Project Complete

Our latest project is now complete and the report can be found via the Reports page. We didn't manage to find the suspected medieval kiln but we have added to knowledge about the manufacture and distribution of 15th century floor tiles in Staffordshire and Shropshire. Add in the results of our excavations of the water supply features, a dam and a rare type of water management mechanism and the project has to be considered a resounding success.

Here's a photograph showing the tile fragments recovered, they include at least three different patterns, all of which have parallels in abbeys and churches in the West Midlands and Wales. All appear to be wasters, tiles that had some degree of defect in manufacture but some are clearly worse than others, for example the three yellow tiles in the column left of centre which have no glaze and clay from the kiln stuck to the upper surface.

Water, Tiles and a Dam

Although the website hasn't been receiving frequent updates, plenty has been going on behind the scenes. Our current project has become a fascinating and heady concoction of Victorian water supply, Georgian water and fish management and medieval tile making!

Having disentangled the various works associated with supplying water to the hall and its gardens, we moved on to investigate a feature in the canal. This turned out to be a dam, with the remains of an unusual wooden valve system to control water levels. These photos show the excavated dam and what remains of the square wooden 'pipe' which held the valve.

Having recovered many fragments of tile with glaze adhering and a fair bit of kiln material, it seems that whoever made the floor tiles for the nearby church set up his works very close to our site. Investigations have just begun, hopefully we'll make progress before the field is seeded next month.