of the day involved further cleaning of the main trench, revealing more of the stone structures and producing nice amounts of late medieval pottery and a hone fragment.

21/8/23: the excavation proper started today with the Cardiff University students and volunteers. Most of the morning was spent in completing the site setup, the induction and a quick walking tour of the adjacent medieval monuments, but good progress was made in the rest of the day in cleaning the machined surface.

17/8/23: the main trench is now ready for Monday, with features corresponding to the geophysical anomalies showing immediately below topsoil. The volunteer team on site today spent around 12 hours on assembling the tool shed – and it still isn’t quite finished (it was complicated)…

16/8/23: the main trench has been surveyed ready for machining tomorrow.

15/8/23: The GPS base station was surveyed, ready for setting out the main trench. The weather was good enough to get the drone up and acquire some images of the site in context. The earthworks of the field system in the Great Ley (with the superimposed 13th century dovecote) on the left, the location of the main trench in the field to the right, with the church beyond.

12/8/23: The vegetation in the Globe field has been mowed, ready for site setout next week.

The report on the 2017 survey was completed in March,  but was publicly launched last night (31/7/18) with a talk and walk as part of ‘Love Parks Week’.  The report has now been made available in the GeoArch report library. It is report #496 in the library, which can be accessed at: http://www.geoarch.co.uk/report library/ or directly here.

A formal publication on the project will be prepared in the coming months.

16th October 2017

This week sees the start of a resistivity survey of the Abbey Grounds, Cirencester. The first days work extended over much of the excavated area of the Abbey and some areas immediately to the north.

17th October 2017

The survey today covered an area to the east of the Abbey buildings. Large apparently ditched enclosures appeared in the east of the survey.  Do these correspond to the enclosures in the middle distance on the Kip drawing? The modern and medieval lines of the culverted Gunstall Brook can be seen in the centre of the area, with a possible building immediately outside the line of the culvert, but parallel to it.

18th October 2017

Today’s survey included buildings to the NE of the cloister, with the probable culverted Gunstall Brook running below them.  To the east, running from the SE corner of the survey towards the bandstand is an unexpectedly prominent set of features dividing the area of the Abbey from the wetter alluvium to the east. Is this a ditched boundary or a former natural channel?

Some poor quality data from near the bandstand will probably need replacing in due course, but otherwise another  very productive day!

19th October 2017

A very wet day, but good progress was made. There are a couple of patches of poor data, but otherwise the weather didn’t affect things too much.  The survey included much of the central pathway shown on the Kip drawing, passing through the various enclosures and over the various ditches/stream towards the icehouse, with the modern bench by the lake (the small gap in the data) right on its line.

20th October 2017

A minor surveying glitch meant the day had a slow start. One of the fixed probe markers had also been removed by a dog overnight, but a reasonable data match between days was still obtained. There now appears to be a second old stream channel just west of the edge of the modern lake. The impression of a series of land divisions (fields/gardens?) crossing the old valley floor is increased. Although some of these figure on Kip’s engravings, they may have a much older origin.

Thank you to all those who have contributed to the survey this week. I’m looking forward to getting the whole picture next week!

23rd October 2017

The northern part of the area west of the lake was surveyed today.  although much of the area was of very low resistivity further narrow linear positive anomalies (similar to some seen just to the SE) suggest small walled(?) enclosures. Close to the modern lake is what appears to be a small building and another may underlie the road down to the Norman Arch. The slightly sinuous palaeochannel can be seen to diverge southwards from the modern lake.

25th October 2017

The survey focused on the southern edge of the grounds today. Much of the area shows a rather strong influence from the trees,  but there is still a lot of interest in the data.

Thanks to everyone who has taken part in the survey over the last 10 days. The interpretation will follow over the coming weeks.

Images of current data

The images below show the data as a standard greyscale image (with black=10ohm to white= 90ohm measured resistance) and as a high-pass filtered image (black=-15ohm to white= +15ohm to emphasise the anomalies) collected so far.  This area includes parts of the Abbey in the southwest, together with various other structures of the Abbey period and later, as well as the post-medieval formal gardens.

 

1st August 2018

The report on the 2017 survey was completed in March,  but was publicly launched last night (31/7/18) with a talk and walk as part of ‘Love Parks Week’.  The report has now been made available in the GeoArch report library. It is report #496 in the library, which can be accessed at: http://www.geoarch.co.uk/report library/ or directly here.

