Excavations at Winchester 1968: Seventh Interim Report1

Martin Biddle

doi:10.1017/S0003581500053804

Excavations at Winchester 1968: Seventh Interim Report1

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 November 2011

Martin Biddle

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Summary

Roman, Saxon, and medieval levels were examined in 1968. At Castle Yard the north end of the Norman andlater castle was uncovered. At Lankhills fifty fourth-century graves were excavated. In Lower Brook Street open-area excavation was continued into mid thirteenth-century levels on four house-plots and on St. Mary's Church, where twelve phases can now be recognized between c. 1250 and c. 1470. St. Pancras Church was located. On the Cathedral site no Belgic occupation was found. A late second- to early third-century addition to the forum was excavated, and much of its painted wall-plaster recovered. The structure was abandoned c. A.D. 300. A laterally apsed tenth-century crossing was found in the Old Minster linking two earlier buildings. After his translation in gjl from outside the church, St. Swithun's shrine appears to have stood within this link-building. At Wolvesey Roman buildings were excavated, and additions were made to the plan of the Norman palace. A second halljchamber-block of c. 1129–35 has been planned. In an appendix D. M. Wilson considers an important decorated bronze strap-end of c. A.D. 1000 found on the Old Minster site.

Type: Research Article
Information: The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 49 , Issue 2 , September 1969 , pp. 295 - 328

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003581500053804 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1969

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^{page 296 note 1} Antiq. Journ. xlviii (1968), 258–9Google Scholar; for general plans of the northern half of the castle, and for reports on the excavations of the eastern defences in 1963–4, see ibid, xliv (1964), 190–3, fig. 2, pl. XLV; and xlv (1965), 240, fig. 2.

^{page 297 note 1} Reproduced in The Walfole Society, xxxv, ii (1954-1956), pl. 29Google Scholar, from the original by William Schellinks (1627–87), now in the National- bibliothek, Vienna.

^{page 297 note 2} Antiq. Journ. xliv (1964), 217–19.Google Scholar For a divergent view, restating the older position without reference to Barlow's arguments, see Brown, R. Allen, The Normans and the Norman Conquest (1969), pp. 185–7, and note 221Google Scholar.

^{page 297 note 3} Domesday Book, iv (Record Commission, ed. Sir H. Ellis, 1816), p. 535b.

^{297 4} Antiq. Journ. xliv (1964), 193Google Scholar.

^{page 298 note 1} Antiq. Journ. xliv (1964), 192Google Scholar.

^{page 298 note 2} There are difficulties in this view which can only be resolved by further excavation. In particular it should be noted that Walls 13 and 14 are not absolutely identical in construction to Wall i, and that evidence in the face of the foundation-trench for Walls 8, 10, and 16 (the round tower) could be taken to suggest a much earlier date for Walls 13 and 14. It is not impossible that Wall 13 is in fact the Roman town wall, which has sometimes been thought to turn west on this line, and which would, on this view, have been incorporated into the castle as the line of its northern, and possibly western, defences.

^{page 300 note 1} Colvin, H. M. (ed.), The History of the King's Works (1963), ii., p. 855Google Scholar.

^{page 300 note 2} Ibid., pp. 859–62.

^{page 300 note 3} See page 297, note 1, above.

^{page 301 note 1} Colvin, H. M., op. cit., p. 860Google Scholar.

^{page 301 note 2} Ibid., pp. 861–2.

^{page 301 note 3} There seems to be no sign of the keep on Schellinks's drawing (above, p. 297, note 1), where in this part of the castle only the ruins of the round tower can be seen.

^{page 302 note 1} Lankhills School is the property of Hampshire County Council, who very kindly allowed digging to continue, and much help and encouragement was given by the school itself, in particular by the headmaster, Mr. D. V. Teale. The Winchester Excavations Committee again provided all the equipment needed, and we have received much help and advice from its staff, in particular from Mr. Martin Biddle. W. R. Selwood Ltd., carried out the necessary earth-moving. All the actual digging was done by members of Winchester College and WinChester County High School for Girls, while Mr. J.L. Macdonald devoted much valuable time to the administrative side of the project. For a previous report see Antitq. Journ. xlviii (1968), 257–8Google Scholar.

^{page 303 note 1} For reports on 1965–7 see ibid, xlvi (1966), 313–19; xlvii (1967), 259–66; xlviii (1968), 259–68.

^{page 304 note 1} Antiq. Journ. xliv (1964), 197–9, pl. 1Google Scholar.

^{page 304 note 2} Ibid, xlviii (1968), 267.

