Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Uncovering Sheffield Castle with Milica Rajic - Ep 28
411 Plays5 years ago
Archaeology and Ale is a monthly series of talks presented by Archaeology in the City, part of the University of Sheffield Archaeology Department’s outreach programme. In this talk, Archaeology in the City proudly presents - Milica Rajic on “Uncovering Sheffield Castle” This talk took place on Thursday, November 29th, 2019 at the Red Deer in Sheffield.
Milica is a project manager with Wessex Archaeology where she has worked since 2015. During that time she has served on the recent excavations at Sheffield's Castlegate area. In this talk, Milica takes us through a brief history of the Castle which once stood there and tells us about what the recent findings mean for the future of Sheffield Castle.
For more information about Archaeology in the City’s events and opportunities to get involved, please email archaeologyinthecity@sheffield.ac.uk or visit our website at archinthecity.wordpress.com. You can also find us on Twitter (@archinthecity), Instagram (@archaeointhecity), or Facebook (@archinthecity)
*Content Warning: Listener discretion is advised as there may be adult language*
Affiliates
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
00:00:28
Speaker
Welcome to episode 28 of the Archeology in Ale podcast, a free monthly public archeology talk brought to you by Archeology in the City, the community outreach program from the University of Sheffield's Department of Archeology. The talks take place at the Red Deer, a popular pub on Pitt Street in Sheffield, near the Department of Archeology. It is a busy place, so there might be some background noise in our recording.
Guest Speaker Introduction
00:00:51
Speaker
This month, our guest speaker is Milica Rachik, speaking to us about the excavations at Sheffield Gap.
00:01:04
Speaker
Thank you.
00:01:10
Speaker
Thank you very much. Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening and welcome to my very last talk for 2019 and my penultimate talk too on the subject I had enough. Thank you very much for turning up in such an unhealthy and safety way and I will do my best for us to stay on this level literally and I'll take you to a few different archaeological levels metaphorically and through the slides.
00:01:35
Speaker
So before I start I would like to say thank you very much for archaeology in the city inviting me and thank you Katie for volunteering me to do this talk. It's my absolute pleasure and also my thanks go to people on the list and organizations on the list. I just would like to point out that this is
Sheffield Castle Excavation Overview
00:01:52
Speaker
2018-2019 tour that before all of us who started digging the site of Sheffield Castle this time roughly last year, there were 20 years of making this into evaluation excavated on numerous people, numerous organizations who were involved from ages ago. Wessex Archaeology North, let's clarify that.
00:02:15
Speaker
was commissioned by Sheffield County Council to do an evaluation of the site. We were supported and monitored by South Yorkshire Archaeology Services, namely Dinah Sage was with us every day during the work on site. And now during the post excavation, friends of Sheffield Castle were there from day one, minus 20 years. The University of Sheffield was there as well. And I would like to thank Professor John Moreland, who became John Moreland, who became John.
00:02:45
Speaker
during the course and also Professor Don Hadley, who stayed Professor Don Hadley from University of York, Historic England, Dr. Samantha Stein and Dr. Andy Hammond, Sheffield Hallam University, the students who painted hoarding around the site to just
00:03:03
Speaker
because we could do that. And I would in particular like to thank 350 volunteers, 1,500 visitors, and all 17,000 of you who sent me emails and asked me various different questions.
Historical Phases of the Site
00:03:17
Speaker
Now, to be on a serious note here for a bit, not for a long, all these volunteers, I'm very grateful and I see a few of you with us tonight. You all help us.
00:03:30
Speaker
record and excavate the site and also do the processing of the finds in our post excavation offices in Healy. I also would like to thank numerous specialists and we have more than 30 now people involved in various different analyses and reporting on finds, samples, various different dating techniques and so on and so forth.
00:03:54
Speaker
I would like to take Liz Chambers, who's here with us tonight, and Richard Payne, who have conducted a borehole survey and reporting on that. And none of this would have happened. I only take the glory and questions. But not a single thing would have happened if it wasn't for Ash, Amy and Sam. And these are the three fabulous people who excavated the site.
00:04:18
Speaker
And Ash also has written evaluation reports, and we are now in a stage where he is going to, by February next year, we have to submit the final report on that. So he is the one who I should think, and I am doing that now the most. I'm going to, we're gonna go through various different periods. Of course we will, and I just would like you to know when I say medieval, post-medieval, early modern, and recent, what do I mean? And these are the years, the dates, if you want.
00:04:46
Speaker
there. Are they accurate or not accurate? Do we all agree or not agree? To be honest with you tonight, I don't care. This is what it is. And we're going to just go ahead with them for now. Just in case there are people who are not from Sheffield and because we are Sheffield centric, this is where Sheffield is. Hurrah. And this is how Sheffield looks from above. And I like this very much because it just shows how green it is.
00:05:11
Speaker
I like that in particular. But on a serious note, this is where the site is. So there, OK. I hate this when other people do, so I'm going to do that. This is where the site is. And you can see the River Don. And you can't see it, but you can take my word if you're not from Sheffield. This is River Sheaf. And this is where River Sheaf joins the River Don. And that's where we dug. What was already known, as I mentioned earlier, we haven't started from scratch.
