Title: |
An excavation at Eardisley Castle, Herefordshire, 2011 |
Series: |
Herefordshire Archaeology unpublished report series
|
Downloads: |
hereford2-277385_1.pdf (3 MB)
:
|
Download
|
|
Licence Type: |
ADS Terms of Use and Access
|
DOI |
|
Publication Type: |
Report (in Series)
|
Abstract: |
In March 2011 a trench was excavated in the south-east corner of the surviving inner bailey of Eardisley Castle in order to establish its general character in its heyday and to act as a control on the results of recent geophysical surveys. The excavation found that medieval strata and structures survive immediately beneath the garden soil. The trench revealed part of a building of uncertain form in use over a very short period of time, c.1200. Its east wall bounded a sequence of floor surfaces consisting of alternating layers of clay and spreads of charcoal-rich soil. A deeply-founded clay-bonded masonry structure was inserted into this developing floor sequence; it may have been part of a substantial hearth base or chimney most of which lay outside the excavation. The floor deposits contained a large quantity of late 12th to early 13th-century cooking pot and a depression had been levelled up with imported iron slag. Analysis of the deposits revealed the presence of quantities of fish scales and animal bone, amongst which was a wide variety of game species and a butchered bone belonging to a white stork, a non-native species. The building is interpreted as part of the castle's service area, probably adjacent to the kitchens and a forge. A sondage showed that the building of c.1200 was built on the reverse slope of the bailey rampart, composed of turf and redeposited topsoil and containing two sherds of 12th-century cooking pot. There was no evidence for the domus defensabilis of the Domesday survey. |
Author: |
N Baker
|
Publisher: |
Herefordshire Archaeology
|
Other Person/Org: |
Historic England (OASIS Reviewer)
Herefordshire HER (OASIS Reviewer)
|
Year of Publication: |
2012
|
Locations: |
Site: |
Eardisley Castle |
County: |
Herefordshire |
District: |
Herefordshire, County of |
Parish: |
EARDISLEY |
Country: |
England |
Grid Reference: 331160, 249110 (Easting, Northing)
|
|
Subjects / Periods: |
|
Identifiers: |
OASIS Id: |
hereford2-277385 |
OBIB: |
HAR 305 |
|
Source: |
|
Relations: |
|
Created Date: |
18 Aug 2017 |