REVIEW BY KK With additional contributions by I M Betts, Lyn Blackmore, Julian Bowsher, Jacqui Pearce, and Alan Pipe, this latest book on London by John Schofield and Stephen Freeth offers a comprehensive assessment of life on the Thames during…
The latest on acquisitions, exhibitions, and key decisions
REVIEW BY KK This brief volume provides a succinct overview of the main castles and fortifications found across the West Country. Starting in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, Powell-Thomas then gives special attention to examining the Palmerston forts surrounding…
REVIEW BY AB We have so many written and pictorial records created between 1500 and the present day that it might be supposed that artefacts from this time are of less importance than for earlier periods. Laura Burnett and Rob…
The first major archaeological investigations of the moated house of St John’s Jerusalem in Sutton-at Hone, Kent – once home to a Knights Hospitaller Commandery – have revealed some of the site’s medieval origins, as well as its evolution during…
REVIEW BY AB A hive of bees, ‘nine pair of bedde stockes’ (bed socks), ‘my worst petticoat’, and the famous Sutton Hoo treasure: these are just some of the objects left to friends, relatives, and institutions by Britain’s women over…
Rubina Raja and Søren M Sindbæk on the archaeology of waste
The first archaeological project ever mounted on São Tomé is examining a 16th-century sugar mill. Results are shedding fresh light on the origins of the tropical plantation system, which would go on to shape the Atlantic world at a terrible human cost, as M Dores Cruz told Matthew Symonds.
A collaborative project has brought to light the lives of a 19th-century community living and working in Fewston, North Yorkshire. Among their number were many children who were indentured to work in the nearby mills, and whose lives may have ultimately been cut short by this labour. Kathryn Krakowka talked with Rebecca Gowland to learn more.
Plans for a new, more sustainable garden within the ruins of Scotney Castle in Kent have given archaeologists the rare opportunity to explore the medieval mansion’s buried remains. Carly Hilts visited Nat Cohen on site to find out more.
The dig has also unearthed numerous finds dating from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s, including bottles, animal bones, and clay pottery.
This summer offers a wealth of opportunities to get involved in fieldwork in the UK and Ireland. Ceri Pennington has put together some regional highlights for 2023, but see www.the-past.com/digs for even more archaeological experiences.
This January, conservation of the roughly 2,500 timbers recovered from the wreck was completed – a process that took 14 years
Evidence of a possible prehistoric ring ditch was also identified at the site
The glass roof of the Orangery was installed in 1861, following a fire in an adjacent bakery which damaged the original structure
Following their discovery by a team from Inrap last year, the coffins were sent to the forensic institute of Toulouse University Hospital for further investigation.
Archaeologists excavating the site at Coleshill Manor, east of Birmingham, found evidence that a newly discovered fortified gatehouse there had at one point come under intense fire.
The latest on exhibitions, acquisitions, and key decisions.
To many, this part of the country is the ‘definitive’ Scottish landscape of their dreams, the stuff of countless movies and TV shows. To less romantically inclined archaeologists, it is a place forged by the environmental extremes experienced there.
In the early years of the 19th century, military camps sprang up along the south coast of England to guard against French invasion. Once the Napoleonic Wars ended, most were dismantled, leaving little trace of this turbulent period – but now archaeological work at Weeley, a small village 11 miles from Colchester, has uncovered the remains of one such site, as Nick Cox reports.
The project ends in December, but the team are still looking for more places to excavate. For more information, see www.thebishopbigdig.com.
The execution of King Charles I in January 1649 and the subsequent abolition of the monarchy turned Britain into a republic, which it would remain until the Restoration of Charles II 11 years later. Yet it is a period of…
All individuals will be carefully reburied following completion of the research work.
The excavations have revealed the iron foundry’s casting pits and a deep stone-lined cistern filled with roofing slates.
A fourth portrait – St Ambrose of Milan – has been missing since the early 20th century.
A collection of ten silver coins minted during the reigns of Edward I and Edward II were among the finds.
Recent analysis of 600-year-old murals in Stratford-upon-Avon’s historic guildhall has revealed clues to their probable date, as well as the purpose behind their creation. As the building, now a visitor attraction, prepares to reopen, Carly Hilts visited the site, and spoke to Jonathan Foyle to find out more.
The coin is a Henry VII ‘half groat’, believed to have been minted in Canterbury, UK.
To any well-read person, mention of Bath conjures up a Regency vision of elite spa bathing which makes it hard to think of the place as the abode of poverty or of industry. It is worth remembering that the eponymous…
A community project excavating Scotland’s first railway has uncovered three 18th-century phases of timber construction layered on top of each other. The unprecedented discovery was made in East Lothian by the 1722 Waggonway Project, and has been described by railway…
A round-up of some of the latest news in UK Archaeology.
Archaeologists from the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) are discovering the secrets of Speyside malt at the old site of The Glenlivet Distillery in Upper Drumin (pictured right), as part of the ‘Pioneering Spirit’ project, a partnership between NTS and…
In the 19th century, mudlarks were people (mainly children) who would scour the muddy banks of the Thames for items like coal and metal that they could sell on. Nowadays, mudlarks set out at low tide (with mandatory licences from…
The Highland valley of Glencoe is notorious as the location of a brutal 1692 massacre, but until recently little was known about what remained of the settlement that existed at this time. Now, though, archaeological fieldwork by the National Trust for Scotland has shed new light on 17th- and 18th-century remains within the glen, as Derek Alexander reports.
The construction of a new bypass on the A75 near Dunragit has uncovered a wealth of archaeological finds, illuminating around 8,000 years of human activity within a rich and complex historic landscape on the south-west coast of Scotland. With the project’s findings now published in full, Current Archaeology's Carly Hilts surveys some of the key discoveries.
Previous archaeological work at the prison had already confirmed the location of the medieval keep and a few other buildings that would have formed part of the castle complex; the castle was an important English stronghold before the Second Barons’ War (1264-1267) and the subsequent invasion and conquest of Wales.