This is a small toy figurine dating to between AD 1550 and 1700, recently found by a metal-detectorist near Azerley in North Yorkshire. Measuring approximately 4cm by 2cm (1.6in by 0.8in) and made of lead, it is incomplete but takes…
Ancient footprints are not the only archaeological discoveries that have been brought to light by recent winter storms. At the end of January, gale-force winds and massive waves revealed a large fragment of a 17th-century shipwreck on Studland Beach in…
An excavation led by archaeologists from the National Trust and York Archaeology, with the help of local volunteers, has helped unearth the remains of a house originally built for Hannah Newton (née Ayscough), the mother of Sir Isaac Newton. The…
REVIEW BY GRAHAM GOODLAD It is now three years since Bristol University historian Ronald Hutton’s The Making of Oliver Cromwell appeared. That earlier volume took Britain’s first commoner head of state from his origins as a minor East Anglian landowner…
The remains of a ‘lost’ 17th-century house built by a friend of Oliver Cromwell has been rediscovered during excavations at Auckland Castle in County Durham. During the Interregnum (the period between the execution of Charles I in 1649 and the…
This is a bridle boss made of copper-alloy and dating to c.1620-1680. It was recently found by a metal-detectorist near Ringmer in Lewes, East Sussex. While heavily corroded, it is unusual in two respects. First, it is still attached to…
The discovery of an anonymous shipwreck off the coast of Sussex set archaeologists on the trail of a 350 year-old mystery. Mark Beattie Edwards reports on efforts to identify the sunken vessel and to protect its historic remains, sharing a story of bravery in battle, acts of ‘piracy’, and tragic loss of life.
Stephen Roberts analyses the crucial battle that cost the life of the Swedish king.
Stephen Roberts traces the history of the Thirty Years’ War, Europe’s most destructive conflict prior to the First World War.
The document was unfurled as part of research into a collection of more than 3,000 books, pamphlets, and periodicals donated to Leeds Central Library in the 1960s.
The garment comes from the Palmwood Wreck, which was discovered in 2014 off the Texel coastline.
REVIEW BY DAVID FLINTHAM At the outbreak of the English Civil War, Parliament organised much of its fighting strength geographically; in the case of East Anglia (eventually including Huntingdonshire and Lincolnshire) this was the Eastern Association, which would become arguably…
'This can be claimed as the single most significant historic maritime discovery since the raising of the Mary Rose in 1982.’
Across the country, plague victims were lodged in basic pesthouses constructed during earlier outbreaks.
Tragically, massacres have been a regular feature of human conflict – and locations as varied as Amritsar and Srebrenica, Rwanda and Guatemala, Malmedy and My Lai have all earned their places in the annals of infamy. But while examples of indiscriminate mass killing may sadly be relatively commonplace, each has its own uniquely terrible story – the appalling product of time, place and a particular set of circumstances.
What can archaeological surveys of battlefields add to historical accounts of the fighting? Road improvements at Killiecrankie provided an opportunity to see how traces of fighting tallied with a commanding officer’s account of the clash, as Maureen Kilpatrick and Warren Bailie report.
Excavations revealed old foundations, as well as bricks and pottery, dating to the late 18th century.
The ring may have commemorated James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby and Lord of Man, who was executed by the Parliamentarians in 1651.
Review of 'The English Civil War:
An Atlas and Concise History of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, 1639–51' and 'English Civil War: Operations Manual'.
The early 17th century marked a period of rapid growth in warships as the galleons of the previous century began to give way to the ship-of-the-line, which would dominate naval warfare for the next 250 years. One of the first such vessels was the English 55-gun Prince Royal, completed in 1611, which remained in service until her destruction in 1666 during the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
Resting in the silty mud of the Thames Estuary, the London represents a remarkable time capsule of the Stuart era – but its remains are rapidly deteriorating. Geoff Downer describes an ambitious campaign to raise and preserve the wreck before it is lost to time and tide.
In 1653, a small Cromwellian warship was lost off the west coast of Scotland. Excavated between 1992 and 2003, the wreck of the Swan yielded finds that tell stories of cutting-edge weaponry, mishaps on board, and plunder. Now the full report has been published, Colin Martin reveals the ship’s secrets and explains why wrecks are such a valuable archaeological resource.