New Books
The Ringlemere Cup: Precious Cups and the Beginning of the Channel Bronze Age
edited by Stuart Needham, Keith Parfitt and Gill Varndell
120p, 57 b/w ills, 40 col pls (British Museum Research Publication 163, British Museum Press 2006). ISBN 0861591631. Paperback. Price £23.00
In 2003 the British Museum acquired the recently discovered Ringlemere gold cup, a rare example from the Early Bronze Age. The volume provides definitive publication of the Ringlemere cup and its immediate site context. Dating and fuller social significance are assessed through thorough reappraisal and cataloguing of the fifteen comparable cups in gold, silver, amber, and shale from Britain, Brittany, Germany, and Switzerland. This leads on to a novel discussion on the emergence of a specialised maritime interaction network early in the 2nd millennium BC. The cups are interpreted as part of a ritual system developed to ‘service’ this network. Important distinctions are brought out between southern English coastal communities and a Wessex core zone, and interactions concerned with the transmission of amber are highlighted.
The cups have profound significance for understanding the development of Bronze Age culture in north-west Europe, for which it should be a standard reference work. The publication also provides an interim statement on the sequence of events and activity at Ringlemere Monument 1 – initially constructed as a henge – as revealed by the British Museum-backed fieldwork (2002-2005), and to review the significance of the prehistoric monument complex for the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age of east Kent.
Available from Oxbow Books.
Townwall Street, Dover, Excavations 1996
Keith Parfitt, Barry Corke and John Otter
Hardback, 460pp, 240 figs. ISBN: 9781870545051. Web price: £25.00
In 1996 Canterbury Archaeological Trust excavated a large site close to Townwall Street at Dover, funded by BP Oils UK Ltd. The site lay outside the main centre of the historic town, below Dover Castle, about 150 meters inland from the present seafront. A complex sequence of medieval and post-medieval buildings was recorded. Detailed study of the site has provided much important new information, with a greatly enhanced understanding of the medieval town. The report outlines the history of medieval Dover and then describes the evolution of the site from initial colonisation, up to the twentieth century. It focuses on the main period of activity, c. AD 1175-1300, when simple timber buildings were crowded onto an open beach ridge adjacent to the seashore.
Large quantities of domestic rubbish including pottery, small finds, animal bone, and fish bone were recovered. These important assemblages have been analysed in some detail and a spatial study of the extensive pottery collection is presented. The large amounts of fish bone found, together with many fish-hooks and other items of fishing equipment, underlines the importance of fishing to the humble medieval folk who lived in this area. Amongst them must have been some of the mariners of Dover who provided annual ship service to the King, under the arrangements of the medieval Cinque Ports Federation.
Available from Heritage Marketing and Publications Ltd.
Hill Farm - Unit F, Castle Acre Road, Great Dunham, King’s Lynn, Norfolk PE32 2LP.
Tel: 01760 755645, web: www.heritagepromotions.com
The Story of Brenchley House
The Historical Research Group of Sittingbourne
The HRGS has published its first book, The Story of Brenchley House with the grateful assistance of the Queenborough Fisheries Trust and M-Real.
To celebrate their 50th anniversary in 1954, the staff and pupils of the County Grammar School for Girls, later renamed Highsted School, compiled a history of their school, Brenchley House. The school had been located here since 1904, a time when secondary education for young ladies was relatively uncommon. To local historians and past pupils it is a fascinating study of the old building’s history as it was known and understood at that time. Compiling the book was a true labour of love; the text was laboriously typed on a manual typewriter, accompanying sketches had to be scratched on to a wax sheet with a special stylus and copies produced on a hand-operated Gestetner stencil printer. Today very few copies still exist.
Moving on 50 years, the Historical Research Group of Sittingbourne decided to republish the book – more or less in its original form for the next generation of Grammar School girls to enjoy, and in so doing, re-evaluate the building’s history. In the process they recovered many new and previously unconsidered facts and lore to add to it. The book, of 119 pages, is divided into two distinct sections, the first being the original, the second takes the research to the next stage by reconsidering the early history in the light of new research. In many areas the two studies are similar and yet very different in others. The second study draws several conclusions that not only show Brenchley House in a new light but also offer a new insight into the development of Sittingbourne as a whole.
Available from Alan Abbey, tel: 01795 559207.
The Historical Development of the Port of Faversham, 1580-1780
Paul W Wilkinson
BAR4143. ISBN 1 84171 946.3 £37.00
A British Archaeological Reports (BAR) volume based on a PhD thesis. A comprehensive historical and archaeological investigation of the maritime organisation of the port, the early development of the port is examined, also a survey of the shipping fleets of Faversham during their formative years. The study ends during the war years of the 18th century with a survey of the associated responses and marketing opportunities; the Thames water transport network linking Faversham to the port of London, and Faversham was the main centre for the transhipment of goods and maritime primacy. Together the book offers a detailed historical and topographical account of the ships and seamen, administration of the port, and the cargoes carried. Items shipped in such diverse goods as hops, oysters, leather and wool, cheese and butter, copper pans and salt, and gunpowder.
Available from Archaeopress, Gordon House, 276 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 7ED.
Tel: 01865 311914, email: bar@archaeopress.com