00:05:41
Speaker
Excuse the pun. Or from the, you know, the first trench. Loads of different things were known before we started on site. First of all, that the very last building was the famous Sheffield Markets, which were knocked down in 2015. And then in 1950s, 1960s, there was a slightly older building.
00:06:02
Speaker
again, castle markets. And before that, it was Brightside, Carbrooke and Co-operative Society building that was built in the 1930s. And before we started, sorry, before they built that 1930s, that's how the site looked. Now, I just would like you to pay attention to these white buildings there and how the site looked from above if you want. We are north.
00:06:29
Speaker
You are north, I'm north, this is the, we are looking south, so River Don is there, okay? So these white buildings are all slaughterhouses, or if you want killing shambles that are known, are still known, when you search to find out what was going on there. Just look at this thing there as well, just pay attention to a few things, and I'll just leave that for a couple of seconds, just to kind of see what was going on in the early 20th century.
00:06:58
Speaker
Before that, we knew that in during Victorian era, during the Industrial Revolution, just like everywhere else in Sheffield, there were cementation furnaces and steel production related buildings that
00:07:21
Speaker
that I just showed is depicted on the 19th century map as a circle and you can see that you can read various different chimney, chimney, chimney, chimney locations. That is how the site looked. So the site is this. Okay.
00:07:36
Speaker
in the 19th century. Here is another 19th century OS map, and this it says Castle Hill works still, Castle Hill still works, Castle Hill works still, and Castle Hill works still again, and Castle Hill still works just to confuse everyone.
00:07:52
Speaker
If you thought that there is nothing to do with steel, yes, it is. And then again, there are slaughterhouses. They're already there in the 19th century and they predate this map as well. And that is how these slaughterhouses looked. They are older than the steelworks. Some, if not all of the steelworks. And I just would like you to look at this view that's now from, we're looking west.
Excavation Discoveries
00:08:22
Speaker
and this is how they looked. Now I want to show you that they're there. So these now dark parallel lines and this is late 18th century map and no surprise there. There was an act in 1784 I think which brings those slaughterhouses or takes them outside the city and brings them towards the rivers. So all the impurities that were
00:08:44
Speaker
impurities. That's such a euphemism. So all the blood and shit and stuff that was, excuse my language, that was, you know, to be washed, was washed into rivers. Before that, it was more romantic, less drastic. There was a ball in green.
00:09:04
Speaker
on the site and I think this is my favorite phase of the site not because I'm lazy and I think it's just bowling greens are amazing. I have no life so I read a lot about bowling greens and it was not only a place to exercise, it was not only a place for to do bowling, it was also a place to socialize, to come out and to
00:09:26
Speaker
express your opinion on recent events in the city and in general in the country. So riots were held there, various different groups were meeting there, all sorts of things were happening in that area. And how does that look when it's in color, when it's in technicolor? It's there, okay? And you can see a couple of people
00:09:48
Speaker
bowling actually okay and before that the broad phase of the there we go hello Wessex archaeology there was a castle made of cake and that is how Sheffield sorry that's how Wessex archaeology north celebrated the fact that we have borne the tender little we knew then we were very happy they were very happy i was worried already but anyway anyway we have celebrated that and yeah there was a castle and i brought you a castle here as well tonight and
00:10:18
Speaker
That's how, that's again, it's not a Sheffield Castle, but it's a reconstruction of a Norman Castle and it's pretty much there. There are some stylistic things, especially for people who were there at the time and castles to their, they come to me and say it wasn't like that. It wasn't like that, but I have no idea how it was and until I find out it's gonna be like this. So.
00:10:39
Speaker
I also want to show you that this is where the castle is and I'm just showing you this because everything about that excavation or if you want most of the things about that excavation was to do with levels. There is still a platform in the middle of that site and you kind of go up to go down and you start digging and you think you're high above the river and high above everything else but then it turns out that you're not, that you're at the same level as everything else and then certain parts of the site were much higher and you know it's like what
00:11:09
Speaker
what is going on but what is going on is really going on is the story that the castle is at the place of those two rivers but it's not on the highest ground that it's surrounding that so the site is there this is Laidar okay not this dot that is Laidar okay that's
00:11:29
Speaker
this is the site and you can see that it's that blue is a very very low ground it's it's that's the that river influence and this river influence higher grounds are i don't need to say this to your point out there okay so why
00:11:45
Speaker
is the castle there and not up on higher ground overlooking because it didn't need to be because it was a Norman castle the first castle was a Norman castle and it was there to show off and that's what happens if you go to France and you look at their castles at that time and a bit earlier they're all in lowlands and no in no particular high points in spots they become that later and the site does become
00:12:08
Speaker
higher gradually because it builds on rather than the way it was found. I have said numerous times a massive mistake. I said it was on high ground and outcrop. Yes, certain phases of the castle are now on high ground but the initial one I don't think it was.
00:12:25
Speaker
Again, so this is from, what I've told you already is from the topographical and geographical and locational point of view. This is now people who were involved and there were excavations and recordings before we went on site. And in 2001 and late 90s, Arcus, so that who used to be a commercial unit belonging to the University of Sheffield have done various
00:12:53
Speaker
different excavations, so let me just go back once more. They have evaluated the north part of the site. They have also excavated the trench across the moat or if you're on projected line where we thought, where they thought, where we all think the moat might be.
