Books and Bricks

Article: The Secret of the Roman Coin

2011-12-02T21:42:00.000Z

The Secret of the Roman Coin: aserendipitous interview with Tom Harper

A series of coincidences brought aboutthis interview with historical thriller author Tom Harper …

Sandy is an enthusiastic amateurarchaeologist who lives in Malton, UK, and often goes fieldwalking in the areanear the Roman fort of Derventio. Mostly, she picks up pieces of Roman pottery, but one day she happenedupon a bronze coin. It was badlycorroded and she wasn’t sure what date it was. She brought it into work to show me, as she knew I was anarchaeologist. At first, I wasn’t evensure it was Roman, and then I saw what looked like an altar on the reverse ofthe coin and was convinced. My partneris also an archaeologist and specialises in Roman coins so I took it home tohim for proper identification. Aftercareful examination he came to the conclusion it was a coin of Crispus, a sonof Constantine the Great, the 4^th century Roman emperor who madeChristianity the official state religion. Though not rare, the coin is not particularly common either.

Cut to the Festival of Writing in York afew weeks later. I was attending on theSunday only, and amongst the workshops Iwent to was presented by Tom Harper, who talked about how he does his research. But it was lunchtime when we were introducedto one another by conference organiser Kate Allan. We talked things-historical and I mentionedthat someone had brought in a Roman coin for me to look at. And that it was a coin of Crispus. Tom was surprised, particularly as his nextnovel (The Secrets of the Dead ) includes Crispus. Tom was eager to handle the coin, and weall met up for a coffee a couple of months later. He was able to see and touch a coin from the4^th century, and one that is specifically tied to the person he haswritten about.

Tom was born in Germany in 1977, andpartly brought up there, and in Belgium and America. He went to Oxford University to study ModernHistory. But at Oxford, modern isdefined as being from the reign of Diocletian (AD285) onward! So he was able to pick and choose from a widerange of history. Rather thanspecialising in the Late Roman era or the medieval, he attended a mixture ofcourses – anything that took his fancy. And this has proved to be a theme running through his writing. His tutors noted that rather than his essaysfocussing on detail, he liked to investigate the big picture and tell a story.

After graduating, he took ajob in insurance and eventually realised that it wasn’t for him, after thesmall company rapidly developed into a very large business. Rather than starting with writing shortstories, he tried his hand at writing a novel, preferring the larger canvas abook provides. That novel was very muchan apprentice piece and won’t see the light of day as Tom reckons it’s verysilly. Though he wryly notes that a fewyears ago a film was made which covered similar territory to his first attemptat writing.

What really set Tom’s writing career offwas the Crime Writers’ Association’s Debut Dagger competition in 2001. The award required 3,000 words and asynopsis. Tom saw this as a goodexercise rather than something that might actively further his writing career, and setabout entering his idea for a novel about Martin Jerrold, a reluctant hero inNelson’s navy. Tom was surprised to geta call from the CWA asking if they could show his entry to some agents. Of course he said yes! His entry was a runner up in the competition,and he was subsequently signed up by an agent.

It all snowballed from there. There was a bidding war been publishers andeventually Tom got a three book deal. Hewas able to give up his job to concentrate on writing. Because the first deadline for the series wasquite long, he thought he could also write other books so suggested aByzantine-set crime series. This waspicked up by another publisher, which led to the creation of a pen-name.

To keep the two series separate, he wrotethe Byzantine series with the pen-name (Tom Harper), rather than his own name(Edwin Thomas) under which the Jerrold series was written. He chose the surname Harper as he liked theconnection that it has with medieval harpers who would also be story tellers. And Tom, of course, was part of his realsurname. Having two books to write a year proved hard going. The first book was relatively easy, but astime went on, the deadlines got tougher to meet. He’s now quite happy with long deadlines.

Unfortunately, the Jerrold books did notsell particularly well. The first onedid OK, but the other two didn’t do well, and the publisher decided not tocontinue after the third book. But theByzantine stories sold healthily. Theseare set in the late 11^th century, at the time of the First Crusade,so Tom was able to get his crime-solving character to follow the progress ofwar. The first book is set in Byzantiumand the following two are set at the siege of Antioch and the capture ofJerusalem. They are something of ahybrid in that the crime-solving element is somewhat overtaken by the events ofthe Crusade.

The last of the novels was finished lateand came in very long. It had to beedited right down and then extra bits written to ensure the story worked properly. When Tom finally finished, he was pretty muchburnt out and ready to move on.

Because Tom’s publisher unexpectedly hada vacant slot for their thriller of the month title, he decided to have a go atwriting one. Having greatly enjoyedwatching an Indiana Jones film, he was inspired to write an archaeologicalbased thriller set in 1947. He had adeadline of six months, but in contrast to the last Byzantine book, writing thethriller was easy, disciplined and great fun.

Tom has moved into writing what could becalled ‘Time Slip’ novels, in that they have a modern story and also anhistorical story. So it’s half andhalf. Tom reckons he’s having his cakeand eating it, as it allows him to research historical themes whilst alsohaving a modern element which can help put the history into context. He doesn’t have a particular historical period of interest which means hereally can pick and choose where goes next. So when you read his thrillers you may be surprised where he takes you.

Tom is sanguine about the rise ofelectronic publishing, as long as the price of them is similar to that of thehard copy. All of his books, writing asTom Harper, are available for Kindle.

He’s recently moved to differentpublisher and has another three book deal which will run from 2013 to2015. Tom lives in York, and thanks tohis wife, who is a lecturer at the University, it looks like he’ll be living inthis richly historical city for some time to come.

Tom’s experience with the Crispus coin cametoo late to be worked into Secrets of the Dead, but it played a vividrole in bringing the author very close to the subject of his research. You’ll have to read the book to find out whatrole Crispus has!

This article first appeared in the Historical Novels Review, November 2011, pages 13-14

Book review: Savage City by Sophia McDougall

2011-12-01T17:21:00.000Z

SAVAGECITY

Sophia McDougall, Gollancz, 2011, £12.99, pb, 424pp, 9780575094888

In this alternative history,Rome has never fallen, and is still a major player on the world stage in the 21st century. But there is trouble both internallyand externally. The Nionian Empire(=Japan) is slowly advancing, and may be about to win the arms race. In Rome, the Colosseum has just been bombedby a terrorist, killing the current emperor outright, and gravely wounding hisheir. The future of the Roman Empireultimately rests with a brother and sister from Britannia, but can they andtheir supporters survive in a hostile Empire?

This is the third volume in theRomanitas triology, and I haven't read the other two volumes. For the mostpart, this was not a barrier to enjoying the story. This is a well imagined, bedded in,alternative world, and felt very plausible throughout. There are changes in the technology, but itwas easy to work out what they approximate to in our world. In addition, thereare maps showing the Romanitas world, plus very useful chronologies detailingthe alternative time line.

The book is epic in scale, withthe interior life of the many characters very well realised. It is a triumphantconclusion to the series. McDougall is one to watch.

(This review appeared in Historical Novels Review, November 2011, pages 56-57)

A rudimentary treatise ...

2011-11-12T11:55:00.001Z

Another link courtesy of friend Bryan! This time it links to a scanned in copy of A rudimentary treatise on the manufacture of bricks and tiles: containing an outline of the principles of brickmaking by Edward Dobson (1880)

http://www.archive.org/stream/practicalbrickti00dobs#page/n7/mode/2up

Brick is beautiful

2011-11-12T11:51:00.001Z

A brick link courtesy of friend Bryan!

This first one, I'm not sure about. Love the pix of brix, but not sure about the ladies ...

Brick is Beautiful. Fun music video celebrating the beauty of brick on behalf of www.brickdirectory.co.uk with music by EspadaRolls:
http://www.archive.org/details/BrickIsBeautiful

Book Review: Empire: Fortress of the Spears by Anthony Riches

2011-11-05T17:34:00.000Z

EMPIRE: FORTRESS OFSPEARS

AnthonyRiches, Hodder & Stoughton, 2011, £12.99, hb, 340pp, 9780340920367

YoungMarcus Aquila (calling himself Centurion Corvus) has hidden himself in theRoman Army, and is serving in one of Rome’s most far-flung outposts: thenorthern frontier in Britannia. But the emperor’s assassins are closing in,wanting to kill Marcus. Meanwhile, he’sfighting a hard and nasty campaign against the Caledonian tribes. Will Marcussurvive the dirty war, and will the assassins catch up with him?

Thisis the third outing for Riches’ Empire series set in the late 2^ndcentury. The author chooses, for the most part, to use translations of theRoman names of places, so that those of us who have learnt the Latin names areleft wondering which fort is being referred to. There is a map in the front ofthe book, fortunately, but it doesn’t include the Roman name of, for example, WhiteStrength, so we need to be certain of our geography.

Richessubscribes to the Scarrow School of Roman Swearing, so readers of a delicatedisposition be warned. The harsh realities of war are to the fore, and thisnovel is firmly in the historical adventure genre. Madcap heroic deeds,violence, intrigue and mayhem all make this a perfect book for fans of tales ofthe Roman Army.

(This review first appear in the Historical Novels Review, August 2011)

Medieval roof tile stamp - Agnus Dei

2011-10-15T17:18:00.000Z

Roof tile stamps have only been a very minor feature of my cbm career as I've only seen one or two. But today, I came across one in a publication and was mightily impressed. I've long known about the cbm powerhouse of East Yorkshire, but this example is outstanding.

It is Agnus Dei - Lamb of God, a pretty typical medieval motif, but to see it on a roof tile is wonderful. It probably comes from a seal and it's speculated that the tile was part of a batch that was 'blessed' or approved by the seal owner. I hope the authors don't mind the scan I took of the back cover of the publication. The details of the Agnus Dei tile are fully discussed.

The full details are:

Archaeological Investigations at Morton Lane, Beverley, East Yorkshire by R McNaught and A Webb, Archaeological Services WYAS Publications, 2005.

The cbm report details are: Ceramic building material by J Tibbles, pages 21-24.

The whole publication can be obtained by visiting this website.

Other cbm includes: tile discs, brick weights and brick net weight/sinker and a ridge tile with finial hole. Unfortunately, these aren't illustrated.

Fiction: Secrets of the Dead by Tom Harper

2011-09-29T08:15:00.000Z

Secrets of the Dead is a thriller and a a time slip novel. There are two stories running in tandem, sometimes reflecting each other. In present day Kosovo, EULEX employee Abby is having a weekend away with her boyfriend, but something happens that turns her world upside down. She discovers a conspiracy and needs to get to the bottom of it to see justice done. Gaius, in the fourth century Roman Empire is called to Emperor Constantine's presence and tasked to solve a murder. But Gaius has his own ghosts. Regardless, he pursues the mystery of the murder, despite knowing that he faces deep peril.

For the most part, the reader gets alternate chapters of the modern day and the Roman Empire. It's an absorbing story, with plenty of twists and turns. In particular, Harper is very adept at leaving a chapter on a cliff hanger. Being rather impatient to find out what was going to happen, occasionally I skipped a chapter to find out the resolution of whatever situation the major character way in! But for the most part, I stayed with the author's set path and galloped my way through this exciting story of the effects of our ancient and very recent past.

Tom Harper's website

An interview with Tom Harper in York's Press

North Eastern Railway Tile Maps

2011-09-25T13:29:00.002Z

This tile map is from Middlesbrough station, but there's also one at York station which I see on a work day, as I pass by destined for the bus-stop outside the station. The maps are wonderful to look at, and you can see all the now-defunct stations in the area.

The maps date from about 1903 when the Northern Eastern Railway was at its height. The maps were placed at various NER stations, but not all survive to the present day - for further information go the NER website.

Late medieval brick in London Wall

2011-09-06T16:38:00.000Z

A pdf version of Terence Paul Smith's 2004 article in the London Archaeologist The Late Medieval bricks and brickwork of London Wall in St Alphage Garden, EC2

Field Drainage Tiles and Pipes

2011-08-31T08:35:00.004Z

An enquirer sent me this link, which is about Field Drains. It's from The Museum of Rural Life, but also includes a scanned in document from the former Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, now Defra. This MAFF document includes drawings of their collection of field drains, complete with measurements. The pdf as a whole serves as an excellent introduction to the wonderful world of field drains :)

Caerleon 2011 - hypocaust revealed

2011-08-14T11:10:00.002Z

Think they're bessalis size. Yay!

Binchester/Vinovia

2011-08-13T10:46:00.009Z

With a site boasting the best Roman baths remains in the country (probably), Binchester is a must for the tile fan. In this case, a tile fan without her camera (the pic above is from Stanford Univ's website), but I shall return to the site in one guise or another and will take my best camera with me.

Meanwhile, a bit of information about the site:

This is the Durham County Council website, with visiting details:

http://www.durham.gov.uk/Pages/Service.aspx?ServiceId=6646

There's an excavation taking place there until 2014, and here's the associated blog, which details the finds, both artefact and site specific:

http://binchester.blogspot.com/

A couple of recent publications are now in discerning bookshops:

Vinovia by Iain Ferris

and

The Beautiful Rooms are Empty: Excavations at Binchester Roman Fort, 1976-1981 and 1986-1991 by Iain Ferris

Frankly, I don't think the beautiful rooms are empty, because they are full of tile! btw, some of the tile from the site can be seen in Bowes Museum, and I have some photos of those somewhere ...

Dura-Europos: Crossroads of Antiquity

2011-07-17T09:11:00.002Z

Looks like some or one of these tiles may now be on show at Mount Scopos in Israel, but previously to that, there were tiles on show at the Dura-Europos: Crossroads of Antiquity exhibition in the US. See the article here: http://www.bc.edu/offices/pubaf/news/2011/duraeuropos01272011.html

And here's a tile (which is clay with a layer of alabaster) from the ceiling of a 3rd century building :

It shows Heliodoros, an actuarius, Dura-Europos, L7, House of Scribes.

West Offices, York

2011-07-07T09:23:00.003Z

West Offices is a site currently (July 2011) being dug in the centre of York. Of interest to this blog are the tile finds, including 9th Hispana tiles and circular pila tiles. Here's a few pix, courtesy of Duncan Stirk's flickr album:

9th Hispana tile stamp:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dstirk/5884302627/

The almost regulation hobnail imprint tile:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dstirk/5877933554/

Circular pila tile:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dstirk/5860056121/

And here's a brief news report on the dig's open day in June:

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/9107142.Roman_findings_go_on_show/

And a bit more information about the site over time:

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/features/features/6336299.City_of_York_Council_s_new_HQ_at_West_Offices/

Housestead Roman fort - the grandest station

2011-05-01T11:29:00.002Z

Housesteads, a major fort on Hadrian's Wall has recently been published and is available as a 2 volume free download here:

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/housesteads-roman-fort/

Volume two has a brick and tile report, so it's well worth a look for brick fans :) It can be found on pages 358 to 362.

