News Archive

March 2006

•  The Roman Road at Barcombe - by Rob Wallace
  In the summer of 2005 I was a supervisor at Barcombe Roman villa, when Chris Butler suggested that a good research project would be to look at the archaeology around the villa site. So I took the gauntlet and ran with it. Following a conversation with the farmer Mark Stroude, he informed me of a major flint scattering in Court House Field, which ran across the field and covered approximately 30 meters in width. In July 05 my colleague and friend Rhw Mitcheson and with help from fellow UCL students carried out some geophysics. It should be noted at this point that sweetcorn was growing in the field, and we were fortunate that one of area of interest was barren on sweet corn and Mark gave us permission to put a test trench in. Which Rhw supervised. The results were amazing. We had what we believed to be an unknown Roman road (I say believed because we had no dateable artefacts from the trench). The road had a metalled surface, under that was an agger and then flint foundations. Unfortunately the remainder of the width of the road lay under sweet corn. The trench was recorded and back filled.
  - MARCH 2006. [Click the title above for more...]

December 2005

•  The Barcombe & Hamsey BIG DIG - Report - By Sue Rowland
  The Hamsey Big Dig was conducted as part of “Discovering Barcombe and Hamsey: contrasting communities”, a Sussex Archaeological Society community research project supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. One of the aims of the project is to identify lost medieval house sites in both parishes. Early medieval documentation is sparse so archaeological evidence is very important. Few medieval sites have been identified so it can be assumed that some may have been replaced on the same site by later houses. A public meeting was held in Barcombe where residents were asked to come forward if they wished to dig a metre square test pit in their garden under the guidance of Chris Greatorex, archaeological consultant for the project. The aim was to find evidence for earlier settlement, particularly medieval.
  - DECEMBER 2005 [Click the title above for more...]

•  Landscape Character Assessment for Mid-Sussex - by Bruce Milton
  I attended a Stakeholder workshop in Burgess Hill last September. This was one of a series of workshops as part of an initiative set up by West Sussex County Council for their ‘Character of West Sussex Partnership Programme’ This programme aims to “identify the diverse character of West Sussex so helping to promote, protect and enhance this character and diversity”.
  - DECEMBER 2005 [Click the title above for more...]
   

•  West Sussex Liaison Group Meeting - By Bruce Milton

  On 1^st November this year, I attended the latest West Sussex Liaison Group meeting at the Marlipins Museum, Shoreham-on-Sea. The meeting, chaired by Liz Wilson the Finds Liaison Officer for Sussex was attended by the County Archaeologists and Museum curators together with several archaeological and metal detecting groups within West Sussex.
  - DECEMBER 2005 [Click the title above for more...]

November 2005

•  A Foreign Stone Hammer? - By Chris Butler
  A stone hammer was found during building work near Copthorne some years ago, and was recently shown to me by Allan, a resident of Barcombe.
  [Click the title above for more...]

February 2005

•  Keymer Burial Ground - by Chris Butler
  On the 26^th and 27^th February MSFAT carried out an assessment excavation at Keymer, on the site of a proposed new burial ground. This is located opposite the church, and may have originally been on the Medieval road frontage.
  - FEBRUARY 2005 [Click the title above for more...]

December 2004:-

•  Talbot Field, Hassocks
  During early December 2004, Hassocks Parish Council started planting trees at Talbot Field in Hassocks. Many of you will be aware that this is the site of the important Roman roadside settlement, on which we worked in the late 1990’s. After negotiations, some of the trees were located away from the settlement area, but a significant number have been planted where they may in the longer term through root action seriously damage the site.
  Dave Cudmore and Keith Butler carried out a watching brief during the tree planting, but the initial root holes that were dug did not go deep enough to reach the archaeological deposits (Watching Brief Report). We have got permission from the Parish Council to do some more work on Talbot Field, and this will take the form of excavation trenches around and between the recently planted trees to see what archaeology might be in danger from future root growth. We will then excavate and record any features that we discover. This will ensure that the archaeology is investigated and recorded before it is destroyed.

July 2004

•  A Roman site at North Chailey - By Chris Butler
  During the construction of a new bungalow at North Chailey, Jack Ellis noticed that a number of possible archaeological features could be seen. Digging into one of the features Jack recovered a complete Roman pot. He then contacted me through Anthony Dicks, and after an initial visit to the site, with the help of some MSFAT members, a small-scale excavation was carried out.
  - JULY 2005 [Click the title above for more...]

April 2004:-

• Medieval Pottery - North End Barn, Hamsey
  On Good Friday a small group carried out an excavation at North End Barn, Hamsey. The owner had found a large quantity of Medieval pottery, and we wanted to try and establish the context that it had originated from.
  - April 2004. [Click the title above for more...]

March 2004:-

• Barcombe Roman Villa - 2003 Report
  In 2003 the excavation at Barcombe concentrated on the area immediately to the east of the main villa building (Building 2), and the area stretching to the south-east where last year we found the tessellated floor in a new building (Building 3). A number of exciting new features were located during the excavation.
  - March 2004. [Click the title above for more...]
   

• Danny Tile Kiln.
  We have been trying to find the remains of the Roman tile kiln at Danny for a number of years. The kiln was last recorded in Couchman's 1925 article in Sussex Archaeological Collections as being in a ditch. The wood in which it was supposedly located has been searched, most recently by Peter Bidmead and Michael Fairbrother.
  - March 2004. [Click the title above for more...]
   