00:13:10
Speaker
and they have came across, especially in the north part of the site, medieval remains, walls, steps, and they have also recorded the west side of the east arm of the moat. If you're not confused by now, that's amazing, but nevermind. And before that, there were four gentlemen, and one lady, if you want, Armstrong and Butcher, and Armstrong, Hemsworth, Butcher, and Bartlett,
00:13:38
Speaker
They have done recordings in the 1920s and the 1950s and one lady who no one ever mentions and I will deliberately for the obvious reason is Pauline Beswick who also recorded remains when the Sheffield City Council was doing repairs and building the wall that is still standing there on the Castle Gate Street.
00:14:01
Speaker
Okay, and these guys, all of them, and in particular these four guys, have done a very, very good job. Not only that they haven't done the excavation or evaluation, they have done what we would now call a watching brief.
00:14:17
Speaker
So, the pits and shafts and trenches were already going on for the two different markets built in the 30s and the 60s and they were recording everything and anything they could possibly see. The fines were laid out in front of them and they would record them. Their interpretation, we now know, is very, very accurate. What if you want is not accurate and what
00:14:45
Speaker
uh maybe did not help them is that they were trying to fit into a narrative or to fit into expectations that they had from uh by the republic at the time which is just the way things were but let's just see what they have found they've found and recorded various different floors but they've also found this is
00:15:06
Speaker
a part of a building that was reconstructed later, and that's this thing here, which you could go in and see while the 2015 markets, not 2015, the latest castle markets were there. And they've also found a part of what we now think, hope it is the main entrance, the gate house. So for people who are not familiar with how castles look,
00:15:35
Speaker
that's how castles look so there is a there is a there remains here and that's that below photo and they have also found this part and the the pillar if you want onto which the drawbridge goes okay so this is what you're looking at and that that's that okay
00:15:57
Speaker
you can think that I'm making all this up because it doesn't, and I am. None of this is true. Nothing here that I say tonight is true. So that's what we have and that's what we knew it was there and these are recorded monuments as well. So these are just a handful, just a few of the
00:16:15
Speaker
black and white photos of these steps and walls and things that were recorded in the 1920s and the 50s. That's that pillar that I've just pointed out. There are nicely dressed stones.
00:16:30
Speaker
Okay. There were nicely dressed stones as well. There were various different artifacts. Not all of these are medieval. There are some medieval pin, medieval glass, some gold, which I'm just delighted that they found some gold because every time we excavate,
00:16:50
Speaker
We don't find gold and the answer is no we haven't but there are also post medieval things such as clay pipe balls and there are coins there this key and so on and so forth some medieval leather shoes and all these finds are
00:17:06
Speaker
in the Western Park Museum, some of them are on display. And I encourage you to go and take a look. So this is what we knew. So we knew a lot, really. But what is that we have found? What is
Chronological Development of Sheffield Castle
00:17:20
Speaker
new? The new thing is that under this thing that went down in 2015. I love that. Should we do that again?
00:17:29
Speaker
I think went down in 2015. That was a clear sight. By that I mean there was nothing, there were no developers, no large machines, no one asking us to finish for yesterday and move on immediately. And that is what normally happens when we do what I normally do and that is manage
00:17:49
Speaker
rescue archaeology projects, pre-development projects. This indeed is a site that is to be developed, but when? That's a tricky question that you're going to ask me later. And what is going to be? There is another tricky question that is going for you to ask me later. But for now, it is still like that. The only difference is that there are scars that we have left behind. So what you're looking at is the upper platform,
00:18:19
Speaker
lower platform, so this is the inner belly, that's the moat, and these dark blobs are our trenches. This is the wane gate, river dawn is here.
00:18:35
Speaker
So we have 11 trenches in total, five targeting the large ditch that once upon a time surrounded the castle and six targeting the inner Bailey. They might look ad hoc and like we are just putting holes in the ground.
00:18:52
Speaker
But trust me, it all makes sense. We have informed ourselves and consulted various different people and decided rationally to put those strange weird we had put them. And we tried to answer loads of different questions. Some of them we succeeded. With some of them we are yet to find out what's going on. Some of them we can't answer now. But we also now opened so many more Pandora's boxes, if you want.
00:19:20
Speaker
Nevertheless, 11 and 10 on the moat but also to see what was above that moat. 7, 8 and 9 again on the moat but also to see is the moat as close to the inner bailey as
00:19:35
Speaker
Some might thought, or is it actually much wider? Is there archaeology there? Is it completely taken away by the 20th century development or not? What's going on? Here, the same story again. This is housing one of the remains.
