Sizergh Castle - Dig in the Park 2013

Introduction
The project took place 6th to 21st July 2013 after an invitation to the community to get involved.

The "Dig in the Park" project follows on from the 2010 Landscape Survey of Sizergh Park, and the dig was of two items of interest discovered through the survey:

• a potential burnt mound
• a ditch/boundary or sunken roadway that forms an obvious landscape feature

Both of these are situated in the Park adjacent to the entrance lane.

Additionally, there was:

• a full geophysical survey of that portion of the Park
• a detailed vernacular building survey of the Great Mediaeval Barn

Training Days
In June there were two training days at Sizergh Castle so that volunteers could get an overview of the project, and learn some of the archaeological and surveying techniques. See reports of the days  22 June and 29 June below.

The Dig – 6th to 21st July 2013
Read the day to day blog of the dig!
See our report on the two weeks of excavation and survey.

Project initiated by Levens Local History Group, in partnership with the National Trust, utilising the professional skills of Oxford Archaeology North, and funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
​
Reports published Feb 2014
Reports from Oxford Archaeology North

FIRST TRAINING DAY 22 JUNE 2013

Levens Local History Group’s [LLHG] 2013 project got off to a wet and windy but memorable start, with the first of two training days held in and around the Great Barn on the National Trust’s [NT] Sizergh Estate on Saturday. 58 volunteers, plus speakers and helpers attended; a total of 67.

Stephen Read, secretary LLHG, welcomed the participants to the start of a project, which was almost two years in the making, and although it was an LLHG project was now, essentially, a co-operative event hosted by LLHG, in partnership with NT, on NT land, with expertise provided by Oxford Archaeology North [OAN] the professional archaeologists. The project was now coming to its exciting culmination. He gave an introduction to the speakers, the first of whom was Jamie Lund, NT’s Regional Archaeologist.

Jamie provided an Introduction to the Dig in the Park Project, explaining that it flowed on from a detailed 2010 landscape survey of the whole of the Sizergh Estate that had been carried out by NT volunteers, LLHG and OAN. He gave an overview of the history of Sizergh Castle and the Sizergh Estate in general, the areas of existing archaeological interest, the areas to be excavated and surveyed; being a putative ‘burnt mound’, a landscape feature that may be associated with the mediaeval deer park boundary, the Great Barn itself and the parkland to the south of the house, and the hoped for benefits and results from the project.

​His talk was illustrated with many slides of the house and grounds, the landscape survey in progress, the specific areas to be investigated, all with additional maps and diagrams to emphasise the points being made.

Jeremy Bradley of OAN spoke upon Excavation Theory and Finds Processing, an introduction to the many techniques and skills to be learnt and used by the volunteers over the course of the project, illustrating his talk with technical information as well as images showing the techniques being described being used on other OAN projects.

His photographs of flooded sites were very apt given the heavy rain at the time of his talk.

Jamie Quartermaine of OAN, who has been the OAN contact throughout the planning of the project and will be the OAN site manager for the first week of the Dig, presented a talk upon Topographical Survey. Essentially, Jamie gave an introduction to the skills to be learnt in the afternoon during his practical, hands-on, demonstration of the equipment shown. The computer manipulated imagery that was shown was truly astounding, and during a ten minute period within his talk, his colleague, Karl Taylor, produced on screen a computer generated 3d image of the interior dimensions of the barn taken from the measurements he was simultaneously making using a total station. It was a feat of skill on his part, and homage to the power of computer programmes, and was most impressive.

The final talk of the morning was given by Denise Druce, again of OAN. Denise introduced us to the skills of Palaeobotany and the Stratigraphic Survey, which will be of especial importance in assessing organic material from the putative burnt mound and the coring of the park land. Her slides not merely illustrated the techniques to be utilised, but also gave an indication of the workshop to be led by her in the afternoon as they included many illustrations of pollens, seeds and other botany as seen through high powered microscopes.

The morning talks were all very well received, and after a lunch break, in which we were additionally fortified by tea, coffee, biscuits and cakes from the NT’s Ashbank kitchen, we divided into three groups for the afternoon practical sessions. Each group would spend forty-five minutes on a particular discipline before rotating to the next. We were fortunate that the rain had ceased, and so the topographical surveying course could be held outside. This group was further split into three sub groups; one to be shown the use of the plane table by Jamie Lund, which took place in the Courtyard and over the course of the afternoon produced a working map of the northern foundation of the Great Barn; one to be shown the use of the total station by Karl Taylor, which took place at the foot of the ramp to the Great Barn; and the other to be shown aerial photography skills, including the manipulation of the images using  computer software, by Jamie Quartermaine, which took place inside the Great Barn as, sadly, at the start of the sessions, the wind speed was too high to have a flight to demonstrate the use of Jamie’s model helicopter for photographing sites. Each of these sessions gave the volunteers the opportunity to gain hands on experience of the surveying equipment, and the computer manipulation of aerial images was a greatly exciting revelation.