The Rise and Decline of Guilds

2011-04-24T10:08:00.003Z

A facinating document from the Worshipful Company of Tylers and Bricklayers, about the history of guilds, with particular reference to tilers and bricklayers:

The Rise and Decline of Guilds .. by Tom Hoffman

The Pevensey Bricks

2011-03-25T13:58:00.002Z

A great article by Miles Russell about the fake HON AVG ANDRIA tile stamps, amongst other fakes by Charles Dawson (yes, he of Piltdown Man fame!). The stamp can be seen on the tile at the bottom left of this picture from Miles' site.

http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/caah/landscapeandtownscapearchaeology/piltdown_man_k.htm l

It's a Brickfielder, cobber

2009-07-19T16:41:00.004Z

Whilst looking for information on red brick dust, I came across a reference to a Brickfielder. Quoted in the Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911, it is:

... a term used in Australia for a hot scorching wind blowing from the interior, where the sandy wastes, bare of vegetation in summer, are intensely heated by the sun. This hot wind blows strongly, often for several days at a time, defying all attempts to keep the dust down, and parching all vegetation ...

Full entry at: http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Brickfielder

Weatheronline.co.uk illuminates further:

The hot northerly wind [in Australia] blew across the Brickfields, formerly so called, a district of Sydney and carried clouds of reddish dust from the brickworks over the nascent city - thus the name: Brickfielder. However, another - agricultural - explanation comes from the hot and dry character of the northerly wind itself, turning the surface of the already dry soil hard as bricks. Therefore, by confusion, every dry, hot wind from the north might be called a Brickfielder today. The Brickfielder is related to the Argentinian Zonda wind.

Full entry: http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/reports/wind/Brickfielder.htm

And just for good measure, a picture of some preserved brickwork buildings in Sydney!:

Another use for bricks: Red Brick Dust

2009-07-19T16:10:00.008Z

Whilst watching the film The Skeleton Key (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0397101/) I noticed that red brick dust was used to protect a room or house from those who would harm, as part of a voodoo ritual. This got me wondering if:

a) it really was a voodoo ritual (since we're dealing with Hollywood, aka the producers of Braveheart)
and
b) if so, how did it come about.

Unfortunately, I've only got access to the internet on this Sunday afternoon, but I did pick up a few likely sounding snippets:

The first organized voodoo ceremony in New Orleans is said to have taken place in an abandoned brickyard on Dumaine Street. It was probably presided over by Sanite Dede, the first of the great voodoo queens. (Voodoo was a matriarchy. The witch doctors and kings paled in comparison to the strong queens, always free women of color, never slaves, who reigned over the rituals). Repeated police raids on the brickyard drove the cultists out t0 Bayou St. John and Lake Pontchartrain ... Superstitious Creoles scrubbed their front stoops with brick dust to ward off curses
http://users.erols.com/irene/voodoo.htm

As usual, anything to do with brickyards, and we're into shady dealings of one kind or another! Though brick dust being used to ward off curses is hinting that brick has protective properties is rather nice.

Red Brick Dust, also known as Brick Dust, Red Dust, Red Powder or Reddening derives from the ancient use of red ochre clay for sacred purposes. For protection, sprinkle Red Brick Dust across the doorstep of your home. For money, drawing mix Red Brick Dust with cinnamon powder and brown sugar into water and scrub your doorstep inward for quick and continuous cash
http://www.indioproducts.com/webstore/product_info.php?products_id=7746

So there's Red Brick Dust for sale on the Internet ... I knew I'd missed a trick somewhere :-) My doorstep is gunning for a right scrubbing with brick dust plus cinnamon and brown sugar, and I can at least supply the brick dust for free!

And here is another supplier, who is obviously a wiccan:

http://forestgrove.wordpress.com/page/6/

But it was the reference to red ochre that got me really interested. It's known in prehistoric graves for examples, and there's a reference to a particular article (Red Ochre and Human Evolution: A Case for Discussion [and Comments and Reply] Ernst E. Wreschner, Ralph Bolton, Karl W. Butzer, Henri Delporte, Alexander Häusler, Albert Heinrich, Anita Jacobson-Widding, Tadeusz Malinowski, Claude Masset, Sheryl F. Miller, Avraham Ronen, Ralph Solecki, Peter H. Stephenson, Lynn L. Thomas and Heinrich Zollinger Current Anthropology, Vol. 21, No. 5 (Oct., 1980), pp. 631-644 ), first page here: http://www.jstor.org/pss/2741829 Definitely worth looking at the rest of the paper, when I get time to go to the University library some time. Meanwhile, there's some further information on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochre

So if red ochre isn't easily available, may be red brick dust will do. I'll go with that any time!

Framework Archaeology CBM reports on scribd

2009-07-10T15:53:00.003Z

Ceramic building materials reports can be found here:

A total of 1,255 fragments of ceramic building material, weighing 155,408 g was recovered during evaluations and excavations at Stansted Airport:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3293770/Excavations-at-Stansted-Airport-Ceramic-Building-Material

Wessex Archaeology CBM reports on scribd

2009-07-10T15:46:00.002Z

Ceramic building materials reports can be found here:

Cambourne New Settlement - Iron Age and Romano-British settlement on the clay uplands of west Cambridgeshire:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/15046387/Cambourne-Ceramic-Building-Material-and-Fired-Clay

Suburban life in Roman Durnovaria: Excavations at the former County Hospital Site, Dorchester, Dorset 2000–2001:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3200795/Roman-Durnovaria-13-Ceramic-building-material

York vicar in tile plea

2009-07-09T10:29:00.003Z

(Photo from the Press 9/7/09)

The tiles of the Lady Chapel floor in All Saints Pavement, North Street, York, are being restored. The newspaper article can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/mmffov If you want to donate toward the restoration of the Lady Chapel go here: http://allsaints-northstreet.org.uk/restoration_olns.html

Time Team find tile in Colworth ...

2009-06-07T16:45:00.003Z

This fragment of tile was found by Time Team and shown during their 2009 season. It's from a Roman site in Colworth, Bedfordshire. It's very clear from the photograph that the tile is made from a common shelly fabric, well known by those who work on tile down south.

http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/T/timeteam/2009/colworth/colworth-found.html

Leeds International Medieval Congress - 13th July

2009-06-07T16:32:00.002Z

Brick and Tile in the Middle Ages
Monday July 13, 2009
Leeds University

Web: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/ims/imc/index.html

Brick and tile were extensively used in the middle ages in north-western Europe both in cities and in rural buildings. Dating techniques are becoming more sophisticated and two of the papers look at the relatively new technique of optical luminescence and the insights this provides into the dating of early brick in England.

Sponsor: British Brick Society

Speakers:
Luminescence Dating of Medieval Essex Brick Thomas Gurling, Luminesence Laboratory, Department of Archaeology, Durham University

The Origin of Ceramic Building Materials for the Early Medieval Church at Chipping Ongar, Essex: A Case Study of Thermoluminescence Dating Applied to Building Archaeology Sophie Blain, Université de Bordeaux

Roof Tile and Brick in Medieval York Sandra Garside-Neville

British theses online - ETHos

2009-06-07T15:27:00.004Z

The British Library are hosting a PDF download service for British doctorates. Quite a few are available for free, some are charged for, and a minority will charge for digitising costs; it depends on the University supplying it. Some universities (eg. Oxford) have not signed up to the service, and need to be contacted direct for supply.

However, this means that some 'classic' brick and tile doctorates are now very easily available, for example Betts' brick and tile in york up to the 18th century, and McWhirr's Roman brick and tile. These are already scanned in, and available for download straightaway. Others have yet to be scanned and it will take BL at least 30 days, if not more, to do it. But at least it's opening up access!

The service is available at: http://ethos.bl.uk/

Recreating Roman Building Materials

2009-06-07T15:25:00.001Z

Over on Roman Army Talk, a couple of members have been re-creating Roman building materials for their displays at shows:

http://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=26666&p=239920#p239920

Fire and water reveal new archaeological dating method

2009-05-20T19:37:00.001Z

Scientists at The University of Manchester have developed a new way of dating archaeological objects – using fire and water to unlock their ‘internal clocks’.

The simple method promises to be as significant a technique for dating ceramic materials as radiocarbon dating has become for organic materials such as bone or wood.
A team from The University of Manchester and The University of Edinburgh has discovered a new technique which they call ‘rehydroxylation dating’ that can be used on fired clay ceramics like bricks, tile and pottery ...

To read the rest of the article, following this link:

http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/display/?id=4684

Ruth Downie likes Flue tiles!

2008-03-02T16:59:00.008Z

Ruth Downie's first novel (Medicus and the Disappearing Dancing Girls) was well received and her next novel about the Roman detective (Ruso and the Demented Doctor) is due out very soon. Check out her website/blog here. She lives in Milton Keynes, my old stamping ground, and not a stone's throw from the aforementioned Stewartby Brickworks.

But why does she merit a mention on this blog in particular? On two accounts. She's and author and she also likes flue tiles as confessed here. Books and bricks! She also mentions she digs at Whitehall Villa every year, so I checked out the Whitehall Villa Web pages and found they've done further work into flue tiles. In fact, they've had a go at making them. The only comment I will make is that I've seen some flue tiles with marks on the inside that hint that the former was in two pieces, and each half was pulled out from either end, which would make them much easier to remove.Their end product looks great and makes me want to have a go :-)

Looks like they've only got combed flue tile so far. I thought they were within the range of roller stamped flue tile - perhaps they've got that to come!

We don't get them up here in York (mutter, moan) I guess I was just spoiled on the first site I ever recorded tile - Beddington Roman Villa, Surrey.

RIP Stewartby Brickworks, but ...

2008-03-01T20:17:00.002Z

(Image from http://www.bedsonsunday.com/bedsonsunday-news/displayarticle.asp?id=238068, by Tony Margiocchi)

I was brought up in Bletchley, Bucks, with the brickworks setting off my asthma on a regular basis, presumably when the fumes from the kilns floated to the west of the town. It could be said that bricks are in my blood stream! Those local brickworks were closed by the 1990s, but the nearby Bedfordshire brickworks survived, albeit losing many of its chimneys. However, I was sad to read that Stewartby has now closed, because it does not reach UK environmental regulations. Fair enough, but they were the last of the industry in Bedfordshire. However, there's a glimmer of hope - the chimneys and kilns have been listed by English Heritage, so there will be a monument to the industry. I feel an outing to Beds coming on :-)

Ian Jack writing in The Guardian, Saturday March 1st drew my attention to this story. In the article, he has some acute observations about brick:

Unlike, say, cotton spinning or wool weaving, brickmaking has attracted very little cultural attention. So far as I can tell, nobody has done for the brickfields what Arnold Bennett did for potmaking in Staffordshire or the British documentary movement did for cotton and coal. The last coal mine in South Wales closes and you have a story: a procession, memories, tears. At Stewartby on Thursday they had a private night out at the Red Lion in Elstow. Perhaps bricks are too ordinary, too ubiquitous. They've change little since they were made in the Indus valley 5,000 years ago. Perhaps also their factories have tended to be too far south to fit the traditions of industrial romanticism. Yet the story of brickmaking in Bedfordshire prefigures modern Britain in its early use of foreign labour and the growth of multicultural communities.

Brick is common, and that's what I like about it. It aint pretty, but provides shelter and because of that, it's important.

Excavations at Sprotbrough, South Yorkshire

2008-02-12T16:55:00.001Z

2007 was a good year for my ceramic building materials publications to appear, and this one can be found in the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal for 2007, Volume 79. The CBM report is co-authored with Cecil Spall, and can be found on pages 293-297. Of main interest was nib tiles, which seem to be a very typical product of South Yorkshire.

Congratulations to Chris Fenton-Thomas in getting the whole excavation report in print so quickly. The full reference for the whole article is:

Fenton-Thomas, C et al 2007 'Excavations at Sprotbrough , South Yorkshire,' Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Vol 79, 231-310

Elginhaugh: A Flavian Fort and its Annexe

2008-02-12T16:44:00.000Z

Britannia Monograph No. 23, W.S. Hanson with K. Speller, P.A. Yeoman and J. Terry

Elginhaugh: A Flavian Fort and its Annexe

Elginhaugh is the most completely excavated timber-built auxiliary fort in the Roman Empire. This report provides an assessment of all the structures, with particular emphasis on the identification of stable-barracks and the implications for the identification of garrisons based on fort plans, while extensive examination of the annexe makes a substantial contribution to the debate about the function of these attached enclosures. Because the occupation is so closely dated (A.D. 79–87), the site provides a very precise dating horizon for the wide range of artefactual material reported on. Of particular importance is the evidence for the local manufacture of coarseware and mortaria, including the identification of a new mortarium potter. An extensive programme of environmental analysis provides insight into issues of local environment and food supply. Finally, there is unique evidence that the site continued to function as a collection centre for animals after the garrison had departed.

November 2007, 2 vols. (c. 672 pages including 164 line-drawings and 58 plates). Paperback. ISBN 978 0 907764 34 2. £43/US$86 till 31 March 2008, thereafter £58/US$116

Its a Book, but it's also to do with bricks, as there is a brick and tile report. It's on pages 486-492 and was the first Brick and Tile report I ever wrote!

Middle English Dictionary

2007-01-31T10:47:00.000Z

The Middle English Dictionary is online, and is of use for looking up Middle English names for tiles. For example:

til(le, tiel(e, tigel, tighel, ti3l, tieghel, teil(le, tel(e, teghle, teghel(e, te3ele, thil & (in names) tichel, tiwel, thiel, thigel; pl. tiles, etc. & tiellen & tile, til(le, tiel, tigel, tighl, til, tel(e & (error) teys.

[OE []tiegle, tighel; for -e- forms cp. MDu. tegel, tegele; ult. L te macrongula. For the surname form tiwel cp. AF tiwel, tiuuele, vars. of OF tiule.]

