948 results in Boydell & Brewer
Religious Rivalry in Victorian Cowley St John and its Legacy
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- By Emily Greig
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- 15 May 2024, pp 49-72
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SUMMARY
This article examines the religious life of the suburban Oxford parish of Cowley St John in the second half of the nineteenth century. It contrasts the ministry of a well-resourced and visionary Anglican vicar with a Nonconformist mission supported largely by ordinary people of the ‘middling sort’ who were determined that their beliefs should be promoted too. The Nonconformist mission left few lasting traces but this study reveals a more competitive Victorian religious world in Oxford than may be supposed from a superficial comparison of written or architectural legacies.
Christianity was easily the dominant faith of Victorian Britain but it was also ‘much more disunited and quarrelsome than it is now’. One important strand of Victorian Christian faith was represented by the Evangelicals. Ripples from the Evangelical revival of the eighteenth century had spread over into the 1800s: existing denominations were reinvigorated and new ones were born. Those holding to Evangelical theology could be found within the Church of England as well as many Dissenting or Nonconformist groups, including Baptists, Independents, Methodists and Congregationalists, who all agreed about the doctrines of the Trinity, the inspiration and authority of Scripture, human sinfulness and the justification of sinners by faith through the agency of the Holy Spirit, amongst other doctrines. The proportion of churchgoers who joined Dissenting congregations increased from about 10 per cent in 1790 to almost 50 per cent by 1851. Often, different Evangelical groups could overcome their differences and work together, as will be illustrated later.
The Tractarians represented a very different tradition. In the 1830s, the Oxford Movement burst onto the religious scene via a series of tracts on theological matters written by Oxford University academics, including John Henry Newman, Edward Bouverie Pusey and John Keble. Tractarians endeavoured to restore the Catholic heritage of the Anglican Church, asserting that the nineteenth -century Anglican Church was still, essentially, Catholic. As the century progressed, followers of the Oxford Movement often adopted more elaborate ceremonial ritual. Such ostentatious harking back to medieval Catholicism provoked the ire of many Protestants, especially when it coincided with the re-establishment of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales (in 1850).
The Tractarian ministry differed greatly, and very visibly, from that of the Evangelicals. The Tractarians worked towards building a Eucharistic community, whilst the Evangelicals sought to build God’s kingdom soul by soul.
Neolithic Occupation, a Later Bronze Age Enclosure and Other Remains East of Southam Road, Banbury
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- 15 May 2024, pp 109-162
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Archaeological excavations in 2015 to the east of Southam Road, Banbury revealed Neolithic occupation evidenced by two episodes of pit digging (separately associated with Grooved Ware and probable Peterborough Ware pottery). A substantial subcircular ditched enclosure can only be broadly attributed to the later Bronze Age. Within the enclosure, remains of post-built roundhouses, gullies, and small pits had suffered truncation from historical ploughing but indicate a settlement function. However, the precise chronology of its development is uncertain due to the limited quantity of datable finds, and their concentration in a small number of contexts. Later periods are represented by three cremation-related features dated to the Romano-British period, as well as a medieval hollow way and traces of ridge and furrow cultivation associated with Hardwick deserted medieval village, which lies immediately south of the site. Other ditches indicate land division of more than one phase, though these were not securely dated.
The excavations to the east of Southam Road, sponsored by Bellway Homes Limited, formed the final phase of a programme of archaeological work undertaken by Wessex Archaeology between 2011 and 2015, prior to the development of the land for housing called Hanwell View. A desk-based assessment was initially carried out, followed by geophysical survey which identified a large subcircular enclosure in the south-east of the site, along with other anomalies of potential archaeological interest and linear trends from ridge and furrow. Subsequent trial trenching uncovered ditches, gullies, pits and postholes in twenty-five of the fifty-five excavated trenches. Though most features did not yield datable finds, a Neolithic pit containing a large quantity of Grooved Ware pottery was excavated, along with several ditches and gullies, which produced small amounts of Bronze Age and Romano-British pottery, as well as worked flint. A trench targeted on the south-west quadrant of the large subcircular geophysical anomaly revealed a ditch containing middle Bronze Age pottery, though the evaluation did not identify the eastern extent of the predicted enclosure.