00:19:52
Speaker
that I've showed you on one of the previous photos. Here, below, we have more remains, so is there a connection between? Is there a large wall there? You know that cementation furnace that I've showed you on the photo and the 19th century maps? Well, the location was roughly there, so this trench is targeting that, and then looking for deep archaeology as well. Two, three, doing the same, what is going on with the inner Bailey wall. Six, five, four, targeting various different
00:20:20
Speaker
industrial archaeology if you want questions and six looking for a tower that apparently was there when the castle was in full swing. Do I just want to ask a question? Do I need to tell you about like brief history of Sheffield Castle as in when has it all started and what had happened? Or do you know? This means yes. Go ahead Millie. Okay right well once upon a time there was a guy called Will
00:20:50
Speaker
And he was Norman. And his name was William Golofta. And he came and he built the first castle. And the date that it's agreed, or if you want a year, a century that it's agreed that all happened was late 12th century. And that castle survives a few fires. And Sheffield at the time survives a few fires. But it doesn't survive one in 1266. And it's apparently burned all the way down to the ground.
00:21:19
Speaker
And in 1270, Thomas the Furnival, who gets the castle and the land through a female line, gets permission to build the castle in stone, to correlate it and to fortify it. Again, that castle is
00:21:38
Speaker
through a marriage pass to one of the wealthiest families in the country, most certainly the richest family in this part of the country, this part of the world. Shrewsbury's, or Huion Talbot's, one of them is Sigsterl of Shrewsbury, George Talbot, and he is a pool, I would say.
00:22:00
Speaker
John Morland calls him tycoon. And he is the equivalent of. So, he is extremely rich. He got his wealth through shipping, mining, but also willing and dealing with numerous different people. And he's the one who is married. This is his second marriage to Bess of Hardik. And he's also the one who was entrusted to be jail of Mary, queen of Scots.
00:22:26
Speaker
When we think, I hope not you, but when people think about Sheffield Castle, I think people think about this big massive stone build, one building that goes on forever. And that is nice and romantic, but it's inaccurate.
00:22:43
Speaker
Sheffield Castle is everything from a very very early stage from I'll show you I'll show you later much more before that stone castle and then much during its
00:22:58
Speaker
existence and then after so it's not one building and it's not one phase it's almost like I don't know you put wallpaper that you like it then you take that wallpaper you do an extension when you have some money and then you don't do that extension you do this it's a constant change in constant leveling constant improvement and and adding and taking taking away from the building okay so that was a
00:23:22
Speaker
that castle that stood there for a few hundred years was demolished, sorry, damaged during the mid-17th century during the English Civil War, if you want English Civil Wars, and after that we go to that bowling green, bowling green then is squeezed out by the
00:23:41
Speaker
steel-related buildings and slaughterhouses, and that brings us to the 19th, 20th century, and to us the 21st century. That's a brief history of Scheffel Castle and the site. So to go back to what is it that we have found, in one of the trenches, in trench one, that I said that it was positioned on top of the cementation furnace, and then to find out what was under it, well, we have found what we were looking for.
00:24:12
Speaker
These are the bricks and stones that belong and are related to and are part of that cementation furnace. We have found an awful lot of Crozzle, which is a Yorkshire word. I'm sure people know. If you don't know, then you will never know.
00:24:30
Speaker
and loads of charcoal, loads of heat-related activities. These massive walls are either boundary walls or division walls, and we think are made of the stone that was used in Sheffield Castle. Some of those stones are nicely dressed. They're not in situ, they're not medieval. We have found brick under them, but they're definitely the material is from that time. Now, that's...
00:24:58
Speaker
that building, okay, we think, and the bricks and the stones are related to that building, and that is what that building and other buildings similar to that did to Sheffield in the 19th century, and that's Ladies Bridge and it's Vuto, it's the castle, so that's how that looked at the time. Moving on south to trench 11, which was also positioned on the, sorry, moving to trench 11, which was positioned over the the moat, what you're looking at at its
00:25:26
Speaker
high level. So this is the current that was the current level. That's the current level when we started. So note that the 1.1 meter, 1.2 meters, we have a nice paved access threshold, one room threshold, another room, and then these are the walls and these are actually slabs that were leaning against the brick that are walls too. But look at this, this is that.
00:25:48
Speaker
This is not a slope because the pavement, the floor caved under the weight from the above. It's actually, it is deliberate. It needs to take those impurities, those euphemisms away from the slaughterhouses into the river. And I think that's pretty cool. That is that. This is that, that pavement. That's how that looked.
00:26:11
Speaker
It's brilliant, isn't it? It's there, just go find it. Another trench, trench 10, which will become the deepest trench on the site. Upper levels show a very important boundary wall, and I'll show you that wall later, and various different yards, and parts of a building, or if you want a couple of buildings, and that part, that's that. This is 1920s, okay, map.
00:26:40
Speaker
moving on through roughly the same period, just a different trench. We have these trenches where our volunteers have done an amazing job. Michael will remember this. I think he was there and a few other people. And these are all divisions and the main wall of the building that it was to do with cutlery.