1.
(a) A brick; a masonry tile; -- also coll.; brenned ~; (b) in related cpds., combs., & phrases: ~ of flaundres, flaundres (flaundrish) ~, bricks or tile made in Flanders; ~ ston, q.v.; ~ wallere, a bricklayer; brike ~, bricks; herth ~, tile for making a fireplace; pendaunt ~, ?a tile used for the arch of a fireplace; sconchoun ~, chamfered tile; wal ~, a tile for a wall; -- also coll. [see also wal n.(1)]; (c) a fragment of a brick or tile; -- also coll.; ~ scarthe (sherd).

2.
(a) A roofing tile; a stone slate used as a roofing tile; -- also coll.; crestes of ~, tiled rooftops; (b) in related cpds. & combs.: ~ pin, a wooden pin used to attach a roofing tile to a lath; -- also coll.; ~ pinninge, the attaching of tiles to the lath of a roof with nails or pins; ~ prig, coll. nails used to attach roofing tiles; ~ thacchere, one who lays roofing tile; coin (corner) ~, ?a hip tile; ?a tile for an archway; goter ~, a tile for a gutter; hipe ~ [see hipe n. 2.(b)]; hole (holwe) ~, a concave roofing tile; plaine ~, ?a flat roofing tile; ?an undecorated roofing tile; rigge ~ [see also rigge n. 7.(c)]; rof ~ [see rof n. 6.(a)]; thache ~ [see thach(e n. (c)].

3.
(a) A paving tile; a painted paving tile; -- also coll.; (b) in related cpds. & combs.: ~ paving, paving tiles; holand ~; pavement ~, tiles used in paving; pavinge ~ [see also paving(e ger. (c)]; pen ~, tile manufactured at Penn and Tyler's Green in Buckinghamshire [the quotation under penne-til n. should be moved to pen n.]; wal ~, ?decorated wall tiles used for flooring.

4.
In misc. cpds. related to senses 1., 2., & 3.: ~ formere (makere), one who makes or shapes bricks or tiles; ~ hous, q.v.; ~ kilne (oste), a kiln for firing bricks or tiles; ~ kilnere; ~ makinge, the process of making bricks or tiles; ~ poudre, powder made from crushed bricks or tiles and used in mortar; ~ werk, bricklaying or paving; square ~, a square tile used for roofing or paving.

5.
A heated tile used to heat or melt something [in most cases it is impossible to determine if the reference is to a flat tile or to a brick]; also, a tile used to cover an earthenware pot; ~ ston, q.v.

6.
?The hardened material out of which bricks and tiles are made, burnt clay; also in prov. expressions; brenned ~ [occas. difficult to distinguish from sense 1.(a)].

7.
In phrase: tiles of ston, mistransl. of L macheras petrinas stone swords: ?error through misreading of machera as ML maceria; ?error for ME stile n.(2).

8.
In surnames and place names [see Smith PNElem.2.179].

Cleaning the floor tiles at Barley Hall: 5

2007-01-08T16:29:00.000Z

The last day of tile cleaning. And there was one patch to do in front of the dias and leading up to the doorway. Since we should have finished yesterday, no other volunteers were due in, and I worked on my own. It would have been difficult to get two people easily in to the available space anyway. We would have been wondering which bits had been done or backing into each other's cleaned area at some point.

The photo (right) shows a section of the floor, with the risers of the dias at the back. The two (authentic re-productions of the medieval items) bowls contain de-ionised water - one with the specialised detergent, and one without. The orange item is the trusty Barley Hall Ruler - removing chewing and candlewax, for the use of. The tiles to the left hand side have been cleaned, but not buffed. On the right handside, the tiles are still dirty

Not surprisingly, there was a lot more wear on this section than on others as it is the only way into and out of the hall. Other patches of wear were under the top table, where people rested their feet. Also tiles were worn in other areas, particularly if they had a convex surface to begin with. With the brown tiles, it was difficult to gauge the degree of wear. However, it was sometimes noticeable that were was 'drag' particularly when using the non-stick scourers. Previously, when near the window, close to the settles, or near the cupboard, this proved to be a sign there was more candle wax to come off. But on the open area, it was actually where the glaze had been worn down to the body of the tile. With the brown tiles, of course, there is just one layer before hitting the body. With the yellow tiles, there are two layers - the glaze and the slip (which is what makes the tile surface seem yellow). However, some of the yellow tiles showed a little glaze wear, but not down to the slip. The most obviously worn yellow tile occurred just to the left of the surface in front of the dias.

There was no tile wear behind the settles, though the accumulation of dust and chewing gum still made it hard going. Hopefully, after our experiences with the stuff, chewing gum will be banned from the hall. The other problem was candle wax, but that is something that is a natural part of the hall's display, so we'll have to put up with that. It was noticeable that some tiles had chipped edges, particularly where the edges were higher than the mortar.

Total amount of material used:
4 pairs medium gloves (Superdrug; 2 for 1 deal)
2 pairs small gloves (Superdrug; 2 for 1 deal)
3 pairs large gloves (Poundland)
10 200g packs cotton wool (Poundland)
5 non-stick scourers (Woolworths)
11 litres de-ionised water (9 litres from Halfords, 2 litres from Barnitts; Barnitts was cheapest at the time, though I subsequently saw de-ionised water for 51p per litre in Tescos; much cheaper than either of those shops)

Also: 1 box soap flakes (Barnitts)- only used experimentally on a small patch. Seemed to work OK.
And: Several Barley Hall rulers were extremely useful in removing chewing gum and candle wax

Cleaning hours clocked up today: 4.15

Overall total so far: 39.45 hours

So let's call it 40 hours or so to individually hand-clean all the tiles in Barley Hall!

Cleaning the floor tiles at Barley Hall: 4

2007-01-07T17:55:00.000Z

I feel I know the Barley Hall tile floor intimately now - all too intimately. There were four of us today: Trish, Sally, Peter and myself. We were doing the more central parts of the floor, having to shift settles, tables and benches to get to the tiles. For some stretches we had to wait (briefly) whilst the tiles dried before shifting the furniture. But we achieved the target for the day. Only one section remains and it's the tiles immediately in front of the dias. The photo on the right shows the cleaned tiles of the dias on the right, and the still grubby tiles on the left. The photo shows how much brighter the dias tiles are now. I shall be in on my own tomorrow to finish off the remaining grubby section.

And then after that, it's a case of seeing if there's anything I can do to clean up the tile hearth. It's a different animal from the glazed floor tiles, as the materials used there are actually 15th century. It was originally from Rawcliffe Manor, a site dug some years ago. The most amazing thing is its completeness. There were original tile hearths at Barley Hall, but they were too smashed up and robbed to use. It just so happened that Rawcliffe produced a comparatively pristine hearth of about the same size. Rather than break it up (the site was due to be developed and the archaeology destroyed), it was lifted and transferred to the Hall. I can clean the hearth at my leisure, perhaps on a day when the Museum is closed (currently Monday and Tuesday). The main thing is that I complete the tiled floor tomorrow ...

Cleaning hours clocked up today: 13 hours (total of person hours)

Overall total so far: 35.30 hours

Cleaning the floor tiles at Barley Hall: 3

2007-01-06T16:56:00.000Z

Another day on the tiles! At various points in the day, there were six people, plus myself working on the floor: Kim, Alex, Maria and her husband, Sally and Peter. This time we were concentrating on cleaning the tiles behind the settles, and those on the dias. The settles effectively created two corridors to clean down. I was on one of them, and Kim and Peter were on the other at different times. A puzzling feature was chewing gum. Normally these 'corridors' are covered by the settles, which have been pulled out for cleaning purposes. However, there was a fair amount of dirt behind them, but how on earth did the chewing gum get there? Not surpringly, there is talk of ensuring that school parties have disposed of their chewing gum before they enter the Hall ...

The dias had its own particular problems. Namely the table could not be moved, as it's too heavy. So the valiant tile-cleaners (Alex, Sally, Maria and her husband) had to work with their heads under the table. We are using halogen lights anyway, but those working on the dias particularly needed them. They were also in peril of banging their heads.

Tomorrow, one of the settle 'corridors' just needs buffing up, and then the settle can be moved back. This will reveal some more tiles to be cleaned in the centre of the floor, and again there will be the table problem for part of it. The other settle 'corridor' needs finishing, drying and then that part buffing, and we can then get to the next section. The floor in front of the dias will need to be done, but not before the tiles in front of the settles have been done, other wise we will be walking over the person cleaning it, and probably still damp tiles. Still outstanding is the tile hearth, which is not glazed, but certainly needs a clean. I think it's a toothbrush or nailbrush job.

We've cleaned perhaps a half to two thirds of the Hall floor so far.

Cleaning hours clocked up today: 13.30 hours (total of person hours).

Overall total so far: 22.30

Cleaning the floor tiles at Barley Hall: 2

2007-01-05T16:37:00.000Z

Having gathered together various materials, including gloves, de-ionised water, cotton wool, and non-stick scourers, the first day of cleaning began. There were two other people cleaning the floor with me, Sara and Linda.

The cleaning method is as follows:

· Take a small amount of cotton wool, and dampen it in the bowl of de-ionised water only (do not use the bowl with the non-ionic detergent at this point)
· Use the wet cotton wool to clean the surface of the tile
· If there are is any stubborn dirt (eg. chewing gum) just wet it at this stage
· Concentrate on the tile itself and try to avoid the mortar at the edges
· Do not put the used cotton wool back into either of the water bowls
· Discard dirty cotton wool
· Take another clean cotton wool ball and dip it in the bowl with the non-ionic detergent in
· Clean the tile surface again
· Check how dirty the cotton wool is getting and use another if need be
· Use the non-stick scourer if required
· Use the edge of a plastic ruler to prise off any stubborn dirt
· Take another cotton wool ball and dip in the non-detergent water and clean the face of the tile to remove any more dirt and the detergent itself
· Allow the tile to dry
· Take another cotton wool ball, dry this time, and gently buff the surface of the tile

We started at the 'window' end of the Hall. This window is in the snicket - which was originally the screens passage of the Hall, but at some point in its history it became a public right of way. So one end of the Hall is a clear window, and people walking by can look in. Normally, they see the Hall laid out with tables, settles, benches, and pottery. But at present all that is piled up. Instead they could watch three people carefully hand cleaning the Hall's tiles. One old lady banged on the window and said: 'Put some Cillit-Bang on it!' I agreed, but carried on regardless.

The main hazard in this section of the floor is candle wax from the large candlesticks often placed at the end of the Hall. There is also some chewing gum, and that is spread all round the the floor. And of course there is a large amount of dirt. Sara was surprised to find a green tile, up against the window, which constrasted with the other yellow and brown tiles. Why it was in the floor is uncertain. Perhaps they ran out of tiles? But there are plenty of spares to be had. So that's a bit of a mystery.

Cleaning hours clocked up today: 9 hours (total of person hours)

Cleaning the floor tiles at Barley Hall: 1

2007-01-04T16:56:00.000Z

The reproduction floor tile at Barley Hall in York is a glorious centre-piece to the restored medieval house. However it's in need of a clean, and I volunteered to find out how to do this. The tiles were handmade by John Hudson, and have been walked by the visitors to the Hall for at least 15 years. The floor has been cleaned occasionally, but sparingly using modern cleaning materials. It now needs a deep clean, along with the rest of the Hall.

I consulted the Tiles and Architectural Ceramics website, and found their fact sheets 1 and 2 of some use, though they are primarily aimed at cleaning Victorian or later tiles. Green 'Scotchbrite' scourers were recommended to clean the surfaces, but I think it might not be applicable here - we'll be using the white 'non-stick' scourers, and even then, sparingly. It also turned out that some of the materials recommended were very difficult to get hold of. Biotex (a non-ionic cleaner, which won't interfere with the glazed surfaces of the tiles) no longer seems to be available. And distilled water is only available from laboratory suppliers. However de-ionised water was to be found on the shelves of hardwear stores, Halfords and supermarkets. In the end, I consulted the a conservation laboratory who were very helpful. De-ionised water should be OK to use. They also recommended that I could try soap flakes as a cleaning agent, so I'll be trying that out tomorrow. We also have a small amount of specialised non-ionic detergent to use.

Yesterday, I spent my time getting the equipment and materials required together. And today, I did a patch test to find out how the cleaning process would work. I've just typed out the instructions for the volunteer tile cleaners. Tomorrow, the real work will begin ...

Roman London redrawn after burial find

2006-12-01T16:37:00.000Z

Not only that, but a tile kiln has also been found. The site is at St Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square, and also has a late Roman burial (4th-5th century) and 7th century Anglo-Saxon burials too. The full report, from The Times of 1st December can be found here.

Here are the tile-related sentences:

' ... Other finds include a Roman tile kiln, dating from AD400-450, indicating that a significant Roman building existed near the site ...'

' ... No other tile kilns have been found in Central London, and the kiln is the latest-dated structure from Roman London to have been found thus far ...'

Hopefully, we'll hear much more about this in the future.

Mouse imprint on a Roman Brick in Germany

2006-11-20T13:36:00.000Z

I picked this up from British Brick Society's Information 102, page 8, T P Smith, 2006.

Here is a translation of the German text into English using AltaVista's Babelfish (http://babelfish.altavista.com/):

During opening a Roman ziegelbrennofens with Neupotz was the casting of an antique mouse in a brick. Since February 2001 the LOD Speyer accomplishes Jockrim and the local municipality Neupotz excavations on the gemarkung Neupotz, which became necessary by the classification of a development area in co-operation with the convention community. To day came among other things Roman piece of road, one cellar, three Getreidedarren as well as a complete manufacturing plant for bricks with furnace and workshop. All plants date after the first impression into the second and third after-Christian century.

On the hole threshing floor of the altogether surprisingly well received ziegelbrennofens a Tegulafragment with the highly detailed body casting of a mouse was in the destruction debris (see upper photo). The animal probably killed, when over still yield, to drying which are laid out brick plates ran. The casting is so clear that the rodent could be determined zoologically. See for this the following contribution of the Diplombiologin Martina Dumke.

