Cruck construction at Hilderstone?
Members of Stoke-on-Trent Museum Archaeology Society were especially interested to read CA’s recent article on cruck construction (CA 365), as we have just seen it from an archaeological perspective.
In 2019, we excavated a site at Hilderstone, Staffordshire, marked on old maps as Old Hall, where a stone chimney had stood within living memory.
Plentiful domestic and agricultural finds showed occupation throughout the 17th-19th centuries, but the discovered building was a puzzle, as there was no sign of any foundations. A layer of small plaster fragments marked the final demolition of the building, and the straight lines picked out by its distribution were the only evidence of the walls it once clad.
