VOLUNTEERS dug in for a messy but enjoyable day at Mickleton Village Hall, helping to clean and catalogue hundreds of artefacts unearthed during an excavation at Holwick, in upper Teesdale, earlier this year.
The first of two workshop sessions was organised and run by Altogether Archaeology and saw 25 volunteers roll up their sleeves to carefully clean off years of mud from the relics which were dug up in May at the Well Head deserted medieval settlement.
Tony Metcalfe, chairman of Altogether Archaeology, was delighted with the progress during the day which saw hundreds of individual pieces of glassware, pottery, lead and ironwork cleaned for further analysis and cataloguing.
Mr Metcalfe said: “Some of the finds indicate that Holwick was a place of quality – a well-off area. We have found some good quality pieces of pottery, as well as a lead spindle, which was probably a betrothal gift.”
He added the finds were spread across the centuries with earthenware from as early as the 11th and 12th centuries to more carefully glazed items from the 17th and 18th centuries. Among the finds was a large sandstone mortar stone, probably used for grinding corn, and pieces of early 17th century glass ‘onion’ bottles as well as a few clay pipes.
Mr Metcalfe said: “The pipes we expected to find as they were throwaway items. We can tell they are early as they are significantly smaller than later models. Tobacco was expensive when it first arrived in England and so the bowls on the pipes were smaller. But as time went on and there was more tobacco coming into the country the bowl sizes got bigger.”
A second workshop will be held later in the month on Friday, September 21. Email
altogetherarchaeology@gmail.com.
