An Archaeology of the East Midlands. Class 7 Radcliffe Autumn 2014

An Archaeology of the
East Midlands
Class 7: The East Midlands, 1500-1900
Tutor: Keith Challis
east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.uk

Recap: Last Week
• Pre-Conquest Towns
–Towns Before the Vikings
– The Five Boroughs
– Reconquest Towns and Burhs in Mercia
• Post Conquest Towns
–Medieval Nottingham

Class Summary
• Transitions (Discussion)
• The Countryside
• Coffee Break
• Reading the Landscape, Fieldwork and
Documents in Medieval and Post Medieval
Landscape Archaeology

Post Medieval Archaeology
• The period of transition from the feudal to
the modern industrial world
• Birth of modern rural landscape
(enclosure)
• Industrialisation of countryside and town
• Rapid population growth (doubles
between 1540 and 1650)
• Increase in the landless poor
• For most growing standard of living – birth
of middle class artisan / yeoman farmer
• East Midlands a modern political
construct – not always a useful way of
looking at this period
• Mixture of rich agricultural land, wood-pasture,
upland and proto-industry

Post Medieval Archaeology
• Complexity of an often ignored
archaeological record
• “Recent disturbance” treated with the
contempt reserved for the familiar!
• New building techniques lead to
reduction in build up of stratified urban
deposits post c 1300
• Many surviving vernacular buildings
(often unrecognised)
• Physical remains in landscape
(superficially timeless, but constant
attrition)
• High quality documentary resource
including maps

Transitions
Discussion
• What changes overtook the East Midlands in the period 1600-1900?
Think about broad changes affecting towns and the countryside and in
particular how each are best evidenced (by archaeology or by
documentary history?)
Can you come up with one solid example of significant change
(enclosure/industrial growth/population movement, etc.) that is
evidenced best by archaeology?

Transitions
Urban Transitions
• Rising urban population leads to infilling
of spaces in Medieval towns – slum
creation
• Little study of urban poor
• Increasing industrialisation of towns
• No single town dominated EM
• Varying character – eg Nottingham
constrained by surrounding fields but x3
population between 1600 and 1739
Knob Yard, Narrow Marsh, Nottingham,
1914 by T.W. Hammond

Transitions
Industrial Innovation
• EM at heart of industrial revolution
• Iron, coal, lead, textiles regionally
important
• Earliest industry part of a dual
economy mixing agriculture and
industry – small scale, rural based
• Growth in demand leads to
industrialisation, creation of mills and
factories
• Transition from Charcoal Iron to
Coke fired furnaces increased
exploitation of E Mids Coal field
Coalbrookdale by Night by Philip James de Loutherbourg

Transitions
Agricultural Change
• Gradual change in agrarian
economy
• Regionalisation – experimentation
with new crops, drainage, water
meadows, enclosure – initially
through amalgamation of holdings
• Abandonments of rural
settlements 1450-85, 1504-09
• Growing social stratification and
landless poor
• Squatting
• Origins of mechanised agriculture

Transitions

The Countryside

The Countryside
The Countryside
• .

Laxton

The Countryside
The Country House
• “Landscapes of display” – twin
elements of house and park
• Origins in opportunities created by
Dissolution and Sale of Royal Forest
for wealth landowners to acquire
large estates
• “Old gentry” built manor houses at
heart of manor, usually in villages
• “New” great houses built in isolation
on newly acquired rural estates
• Fashion for large parks and gardens
lead to forced relocation of villages
Wollaton Hall and Park by Jan Siberechts

The Countryside
The Country House
• Both houses and parks not static but in
constant state of change
• Archaeological and architectural study
reveals their development
• In general evolution from Tudor houses
(superseding obsolete castles) either
manorial or on post-Dissolution estates
• Elizabethan designed houses (Hardwick,
Longleat, Wollaton, etc.)
• Inigo Jones Palladianism – venetian neo-classical
style with porticos and other
classical features
• 18th century Baroque and Neoclassical
• 19th century industrial wealth and
revivalist styles

The Countryside
The Country House
• Garden designs change
from Tudor formal, regular
gardens to sweeping
landscape vistas and
pseudo naturalism of
Capability Brown
• All required land, huge
expenditure in time, effort
and money

Hardwick

Hardwick
• A rare largely intact 16th century
great house and 17th century
landscape park
• Estate origins lay in 400 acres of
land owned by John Hardwick (d
1507) around Hardwick
• James Hardwick (d 1581)
purchased land to enlarge the
estate and created the first park
between 1547 and 1570
• He died bankrupt in 1581 and
the estate went into receivership
G. Gardner. Hardwick from the East 1800

