Rufford Rose Garden - Interim Excavation Report

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    COMMUNITY ARCHAEOLOGY 

    Interim Report on Archaeological Evaluation of the Rose Garden

    and Watching Brief on Two Tree Pits on the Lawn, Rufford Ae!,

    "ottinghamshire, #$$% 

    NCA-047

    David Budge and Ursilla Spence 

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    Contents

    Page no.

    List of figures i

    1.0 Background to the Excavations 1

    2.0 Location of Works 2

    3.0 Results 3

    4.0 Preliinar! "onclusions 3

    #.0 $urther Work 4

    %.0 &ages #

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    i

    List of figures

    Page no.

    $ig. 1 Plan of Rose 'arden trenches 2

    $ig. 2 Position of tree (its on )**e! La+n 2

    $ig. 3 'eneral vie+ of ,rench 1 #

    $ig. 4 'eneral vie+ of +ork starting on )**e! La+n #

    $ig. # ,rench 1 sho+ing shallo+ feature1 %

    $ig. % Brick lined gull! in ,rench 2 %

    $ig. - ,rench 4 -

    $ig. ,ree (it 1 -

    $ig. / ,ree (it 2 sho+ing as(halt s(read *eneath to(soil

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    1

    1.0 Background to the Excavations

    Rufford Abbey is a Scheduled Ancient Monument (NT320384) consisting of the

    above and below ground remains of the Medieval Cistercian Abbey plus the remains

    of the post Medieval to modern country house which replaced it post-Dissolution.The buildings and grounds are owned by Nottinghamshire County Council, with the

    Abbey remains in English Heritage guardianship. The site is managed by NCC as a

    country park.

    The Rose Garden is located west of the standing buildings and north of the stable

    block, partially within the scheduled area. Archaeological evaluation was undertaken

    to determine the potential of the area in order to determine the depth at which

    archaeological deposits would be encountered and to inform plans for the area’s

    proposed redesign and refurbishment. Four trenches were excavated here between

    14th and 23rd of April, 2008. Two were within the scheduled area. The trenches wereexcavated by hand by Andy Gaunt, Emily Gillott, Ali Bush and David Budge, all of

    Nottinghamshire County Council Archaeology Section.

    In addition, two 1x1m tree pits were dug on the Abbey Lawn, to the north of the

    abbey buildings, in order to plant replacements for two existing dying trees. Both

    were in the Scheduled area. These pits, referred to in the report as test pits, were

    hand dug by members of the NCC arboriculture team under the supervision of David

    Budge on 16th of April.

    The works in the scheduled areas were covered by Scheduled Monument Consent.The project was managed overall by Ursilla Spence. 

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    2

    2.0 Location of Works

    Fig 1. Plan of Rose Garden trenches

    Fig 2. Position of tree pits on Abbey Lawn.

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    3

    3.0 Results

    The trenches in the rose garden demonstrated that archaeological features survive

     just under the modern ground surface despite having been truncated during

    demolition of the house and damaged by gardening activity. The features recordedinclude a post-Medieval brick lined gully, undated but probably post-Medieval post

    holes, an undated but probably post-Medieval soak-away and a large, shallow,

    Medieval or post-Medieval pit of uncertain function.

    The test pits revealed that what appeared to be a levelling layer, probably dating

    from the early modern period. In both pits, the levelling material used incorporated

    much ceramic building material including plain mosaic-type Medieval floor tiles along

    with a variety of roofing and floor tiles of Medieval through to post Medieval date.

    Also recovered from this deposit was a piece of fired clay with thick green glaze

    almost certainly from the base of a kiln, suggesting the presence of a kiln producinglead glazed wares in the vicinity. This is possibly the same kiln whose presence was

    previously identified by the NCC Archaeology team while observing works to repair

    mining subsidence along the Rainworth Water (Notts HER L5517) in the 1980’s.

    In one pit this CBM rich deposit was overlain by a thin spread of material, which gave

    the appearance of much decayed asphalt. This test pit corresponds with the course

    of a horse-shoe shaped path shown on Sanderson’s map of 1835, and also visible

    on the 2006 geophysical investigation (Masters & Bunn, 2006). The asphalt may

    represent the remains of a later resurfacing of this path, or possibly even an early

    use of the material (asphalt came into use in England as a surfacing material in the

    early 19th C; a patent for its use as such was registered in 1837).

    4.0 Preliminary Conclusions

    The lack of clearly Medieval features in the area of the rose garden is a little

    surprising, although it is entirely possible that the excavations were simply not deep

    enough to reach the appropriate levels. Natural was not seen in any of the

    excavations, and the areas sampled by this limited investigation have clearly seen

    considerable landscaping efforts to alter and raise ground levels, presumably as part

    of the post-Medieval landscaping works. Nor was there any sign on the Abbey lawn

    of the extensive parterres known from documentary sources, but this may simply be

    a reflection of the limited scope of the two tree pits.

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    4

    5.0 Further Work

    Preparation of the full report is in progress but subject to specialist reporting on the

    ceramic material. This work is part of a comprehensive re-visiting of all the ceramic

    material recovered from the site by the NCC archaeology team over 30+ years.

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    #

    6.0 Images

    Fig 3. General view of Trench 1

    Fig 4. General view of work starting on Abbey Lawn

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    %

    Fig 5. Trench 1 showing shallow feature

    Fig 6. Brick lined gully in Trench 2

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    -

    Fig 7. Trench 4

    Fig 8. Tree pit 1

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    Fig 9. Tree pit 2, showing asphalt spread beneath topsoil.