Trans Worcestershire Archaeol Soc 20 ((Third series))

An archaeological excavation of buried human remains was undertaken at Old Yew Hill Wood, Church Lench, Worcestershire, following discovery by the landowner. A partial male skeleton was excavated from a stream bank. Radiocarbon dating gave a Late Iron Age date (cal 190 BC to AD 20); there were no associated artefacts and no further contemporary archaeological deposits. The site is distant from local archaeological sites of this period. It is suggested that this is an Iron Age inhumation burial, for which both local and regional parallels are rare and settlement associations and wider parallels are limited.

Report on an archaeological excavation and watching brief undertaken at 13 Vine Street, Evesham, with the aim of further examining archaeological deposits of Roman and medieval date which were first encountered during an evaluation. The discovery of gullies and ditches of Roman date represents the first structural features of this period found in Evesham. Substantial quantities of Roman pottery and roof tile were present at the site, suggesting that a building or settlement was situated nearby. Subsequent to the abandonment of the site in the third century AD, a thick soil horizon indicates that the late Roman and Saxon periods saw no identifiable occupation in this area. During the twelfth to thirteenth centuries activity is confirmed by the presence of medieval finds from soil-sump horizons, indicating use of the area for disposal of domestic or industrial waste. Activity continued through the post-medieval period, which is characterised by substantial pits; dump-deposits; and a variably preserved pathway running east--west across the site, early phases of which appear to be dated to the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The path was bounded by a double line of lias slabs running parallel to it, possibly acting as a gully or drain. In later phases it was re-laid at a higher level to accommodate successive phases of dumping.

The author examines place-name and documentary evidence to suggest that in the early medieval period the area of Blackminster in the Vale of Evesham included a meeting place for the settlement of legal and administrative matters for the people of Blackenhurst hundred.

Article on the family of a moneyer named Baldric, who struck coins in Worcester in the mid- to late-eleventh century; the family can probably be traced from then to the start of the fourteenth century, and there is a suggestion that they may have worked as goldsmiths.

Account of the final years of a Worcester map-maker of the eighteenth century, based on the recent discovery of a portfolio of his work; includes