Category Archives: History

Gresford All Saints’ Church – a beginner’s guide to funerary monuments

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Full statue angels only arrive on the churchyard scene in the Victorian period.

This informal look at the monuments in Gresford’s All Saints’ church graveyard follows on from three previous posts about All Saints’, the first a general history of the interior, the second a quick look at the splendid gargoyles and grotesques on the exterior of the building.  The third post looked at misericords (fascinatingly carved so-called mercy seats in choir stalls) in a three-part series about misericords in Gresford, Malpas, Bebington and Chester Cathedral.

I began writing this over a year ago, mainly for my own benefit when I was getting to grips with how churchyards develop, what sort of chronological markers can be found and the variety of monument types and themes that could be expected.  I have just re-found the post in my drafts folder and thought that others might find it useful.  This is no more than a very basic introductory starting point for investigating this and other churchyards in the area.

The churchyard surrounds the Gresford parish church of All Saints’ on all sides.  The main part of the cemetery is to the south of the church.  In parish churchyards the area to the north side of the church was usually the last to be occupied by the dead.  This is partly because the brighter areas were favoured, but partly because the darker area was often reserved for church and community events until the 19th century when a requirement for more burial grounds resulted in the extension into all areas of a churchyard.

There is a variety of different tomb styles with the All Saints’ churchyard, mainly belonging to the late-18th, 19th centuries and 20th centuries.  This includes chest tombs, table graves, ledger gravestones, vertical gravestones and sculptural monuments.  Although most of the grave markers are relatively uniform in shape, size and motifs, reflecting standardization in the approach to gravestones, some are very personal and inevitably there are a few that stand out either because they are conspicuously larger than their neighbours, or because they are slightly unusual in some way.

Grave Types

Terminology can differ slightly from publication to publication.  Graves are, on this post at least, subterranean pits into which the deceased is placed.  Grave stones, markers and monuments may sit over the grave to mark their positions and, if required, provide details of the deceased. Head stones are specifically the vertical slabs that sit at the head end of the grave, and may be accompanied by a short foot stone to mark the other end of the grave.  Kerbs are low stone frames for the space occupied by the grave.  Tombs are constructions, sometimes resembling buildings, that contain above-ground storage of the dead, but the term is often applied to false tombs, which are containers that sit on the ground but lie over a subterranean burial like the chest tombs and table tombs that are found at Gresford.  Memorials commemorate the dead, but may not be associated with the grave where people are interred (like war memorials).  There are no mausolea at Gresford or, indeed, at most parish churchyards, but these are standalone buildings, often highly ornate, that contain one or more tombs within.

The following photographs, all from All Saints’, show individual grave marker types that have been mentioned below.  There are other types that do not appear in the All Saints’ churchyard, which are not included here.  Click the image to enlarge so that the descriptions are legible:

The main types of grave marker present in Gresford All Saints’s churchyard, although there are other types too. Click image to enlarge.

Headstones

The dead are buried on their backs facing upwards, with heads to the west, feet to the east.  Table tombs have inscriptions on the ledger (flat top) and the supports may be plain or more elaborate. Headstones face east, with the inscription on the eastern face.  Because many inevitably face away from footpaths, in some cemeteries a name may be etched into the back of the headstone, to identify the deceased, whilst the full details are shown on the east-facing side.  Chest tombs may have decorative components on the side panels, and text may be on both the ledger (flat top) or the side panels, or both.

Date Range

The earliest graves at Gresford are located within the church itself in the north and south aisles, and have been mentioned on the first post about All Saints’, both dating to the 13th century.  They consist of effigies, the inscribed or carved sculpted images of the deceased and represent two of the highest status and wealthiest individuals of local 13th century society.

Marked graves in British parish churchyards were a relatively late phenomenon, the first ones appearing in the 17th century.  These are quite few and far between, and I have not yet seen mention of any in local or neighbouring churchyards.  Grave monuments in the Gresford churchyard date mainly from the late 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries..

18th Century

Ledger of 1710

The earliest graves that I have found are early 18th century, one of the earliest dating to 1710, although there may be earlier examples that I have not noticed, including some completely concealed by ivy.  A number of examples from this period are ledgers, flat tablets that in this churchyard are usually carved from fine-grained yellow stone, often greyed with age, set horizontally into the ground, with large, simple text, and almost no decorative features. Later ledger stones were sometimes provided with small decorative embellishments.

Some of the ledger gravestones flank walkways and paths, forming kerbs and revetments, such as the ones shown on the right that flank the main churchyard path.  It is easy to forget that they are grave markers in their own right.  This is apparently a particular feature of churchyards in Cheshire and Lancashire.

Other ledgers are laid between chest and table tombs, with which they are usually contemporary.  Chest tombs are simply more elaborate versions of ledgers, with the horizontal slab raised off the ground, the space beneath enclosed with stone panels.  Table tombs are also raised ledgers, but on four legs or on three cross-members.  This raising of the ledgers may have been to create something more monumental, to provide more space for inscriptions where a grave is intended for more than one generation of family members, or to prevent the slab being encased in grass, moss, ivy and weeds.

