ACTIVITIES
Archaeology Projects (external)
ACE Archaeology Club Update - - Janet Daynes ( Newsletter Summer 2002)
The post-excavation work of Seckington has been keeping us busy through
the winter months and all of the finds have been cleaned, numbered and
catalogued. The pottery has been looked at by John Allen at the RAM Museum
in Exeter, we have a very large collection of medieval pottery, a small
amount of post-medieval to 20th century and last but no means least one
sherd of 10th century Saxo-Norman, very rare in North Devon apparently.
So where is all the documentary evidence to back these finds up? We have
found so far, no mention of Seckington until 1539, when a Mr Bernard Luxton
purchased Seckington from Hartland Abbey. This is only a tenuous connection,
as the document does not specify which of the many Seckington Farms of
North Devon it is referring to.
Thanks to present day owners we have been able to look at the old deeds
and are now unravelling the complicated story of Seckington from the early
19th century to the holding of today. This study seems to be growing into
a landscape project all of its own right.
Not all of ACE's time has been taken up with the Seckington project: We
have had two very successful trips out, one to Exmoor taking in Wheal
Eliza, Cow Castle and the Caratacus Stone, the other trip we visited Chagford
and the surrounding area of Dartmoor taking in Spinsters Rock, Mardon
Down and Kestor.
Future activities, apart from the Seckington project, will be: a trip
to Cosdon Beacon and some experimental archaeology, pit cooking, iron
smelting, spinning and getting a bow drill to work are but a few of the
ideas that we plan to have a go at.
Janet Daynes.
AN ACE SUMMER - Janet Daynes (Newsletter No 4 2002)
Looking back over the summer months (which seem to have sped by), ACE members have managed to cram in plenty of interesting archaeological activities.
We have almost completed a plane-table survey of a large earthwork at Stone Barton, East of Chulmleigh. Hopefully the resulting drawing will help to unravel the mystery of the site, as it has been recorded before as a prehistoric enclosure, a ring work or a medieval fortified manor house. The farmer who owns the site may use the drawing for the interpretation board that he plans to erect for visitors.
Some time ago, ACE was approached by Cookworthy Forest Centre asking for volunteers to help build a round house for their new forest trail. While this project was being organized, ACE was invited to build a small roundhouse at Langridge Farm near Yeoford, so we jumped at the chance and got stuck in.We have got the wall posts in, the wall plate on and have finished the wattling. On the 7th and 8th of September ACE members attended the first building sessions at Cookworthy Forest Centre, led by Dave Freeman of Butser and Peat moors fame. A most entertaining weekend was had by all, more sessions at Cookworthy and Yeoford are planned for the near future.
Over the summer months ACE members have been involved in experimental pit-cooking, Iron Age black-smithing including making a wooden forge, making slings, bows, growing woad, making prehistoric clothes and researching prehistoric looms with a view to constructing and using one.
ACE members have been involved in two digs this season. Some of us spent three days at North Devon Archaeological Society’s excavation of a hill slope enclosure near Parracombe, and five members attended Dr Sandy Gerrard’s continuing Bracken Project excavating a Bronze Age roundhouse on Dartmoor.
A civic trust has just been set up in Winkleigh, known as the Winkleigh Society. Within the society there is a history group who want to set up a funded, two-part project, one part being reminiscence, the other a ‘Winkleigh House Detectives’. ACE, along with North Devon Archaeological Society have been invited to help set up this exciting project.
Rather than slowing down for the dark winter months, ACE might be somewhat busy!
An ACE Winter Janet Daynes (Newsletter No 5 2003)
During the winter ACE was very active, mostly with experimental archaeology, which meant that we could be indoors in the warm. The prehistoric clothes that we had made at our November meeting were put to good use at the ACE Christmas party in December. Much feasting was had by all!
Our first meeting of the year in January was organised by Phil Tonkins. For the third year running now he has taken ACE members up on to Exmoor to explore some of the interesting monuments there. This year we went to the Roman Fortlet on Old Burrow Hill, and then on to the medieval settlement at Bagley and the Sweetworthy prehistoric enclosures. It was a very cold day but the sun shone and we all had a wonderful time blowing away the festive cobwebs.
In February we ran a ‘clip silver’ workshop
and even ventured out a couple of times: once to help build the round
house at the Cookworthy Forest Centre, and again to do the final (at last)
earthwork survey at Stone Barton, Chulmleigh. We are very pleased to report
that our Local Heritage Initiative grant application has been successful.We
now have the promise of funding so that we can proceed with our ‘House
Detectives’ project. The money will also help us to feed information
into North Devon on Disc
(accessible at the Museum of North Devon) and to set up an environmentally
controlled archive store
in Winkleigh.
ACE hack-silver workshop - Gordon Fisher (Newsletter No 5 2003)
On Saturday the 1st of February, ten ACE members were treated to a very interesting and informative workshop on the making of Viking clip/ hack silver* jewellery.
The day was run by our very own metal man, Benjamin Venn, who had provided a wide range of books on the historical background and ideas for designs. He also provided enough materials for everyone to make at least one copper practice piece and one silver bracelet. Benny started the workshop with a brief description of clip/ hack silver, its use as a method of payment as well as an adornment. One of the books listed the relative values of silver in the Viking period, and how much certain items would cost. It made entertaining reading!