00:27:08
Speaker
against steel productions because we think that this is a crucible, foreigners-related feature. We have found loads of different fragments of crucibles there. And just to kind of help you
00:27:23
Speaker
to be even more confused or to clarify the thing so that very deep brick surface is there that's it i can't see from here but i think it's at 55 point something meters from the OS level and this is on 52 or 53 whatever it says anyway it's a couple of meters below these things these things that are to do with
00:27:50
Speaker
cutleries and grinding. There are two massive stones. There is one here and one there that we think housed a wheel or it was to do something with moving wheels. And I'll show you in the next photo how that looked. This part there is just on a different alignment. That is because it's a part of a path and houses that were slightly earlier than the rest of the features there. And what was happening in that area of the site and what is it that we have found in the trench? Well, remains of
00:28:19
Speaker
all of that, if you want, bits and bobs from all the different phases that were going on. And the fines also from that trench confirmed that. Okay. Moving back in time, and this is, I just love archaeology and I love what we get excited about. You see this wall there? Well, that's the ball in green.
00:28:41
Speaker
The wall off. I know, I know. But it is. And look, it's there. See that? That's Lady's Bridge. Don't worry about these houses looking like most of the Mirabrook and Nortonleys. It's just the art is an impression at the time. But it is that.
00:29:04
Speaker
And look what we have done. We have digitized everything. Of course, we have. We have to record it. We preserve by record. And then we have overlaid all the trenches and the stuff that we have in trenches. Stuff is a technical term for archaeological find. And you see that little wall that I showed you? That's it. And look how nicely. I mean, it doesn't always work that neatly. Now, we might be tweaking it a tiny bit, but not a lot.
00:29:34
Speaker
Trust me, not a lot. And then in trench five, we have exactly the same. So we do know that it was there and it existed. Oh, what have I done? Ah, you see, I really don't know how to operate this and I don't learn from my mistakes. So if it was up to me, there'll be no evolution. So these are just defines from the post medieval part of the site, post medieval phase of the site and various different
00:30:01
Speaker
decorated and plain clay pipes, clay pipe bowls fragment and we know that some of them are made in Doncaster, some of them are brought from other parts of the country pottery which was in fragments but when assembled looked like something like this. This is not medieval, this is I want to be medieval.
00:30:19
Speaker
part of a window and this is it we were found on site it's gothic and no surprise there because we know that when people were building their houses around the site they wanted their houses to look like a castle at that time
Artifacts and Historical Insights
00:30:35
Speaker
okay
00:30:35
Speaker
and there is a massive stone tire grinding stone sharpening stone and loads of animal bone I think yes loads of animal bone and again no surprise there do you remember slaughterhouses and then there is a pen knife just because that's another thing okay
00:30:53
Speaker
We're moving further down, going all the way down to the last turtle. And this is the trench that has got Victorian drain capped, a massive amount of that bowling green wall. Another wall which is, and this is cementation furnace related, all the features, okay? But in the west part of that trench, we didn't have any.
00:31:16
Speaker
Any remains, just a lot of charcoal burned brick that was chucked from the cementation furnace into its yard, I think. We were able to go down and we are now these levels here are medieval. You can see that there is a pit cut into those medieval layers, but here where I am, candles hold still, that's medieval. And we have taken samples and we have processed the samples. Thank you, Liz.
00:31:41
Speaker
and your assistance and we got plant remains to date and from the two layers 1057 and 1076 which means nothing to any of you but they are there those two layers we have got these dates 1042 so 11th to 13th century and 12th to 13th century the amazing things to me with those dates is they are not
00:32:05
Speaker
that 1270 castle there are layers that were brought in or if you want already existing and mixed from the the earlier castle okay so when we were on site we thought okay so everything medieval that we found that it's of any substance and by that i mean robust you know their present is going to be that late 13th century castle but if you look at the day it's there
00:32:36
Speaker
Not a single one. Which is good. I think that's good and that is how archaeology works and that is science and it's not fake news.
00:32:48
Speaker
Another feature which we debated and first of all called medieval and then we changed our mind and we called it post medieval and then we changed the mind again and we called it medieval and now it's set on medieval and used in post medieval times and probably stood there all the way up to 19th century. It's there in the 18th century for sure.
00:33:12
Speaker
it's a wall or if you want it was a cup it's a couple of walls and set of stairs and paved entrance there is a door a wooden door was there okay
00:33:32
Speaker
that is probably this building here or part of this that building there and this is 1700 so 18th century map it's still there and this is just to illustrate this is not the only building that is there if you want the only remains that were there from medieval times found in the 18th and 19th century times or only 18 and 19th century maps there were a few of them and this is just to illustrate that that
00:34:00
Speaker
castle was not completely destroyed, brought down completely to the ground in the mid-17th century during the Civil War. Some of that was destroyed. Some of the stuff was pushed in the big ditch that surrounded the castle, but not all of it. Loads of buildings were still there and being used.
00:34:20
Speaker
In addition to those remains of the buildings, we had a very nice cobbled yard that Ash thinks and I think is absolutely correct was repaired.
00:34:35
Speaker
and maintained and on top of that cobbled yard we have found an ear scoop or if you want a toilet implement that has got an ear scoop on one side and a toothpick on the other side you have to be careful which end goes where.
00:34:51
Speaker
This is part of a of a toiletry set. It usually comes with trees So this is one of them it will come with tweezers and then with nail cleaner as well made of copper copper alloy When we have found before we did the radiocarbon dating that was dated to 13 to 14 century, but we have then dated the soil Around those cobbles and that's 12 to 13 century so that's
00:35:18
Speaker
copper alloy item is probably of that date. But again, this is not 1270, or if you want, that yard was used in a 1270 castle, but it was there prior to that.