Following consultation with the Planning Archaeologist for Oxfordshire County Council and archaeological advisor to Cherwell District Council, a mitigation strategy proposing five separate excavation areas (A–E) was approved. The excavation was undertaken between February and March 2015 during challenging weather conditions, including rain and snow. An initial assessment of the excavation results, incorporating proposals for further analysis and publication, was produced in September 2015.
A Nineteenth-Century Livery Stable and the Morris Garage Workshop: Investigations at the Morris Building, Longwall Street, Oxford
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- Oxoniensia
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- 15 May 2024, pp 365-372
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Oxford Archaeology (OA) was commissioned by Austin Newport Ltd, on behalf of New College, to undertake an archaeological investigation ahead of development at the Morris Building on Longwall Street (Fig. 1). Following an earlier evaluation, an archaeological strip, map and sample excavation was carried out during the course of the groundworks between August and November 2017. This report summarises the main results of the excavation; the full report is available to download from the OA Library.
The area of development, formally a gravel courtyard to the rear of the Morris Building located at grid reference SP 5192 0645, encompasses an area of c.170 sq m. The site lies at about c.60.40 m above Ordnance Datum (OD). The site lay within the footprint of the defensive ditch of medieval Oxford. The extant thirteenth century city wall lies about 10 m to the south, immediately to the west of a bastion that formed the north-east corner of the town defences. It is believed to follow the line of the late Anglo-Saxon burh defences or its postulated eastward extension. During the thirteenth century or later a second line of stone defences were added, c.10 m in front of the town wall. Excavations undertaken by Brian Durham during earlier redevelopment of the former Morris Garage site revealed a 1.0-m thick stone wall corresponding with the southern boundary wall of the present site and a projecting bastion on its north-east corner, both constructed over the partially backfilled town ditch.
The maps of Agas (1578) and Speed (1610) depict the intact city walls and ditch but do not indicate the outer stone wall which is shown intact on Loggan’s map of 1675. It is speculated that the outer wall was repaired and the ditch to the north was recut during the Civil War, though by the time of Loggan the ditch had been infilled and both sides of the newly Holywell Street built up. The area of the site appears to have remained open until at least 1750 when Taylor shows the site as a garden with a small house on the Holywell Street frontage.
In the nineteenth century the land was occupied by the printing office of Jackson’s Oxford Journal with the rear of the site occupied by livery stables.
Index
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- 15 May 2024, pp 393-402
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Archaeological Work in Oxford, 2022
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- 15 May 2024, pp 343-346
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This year saw a return to the pattern of major college developments within the historic core of Oxford with institutions seeking to expand within heavily confined sites. At both Frewin Hall (Brasenose College) and Castle Hill House (St Peter’s College) physically constrained evaluations undertaken before planning consent was granted were unable to fully characterise the complexity of the archaeology present. The result in both cases being the identification and recovery of unexpected and exciting archaeology during the excavation phase of these projects. The Brasenose College site was notable for capturing the public imagination with press releases celebrating the investigation of the ‘lost college’ of St Mary’s and a successful open day followed by television slots on the local news and BBC’s Digging for Britain. Subsequently Oxford Archaeology received an Oxford Preservation Trust certificate for their work at the site.
The year also saw careful evaluation work around the former Blackfriars church to ensure that any future development avoids the medieval burial remains in that area. Elsewhere, evaluations revealed significant new information at Littlemore Priory, providing insights into the layout of the Nunnery precinct, and at the large Oxpens site located west of the Ice Rink, providing information on the character of Oxford’s western floodplain and hinterland. Short summaries of selected investigations from 2022 are provided below.