The second group joined Jeremy Bradley who produced a large number of examples of pottery finds from all periods in order to show the development of ceramics from the prehistoric period through to the present. Jeremy shared his immense knowledge of ceramics and sites with enthusiasm, dealing with questions as he went along, whilst encouraging the volunteers to handle the finds he produced.

The comparative skills of the ancient potters as revealed by the difference in texture between ‘Grittyware’, Roman period and more modern ceramics, was truly educational.

The third group joined Denise Druce and Elizabeth Huckerby, together with others from OAN, who demonstrated the process of analysing palaeobotanic samples,

starting from a bucket of organic material typically obtained during excavation [the material used was from a recent OAN project in Derby], which was then washed and sieved to produce material [seeds, other organics and bones fragments] to be further studied. Material was then studied under microscopes to be identified against Denise’s library slides of known pollens, seeds and other botany. Each volunteer was able to use the microscope and view the wonderfully detailed and colourful library slides.

However, the afternoon weather improved, and so, after the closing remarks, questions and applause, Jamie Quartermaine was able to demonstrate his skill in flying the aerial photography helicopter.
It was a rare treat and a suitably dramatic end to a wonderfully fascinating and enjoyable day. 

​Thank you to all involved.

Stephen Read

---

SECOND TRAINING DAY 29 JUNE 2013

Levens Local History Group’s second of two training days held in and around the Great Barn on the National Trust’s [NT] Sizergh Estate, enjoyed better weather than the first, the previous Saturday. 55 volunteers, plus speakers and helpers attended, and we were especially pleased to welcome to the morning lectures Mrs. T. Horneyold Strickland, and members of her family; a total of 64.

As on the first training day, Stephen Read, secretary LLHG, welcomed the participants to the start of a project, which was almost two years in the making, and although it was an LLHG project it was now, essentially, a co-operative event hosted by LLHG, in partnership with NT, on NT land, with expertise provided by Oxford Archaeology North [OAN], the professional archaeologists contracted to support the project. The project was now coming to its exciting culmination. He gave an introduction to the speakers, the first of whom was Jamie Lund, NT’s Regional Archaeologist.

Jamie provided an Introduction to the Dig in the Park Project, explaining that it flowed on from a detailed 2010 landscape survey of the whole of the Sizergh Estate that had been carried out by NT volunteers, LLHG and OAN. He gave an overview of the history of Sizergh Castle and the Sizergh Estate in general, the areas of existing archaeological interest, the areas to be excavated and surveyed; being a putative ‘burnt mound’, a landscape feature that may be associated with the mediaeval deer park boundary, the Great Barn itself and the parkland to the south of the house, and the hoped for benefits and results from the project. His talk was illustrated with many slides of the house and grounds, the landscape survey in progress, the specific areas to be investigated, all with additional maps and diagrams to emphasise the points being made.

Three presentations were then made by members of the OAN team, which were introductions to the practical sessions to be held in the afternoon. Jamie Quartermaine gave an overview of the building survey techniques that were to be applied in the survey of the Great Barn being undertaken as part of the project. His profusely illustrated talk was given with enthusiasm and panache, and made a seemingly dry subject exceedingly interesting. Similarly, Karl Taylor, presenting the survey techniques to be utilised in the geophysical survey of the parkland, elevated what was a technical subject into an informative, and at times amusing, presentation of how we will be utilising the skills we were about to learn. The final talk of the morning was by Fraser Brown who demonstrated his vast knowledge and experience of the archaeology of burnt mounds, their construction, and the theories promulgated to try and explain their function within the landscape; a tour de force.
​
The afternoon practical sessions operated concurrently, but were repeated in order to allow participants to experience all three sessions. Peter Schofield led an internal survey of the barn using a reflectorless total station instrument.

He showed how a pen computer on the instrument linked to a power point projector making it possible for us, and any visitors to Sizergh during the project, to see the survey being created in front of us on a screen. We were all encouraged to use the instrument and assist in creating draft survey maps and elevation drawings.
Jamie Quartermaine gave a further demonstration of his skills in flying his model helicopter to create a set of images of the external face one of the courtyard cottages. The use of a photographic mast to produce further semi rectified photography was also demonstrated. We were able to practice processing these images into an accurate elevation drawing using a computer with the results projected onto a screen.