A watching brief, undertaken for Caerphilly County Borough Council, at an extension to Gelligaer cemetery about 150m NE of the second Roman fort, Gelligaer II, produced a rather elegant and unusual smithing hearth . The hearth was associated with a small drainage gully and a couple of post-holes. The feature comprised two hollows, linked by a worn central section into an elongate figure-of-eight shape. One bowl, approximately 700mm in diameter, formed the anvil base. This contained two large slabs of local stone. It was unclear whether these were used directly as an anvil (their surfaces showed no damage), or whether they were packing for supporting or levelling a wooden anvil block. However it was used, this bowl contained a large quantity of hammerscale.View of the smithing hearth from the SW before excavation; anvil to right, hearth to left.

View of the smithing hearth from the NE before excavation; anvil to left, hearth to right.

The other, northwestern, bowl (650mm in diameter) formed the truncated remains of the hearth itself and lay 400mm away from the anvil base. The hearth contained abundant charcoal (almost entirely of oak) and 2.4kg of slag, including two complete, large smithing hearth cakes of approximately 900g each.

A piece of  small diameter branchwood charcoal was selected for radiocarbon dating – and it returned a date, which was not Roman, but cal. AD 610-670. This is an outstanding result, because it represents the first  direct evidence for 7th century occupation at Gelligaer itself. Interestingly, a structurally very similar hearth was recorded in the 1970s near Pontarddulais (50km west of Gelligaer) – and it gave a similar date of cal. AD 410-660.

Gelligaer is a large upland parish, centred on the village with its two Roman forts, medieval church and motte.  In the early medieval period it was the centre of the commote of Uwch Caiach, part of the cantref of Senghenydd, in turn part of the Kingdom of Glywyseg, later known as Morgannwg. The motte may be the Castrum Cadwallon, held by the English crown in 1194 and possibly previously the home of Ifor ap Meurig (Ifor Bach; 1100-1170), Lord of Senghenydd and his son Cadwallon. 

Gelligaer is reputed, in some accounts, to have been the birthplace of St Cattwg, a 6th century saint, whose parents are supposed to have been Gwynllyw (ruler of Gwynllŵg (Wentloog), the lowland area west of the Usk around Newport) and Gwladys (daughter of the Irish King Brychan of Brycheiniog). Both parents, so the stories tell, later became hermits and St Gwladys is commemorated by a small  medieval chapel on the hills immediately north of Gelligaer. These largely mythological characters formed a part of the foundation stories of the early medieval kingdoms and monasteries. The 6th-7th centuries are represented in the archaeological record of Gelligaer by inscribed stones, one on the Roman road north of Gelligaer, inscribed TEFROIHI, TEFSOIHI or NEFROIHI, and one to the northeast at Brithdir, inscribed TEGERNACUS FILIUS MARTI HIC IACIT.  These inscriptions give a glimpse into the world inhabited by the early saints, the world also of the smith who used the hearth at Gelligaer.

 

The long delayed update to the main GeoArch website (www.geoarch.co.uk) is now, finally, happening. This will entail some switching of content between the more formal business site and this one. Heading over here will be the old experimental archaeology blogs (well, they weren’t known as blogs then – the first smelting diary started several months before the first use of that term…), while the GeoArch report library will travel back to the business website where it belongs. I guess its going to take a little while to shake down…

Great to see another project from a few years ago reach final publication!

Georgina Scally’s High Island (Ardoileán), Co. Galway: Excavation of an Early Medieval Monastery, Archaeological Monograph Series No 10, Department of the Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. 347pp.

Lots of detail on monastic hardship on a windswept rock in the Atlantic. Just 35 euro from Wordwell…

 

Exciting news – the Woodstown monograph is now imminent, with the launch event set for Waterford on 4th November.

The fascinating slag assemblage is just one small part of a wonderful site!

Welcome to the new GeoArch blog site! This site will host descriptions and discussions of on-going projects, comment on developments in archaeometallurgy and general news of GeoArch activities. As the site name suggests, the main area of interest will be archaeometallurgy, but I am sure some of archaeogeophysical work (and indeed other aspects of archaeological science) will creep-in as well.

Tim Young