00:35:33
Speaker
And then fabulous things such as modern sewage. Right. The next three slides you're going to see are these three trenches that we have positioned on the west side of the site targeting the west arm of the moat. And archaeology works
00:35:51
Speaker
miracles because even when blank trenches when nothing in them archaeologically related we say oh that's a fantastic news this was not particularly great news because these sewage pipes were live but when we have sorted that out it was a great news because this trench this is all modern concrete this is modern inspection pit these are modern sewage pipes this is
00:36:16
Speaker
the geology this is bedrock and I always say yabba-dabba-doo so I must not miss that night this is also bedrock so there is no moat in this trench and that's good and I'll tell you the minute why is that good there's another trench this is now trench eight or whatever it's targeting again that side of the moat and again it's
00:36:37
Speaker
empty of archaeology. These are the pillars concrete bases for the 1950s co-op market. This is just a concrete wall and this is
00:36:51
Speaker
Yeah, but I would do again. So, most know where to be seen. And now for something completely different. Loads of geology, loads of modern disturbance. But look at this. Now I can do this wobbly stuff. Look at that. That's full of rubble. And look at this line.
00:37:10
Speaker
Now that is not geology that is full of something because that's loose, that is filled, that something is filled with all that rubble and that's something that is filled is a corner or if you want a bend of our moat. Why is it hour? Why I'm starting off the moat?
00:37:27
Speaker
My mouth! So anyway, we have emptied that and we have found, because we then projected this line, and because the other two trenches that were north from this one were empty, and the castle is on this side immediately, okay, the remains, we know that the moat is going much wider and we now know that it's under the wane gate rather than running closer to the side. So it's good when we find
00:37:53
Speaker
Nothing that is also good. Don't be disheartened if you find an empty trench. That's the good news. Where we could not put the trenches, we asked Liz and Richard to do some bore hauling and they have done. We have put bore holes across the southern arm of the boat. Should we go back to my beloved model, right? Just for the crack. So the empty trenches were here.
00:38:22
Speaker
one, two and three, and the one that just clipped the corner was here. These boreholes were here and here, and we have two extra trenches, one here and one here. Okay, so what you're looking at now is the line of the boreholes and connecting them, or if you want, when we connected their bases, we have got the profile of the mount.
00:38:48
Speaker
Okay so that dark line is the profile of the moat and these various different things show various different fills but for now I just want to show you how the moat looked its profile there. Now the second transect of the boreholes show the moat
00:39:04
Speaker
its profile slightly different. And that's another news, new news, on the side that moat, when we compare the profiles of the moat and the depth, the width, the position on the ground, if you want, it feels it's not uniform. It's not the same from north to south, if you want, from east to west, okay? It changes. And that's another new news, right?
00:39:34
Speaker
Now, trench 10, that's the one that contained that building that I was telling you. We took cobbled yards. We went all the way down six meters. We haven't reached the bottom of the moat, but we were not far away from it. And we had to do it this way. And this is shoring. And this is the first time that I think as a company, as a unit, we had to do this and to be responsible for that. It's a lot of engineering and an awful lot of health and safety regulations and
00:40:02
Speaker
just awareness to consider because this is exceptionally deep, things collapse, the bottom of the trench is a confined space so we had to measure various different quantities of various different gases and so on and so forth. So the way it worked for new nerds interested in how engineering works is basically that this frame was lowered meter by meter
00:40:27
Speaker
And then these guys, the panels were pushed. So these panels are protecting the sides. This frame is actually pushing them to stay in place. And what we have done, we have done a patchwork recording. So we have excavated meter, recorded sections, push that down, excavated another meter, recording sections, push them down, and so on and so forth. And that was done by Sam. That's Sam.
00:40:52
Speaker
And this photo is just to show that very little change is apart from the fact that buckets are larger, geologists are smaller. That's the difference between then and now.
Reconstructing Sheffield Castle
00:41:04
Speaker
I love this, not only because it answers a lot of questions.
00:41:10
Speaker
i love this because it's a camaraderie section and i'll show you how and why but let me just tell you first of all what you're looking at so that's the profile of the moat this is his west sorry am i talking rubbish yes east bank
00:41:25
Speaker
then we have projected this line because we haven't reached, we stopped there so we have guessed that much because we did some auguring and we think we have the bottom there and that's its profile. This it's clay bank so the west side is not cut into
00:41:41
Speaker
into the geology it's made Okay, and then you can see its medieval fill or if you want medieval fills there this pink This is the 18th century. Sorry 17th century Civil War phase and then various different leveling And also when I I don't know if you remember on one of the size I said it's a very important wall It's a boundary wall. That's that wall there sitting on the very top of the bank and
00:42:11
Speaker
That is this bank and that wall are very, very important because they are the edge, they are the boundary, they are the end of the site. And they were in medieval times. And I'll show you how that looks on the later maps. But why I said this, I love this one in particular, because it's a it's a camaraderie, it's a teamwork trench. Not only that we have lowered Sam down six meters and then left him and then went for a pint. We did.