In the parkland, Karl and Jamie Lund demonstrated the use of resistivity and magnetometry survey techniques, and encouraged us all to undertake the use of the machines in an area of the putative boundary ditch.
These three practical sessions provided a most informative guide to the techniques we would be adopting during the survey aspect of the project.

Down at the burnt mound, Fraser Brown further discussed their known history, detailing the characteristics of the mound [thankfully agreeing that to all intents and purposes we had an actual, and quite large, example of a burnt mound] and whetting our appetites for the commencement of the dig itself in a week’s time.
​
All in all it was another highly enjoyable, informative and successful training day.

Report: Sizergh Castle Dig in the Park 2013

After almost two years in the planning, and following on from a Landscape Survey of the Sizergh Estate undertaken in 2010, Levens Local History Group’s ‘Sizergh: Dig in the Park 2013’ began on 5th July. The project is Heritage Lottery Fund supported, and is in partnership with National Trust with the professional assistance of Oxford Archaeology North. It is a community based project, intended to encourage local people to get involved in the archaeology of the National Trust’s Sizergh Estate. The dig itself ran from the 6th-21st of July, and included the excavation of a putative burnt mound and a possible mediaeval park pale boundary earthwork and ditch, and also the surveying of the Great Barn and a portion of the surrounding Park. Training days for all volunteers were held in June, and outreach days with the participating school and YAC groups were held between May and July. The 5th July was spent in preparing the ground; marking out excavation sites, putting in barriers, erecting signs and accumulating equipment and tools ready for the big day. The weather was wonderful and warm and carried on, sometimes becoming too hot, for the rest of the project.

6th July: After a brief ceremony, filmed for a programme about National Trust, when Kath Whitelock, who first recognised the burnt mound for what it was, formally dug out the first turf, the sites of the burnt mound and ditch features were surveyed so that detailed contour models of the sites could be produced in advance of excavation. We had enormous enthusiasm from the team, both volunteers and professionals, despite the sometimes heavy labour of de-turfing two trenches close to the Castle, and by early afternoon we were starting to dig the initial features.

7th July: The survey concentrated on the park adjacent to the mysterious earthwork and ditch. It could be traced into the Sizergh gardens, indicating that it is earlier than the southern extension of the garden established before 1827. The putative burnt mound proved tough to de-turf, but soon stone a plenty was found, some of it fire cracked, and intermingled or sitting on deposits of charcoal. It truly was a classic Bronze Age burnt mound. The trenches through the ditch have been cleaned to reveal a wall/stone bank either side of the ditch, which is puzzling, and not what was expected for a feature thought to be associated with the management of the estate’s deer park.

8th July: Excavation continued in the trenches through the ditch, but with hardly any finds. At the burnt mound,
the topsoil is producing some 18th century pottery, and a small quantity of window glass. With the topographic survey over, the building survey of the Great Barn has started. The barn is being mapped in 3D using the point of a laser, and some fascinating clues as to the functionality and development of the building are being obtained.

9th July: Members of Westmorland Geological Society visit the burnt mound and report there is little of the
natural limestone in the mound (limestone is not a good stone to heat unless you particularly want to create
slaked lime) and the burnt stone is not from local geology, but is a sandstone brought to the site through
glacial action. The ditch excavation has been cleaned to make a preliminary record, and given the complexity of
the stone material, this is done by a photogrammetric method using a photographic mast and control points.

The barn survey continues, producing internal plans and sections of the interior with some photography of the outside of the barn using a small helicopter, allowing the mapping of external elevations.

10th July: The recording of what we have found so far continues, but we also have an exciting discovery. There are a couple of upright stones within the burnt mound, which we are tentatively suggesting might be a trough.

Another significant discovery is a sherd of medieval pottery in one of the trenches through the ditch, which may be an indication that this feature is of an earlier date than first proposed. The building survey has now completed the upper floor interior of the barn, and generated the 3D data needed to prepare the final drawings. Carol Poole, one of the metal detectorists, has found musket balls in the marsh around the burnt mound.