We then began the actual manufacture of our precious items, the method being very basic: find a punch with a shape that you like, and bop it with a hammer, and away you go! People began fairly hesitantly, but soon became more confident and creative, and the Winkleigh Community Centre was soon ringing to sounds of hammer on punch (plus the odd curse!).
Once you had filled your strip of metal with the design
of your choice, it was time to bend it to shape, but before you could
do this it had to be heated to soften it (annealed). This was achieved
by playing a blowtorch along it, watching very carefully for the change
in colours that meant the metal had reached its correct temperature. Then
it was into the water to quench it and back to the anvil for the final
shaping to fit one’s wrist. The reason for the heating is that repeated
hammering renders the metal work hardened
making it brittle at the point of impact and therefore likely to break
when bent. The application of heat relaxes the metal again, so that it
bends without snapping.
Some of the braver souls opted to make both copper and silver bracelets, and I must say that when they were finished they looked absolutely wonderful. There was a wide range of ages and abilities present on the day and I think that it is a great compliment to Benny’s teaching that everybody managed to make at least one item, if not two, in the time available.
On behalf of all those who attended the clip/ hack silver day, I should like to thank Benny.We thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it! *Hack-silver (German: Hacksilber) – artefacts of silver plundered and broken up for bullion, recasting, etc. (TG)
ACE Summer 2003 - Janet Daynes (Newsletter No 6 2003)
The summer months were somewhat hectic for ACE members, starting in early June with a flint knapping session at Trewortha Farm, on Bodmin Moor, where we all managed to produce a flint tool of some description. The next few weeks saw us gathering equipment for the House Scouts training days which were successfully held later in June. This was interspersed with furnace building at Brayford, in preparation for National Archaeology Day.We also managed to fit in a thatching weekend at the Cookworthy roundhouse with Dave and Ann Freeman.
On into July, we had another session of thatching at Cookworthy and a day working on the roundhouse at Yeoford. A training day in the Records Office for the House Scouts Project made a nice change from our outside activities. When some of us started to work on the database for the House Scouts project, we realised just how much work is involved in this! Meanwhile, back in Brayford, having built the furnace, obtained some iron ore and roasted it, we had a go at smelting. This was part of the Roman Fun Day on 19th July,
National Archaeology Day. It was fun, too! Dr Gill Juleff
from Exeter University has some samples of
our slag and possible iron bits for analysis, so hopefully soon we shall
find out if we managed to smelt iron in Brayford for the first time in
nearly 2000 years!
The ACE trip in August to Exeter’s Living History weekend was quite fun, though poorly attended by ACE members. Benny Venn was demonstrating the art of Viking blacksmithing, and looked the part surrounded by Vikings, their tents and other paraphernalia. The following week, preparations for the Teigncombe dig were under way. Then came the dig itself. What a fantastic, if somewhat intense (and hot) two weeks that was! But for details, see Gordon’s account.
An ACE Smelting in the Rain - Janet Daynes (Newsletter No 7 2004)
The ACE members who had attempted to smelt iron at last year’s, Roman Fun Day at Brayford were all keen to have another go, so when Gill Juleff asked us if we would consider running a smelt for her metallurgy students we jumped at the chance, and thanks to the kind hospitality of Ruth and Jim Knights, we had somewhere to do it.
So on a very wet morning in March three of us made our
way to Brayford, arriving there just before
6. 00 am! The furnace needed to be warmed up slowly (to prevent thermal
shock) so that it would be hot enough for smelting when Gill and company
arrived at 9. 30 am. After a short time we had a good fire going in the
furnace and had erected a shelter just as the rain stopped!
Having warmed up the furnace with wood, we progressed to charcoal to really
get the temperature moving, and by the time Gill, students and tutors
had arrived, we were going in earnest. The charcoal and ore were broken
up to golf ball and hazelnut size, respectively and a pyrometer was attached
to the thermo-couple that had been built into the furnace a week before.
Although we had cheated a little by using an electric air blower to get the fire going initially, once the charcoal was put in, we used the bag bellows and continued to do so for the rest of the smelt. The charge was added in layers at a ratio of 6 kg of roasted ore to 4 kg of charcoal. After several hours of work with the bellows, the temperature finally peaked at 1247°C. Soon after this the furnace seemed to get blocked somewhere above the tuyeres. This having been cleared, the smelt continued, but we found it hard to maintain a good temperature and soon the furnace became blocked again. So it was decided to investigate what we had achieved.
The clay door was removed to reveal, above ashes and charcoal, a void, the roof of which was just above the door. After much prodding and hammering with the iron bar, we removed plenty of slag and what looked very much like bits of bloom. Both the slag and the bloom showed varying degrees of magnetic response. Some of the slag had very little, whereas the magnet had to be prised off the bits of bloom! Both the slag and the bloom are going to be analysed by the students.We are all looking forward to their findings.
The furnace that we built is a little narrower than the one found at Sherracombe. Maybe a wider interior would stop the furnace blocking as the bloom forms. And maybe we need to add a flux to get a better separation of the iron from the slag, though as yet no evidence of this in the form of limestone, chalk or shell, has been found at the Sherracombe smelt site. So the plan for the next furnace is : build it wider and try again. Our ambition is to smelt enough iron for Benny Venn (our “archaeo-smith”) to make a small knife.
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