Recent Excavations at the Cluniac Priory of St. Mary,Thetford, Norfolk

RUMNEY CASTLE, a small ringwork historically part of the marcher lordship of Gwynll?g, was situated above a steep natural scarp overlooking the R. Rhymney. First mentioned in A.D. 1184–85, the castle guarded the W. boundary of the lordship and the river crossing. The defences consisted of a ditch and clay rampart constructed around three sides of the site. Initially incorporated into the defences along the fourth side was a large timber building and possibly a palisade. The entrance was originally defended by a large timber gate tower, later superseded by a smaller timber structure. Following this, the defences were strengthened with the widening of the rampart and the construction of a small tower or keep alongside the entrance. Several phases of timber building, including two large halls, were arranged around a courtyard. During a later period the entrance was relocated and a stone gate tower constructed.

During the second half of the 13th century the site was converted for use as a manorial centre. The rampart was levelled, the interior of the site infilled, and a range of buildings constructed along the edges of the mound. A well-sealed coin hoard of c. A.D. 1288–89 discovered in a destruction deposit provides a terminus post quem for the abandonment of the site.     

The Anglian Cathedral of North Elmham,Norfolk

DISPERSED REFERENCES to weights and balances in England dating to the late Saxon period (9th to 11th centuries) are collated and assessed. A classification of types is presented, and comparisons drawn with Irish and Scandinavian material.     

The Excavation of a Brick Clamp at Shotesham St. Mary,Norfolk, 1969

Abstract

Rescue excavations in the small village of Llanmaes investigated an area of earthworks indicating the presence of several buildings. Medieval evidence was largely confined to finds. Three late 17th-century properties were examined; it is possible that they represent a planned development on the east side of the village green in response to population expansion in the Vale of Glamorgan. The buildings are of simple two-roomed plan, and would appear to be tenements of low status. One of the buildings produced evidence of smithying. A large group of metal finds of agricultural and domestic use was found, as was a closely-dated assemblage of wine bottles; a large midden deposit on the north edge of the site contained a very large group of post-medieval pottery. The buildings were abandoned by the end of the 18th century, presumably following rationalization of the local settlement morphology and farming. Thus the site represents a short-lived expansion in low-status rural housing at the time of the ‘Great Rebuilding’.     

Icenia: Notices of Roman Remains,and Evidences of Occupation,Discovered in Norfolk

This paper attempts to demonstrate four things: (1) There is no adequate documentary basis for Petrie's ‘Northern’ system of lengths. (2) We do not know of any system into which Anglo-Saxon lengths were organized. (3) The perch of 5.03 m is the only Anglo-Saxon unit of which the length is known. (4) There is insufficient evidence to support the view that the Drusian foot of 33.3 cm was widely used by the Germanic tribes in general or in Anglo-Saxon England in particular. Conversely the modern English foot of 30.48 cm has more to recommend it as Anglo-Saxon than has previously been recognized.     

Account of a Roman Sepulchre at Geldestone,Norfolk

Rescue excavation between 1988 and 1990 in advance of river erosion examined a substantial part of the small medieval rural hospital of St Giles by Brompton Bridge and later post-medieval farm. Established in the latter half of the twelfth century for the infirm, including lepers, the hospital layout consisted of a detached stone chapel adjacent to the river crossing, with a timber hall to the west. This hall was destroyed by fire, and a sequence of timber buildings were then constructed in adjacent areas. By the fifteenth century these structures also included a stone building, possibly a refectory. The first small chapel was replaced in the thirteenth century by a larger structure, which went through a period of expansion and then subsequent contraction by the fifteenth century. Only in the fourteenth century were a hall, probably a guesthouse or the master's lodgings, and dovecote built adjacent to the chapel. The cemetery to the south of the chapel was partially examined. The site appears to have been a largely economically self-sufficient unit with an attached farm. The hospital was abandoned during the latter half of the fifteenth century, but the site and some of the buildings were subsequently reoccupied as a farm from the mid-seventeenth century. The farmhouse underwent conversion from a longhouse to a house of hearth-passage plan in the early eighteenth century. The former chapel was reused as a byre and additional stables constructed. The farm was moved to its present location to the south in the mid-eighteenth century and the former hospital site finally abandoned.     

A medieval bladder stone from Norwich,Norfolk

A fragmented bladder stone was recovered from the pelvic cavity of a medieval mature male buried in the Franciscan cemetery of St Faith's, Norwich. A review of other British archaeologically derived bladder stones is also included. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.