Hardwick
• James’s daughter, Elisabeth
(Bess) although of modest birth
acquired wealth (including
recovering the Hardwick estate)
and land through a series of
advantageous marriages
• Her final marriage to George
Talbot (Earl of Shrewsbury) was
difficult
• Bess developed Hardwick as an
insurance policy for her and her
sons given the precarious nature
of her marriage to George

Hardwick
• .
Hardwick Estate 1610

Hardwick
• Old Hall. Built 1587 – 91. Essentially a late medieval
great house, but with innovative architectural features and
impressive interior decoration. Parts (south and west
walls) pre-date Bess’s building work and may be part of an
earlier house

Hardwick
• New Hall, built following
the death of George (Bess
became very wealthy!)
• Designed by Robert
Smythson and built
between 1591 and 1597
• Its design symbolised
Bess’s wealth and status
• It was architecturally
innovative, for example
including unprecedented
sizes and numbers of
windows

Hardwick
• After Bess’s death in 1608 her son Henry
inherited and after his death in 1616 William, who
was created First Earl of Devonshire in 1618
• By the mid 17th century Chatsworth had become
the principal residence of the Devonshires
although Hardwick was still used and extensive
works done on the Park
• The 4th Earl rebuilt Chatsworth and landscapes
the park there – after 1700 Hardwick was rarely
lived in although the house an park were kept up
and much of the park let for grazing
• The 6th Duke (d 1858) improved the house and
estate and the 7th Duke developed it as a hunting
and sporting estate
• After the death of the 9th Duke in 1938 Hardwick
was used as a Dower House for Evelyn, his
widow, who lived there until her death in 1960

• Coffee Break

Section 3: Reading the Landscape, Fieldwork
and Documents in Medieval and Post Medieval
Landscape Archaeology

• Earthworks
• Artefacts
• Field shapes and boundaries
• Vegetation
• Rivers and waterways
• Tracks, roads and routeways
• Settlement plans
• Standing buildings
• Place names……
Fieldwork
Evidence

Earthworks
• Earthworks are amongst the most commonly studied
sources of information for non-invasive fieldwork.
• Can provide a great deal of information on the past use
and development of the landscape.
• But, need care to differentiate between naturally created
landforms (e.g. glacial moraines), modern land use (e.g.
road quarry pits) and cultural archaeological earthworks.
• Also, differentiating between archaeological site types
based solely on earthwork remains can be risky – some
monuments will be evidenced by the same earthwork
appearance. For example, a circular mound could
plausibly relate to a prehistoric barrow, a medieval
defensive earthwork, a windmill mound, a post-medieval
viewing platform or a 20th century military gun
emplacement.

Earthworks
• The identification and interpretation
of earthworks requires an
understanding of all types of
archaeological monuments, as well
as those resulting from other non-archaeological
practices.
• There are useful books to help in the
interpretation (e.g. Aston 1985,
Bowden 1999, Muir 2000, Ordnance
Survey 1963…..).
• Another important consideration is
that although areas of earthworks
may appear homogenous on the
ground today, they may in fact date
from a range of periods and
functions.
• ‘ The present view is like looking at
the stars – in one view many ages
are seen.’ (Aston 1985, 15).
After: Williamson 2002, p24

Earthworks
• As well as interpretation of date and function
based on morphological description, it is
also sometimes possible to construct
relative chronologies by analysing the
stratigraphic relationship between different
features.
• Vertical stratigraphy relies on the clear and
accurate identification of discrete earthwork
features, as well as their chronological
interrelationships.
• Horizontal stratigraphy is often less clearly
perceptible, in that it relies on there being
well defined differences between, for
example, the core nucleus of a settlement
site and later adjacent elements of a
different form, scale or angle.
• Deciphering the detailed relationships
between earthworks in this manner often
requires the use of site survey or aerial
After: Bowden 1999, fig 35 photography.

