Bibliography - S.A.C. 2007 (vol. 145)
Bibliography Home

Sussex Archaeological Collections: Relating to the history and antiquities of East and West Sussex, published 2007 (vol. 145, Sussex Archæological Society) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 15980] & The Keep [LIB/500363] & S.A.S. library   View Online

A Mesolithic site at Streat Lane, Streat, East Sussex, by Chris Butler, published 2007 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 145, article, pp.7-31) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 15980] & The Keep [LIB/500363] & S.A.S. library   View Online

During 1996/7 a Mesolithic site was discovered at Streat, East Sussex. Four pits containing large quantities of fire-fractured flint were excavated, together with a possible temporary shelter. The flintwork assemblage of over 3000 pieces included microliths and a small number of expedient implements. Radiocarbon dates indicate that the site was being used during the later seventh millennium BC.

Prehistoric and medieval environment of Old Town, Eastbourne: studies of hillwash in the Bourne Valley, Star Brewery Site, by Michael J. Allen, published 2007 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 145, article, pp.33-66) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 15980] & The Keep [LIB/500363] & S.A.S. library   View Online

The prehistoric (Iron Age), Roman and medieval environment of the Bourne valley was examined via the study of dry-valley sediments, comprising a prehistoric lynchet overlooking the 'floodplain', and sediments on the Bourne 'floodplain' in Old Town. This research discovered an Iron Age site at the face of the lynchet, and investigated the area of the valley floor and the former Bourne Stream. Analytical investigations of magnetic susceptibility and archaeomagnetic dating were applied as novel techniques to examine their applicability to colluvial sediments and utilise any results they yielded. This research has provided a rare glimpse into the environment and land use of early Eastbourne and complements that from the downs and the results of the Eastbourne Urban Medieval Excavation Project (directed by Lawrence Stevens), under whose auspices this excavation was undertaken. This report, though long in gestation and fruition, is dedicated to Lawrence Stevens whose concept this excavation was, and who has, for so long, tirelessly championed the archaeology of Eastbourne.

Archaeological investigations on the site of the former Rowe's Garage, Chichester, West Sussex , by Rachael Seager Smith, Nicholas Cooke, Rowena Gale, Stephanie Knight, Jacqueline I. McKinley and Chris Stevens, published 2007 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 145, article, pp.67-80) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 15980] & The Keep [LIB/500363] & S.A.S. library   View Online

Excavation on land formerly occupied by Rowe's Garage on The Hornet, Chichester revealed a large, mid-first century AD ditch, adding to the series of possibly defensive ditches previously identified immediately east of the later Roman town. During the rest of the Romano-British period, the site was used for small-scale domestic settlement, crop-processing and other agricultural activities. After the fourth century AD much of the western part of the site was quarried for clay and gravel. A handful of features provided evidence for the medieval and later suburb known to have developed outside the Eastgate from the thirteenth century; any more ephemeral remains were probably destroyed during the construction of the modern Rowe's Garage itself.

A review of some early West Sussex churches, by John F. Potter, published 2007 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 145, article, pp.81-96) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 15980] & The Keep [LIB/500363] & S.A.S. library   View Online

With the objective of illustrating the importance of observing and correctly identifying the stone bedding orientation in the structural aspects of the stonework of early churches, nine West Sussex churches are described. These descriptions reveal especially the distinctive styles of Anglo-Saxon workmanship. In particular, ashlar stones emplaced with the orientation of their bedding vertical typically indicate Anglo-Saxon craftsmanship. Correct stone identification is also shown to assist significantly in determining the probable age of different church wall fabrics.

The gatehouse of Pevensey Castle, by Anthony Chapman, published 2007 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 145, article, pp.97-118) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 15980] & The Keep [LIB/500363] & S.A.S. library   View Online

Excavations in 1993-95, undertaken by the Department of Archaeology of the University of Reading, discovered a sequence of rebuilding the east wall of the keep during the later Middle Ages. Alongside the excavations, the department also carried out fabric surveys of the Roman walls, the keep and the medieval walls of the inner bailey. Certain results of the keep survey and excavation were included in the 1999 English Heritage guidebook, notably reaffirmation of the homogeneous character of the keep inside the Roman wall (Allen & Al Shaikhley 1994). However, only a preliminary report on the gatehouse was produced from the survey of the medieval walls and this paper provides a revised summary of that work, with some observations on the subsequent structural development of the castle through the thirteenth century. There are documentary and architectural contexts for the construction of the lower storeys of the gatehouse during the reign of Richard I.

Archaeological investigations on the A27 Polegate Bypass, East Sussex, by Simon Stevens, published 2007 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 145, article, pp.119-135) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 15980] & The Keep [LIB/500363] & S.A.S. library   View Online

The remains of a medieval farmstead were excavated following the identification of an area of archaeological interest during a large-scale evaluation of the route of the proposed bypass. A range of features including enclosure ditches, pits and post-holes were recorded. Finds included medieval pottery, animal bone, tile, brick, burnt clay, metalwork, ironworking slag, geological material and glass. Study of the pottery suggests that the site was occupied from the late twelfth/early thirteenth century to the mid-fourteenth century, although a few finds indicate some later activity.
A watching brief was maintained during groundworks for the bypass. Two post-medieval kilns were recorded (reported elsewhere). No further medieval sites were identified.

