From the mud to the Museum for the Bury Common finds

In the second part of our coverage of the Bury Common dig, Pulse’s Sammy Jones talks to the archaeologists responsible for revealing Newport Pagnell’s forgotten history…

Anna Wolf was the lead archaeologist for the exploration. Munich-based, she works for the Milton Keynes arm of Cotswold Archaeology, but flew in specifically to head up this dig, which gleaned some nice finds.

“In terms of results it has been really positive, we have confirmed that the Civil War defences do match the historic mapping and are basically what you’d expect – nice big ditch, we’ve got a bit of a rampart, and a track road behind it connecting the bastions, so that has been really nice just to get into that – especially getting access to Trench 1. It is part of the scheduled monument, so to be able to get in there took a long time and discussions with Historic England to get the permission. That in itself was exciting,” Anna said.

This particular dig had the same importance as any other, but with less of the pressures.

“We don’t often get the opportunity to do purely community based digging for the interest of finding out what is in the area,” said Anna, “Most of what we do is development led and with very tight deadlines in advance of housing or commercial development, so it’s really nice to do this and get the community involved.”

And with more than 70 members of the public rolling up their sleeves and taking part, it was a valuable dig on many levels.
Generally speaking, is it easy to get access to do your work, or is there a lot of red tape that makes the process tricky?

“It’s a lot easier than it used to be because a lot of what we do has been built into the planning system and legally developers are obliged to let us come in to fund our work. So in those terms it has become a lot easier to get in and do archaeology, and to do it in a way that does it justice. Now it is all built into the process and there are fines and sanctions in place for any developers who try to get around it.
“It has become much easier since all that planning legislation was introduced in the last decade.”

Bury Common might be different, but it is absolutely worthy of attention – and some people travelled long distances to get hands-on.
“It is hugely significant for our understanding of the local history, and significant in the sense that until now no-one has had a proper look at some of the Civil War defences here.

“And until very recently no-one had any idea that the Roman site even existed, so being able to confirm that it was definitely real, that ‘yes’ there was definitely something there and it is all fairly well preserved… that’s been massive.”

Investigations took place in three trenches during the week-long dig; two near the Parks Avenue entrance to the common, which included the fortifications which were built in 1644.

The other site, further into the Common, had already been identified as a site of particular interest.

“We have put some memorial benches in for the loyal and noble people of Newport Pagnell, and when they were going in, the workman had found pottery underneath the soil – literally just under the surface, six or nine inches down,” said Common Chairman Andrew Craddock.
“We knew there was some sort of settlement, but we couldn’t date it, so we’ve used things like ‘Iron Age’ ‘Anglo Roman’ ‘Anglo Saxon’ – that’s 1000 years of history.

“Imagine my excitement on the Monday morning when we got the digger and the authorised guy from the archaeological team had his metal detector out and said, ‘I’ve got a coin – and it’s a Roman coin!” he smiled, delighted at the recent memory.

“Then we found some Roman pottery, so we are pretty much convinced AD100-300, second and third century of Roman occupation, there was some sort of settlement there.”

Rachel Alexander and Mathilde Laval Karlsen had focused their attention on this particular trench.
“A geophysical survey picked up magnetic disturbances in the soil, and brought up all the archaeology, so we picked the area that we thought was the most interesting,” Mathilde said.

And the excavation yielded results.
“We’ve pulled out quite a lot of pottery, which is always nice, so there are plenty of finds for dating,” she added.
Standing in the trench among a number of dug out areas, Rachel is quite at home. It’s not so easy to fathom what has been happening to those of us without the expertise. Apparently, it’s all about slots and interventions.

“We do relationship slots, so if we have two ditches that cross, we want to know which one is later and which one is earlier, what we call trouser leg slots, and you might be able to catch what is later.

“There is a lot of tactical planning, but this one has been quite easy – a few profile slots, a few relationship slots and then the two terminus slots. In between the terminuses we think we’ve got a layer of trample material from where everyone has walked through over the years…” Quite literally tracing our ancestors’ footsteps…

What makes the work so interesting – what’s the lure for you?
“The fact that you have picked up something that has not been touched for 2000 years or so,” she smiled, “I found a lovely metal iron arrowhead last week, at Sizewell, where the nuclear power station is.

“We’re doing all the archaeology for the next power station and there is just so much down there, it’s crazy. I’ve also found a skeleton with a ring on their finger in the past.”

No skeletons surfaced during this dig, but there were some animal bones released from their muddy resting spots, displayed in the finds tent: “These examples are cattle, but we’ve also potentially got some goat, sheep and maybe even pig, which is fairly standard,” Anna said.

“They could have been butchered, or they might have just died. Probably both,” Anna considered, “We would have had a relatively self sufficient little farmstead with a single family unit living there,” she said, nodding in the direction of that trench, “… and they would have been using the livestock for everything – at some point they would have slaughtered as well.”

There were other remnants left by those who lived here many centuries ago, including part of a little cooking pot, still with one of its feet intact, thought to be from the 1700s.

But some of the oldest finds have secrets of their own waiting to be revealed: “The oldest at the moment based on very preliminary findings are some bits of Iron Age pottery, and you can see those little burnt bits of food residue,” she said, pointing them out, “For us, that is hugely exciting.”

That it has survived so well, Anna tells me, is down to how well it is burned onto the pottery and the excellent soil chemistry: “It is very nice and gravelly and sandy in that area – very well drained, which helps with preservation because it doesn’t get waterlogged and doesn’t start to break down.”

Those finds are now being examined and reported on by the team at Cotswold Archaeology.

“We live in a new city, but there is still so much waiting to be discovered from our history,” said Museum director Bill Griffiths, “The Bury Common excavations prove just how much more there is to learn. We had such little evidence of the Civil War, despite knowing that the area played a key part locally, so this proved particularly exciting.

“We look forward to receiving the finds here at the Museum and ensuring their survival for future generations.”

Milton Keynes Museum is one of the best interactive museums, a perfect outing for all ages, staffed by friendly volunteers, and highly recommended by visitors on TripAdvisor. This feature was written by Milton Keynes Museum. Find out more about forthcoming events and see our opening times at: miltonkeynesmuseum.org.uk