SELECTED PROJECTS
Brasenose College, Frewin Hall, New Inn Hall Street
Between January and March an excavation was undertaken by OA in the garden of Frewin Hall, with follow up work on service trenches continuing into May (Fig. 1). In addition to a large well-built wall foundation, likely the remains of the south range of the quadrangle of the fifteenth- to sixteenth-century Augustinian St Mary’s College, the excavation revealed several medieval stone structures including two kitchen areas, stone-lined waste pits, boundary walls, foundations with distinctive relieving arches, and a large stone-built cellared building. A remarkable discovery at the northern end of the site was the remains of an upstanding Bronze Age barrow mound and associated ditch. This had been cut into by pits and subsumed by later build-up. A mid to late Anglo-Saxon semi-cellared building was cut into the barrow, with probable evidence of destruction from fire and another pit containing likely redeposited human bone that has produced an intriguing eighth- to ninth-century AD radiocarbon date (Fig. 2).
Articles
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The Uffington White Horse Complex as a Winter Solstice Sunrise Observatory
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- By Ian Godfrey
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- 15 May 2024, pp 1-16
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SUMMARY
The Uffington White Horse is a well-known and unique prehistoric chalk hill figure. It was mentioned in the Middle Ages and celebrated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries but only reliably dated in 1996. Its purpose remains unknown. Theories have included that the horse figure was either a tribal emblem or was influenced by the horse symbols depicted on early British Iron Age coins, buckets and pots, or else that it commemorated an Anglo-Saxon victory over the Danes. This new analysis demonstrates the hill figure’s intimate relationship with the winter solstice sunrise, identifying its functionality as a prehistoric winter solstice observatory of some sophistication. The likely evolution of this role over time within its landscape context is described and documented astronomically.
The Uffington White Horse is the largest ancient hill figure in Europe and the first scientifically dated example existing in Britain. It is a dynamic figure aligned with the rising Sun, galloping uphill on the shoulder of the eponymous Whitehorse Hill towards its summit immediately to the south. While long recognised as the somewhat abstract representation of a horse, the hill figure is also unnaturally elongated, closely paralleling the rising visible horizon of the hillside. The figure extends 110 metres by 33 metres across the scarp of the downs in an open and visually prominent setting. Its construction – as a carefully delineated, largely linear excavated profile, cut into the hillside and filled with imported and compacted chalk – has been dated by optically stimulated luminescence testing to between 1740 and 210 BC with 95 per cent confidence (Fig. 1).
The figure forms part of a cluster of archaeological and landscape elements south of the village of Woolstone: the White Horse itself, the Whitehorse Hill summit, the Long Mound and Round Barrow, Woolstone Wells and Dragon Hill. These are located between the Ridgeway and the Icknield Way, two ancient trackways which closely approach each other at this point. In addition, there are two nearby enclosures, Uffington Castle, a prominent late Bronze Age/ early Iron Age hill fort on Whitehorse Hill, actively used until the Romano-British period, and Hardwell Camp, further down the scarp to the west (Fig. 2).
Referred to in the twelfth century as fifth in a list of the Wonders of Britain, the White Horse was evidently then already recognised as being a well-established feature of the landscape.
List of Abbreviations
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- 15 May 2024, pp viii-viii
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Oxfordshire Museums Service, 2022
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- By Angie Bolton
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- 15 May 2024, pp 359-360
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In 2022 normal service resumed following the pandemic for the archaeology team based at the Museums Resource Centre, Standlake. Our priorities were to deliver community engagement projects, accession archaeological archives and treasure, respond to research enquires, and enhance access to the collections. The following are just a few examples of our activities during 2022.
SELECT ACTIVITIES
Archaeological Archives
During 2022 archaeological archives from excavations in fifteen Oxfordshire parishes were accessioned by the Oxfordshire Museums Service (OMS). Accessioning these archives resulted in 830 records which describe, track and care for the objects and documents deposited as part of the archive. Regarding fieldwork, we request that anyone carrying out fieldwork notifies us within a month of it starting so we can issue an accession number for the site. During 2022 we were notified of 110 instances of fieldwork taking place in the county. This compares to ninetyeight instances in 2021, ninety-five in 2020 and ninety-six in 2019. Fieldwork is increasing, but for the moment the deposition of archives with OMS is lagging behind.
