Medieval Shropshire: Research Priorities
Paul Stamper
English Heritage (West Midlands)
Paul.stamper@english-heritage.org.uk
Nb. Bold text is used in this draft to flag queries and where references and illustrations will be
added in to the final text)
We are not short of research aims documents for the Middle Ages, produced by English Heritage,
the CBA, the Society for Medieval Archaeology, and ‘special interest’ groups such as the Medieval
Settlement Research Group. For Shropshire such documents can be filed broadly under
‘aspirational’ as it remains among the more under researched of the English counties in terms of its
medieval archaeology; if quantified proof were to be required it could be provided by garnering the
scattering of sites from the county recorded in the ‘Medieval Britain’ annual round-ups in Medieval
Archaeology (cf. Nick Palmer’s quantification of well-represented Warwickshire in this volume).
Setting aside the excavated evidence, many Shropshire sites remain poorly defined in spatial
terms, which in equal measure makes their characterisation and management difficult, and the
formulation of precisely formulated research questions impossible. This is far from a countyspecific problem, and even in the more heavily excavated counties far more resources have been
devoted to the exploration of aspects of individual sites than they have to the investigation of wider
landscapes.
The problems of site definition and characterisation has at least implicitly long troubled those
charged with responsibility for the management of the historic environment, and with the current
government-led Designation Review these issues have suddenly arrived at centre stage. To take
Shropshire as an example, and beginning with monasteries, we can see the shortcomings and
difficulties which past designation and management regimes have bequeathed. An excellent
demonstration of this recently has been provided by work at Haughmond Abbey, 4 miles north-east
of Shrewsbury, which comprises the ruins of a house of the Austin Canons in the Guardianship of
English Heritage. Already there were two ‘sites’ here, firstly that defined by the barbed wire which
runs hard around the ruins and confines the visitors, and secondly the considerably more extensive
area Scheduled as an Ancient Monument. Recent work by an English Heritage team lead by Stuart
Ainsworth, however, has shown that the earthworks so protected formed but a part of a much more
extensive complex. Most significantly, for the purposes of this discussion, is the discovery of the
monastic precinct boundary - defining an area broadly trapezoidal and symmetrical - which
confines the earthworks (figure based on Ainsworth survey showing three ‘sites’). Now, for the
first time, we can begin to think sensibly about the layout of the monastery: about the vision of the
founders, the importance of springs, the arrangement of buildings within the various zones of the
site, and about how it interconnected with the wider world beyond of fields, woods, and roads.
More practically we can now move towards a more confident management of the site, starting with
a revision of the Scheduled Area (ref. EH archive report and forthcoming Palmer ed. report on
West excavations).
A similar exercise has also taken place within the last two years at another monastic site in
Guardianship, Buildwas Abbey, a Cistercian house on the banks of the River Severn just west of
the Ironbridge Gorge. Here again, once English Heritage ‘leapt the pale’ and looked beyond the
fence, it became clear that the existing boundaries on the river (west) side of the monastery were
relatively arbitrary. Survey work lead by Graham Brown has filled in the gaps and revealed, as as
well as monastic remains, post-medieval water meadows, and to the south of the ruins a Second
World War searchlight complex. Moreover, study of the site’s natural setting has lead to the
suggestion that the monastery was sited quite deliberately as close to the edge of the floodplain of
the River Severn as possible, a ‘special’ zone which may have already had a cultural or religious
significance (ref. Brown 2002). To the west is a different problem, that the principal upstanding
monastic building, the abbot’s house, is in separate ownership and not a part of the English
Heritage site. Our understanding of this structure was until recently fairly rudimentary, although
recent work by English Heritage dendrochronologists has established a firm date sequence starting
with construction in the mid to late 13th century (ref. Miles 2002).