Determination of the animal casting found at the excavation place The Habitus of the found animal is the one mammal. One finds mouse-well-behaved animals in the order of the insectivores (Insectivora) under the pointed mice and in the order of the rodents (Rodentia) under the genuine mice. The following regulation characteristics can be used on the basis the casting:
* Head fuselage length (KR): Distance between lip point and tail root (70mm)
* Swan length (Schw): Distance between the tail root and the tail point (without final hair) (76mm)
* hind foot length (HF): Distance between Hinterrand of the heel and the front edge of the longest toe (without claw) (19mm)

Further characteristics:
* Apodemus mystacinus rock mouse
* 4 toes at the front feet, 5 toes at the hind feet
* Sohlenschwielen at the hind feet
* split oberlippe
* probably not yet reproductionable male

The Insectivora can be excluded, since these exhibit in each case 5 toes at the rear and front feet. Thus the find animal is to be assigned to the order Rodentia and here the genuine mice. For the determination of the kinds apart from the characteristics specified above also the ear length and the skin condition are needed, by expulsion procedures arrive one however at the kind Apodemus - forest mice. Unfortunately each large regulation and thus the establishment on a kind are pure speculation, since it probably concerns an animal not attained full growth yet and cannot the koerpermasse thus obligatorily be used. Besides important regulation characteristics, like the tooth condition, are missing the skin colouring and the number of tail rings. Unfortunately one cannot orient oneself also at the momentary circulation area, since also mouse populations had to bend themselves in the past millenium in its spreading the strong pressure of humans as well as the climate. The following kinds of the kind Apodemus occur in Europe: *Apodemus mystacinus rock mouse
*Apodemus flavicollis yellow neck mouse (favored by the author)
*Apodemus sylvaticus common forest mouse Apodemus microps dwarf forest mouse
*Apodemus agrarius fire mouse

Hopefully, it gives an idea of the original text! Smith's text in Information says it's a Field Mouse (Apodemus mystacinus). To see the pages, with a couple of photos, go to:

http://www.archaeologie-speyer.de
THEN: On the left hand bar click on the link to 'Archaologie in der Pfalz.' Then on the right hand panel scroll down to 'Heir kommt die Maus!' Then click on the link highlighted: 'Mehr über dieses Thema erfahren Sie hier'

Roman Portable Ovens

2006-10-29T17:02:00.000Z

I've just been reading the latest Research News: Newsletter of the English Heritage Research Department Number 4, Summer 2006, pages 23-24. In it there was an interesting snippet about rare Roman Portable Ovens (Clibani). In particular, there was a photo of the fragments from the Chester Amphitheatre excavations, and the comment that the fragments were collected as ceramic building materials. So it's a possible thing that may be found in cbm samples, along with all that amphora ...

On searching on the web, I found that a similar photo of the Chester fragments is included in the Chester Amphitheatre Newletter issue 9, 12.08.06 It will download as a PDF and you will need Adobe Acrobat to read it. See pages 6-7 in the pdf. There's a helpful description of the sherds.

Failing that, get hold of a copy of the Research News, details as above. They are free; I can't remember exactly where from, but try emailing: fort.cumberland@english-heritage.org.uk in the first instance. Most of the edition is given over to Chester's Amphitheatre Project, which is quite interesting in itself.

If you want to see a picture of a near-complete oven, there's a drawing of one in: W F Grimes, 1930. 'Holt, Denbighshire: The Works-Dept of the Twentieth Legion at Castle Lyons' Y Cymmrodor Vol XLI, 1930, page 212. Or you can see one in use in this online impression. It's on the right of the drawing, and an adult is putting something into it, or taking something out. The drawing was created from a clibanus found on the excavations at Prestatyn, Wales, which was a Roman baths and civilian settlement. The full reference to the drawing is: Blockley M, 1986. 'The Prestatyn excavation: education, presentation and video' IN Cracknell S & Corbishley M (eds), 1986. Presenting archaeology to young people, CBA Research Report 64, 17-23

Adventures in archaeological research: 1

2006-10-17T15:15:00.000Z

I've just started the second, more intensive research phase for my Early medieval ceramic building materials in Yorkshire article.

First up, is establishing the presence of curved and flanged tiles in Scarborough. This has entailed checking out the origination of this oft-quoted occurence. It seems to come from J N Hare's Battle Abbey publication (1985). Anthony D F Streeten's refreshingly substantial Ceramic Building Materials report (p79-102) discusses the presence of curved and flanged tiles at the Abbey. He then cites the Scarborough curved and flanged tiles, and the references is: P and N Famer, pers. comm. The tiles were found from the early phase of Scarborough ware (pottery) production, where they were found amongst wasters.

The next step was to find out if this material was ever published. Cue a visit to the British and Irish Archaeological Bibliography.

There were three references:

An introduction to Scarborough Ware and a reassessment of knight jugs
1979, Peter G Farmer: privately published by author

Symposium on Scarborough Ware
1982, P G Farmer, N C Farmer & et al: Medieval Ceram, 6, 1982, 66-119

Excavations at the deserted medieval village of Osgodby near Scarborough, 1956-65
1968, Peter G Farmer: Trans Scarborough Dist Archaeol Soc, 2(11), 1968, 29-61

Unfortunately, none of them are after the date of the pers comm from the Battle Abbey report. However, I will still check them out. To do that, I have to find out if the local libraries have got them.

I checked the University of York - they have Medieval Ceramics. They also have a puzzling reference to the Trans Scarborough Dist Archaeol Soc at the Borthwick, but I suspect they don't have the complete run. However the Scarborough and District Archaeological Society have a website, and if I need to, I will go directly to them. Indeed they have several more recent Scarborough archaeological publications, but I've already checked those (they are in my CBM library) and the legendary curved and flanged tiles are not mentioned there.

Next with trepidation onto the the privately published 'An introduction to Scarborough Ware ...' But it's not a problem. The York Minster Library has a copy. Phew.

Another avenue of enquiry would be to talk to P. and N. Farmer. Unfortunately, Peter Farmer had died, as his obituary was reported in Medieval Ceramics in 2001. I haven't yet made much headway in finding out the whereabouts of N. Farmer. Indeed, on the personal contact front, there may be several other people to talk to, as they are currently involved in the archaeology of Scarborough, so it is likely I will try them first.

The perils of a freelance archaeologist

2006-10-13T16:39:00.000Z

I never wanted to be freelance. It's not good for me personally, and it's not good for the brick and tile. Being outside archaeological organisations means that both you and, more crucially, your material can easily be ignored. This is a real problem if you do brick and tile, where there is barely 'a market.'

A circular argument is used: why get the material reported on thoroughly if not much can be got from it? But of course, the more intensively it is studied, the more it will yield tangible results. A no-brainer, one would think, but frequently, I have to point this out, or heavily imply it. Unfortunately, diplomacy is not my forte; I'm just interested in doing the brick and tile properly, not in networking and furthering my career per se. The results of intensive study won't be the same as its close, much-studied cousin, pottery, but more information will be found out about brick and tile, which was a major ceramic industry from the Roman period onward.

As a freelance, apart from having to find work, accommodate brick and tile in one's home, and do battle with the Inland Revenue when they can't believe how little one is earning, one of the major problems is fellow archaeologists. It is all to do with respect (or lack thereof), and also a careless attitude to those who have to live on a financial precipice. Recently I had to do battle with an archaeological organisation that did not want to pay me an average rate for doing a day's work. Actually, I'll be putting in perhaps around 1.5 days, but I thought I'd be generous and not charge the whole whack (silly me) All sorts of excuses were thrown my way - particularly along the lines of we wanted to use the funds for a more worthy cause. Frankly, they tried to make me feel guilty at charging this average rate for this work. I offered to stand down; it was the only thing I could do, as I was not going to take a lesser rate, knowing that the work entails much preparation as well as intensive execution. It went a little higher within the organisation and fortunately my rate was approved. But the whole episode has left a very bad taste (and just when I was starting to think it couldn't get any worse ...)

I presume I am being viewed as a gold digger, because I insisted on charging a very average rate. Hello!? Would I be in British archaeology if I was in it for the money? The idea's laughable. What I earn from archaeology doesn't really cover the costs of research, travel, associated expenses, etc, concerned purely to do with studying brick and tile. Trying to argue 'the more worthy' clause doesn't wash with me - as far as I'm concerned the continuing and evolving study of brick and tile is as worthy a cause as anything else in archaeology. Unfortunately some (most?) of my colleagues don't seem to agree with me.

Tiles in odd places: Shires West, Leicester

2006-10-09T13:00:00.000Z

In November/December 2006's British Archaeology (Number 91, pages 20-21) Tony Gnanaratnam reports on the excavations in Leicester from April-December 2005 - Revealing a lost community. It was a large site which focussed on St Peter's medival church and cemetery. No doubt, at some point the article will gravitate to British Archaeology's web archive, sans photos. In the meantime, of interest to tile fans is the presence of two floor tiles in one of the graves:

... The coffin contained two floor tiles, one with the mid 14th century arms of the Dukes of Lancaster (the earldom of Leicester eventually passed to Lancaster)

There is also a photo of the grave, and it shows that one of the tiles was tucked behind the head of the skeleton. Published in the article, I also found it on the dig's website, so have included it here.

Early medieval ceramic roof tile in Yorkshire

2006-09-18T15:04:00.000Z

Having got the funding to get proper drawings made of the curved and flanged tile thanks to a grant from the Yorkshire Architectural and York Archaeological Society, I can go ahead with my early medieval roof tile article. Curved and flanged roofing tile is currently dated to 12th-early 13th century and are superceded by plain roof tile (eg. peg or nib) from the late 12th century onward.

Curved and flanged tile functioned in the same way as the Roman imbrex and tegula. The following examples are from MAP Archaeological Consultancy's Spurriergate, York, site.

This is a flanged tile, with a nail/peg hole. Only half of one, but a complete one can be seen at the Museum of London catalogue site here:
Here is a curved tile that would have gone along with the flanged tile above. As ever, it's not quite complete. Note it also has a nail/peg hole:
Although I have seen some partially glazed examples in York, it does not appear to be particularly common in the city.

Here is how the tiles would be fitted together. Unlike Roman tiles, these tiles don't tend have upper and lower cutaways to lock into the next tiles on the roof. However, sometimes the flanges tiles as a whole taper toward the bottom, or the flange itself is slightly tapered at the end:

National Lottery flying bricks advert

2006-09-16T21:43:00.000Z

As previously mentioned on this blog, there was a National Lottery advert featuring bricks flying through the air to a nice sunny location. This ad can now be viewed on line here. I may even go so far as downloading a copy :-)

Brick and Tile Recording Day 2006

2006-09-05T13:33:00.000Z

Brick and Tile Recording Day

Wednesday 15th November 2006

10.00 to 4.30pm

Yorkshire Museum, Museum Gardens, York

Draft Programme

10.00am Tea/Coffee/Biscuits and Registration
10.15 Introductions
10.20 Why record Ceramic Building Materials? Phil Mills (Freelance CBM specialist)
10.45 A brief guide to Ceramic Building Material types Sandra Garside-Neville (CBM Researcher)
11.15 Tour of Ceramics Store Andrew Morrison (Curator of Access for Archaeology, Yorkshire Museum)
12.15 Lunch (There are a number of cafes and pubs in the area, or please bring your own food as it is not
provided)
1.30 Hands-on brick and tile recording
3.00 Tea break
3.15 Hands-on brick and tile recording
4.30 Finish

Places are limited to 10 participants only and cost £45 for the day.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you're interested in attending, drop me a line at sgn1@fsmail.net

The Roman Stamped Tiles of Vindonissa (1st Century A.D., Northern Switzerland)

2006-08-09T16:53:00.000Z

Another book available from Archaeopress is: BAR S1449 2005: The Roman Stamped Tiles of Vindonissa (1st Century A.D., Northern Switzerland) Provenance and technology of the production ? an archaeometric study by Folco Giacomini. ISBN 1841718858. £25.00. 84 pages; illustrated throughout with figures, maps, plans, tables and illustrations. Abstracts in French and German. This work presents an archaeometric study on the Vindonissa stamped tiles. Vindonissa (Canton of Aargau, Switzerland) was an important Roman camp during the 1st century AD. With Vindonissa stamped tiles, archaeologists refer to all tiles stamped with the name of the military units that were stationed at Vindonissa from 47 to 101 AD. These tiles are among the most common archaeological findings in the Vindonissa legionary camp, but commonly occur in different Roman sites of Switzerland. The principal aim of this study was the petrographic and chemical characterisation of the Vindonissa tiles to determine the production site (or sites) for these ceramics and to obtain information concerning the technological aspects of the tile production and the distribution of these stamped tiles in Switzerland in Roman times.

Tegulae: manufacture,typology and use in Roman Britain

2006-08-07T22:38:00.000Z

Peter Warry kindly notified the ACBMG list of his new publication:

... my book on tegulae (Tegulae: manufacture,
typology and use in Roman Britain. BAR417) has now been published.
It broadly follows my PhD thesis. The structure and a few of the
conclusions are set out below. I would be delighted if anybody
wishes to offer any data or arguments that either support or
contradict my conclusions.
Peter Warry

Chapter 1 – Introduction

Chapter 2 - Manufacture: showing that tegulae were made with wet
clay in a four-sided mould and shaped with a wire (the clay was too
wet/adhesive to be rolled). In the later third century some
manufacturers converted to an inverted box mould and some imbrex
manufacturers also changed from upright to inverted formers around
the same time.

Chapter 3 – Typology: the form of the lower cutaway changed over
time and a sequence of four distinct cutaway groups (found
throughout the province) are proved. Using this cutaway sequence,
tegula size reduces steadily through time with the flange dimensions
and cutaway lengths also reducing in proportion. At the end of the
sequence some regions develop their own unique forms.

Chapter 4 – Dating: the cutaway groups fall into date ranges (A= up
to 120, B=100-180, C=160-260, D=240 onwards, regional forms 300
onwards). Substantially more data are required to verify these date
ranges, in particular the Group C forms could have a much more
extensive overlap with the Group B cutaway forms. The Legio XX
tiles stamped "VERO III COS" are more likely to be 126 rather 167.
The tiles with the Britannica cognomen from Carpow are more likely
to be 180 than 210.

Chapter 5 – Stamps: Legionary stamps had an average life of twenty
years. Many of them were in use contemporaneously which suggests
that each cohort had its own stamp. Military practice, when they
stamped tiles at all, was to stamp all of their production not just
a proportion; unstamped tiles are likely to be produced by
contractors. All of Legio XX output (including that with stamps)
may have been produced by contractors from c125 onwards whereas
Legio II did not use contractors for roof tiles until the third
century.

Chapter 6 – Roof Construction: Early roof design used large tegulae
of graduated sizes that were laid upon a bed of mortar and daub
without fixing nails; this design was superseded by tegulae all of
similar size that were laid directly onto common rafters with the
lowest row being secured with nails. In the mid-third century the
pitch of roofs may have increased and every other tegula was secured
by a nail or in some cases with a wooden dowel. A third century
roof would have used roughly 40% more tegulae than a first century
one (due to the reduction in size of the tegulae) but the
improvement in tegula design meant that the roof would have weighed
some 14% less.