Community Engagement Projects
The archaeology team delivered a community engagement project in Goring funded with NPO Arts Council funding. OMS collaborated with Goring Library, Friends of Goring Library, the University of Reading and Cranfield University to produce an exhibition featuring Roman objects from Lowbury Hill, the newly acquired painting of Lowbury Hill by Anna Dillon, and an aerial photograph of the site by Hedley Thorn. The exhibition was accompanied by activities for adults and children such as walking tours to the site, a Lowbury Hill Heritage Day, evening lectures, and Roman art and craft sessions. The exhibition was in place for a month and compared to the same month in 2021 the library had an additional 1,054 visitors, demonstrating the popularity of local archaeology.
The project was also designed to develop and increase the digital resources of the OMS collection. The objects from the site have all been photographed and are visible on the Heritage Search website. A sample of the objects have had digital 3D models created and are visible on the OMS Sketchfab account @OxonMRC.
Society for Museum Archaeology: Annual Awards for Excellence 2022
The OMS’s Developing Digital Access & Community Engagement Pilot Project 2021–22 won the Society for Museum Archaeology Annual Awards for Excellence 2022 in the Engagement and/or Collaboration Project category.
The Mysterious Lawyer: The Tomb Effigy of an Unidentified Man of Law at Deddington
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- By Nigel Saul
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- 15 May 2024, pp 35-48
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In a wall recess in the south aisle of Deddington church is the tomb effigy of an unidentified lawyer, shown wearing a coif, and datable on stylistic grounds to c.1330. No antiquarian evidence survives to indicate who the person commemorated might be and, although the name of Ralph de Bereford has sometimes been suggested, the case for associating him with the tomb has remained unproven. On the evidence of a parliamentary subsidy return of 1316, it is suggested that the man commemorated is indeed Ralph de Bereford and that the origins of his tenurial connection with Deddington are to be found in his ties with the elder Hugh Despenser, who acquired the lordship of one of the manors in the town.
Among the tomb monuments to have come down to us from the Middle Ages an especially interesting series is that commemorating the professional lawyers, an élite group who came to the fore in the second half of the thirteenth century. Earlier, in the reigns of Henry II and his immediate successors, the king’s justices had been recruited principally from the baronage, the knightly administrators and the ranks of the senior clergy. These men were often amateurs who gained their know-how in the course of their everyday work. As the body of law increased, however, and as the nature of that law became more technical, so it became necessary for justices to be recruited who were specialists in their field: men who had received a training in the law, who had worked full-time in the law, and who kept up-to-date in their understanding of the law. It was as a result of this ever-gathering process of specialisation that part-time, largely amateur justices gave way in the thirteenth century to trained and qualified professionals. Among the earliest and most distinguished of these men were Gilbert de Thornton, who became chief justice of king’s bench in 1290, and William de Bereford, who was appointed to the equivalent position in common pleas in 1309. At the same time, by a parallel process, a class of professional pleaders was brought into existence by the need to have practitioners who could act as intermediaries between litigants and the justices, advising the former on legal procedures, representing them in court and arguing on their behalf.
Stephen Wass, Seventeenth-Century Water Gardens and the Birth of Modern Scientific Thought in Oxford: The Case of Hanwell Castle
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- By Jill Hind
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- Oxoniensia
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- 15 May 2024, pp 384-385
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In his New Atlantis (1626) Sir Francis Bacon argued that progress in natural philosophy required a group of people who shared an interest in scientific experimentation and a suitable meeting venue. Just over half a century later Robert Plot, in his Natural History of Oxfordshire (1677), identified activity in the mid seventeenth century at Sir Anthony Cope’s homes in Oxfordshire (at Hanwell near Banbury and Tangley in west Oxfordshire) as realisations of Bacon’s vision. Plot’s account of Hanwell has also been the principal inspiration for an archaeological project recently pursued by Stephen Wass to explore the development of the gardens known at Hanwell from the sixteenth century onwards, with a particular focus on Sir Anthony’s contribution. Wass’s new book integrates his findings into a broader history of the Cope family.