Our understanding, therefore, of monastic sites, even flagship open-to-the-public English Heritage
ones (five of the forty-odd religious houses treated in volume two of the Victoria History of the
County of Shropshire), remains poor. While we remain uncertain about precinct boundaries, the
location of outer and farm courts, industrial areas, and water and drainage systems, a proper
understanding of these sites will remain undeveloped and fully effective management and research
strategies impossible to formulate. This is something which English Heritage recognises, and the
work noted above is feeding in to the Conservation Statements which are being prepared for each
site, which will themselves include identifications of what knowledge is lacking about each site.
But, as noted, that is only for five out of forty-odd sites.
An associated topic on which very little targeted work has been done is the granges and monastic
farms which supported many of the monastic houses. Here again what needs to be done, at least
initially, is very basic. It is to take the identifications of such sites already largely culled from the
documents by historians and to place these on the modern map, and then to do a site visit and to
begin to develop a record of what is there - what the site comprises. Again, how can we advise on
the management of this aspect of the historic environment, or set research goals, if we don’t even
know what’s there ?
Turning to the parochial church, it seems probable that here there will be a need for an especial
vigilance on the part of us all over the next - shall we say - ten to twenty years as many churches
see significant interventions both into their fabric and the ground on which they stand. These
interventions are going to arise because of two circumstances: firstly the installation of
infrastructure for, and reordering of internal spaces to provide space for, lavatories and places for
informal gatherings and refreshments, and secondly (and more speculatively) as entirely new uses
are found for structures declared redundant by the established church. Most of what we might see
and record as a result of such operations will be of little interest other than to the student of that
specific structure - the width of a demolished medieval aisle, the hint of an altar position in an
aisle. One thing (and, engaging in special pleading by straying well pre-Conquest) that
undoubtedly is of wider interest is evidence of when individual churches were established,
especially if potentially a minster or ‘mother’ church. Compared to many counties the ‘churching’
of Shropshire is poorly documented and, apart from work done by Steve Bassett and a few others,
little investigated. In Herefordshire (ref. Ray 2001) strong hints are emerging of the likely extent of
the county’s churching in the Romano-British church, the strength of a residual British church there
in what for the sake of convenience let’s call the mid Saxon period, and how the Anglian (AngloSaxon) tradition was introduced and in time became the dominant force. A similar kaleidoscopic
evolution would seem probable in Shropshire. But, realistically, how likely is it that we will
actually recognise the remains of such early churches in drain trenches or soakaways, or date any
such potential contexts in an apparently aceramic era ?
With castles, of which Shropshire has a multitude, arguably the most stimulating and innovative of
recently published work has dealt with setting and meaning. For instance, Chris Taylor and Paul
Everson have shown that from the late 13th century (when even in the Marches most castles were
losing any front line military function) at least the grander establishments were gaining both
pleasure gardens and wider designed settings. Bodiam and Kenilworth are probably the best known
exemplars (ref. Taylor 1998, cap. 3; see also Johnson 2002) , but the number is growing rapidly
as the common vocabulary of earthworks, views, and approaches is revealed. In Shropshire several
examples can already be cited. Most spectacular is the landscape adjoining and providing a setting
for the great castle of the FitzAlans, earls of Arundel, at Clun. Here air photographs (Stamper
1996, *plate 4) reveal the broad details of a reflecting lake and pleasance (water garden) below a
great lodgings block of c.1300, while contemporary documents mention the adjacent palisaded
‘little park’ . The last is a type of designed landscape which is not yet fully understood, but may be
broadly equated with the wildernesses and pleasure grounds of later centuries in the sense that they
formed an intermediate zone between private inner gardens and the wider landscapes beyond.
Everything suggests a date of c.1300 for the Clun landscape, and an early 14th-century date also
seems likely for Whittington, where recent work by Peter Brown (ref. forthcoming guide book)
has begun to make sense of the enigmatic earthworks of the Fitzwarins’ castle at Whittington, near
Oswestry. While not all the details are certain, undoubtedly some of the earthworks hard by the
castle relate to its documented garden , while coring and earthwork survey confirm what has long
been suspected, that the whole lay within a controlled, watery, mere-like setting. Wattlesborough
Castle,ten miles west of Shrewsbury, is a far less well known site, as yet unrecorded and poorly
understood but its core building provisionally best characterised as a sturdy tower house of the
later13th or early 14th century. The Castle stood midway along one side of a great ditched platform
about 40m square, presumably the moat noted in 1379 (VCH Salop 8, 198). While this may in part
have been occupied by productive gardens and orchards, its siting relative to the main residential
accommodation strongly suggests a function which was at least partly ornamental.
