Cousland Big Dig : day 7

Working in a COusland going down and down…  working in a Cousland.. 

The tune whistles through my head!  Fortuantely not the Chris Rea tune that somebody has now tried to place there! 

 

Trench 4 does indeed strike lucky (ish)  and finds the robber trench of the rear wall of the House ( a later addition to the castle)  where Mary Queen of Scots is taken after the Battle of Carberry!)  however, it is becoming clear that the entire area is covered in a thick layer of redeposited natural and clay…  and that what was once a rocky out crop has been turned into a quarry for the walls of the walled garden. 

In teh image below you can see the mass of white…  whcih is indeed ( in technical terms) a bleeding great big hole!  Somebody stole our castle!

More interesting though is the material in the dump…  it contains early 18th C pottery and some Kiln furniture…  which suggests it comes from the pottery site we investigated in November..   More signs of a massive industrial scale piece of work!

So that means the geofizz is correct..

The HLF turn up as well…  and we should be proud that they saw this as a model for Our Heritage Grants…  impressed by the commitment…  impressed by the range of skills people learn, from drawing to survey, from photography to research…  and the range of people involved…   it has been shown to be a great success…  and tommorrow is out BIG open day!    Pray for sun! 

 

Cousland Big Dig : day 6

Right…  where are we!

Oh yes…  scraping down and down onto an orangy clayey silt!

Trenches 1 and 3 and now returfed - though why oh why does the turf not fit!  we end up with enough left over to turf another trench!

Trench 2 (the castle trench) continues down, with a plaintive cry of, the castle wall, must be here somewhere!  A mound of rubble fragments seems to come from a later collapse.  Hard Hats on everyone!

Trenches 4 and 5 are opened to cope with the numbers of people now on site..  aged 4 - 82… 

We are starting to get a feeling that the 1700s saw a MASSIVE bit of demolition and even the removal of all teh bedrock that the castle sat on!  …  This is what its all about!

 

 

Cousland Big Dig : day 5

WEll, I get to catch up with the paperwork!  and plans, and finds and photos!  YE archaeology is more than just digging holes.

 The Historian Louise Yeoman came to teh village to share her research, and teach people where to find information.

 Our two big stories are the Ruthvens/Gowries  and the part that Cousland played in Scottish History..  quite a bit it seems!

Mary Queen of Scots is one (as I talked about in a previous post…  and the Gowrie Conspiricy..

Although the Gowrie conspiracy is shrouded in mystery, three solutions have been proposed. Firstly, that Gowrie and his brother lured King James (at that time king only of Scotland) to Gowrie House for the purpose of either murdering or kidnapping him, that James paid a surprise visit to Gowrie House with the intention of murdering the two Ruthvens, or that the events were the outcome of an unpremeditated brawl between the king and the earl, or his brother.  It took place on the 5th August 1600, and signaled a collapse of the family fortune.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ruthven,_3rd_Earl_of_Gowrie

 We also learned about the Rizzio murder, where our man from Cousland appears in a nightdress + full armour.. and the witch hunts, where it seems the unfortunate women were held within the castle walls - before execution.

Dark times…  we hope to at least be able to show where the buildings were, and a date for teh construction of each structure..  we are carrying out detailed building recording as well.

 Looks like a cold day for day 6! 

Cousland Big Dig : day 4

WEll it was time to fill in trenches 1 and 3 in some severe weather…  but at least I have found that my body is stil up to the task of shoveling spoil and returfing! 

We opened up the castle trench, and have uncovered a rubble layer that stops sharply along a line.  This could represent collapse inside the castle prior to the wall being robbed..  At least we know we should find a castle.  See the picture below!

 

 Wednesday is a day of rest!  and the Historian will come in to explain the history behind the place.

Cousland Big Dig day 3

Our Historian Louise Yeoman has been working tirelessly, and on Wednesday will be presenting findings to the group, as well as showing them how to study documentary evidence.  One amazing fact that she has pointed us to is that Mary Queen of Scots mounted her horse near to Carberry Hill East Lothian. in 1547 after the non-battle of Carberry and surrendered to the Confederate Lords (of which Lord Ruthven was a major player - even involved in the murder of Rizzio) where she was taken and held at near by Cousland Castle over night where they decided her fate.  

