Thanks to all the students (from the Universities of Leicester,  Kent and Bradford) and volunteers (enlisted by Wallingford Museum) who uncovered the wall, and those who washed finds and made cups of coffee. I'm trying to find a photo with all the volunteers in it too - let me know if you have one. The social aspect of archaeology is always just as important as the material things we dig up and this was truly a great team. We were lucky too to uncover such an impressive structure. Here is what we know about it so far:

• it is provisionally dated by pottery finds to the 12th-13th centuries
• it is cut by a later channel, which probably took water from the river to a mill further to the south
• the walls extend as far as the modern ditch, where stones can be seen in the sides. That makes it at least 25m long. In all probability it extended further still to join on to the known castle walls. A geophysical survey by Gerard Latham and TWHAS (subject to permission from English Heritage) is planned to establish the nature of the connection.
• the wall was built in sections of roughly equal length, probably by different gangs of workmen, making its face faceted rather than a true curve
• the wall was constructed within a V-shaped cut , into which rubble was placed. This served as a foundation for the substantial structure above.

The exact nature and function of the superstructure is still not known with any certainty, but it is likely to have served multiple purposes, linking the castle with the river. Whether it is a defensive bastion, a quay or wharf, a high-status elevated walkway - or indeed a combination of all these things - may be argued about for some time to come.

The answer could come through comparison with other castle plans such as Beaumaris in Anglesey, or through analysis of environmental samples. At any rate the extent of Wallingford Castle has  grown in size as a result of this significant discovery.

Saturday 24th July

the site is backfilled by Jim Baxter and his trusty machine. Subsoil first, then topsoil - carefully retaining the structure of the soil.

the fencing is taken down and stacked

Andy takes the last pictures of the site from the top of the land-rover, as the machine for backfilling descends from the back of the transporter lorry 

Friday 23rd July

matt and neil take it to the wire. Last stone planned at 7pm

nearly suppertime and only two million stones still to plan

time to pack up and take the tools away for the last time - a sad moment

a view of last day activity on site, with lots of cleaning up for photography

Last-minute recording

Thursday 22nd July

the last bits of digging are being finished off now as recording takes priority

Tony Gouldwell, the environmental specialist, examines the animal bones

meanwhile finds washed by Museum volunteers are bagged up and labelled by Simon Foote, our finds specialist.

Taking levels on the wall. The level at the base of the channel was exactly the same at the two points where it cuts the wall. That is consistent with the idea of the channel being a mill leat. If the base of the southern cut through the wall had been higher than that of the northern cut, then a different interpretation might have been required.

Planning of horizontal surfaces is especially important on this site. Unusually, there have been very few cut features and virtually no vertical sections to draw 

planning the wall really begins in earnest today

Wednesday 21st July

David and Harriet get to the base of the channel at one of the two points where it cuts through the wall. The stone wall foundation forms the bottom of the feature

Tony and Geri taking soil samples. Environmental analyses of soil from outside the wall, relative to that inside, is likely to be crucial to the interpretation of the site.

Tim and Donny at work in uncovering a previously hidden section of wall.

Tuesday 20th July

Note also the banding in the clay on the outside of the wall, with different shades of brown, orange and grey.

Here the front of the outside of the wall is viewed head on from slightly above. This ledge or step seems to be more for display than for any more functional purpose.

Monday 19th July

It was back down to business on the wall again today, after the successful open day yesterday. here you can see the facing on the front of the wall, just above foundation level. This facing is found on the outside of the wall, not on the inside.

Sunday 18th July (OPEN DAY)

Altogether over 200 people visited us on the day. Not bad considering we are so far off the beaten track, with no parking anywhere near.

A view through the level

Project Director Neil Christie from University of Leicester (in red shirt) interprets the site

An area of the site has been cordoned off as a childrens' excavation. Metal detecting is a favourite activity. Quite a few new finds came from visiting children using the detectors

Site tours are available throughout the day

The open day is not limited to humans. These cattle find the excavation activities quite interesting too. The main reason we have a fence up is to protect the cattle from the site (and vice-versa)

Here Marcus talks to James, who has followed our excavations right through from 2008, while Francesca gives an outline of the site to another visitor.

Seeing what archaeologists do, as well as what they find, is of great interest. Archaeology always has had a strong performative aspect.

Our open day attracted many visitors to the meadows.

Saturday 17th July 

Don't miss our OPEN DAY on Sunday 18th July from 10 till 12 and 2 till 4. Come and find us in the Queen's Arbour in Castle Meadows, down by the river.  

Meanwhile, cleaning starts to reveal the different sections of wall construction, presumably built by different gangs of construction workers.

As digging proceeds, Andy (site supervisor) takes levels on the upper surface of the wall

This box-section shows the considerable depth of the wall. The alluvial clays of the river meadows are not the best place on which to build. In order to provide a secure foundation for the superstructure above (whatever it was),  chalk rubble was placed in a V-shaped construction cut, then faced with roughly shaped chalk blocks on the outer face at ground level.

We also start to dig exploratory box-sections both inside and outside the wall

This picture shows one of the two places where the later channel cuts the wall. The date of the channel has yet to be confirmed, but it is thought to be early post-medieval. The channel probably came off the river slightly further to the north, feeding water towards a mill to the south. 