Chapter 7 – Vaulted roofs: over 20% of tegulae are longitudinally
convex such that they would form an arch shape when placed on a flat
surface. These were not wasters but deliberate manufacture for use
on vaulted roofs where they were secured with mortar rather than
nails. Examples of this approach occur in Rome and there is more
circumstantial evidence from Britain.

Chapter 8 – Economics: a typical civilian tile works would have
employed just five people gathering wood and preparing clay in the
winter and making tiles in the summer. Military tile works were
considerably larger: the Classis Britannica tile works employed
between 30 and 80 men depending upon whether they worked all year
round or just during the summer months. Based on the labour cost,
tegulae would have cost just over 5 denarii each.

Chapter 9 – Conclusions

Peter Warry's book is available from: Archaeopress: BAR 417 2006: TEGULAE Manufacture, typology and use in Roman Britain by Peter Warry. ISBN 1841719560. £34.00. 167 pages; 126 figures, maps, plans and drawings; 114 plates. 5 data Appendices.

Brickmakers in Australia's first settlement

2006-06-09T22:02:00.000Z

When the First Fleet reached Sydney Cove in 1788, it carried with it a consignment of brick and wooden brick moulds. For further information check out this website. There is also a pdf leaflet here, which includes lots of details and pix about the early and more recent brick industry in Australia.

Flock of migrating bricks

2006-05-03T14:43:00.000Z

Bricks fans can currently be royally entertained by an advert for the National Lottery. It shows a flock of bricks flying over hill and dale, through snow and town, to find a sunny plot to build on. Very amusing indeed for those of a brick persuasion. Not quite worked out the significance of it all yet though (apparently it's something to do with getting people to think about the possibilities of winning), but there's a press release about the advert here (pdf format). As for me, I'm wondering if my chances of getting a lottery grant have gone up, what with the National Lottery now setting such great store by bricks :-)

Fashion, Architecture, Taste (FAT)

2006-04-17T13:43:00.000Z

FAT is a partnership of architects, and I've just seen some photos of their buildings in The Guardian. In particular, there is a new development at Islington Square in East Manchester, and they use brick in a very pleasing manner.

Photo Len Grant, from The Guardian, 17/04/06

From the individual Dutch gables, to the patterned brickwork, it's a delight.

George Shipway article by Alan Fisk

2006-03-24T09:21:00.000Z

The Cavalryman Rides Again: the historical novels of George Shipway

by

Alan Fisk

First published in Solander, Vol 7 No 1, May 2003, pages 4-6. Many thanks to Alan Fisk for allowing me to include it in my blog. Thanks to Jim Poulton for the illustrations.

In October 2002, Imperial Governor, a novel about the Boudiccan revolt against the Romans in 61 A.D., was republished after being out of print for many years. (A review of Imperial Governor appeared in The Historical Novels Review, Issue 22, December 2002.)

For its author, George Shipway, becoming a historical novelist was a third career, which he started late, and which lasted for only a few years. In that relatively short time, though, he established himself as a noted and sometimes controversial writer.

He died in 1982, but his wife still lives in the cottage in Berkshire that they first moved into in 1949. She has given Solander invaluable help with this article.

George Shipway was born in 1908 in Allahabad, India, where his father was a publisher. In accordance with the custom of that time, George was sent to England at the age of eight to go to boarding school at Clifton.

After leaving school, he became a cadet at Sandhurst, the Army’s academy for future officers. Sandhurst trained cadets for both the British Army, and the Indian Army, which was the one for which George Shipway was destined. He used to claim in later life that the only reason he had joined the Army was so that he could play polo, which he would not have been able to afford to do as a civilian!

After Sandhurst, he was commissioned in 1928 into the 13th. Duke of Connaught’s Lancers, a cavalry regiment. He returned to India, where he married while he was posted at Jullundur.

In the ensuing years, the Shipways moved “all over India”, as Mrs. Shipway recalls. George Shipway’s service included two years away from his regiment with a force of irregulars on the frontier between Baluchistan and Iran, as well as being a staff officer in Delhi and in central India, but history was about to bring his Indian Army career to an end. At Partition, the Indian Army was divided, and the 13th. Lancers was one of the regiments assigned to Pakistan.

The Shipways came “home”. George Shipway had obtained a transfer to the British Army, to the 3rd. Carabiniers, the Prince of Wales’s Dragoon Guards, a Scottish regiment. In the end, he decided not to go through with it. His explanation was that he had never been north of Yorkshire and didn’t intend to make such a dramatic change in his life, but really he seems to have had no wish to pursue an Army career anywhere but in India. He retired in 1947 with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.

At this point, the Shipways happened to run into a friend whom they had known in India. She was married to another former Indian Army officer, and she and her husband were now running Cheam School in Berkshire, a school for boys aged from 8 to 14. They suggested to George Shipway that he should become a teacher at the school, which he did.

His second career, as a schoolmaster, lasted 19 years. His pupils included Prince Charles, who spent some time at Cheam. The boys liked and respected him.

Looking at George Shipway’s photograph on his 1970s book jackets, one can judge that only a very foolish, or a very brave, boy would have misbehaved in Mr. Shipway’s class. The photograph shows a man who clearly knows his way about the world, with a genial expression, but who carries the bearing of one who expects to be obeyed when he gives an order.

While he was a schoolmaster, he tried his hand at writing in his spare time, encouraged by his friend John Masters, who had also been an Indian Army officer before becoming an author. George Shipway eventually began work on what would become Imperial Governor.

Mrs. Shipway describes him as a man who lived much within himself. He combined the qualities of the soldier with those of a scholar. When he was a boy, his family had thought of sending him to a grander school, Winchester, and Mrs. Shipway believes that if his life had taken that turn he might well have become a university don rather than a soldier.

George Shipway loved the countryside, and Mrs. Shipway still treasures a book in which he had collected dried specimens of more than 200 species of wild flower.

Imperial Governor was published in 1968. It takes the form of a memoir of the Roman general Suetonius Paulinus, who, when Governor of Britain, suppressed Boudicca’s rebellion. At 60, George Shipway was an unusually late starter as a published novelist, but he found success at once. Imperial Governor was widely praised.

His next novel, Knight in Anarchy, followed a year later, in 1969. It relates the adventures of Humphrey Visdelou in the chaos of the struggle for the English crown between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda in the mid-twelfth century. It is built around Humphrey’s perverse and helpless devotion to the service of the cruel but charismatic Geoffrey de Mandeville.

Knight in Anarchy is perhaps the quintessential George Shipway novel, full of violence, dirt, fear, and danger, while at the same time being scholarly and a well-constructed story. The story never flags, right up to the fascinating punchline at the very end of the Author’s Note that concludes it: “I live on the fief that Visdelou once held”.

At this point George Shipway quarrelled with his literary agent of the time. Mrs. Shipway recalls him stamping off to his study and swearing that he would never write again. Some months later he emerged with the manuscript of The Chilian Club, a novel that would bring him considerable public notice, much of it hostile.

The Chilian Club (published in the United States as The Yellow Room) is not a historical novel (except for its Prologue), but it needs to be examined here because of its effect upon his reputation for some people.

The Chilian (short for “Chilianwala”) Club in London is founded in the middle of the nineteenth century by the former CO of the 6th. Hussars, a cavalry regiment that had disgraced itself in the opinion of the rest of the Army by its behaviour at the battle of Chilianwala in India in1849, during the Sikh Wars.

By the mid-1970s, Britain is paralysed by strikes and left-wing political activism (an extrapolation by Shipway from the real industrial and political strife of the time). A group of retired Army officers, members of the Chilian Club, decide to redeem the honour of the 6th. Hussars by assassinating the union leaders, left-wing agitators, and even a trendy bishop, whom they believe to be destroying the country. It turns out that the figures whom the Chilian Club select as their targets were financed by the Soviet Union, but there are more revelations, and the novel ends in a sensational and unexpected twist that takes it into science fiction.

The Chilian Club wasn’t politically correct in 1971, and is even less so now. There were plans at the time to film it, but the unions “blacked” the project so that the film was never made.

George Shipway had described The Chilian Club as “a diversion”, but many who read it, or heard of it, were not amused. He was guyed as a silly old retired curry colonel, and was called (unfairly) a Fascist, and (even more unfairly) a racist, an accusation that is absurd to anyone who has read some of his other novels, with their noble Moorish and Indian characters.

Shipway returned to less controversial ground with his next two novels, The Paladin and The Wolf Time, which tell the story of Walter Tirel, known to history as the man who was blamed for killing King William II with an arrow in the New Forest. When Tirel is a boy undergoing a brutal training programme to become an esquire, he meets William Rufus for the first time, and is spellbound by him, although he is appalled by Rufus’ homosexuality.

The Paladin and The Wolf Time contain a gallery of characters that is vaster and more fascinating than in any of George Shipway’s other novels, and the story of Walter Tirel’s 20‑year affair with the alluring but dangerous Isabel of Conches is like no other love story that you have ever read.

George Shipway returned to India, the country where he had spent 28 years of his life, for a pair of novels set at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Unlike The Paladin and The Wolf Time, though, these two novels are not connected except by both being set in India within a few years of each other.

Free Lance follows the fortunes of two friends who have fallen into disgrace in England and taken service with the East India Company: the dashing Hugo Amaury as an army officer, and the stolid Charles Marriott as a junior merchant. Marriott stays loyal to the Company, but Amaury, whose temper nearly ruins his career, decides to strike out into the lawless interior of central India to find a life of power and wealth for himself without the help or approval of the Company.

Charles Marriott is appointed a Collector, effectively a local ruler for the Company, and Amaury accompanies him. Plenty of fights and battles ensue, not least as part of the pursuit of Amaury by Caroline Wrangham, the spirited daughter of a general.

Free Lance is perhaps not Shipway’s most successful novel, depending heavily on a couple of convenient coincidences, but it does make a serious effort to exhibit and explain the attitudes of the East India Company’s soldiers and merchants, and of the Indian peoples with whom they deal.

Ignorance and insensitivity towards Indians are the very theme of Strangers in the Land, which begins five years later, in 1806. A general newly arrived from England orders two small changes to the Indian soldiers’ uniforms and personal appearance regulations. This act eventually leads to a savage mutiny, and equally savage reprisals. The sense throughout Strangers in the Land is of an onrushing disaster, which people of goodwill on both sides try to prevent. In the end, each side feels that it has been betrayed by those whom it trusted, and the Vellore Mutiny of 1806 is a warning that will have been forgotten 50 years later, a forgetfulness that will lead to the much greater Indian Mutiny of 1857.

Strangers in the Land is notable for the large number of Indian characters, and the understanding portrayal of their tragedy, which is important to remember in view of the reputation that The Chilian Club had earned George Shipway in some quarters.

Shipway now moved back 3000 years to produce a pair of novels about the Mycenaean king Agamemnon. He had first become interested in the period when he had been taught the Classics as a schoolboy, and he travelled widely in the Aegean to research the two novels.

The first of the pair, Warrior in Bronze, tells the story of Agamemnon up to the point at which he gains the throne of Mycenae. Warrior in Bronze is full of characters from Classical mythology and drama, such as Hercules, Clytemnaistra, Castor, and Pollux, and the novel gives origins for them from which the tales and legends might have grown. Shipway also serves up his usual quota of battles, intrigues, and shocking acts of violence. Agamemnon, who narrates his own story, is entirely unrepentant, and believes that only a harsh and ruthless man could rule in the Greece of his time. When Warrior in Bronze ends, the seeds of the coming Trojan War are already sprouting.

The second novel of the Mycenaean pair, King in Splendour, tells the story of how Agamemnon brings about the war against Troy of which he has long dreamt. His account of how it really happened varies in many respects from the story we know from Homer’s Iliad. This is because, in King in Splendour, the bard who composed the Iliad is a hired hack brought to Troy by Achilles, and who is paid to compose an epic that reflects maximum credit upon Achilles, and the minimum upon Agamemnon. At the end of the novel, Agamemnon prepares to sail home, wolfishly considering how he will execute his treacherous queen Clytemnaistra and her lover Aegisthus. He cannot know that it is Clytemnaistra who will have the last brutal triumph.

King in Splendour was George Shipway’s last novel, published when he was 71. Mrs. Shipway had long urged him to retire when he reached 70, but sadly his health failed soon afterwards, and he died in 1982.

It had been an extraordinary career, lasting only 11 years. George Shipway had been first published even later than Alfred Duggan (whose first novel had come out when Duggan was 47), and his novels had been published over an even shorter period than Duggan’s (11 years, as against 14 years).

One can also compare Shipway with his friend John Masters. Shipway’s novels combine the scholarship of Duggan (who, like Shipway and Masters, had served as a soldier in combat) with the roughness of Masters. Shipway’s Amaury family, members of which make appearances from the eleventh century to the twentieth, is perhaps a deliberate echo of Masters’ Savage family.

Duggan had Shipway’s erudition, but lacked his toughness, while Masters had the toughness but did not have Shipway’s deep education.

George Shipway’s most notable distinction as a historical novelist is his unflinching representation of the attitudes of the times and places of which he wrote. We may be appalled by Walter Tirel’s willingness to kill helpless peasants in order to weaken a rival lord’s economic power, while at the same time Tirel is always obedient to the laws of honour. Those laws simply don’t apply to serfs. As modern readers, we do not have to approve of his viewpoint, but that does seem to be the way a man of his time and class would have seen it.

In his Indian novels, Shipway is quite aware (even mentioning it in a foreword to Free Lance, for example), that the attitudes of his British characters are now considered reprehensible, but he is not afraid to give them the outlook of their own time. He is equally faithful to the attitudes of his Indian characters, not all of which would be approved of by modern Indians.

Because George Shipway never modified his historical novels to fit modern views, they have not dated, whereas The Chilian Club is now a period piece that would require notes and explanations if it were to be published again, which is highly unlikely.

George Shipway’s historical novels are strong meat indeed, and will not appeal to everyone. His in-your-face, no-apologies style leaves no room for indifference. Either you like his novels or you don’t.
His undoubted strengths are the force, clarity, and imagery of his writing, and the accuracy of his backgrounds. He has a rare gift for vivid verbal pictures: a flight of arrows shot from one ship to another at sea forms “a shimmering bridge”; looking out over the length of the city wall of mediaeval London, “(the) helmets of the watch and ward twinkled like jewels on a two-mile-long diadem”.