11th July: The burnt mound is again photographed and surveyed the mound prior to starting the heavy work of cutting trenches into the body of fractured stone, which reveals substantial amounts of charcoal, and confirms the mound is sitting on peat, as was predicted. This confirms the potential for waterlogging with the probability that its contemporary environment can be described. The putative trough reveals another upright indicating it was probably quite a substantial feature. We are starting to excavate deep into the ditch trenches to obtain a profile, and a further sherd of medieval pottery is found. The geophysical survey [resistivity] of the parkland around the ditch is started, and we consider opening a third trench adjacent to the ditch.

12th July: A productive day with progress on all fronts but without any discoveries.

13th July: What a day – there appears to be the remains of a large plank lining the bottom of the burnt mound trough, together with uprights on either side and at one end. The upright stones we originally found appear to be outside this wooden box.

The third trench is de-turfed, and immediately reveals a platform of rock, possibly a building.

14th July: Core samples of the mound and surrounding area have been taken for analysis to build a picture of
what the landscape was like in the past. Work continues at the trenches to uncover evidence to date and describe the purpose of this increasingly enigmatic feature. We are joined today by members of the Kendal Young Archaeologists Club [led round by David Maron of Oxford Archaeology North], who helped the excavation and recording of the newly found platform feature, and also spent some time in the ‘hands on archaeology’ activity area. This feature of the project runs at weekends, and is manned by National Trust volunteers and members of Oxford Archaeology North, and has been a great success. It provides archaeological activities, including a kids mini dig, an artefact handling table, artefact jigsaws, and a clay pottery workshop teaching Bronze Age coil and strap building techniques of pottery manufacture. A great time was had here by all visitors, young and old, learning about how finds are recovered, what they can tell us, and how they are made.

15th July: The work on the three trenches and the burnt mound continues, but without any further excitements.

16th July: Today we hosted Dallam School, Milnthorpe, who spent all day on the Dig. Jamie Lund, the National Trust Regional Archaeologist, and David Maron welcomed them to the project, gave a brief overview of our progress, and inducted them to site safety. They were then able to take turns working at four different activities. Some helped with the survey of the barn, others were able to dig at the burnt mound and in the trenches and possible stone building platform nearby. They all worked hard and we made excellent progress.

We were also filmed on site by RDF Television who are making a series of programmes for ITV on six National Trust properties across Britain. They are to be narrated by Michael Buerk, who was present to interview Jamie Lund and Jeremy Bradley of OAN, and who even got his trousers dirty whilst trowelling at the burnt mound wooden trough. A fourth side has now been found to the trough and we are revealing the shallow construction trench on the outside of it. A layer of organic material containing preserved wooden branches and debris under the mound has been investigated further, and will provide the opportunity for good dating evidence. We are now certain that the stone banks either side of the ditch feature are actually a later addition to the ditch itself, though quite how early the ditch is, is still a mystery, as the layers within the ditch are proving devoid of artefacts.

17th July: We hosted budding archaeologists today from Levens School and Crosscrake School. They were very enthusiastic and made great progress in Trench 3, which we are now sure contains the floor of a building, but we have no dating evidence. The school groups also paid a visit the burnt mound. Both ditch excavations are very close to being bottomed, but with a continuing lack of finds. We are beginning to wonder if these sterile fills indicate the ditches are of some antiquity. The exposed part of the burnt mound and the trough were thoroughly cleaned before hundreds of photographs were taken to be processed in an Agisoft programme that creates an accurate, three-dimensional image of the trough. We were very pleased to be joined by National Trust Head of Archaeology, Ian Barnes, who showed an admirable attention to detail, trimming the grass on the edges of the profiles before photography and recording, and also digging a big hole in the corner of the site to investigate what is probably the remains of a silted up-stream that flowed past the north-east side of the mound. The profile layers are intriguing and difficult to interpret. We will take sample columns through them to analyse the soil particles and other environmental remains. We have also been
examining a mass of timber which lies beneath the mound. Is it the root system of a tree, or are they branches and twigs? If the latter, have they fallen naturally or have they
been thrown down to form a platform?

18th July: We started to lift the timbers of the wood-lined trough. The wood is more fragile than it appeared, but came out in two large pieces, which have gone to the laboratory for careful cleaning and analysis. It is hoped to find marks on them to tell which tools were used, in addition to identifying the type of wood and getting samples for dating. Part of the burnt stone mound was removed to look for structures underneath. It is now apparent that the wood remains beneath the mound are a root system, as we have exposed part of the tree stump, which we will also date.

