Wick Cottage – archaeological dig
Over the weekend of the 27th & 29th July 2019 the Charney Archaeological Group carried out a dig in the grounds of Wick Cottage. This was the third archaeological dig that we have carried out in the Village. Over 20 people participated including four from Littleworth. We dug two 1 m² test pits [TP8 & TP9] in an area where two buildings, that no longer exist, were shown on the 1765 Keck map.
The dig was supervised by David Ashby of the University of Winchester.
A general overview with some pictures is given below. More detailed reports have been produced by David Ashby (April 2020) and are available in the following PDFs and these give us a great additional insight into the history and life in the village:
Test Pit 8 Report – Wick Cottage
Test Pit 9 Report – Wick Cottage.
In Test Pit 9 we found demolition rubble, wall plaster and nails and a variety of artifacts such as Roman, Saxon and medieval pottery, window glass, clay tobacco pipes, metal buttons and other pieces of metal. Possibly, most interestingly, at the bottom, we found a drainage ditch, cut into the natural limestone surface, which appears to be Neolithic in date and contained butchered animal bones and flint including a still razor-sharp flint blade, this is the oldest evidence of occupation within the village so far discovered.
Test pit 8, although close by, was very different; it had no rubble and had neolithic and mesolithic flint tools and flakes throughout its depth showing that the site was used for making tools over a long period.
Thanks go to everybody involved and particularly to David Ashby for supporting our dig. Special thanks go to Trevor and Annabel for hosting the dig.
Finds Washing
The finds were washed on 15 Sept 2019 and had a preliminary sort.
In these two pits we have found more medieval pottery than all the other pits we have dug in Charney put together and show probable continuous occupation in that area since Neolithic times. Flint does not occur naturally in Charney, although some may have been washed in by streams. The sheer quantity of neolithic and mesolithic flint tools and flakes which we found in Test Pit 8, throughout its depth shows that flint was brought to the site which was specifically used for making tools over a long period. There are similar sites elsewhere along rivers which people seem to have chosen to set up their tool manufacturing.
Clay Pipes
Two clay tobacco pipe stems had maker’s marks on them. Dr David Higgins, Chairman of the Society for Clay Pipe Research http://scpr.co/ kindly identified them for us as follows:
One stem has an incuse stamped mark reading RICH/ARD.S/AYER across the stem. This mark can be attributed to Richard Sayer, who is recorded at East Woodhay from 1685 until his death in 1716 (there is also a marriage recorded in Winchester in 1696). The burial in 1716 describes him as John Senior, the implication being he also had a son of the same name still living who may have continued pipe making after this date. Examples of this mark have been recorded from Basing, Chilton Foliat, Coleshill, Littlecote, London, Marlborough, Newbury, Oxford, Poulton, Salisbury, Swindon, Wanborough, Winchester and Virginia, USA. There is also an example from the Reading Oracle excavations – the report on which is available on the National Pipe Archive website (www.pipearchive.co.uk/Resources/resources.html#Berkshire).
The second stem with the SH mark is particularly interesting, since I have been compiling a national catalogue of maker’s marks, but I have not seen this particular mark before. It is also much earlier than you had previously thought! This mark is made of a distinctive clay found at Shotover Hill just to the SE of Oxford – it is characterised by fine sandy particles, which can be seen in the surface of the clay. This clay was frequently used by the local Oxfordshire area pipe makers during the C17th and early C18th. It’s a little hard to date the pipe accurately from the oblique angle view of the surviving bowl fragment (a square-on side profile would be better), but it dates from the late C17th or early C18th. The stamp can be attributed to Samuel Henwood of Culham (near Abingdon), who married in 1699 and moved to Abingdon with his family in 1704. This maker also used a square stem stamp with the initials SH, an example of which was found at the Abingdon Cinema excavations and illustrated in the excavation report (published in Oxoniensia, Vol 77, 2007).
The dates of these pipes tie in with the buildings shown on the 1765 Keck map.
The pipe with the ‘SH’ mark is earlier than we thought as it had previously been attributed as follows:
The clay pipe, with cartouche with the letters ‘SH’, according to The National Pipe Archive for Oxfordshire this pipe was made S Huggins or S&T Huggins of Banbury between 1851-1855 (a similar date to the mummers play). An article in the Banbury History Society magazine gives a lot of information on the making and age diagnostics of clay pipes.
You must be logged in to post a comment.