Sadly the last, although photographed by J.K. St. Joseph, was bulldozed about 15 years ago as an
agricultural improvement. My suspicion is that systematic scanning of the immediate surroundings
of the county’s larger castles on maps and air photos would reveal other examples of designed
landscapes; as with monasteries, until we can define the full extent of these sites effective
management and conservation, let alone practical research work, will remain impossible. Just one
final example, to reinforce the point, and to show that English Heritage as much as anyone needs to
take this message on board: Stokesay. This is a flagship site for us, built in the 1280s as the country
house of a hugely successful European trader, Laurence of Ludlow. Its fenestration proclaims that
this was an outward looking building, with jettied windows and window seats inviting the family
and its guests to gaze upon the surrounding countryside. To the west of the castle is a sheet of
water, while to the south is a complex arrangement of what appear to be ponds and water channels in other words, all the signs are that this innovative and in many ways sophisticated building was
placed within, and enhanced by, an equally impressive designed, and principally watery, designed
setting. We need to record this landscape, understand it, and protect it.
Others better qualified than me are to offer a detailed assessments of towns.and urban archaeology.
From the generalist’s point-of-view two points seem worth making. The first is that, thanks largely
to Dr. Nigel Baker’s English Heritage-funded work on Shrewsbury, we now have a better
understanding than ever before of the county town’s origins and growth, and of its areas of
archaeological significance (figure from Baker showing Wyle Cop terracing) (ref Baker 2000).
Management and planning policies have been developed to protect these, and hence forward, with
the appropriate resource provision, the future of Shrewsbury’s past seems relatively secure.
However, neither the same understanding nor, correspondingly, protection. has yet been developed
for Shropshire’s two other major historic towns, Ludlow, and Bridgnorth. Both those places
comprise complex, multi-phase planned centres developed alongside castles set at strategic
locations where long distance routeways cross rivers. Each, and this is my first point, seems as
deserving of detailed study as did Shrewsbury.
Such a statement is not to deny the archaeological potential of the twenty or so lesser urban centres
in Shropshire. From my own experience of Much Wenlock, where for about five years in the early
1990s I helped Mark Horton in evaluations (both formal and informal) and in back-garden
trenching. What that showed showed was that medieval (and earlier) archaeology was often well
preserved, whether beneath the yards and floors of later buildings or sealed below a metre or more
of built-up garden soils. First-hand observations such as these can lead in time to deposit modelling
which which has the potential to significantly enhance the suggestions contained within the Central
Marches Historic Towns surveys conducted in the mid 1990s by the then Hereford and Worcester
Archaeological Unit. The survival of such deposits allows targeted research excavations to be
planned with a measure of confidence, as for instance during the first ever Timeteam programme
when the rear boundary of one of the putatively early burgage plots in Sheinton Street was
investigated and confirmed to originate in the early post-Conquest period. Thus my second point is
that even relatively unprepossessing lesser urban places may have at least localised zones where
high quality and informative deposits survive which offer perhaps the best evidence there is of the
towns’ origins and early character.
Wenlock also provides the example which demonstrates that large numbers of medieval buildings
remain unidentified in Shropshire and especially I would contend in its towns, concealed behind
later facades and enveloped by successive enlargements. In Wenlock Madge Moran and others
have investigated where opportunity and invitation have presented themselves, and numerous boxand especially cruck-framed structures have been discovered behind often unprepossessing
frontages. Dendro dating has shown several to be of early 15th-century date - perhaps a hint of
burgeoning prosperity for some in the wake of the plagues of the mid to late 14th century
Vernacular architecture is one area where the amateur, whether singly or in groups - such as
Ludlow’s Historical Research Group, or Madge Moran’s Whitchurch adult education class - can
make a substantial contribution, discovering examples, recording, and at least beginning the
analysis (plan from Ludlow group publication).
