Every Spring the Society publishes a journal which we call our Transactions. Usually 250-300 pages in length, its main contents are reports of archaeological excavations and articles of historical research. Taking one year with another, we keep a balance between Bristol and Gloucestershire and between archaeology and other topics. Articles are peer-reviewed before publication. Abstracts of the articles in recent issues follow this introduction. In addition the 'Archaeological Review' is a highly-regarded feature. It presents brief summaries of research and fieldwork during the year. It is the only comprehensive survey of current archaeological activity in Bristol and Gloucestershire. The Transactions also includes a classified list of recent publications with reviews of some of the books, a summary of additions to the Gloucestershire county archives and a review of the activities of the Society. Articles to be considered for publication should be sent to the Editor, James Lee, History Department, University of the West of England (UWE), St Matthias Campus, Oldbury Road, Bristol BS16 2JP.
Notes for Contributors may be downloaded here as a PDF file.
Roger H. Leech, ‘Arthur’s Acre: a Saxon bridgehead at Bristol’ (pp. 11–20).
In his presidential address Professor Leech proposed that an enigmatic rental copied into the Little Red Book of Bristol, and dated by its editor to the 14th century, provides a street directory of the area immediately to the south of Bristol bridge. He argues that the area, known as Arthur’s Fee (later Arthur’s Acre), represents the vestige of an enclosed urban settlement that protected the southern approaches to the bridge that gave Bristol its name.
Alex Brown, ‘Mid-Holocene Vegetation History and Human Impact in the Middle Severn Estuary: palaeoenvironmental data from the coastal submerged forest at Woolaston, Gloucestershire’ (pp. 21–43).
A sequence of mid-Holocene peats and estuarine silts exposed along the intertidal zone at Woolaston represent the gradual infilling of a palaeovalley running broadly NW–SE. Radiocarbon and dendrochronological dates suggest that the sediments accumulated over a period from c.5775–3640 cal BC. Pollen, charcoal and plant macrofossil analysis provide a detailed record of vegetation change, characterised by a long-lived phase of alder carr-woodland (c.5775 to 4700 cal BC), reedswamp, then saltmarsh (c.4700 to 4220–3980 cal BC), followed by a return to reed swamp and alder carr-woodland. Throughout this period, the adjacent dry ground was dominated by woodland in which lime was an important component. Oak trees from the upper submerged forest produced a 397 year dendrochronological sequence (4096–3699 BC), representing a long-lived component of the wetland-edge flora. Evidence for probable anthropogenic impact is apparent in the form of increases in microscopic and macroscopic charcoal. The results are set in the context of the author’s research on intertidal sites in the middle and outer Severn Estuary. The evidence corresponds to a more extensive exploitation of the intertidal margins during the late Mesolithic and early Neolithic than has previously been realised.
Hugo Lamdin-Whymark, Kate Brady and Alex Smith, ‘Excavation of a Neolithic to Roman Landscape at Horcott Pit near Fairford, Gloucestershire, in 2002 and 2003’ (pp. 45–131).
Excavations on the second Thames gravel terrace at Horcott Pit revealed evidence for occupation stretching from the early Neolithic to the Roman period. The large number of Neolithic features identified is noteworthy, small groups of pits being found throughout the excavation area, some containing structured deposits. There is strong evidence of woodland in the middle Neolithic, with all other periods seemingly having open grassland conditions. Limited scatters of early, middle and late Bronze-Age features were found across the site, although the character and extent of activity in those periods is difficult to ascertain. Part of a dispersed, open settlement dating to the late Bronze Age/earliest Iron Age was excavated. In the early Iron Age the settlement was abandoned and the local landscape radically altered, with the focus of occupation shifting to the north. A substantial enclosure constructed there contained zones of roundhouses, pits and fourpost structures and acted as a focus for a system of field boundary ditches stretching away to the south-east along the terrace edge. The settlement had ceased by the end of the middle Iron Age, and the final phase of activity on site is represented by a 2nd–3rd-century AD trackway and a broadly contemporary parallel ditch.
Jo Vallender, ‘Archaeological excavation adjacent to the Tanners’ Hall, Gloucester, in 1997 and 1998’ (pp. 133–195).
Between November 1997 and March 1998 Gloucestershire County Council Archaeology Service undertook an archaeological excavation on the site of Stage 1B of the inner relief road between Hare Lane and Worcester Street in Gloucester. Following the excavation archaeological monitoring was carried out during works to connect the new road to the existing carriageways. The site produced extensive evidence of Roman, medieval and post-medieval activity. The Roman phases were represented by road surfaces, ditches, structures and an area thought to be associated with iron working. Later activity was represented by possible early medieval settlement, not thought to be associated with the extensive tanning recorded for the later medieval period. Although tanning activity continued during the early post-medieval period, most archaeological evidence, including medieval remains, was removed from the site before the construction, in the late 18th/early19th century of a large house (Worcester Lawn) that was demolished at the start of the 20th century.
