Ö÷²¥´óÐã

Ancient and Archaeology  permalink

English Heritage Castles

• Message 1. 

  Posted by BHsearcher (U14860623) on Sunday, 5th June 2011

  Visited a few castles recently that are owned / managed by English Heritage, making the most of the good weather with the family.
  
  Whilst waking around these monuments it occured to me just how neatly manicured the grassed areas are within the castle walls, and how pristine most of it all is.
  Clearly there are signs indicating the layout and function of certain buildings within the castles, and what role they performed etc during the castles heydey, but my question is, do you think any real archaeology remains?
  
  By this I mean does English Heritage have a policy of excavating a castles interior prior to managing it, in order to archaeologically excavate the site properly and record finds?
  Ive done quite a bit of research on the internet and despite my best efforts cannot find any academic papers or accounts of excavations being carried out in all the castles Ive visited, and there were five of them in the North of England.
  
  Surely there must be a wealth of archaeology in these sites, so do they excavate or simply landscape garden the lot?
  
  Cheers,
  
  Nick

  Link to this forum: English Heritage Castles

  Report message1

• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by glen berro (U8860283) on Monday, 6th June 2011

  There seems to have been archaeological research - continuing at Bamburgh - at the first two Northumbrian castles I googled.
  
  
  
  
  
  I doubt that the whole interior of any castle could be investigated thoroughly before being taken over by a new curator, which is just as well, in that areas remain to be investigated using new techniques, as at Barry Cunliffe's Danebury dig, where I believe he deliberately left promising areas untouched as he thought that future archaeologists might learn more than he could. I suppose this was based on knowledge of haphazard digging in the past destroying importance evidence. Was Arthur Evans unjustly accused of this?
  
  glen

  Link to this forum: English Heritage Castles

  Report message2

• Message 3

  , in reply to message 2.

  Posted by MB (U177470) on Saturday, 25th June 2011

  I went on a special guided tour of a local (Scottish) castle conducted by some people from Historic Scotland. They showed where a burial had been found during some exploratory work for drainage work. They would like to work elsewhere but it seemed only likely if any archaeological surveys were done before drainage, conservation etc. I suspect that many English Heritage sites are similar and only likely to be investigated prior to other work.
  
  MB

  Link to this forum: English Heritage Castles

  Report message3

• Message 4

  , in reply to message 3.

  Posted by Penske666 (U9181113) on Tuesday, 26th July 2011

  The Ministry of Works maimed many of their projects in the 1950's so maybe if you're lucky remains will lie under the grass - otherwise they'll be dumped nearby

  Link to this forum: English Heritage Castles

  Report message4

• Message 5

  , in reply to message 4.

  Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Wednesday, 27th July 2011

  I think the only credible reasons for fully excavating any site today are the all too frequent cases where development is scheduled to destroy it - and the proposed new planning rules will make that an even more common situation, and cases where natural or man-made disturbance (e.g. coastal erosion) will destroy the site or the artefacts it contains.

  Link to this forum: English Heritage Castles

  Report message5

• Message 6

  , in reply to message 5.

  Posted by stalti (U14278018) on Tuesday, 2nd August 2011

  i am a complete amateur archeaologist interested by the time team programme - before that i was a knowledge - nil
  
  what i cant understand is when time team want to investigate a site and british heritage say only certain trenches can be dug so the site can be saved for future history
  
  if it wasnt for tt there would be no future history - and it wont be done anyway
  
  st

  Link to this forum: English Heritage Castles

  Report message6

• Message 7

  , in reply to message 6.

  Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Tuesday, 2nd August 2011

  Hi stalti,
  Archaeological excavation is often called an unrepeatable experiment because once something has been dug up, it has been destroyed. If a site cannot be excavated properly, which is a long, slow process, it is much better that it be left alone as long as it is not threatened by something like development or natural erosion. Time Team has a limited time to carry out their investigation and English Heritage has a statutory obligation to protect sites that are Scheduled as being of national significance so they are reluctant to give permission if they feel it would not be beneficial.
  Modern archaeologists often wish that many of the places that had been dug in the past had been left until the techniques and technology that we have today were available, we would have learned so much more. Many of the things we consider important today, environmental samples and some types of artefacts were just not considered to be important enough to keep and the excavators' records were not nearly detailed enough.
  These techniques are bound to get better and better and one day it may not be necessary to do large scale excavation at all except in very special circumstances, since the technology is becoming so much more advanced and our ability to 'see' below the soil improving all the time..

  Link to this forum: English Heritage Castles

  Report message7

Back to top