Monasteries, castles, historic town cores, all are at least discrete and capable of targeted
investigation. Far less so is rural settlement the fluidity of which, especially in regions of dispersed
settlement such as most of Shropshire, is now well established (Roberts and Wrathmell 2000,
2002). Nevertheless that fluidity, and the archaeologically ‘ephemeral’ nature of rural structures - or
at least as seen in narrow evaluation trenches, should not deter us from tackling archaeologically
topics such as the date when nucleated settlements come into being, the nature of settlements at
different dates, building types and rural lifestyles, and the emergence of the farmer in the late
Middle Ages. Projects such as Wharram, Shapwick, and now Whittlewood have been fundamental
to the advances seen in the last half century in our understanding of living and working in the
countryside in the Middle Ages. Perhaps the key lesson of such projects is that it is not just vacant
plots within modern settlements that may contain earlier habitation sites - such may be present one
or two fields away, or in parts of the landscape now entirely without modern dwellings. A
generation ago, at sites such as Abdon, Trevor Rowley started to lay bare the physical reality of life
in medieval rural Shropshire; it would be good to see this work resumed. The revised PPG15/16
may well encourage, indeed require, a more rigorous approach to the rural historic and
environment than curatorial regimes presently engage in.
Other facets of the rural economy remain almost entirely unaddressed - mills, of which there were a
hundred or so by Domesday and probably several times that number in the early 14th century
including wind and fulling mills - what of their technology and scale (VCH Salop 4, 32)? While a
discovery such as the astonishingly well preserved and early example from Ebbsfleet (Kent) is
unlikely, the hundreds of sites, the massive timbers and the waterlogged conditions do together
suggest the potential for survival and investigation.
Industry, again to be treated later, was certainly present in the countryside - documents mention
various quarrying and mining enterprises, potting, tile making, lime burning and so on (Trinder
1996). Of these we have so far seen little, although the number of sites located archaeologically is
growing. Investigation of any of these sites would be of intrinsic interest. Arguably of much wider
significance would be work on the medieval industrial sites which it is known existed in the
Ironbridge Gorge, and which formed some kind of platform - if only in revealing the presence of
mineral resources - for the industrial take off in the later 16th and early 17th century which
produced the enterprises and landscapes now celebrated by World Heritage Site status.
REFERENCES
N. Baker, 2000, The Shrewsbury Urban Archaeological Strategy 2000 (Shrewsbury & Atcham
Borough Council; Shropshire County Council; English Heritage)
G. Brown, 2002, ‘Earthworks at Buildwas Abbey, Shropshire’ (English heritage, Archaeological
Investigation report Series AI/9/2002)
P. Brown, 2003, [Whittington guide]
M. Johnson 2002, Beyond the Castle Gate
D.H.W. Miles, 2002, ‘The Tree Ring Dating at Abbey House, Buildwas Abbey, Shropshire’
(English Heritage, Centre For Archaeology report 27/2002)
K. Ray, 2001 ‘Archaeology and the Three Early Churches of Herefordshire’, pp. 99-148 in Ann
Malpas et al (ed.), The Early Church in Herefordshire (Leominster 2001)
B. Roberts and S. Wrathmell, 2000, An Atlas of Rural Settlement in Britain (English Heritage)
B. Roberts and S. Wrathmell, 2002, Region and Place A Study of English Rural Settlement
(English Heritage)
P. Stamper, 1996 Historic Parks & Gardens of Shropshire (Shropshire Books)
C. Taylor, 1998, Parks and Gardens of Britain: A Landscape History from the Air (Edinburg UP)
B. Trinder 1996, The Industrial Archaeology of Shropshire (Philimore, Chichester)
Victoria History of the County of Shropshire 8 (1968)
Victoria History of the County of Shropshire 4 (1989)