The Amberley Castle panels and a drawing by William Henry Brooke, by Karen Coke, published 2007 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 145, article, pp.137-152) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 15980] & The Keep [LIB/500363] & S.A.S. library   View Online

In 1989 a drawing of 1820 by William Henry Brooke (1772-1860) was included in an exhibition at Michelham Priory. It was soon realized that it provided valuable historical evidence of the original form of Lambert Barnard's Amberley Castle 'Worthies', painted for Robert Sherburne, Bishop of Chichester in the early sixteenth century. Beginning with a documentary history of the panels and their origins, the article continues with a discussion of their subject, of Brooke's drawing and of the importance of their combined survival.

An early fifteenth-century barn at Charlton Court, Steyning, West Sussex, by Fred Aldsworth, published 2007 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 145, article, pp.153-179) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 15980] & The Keep [LIB/500363] & S.A.S. library   View Online

A programme of archaeological recording, historical research, and dendrochronological dating, undertaken during a programme of major repairs in 1993-94, demonstrated that the barn at Charlton Court, Steyning, was erected from trees that had mostly been felled in the winter of AD 1404-05, shortly after the manor had passed into private hands in 1403, and it is likely that the barn was prefabricated from green timbers during the summer of 1405 through to the spring of 1406.
Originally designed as a three-bay unaisled barn, with canopied porches to the central bay, it has a surviving roof frame comprising kingposts carrying a ridge plate, supported by heavy downswing braces which carry side purlins trenched into their upper edges.
It was never completed and used in its intended form, though the frame appears to have been erected and the rafters added, and it was altered and extended at either end, using timber from the original stock felled in the winter of AD 1404-05. The original roof design was maintained, but aisles were added in a form entirely typical of later medieval barns of south-east England, with large shoring braces passing between the arcade posts and soleplates, halved into spurs which tie the side wall plates into the main posts.
A number of subsequent alterations and repairs are discernible and at a date probably in the eighteenth century, masonry walls were inserted at the south end.
A series of dendrochronological samples, mostly with at least 150 growth rings and complete sapwood, provide a very accurate basis for dating, and these are fully discussed.

Sussex glossarists and their illustrative quotations, by Jonathan Roper, published 2007 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 145, article, pp.181-194) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 15980] & The Keep [LIB/500363] & S.A.S. library   View Online

As the number of sources of information about historical Sussex dialect is limited, further data are very welcome. This article discusses the purported examples of dialect speech published to illustrate the definitions of words listed in local glossaries in the period 1834-1957. An investigation of the five glossarists in question, William Durrant Cooper, William Holloway, William Parish, Bessie C. Curteis and Helena Hall, reveals the very mixed nature of this source of evidence: while some illustrative quotations are highly plausible, others are clearly fictive. But drawing on the more reliable of the glossarists, the article closes with examples of the information regarding Sussex speech that this previously-unused source of data can provide.

Charles Dawson's rare essay on the hermitage at Buxted, by Peter Miles, published 2007 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 145, article, pp.195-209) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 15980] & The Keep [LIB/500363] & S.A.S. library   View Online

The Sussex antiquarian Charles Dawson, notorious for his involvement in the Piltdown Man fraud, wrote an essay on the rock hermitage at Buxted which has yet to figure in direct discussion of Dawson's life, work and forgeries. The essay was printed in limited numbers early in the twentieth century as the introduction to photograph albums commissioned by Cecil De M. Caulfeild Pratt of High Hurstwood, Buxted. Particularly in context with the photographs, Dawson's essay throws further light on his interests, motivations, scholarly methods and on previously unrecorded social and professional contacts. Internal evidence from Dawson's essay, together with the present author's family history, is used to suggest a window of dating for the essay and for the photographs (by Towner of Uckfield). It is further suggested how one of Dawson's footnotes to the essay relates to the forging of inscribed Roman tiles allegedly found at Pevensey Castle. Dawson's essay is then reproduced as an appendix, with some annotations.

Prehistoric, medieval and post-medieval finds at the West Sands Caravan Park site, Selsey, by F. M. Meddens, published 2007 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 145, short article, pp.211-216) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 15980] & The Keep [LIB/500363] & S.A.S. library   View Online

The production of the Chichester Helmet, by Jaime Kaminski and David N. Sim, published 2007 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 145, short article, pp.217-221) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 15980] & The Keep [LIB/500363] & S.A.S. library   View Online

Medieval seal matrices and papal bullae from Sussex, 2003-2007, by Liz Andrews-Wilson and Christopher Whittick, published 2007 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 145, short article, pp.222-228) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 15980] & The Keep [LIB/500363] & S.A.S. library   View Online

Investigation of a post-medieval rural site on Horsham Road, Southgate, Crawley, by Jim Leary, published 2007 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 145, short article, pp.228-230) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 15980] & The Keep [LIB/500363] & S.A.S. library   View Online