Season's End

 

The Digging season has ended early this year. Although we did not find much in the way of features, especially the 'Great Seller', we have had a massive increase in artefacts, especially architectural stonework (see previous articles below). 

We were held back by lack of access to a digging machine and had to strip the 5m x 5m trench by hand, but through the hard work of our volunteers we had a successful year, considering we started late in the season too. 

The 2018 technical report has been written and copies sent to the Dorset County Council Archive and Dorset County Museum. The finds have been archived and stored by the Stalbridge History Society. The 2019 report is in progress and nearly ready to be archived. 

A big thank you to all our volunteers who dug this year. See you in 2022. 

Fancy a tipple?

The baluster glasses of the late 17th and early 18th centuries owe their distinctive style to necessity and English invention. A Georgian baluster glass owes it's existence to the slower cooling lead metal (lead crystal or flint if you prefer) developed at the Savoy glass house. The glass was not suited to the production of the earlier Venetian styles with thin and light funnel shaped bowls, although examples do exist.

I was told that this is mid to late 17th c. There is a good chance that it was handled by Sir Robert Boyle himself.

 

Keep it buttoned

Special Find of the Day:

In 1774 a foul anchor surrounded by rope edging took the place of a rose and in 1787 the same device, with the addition of a wreath of laurel leaves, was adopted for Admirals. When the Merchant Navy started to use the foul anchor device a crown was added for all naval officers in 1812. The same basic design remains in use today.

The foul anchor device itself was first recorded in use in the seal of the Lord High Admiral of Scotland in 1402. It was subsequently adopted in the Admiralty seal and by a large number of navies throughout the world. The rope 'fouling' has no specific twist and may be deemed to be correct however it fits around the anchor.

It is nice to think that someone from the navy visited Stalbridge House and then lost a button!

 

 

 

 

Get stuck in

Special/Small Finds are recorded apart from the general bulk of artefacts in UK Archaeology. This is the first of a series of SFs from the Stalbridge House excavation (1613-1823). Early forks had two tines.  

• Early 17th century - Forks became commonplace across Europe as a tool of steadying food while cutting, and in a lesser case for providing easier transfer of solid food between the plate and mouth. Majority of people still used sharply pointed knives for that purpose.
• 1630 - Forks and blunt tipped knives start arriving at colonies in North America.
• 1669 - French King Louis XIV of France banned the use of sharp tipped knives in France as a means of reducing violence. This introduced new era of blunt tipped eating knives.

 

Book

 'A Digger's Life: trowels & tribulations in archaeology' is available on Kindle via Amazon Books.

Chris Tripp has dug into his personal archaeological story to tell how he has touched the past. He describes how and why he became a professional archaeologist and began excavating fascinating sites, finding wonderful artefacts and experiencing the deeper past during a thirty year career. How he saw Roman London’s first beginnings, unearthed a medieval hospital and exhumed a Bronze Age skeleton.  Meet his fellow diggers, some friendly, some not so friendly and some just eccentric, but all equally interesting to know. Chris also began his work with local communities, helping them find the heritage they share under their feet. If you have ever wondered what diggers really do and why they do it, this book will give you a unique insight into the small world of archaeology and archaeologists, to the extent that you will never watch ‘Time Team’ in the same way ever again.  

Trench trial

As we do not have access to a digging machine at the moment we are confined to trial trenches and recording what we can. Back filling by hand is the real trial. 

The Great Ditch was picked up again and with lots of finds, but we could not dig to the base as it was getting too dangerous - again. Frustrating.

The shovel is standing in a 600mm wide cut into bedrock. 600mm is the standard width of walls on this site, so may be a robbed out one. The cut can be seen in the section and reaches to just under the subsoil. The surrounding land is made up of dumped material.

 

Finds Found

Some nice finds from the site last week. Here are some examples.

Wavy dish fragment.

Scraffito fragment.

Bottle tops are good for dating, as they changed over time. Late 17th c.

Decorated lead flashing.

Copper button possibly copying woven examples.