Those who like to read historical fiction will find that he is an author who can make another time and place live with a skill that few historical novelists can match. Those who write historical fiction as well can learn from an author who never forced his characters to adopt whatever attitudes were fashionable at the time or writing, instead of the attitudes of their own time.

Alan Fisk lives in London. His historical novels include The Strange Things of the World, The Summer Stars, Forty Testoons, and Cupid and the Silent Goddess. His website is at http://www.geocities.com/alanfisk/

Clay Drainage Tile & Pipe Manufacture ...

2006-03-16T17:20:00.000Z

Through the kind offices of the author, I have managed to get hold of an off-print of:

Clay drainage and pipe manufacture at Johnby Whythes, Greystoke, c.1851-1909 by E Davis
Transactions of the Cumberland & Westomorland Antiquarian & Archaeological Society, Volume II, 2002, 261-275

It is a study of that tile works (including quantities produced and ownership), and also comments on the types of drainage tiles available in Cumberland. A great addition to my library!

A History of Field Drainage

2006-03-11T18:51:00.000Z

This is a super article from the Hendon and District Archaeological Society's Newsletter March 1974, which they have put on their wonderful website:

http://www.hadas.org.uk/wiki/index.php/Newsletter_037_March_1974

Page 2

History of Field Drainage

One exhibit now on show at Church Farm House Museum deals with field drains as an aid to archaeological
dating. The following notes are a background to the subject:

Land drainage has a long history in Britain, going back to the Roman cutting of the Car Dykes in the Fens
and the ditches of Romney Marsh. By the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, however, most available land had already been reclaimed by surface draining of lakes, marshes and fens. At the same time there came the Industrial Revolution and a steady rise in population. Early statistician Gregory King estimated the population of England and Wales at 5 1/2 million in 1700. By the first Census in 1801 it was 9,000,000 and by 1851 almost 18,000,000.

The problem was how to provide food for all these people, using only the same amount of agricultural land as before.

Page 3

One solution -- there were of course others -- was to improve the drainage, and thus the crop-yield, of heavy farmland by underground, or hollow, drainage. This was no new idea. Deep trenching, with faggots, stones, shells or gravel laid at the bottom of the trench, and then the earth by replaced on top, had long been used as a drainage method; such drains, however, did not last long and needed frequent or re-laying.

Towards the end of the eighteenth century a few landowners began to employ a more effective type of although drainage, using tiles or drain bricks to replace the faggots and stones. One method was to cut a small, rectangular channel at the base of the trench, and put a roofing tile over it. Another was to lay two hollowed-out bricks face to face so that the hollow formed a pipe. A later improvement was to turn over the edges of a roof-tile into a horseshoe shape before firing; this was either laid directly on the floor of the trench or on a base plate. It is this original use of roof tiles for drainage purposes which gave later land drains their name: tile-pipes.

As a mark of the importance of the government placed on the laying of hollow drainage systems, a statute of 1826 (confirmed in 1839 and 1840) exempted from the duty normally paid between 1784-1850 on bricks and
tiles "those bricks made solely for draining wet and marshy land -- provided they are legibly stamped in making with the word DRAIN."

The late eighteenth or early nineteenth century methods were expensive, and only rich landowners could afford them. Early tile-pipes were shaped by hand around a drum. It was not until the mid-nineteenth century, when the extrusion method of machine-making tile-pipes was invented, that hollow drainage by tile-pipe came within the reach of most farmers. Thomas Scragg patented a cheaper method of making tile-pipes in 1845; by 1849 a writer in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England could describe a machine for making drain tiles operated by one man and three boys, who could turn out nearly 11,000 tiles off 1" bore in ten hours. The price of this machine was £25.

Once cheap tile-pipes became available, they were widely used. At first pipes of small 1" bore were tried. The theory was that the water would be channelled through these so fast it would prevent silting. In fact the result was the opposite: the pipes were so narrow they silted up.

A large bore pipe -- first of 2 in., later of 3 in. or more -- came into use, and systems were laid up to the 1890s. Then, with the start of the period of agricultural depression, no more tile-pipe drainage was laid, virtually until 1939. Mole-drainage (cheaper, although it had to be renewed) was used instead.

I found that the Rural History Centre University of Reading website had the Scraggs machine on it so put in the links, and it also has a list of other brick and tile making machines.

Hartleys Brick by Brick Pot by Pot

2006-03-10T09:32:00.000Z

I've recently had a look at some brick and tile from a site in Castleford. There were a couple of brick stamps, and one of them was stamped:
Fortunately, I had a book that might help be identify which company manufactured this brick. The book is Hartleys Brick by Brick, Pot by Pot by David Wilders, 2003, Castleford Press, £10.00. Although I could not match the stamp exactly, there were photos of other stamps, some of which just had H CASTLEFORD on. So the brick is very likely the product of Hartleys of Castleford, and either late 19th to early 20th century in date (from the form of the brick probably 20th century).

I can't remember where I got the book from - suspect it was a flyer in a British Brick Society mailing that brought it to my attention. But the publisher's address is:

Castleford Press
8 West View Avenue
Redhill
CASTLEFORD
West Yorkshire
WF10 3AQ

Protruding bricks and firing kilns

2006-03-01T08:15:00.000Z

Janet R kindly sent me these references after I puzzled over a video which showed two bricks protruding from a firing walled up kiln. I thought it may be so they could check how the firing was progressing, but wasn't sure quite how it worked in practice:

'There was also a peep hole at each end of the kiln near the top and they were plugged up with a brick that you could just draw out. When you looked through, you knew where your top was. You can imagine all the heat that was coming a front, you'd no eyebrows and if you were a moustache man, no moustache! You manipulated these loose bricks with two bits of wood in your hand, and held it to keep the heat away from your face so you could look down into the kiln.'
p.33 The Barton Area Brick and Tile Industry: a personal view. By Ernest Coulam, edited by Karin Negoro from interviews recorded in June 1990.

'..as the front wall rose a small aperture was left above the top of the kiln gap but just underneath the level of the arch, near the top. This was above the height to which the contents would reach when set but at such a point as to allow a sight along the kiln contents under the top of the arch. The purpose of it was that it could be filled in with bricks and pug after allowing the burner to withdraw a brick and take a look along the top of the contents when the kiln was burning. When he was satisfied with what he saw the brick(s) were replaced and pugged in. A similar opening was built in the rear wall...one of the bricks was marked with a cross or something and always left protruding about 3" so that it could be easily withdrawn for this purpose.'
pp.30-31The Barton Area Brick and Tile Industry: from turning-out to management, open top kilns, arch kilns and downdraught kilns, brick and tile making machines, building and burning in Barrow Haven and Barton. Copyright E. Coulam and C.H. Watkinson, May 2000. Re-produced and re-typed by Karen Spavin July 2002.

Janet purchased one booklet from the Ropewalk in Barton-on-Humber which she says also has some displays and exhibits on brick and tile. The other was bought from the Environment Team at North Lincolnshire Council at Scunthorpe.

Many thanks for all this Janet :-)

Literary tile: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

2006-02-26T21:41:00.000Z

Gary kindly brought these Dutch tiles to my attention:

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Stave 1: Marley's Ghost

The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh's daughters, Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts; and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient Prophet's rod, and swallowed up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a
blank at first, with power to shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy of old Marley's head on every one.

'Humbug!' said Scrooge; and walked across the room.

Literary brick: You're a brick, Angela

2006-02-24T16:24:00.000Z

Alan Fisk has suggested I include:

You're a brick, Angela! by Mary Cadogan and Patricia Craig

Thank you Alan :-)

This leads me to wonder about calling people a brick - more later ...

Literary brick: Heny VI Part 2, Shakespeare

2006-02-14T14:30:00.000Z

Unfortunately, bricks do not lend themselves easily to St Valentine's Day, so this scene from a Shakespeare play (not even from Romeo & Juliet!) will have to suffice:

Henry VI, Part 2 by Shakespeare

Act 4. Scene II
SCENE II. Blackheath

...

CADE
Ay, there's the question; but I say, 'tis true:
The elder of them, being put to nurse,
Was by a beggar-woman stolen away;
And, ignorant of his birth and parentage,
Became a bricklayer when he came to age:
His son am I; deny it, if you can.

DICK
Nay, 'tis too true; therefore he shall be king.

SMITH
Sir, he made a chimney in my father's house, and
the bricks are alive at this day to testify it;
therefore deny it not.

...

Literary brickmaker: Daniel Defoe

2006-02-13T16:35:00.000Z

Daniel Defoe owned brickworks and also made pantiles. It was only later that he turned to writing his novels, Robinson Crusoe & Moll Flanders.

Literary bricklayers: Ben Jonson

2006-02-12T12:25:00.000Z

Thanks to Sarah for this information: playwright Ben Jonson was a bricklayer for a short time. But it didn't suit him for some reason ... Can't imagine why!

Literary brick: The Bricklayer's Lament

2006-01-20T14:42:00.000Z

Bricklayer's Lament was told by Gerard Hoffnung at the Oxford Union, December 4th, 1958.

Here is a version:

THE BRICKLAYER'S STORY by Gerard Hoffnung

(from his Oxford Union speech) and taken from www.monologues.co.uk

I've got this thing here that I must read to you. Now, this is a very tragic thing ... I shouldn't, really, read it out. A striking lesson in keeping the upper lip stiff is given in a recent number of the weekly bulletin of 'The Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors' that prints the following letter from a bricklayer in Golders Green to the firm for whom he works:

Respected Sir,

When I got to the top of the building, I found that the hurricane had knocked down some bricks off the
top. So I rigged up a beam, with a pulley, at the top of the building and hoisted up a couple of barrels of
bricks.

When I had fixed the building, there was a lot of bricks left over. I hoisted the barrel back up again and secured the line at the bottom and then went up and filled the barrel with the extra bricks. Then, I went to the bottom and cast off the rope.

Unfortunately, the barrel of bricks was heavier than I was and before I knew what was happening, the barrel started down, jerking me off the ground. I decided to hang on!

Halfway up, I met the barrel coming down ... and received a severe blow on the shoulder. I then continued to the top, banging my head against the beam and getting my fingers jammed in the pulley!

When the barrel hit the ground, it burst its bottom ... allowing all the bricks to spill out. I was now heavier than the barrel and so started down again at high speed!

Halfway down ... I met the barrel coming up and received severe injury to my shins!

When I hit the ground ... I landed on the bricks, getting several painful cuts from the sharp edges! At this point ... I must have lost my presence of mind... because I let go of the line!

The barrel then came down... giving me a very heavy blow and putting me in hospital!

I respectfully request 'sick leave'.

Recordings can be be bought from the Official Gerrard Hoffnung website.

Literary Brick: The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope

2006-01-09T08:30:00.000Z

The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope

Chapter 1
Though moody, unhappy, and disappointed, he was a hard-working, conscientious pastor, among the poor people with whom his lot was cast; for in the parish of Hogglestock there resided only a few farmers higher in degree than field labourers, brickmakers, and such like.

But among the very poor, among the brickmakers of Hoggle End--a lawless, drunken, terribly rough lot of
humanity--he was held in high respect; for they knew that he lived hardly, as they lived; that he worked hard, as they worked; and that the outside world was hard to him, as it was to them; and there had been an apparent sincerity of godliness about the man, and a manifest struggle to do his duty in spite of the world's ill-usage, which had won its way even with the rough;

Chapter 4

On the Saturday it was necessary that he should prepare his sermons, of which he preached two every Sunday, though his congregation consisted only of farmers, brickmakers, and agricultural labourers, who would willingly have dispensed with the second.

Chapter 12
'Oh, mamma, poor mamma! Why is papa up so early?'

'He has gone out to visit some of the brickmakers, before they go to their work. It is better for him to be employed.'

'But, mamma, it is pitch dark.'

Mr Crawley went forth and made his way with rapid steps to a portion of this parish nearly two miles from his house, through which was carried a canal, affording water communication in some intricate way both to London and Bristol. And on the brink of this canal there had sprung up a colony of brickmakers, the nature of the earth in those parts combining with the canal to make brickmaking a suitable trade. The workmen there assembled were not, for the most part, native-born Hogglestockians, or folk descended from Hogglestockian parents. They had come thither from unknown regions, as labourers of that class do come when they are needed. Some young men from that and neighbouring parishes had joined themselves to the colony, allured by wages, and disregarding the menaces of the neighbouring farmers; but they were all in appearance and manners nearer akin to the race of navvies than to ordinary rural labourers. They had a bad name in the country; but it may be that their name was worse than their deserts. The farmers hated them, and consequently they hated the farmers. They had a beershop, and a grocer's shop, and a huxter's shop for their own accommodation, and were consequently vilified by the small old-established tradesmen around them. They got drunk occasionally, but I doubt whether they drank more than did the farmers themselves on market-day. They fought among themselves sometimes, but they forgave each other freely, and seemed to have no objection to black eyes. I fear that they were not always good to their wives, nor were their wives always good to them; but it should be remembered that among the poor, especially when they live in clusters, such misfortunes cannot be hidden as they may amidst the decent belongings of more wealthy people. That they worked very hard was certain; and it was certain also that very few of their number ever came upon the poor rates. What became of the old brickmakers no one knew. Who ever sees a worn-out navvy?

Mr Crawley, ever since first coming into Hogglestock, had been very busy among these brickmakers, and by no
means without success. Indeed the farmers had quarrelled with him because the brickmakers had so crowded the parish church, as to leave but scant room for decent people. 'Doo they folk pay tithes? That's what I want'un to tell me?' argued one farmer--not altogether unnaturally, believing as he did that Mr Crawley was paid by tithes out of his own pocket. But Mr Crawley had done his best to make the brickmaker welcome at the church, scandalising the farmers by causing them to sit or stand in any portion of the church which was hitherto unappropriated. He had been constant in his personal visits to them, and had felt himself to more a St Paul with them than with any other of his neighbours around him.

Literary Brick: Framley Parsonage by Anthony Trollope

2006-01-06T17:29:00.000Z

Framley Parsonage by Anthony Trollope, 1861

... And Hogglestock is a large parish. It includes two populous villages, abounding in brickmakers, a race of men very troublesome to a zealous parson who wont let men go rollicking to the devil without interference.