^{page 305 note 1} Ibid, xlvii (1967), 260–2.

^{page 305 note 2} Ibid, xlviii (1968), 263–5, fig. 3 Pls. LVII, Lxa. For previous accounts of St. Mary's see ibid. xlvi (1966), 317, fig. 4, pls. LVb, LVIb xlvii (1967), 262–3, pls. XLVI, XLVIIb, XLVIII, L.

^{page 308 note 1} See p. 305, n. 2.

^{page 308 note 2} Antiq. Journ. xlviii (1968), 265–6, fig. 3Google Scholar.

^{page 309 note 1} In the evolution of timber construction, such a phase would follow the use of vertical timbers set n i individual post-holes, or in a wall-trench, and would precede the placing of horizontal sills on low ground-walls of stone or clay. The building under discussion appears to date from precisely the period of this development on the Lower Brook Street site.

^{page 310 note 1} Antiq. Journ. xlviii (1968), 266–7, fig. 3Google Scholar.

^{page 310 note 2} Ibid, xlv (1965), 248–9, pl. LXXV.

^{page 311 note 1} ‘House XIII’ is the term used to refer to the structure north of House XII, a small part of which was investigated in 1968, when the limit of excavation was extended slightly to the north.

^{page 312 note 1} Antiq. Journ. xlvii (1967), 261, fig. 5Google Scholar.

^{page 312 note 2} Ibid., 266–72; xlviii (1968), 268–80. For interim reports on excavations in 1962–5, see ibid. xliv (1964), 202–11; xlv (1965), 249–58; and xlvi (1966), 319–26.

^{page 314 note 1} Antiq. Journ. xlviii (1968), 269–70Google Scholar.

^{page 314 note 2} Ibid, xlvi (1966), 320.

^{page 314 note 3} I am grateful to Mr. Derek Allen for his com- ments on this suggestion. Although he is able to confirm that pre-Roman coin types continued to be made in some areas for a short while after the Conquest (e.g. among the Durotriges, Dobunni, and Iceni), he would be surprised if there was any so far undiscovered Winchester coinage of regular Celtic type, belonging to the early post-Conquest years. Doubts concerning the current theories about the moulds make it difficult to be certain that they can be used as unequivocal evidence for Belgic occupation.

^{page 314 note 4} Antiq. Journ. xlvi (1966), 320Google Scholar.

^{page 315 note 1} Arch. Journ. cxix (1962), 155Google Scholar.

^{page 315 note 2} Ravetz, A., Num. Chron? iv (1964), 201.Google Scholar The Winchester figures, based on a series of 744 coins from the excavations of 1960–6, were prepared by Mr. Richard Reece.

^{page 316 note 1} The Excavations Committee is particularly grateful to the Haverfield Trust, and to its chair- man, Professor Sheppard Frere, for a generous donation in support of the work on the Roman levels of the cathedral site.

^{page 316 note 2} Antiq. Journ. xlviii (1968), 273, 276Google Scholar.

^{page 317 note 1} Ibid., 273.

^{page 317 note 2} Ibid., 270–2, fig. 5.

^{page 317 note 3} Taylor, H. M. and Taylor, Joan, Anglo-Saxon Architecture, i (1965), pp. 134–43, fig. 61Google Scholar. I am particularly grateful to Dr. Taylor for reading and commenting on a draft of the interim report on the Old Minster.

^{page 317 note 4} I am grateful to Mr. Daniel Sheerin of the Dept. of Classics, University of North Carolina, for his analysis of the surviving quotations from the lost work De basilica Petri by the monk Vigilan-tius, written about A.D. 1000, on which this statement is based.

^{page 318 note 1} H.E. III, vii.

^{page 319 note 1} Quirk, R. N., ‘Winchester Cathedral in the Tenth Century’, Arch. Journ. cxiv (1957), 38–41Google Scholar.

^{page 319 note 2} Antiq. Journ. xlviii (1968), 274–8Google Scholar.

^{page 320 note 1} It is on this assumption that the width of St. Petei and St. Paul is given on fig. 5. The length of the church is calculated on the ratio of 2·1:1, length to breadth, which is derived from the plan of the first (?seventh-century) church at Brixworth, Northants (Taylor and Taylor, op. cit., fig. 49).

^{page 320 note 2} Quirk, , op. cit., 44Google Scholar.

^{page 320 note 3} Ibid., 48–56.

^{page 320 note 4} Brown, R. Allen, The Normans and the Norman Conquest (1969), p. 102 and n. 188Google Scholar.

^{page 320 note 5} Antiq. Journ. xlviii (1968), 275–8Google Scholar.