19th July: Today has confirmed that the mound is sitting on a tree stump and some of the roots appear to form part of the trough side. Is this significant? There is fantastic preservation of the bark, which confirms it was a birch. Today has seen prolific sampling and recording to ensure we have extracted all possible data and environmental samples. The ditch trenches are almost fully excavated though continue to fail to provide any evidence for date or function. However, that of itself is still interesting. Similarly, the presumed building platform, like its ditch neighbour, is evading dating and diagnosis, It also now appears to be a stone platform or plinth, rather than wall footings.

20th July: We had a good turn out of visitors today, and, up at the children’s activity centre, had lots of budding archaeologists on the mini-dig and joining in the bronze age pottery workshop, trying their hand at building and decorating their own bronze age style pot. Following the days work, the volunteers all came along for a final site tour. The excavation of the ditches is complete, and Paul Dunn, Jeremy Bradley and Jamie Lund explained their best theories of function and date, based on the evidence now available.

The ditch is quite substantial, and when cut the spoil appears to have been thrown to one side, forming a bank, which may suggest it is an enclosure ditch and bank, perhaps even defensive. The ditch then silted up with soil with no small finds to speak of. Whilst this doesn’t categorically rule out this being a post medieval park pale, it does make it unlikely, and it does rule in some other intriguing possibilities, especially as it might be reasonable to expect more bits of pottery, clay pipe and other debris, in a post medieval ditch fill. Though we can’t put a date to the ditch, we can suggest that it may be early... it may be in fact be medieval, early medieval, or perhaps Iron Age, however without any scientific dating, or typological dating from finds we can’t be sure whether it is any of these, or indeed post medieval as originally anticipated. What we can say for sure is that the ditch is a substantial monument, that is certainly worth further investigation in the future, and that following the ditch filling up, two stony banks were built over either side of the infilled ditch, which probably served as headlands created by the ridge and furrow situated on either side the ditch. We were able to remove some stones from the building platform, which revealed they were sat on an outcrop of bedrock. This is a quite unusual arrangement, and its size may indicate it was the base for a substantial feature, possibly either agricultural or associated with the ditch. The Strickland family have always believed there was a former gate house on this side of the Castle, but that cannot, as yet, be proved as legend or fact.

At the burnt mound the removal of the soil immediately beneath the trough has revealed more roots and branches and we are trying to establish whether this is a natural phenomenon or a platform put down on uneven roots to provide a flat surface, or structural support, for the trough. The burnt mound at Sizergh has provided an excellent opportunity to examine a well-preserved example, which consisted of a wooden lined trough surrounded by a horseshoe-shaped mound of heavily fire effected stones and charcoal. These stones were not of the local limestone, but came from elsewhere, and were probably selected from local glacial erratics because of their suitability for the heating process. The mound was built on top of a dense layer of root and branches, and was close to a source of water, but contained no small finds or evidence of bones or other materials. What exactly was the function of a burnt mound? There are many theories of which the more plausible involve heating water, and hot water can be used for cooking, cleaning, washing, bathing, in various industrial processes, and of course boiling water helps make it safe to drink, either by itself, or as part of the brewing process. Perhaps when seeking an explanation none of 
these should be considered to the exclusion of others. The many environmental samples taken from the mound will be analysed over the coming months, with the hope of providing clues to the functions of this enigmatic monument.

Levens Local History Group formally wishes to thank the following: National Trust, its staff and the Strickland family, for their help, hospitality and enthusiasm; the staff at OAN, who worked several weeks without a break to make sure the project was a success, and brought their usual knowledge, humour, and experience to the proceedings; the members of the visiting public who were so enthusiastic, keen to talk to us, join in the activities, learn what had been going on, and support what we were doing; and last, but by no means least, all those community, history and archaeology volunteers whose hard effort and enthusiasm made the entire project such a great success.

[P.S. In the course of all the planning over the last two years, a recurrent issue had always been the weather and how to cope with the extremities that British Summers bring, but had we ever anticipated that, at times, it would be too hot. In July last year the burnt mound area was completely flooded, and so we had a contingency budget for hiring water pumps to keep the dig viable. This year we had to spend time wetting the surface of the trenches and mound, and especially the trough, to prevent damage from heat and drying! The contingency was spent on bottled water to ensure that all volunteers and archaeologists did not succumb to the baking hot weather.]

Downloadable Reports

In PDF format

Sizergh Dig Invitation.pdf
File Size:	65 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

---

22 June Training Day Report.pdf
File Size:	4257 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

---

29 June Training Day Report.pdf
File Size:	3480 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

---

Levens Local History Group Sizergh Castle Dig Report 2013.pdf
File Size:	7662 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

---