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During this season’s work at the Oxfordshire site of Besselsleigh deserted manor and village (CA 400) by Appleton Area Archaeological Research Project (AAARP), the team of volunteers and students from the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education (OUDCE) excavated the route of a medieval lead pipe supplying fresh water to the manor. It begins at the medieval well (marked by a person in orange high-vis, far right) and finishes 28m to the north-east, where the pipe was broken by the insertion of a 19th-century wall (final person on the left). The remainder of its length was robbed out, as was an arm of the pipe running south from the sixth person from the left. It was unusual for a secular manor to be supplied with piped fresh water in the medieval period; perhaps the owners discovered the benefits when visiting one of Oxford’s colleges just down the road. The pipe was made using the same technique as Roman versions: beating sheet lead round a wooden form, then soldering the join to create a seam. The Besselsleigh pipe runs first under several layers of later cobbled yards, then through a special niche in a medieval wall, and finally below an internal courtyard and into the east range of the medieval manor.
Text: Jane Harrison / Image: Adam Stanford