Stephen Thompson and Robert Armour Chelu, ‘A Roman Villa Complex at Withington, Gloucestershire’ (pp. 197–204).
In August 2005 the Time Team television programme investigated the Roman villa complex at Withington. The villa is most famous for the investigations of Samuel Lysons in 1811 which recorded the Orpheus mosaic that was subsequently removed and donated to the British Museum. Time Team’s investigation focussed on three areas: the villa building, an adjacent field from which Roman material had been found and an area known locally as Withington Upon Wall-Well. Within the limitations of a three-day project, Time Team produced significant new information about the villa complex. This included the identification of a substantial Roman building partly used as a bath-house. Unsurprisingly the main villa building had suffered some degree of degradation since Lysons’s excavations. Geophysical survey demonstrated that the Roman buildings were set within a landscape of enclosures, boundaries and trackways stretching from the upper slopes of the valley down to the river Coln.
Richard Osgood, ‘The First Badminton House: discovery of a Late Roman mosaic in South Gloucestershire’ (pp. 205–213).
In the summer of 2003 a local archaeological group uncovered the remains of an almost complete late Roman mosaic on the land of the duke of Beaufort at Badminton. Over the next few weeks a remarkable pavement was revealed. Funds from the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society and South Gloucestershire Council enabled a photographic survey of this site in 2004 before it was once again covered over. This paper reveals the results of this work.
David H. Higgins, ‘A Possible Late Saxon Sculptural Tribute to St Jordan of Bristol: “Christ Preaching in Limbo” otherwise “The Harrowing of Hell” bas-relief in Bristol Cathedral’ (pp. 215–233).
The large bas-relief in question, now displayed to advantage in the south transept of Bristol cathedral, is fundamentally reconsidered in the light of structural evidence in the stone and recent research on Jordan, the 7th-century Anglo-Saxon missionary ‘preaching saint’ of Bristol. New hypotheses are offered as to the precise circumstances of the bas-relief’s discovery or, more properly, its rediscovery in the aftermath of the Bristol Riots of 1831, its form (its idiosyncratic taper perhaps Irish in origin), its function (as the historiated end panel of St Jordan’s shrine within his chapel on College Green), its iconography (as one of two conventional medieval representations of the anastasis), its theological theme (Christ as redemptive praedicator) and its dating (the second half of the 11th century is proposed). Finally, the relationship of the masterpiece to that fraught century (the Millennium) is considered, both as regards the sculpture’s ‘message’ for the Christian congregations and the patronage which vouchsafed it to the youthful town: donors probably the rising mercantile family of the Hardings, later founders of Bristol’s abbey of St Augustine, St Jordan’s master.
Christopher Dyer and David Aldred, ‘Changing Landscape and Society in a Cotswold Village: Hazleton, Gloucestershire, to c.1600’ (pp. 235–270).
This investigation of the development of the landscape, settlement and people of the Cotswold parish of Hazleton (near Northleach) uses a variety of techniques, including earthwork survey, fieldwalking, aerial photography, architectural study, place-name analysis and documentary research The prehistoric and Roman background is investigated, and provides a context for the formation of the village. The village and its territory are seen as a product of the second half of the first millennium, after which it grew up to c.1300. Then followed a sharp decline in population, but complete disaster was avoided, and the land of the village which at its height supported thirty families, was concentrated into the hands of six substantial tenants.W. John Lyes, ‘Bristol’s Law Societies 1661 to 1945’ (pp 271–291).
Attorneys and solicitors have been part of Bristol’s commercial life since the 15th century. They were never members of a guild but by the 17th century evidently felt the need to form an association of fellow professionals. The article describes the earliest society, formed in 1661, and its successors. Originally meeting for social purposes, the societies gradually increased their activities to include the provision of a law library, educational instruction, the protection of members’ monopoly to undertake certain tasks, professional discipline and law reform.M.J. Crossley Evans, ‘The Revd John Adey Pratt (1811–1867) of Kingsland Chapel, Bristol: a previously unknown likeness, and his life and ministry’ (pp. 293–304).
His acquisition of a portrait led the author to research the life of its subject. John Adey Pratt, a native of Painswick, was apprenticed at an early age to a tailor and ran a business in Southwark before moving to Bristol to take charge of the Kingsland Independent chapel. The article highlights four aspects of his ministry – practical Christianity, the temperance movement, the work of the London Missionary Society and Sunday schools.