Field shapes and boundaries
• The shape of a field or property boundary
can be determined by a range of factors, for
example:
– Agricultural regime
– Topography
– Economy
– Soil quality
– Social hierarchy + control
• In many cases the shape of a field can lead
to a preliminary interpretation of date. For
example, complex coaxial networks are
often prehistoric, small irregular fields were
often created through the piecemeal
assarting of woodland or intake of common
land…
• Other forms of enclosures should be
considered – e.g. park boundaries.
After: Muir 2002, map 3.7 east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.uk

Hedges and Walls
• As well as the shape of the fields themselves, the
form, composition and construction of their boundaries
can provide important information.
• The availability of resources and suitability of the soils
dictates a considerable amount of the regional
variation in the distribution, although lots of other
contributing factors.
• Hedges are able to not only act as barriers in the
landscape but also to provide a regular supply of
wood.
• Drystone walling can be established in areas where
hedges would not survive due to poor soils and
exposure to wind.
• Should also consider boundary features can be aimed
at defining a border rather than an enclosure, for
example Offa’s Dyke or Hadrian’s Wall.

• The ecologist Max Hooper suggested in the 1960s that the
character and plant diversity of a hedge could be used to
provide information on the date of the boundary.
• He came up with a simplified equation that claimed that
the age could be calculated by counting the number of
species within a 30-yard length of a hedge and multiplying
this figure by 100 (e.g. 5 species = 500 years old) (the
‘Hooper hypothesis’).
• Based on assumption that hedges acquire new species
over time at a gradual but fairly constant rate.
• But, the technique only provides a margin of error of 200
years either way (therefore the example above could date
from 1300-1700 AD).
• And there are a number of significant problems with the
theory behind the approach itself. For example, records
show that many hedges were planted as multi-species
boundaries at the outset. Also, species can be lost from
hedges over time – for example Elms can displace existing
species and even eventually create a single species
hedge.
• But not completely useless – can look at species
composition to understand past landscapes (‘indicator
species’ can show woodland edge hedges). Need to
consider regional/local context.
Dating
Hedges?

Dating
Walls?
‘Wall-to-Wall History’
Richard Hodges
examination of Roystone
Grange in Derbyshire
included the creation of a
typology of drystone
walling, checked through
construction method,
association with other
cultural features or
excavation.
1 2
3 4 5

Ecology and
Vegetation
• ‘Plants and animals do not enter into the
story merely as part of the environment,
as scenery in the theatre of landscape.
They are actors in the play; each has its
own character, which needs to be
understood.’ (Rackham, 2000).
• As this quote from Rackham suggests, a
thorough understanding of ecology
allows a deep understanding of the
nature and development of a landscape.
• Factors to consider are the distribution,
nature and species composition of:
woodland/wood-pasture, indicators of
tree management, fields and their
boundaries, grassland, heathland, moors
and water bodies.
• An excellent reference for understanding
historical ecology is Oliver Rackham’s
‘History of the Countryside’.
After: Rackham 2000 east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.uk

Ecology and Vegetation
• Calculating the age of ancient trees is
problematic, especially since they are
often hollow so the oldest wood is not
available for dendrochronology or C-14
dating.
• A crude formula for calculating age is that
free-standing timber trees (especially
oaks) gain approximately 2cm of
circumference each year of growth.
• But also have to take account of a wide
range of factors, such as competition with
other plants, species, climate and effects
of management strategies such as
pollarding (reduces growth rate).
After: Muir 2001

Vegetation
changes as
archaeological
indicators

Structures and Buildings
• Standing buildings / structures
• Partially extant structures (e.g.
foundations)
• Footprints and earthworks (e.g.
hut platforms)

Surface finds
• On ploughed arable land there is often a good chance of
finding artefacts. Pasture is obviously not usually suited.
• The distribution of the finds can then be used to give an
impression of the subsurface archaeology. Isolated artefacts
likely to result from domestic refuse material scattered as
manure, dense concentrations suggest potential
occupation?
• The ideal conditions are following rainfall and in winter when
the vegetation/crop is low and have not started growing.
• Factors to consider include:
– Method of collection (systematic or random)?
– Positioning of artefacts?
– What type of artefacts are likely to survive local soil
conditions?
– Crop type and growth.
– Depth of ploughing and time since ploughing
– Colour of soil
– Degree of movement from original location (i.e. not in
situ finds but by how much?)
• It is important to remember that the presence of artefacts
within topsoil or on the ground surface almost certainly
means that the archaeology is being eroded.

Further Study
Assignment
Take a look at Marilyn Palmer’s paper on
the Leicester Framework Knitters.
Can you summarise the developments in
this industry from the 18th to 19th centuries
How did the industry change over this
period? What drove the changes? What is
the nature of the evidence?

An Archaeology of the East Midlands. Class 7 Radcliffe Autumn 2014

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