With this evidence, we now know the castle was still standing, and that the larger structure that we are now examining was standing at this time, and with luck, we should have the lower rooms mapped out for the open day on Saturday..  this will allow us to point to the place where this event in Scottish (and UK) history actually took place..    tell you what!   I love Community Archaeology!

The kids from teh village and all teh others are working hard, and the day was pleasant, made better when the first evidence of the collapsed castle wall started to appear!  

Lets hope that day 4 (april the 1st) does not make a fool of us!

 better than Stonehenge!

Cousland Big Dig : day 2

A hard hard morning of rain and sleet..  and………  the inevitable ……….!

 Any signs of the greenhouse.? not a sausage.

 neither did we get anything in the garden feature trench.

 However .  lack of evidence is not actually a bad thing, as it does start to expain exactly what did and did not happen there.

It is clear that teh greenhosue did exist, and teh fittings and fragments of wood give mute evidence for it’s construction, but the demolition seems complete.  It is also clear that a massive leveling layer of clay, topped with drainage deposit of mixed soils with limestone fragments then a topsoil covers the whole of teh walled garden.

We open the castle trench and are now hopeful (oh yes)  that the missing side wall can be traced, letting us know the full size of the structure is..

The East Lothian YAC enjoyed the day as well..  So the only way is up!

Cousland Day 1

Well, that was a hard day…  sun rain, sleet, wind, sun, rain, more rain…

and fortunately the folks from AOC archaeology came along to help…  though I have reason to believe that one person will be coming next weekend..  :)  won’t you Gilrean? 

opened up Tr 1 the glasshouse tench…    er….   nuffink so far!   (thanks Midlothian YAC) 

 opened Tr 3 the garden feature …  um…   stoney ground… 

 geofizz in the upper fields…  er…  nothing

 the Detectorists …  something!   though not that much…  but we did get something..  including my fave..  a gun money coin.. Gunmoney is a token coinage issued by James during his Irish campaigns against William III (William of Orange). The coins are made from brass which was salvaged from many sources including church bells, but probably not cannons - from which the name derives.

Gunmoney was a token issue and the intention to redeem it with silver coin following James’s success - the coins (except the crowns) are dated by month as well as year - this was to facilitate the orderly redemption of the brass coinage.  As we are aware ..  things did not go exactly to plan!

 One problem facing James was lack of funds to support the army he headed. James established mints at Dublin and Limerick and issued a token coinage consisting of Crowns, Halfcrowns, Shillings, and sixpence. These were struck in 1689 and 1690, bearing not only the year but also the month of manufacture. The coins were to be redeemed by his followers in Sterling, and with interest, when he re-took the throne. The month placed on the “coins” was to aid him in knowing how long the piece had been held, and what to pay.

They were first struck from metal obtained from obsolete field cannons, thus the term “Gunmoney” - though any metal he could get was fair game, and many were struck using bells, cooking pots, pans, and scrap. Later issues were reduced in size because of this shortage, and many pieces were overstruck on other tokens and coins, as well as struck in pewter - this latter being quite rare today.

The calendar in use at the time was what is called “old style” - or OS - where the new year started on March 26th. Thus, the tokens struck in March 1689 and those struck in March 1690 were actually struck in the same month.

William, installed on the throne of England as William III, invaded Ireland and defeated James at the Battle of Boyne River. He seized the mint at Dublin, eventually demonetizing the token coinage in 1691. The mint at Limerick held out for James well into 1691, and continued to coin “Gunmoney” in its smaller forms until late that year. James fled to France, and died there in exile.

  

Last Day of Council - First Day of Community Project

Well, I give up my council job today.. back to normal… Its not so much going to another job, its just getting rid of one of four!

This means I can concentrate on BAJR, Past Horizons, CHC consultants. Start the Cousland Big Dig tommorrow at 10am…

It is however pouring with rain! oh the joy of digging in Scotland!

will keep you updated day by day!

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Reburial for Anglo Saxon remains

About 3,000 skeletons are to be reburied in an Anglo-Saxon ceremony at a North Lincolnshire church where they were discovered almost 30 years ago.

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/humber/7283445.stm

A spokesman for English Heritage said the service on Friday evening would be spoken in Anglo Saxon, as a mark of respect.

Thoughts? Act of respect or shameless stunt?

I tend to agree with the concept though… but what about the Neolithic and Bronze Age bodies… do we carry out ceremonies we don’t know in a language we don’t know?

hum……………