• Arlington Roman Villa.
  Following on from our work at the end of last year (see Newsletter 51), Greg Chuter has carried out further resistivity work to the east of the site, and found that our possible road continues on the same alignment. A small team re-excavated and extended our trench to see if the whole width of the road could be determined. This was achieved, and as a bonus, a Roman posthole was also found and excavated. Two further trenches were excavated on the road alignment, but the road had been completely ploughed out at these points.
  - March 2004. [Click the title above for more...]

November 2003:-

• Frog Firle
  At he beginning of October Bruce Milton supervised a geophysical survey on a site near Frog Firle. The site comprises a spur that projects out into the Cuckmere valley, upon which are a number of earthworks. The dating and purpose of these earthworks is currently unknown, although they have been scheduled as an Ancient Monument. The survey has produced some fantastic results, and Bruce is currently producing a report for English Heritage, and the National Trust who are the landowners. A full report will appear in 2004.
  - November 2003.
   

• Local Archaeology on TV
  Members of MSFAT were featured recently on a programme about the Wilmington Long Man on the BBC" series 'Landscape Mysteries'. But this is not the only instance of MSFAT projects on TV. On the 'rebuilding the past' series on the construction of the Roman villa at Butser (Discovery Channel) Barcombe villa was shown.
  Chris Butler will also be featured on Meridian news later this week talking about the Piltdown Man hoax.
  - 18th November 2003.

July 2003:-

• Reaching the places other archaeologists cannot reach – with watching briefs - by Anne Locke
  One of the many good points about Sussex archaeology is the way that the county archaeologists have been encouraging voluntary groups such as MSFAT and Lewes Archaeology Group (LAG) to take on ‘watching briefs’ on small-scale sites, recording any archaeological remains in places where otherwise no record would be kept.
  In November Andy Gammon and I were involved in an interesting watching brief with LAG in Lewes, a new extension behind a town house at 15 Mount Pleasant (opposite the Elephant and Castle pub), in a yard backing on to the north side of Brack Mount – almost certainly where in 1838 a probable Iron Age or Romano-British burial of a human skeleton and a boar’s head was found.
  - July 2003. [Click the title above for more...]
   

• Barcombe Churchyard Survey/Recording - by Jo Miller
  We are progressing slowly with recording the gravestones at Barcombe.  We have now completed approximately 200/250 of them, but we have a very long way to go.  At the moment the section we are recording is extremely overgrown which is hampering our progress quite a bit, including getting stung by nettles and losing our equipment in the long grass!
  This is just the beginning.  All the graves have to be photographed and a computerised record made, followed eventually by entering into a database, so I will also need volunteers to do this as well - a lovely job for a boring winter weekend! I would appreciate as much help as possible as my volunteers have tailed off recently.  Perhaps anyone who is interested in doing the survey would email me at jm@gouldco.co.uk and I will be able to contact you with dates for the recording. At the moment I am notifying everyone on the main e-mail list and, although this goes out to over 70 people, I am lucky if I get 1 or 2 replies.
  Recording is very simple.  We have an A4 two-sided sheet that has to be filled in answering various questions (e.g. condition of stone, orientation, number commemorated).  The full inscription has also to be transcribed and a small sketch drawn of the grave together with measurements - and that's it. The equipment needed is a pen and/or pencil and rubber, ruler, clipboard, tape measure, trowel, chair/stool (optional), insect repellent and suntan lotion (also optional).  Other items that could be useful are flour, a mirror and a water spray bottle!
  - 31 JULY 2003
   

March 2003:-
 

• Roman Pottery & Glass Workshops - by Chris Butler

  Many members attended two excellent day schools organised by the Brighton & Hove Archaeological Society earlier this year. The first was with Malcolm Lyne and covered Roman pottery, whilst the second was on Roman glass with John Shepherd of the Museum of London. Malcolm gave us an overview of all of the different types of pottery we could possibly come across on Sussex sites, including imports and locally produced wares. He also talked about production methods, distribution and trade. There was plenty of opportunity to handle the various types of pottery being discussed.

  John Shepherd also brought along many examples of Roman and later glass for us to handle. He explained how glass was made and how to identify Roman glass from later types. He also explained why glass is such a rare find on Roman archaeological sites. This is due to the broken glass vessels being recycled into new vessels by glass workers who were located all over the country (15 glass working sites have been identified in the City of London alone in recent years), and therefore all we tend to find on our sites are those fragments that were missed or lost and therefore not recycled. Glass workers should not be confused with glass makers who made the original vessels from raw materials. Almost certainly there were no glass makers located in Britain during the Roman period. - 28/03/2003

February 2003:-

• Wilmington Long Man - by Chris Butler

  Some of you were involved in a small project to excavate a trench below the Long Man at Wilmington over the first weekend of November 2002. This has been carried out in conjunction with a TV company and Martin Bell of Reading University. TV cameras were present, and the results will be shown in a programme called "Landscape Mysteries" as part of a new series to be shown on 7th October at 7:30pm (BBC2).
  - FEBRUARY 2003 [Click the title above for more...]
   

• Sussex Archaeological Collections - by Chris Butler

  The latest SAC has the final report on the landscape project we carried out at Pyecombe in the late 80’s and early 90’s. This report covers the fieldwalking and excavations carried out on an extensive flintworking site, which produced evidence of exploitation from the Mesolithic through to the Bronze Age.
  - FEBRUARY 2003
   

Other News in our Archive:-
 

• Wannock Flint Scraper - by Chris Butler
  An unusual end scraper found by Sid Jeffrey Wannock, East Sussex.
  [Click the title above for more...]
   

• Ditchling Bronze Age Axe - by Chris Butler
  Recently handed in to Ditchling Museum.
  [Click the title above for more...]