^{page 320 note 6} Ibid., 278, pl. LXIIIa, b.

^{page 321 note 1} Quirk, , op. cit., 56–9Google Scholar.

^{page 321 note 2} Ibid., 56

^{page 322 note 1} Crowfoot, Elisabeth and Hawkes, Sonia Chadwick, ‘Early Anglo-Saxon Gold Braids’, Med. Arch, xi (1967), 42–86CrossRef Google Scholar.

^{page 323 note 1} Quirk, , op. cit., 39, 40Google Scholar.

^{page 323 note 2} Atkinson, T. D. ‘Winchester Cathedral Close’, Proc. HampshireFieldClub, xv, pt.i (1941), 11–12, pl. 11Google Scholar.

^{page 323 note 3} An alternative possibility would see the build- ing just appearing west of the chalk foundation as St. Martin's Tower, and the building east of the chalk foundation as St. Peter and St. Paul. Although this view results in a smaller final complex, the difficulties it entails are great, whereas the interpre- tation presented in this article appears to solve all the outstanding difficulties.

^{page 323 note 4} For previous interim reports, see Antiq. Journ. xliv (1964), 212–14Google Scholar; v (1965), 258–60; xlvi (1966), 326–8; xlvii (1967), 272–6; and xlviii (1968), 280–4. For an account of the twelfth-century palace with full references to the written sources see Biddle, Martin, ‘Wolvesey: the domus quasi palatium of Henry de Blois in Winchester’, Chateau Gaillard, iii (ed. Taylor, A. J., 1970)Google Scholar forthcoming.

^{page 324 note 1} Antiq. Journ. xlvii (1967), 273–6Google Scholar.

^{page 324 note 2} I am greatly indebted to Dr. Mark Hughes, Winchester Public Health Laboratory, for his analyses of the water.

^{page 325 note 1} Cambrensis, Giraldus, Vita S. Remigii, cap. 27, in Opera (ed. Dimock, J. F., Rolls Series, 1877), vii, 45Google Scholar.

^{page 325 note 2} Nisbett, N. C. H., ‘Wolvesey Castle in the Twelfth Century’, Proc. Hants. F.C. iii (1895), 207–24Google Scholar.

^{page 327 note 1} Kendrick, T. D. ‘An Anglo-Saxon Cruet’, Antig. Journ. xviii (1938), 377–81CrossRef Google Scholar.

^{page 327 note 2} Brendsted, J., Early English Ornament, London/Copenhagen, 1924, fig. 132Google Scholar.

^{page 327 note 3} Ibid., fig. 133.

^{page 327 note 4} Antiq. Journ. xlv (1965), pl. LxxixaGoogle Scholar.

^{327 5} Wilson, D. M. ‘Two 10th-century bronze objects’, Med. Arch, ix (1965), fig. 29aGoogle Scholar.

^{page 327 note 6} Unpublished; National Museum, Copenhagen. I am grateful to Dr. O. Olsen for allowing me to mention this object in advance of publication.

^{page 327 note 7} Unpublished; National Museum, Dublin. I am grateful to Mr. B. O'Rfordáin for allowing me to mention this object in advance of publication.

^{page 327 note 8} Kendrick, , op. cit., pl. LXXIV, 2 and 3Google Scholar.

^{327 9} Wilson, D. M., Anglo-Saxon ornamental metalwork, 700–1100, in the British Museum, London 1964, pls. XII–XIVGoogle Scholar.

^{327 10} Ibid., pl. xxiv, 44.

^{327 11} Ibid., pl. XII, bottom left.

^{page 328 note 1} Kendrick, , op. clt., pl. LXXIII, IGoogle Scholar.

^{page 328 note 2} Kendrick, T. D., Late Saxon and Viking Art, London 1949, pl. XXXIIIGoogle Scholar.

^{page 328 note 3} Rickert, M., Painting in Britain; the Middle Ages, London, 1954, pl. 25Google Scholar.

^{page 328 note 4} Wormald, F., The Benedictional of St. Ethel-wold, London, 1959Google Scholar.

^{page 328 note 5} Arch. Journ. cxix (1962), 187Google Scholar; Antiq. Journ. xlv (1965), 262 fGoogle Scholar.

^{page 328 note 6} Wilson, Anglo-Saxon ornamental metalwork, pl. xa.

^{page 328 note 4} Ibid., pl. XXXVIII, 104.

^{page 328 note 8} In writing this note I must acknowledge the help of Miss K. Galbraith of Birkbeck College, London, with whom I have had long discussions.

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