00:42:38
Speaker
And he survived. Not only that, we have worked with him. We had people looking after him and looking after them and taking things out and putting things back. And it was, I think, something like five guys, five men working on that trench every day.
00:42:56
Speaker
seven, eight hours a day. So from that point of view is that. It's then in the post excavation, Ian and Joanna, our colleagues stitched all these things together guided by Ash's careful interpretation of that. But it's also that we had put together the information from Arcus who remember excavated the trench across that moat. And when we had done that, the description of these
00:43:23
Speaker
uh fields and our description match match perfectly and I just that's how you do stuff now just to show you that line okay so that's that wall
00:43:36
Speaker
under that wall there is the moat bank and that's the boundary line so everything that is to do with castle is this side everything that it's not to do with castle was outside but look at that lane it's a boundary for that lane too and that lane connects shambles and the sheaf and i just think the rest of the blue and red stuff is our trenches and what we have found but i also think that this is just that's just splendid
00:44:03
Speaker
You can also see slaughterhouses that we have found. And I'm just gonna leave that for a minute or two, because I know there are at least a couple of other archaeologists with us tonight. So take a look. It's great. I like when things work. Okay, and now is the trench of my discontent.
00:44:23
Speaker
And that's trench two. And that trench was positioned to find a massive wall apparently and it was perpendicular to it and it was to be there because it's connecting the gatehouse with the rest of the remains that are there. Now there is no that wall, that large wall, there's a bit of a wall-ish, walline as they say in Ireland. And that's Victorian, okay?
00:44:49
Speaker
And again, do you remember I said earlier, it doesn't matter if you find nothing, that's all okay, but this is not nothing. That's just yellow clay with loads of charcoal flakes, but no fines, no medieval pottery, no medieval layers. What is going on there? We don't know. So what we have done, we have dug 1.2 and we dug another 1.2 and then we went get the machine.
00:45:11
Speaker
because we are not stopping here and we had dug 4m deep sandage and the section looks like this. So it's all yellow down and it's not geology, it's not bedrock or anything like that. It has got a nice 45-40 degrees cut.
00:45:29
Speaker
and there is a bluish clay on that and we have analyzed that and dated that and looked and compared with various different other castles and what I bravely say and what is gonna go into the publication that we are doing with the University of Sheffield is that
00:45:46
Speaker
we are looking, I'm looking, and now you're looking at the motte and bailey phase of the castle. And we think that that's part of the lump of the hill that was there. And similarities are direct, parallels are with Oxford Castle Motte, which was, dog there are steps, and then there is a blue clay put on top of that. And you can see that in another trench.
00:46:11
Speaker
nearby, but this is not only wooden earth or wooden clay castle, it was reinforced by there is stone or a line of stones that we have found in situ. Now to show you that burnt wood, it's there. I don't know what I do. Never mind.
00:46:34
Speaker
Here we go, that wood there and that was full of charcoal and seeds and hazelnut shells. These were worked and chopped at an angle.
00:46:50
Speaker
And I just want to show you, if you're not sure what moat and bale or if you're not sure what moat is, that this is from probably world famous tapestry bay. Tapestry that was made 10 years-ish after the Battle of Hastings and depicts five, I think, moat in total. This is one and I like this one because it shows its vulnerability. It shows a platform made of wood and it shows what happens when you throw a few arrows and you
00:47:16
Speaker
set that on fire, but also this one is even better, I think. Here it is. They're doing it, but look, they're doing it even while it's there. And I like that because it also shows repair and building and constant work on the castle.
00:47:38
Speaker
At the same time, just to the north of that trench of my discontent, we had two postholes and the linear features running away from them. Or if you want, these linear features are ending with two postholes. And what you're looking at is an entrance into a building that, again, we now know was on the similar level as River Dawn at the time.
00:48:05
Speaker
And these are the dates that came back from the, what is that, nutshell, yeah, from that trench. We have also dated, then draw, dated a piece of timber that was there, and that came no later than 13th century. So we are looking at the early phases of the castle. Of course, we have to be careful that it is reused and not reused, that sort of stuff. But comparing the levels,
00:48:33
Speaker
of that blue clay and the the other yellowish clay in the other trenches and this they're on the same level and they return very very same similar dates okay so that is what we have the finds that come from
00:48:48
Speaker
medieval phase medieval phases on the site Just to illustrate a few nicely dressed stones, which we have found in that ditch in the moat the world-famous either scoop Medieval pottery some of them and there is that's how it's reconstructed now. This is a session where which is in use up to sometime 1600s, but I'm just showing you that because I believe you can see this joke in the Bishop's house, which is New Year's Book Park and you can go in and have a look
00:49:19
Speaker
that's that that is a brilliant building and beautiful building and part of Tudor part of medieval Sheffield if you want so there's just for illustration yes
00:49:30
Speaker
Now, in summary, what is it? What is new? There is no evidence of any Anglo-Saxon structure. Now, I said that because that is the narrative and that is the question. It was one of the questions that we have asked ourselves and we were asked that is what Armstrong and Butcher and Hinsworth and Bartlett said they have, but they
00:49:50
Speaker
didn't really have that pottery which we now know is early medieval rather than Anglo-Saxon. Let me also just say that
Remaining Questions and Future Research
00:49:57
Speaker
we have found fragments of Anglo-Saxon pottery but we have not found Anglo-Saxon secured layers or features or any Anglo-Saxon structures.