After considering the geology, topography and early history of the Hanwell area (chapter 1), Wass examines work carried out at Hanwell after William Cope bought the estate in 1498 (chapter 2). He was responsible for the construction of the castle and presumably for establishing an adjacent garden. During the sixteenth century the design of water gardens in England advanced from relatively simple layouts associated with castles and monasteries to constructions with more elaborate aesthetic ambitions. These are contrasted with the more formal styles which emerged in Italy at that time.
In the sixteenth century the Cope family enjoyed success and acquired an additional house at Tangley; in 1611 Sir Anthony Cope, the second of that name at Hanwell, purchased a baronetcy. At the beginning of chapter 3 Wass introduces numerical annotation to distinguish the Anthony Copes. While it is a good idea – the frequent recurrence of the same family name can be confusing – the provision of a family tree might have been more useful. The rest of this chapter considers numerous examples – sometimes almost overwhelming – of water gardens from this period, which are related to ideas in Bacon’s New Atlantis. This leads to a detailed discussion of the ‘Enstone Marvels’, Thomas Bushell’s collection of water-powered special effects on his small estate at Enstone (12 miles/6 km south-west of Hanwell), which introduces the contribution of engineering. The final example of water gardens refers to Wadham College in Oxford, an institution which reappears in later chapters.
Reviews
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Michael Farley, The Kings at Brill: The Early History of a Buckinghamshire Village in the Forest of Bernwood
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- By Mark Page
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- 15 May 2024, pp 374-375
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Summary
In the Middle Ages the small Buckinghamshire village of Brill developed close associations with neighbouring Oxfordshire, based in large part on a thriving pottery industry, its location at the centre of a royal forest, and on the appropriation of its parish church by an Oxfordshire monastery. From the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries potters at Brill produced a range of distinctive bowls, jars and jugs which found a ready market at Oxford, 12 miles (19 km) to the south-west. Brill was also an administrative centre for the surrounding forest of Bernwood, which extended into eastern Oxfordshire and was a source of timber, firewood and venison for Oxfordshire’s medieval landholders. Finally, St Frideswide’s priory at Oxford was patron of the Buckinghamshire church of Oakley, to which Brill was attached as a dependent chapelry.
These and other themes are explored in Michael Farley’s book-length study of the village, which combines documentary evidence with archaeological investigation and topographical survey, and is lavishly illustrated with colour photographs of sites, buildings, objects and maps. One of the book’s chief aims is to identify the location of the royal residence at Brill, which successive kings kept in repair from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries. Thereafter it fell out of royal ownership, and was either demolished or incorporated into a later building. The ‘King’s Field’ in the centre of the village is a plausible candidate for a royal enclosure, although a recent geophysical survey proved inconclusive, and Farley reaches only a tentative judgement as to its use based on evidence revealing the buried remains of one or several stone-footed buildings.
Another mystery surrounds a large mound called ‘Castle Hill’, which is shown on a late sixteenth-century map in the centre of the village where the main streets follow a pronounced curve to produce a well-preserved U-shaped enclosure encompassing the ‘King’s Field’. The mound no longer exists, and documentary evidence of a castle is lacking, though it is possible that the mound was associated with, or mistaken for, a surviving earthwork near-by. A substantial bank and ditch divided by a trackway survives on the edge of ‘King’s Field’, and is associated with Iron Age pottery and other Iron Age finds.