One of the gaps in the wall is marked by the green kneeling pad on the extreme right, the other is marked by the upturned bucket. Although its hard to make out the cut or outline, there is actually a linear feature linking these two gaps together. This may be a later mill leat or channel for some other purpose, cutting through the earlier wall. The channel fill is producing abundant snail shells (water snails perhaps?) and iron nails (from timber side-cladding?)

As more of the  wall is revealed, it becomes clear that there are two breaks in the construction, one on either side. These are being explored by some of the diggers in the picture above.

This morning we set to work making the site ready for our Festival of Archaeology Open Day tomorrow. fortunately the weather gods are smiling on us.

 Friday 16th July

 A well earned day-off!

Thursday 15th July

This first week has been mostly taken up with cleaning down onto the wall. But it has been worth it. The wall forms a well-defined semicircle about 15m metres across, its walls then extending in straight lines westwards towards the castle. At any point on its circumference it is almost two metres wide. 

Matt (Project Officer) and Neil  (Project Director)

This is one of the many record shots taken, with ranging poles for scales, context number and direction arrow pointing North.

The weather is much better today, enabling us to crack on with cleaning the wall

The team arriving in the morning, climbing over the fence and into the field

Wednesday 14th July

A picture taken at the end of the day. The stone wall continues to emerge, despite the rain. Its edges are becoming more defined, and some of its structural characteristics are becoming visible.

Luckily the site is quite well drained and soon dries out.

A good opportunity to find out about the context recording system. All layers and features are allotted a context number which has to be described on a context sheet.

Trowelling an extremely sticky surface like this is a difficult task

It's much wetter this morning. The mud sticks to boots and wheelbarrow wheels like thick glue. Makes us realise how lucky we are with the weather. If there had been too much rain the site would be unworkable.

Tuesday 13th July

Rosie, Emily and Marcus, with Tim, Donald, Jo and Francesca in the background.  

Meet Pam Hart - an experienced volunteer from Newbury. This is her third summer in Wallingford. She has also worked at Silchester and Basinghouse. All the volunteers are members of Wallingford Museum, but they come from many different parts of Oxfordshire and Berkshire. 

Francesca (Leicester), Jo (Kent), Harriet (Kent) and Donald (Leicester). Donald has dug before but this is the girls first experience of excavation. 

 Lyndsey using her metal detector. She is a member of a couple of clubs as a detectorist and mixes that with other site work.  She has worked in Wallingford for the last three years and says it has been good experience for her part-time degree in archaeology (at Bristol).

This is the 5^th musket ball found in this trench, all outside the wall. One has a flattened side where it has impacted at speed against something hard. These finds may well be Civil War in date. Although our stone structure is probably much older than that, it may well have stayed standing and in use until the castle was demolished after a seige in 1652.

Monday 12th July

The view looking down from the castle into the meadows. The castle would have literally overlooked the meadows and the river. In all probability, the walls of the stone structure joined on to those of the castle proper. The exact nature of the connection, however, remains to be established.

Patty's talk on planning - a crucial part of archaeological recording

 Walking to site along the river bank, first thing in the morning

Sunday 11th July

a detailed view of the northern and wider part of the feature

Note the curved wide band being trowelled over here - the top of the wall just showing through. It looks much bigger on the ground than it did on the plan. We are just beginning to realise what a huge structure this is.

Putting in the TBM with dumpy level. The height above sea level has been taken off a known level on Wallingford Bridge, and is being transferred onto a wooden grid peg next to our site. This will serve as the temporary bench mark, from which all levels on site can be taken.

Trowellers in perfect formation. The traditional way to start off an excavation - by giving the surface a good clean-over by trowel.

A blisteringly hot first day for students and TWHAS volunteers. A trench 25 x 12m had been opened by Jim Baxter and his machine on Friday. Today was the first chance for the new team to get to grips with the site - scraping the surface with a trowel and cleaning all the trench edges with mattock and spade. Putting up the tepee too. Thirsty work, but a great start!  

Reason for digging Trench 8

In 2003 geophysical survey detected a buried stone structure in Queens Arbour meadow, jutting out from the east side of the main earthworks of Wallingford Castle towards the river. The u-shaped structure has been variously interpreted as a possible stone quay, dam, walkway, etc – or perhaps a combination of these. A small trench opened on a segment of the wall in 2003 confirmed the existence of a well-built wall about 2m wide with outer facing. This year we will open up much more of the structure to try to determine its function. It might reveal a great deal about the relationship between the castle and the river, and the historic use of the river meadows.

(For scale, the narrow boat to lower right is about 12m long)

On the above aerial photo a grayscale plot of resistivity results has been added. The buried structure shows up clearly as a black line (an anomaly of high resistance). This is thought to indicate a wall up to 2m wide, with the structure as a whole being at least 20m long and 15m wide. Its function is unknown.  The white line is a suggested location for our trench, though we may decide to change its exact configuration.

With thanks to South Oxfordshire District Council, Wallingford Town Council and the Northmoor Trust

Back to Home