20 February 2018

Mathew Morris from University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) visited to tell us about the community archaeology dig which has been run at Castle Hill in Beaumont Leys.  In 2016 and 2017, Leicester City Council and ULAS conducted the dig as part of the ‘Story of Parks project’, a two-year Heritage Lottery-funded project.  The aims were to increase understanding of the origins and development of Castle Hill with the help of local volunteers, involving 2 weeks on site in 2016 and 2017.

Firstly it was believed Castle Hill might have prehistoric or Roman origins. Later it was thought it could be a medieval estate of the Knights Hospitaller. The land was held by the earls of Leicester until Simon de Montfort granted it to the Knights Hospitaller in the mid-13th century, and it was held by them between c.1240 and 1482.  The Hospitallers were a militant monastic order set up to provide hospitality to and protect pilgrim routes to the Holy Land. Later it became a royal deer park but was disparked by Henry VIII in 1526 into private ownership, with no sign of later occupation until the 19th and 20th century when it was used as a sewage treatment site. Today, it is part of the Castle Hill Country Park and has protection as an ancient monument.

Following a 2015 geophysical survey by ULAS, volunteers were involved in digging 3 trenches in 2016 and 5 in 2017.  Trench 1 included a metalled surface running along the inside of the bank, the bank itself and the ditch and some evidence of an entranceway. Trench 2 unearthed stone kerbing, a land drain and stone surfaces that may have been a pond. In Trench 3 stone rubble, broken roof slates and medieval pottery were uncovered, and some signs of iron working. In 2017 the first 3 trenches were reopened, and two more dug, trench 3 finding further evidence of the footprint of the building including the paved yard with a stone hearth. Iron slag suggests it was used as a smithy.  In a well, a high water table has preserved wood that was probably timbers from the building. These are being conserved for further examination.

Overall, the finds agree with the dates of the occupation of the site by the Knights Hospitaller. The excavations show that damage from the sewage farm was minimal, with the medieval earthwork very well preserved; the enclosure comprises a large ditch and stone-built bank; inside, at least one building had a slate roof and glazed ridge-tiles, suggesting it was more than a simple farm building, and had more than one use. Pottery finds are consistent with occupation on the site between 1240 and 1484 and there is no evidence of earlier or later occupation, with the site probably being abandoned and demolished in the 15th century.  Much of the excavated material is still being examined and catalogued.  The trenches have been covered but it is planned to make an application for more funding with the hope of returning to the site in 2019. If successful, Mathew promised to return with an update.

For more information on:

The excavation:  https://www2.le.ac.uk/services/ulas/discoveries/projects/medieval/castle-hill-in-search-of-the-knights-hospitallers

The Story of Parks:  http://www.storyofleicester.info/explore-leicester/story-of-parks/

Castle Hill Country Park:   https://www.leicester.gov.uk/leisure-and-culture/parks-and-open-spaces/our-parks/castle-hill-country-park

20 March 2018

The speaker at our March meeting was our Honorary President, Brenda Hooper, whose talk was intriguingly titled “The Kings' Briefs”.  Those hoping for salacious royal gossip might have been disappointed but everyone else enjoyed a fascinating insight into a system through which the people of our villages contributed to charitable causes in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. 

After the dissolution of the monasteries, parishes had largely become responsible for providing relief to their own poor but in circumstances such as natural disasters the cost would be more than a single parish could afford.  The victims could then make a petition for the King or Queen to issue a “Brief” and, if granted, copies of the Brief would be printed and distributed across the country.  In most cases, details of the catastrophe would be announced by the rector at the Sunday service and a collection would be taken from the congregation as they left.

A large majority of the Briefs related to fires: for example in 1676 a fire in Northampton destroyed 700 of the 850 houses.  Our churchwardens’ accounts show that Thurcaston donated 16s 11d and Cropston 14s 6d.  In 1679 a Brief was issued for the rebuilding of St. Paul’s Cathedral after the Great Fire of London and our parish (then including Anstey) raised £1-06-11 in total.  Briefs occasionally related to other causes, e.g. replacing the lead roof of Edgbaston Church, which had been stripped to make musket balls in the Civil War; redeeming English captives and slaves under the Turks; or “the relief of Protestants fled out of Ireland”.

The procedure for obtaining a Brief and collecting in the funds was cumbersome and the expenses sometimes used up more than half of the sum raised.  There were also examples of abuse and parishioners became resentful of the increasing number of demands to support causes with no local connection.  The system of Kings' Briefs was finally abandoned in 1828, by which time insurance companies provided an alternative method of compensation for fires and floods.  However, the public’s willingness to help others in their hour of need has continued through national appeals such as the Titanic Disaster Fund and, more recently, the Disasters Emergency Committee and various crowd-funding websites.