Wessex Archaeology Sheffield
Winter update from our Sheffield Office
After a busy summer and autumn it’s time for a seasonal breather – and another blog post from the Sheffield team. The past six months have seen our ever expanding field team busy with some large scale excavations and a plethora of smaller scale work, watching briefs and geophysics, over a wide area including Derbyshire, County Durham, Leicestershire and South Yorkshire.
Whilst monitoring pipeline works at Draycott, Derbyshire, our team discovered a group of cremation burials – these are probably prehistoric and we are excitedly awaiting the carbon-dating results to prove this. At Hope Quarry, Derbyshire and Adwick-le-Street, South Yorkshire, our teams have uncovered parts of Iron Age and Romano-British field systems – although the diggers at Adwick were disappointed not to find evidence of a nearby Anglo-Saxon cemetery! Work at Conisborough, South Yorkshire examined a double ditch and bank associated with a medieval deer park, once a hunting ground for the kings of England but long since disappeared from the local landscape.
The Sheffield team are always interested in our industrial heritage. We have recently investigated part of a 19th century iron works and corn mill in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, furnaces at a glass bottle works in Mexborough, South Yorkshire, and coal mining activity at Langsett, South Yorkshire. We’ve also completed reports on major iron works at Clay Cross, Derbyshire and Kirkstall Forge, Leeds.
Our largest sites have been large-scale wind farm projects in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Work between Easington and Saltend followed on from our geophysics earlier in the year and discovered prehistoric, Roman and medieval sites, with some interesting finds including part of a jet bracelet, a bone whistle and a decorative face from a Roman flagon (pictured).
Not content with our own backyard, the Sheffield team regularly works with our other offices, on projects as far flung as North Wales and West Sussex, and ranging from gravel quarries in the glorious sunshine to sites on mountainsides in the driving rain – all part of life in a busy archaeology office!
Excavation at Mexborough Glass Works
A team from Wessex Archaeology’s Sheffield Office has just finished excavating at the site of a late 19th century New Don glass bottle works in Mexborough, an important site in South Yorkshire’s glass making past.
This excavation has been undertaken by our clients Lidl, who will shortly commence development of a new community food store on the site.
One of the most interesting finds unearthed during the excavation was part of a Siemens-Martin tank furnace which would have been one of the earliest regenerative furnaces in Yorkshire. The waste heat and gases were reused to heat the tanks, allowing for continuous glass production and the use of less fuel.
Other finds included hundreds of marbles that were used to ‘stop’ early carbonated drinks bottles, called Codd bottles after their inventor Hiram Codd. The bottles themselves are very rare as many were recycled or smashed by children to retrieve the marbles!
Spring news from Wessex Archaeology Sheffield
Spring has come and gone up here in Sheffield and we are now firmly in summer time with some glorious weather behind us and hopefully ahead as well. Lots of members of staff have been stretching their legs with a few geophysical jobs based out of the Sheffield Office and some field walking as well. Based around Doncaster the data from these jobs is still being analysed but early indications of some field systems means we are hopeful of finding something interesting.
We’ve recently welcomed our new project manager Andy Norton to the team here in Sheffield with his enthusiasm and experience he will doubtless help us to continue growing.
New Year news from Wessex Archaeology Sheffield
Well now that we are firmly into the New Year we have barely a moment to catch our breath. The pre-Christmas snows delayed many sites and we are now rushing to cover them all at once. With staff from Goole to Gloucester we are covering a large area ensuring sure that all of our projects are staffed so we can satisfy all our clients.
With the New Year comes a new starter, we have Grace Corbett working in the office now as a consultancy Project Officer helping to manage our sites and our busy archaeology consultancy department.
The team are very excited at the prospect of excavation starting in Leicestershire in the near future. An evaluation on a Deserted Medieval Village in the summer uncovered a series of features which corroborated with promising geophysical survey data and we are now going back for a closer look. With pottery dating from the 9th-11th centuries and bone objects including a comb and a pin we are hopeful of some interesting discoveries which we will update you on in due course.
Wessex Archaeology Sheffield Writes...
Wessex Archaeology has now been in Sheffield for a full year, so it seemed like an appropriate time to start up a blog to let the world know what we get up to in the frozen north. Sheffield is an industrial city and our team specialise in industrial excavations and recording industrial buildings. With that in mind our offices are perfect for us; we are located in the former C.T. Skelton and Co Shovel and Spade Works. Built in the mid 19th century it is now converted into modern offices.
Many our team have worked together for a good few years in and around Sheffield. However, recently we have begun to expand, and have new faces to work with, most recently in the form of Hanna Steyne who is part of our Coastal and Marine Archaeology team.
Last week Sheffield had over 30cm of snowfall which was something I’ve not seen since I’ve lived in Sheffield. Despite the city seemingly shutting down, Wessex Archaeology Sheffield stayed open! Some of us were walking over three miles through snow drifts and blizzards to make it in for work. It was quite something seeing pedestrians reclaim the roads and walk down the middle of the roads because the cars all stayed at home.
Over the last year we have been busy and our archaeologists have uncovered a large brick working site in Hull on Hawthorn Avenue, and completed a number of other interesting projects including excavations at the former Vulcan Works in Derbyshire and the Tinsley Wire Mills in the centre of Sheffield. We have also been working with the University of Sheffield undertaking excavations at Manor Lodge, a medieval hunting lodge on the outskirts of the city, helping to run their training excavations. Our standing buildings team have been busy recording sites around the north such as Nostell Priory, Rotherham Grain Warehouse and Huddersfield Railway Station to name a few.
Over the coming months we hope to use this blog to keep you updated with the work we are doing around the north and let you know of exciting discoveries as and when they happen.
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