Historical brick: Hazardous brick kiln

2006-01-05T13:45:00.000Z

Longtown is a small market town in Cumbria, England, near the Scottish Border. This is from the pages of the Carlisle Journal during the 19th century:

Sudden Deaths and Inquests from the Longtown area

October 13th 1821

A widow woman of the name of Elizabeth Glendinning died in the infirmary at Dumfries yesterday week, after three weeks of the most painful suffering. This poor woman, while travelling between Longtown and Carlisle, had sat down by the side of a brick kiln, for the purpose of lighting her pipe, and while so employed, part of the heated bricks fell upon her and scorched her body in a dreadful manner... she was found in a very feeble state by some people who were passing, and who conveyed her to Gretna where she usually resided. After remaining there three days, she was conveyed to the Dumfries and Galloway infirmary, where it is needless to say the utmost attention was paid to her case, and the powers of medicine exhausted in endeavouring to alleviate if not remove the complaint under which she laboured.

The kiln concerned is likely, at that time, to be a clamp kiln or a Scotch kiln, both are rather open, and perhaps prone to collapsing. But very attractive to passers-by on a cold night or chilly early morning due to the warmth when being fired.

The home page of the Longtown website can be found here.

Piltdown Man

2005-12-31T14:20:00.000Z

What has Piltdown Man got to do with tiles? Well, Charles Dawson concocted the Piltdown hoax, and he is also connected with a Roman tile stamp fraud! He presented a tile stamped with HON AVG ANDRIA, and said he had found it a Pevensey Saxon Shore fort, otherwise known as Anderida. Was this actual evidence for the 5th century occupation of the fort? The full story of the tile stamp can be found in:

Piltdown Man: the secret life of Charles Dawson & the world's greatest archaeological hoax
Miles Russell
Tempus, 2003, pp97-107

My copy cost £3.99 from Spelman's in York, but the normal price is £14.99 (or £5.00 on the web, direct from Tempus)

Meanwhile, an outline of the reasons why the tile is a hoax can be found at this website, showing DPS Peacock's piece in Antiquity 1973:

Forged Brick-Stamps from Pevensey

The picture of the tile doesn't show as the link hasn't been done properly, but click here and you'll see it.

Old Cinemas

2005-12-26T22:40:00.000Z

For Christmas I was given Old Cinemas by Allen Eyles, 2005, Shire Books 357. The author also wrote Odeon Cinemas: Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation, 2001, BFI, which I also have. In York, we still have an Odeon Cinema on Blossom Street, and I'm particularly enamoured of it as it's brick. Fortunately, it's listed, and is still functioning as a cinema, but is becoming rather rundown. I don't know what will happen to this lovely brick building, so typical of its time, but since it's Grade II listed, I presume and hope it won't be knocked down. Lucky me, it's on the side of town where I live, and everytime I want to walk into the centre via Micklegate or catch a bus, I have to pass it.

Not long back, there was a campaign to ensure that the cinema would be kept open. I think I would be content that the building remain, but the building would obviously need to be used in some capacity. Much of the interior does not survive, though some of the doors are definitely 1930s.

Quite a few of the brick buildings I like best in York are actually from the 1930s, including a couple of brick built churches. One of them is English Martyr's Church on Dalton Terrace. Again, quite close to me, and beautifully Romanesque.

Ceramic Petrology paper in Medieval Archaeology

2005-12-19T08:10:00.000Z

To quote the full title of the paper:

Ceramic Petrology and the Study of Anglo-Saxon and Later Medieval Ceramics by Alan Vince in Medieval Archaeology Volume XLIX 2005, pp219-245

Well worth a look for those of the tile inclination, as for once 'ceramic' really does include ceramic building materials! And not just floor tiles either.

The author refers to the possibly early but unpublished roof tiles from Coppergate York. It was good of him to say that, as he's bringing welcome attention to the fact that important material is still not in the public domain. Unfortunately, I was only paid to do what amounted to a part-assessment on the Coppergate material (i.e all the recording, but no cigar - or should I say analysis!), so it's not even in prep :-( It's way too complex a sample for me to attempt to do off my own bat (i.e. for free), and I would also need significant input from the site side of things. Ah well, come my big lottery win ...

But there's a glimmer of hope: I'm currently working on a super (and again probably early) collection of curved and flanged tile. The site side of things will confirm this, and I won't get round to checking this out till March now. If the cbm from this site (Spurriergate) is not published in five years, I will put it on the web anyway.

Domes and Vaults

2005-12-18T15:00:00.000Z

In a recent book about Roman York there is this statement:

There is no evidence for the domes or vaults made of concrete which can still be seen in Mediterranean lands ... (Roman York, P Ottaway, page 66)

But there is some evidence - in the form of tile. There is an armchair voussoir. It's a complicated thing, requiring another covering of flat tile. Unfortunately, I can't find a picture on the Web at present; looks like I might have to put one on myself. There are some examples in York: Yorkshire Museum, with a 9th Legion Hispana stamp, and one from the Blake St excavations. I've also come across the occasional fragment from York excavations where I though it might be piece of armchair voussoir (though in fragmentary form, it's difficult to identify them). But they are used to support vaulted roofs. There are also vaulting tubes, found on the Swinegate Excavations in the 1990. These small, coil built/wheel-finished tubes with nozzles at one end, and open at the other, slotted into one another to form the ribs of perhaps a barrel vault or dome. The whole would have been covered over by concrete.

Even then it's not certain they were used like this as there's no Roman vaulted roof extant, but it's certainly a possibility.

York Brick and Tile: archaeology & history

2005-12-15T17:45:00.000Z

Went to the University of York's Centre for Lifelong Learning's Christmas lunch today. They invited the tutors along, which was great. I met my friend Marjorie Harrison, who is running a course called Country Life. btw, you can find her local history books on Amazon UK, or better still drop me a line and I'll tell you how to contact her direct. And also chatted with others, such as geologist Tony Benfield and historian Ivison Wheatley.

It looks like my course will be going ahead. Eight brave students have signed up so far, which makes the course viable! So after lunch, I photocopied the course programme and a York brick and tile identificaiton booklet, sorted out the course web, and hit the library for a couple of articles I've been after. Phew!

Ancient Roman brickworks, Emilia Romagna

2005-12-11T15:49:00.000Z

Reported in David Meadows' Explorator 8.33: The factory is so well preserved it could work again - Cesena, December 5 - An Ancient Roman brickworks in near perfect condition has been discovered in Emilia Romagna

The Ryedale Vernacular Building Materials Group

2005-12-07T15:50:00.000Z

The Ryedale Vernacular Building Materials Group is a multi-disciplinary group, including geologists, historians and archaeologists from various institutions. So far, it looks like they've mostly explored stone, and the results are wonderfully available on the website. I can certainly think of one or two interesting brick sites in the area, that might warrant some exploration!

Historical tiles: Pyrrhic victory?

2005-12-05T08:15:00.000Z

Stefanos, HOPLITE14GR on Roman Army Talk, mentioned that tiles were used to good effect by women in Ancient Greece:

An Argive lady seeing king Pyrros of Ipiros about to skewer her son with his lance during a streetfight in hellenistic Argos whacked him with an accuratly thrown rooftile.

This is mentioned in Plutarch:

Pyrrhus By Plutarch (Translated by John Dryden )
Pyrrhus, seeing this storm and confusion of things, took off the crown he wore upon his helmet, by which he was distinguished, and gave it to one nearest his person, and trusting to the goodness of his horse, rode in among the thickest of the enemy, and being wounded with a lance through his breastplate, but not dangerously, nor indeed very much, he turned about upon the man who struck him, who was an Argive, not of any illustrious birth, but the son of a poor old woman; she was looking upon the fight among other women from the top of a house, and perceiving her son engaged with Pyrrhus, and affrighted at the danger he was in, took up a tile with both hands and threw it at Pyrrhus. This falling on his head below the helmet, and bruising the vertebrae of the lower part of the neck, stunned and blinded him; his hands let go the reins, and sinking down from his horse he fell just by the tomb of Licymnius.

Fictional tile: A Hollow Crown by Helen Hollick

2005-12-04T10:00:00.000Z

An interesting case this one. Helen Hollick mentions tiles or brick at least five times in her 11th century set novel A Hollow Crown. Is she wrong? Evidence from some of the excavations I've reported on support her. So when she mentions red tile roof (page 269 and 497, Arrow paperback edition) she could arguably be referring to curved and flanged tile. The colours I've seen have are generally a light buff sort of brown, but never mind. The conventional dating for these tiles is 12th to early 13th century, but I have seen them from contexts dating as early as the 11th century. One day this may be published, but I'm not holding my breath!

More main-stream medieval sounding are green and red chequered tiles mentioned on page 224. This type didn't appear in England until something like the 14th century, and tended to be green and brown. There are specialised glazed mosaic tiles in the late 12th century, but not 11th century. The only colourfully glazed floor (and wall?) tiles which could be dates as early as the 11th (and sometimes the 10th) are the much-vaunted polychrome relief tiles, of which I have had recent experience. These are confined to a few select ecclesiastical sites in England, including York, Lincoln and London. Perhaps though, the ones mentioned in Hollick's novel are some sort of stone tiles ...?

Also mentioned are hearth bricks (pages 173 and 627). Bricks are currently a no-no until about the 12th century. I have heard some mutterings about Saxon bricks, but at present they haven't been substantiated by publication (much like my unconventionally early dating of the curved and flanged tiles). However, Roman bricks were reused in the Saxon era, so perhaps the author was thinking of these? They tended to be used in walls and around windows, but I'm not aware of use in hearths.

Tiles being mentioned at all verdict: arguably some correct usage

Fictional tiles: Boudica III Dreaming the Hound by Manda Scott

2005-12-03T11:20:00.000Z

Boudica III: Dreaming the Hound by Manda Scott is set in 1st century Britannia. Golden or gilded tiles are mentioned as being on the roof of Claudius' Temple in Camulodunum. I haven't got the page reference - I passed the book on. However, shining tiles stuck in my tile-brain. Are they glazed, or painted, or supposed to be actual metal? Or are bronze or what? I am not aware of any gilded tiles found in Britain, though perhaps gilding may not survive deposition. That said, mica-dusted pottery does survive and that metallic-sheen coating is very fragile. The occasional tile with slip on has been found too, but it doesn't shine.

Judging by the rest of her descriptions of material culture, the author needs to hit the archaeological books so that she knows exactly what she's writing about. However, the emphasis here was showing how decadent the Romans were in contrast to the Britons. In general, it was overdone at the expense of archaeological rigour.

Tiles being mentioned at all verdict: wish she hadn't!

Fictional tiles: Clothar the Frank by Jack Whyte

2005-12-02T08:29:00.000Z

The first in another series! I'm calling these fictional tiles, rather than literary, as there is often something wrong with the way they are portrayed. Perhaps I should call them imaginative tiles! Disclaimer: not all novelists get their material culture wrong ...

First off is Jack Whyte. He mentioned tiles being imported from Gaul in an earlier book, but they've been mentioned again in Clothar the Frank (sometimes known as The Lance Thrower). No, no and thrice no! Well, very unlikely, particularly as Britannia could produce tiles - in stone and ceramic - with no problem at all. Why bother importing at this period, when importing was so expensive? Admittedly, in the medieval period tiles and brick were imported to this country, but there is little, or no evidence for this in the Late Roman period so far. Never say never, but on the other hand novelists assuming isn't a good idea either. I only have to point to Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code to exemplify how influential novels (aka works of fiction) are.

A time when tiles were imported to Britannia was the earlier, conquest period (1st century), where there is some evidence for movement of tiles from Gaul to the south coast. But Clothar the Frank is set in the 5th century, and sometimes referring back to 4th, blithely mentions tiles imported from Gaul (page 526, Viking Canada edition, 2003). What with all sorts of other assumptions the author makes, the tiles business in an assumption too far for me :-)

Literary brick: Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

2005-12-01T09:23:00.000Z

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell has one scene set in a brick-field. In Chapter 20, the horses are required to draw a heavily-laden brick cart. Needless to say, the horses are being brutally treated. Once again,. there is an online, searchable source.

Literary brick: Bleak House by Charles Dickens

2005-11-30T13:54:00.000Z

The brickmakers mentioned in Charles Dicken's Bleak House lead wretched lives. This is true to life, unfortunately. The work was seasonal in nature, which meant that most brickmakers were laid-off during the winter ensuring poverty. The online version of Bleak House is searchable, so it's easy to find the brick references. Chapter Eight gives a good description of the surrounds - wretched hovels in a brickfield ...

In the BBC's current sublime version of Bleak House, the Brickmaker and his wife Jenny have been seen in the first couple of episodes. Jenny had just lost her baby and her husband was aggressive and threatening.

Literary tiles: Ben Hur by Lew Wallace

2005-11-29T16:41:00.000Z

More tiles in literature: in Ben Hur by Lew Wallace, young Judah leans over the parapet of his house roof and dislodges some tiles. This scene also appears in the film starring Charlton Heston, though if I remember correctly, it's his sister who leans on the tiles, and Judah takes the rap. I've tried to find an online photo of this incident, to no avail. I've no idea what sort of tiles they are likely to be (presumably some sort of Greek type?), though in the film they look like the standard tegula and imbrex we know and love in the country. The moral of the tale is: tiles can be dangerous if you don't look after them...

Edit: As requested by Gabriele, here is a link to the main page for Lew Wallace's Ben Hur online text.

Literary tiles: Wives & Daughters by Mrs Gaskell

2005-11-28T16:23:00.000Z

I like a good land drain. They often come up complete, so get handed to me for identification. Lucky me! The most interesting ones are early-mid 19th century. If you're wanting to see land drains in action (and let's face who doesn't!?) a great place to see them is in BBC tv's 1999 serial Wives and Daughter s. The original novel is by Mrs Gaskell, and adapted for the Beeb by Andrew Davies. In the serial, there are three scenes with land drain digging. Squire Hamley is trying to improve his land, and one way to do it, is to install drains. Well worth a look - get it from your local library and look at the beginning of episodes 1-3. I'll shortly be having a look to see exactly where the land drains where mentioned in Gaskell's original text.

Fired Up - Celebrating Ceramics ...

2005-11-18T14:50:00.000Z

Well worth a look is Fired Up - Celebrating Ceramics from York's Collection which is on exhibition at York Art Gallery, UK, till 15 January, 2006. Included are all sorts of tiles, including a Roman chimney, an antefix, a scored flue tile, and also later tiles such as a Polychrome Relief tile (10th-12th century), delftware tiles, and later items. There are also lots of pots, from Prehistoric to the 21st century. There's even a bathroom sink on display. In fact, the exhibition has a refreshingly broad interpretation of ceramics.

There is also a short film of three experts looking in depth at four pots - the Severus Roman head pot, a Medieval Medallion jug, Delftware charger, and a modern piece by Kate Malone called Bursting Dense Garlic Bud Life Force. Very illuminating.