Prehistoric Landscape and Late Iron Age Agriculture South of Banbury: Excavations at Wykham Park Farm and Bloxham Road
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- 15 May 2024, pp 73-108
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SUMMARY
Two adjacent excavations on the southern outskirts of Banbury recorded an extensive landscape of prehistoric features. Neolithic evidence, some of it probably representing activities associated with the adjacent Wykham Farm causewayed enclosure, included a pit and a tree-throw hole that contained sherds of early Neolithic Plain Bowl pottery, a pair of pits with middle Neolithic Mortlake Ware, and a feature that produced a late Neolithic radiocarbon date and is likely to represent a cremation burial or a pair of such features. A group of three unurned cremation burials was attributed to the middle Bronze Age on the basis of radiocarbon dates from two of them, and an isolated inhumation burial was radiocarbon dated to the early Iron Age (late sixth or fifth century cal BC). No other features or artefacts from either of these periods was found, suggesting that the burials were located away from areas of settlement. Following an apparent hiatus of several centuries, there was a burst of settlement and agricultural activity that extended from the first century BC to the end of the first century AD. Two discrete enclosures may represent successive late Iron Age settlements, and a field system continued into the early Roman period, when a third enclosure, possibly for livestock, was constructed beside it. The features form part of an extensive though short-lived episode of occupation, and it is possible that the Iron Age enclosures represent the pastoral component of a farmstead with a domestic and arable focus represented by a complex of enclosures that has been separately excavated in the fields adjacent to the east.
Oxford Archaeology (OA) and Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) undertook adjacent excavations on former agricultural land on the southern outskirts of Banbury in advance of separate housing developments. The MOLA site, known as East of Bloxham Road, was excavated between November 2014 and March 2015 and comprised a sub-rectangular arable field within the interstice formed by the junction of Bloxham Road and Salt Way, a historic route now used as a bridleway. The OA investigations were undertaken at Wykham Park Farm between November 2019 and May 2020 and encompassed six excavation areas situated across six fields to the south and east, as well as the footprint of a drainage outfall that extended to the south (Fig. 1).
Vivian Ridler (ed. Colin Ridler), Diary of a Master Printer: A Year in the Life of the Printer to the University, Oxford
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- 15 May 2024, pp 387-389
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In 1970 the British economy was on the cusp of radical change. The ‘golden age’ of capitalism that had started in the early 1950s, when economic growth was broadly stable and continuous, and inflation was benign, was coming to an end. It would be replaced by ‘stagflation’ (that ugly portmanteau which combines stagnating economic growth with inflation), civil unrest and political instability. Memories of that economic turmoil have been recently rekindled by surging inflation and sluggish economic growth fuelled by the disruptions of Covid, war in Ukraine and geopolitical instability. The state of British manufacturing in 1970 is startlingly illuminated in the Diary of a Master Printer (edited by Colin Ridler) which conveys the industrial disputes, management failings and disruptive impacts of technological change that beset the Printing House of Oxford University Press (OUP). The ‘Master Printer’ was Vivian Ridler (father of the editor) who was in charge of the Printing House from 1958 to 1978 and kept this diary between June 1970 and June 1971.
Vivian Ridler managed a strange business beast: his Printing House was part of the much larger OUP business which was (and is) owned by the University of Oxford; in 1970 it operated alongside two publishing houses (the Clarendon Press and the London Business) and a paper mill. A challenge for academic publishers, such as OUP, was the tension between scholarly and commercial activities. Scholarship required the publication of the latest research which was often not profitable, and which could conflict with commercial imperatives. A further tension is evident throughout the diary: Ridler and his colleagues wanted to craft and print beautiful books which were increasingly less competitive than books that were mass produced by the latest technologies.
The diary is eloquently written and includes aspects of Ridler’s business and social lives and their frequent intersections. As far as business is concerned, Ridler documents the challenges of book production, negotiating with the bank and dealing with unions. His business life permeates his social life as he effortlessly moves from book production and conversing with authors to attending trade association meetings, dining at high table, attending concerts and lunching at the Garrick Club. His approach to his workers was both paternalistic and condescending. He attends to the welfare of his workers, visits them in hospital and attends their funerals, but class divisions were very apparent.
