We are delighted to announce that the Wiltshire and Swindon Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC) Project started in early April 2012. This three year project is sponsored by English Heritage and is being run by Wiltshire Council in partnership with Swindon Borough Council.

The project aims to examine Wiltshire and Swindon to investigate the historic and archaeological processes which have influenced the landscapes that we currently use and enjoy today. This will help us to understand the origins and evolution of both the countryside and urban areas of the county, and to identify what makes each place special and distinct. This innovative approach to studying the heritage of an area is called Historic Landscape Characterisation.

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One of the great things about working in conservation is the sheer variety of objects and materials that we see coming into the labs.

Over the next few months we’ll be conserving a really exciting find from a burial site in Dartmoor National Park. A recent excavation has uncovered a nationally important collection of Early Bronze Age remains from a cist burial which could prove to be one of the most important archaeological finds of the last 100 years.

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A little while back Wiltshire Buildings Record carried out a group-effort recording at Bushton, Clyffe Pypard. This was a day where members who are interested in picking up recording skills and recognising Wiltshire features in vernacular houses can go along and learn informally, whilst gathering information for the Record.

Cruck apex

The exterior of the main house is of 2 storeys of whitewashed brick and rubble with a netted thatched roof. Nothing was discerned of the medieval origins of this house from outside. Inside the old hall was a bacon smoking chamber, the lower part still accessible. There may have been access at first floor level to hang the meat for curing. The hearth there was of chalkstone and brick. What is curious is that in the centre are a group of taper burn marks, or hot poker marks alongside the initials ‘TP’. In the world of vernacular architecture debate has long ranged about how these marks came about and why. They are found in many farmhouses and cottages, not only in Wiltshire, but nationally. At last, with determined study by Nick Hill and others at English Heritage it is now thought that these singe marks were done deliberately to ward off accidental fires in the same way that we inoculate our children with a weakened disease agent to guard against a more virulent form taking hold later on. This may be difficult for us to comprehend in our largely secular, scientifically-run society, but in the not so very distant past people were superstitious, and as well as believing in witches they thoroughly believed in magic. It is instances like this that make our interpretation of the past so tricky as we instinctively judge with our own modern values until we learn better.

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Marlborough Mound has for so long been the subject of debate as to its true age. Was it constructed as a medieval motte (castle mound) or is it in fact substantially older, the same age in fact as nearby Silbury Hill, the iconic prehistoric earthwork?

18th Century Drawing of The Marlborough Mound

The Blog can now bring you the definitive answer – and it is reshaping how we understand the ancient Wessex landscape it inhabits. The mound, definitively used as a medieval fortified settlement, was already three-and-a-half thousand years old when the Normans arrived! This makes it the same age as the pyramids in Egypt!

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WBR’s latest exploits have led us to Highworth, in the north-east of Wiltshire. This pretty Cotswold town was planted in the 13^th century with a market place, main street and a church behind, laid out in a regular pattern. The property boundaries of the original burgage plots are still to be seen preserved in the modern boundaries.

We were called to look at 23 High Street, coincidentally just next door to the rather spectacular Inigo House, (which had no connection with Inigo Jones by the way, it is merely a very distinguished-looking town house) which Wiltshire Buildings Record looked at two years before.

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As you may know, Wiltshire is one of the richest counties for archaeological monuments. There are over 2,000 monuments in the county which are scheduled, or considered to be of national importance.  As part of our work the Archaeology Service of Wiltshire Council works in partnership with English Heritage to implement a monument management programme. Every year we target a small number of scheduled monuments in need of a little “TLC”. Over the six years the programme has been running we have carried out work on over twenty sites including, scrub clearance on Neolithic long barrows and Iron Age hillforts, masonry conservation at a Roman bath house and a medieval castle keep.

The Archaeology team on a site visit to Oldbury Castle Hillfort at Cherhill

Our programme for this past year has focused on three sites in particular. At a Roman bath house near North Wraxall, 2,000 year old walls had been exposed a few years ago and were suffering damaged caused by the extremely cold winter last year. We employed a specialist masonry conservator to re-point and consolidate the walls prior to their backfilling. At the Iron Age hillfort at Fosbury we completed a three year programme of work involving scrub clearance on the ramparts by the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers (BTCV). We also completed a five year programme of work on a Bronze Age barrow cemetery near Beckhampton which focussed on trying to exclude badgers from the burial mounds with the insertion of badger-proof fencing and artificial badger setts. 
If you spot any monuments in need of our help, please let us know!
[Additional images available, please 'read more'].

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As the year moves on we are preparing to undertake a major study into Wiltshire farmsteads. Some interested observers might be aware that the traditional farmstead in Britain is rapidly disappearing under the pressures of changes in agricultural practice. Sadly our traditional farm buildings have become largely redundant, either falling into disuse or being converted into desirable dwellings or light industrial units in the country. Only a handful of hobby farmers preserve the farmstead as it used to be, and only then because it enhances their product, be it traditional Wiltshire ham, or the kinds of speciality preserves sold only in posh farm shops. They maintain a certain image that harks back to the ‘good old days’.

Farmsteads are still very much part of the British landscape and this is very true in Wiltshire where agriculture has played such a key role throughout our history, at one time sending our milk, cheese and bacon to London and beyond. As a consequence there is an urgent need to record for posterity these buildings before it is too late. In order to undertake much of the work we need volunteers. Please read on to find out how you could help……

Haydon Farm at Haydon Wick near Swindon - one of the last farms on Haydon End Lane to be engulfed in modern development and its remaining old buildings converted to other uses.
 

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In the last two years the Archaeology Service staff have been involved in a really exciting project just outside Chippenham. About five years ago, the remains of a small Roman building came to light, located in a hidden valley near Castle Combe. 

Below  is the plan of Truckle Hill Roman bath house: the three phases of construction as discovered in 2007.

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