From July 4th to 25th 2009, a team of archaeologists from the Universities of Leicester, Exeter and Oxford - collaborating on an AHRC-funded research project - excavated in three areas of the market town of Wallingford in Oxfordshire.

Welcome to the site diary! This is set up to report on the investigations and results as they happen. It will be updated every day, with news of archaeological discoveries and pictures of finds and unfolding evidence. Click an image below to enter the site diaries --->

Wallingford is one of Britain's finest medieval townscapes. The town boasts perhaps the best example of a Saxon town bank, as well as a planned street network that is over 1000 years old, and the earthworks of an important royal castle.   The Wallingford Burh to Borough Research Project is a venture that aims to further understand this unique centre.  Organised between staff from the Universities of Leicester, Exeter and Oxford and supported by key local bodies (South Oxfordshire District Council, Wallingford  Town Council, Oxfordshire County Archaeology, Northmoor Trust, Wallingford Historical and Archaeological Society and Wallingford Museum (TWHAS), plus Reading and Ashmolean Museums), the project (with roots in a pilot project from 2002-05) has Arts and Humanities Research Council  funding for 2008-2010 enabling us to extend our archaeological work to explore more fully the crucial archaeological potential of Wallingford in the context of early medieval and medieval British town growth and development. Our funding also allows for full analysis of unpublished major 1960s and 1970s excavations at the castle site.  The first phase of work on our Project took place in 2008 with new geophysical survey in various sectors of the town in Easter, followed up by large excavations in July-August at the Kinecroft, Bullcroft and in Castle Meadows. Hopefully many of you came to see the excavations and hear of the finds, which included a 12^th-century medieval house at the Kinecroft (plus the belt piece illustrated above) and a likely 17^th-century Civil War rampart outside the castle.

Project Aims 

The central academic research objective of the Wallingford Burh to Borough Research Project is to develop a major case study of the evolution of a medieval townscape whose archaeological potential renders it of international significance. More specifically, the Project seeks to illuminate urban transformation between c. AD 800-1300 – the crucial period of urban renewal and growth, spanning Saxon and Norman periods – through mapping the above- and below-ground archaeology of the small yet well-preserved medieval defended town of Wallingford, and to use these data as a framework to contextualise new information derived from targeted excavations and documentary analysis. This research programme will enable detailed modelling of urban processes, including town origins (from Roman borrowings to Saxon burh); early medieval growth and urban roles; and medieval transformation (castle imposition, urban redefinition and decline) and demographics. Close scrutiny of Wallingford, which, crucially, is largely unencumbered by modern urban expansion, offers potential to stimulate wider national and international debates on medieval urbanism.

• What are the historical contexts of Wallingford's origins, rise and growth and subsequent medieval decay?  How full is the documentation for AD 850-1550?   What do we so far know archaeologically?

   

• What can be gleaned from such data and from the extant plan of early medieval and medieval urban growth and evolution?

   

• What was the nature of the late Saxon town and what preceded this?

   

• What are the evolutions of the castle and its complex array of earthworks; are these all defensive? And what can be determined of the features underlying these?

   

• What features underlie the modern intramural open spaces of the Bullcroft and Kinecroft – do they preserve traces of Saxon and medieval housing and public space?

Aims for 2009

Following results of geophysical surveys in April this year, our second season of excavations targets three important zones of Wallingford:

1.      the Kinecroft, to continue examination of the medieval houses, street and yards traced in 2008, to tackle their origins and fate

2.      Wallingford School just outside the old town to the north, where an old road line has been identified

3.      the Castle, the hub of medieval Wallingford, continuding the work of 2008, to consider its relationship with the old Saxon defences, and to understand something of its internal workings.

Saturdays and Sundays will have public tours available and hands-on of materials; but do ask us at any time what we are working on and finding or hoping to find! There will be family days for children to have a go in the trench!

The work is with staff and students from Leicester and Exeter Universities, alongside volunteers from the Wallingford History and Archaeology Society and Museum, at the Castle we are also working with the Northmoor Trust.

Wallingford Museum will be hosting exhibitions, posters and some finds from our studies.

keep a eye on the news for upcoming family events  

Castle Meadows trench 2008

Our trenches are all sited to test anomalies and features identified through a combination of geophysical surveys undertaken this Easter and in previous seasons , and through survey of earthworks: they indicate buried features, such as ditches, pits, walls or robbed structures; as we cannot date these simply from their form (although shapes and sizes can betray an approximate chronology), so excavation enable us better scope to answer whether they relate to the Anglo-Saxon burh, to earlier activities, to medieval expansion, or post-medieval modifications.  Finds such as pottery and animal bones will guide us on dates and economies.  All periods are of interest to us as all belong to showing how Wallingford began, developed and has continued to evolve. We hope you will come and find out how well we are piecing together these different pasts of the town.