Middle Iron Age to Roman Settlement at Swan School and Meadowbrook College, New Marston
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- By Jo Barker
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- 15 May 2024, pp 257-292
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Four areas were excavated by Cotswold Archaeology at Swan School and Meadowbrook College, New Marston, Oxford. The site was the focus of settlement activity from the middle Iron Age period up to the end of the Roman period in the fourth century AD. The main focus of middle Iron Age settlement was two enclosures containing pits, a sub-enclosure and the remains of three roundhouses. After a short hiatus, from around the middle second century BC, renewed activity in the late Iron Age/early Roman transitional period saw the establishment of a trapezoidal enclosure and two trackways. Activity continued into the Roman period with the establishment of a rectilinear enclosure system focused on the junction of three trackways. During the third to fourth centuries AD the site was involved in pottery production, operating as part of the Oxford Roman pottery industry.
Between April and July 2019, Cotswold Archaeology (CA) carried out an archaeological investigation on land at Swan School and Meadowbrook College, New Marston, Oxford (centred on NGR: 452526 208373; Fig. 1). The development site measured 5.6 ha in extent and was located to the north-east of the city of Oxford on the north-western edge of New Marston, a suburb of the city. The development site was situated on low-lying ground (60 m above Ordnance Datum) on the edge of the River Cherwell floodplain and immediately north of the Marston Brook. The site lies on an area of alluvium and Oxford Clay Formation and West Walton Formation mudstone, capped by seasonally wet, acidic but base-rich loamy and clayey soils that typically support areas of pasture and woodland.
The archaeological potential of the site was established by previous archaeological works within the development area (Fig. 1), comprising a Heritage Statement and two stages of trial-trench evaluation. The investigations identified remains pertaining to Iron Age, Roman, medieval and post-medieval activity in the south-western half of the development site and in light of these discoveries, four areas (A, B, C and F) were subject to archaeological excavation.
List of Contributors
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- 15 May 2024, pp ix-x
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Frontmatter
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John Naylor and Eleanor Standley, with other contributors, The Watlington Hoard: Coinage, Kings and the Viking Great Army in Oxfordshire, AD 875–880
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In 2015 James Mather fulfilled every metal-detectorist’s dream when he discovered an early medieval hoard not far from the small Oxfordshire town of Watlington – the exact location is not provided so as to deter other detectorists. When fully excavated and analysed the hoard was found to comprise 203 silver coins, mostly from the kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex in the 870s, 15 silver ingots, 6 arm- and neck-rings (whole or in part), a fragmentary hooked tag and a small piece of cut gold. A conference to discuss the results was held at the Ashmolean Museum in 2018, and this book of essays stems from that event. Details are provided about the discovery and treatment of the finds, together with discussion and a catalogue of the coins (by Julian Baker and John Naylor) and of the non-numismatic finds (by Jane Kershaw and Eleanor Naylor). Readers of this journal may be particularly interested in the papers by John Naylor and Ryan Lavelle about the broader context for the finds in the archaeology and history of the upper Thames valley in the late ninth century when a complex jockeying for power brought together Mercian, West Saxon and Viking leaders in ways that can only be partly understood, but would seem to be directly responsible for the hoard’s interment.
By a strange coincidence a hoard very similar to the Watlington one was discovered near Leominster (Herefordshire) in 2015, but only some of that hoard is available for study because the finders disposed of part of it before it came to the notice of the relevant authorities (for which those unprincipled metal-detectorists have served prison sentences). Both hoards consist predominantly of joint issues of coins made by the Mercian king Ceolwulf II (874–9) and the West Saxon ruler Alfred (871–99) when they were in alliance against the Viking Great Army under the leadership of Guthrum. One of the issues known as the ‘Two Emperors’, after a Roman design on which it was based, seems a particularly apt testimony to the alliance between two royal houses which had so often been rivals, particularly over control of the upper Thames. In 878 King Alfred defeated Guthrum at the battle of Edington (Wiltshire) and a new accord was reached between them, perhaps involving a handing over of some of the very coins that were buried at Watlington.