Ancient timbers found near South
Yorkshire's oldest church
Excavations in Conisbrough, near
Doncaster, South Yorkshire, have revealed rare Early Medieval wooden
structures beneath a 1960s housing estate. These include a fence with
massive tongue and groove panels, a wood-lined pit, a track and numerous
stakes.
Found in late 2002 during excavations
in advance of residential and retail development, the timbers were known to
be pre-modern from associated material. It was thought likely that they were
Anglo-Saxon or Roman. However dendrochronology has now indicated a more
recent date.
‘This falls in the period we know very
little about archaeologically’, Richard Neill, project archaeologist for
ARCUS, tells British Archaeology. A 148-year dendrochronological
sequence has been established from measuring tree rings, running from AD 425
to 573. This indicates a probable late 6th/early 7th century date for the
felling of the trees.
The complex was located on the spring
line at the Magnesian Limestone/Middle Coal Measures contact. The timber,
mostly oak, includes over 5 m of panelled fence, thought to be part of a
channel taking water from the spring. Roman pots of types typically found at
wells suggest the source was used from as early as the 2nd to 3rd centuries
AD.
The excavations were close to two of
the most important archaeological sites in Conisbrough, at St Peter’s Church
and Conisbrough Castle. Extensive remains of a Saxon Minster of 8th century
date are incorporated within the church, thought to be the oldest in South
Yorkshire and of a type believed to have been associated with royal estates.
The castle dates back to c 1180, but is also thought to incorporate earlier
Anglo-Saxon earthworks.
Also identified at the excavations were
Medieval 11th to 13th century features, including pits and field boundaries,
perhaps contemporary with a major rebuilding of the church and the building
of Conisbrough Castle in the 12th century. A nearby street, Wellgate, takes
its name from a Late Medieval wellhead structure which still survives on the
site, and from which people in the town drew water until a water main was
installed in 1903.
The name Conisbrough means ‘King’s
stronghold’. The distribution of its dependant estates by the time of the
Domesday Book (1086) suggests it was once the centre of an ancient lordship
stretching from the River Don to the boundary of Northumbria. Given the
survival of the church, there is the possibility of continuity in
Conisbrough from the Anglian period, through the Viking Age, to the Norman
conquest and beyond.
British Archaeology
Issue 75
March 2004
British Archaeology