Free admission!

Is it a stoat? No, it's a cat!

2005-11-13T17:13:00.000Z

Spurriergate is a great site for ceramic building materials (my assessment for the first phase of work is not yet on the Web as it was done in 2000, and I leave these things at least five years before putting them into the public domain, just in case the client has some objections). Not only has Spurriergate got very strong early medieval (11th-12th century) roofing material sample, but it's got a lovely collection of Roman material.

Chief amongst the loveliness is a small collection of imprints. There are some good hobnail prints, but also some animal pawprints. As well as dog and sheep/goat, there was one I was uncertain about. Could it be a stoat? The prints were very faint and I had difficulty with matching it with my big book of animal prints (aka Collins Guide to Animal Tracks and Signs by Bang & Dahlstrom). Thought in might be a stoat because it was very small, though the claws didn't show, but this could be perhaps because the clay might have been fairly dry. However, the small prints could be small because of the shrinkage of clay ... Going round in cirles here. So ...

Time to call in the expert! Will Higgs has done a goodly amount of work on animal prints on tiles. He was able to say that it was in fact a cat. I was disappointed, as previously I had managed to identify stoat pawprints on a tile from Layerthorpe (see my publication report here).

Since not everyone can get hold of the excellent Will Higgs or the Bang & Dahlstrom back-up, I checked out the Web for some animal track links:

Beartracker.com - as you might suspect, this is a US site, but there are one or two animals on their list that appear in the UK. There are some good pictures of cat pawprints.

ussartf.org - good on gait patterns

Never mind, there's always another tile sample to play with! And I'll be back on a Roman one on 16th November when I teach the Brick and Tile workshop at the Yorkshire Museum. Initially, I had my eyes on the Bedern sample (see my notes on some of the cbm from this site here), but changed my mind. Bedern is a medieval sample, and all that implies - basically flaming bewildering for beginners; too many forms, way too many fabrics, plus probably residual Roman material mixed in. Nightmare!

Roman material in York tends (but not always) to have less fabrics, and a relatively limited amount of forms. So I've gone for the sample from Blake Street, York instead. It's an all singing, all dancing Roman site, dug in the 1970s and the sample's never been assessed, let alone recorded. Perhaps there'll be some animal pawprints for the beginners to find as well!

Kate Tiler

2005-11-08T22:10:00.000Z

Kate Tiler demonstrates medieval tile making. Her website can be found here. She has just started a blog, and hopes to document some of her projects. Should be interesting!

Beddington

2005-10-23T12:59:00.000Z

I went to the Annual York Archaeology Book Fair yesterday, hoping to pick some interesting books. In particular, I was on the look out for Prehistoric landscape to Roman villa: excavations at Beddington, Surrey, 1981-7, edited by Isca Howell . According to the Museum of London website this book is in print and available. Yet, athough we arrived early, the Oxbow Books stall didn't have it, although they had many other MoL publications. On checking out the Oxbow website, it says it's unpublished. Will have to pursue it with the Museum, and pay postage costs, I guess!

The reason I want the Beddington publication so bad is that it was the first site that I was a Finds Supervisor, and the very first time I had to thoroughly record brick and tile! My partner wrote the coin report, so it would be good to find out if that's been published or not. Will any of our input be acknowledged? It's a shame that the people who directed the excavations, and wrote up it up very thoroughly don't have their names on the cover of the book. Lesley and Roy Adkins are excellent archaeologists and ensured that all categories of finds, even brick and tile, were properly recorded. It's their fault I went on to specialise in ceramic building materials :-)

Btw, the Adkins wrote a small interim, popular, report on the Bedidngton excavations, called Under the Sludge, which still seems to be available.

Preparing for November 16th

2005-10-18T15:43:00.000Z

I'm teaching the IFA Finds Group Brick and Tile Recording Workshop on November 16th, and currently costing equipment. My budget was too modest (should've been more like £100, rather than £50!), but it's making me look for the the equipment I want at the cheapest rate. For example, I once saw some plastic Vernier calipers somewhere, and lo and behold, a search on the Web brought up a source. Since the metal ones available locally are at least £6.99, finding the plastic ones at £1.99 from Greenweld's is a big saving on the tight budget. It's a shame to pay the fixed postage price, but it's still worth it, and at least Greenwald's don't have a minimum order.

I was well served by Tescos, who supplied me with four kitchen scales for £1.92 each. Since the average size of a piece of tile comes out at 200g, the fact that these scales only go up to 1kg is no problem. I'll be taking my own scales as well, which go up to 5kg, should we get a big piece.

Next on to hand lenses. Somehow, I own four of these! I think I lost a couple years ago, so bought some more, but they've all come home to roost now. But I need ten, so that everyone has a hand lens. They can't be shared as looking at brick and tile fabrics is the most time-consuming aspect of recording. Hand lenses horribly expensive if you look in your local Photographic Shop, but the local hardware store, Barnitts, has them between £2.99-£4.99. They were locked away in a cabinet, so I couldn't check them and didn't have time to ask to see them. But I've checked on the Web, and Northern Geological Supplies has some for £2.35. The main problem is that they have a minimum order of £15.00 (six hand lenses come to £14.10!) plus post. So, if Barnitt's hand lenses are OK, it may be easier to go for them. Still, NGS is a useful supplier to know about.

And there's loads of other stuff to get, some that can be shared (like hammers) and others that they all have to have (like googles).

Never mind equipment though! I've done that first in case I have to order anything in (as per the calipers). The main thing now will be too get my talk and notes together ...

Publication report

2005-10-10T19:18:00.000Z

These days, I don't get out of bed (archaeologically-speaking) for anything less than a publication report. Nine out of ten assessment reports don't go anywhere due to lack of funding, hence the reams of grey literature on my website. However, occasionally, actual analysis and publication hoves into view!

Courtesy of MAP Archaeological Consultancy, this hoary old nag will actually be recording, then writing-up, the ceramic building materials (aka brick and tile) from a site in York. The honoured (honoured, as it might get published) site is Spurriergate in York. I've seen part of it before, back in 2000, when I was still tilting at archaeological windmills, so know it's got some juicy stuff, including Roman, and probably some early medieval material. Not to be sniffed at. And they're even paying me - Gawd bless 'em.

Community Archaeology Workshop, York

2005-10-08T11:06:00.000Z

Back in May, I took part in one of York Community Archaeologist Eliza Gore's workshops. Needless to say, I was asked to speak about brick and tile! I enjoyed this day out, talking with local enthusiasts and there's a short write up about the workshop on the York Archaeological Trust's webpages.

My favourite photo is of the chap looking bemusedly at a complete horseshore drain. The reason he's smiling is because he's looking at the stamp on the tile, which say 'DRHAIN' These tiles had to be stamped with this in the early 19th century, otherwise extra taxes would have been applied. The spellling of DRHAIN for DRAIN perhaps reflects the pronunciation of the word, as this tile comes from East Yorkshire. Initially, though, I was very worried, as though I was convinced it was a 19th century field drain, I had only previously seen the similarly shaped Roman roof tile called imbrex with a stamp such as this. Was I getting it all wrong, and were some of the fragment's I'd previously ID'ed as field drain actually Romna Imbrex? It couldn't be, surely? The method of manufacture clearly shows signs of extrusion ... I puzzled for ages as to what the stamp said (it's slightly fuzzy), and then it suddenly came to me! And the case was solved.

ASPROM

2005-10-05T12:55:00.000Z

Recently, I joined ASPROM - The Association for the Study and Preservation of Roman Mosaics. I do Late Roman re-enactment, and this last season took up mosaic making, which means that I am a tessellaria! I'm still learning, of course, and reckoned it was worth me joining ASPROM, at least for a year. Today, I got a nice package through the post, including some back numbers of the Mosaic Journal I purchase. But also included was complimentary copy of this year's Mosaic, and recent Newsletters, which I wasn't expecting.

There are plenty of late Roman mosaics in Yorkshire (eg. Rudston), so I'm well covered on that front. The main problem is finding local sources of material. I have some Roman tile, but stone is more of a problem. This year, I've mostly used marble, ordered from Italy, but I need some nice local limestone to play with.

Current read: AD 500

2005-10-04T15:22:00.000Z

Finally, I'm getting into my To-Be-Read pile. Not having a book to review for the Historical Novel Society, I can take my pick of the tottering heap. Just started on Simon Young's AD500, which is not historical fiction, and not quite non-fiction either. It takes the form of a Byzantine guidebook for travellers to the Dark Isles of Britain and Ireland in the 6th century. So far, I can detect some of the sources the author has consulted. The book's an interesting idea, but there's a little touch of the clever-clever about it, which I'm not sure about.

I note that the author is due to publish AD400 which seems to be a bit more on the fiction side. Apparently it's a history of the Aureli family in Britannia ...

Roman brickworks ...

2005-10-02T15:35:00.000Z

Thanks to David Meadows' Explorator, I found this link to some Roman brickworks near, well, Rome:

Discovery Channel

It's also mentioned at:

The Scotsman

and latterly

The Daily Telegraph

There aren't many civilian tile stamps in Britain; most are army. The ones local to York are the 9th Legion Hispana (up to the early 2nd century and the 6th Legion Pia Fidelis (from the early 2nd century to, presumably, the early 5th century).

Romance is in the air!

2005-09-26T13:23:00.000Z

Over on the Historical Novel Society list at the moment, there's a keen exchange of views about historical romance. Yep, well, it comes up every couple of months (as the actress said to the bishop!) Some innocent person thinks they're safe on the list to make remarks about the historical romance genre. And then they find they've opened a Pandora's Box ... Since I'm familiar with the list, I know exactly who is likely to reply, and what their views are going to be :-)

Roof tile LEGTFM

2005-09-21T18:27:00.000Z

Roman Army Talk is a great place to hang out if you're interested in Romans, and it gets even better when the talk occasionally turns to tile :-) Recently, Jona Lendering of Amsterdam, had an enquiry about a tile stamp from Rindern, on the German/Dutch border. What followed was a discussion on what the tile actually said:

Roof tile LEGTFM

Jona was kind enough to thank me for my input (so often people don't bother!) and has put the ideas onto the Arenacum/Rindern entry on his interesting website.

Building material - 19th c or Roman?

2005-09-21T18:19:00.000Z

This enquiry was sent to the Britarch discussion list in September 2005:

A recent excavation has revealed a dump of chalk, flint and building material immediately below the top soil. The CBM when compared to other Roman sites is remarkably similar. There is no other dating material amongst this dump

Can 19th century building material resemble Roman building material in shape and form? e.g are there 19th century variants of imbrex and tegula? Are there any good reference works which may help?

The main things that looks like Roman building material are horseshoe field/land drains. These imbrex shaped suckers have had me on the hop a couple of times (especially small fragments where you can't get a good idea of the shape), but manufacturing methods and a very refined fabric normally give the game away - as would any 19th century copies of Roman roofing. Checking out 19th century trade/business directories may also help with this aspect.

Some useful Publications:

Harvey N, 1987. Fields, hedges and drains Shire Album 21

RCAHMS, 1993. Brick, Tile & Fireclay Industries in Scotland

There's also a super display of field drains at the Yorkshire Museum of Farming at Murton, just outside of York.

There's the outside possibility that it's 12th-13th century curved and flanged roof tile. See:

A G Vince, J E Pearce & K H Armitage 1981, Early medieval roof tiles from London, Antiq J, 61, 359-62

Garside-Neville S, 1995. 'Tile File - Curved and flanged medieval roof tile', Interim: Archaeology in York, Summer 1995, Vol 20, No2, 31-34

Or, in general, contact the Archaeological Ceramic Building Materials Group (acbmg-owner@yahoogroups.com) for your friendly local CBM specialist)

HNS Newsletter

2005-09-11T12:22:00.000Z

I'm co-editor of the HNS Newsletter, along with Sarah Cuthbertson and Lucienne Boyce. We take turns in being the main editor, swapping round every two months. My stint has now come round again, so I'm on the look-out for events, etc., to put in the Newsletter.

In particular, the current main events in the book world are the announcement of the shortlist for Booker Prize (two historical novels in contention) and the new film of Pride and Prejudice. The film, like Gladiator, may bring a ressurgance in the hf sub-category. Certainly, Gladiator made it a tad easier for Roman set novels to be published, and meant that existing series were more likely to continue. Perhaps Regency novels will become (even more) popular with the new P&P film! Here's hoping :-)

HNS Review

2005-09-09T12:08:00.000Z

I did rather a lot of book reviews for the HNS last quarter, as evidenced by the arrival of the most recent HNR! When they're finally published, I've taken to adding the reviews to my website, and they can be found here. In her blog, Michelle Styles, one of the co-authors of the Lady Soldier likes the review, which is fortunate, as I did like the book :-)

But for the moment, I have no more books to review (though still have two forthcoming in the next edition of the HNR) and am catching up with other reading. Just got a copy of Margot Fonteyn's biography by Meredith Daneman, which is in stark contrast to Fonteyn's sanitised autobiography.

August's Book

2005-08-07T16:00:00.000Z

My next book to review is The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank by Ellen Feldman. It's about Peter van Pels (van Daan, in the diaries), one of the people who lived with Anne in the Annex during the Second World War. The author was inspired by a guide at the Anne Frank house who said that Peter had disappeared after the War. This immediately got Feldman thinking about what might have happened to Peter and how he might have lived his life. She subsequently learnt that the guide was wrong, and that he had died after a forced march from a concentration camp. However, she continued with her book, because Peter had said to Anne that after the war he would reinvent himself. Feldman wanted to explore this idea.

On the brick front, I've been offered some publication work on an assemblage from Spurriergate, York. More later, when/if I manage to sort out a quote and it's accepted! I'm not worried if it comes to nothing, as I have plenty of previous work and publications to contribute to my proposed article on tile in Yorkshire.

My course on York Brick and Tile has been publicised in the University of York's Centre for Life Long programme in the printed and the web version. Starting next January, it will cover brick and tile from the Roman period till the 20th century.

Reading now ...

2005-06-23T10:17:00.000Z

The Picture She Took by Fiona Shaw

It's set just after the First World War and concerns an ex-Nurse who took photos, and a veteran who was posted in Ireland. Don't know much more yet, as I haven't got that far! I'm reviewing it for the Historical Novel Society. The author is local to me (lives near York), and her previous book did quite well; it was historical too.

Meanwhile over at Blue Remembered Blogspot, I've posted the final part of Charles Evans-Gunther's Rosemary Sutcliff article.