00:50:07
Speaker
I think there is evidence of modern Bailey. There is evidence of heavy landscaping across the site. Everything is pushed, pulled, moved, leveled. There is evidence of wall on the staircase from the same face as the gatehouse. We know that comparing the levels again. Now going to that ditch, large ditch around the castle. Line of the west moat is under modern rain gate. West moat is deep sided. South corner of it is dry. South moat is dry.
00:50:35
Speaker
That is another new thing, because wherever you look, even on my own private castle, that's all full of water, and we think that moats are always full of water. This one might have been some parts of it, but these that we have tested in excavation would definitely dry. We have ostracotes, and people who study archaeology and are younger and with healthier brains, shims and algae.
00:51:04
Speaker
We have tested them, we analyzed them and they came back as something that lived in shallow polluted waters rather than deep running waters. So that's how we know that although there were puddles there that was not managed and it wasn't deep and it wasn't running water.
00:51:21
Speaker
Okay, we know that these modes bank, one of these is got in the bedroom, the other one is clay bank, and that the arms were not of the same construction. And it's very possible that the mode is one of the earliest, if not the earliest feature on the site, and it might be that it's a paleo-channel first, and then the paleo-channel used to be a bigger, deeper ditch.
00:51:45
Speaker
evidence of damage but not complete demolition of castle during the civil war, medieval buildings which are surviving into later periods, evidence of boiling green, series of slaughterhouses and steelworks. Now these things were ignored by
00:52:00
Speaker
not by Arcus, but by previous recorders, previous excavators, partly because they were there to find medieval Sheffield Castle, and I think partly to be fair from them that they were not that much removed from the 19th and early 20th century. So that wasn't archeology for them. It was something that it was every day. And the biggest difference, I think, of all is that only in 2018,
00:52:28
Speaker
Excavation was the involvement of the... What does this sentence mean? Who was written now? Oh my word! We have involved an awful lot of people. Yeah, exactly. And volunteers. And this was not the case in 2001 with Arcus or late 90s. And most certainly it wasn't the case in the early 20th century.
00:52:47
Speaker
And I like this photo because it's a time capsule. This is the only place or was the only place where you could see the entire history of Sheffield from the geology, true medieval features, post-medieval pits, post-medieval activities, industrial stuff, Victorian drains, Bowling Green, cementation furnaces, 20th century concrete and 21st century Sheffield. Yeah, it's great, isn't it?
00:53:17
Speaker
It's a pity that it's such a blah photo, but it's brilliant. Now, what is it that we still don't know and how we might find that out? We haven't a clue what Mary thought about all that. But does it matter? We don't really know how the castle looked.
00:53:34
Speaker
And I now think it's probably a combination of these two with loads of adjustments. Now, I just also want to be very, very respectful and fair to people who have made these two reconstructions. This is the latest one from the University of Sheffield. Everyone there have done their best shot. It is exceptionally difficult to know how something looked ages ago, and especially if you want to go into detail.
00:54:00
Speaker
Okay, so we can laugh and we can go and say oh look this is Roman and this didn't exist it's kind of nice from the comfort of our Armchair and Google Drive and all sorts of different things, but it's not easy So I think that all these guys have done exceptionally good job
00:54:17
Speaker
We don't know how that looked and we don't know who were the real people that were in the castle. Were they just made of Lego or they were actually there? I mean, we know that nobles and lords and ladies were there, but who were the people who were there most of the time? Because you have to remember that Sheffield Castle was just one of the residences of all those people that were not there all the time. I bet they were not there during the winter.
00:54:40
Speaker
who is in Sheffield Castle during the winter? Who would want to be in Sheffield Castle during the winter? So they traveled around, but who were those people who were maintaining the castle? What was actually happening in the castle? What was going on? Where was the material coming from? Was there local potteries or have they been all imported from and where from and so on and so forth? So there are an awful lot of questions that we haven't answered, but we can. That's me that I'm done.
00:55:10
Speaker
No, that's okay. Thank you. I think the very short answer to that and simple answer is collaboration. It's this sort of stuff, dissemination. Talk about that. Don't be stingy. Share your information.
00:55:25
Speaker
tell people what you have found, publish, publish, go write what you have found and share that not only in this country but internationally and try to find out what is it that was going on. So it's not that difficult, it's complicated, demanding and hard work, but it isn't difficult. So that was a talk on Sheffield Castle.
Conclusion and Contact Information
00:55:50
Speaker
Thank you for listening to Archeology in Ale. For more information about our podcast and guest speaker, please visit our page on the Archeology Podcast Network. You can get in touch with us at Archeology in the City on Facebook, WordPress, Instagram, or Twitter. If you have any questions or comments, we'd love to hear from you. Next month, our talk will be Lofton and the Landscapes of Conquest by Duncan Wright. See you next time.
00:56:19
Speaker
This show is produced by the Archaeology Podcast Network, Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle, in Reno, Nevada at the Reno Collective. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.