Posted on 02/04/2004 4:47:01 PM PST by blam
Treasures uncovered in Ryedale's lost village
by Gazette reporters
MILL SEARCH: Landscape investigator Al Oswald using GPS equipment in the newly-discovered monastic mill pond at Wharram Percy and, inset, the mill as it may have looked.
RYEDALE'S famous lost village has given up another treasure for archaeologists.
A long-lost water mill and farmstead at Wharram Percy, run by the "luckless" Cistercian monks of Meaux Abbey, came to light during a survey of the landscape around the wolds village, which is one of England's largest and best-preserved deserted medieval villages.
English Heritage, working with the Wharram Research Project, combed through ancient documents and used the latest scientific hardware to make the discovery.
Meaux Abbey was founded in 1150 near Beverley, in East Yorkshire but, due to Henry VIII's plundering, now survives only as a series of earthworks. However, a great deal is known about its history, land-ownings and also its seemingly endless misfortunes, thanks to the Chronicles of Meaux Abbey, a remarkable book penned by its 14th century abbot, Thomas Burton. A copy now resides in the British Museum.
The chronicle states that the abbey established a large farmstead - known as a grange - 20 miles away, near Wharram Percy, and that a water mill was soon added. But until now, archaeologists were unable to pinpoint its location and, indeed, it was thought that any remains may have been destroyed by the construction of the old Malton to Driffield railway.
However, previously unidentified mill sites were stumbled upon two years ago by Dr Stuart Wrathmell and Ann Clark, of Leeds University, about a mile downstream from the medieval village. Both are members of the Wharram Research Project, which over five decades has turned Wharram into Europe's best understood deserted medieval village.
At first, no connection was made with the lost grange of Meaux Abbey. It was only when English Heritage sent in investigators armed with modern satellite mapping equipment that it became apparent that the landscape tallied perfectly with that described 600 years previously by Abbott Burton in his chronicle.
English Heritage investigator Al Oswald said: "Abbot Burton referred to the stream being diverted from its natural course to feed a pond within a walled courtyard. The grassy humps and bumps we mapped on the surface corresponded exactly to what he described. What's more, the stream has exposed the foundations of a demolished wall with very high quality masonry, typical of a medieval monastic precinct."
Archaeologists then made the clinching discovery. But they first had to rake over the embers of a 900-year-old dispute. Abbot Burton states that when the local Norman lord, Henry de Montfort, first gave monks permission to use the stream in the 1150s, they were told not to build a dam more than three feet high in case the pond flooded the workings of his mill upstream.
Once archaeologists found what seemed to be the monk's dam, they went off in search of the second dam linked to de Montfort's mill. To their delight, it was found in exactly the right position.
The chronicle only relates these historical details because of the row that erupted when de Montford's mill was taken over by the wealthy Robert Percy.
He refused to acknowledge the monks' right to use the stream and sent in his levies to demolish the dam, thereby returning the stream to its natural course. The abbot's anger is barely concealed in the chronicle, and only after protracted negotiations did Robert relent, doubtless reminded of his Christian obligations, and allow the monks to re-claim their water rights.
The episode could have spelled disaster for the monks, who desperately needed revenue from the sale of flour.
Throughout its history, Meaux faced severe financial difficulties and the monks were forced to disperse on three occasions. Adding to their woes, the Black Death claimed four out of five of their number and they were also the target for almost continual legal action by landowners.
Dr Wrathmell added: "It's very satisfying to have found the lost grange after all these years. The documentary evidence agrees perfectly with what we are discovering on the ground.
"It adds to our understanding of Wharram Percy's rich history."
Wharram Percy is managed by English Heritage and open to the public free of charge during daylight hours throughout the year.
Updated: 10:51 Wednesday, February 04, 2004
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this ping list.
"And lest things that should be remembered perish with time and vanish from the memory of those who come after us, I, seeing so many evils and the whole world, as it were, placed within the grasp of the Evil One, being myself as if among the dead, I, waiting for death, have put into writing all the things I have witnessed.
"And, lest the writing should perish with the writer and the work fail with the laborer, I leave parchment to continue this work, if perchance any man survive and the race of Adam escape this pestilence and carry on the work which I have begun. . . ."
--Brother John Clyn, 1349
|
· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic · subscribe · |
|||
Antiquity Journal & archive Archaeologica Archaeology Archaeology Channel BAR Bronze Age Forum Discovery Dogpile Eurekalert LiveScience Mirabilis.ca Nat Geographic PhysOrg Science Daily Science News Texas AM Yahoo Excerpt, or Link only? |
|
||
|
· Science topic · science keyword · Books/Literature topic · pages keyword · |
|||
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
