Archaeological test Pit

[peanut]

Never was one for having the last word.

Just mutter to myself when you can't hear.

sorry Val I've been out a while and I see that Geoff has been holding the fort ,thank yee kindly sire .

I think perhaps either my description or the images are not really clear enough. profound apologies.
The bit of cobbled surface of the original yard is just a small part of the bottom of the test pit that I have taken down to 14"  The rest of the 'floor' of the test pit has been left at 12" or so .. see ?  The cobbled surface that you see is at a deeper level than the rest of the floor of the test pit.

I didn't want to  excavate all of the floor of the  test pit because even 100mm x1000mm x1000mm would leave me with another half a cubic metre of earth and I am up to my neck in excavated earth at the moment .

If you dig a bucket of earth out of the ground it will roughly fit 2.5 buckets. If you then seive that earth it will expand again to about 4x buckets so you end up with 4xtimes what you started with . Earth in the ground is compacted over the centuries and expands when it is dug up..... I knew I shouldn't have started this groan....


Anyway ..........now that I have found the original stableyard surface I might excavate the rest of the pit to the same level.
To answer your question about how extensive it is likely to be well imagine a modern day stable yard with about 5-6 horses and stables and a few carts etc and you'll get the picture. The floor is probably quite extensive probably about 30 metres by 10 metres or so

[Chef Geoff]

Only trouble is that if you don't tamp the soil back in, in time you will have a dip
Now the big question is what date is it.....the only good way of answering that one from a sondage is to see if there is any pottery under it. Yep keep digging...........................ever thought of having a pond in the garden? lol

[peanut]

yes date is an interesting question but i think we can be pretty certain that the surface dates back to just after 1831 when the current barn and stable block was built.
It would very unlikely that they would have constructed a cobbled surface outside  the chapel window back in the Medieval times .

I suspect that there might have been stables and possibly a barn on the present site beneath the current one to serve the Mill but there are no maps going back far enough that I have found. Its possible that it might show on the earliest enclosure maps 1830's but I've not yet checked.

I think I will try to post a location plan which should help everyone to visualise where the test pit is in relation to the Medieval chapel and the adjacent stable block (my cottage) Its kind of in the corner created by the two buildings.

Anyone want some nice loamy seived topsoil lol 

[Chef Geoff]

A big, big gap between 1500 and 1831 though. I can't see a reason why there wouldn't of been a yard outside a private chapel (nice bits of grass and flowers is a Victorian invention) as many were in fact stuck in the corner of a courtyard. The medieval and early post-medieval mind was far more practical, and the Chapel would of been a house of God, not a house and garden Plus as you say, the windows aren't original

[peanut]

ok here is a location plan showing the relative position of the test pit to the surrounding buildings.

Brown is the Mill
Blue represents my garden
red is the Stable block /barn the lower part of which is my cottage
green is the medieval chapel
purple is my test pit in my garden.
Hope that helps with visualizing everything  

[peanut]

A big, big gap between 1500 and 1831 though. I can't see a reason why there wouldn't of been a yard outside a private chapel (nice bits of grass and flowers is a Victorian invention) as many were in fact stuck in the corner of a courtyard. The medieval and early post-medieval mind was far more practical, and the Chapel would of been a house of God, not a house and garden Plus as you say, the windows aren't original

the stables and barns would have been needed by the flour mills .  There has been a mill recorded on site since the early 1500's and it only went out of use in the 1950's I believe.
The Millers house and the chapel would have presumably been built by the Mill owner .
It is probable that the existing stable/ barn was constructed over any previous structures given the access lane and the position of the mill etc  therefore I am as certain as one can be that the cobbled surface relates to the stable block and has nothing to do with the medieval chapel other than its accidental proximity on the site.

Hopefully this weekend I will take the pit down some more and see if I can find some datable pottery sherds beneath .

[Val Beechey]

AHHHHHH.   It's all down to perspective.  Now I see.

Don't you think it's a little odd for a Miller to build a Chaple.? Have you thought about Ecclesiastical records for that area. Presumably the Chaple would have been consecrated and would have been under the jurisdiction of the nearest Bishop, so some record would exist.

There's even a mention of Thomas Chaple (the name of the village I live in) even though no body thought to mention exactly where is was.
It could be under my bungalow, now there's a thought.

Val

[Chef Geoff]

I agree Val, a mill with a Chapel doesn't quite add up I would of thought that it could either have been a chantry chapel or ..................there is a big house missing that owned the both. Intriguing And I'm not sure I see the connection of the mill and stables? The way a mill worked was you took him your grain and he milled it for a price, He didn't actually need transport.

Ahhh! just looked at the pic, so it was Court mill, so where was the court?

[Val Beechey]

My thoughts exactly Geoff.  Come on Peanut, get the Time Team in.  They'll solve it in 3 days.

Val

[peanut]

I agree Val, a mill with a Chapel doesn't quite add up I would of thought that it could either have been a chantry chapel or ..................there is a big house missing that owned the both. Intriguing And I'm not sure I see the connection of the mill and stables? The way a mill worked was you took him your grain and he milled it for a price, He didn't actually need transport.

Ahhh! just looked at the pic, so it was Court mill, so where was the court?

The next mill along is called Tail Mill so I guess we are looking for a tail !   By the way Tail Mill was where they made the sails for the tall ships and bleached them in the fields . i have found many Russian linen lead seals there .

Water was the key to all industry agriculture and living before the industrial revolution. I suspect that there might have been mills on  the same site rightback  through history to the Romano brit period.
As for the chapel its a complete Mystery. Some bods from English Heritage visited last year with cameras tape measures etc and are carrying out an investigation currently.

Whoever owned the Mill would have needed somewhere to live . They  quite possibly may have built a house on site somewhere. I might try a bit of detecting on my neighbours fields and see what turns up .Watch this space as they say

[nfl]

i detect on a farm which the farmhouse is dated 1500s and after a few visits to the farm  the farmer says that the farmhouse was granted  licence to prayer in the late 1400s ,,which tells me there was a much earlier farm/building on the site and the people either prayed in the home or maybe built a small chapel in the grounds ,,anybody back in the day could if they did the paper work and had the money could practice worship on any site and it looks like a similar occurance in peanuts garden.

[Val Beechey]

Don't you just love this hobby.

I hated History when I was at school, didn't think much of the Teacher either. Since getting interested in this hobby I've learned more in 2+ years than I ever did at school.

Val

[peanut]

i detect on a farm which the farmhouse is dated 1500s and after a few visits to the farm  the farmer says that the farmhouse was granted  licence to prayer in the late 1400s ,,which tells me there was a much earlier farm/building on the site and the people either prayed in the home or maybe built a small chapel in the grounds ,,anybody back in the day could if they did the paper work and had the money could practice worship on any site and it looks like a similar occurance in peanuts garden.

I reckon people back then were just the same as we are now .Social climbers  Always striving to go one better than the neighbours whether the clergy, royalty, aristocracy , tenant farmer or peasants . To have your own private chapel would have been quite a status symbol I guess .

From reading about the village history it seems there were 4x mills in the village and the mill owners  were the primary land owners so very rich by standards back then.

 Plus folk were deeply religious back then and religion was going through turmoil . People were locked up and killed for their beliefs. It may have been a secret Catholic chapel perhaps ? it just looks like any other medieval building from the outside .