In my next few columns, following recent visits to Essex and Suffolk, I am moving from the east of England to its centre. Sadly, neither Worcestershire nor Warwickshire have featured heavily in Current Archaeology over the years, so here I have combined what coverage there is of these two counties in a single column. If you are an archaeologist working in either of these counties, then do please drop us a line – we would love to feature more stories from this green and pleasant heart of England.
The warp and weave of Worcestershire
CA’s first significant mention of Worcestershire comes in issue 5 (November 1967), when a series of Anglo-Saxon burials were discovered during the construction of a Working Men’s Club at Fladbury in the Vale of Evesham. A young David Peacock, who went on to have a distinguished career (primarily as a Roman archaeologist) at the University of Southampton, reported on the rescue of this site – which was excavated in the teeth of its destruction – and the modest but important find of a small Anglo-Saxon settlement and associated cemetery. CA 126 (September 1991) made the next major foray into the county, again exploring its Anglo-Saxon heritage, when excavations in Droitwich revealed evidence of industrial-scale manufacture of salt in the early medieval period, pushing back the earliest date of this trade there. While there is excellent charter evidence for early exploitation of the local brine springs from at least the 7th century AD, the excavations also revealed spectacular timber remains from the Roman period, along with the main medieval brine pit, known as the Upwich Pit. The Anglo-Saxon origins of Worcester Cathedral, meanwhile, were examined in CA 204 (July 2006).
From later in the period, some fine medieval sites have been reported in the Vale of Evesham over the years, including from the town itself, in CA 263 (February 2012) and CA 339 (June 2018); and from nearby Pershore Abbey, in CA 150 (November 1996) and CA 365 (August 2020). But that, alas, is it for Worcestershire, the most under-reported English county in terms of CA’s coverage.
Excavating around Salisbury Plain