Organized in a row alongside one of the paths, near the east end of the church, are the smallest (c.16in/ 41cm tall) upright grave markers.  These are either footstones that have been separated from their corresponding headstones (only ever inscribed with initials and date if inscribed at all), or were purchased as gravestones by those with few means at their disposal.  None have many inscribed details, and the one shown left, dating to 1778, is particularly minimalist, providing only the initials of the deceased, the year of death and the age at time of death. Others in the row are slightly more informative than this example but there is insufficient space for them to provide detailed information.

Red sandstone chest tomb (with decorative pilasters at each corner), sadly commemorating child deaths, just one month apart, of Robert Jones, aged 12, in July 1791 and Sarah Jones, aged 13, in August 1791, aged 13.

There are a number of chest tombs consisting of four stone panels with a ledger stone set on top.  Chest tombs of all periods are merely monuments like gravestones, in the sense that they do not contain the burial themselves, but sit over the top of subterranean graves.  There is something undeniably spooky about a breach in a chest tomb, but as Trevor Yorke says “Don’t be alarmed when you see a chest tomb with a cracked or missing side, a skeletal arm will not reach out to grab you!  The body was always interred below the ground with the hollow interior empty.”  Most are made of yellow sandstone, but there is one isolated chest tomb in red sandstone.

19th Century

Chest tombs are also a feature of the 19th century, and many of these are more elaborate than earlier forms and have side panels decorated by geometric shapes and small motifs.

Chest tomb dating to 1835, one of a kind within this cemetery

A yellow sandstone chest tomb with another sad inscription, commemorating the death of a 12 year old in 1846 and a 2 year old in 1849.  These are by no means the only records of child and infant mortality in the churchyard.  This grave later went on to house the children’s parents.

An elaborate chest tomb raised on feet and provided with a lid rather than a simple ledger, with decorated panels. The first-mentioned deceased was Bridget Hugo from Truro in Cornwall, who died aged 44 in 1820. It was used again in 1837 for the interment of Elizabeth Hugo, aged 88. Mother or sister?

A table tomb of 1879

Pedestal graves, essentially smaller square versions of chest tombs, also appear at this time.  Like chest graves, pedestal graves could have inscriptions on more than one side.  Some had inscriptions on all four sides, but others might have inscriptions on only one or two, depending on how many people were eventually interred and commemorated.  The pedestal gravestone below is engraved on all four sides with the details of family members related to Timothy Parsonage of Wrexham, who were buried successively in 1811, 1817, 1831, 1839, 1872 and 1875.

Platform of stone paves, surrounded by railings, presumably the remnants of an elaborate monument.

Both chest and pedestal graves could be surrounded by iron railings in the 19th century, and there are several examples at All Saints’.

There are a couple of graves consisting of nothing more than sprawling platforms of paves with a higher raised section in the middle.  It is very probable that the centre of the platform formerly supported some form of monument, now lost, possibly on a fairly narrow stand, such as a cross, that resulted in a fall when the platforms destabilized.  Alternatively, there is a pedestal tomb on a similar platform, which could be an alternative arrangement, although it is more difficult to explain how such a monument could be lost, unless it was destroyed in a fall.

Headstone with kerb defining the area of the grave

The main 19th century cemetery is on the south side of the church and consists of tall headstones of the upright variety with an inscription on the main panel, a few decorative flourishes at the top, and sometimes an epitaph or other line of text at the base.  On several of them the top of the headstone had been carved into a decorative sculptural component in its own right.  These also contain introductory phrases and are often accompanied by religious symbols and motifs.

The area occupied by the body in front of the headstone could be demarcated with a stone kerb or a set of railings.  Although it is difficult to tell because of the long grass, these seem to be confined to a relatively small number of graves, presumably because of the additional cost that would have been incurred.  I noticed at Farndon’s St Chad’s churchyard that the plentiful kerbs accompanying headstones usually belonged to the early 20th century.

Most of the headstones in this section of the churchyard were made of local sandstone, mainly superior fine-grained yellow sandstone, but a few, particularly towards the end of the 19th century, were also made of imported stone, such as rose granite, often highly polished to achieve a glossy surface, such as the 1891 coped stone shown below (interestingly one of the few to be inscribed in Welsh).  Some were partially polished, with parts left unworked to provide contrasts in colour and texture, such as the 1908 example on the right.  Similarly, some of the later grave stones combined different types of stone to draw attention to particular motifs or to highlight inscriptions.  Colour inserts are unusual, but the headstone above includes a blue and white religious symbol, containing the letters IHS. These are usually interpreted as a Christogram, representing the first three letters of the name Jesus Christ’s in Greek, iota eta sigma.   The H is the capitalization of “eta.”

Rose granite coped gravestone

Dotted amongst these more conventional 19th century headstones, and particularly popular in the Victorian periods, is the monumental grave stone, consisting of a large sculptural element supported on an inscribed plinth.  Frequent types are crosses, angels and obelisks.  One example, below far right, has a column on a plinth topped with the crucified Jesus on one side and Mary with the baby Jesus on the other, both protected by a roof.  The relatively tiny cross at its base was dedicated to an infant.

The later 20th Century

At some point between the late 19th and early 20th century, highly polished imported black stone became desirable for gravestones.  There are a couple of full-sized early versions of this stone in the Gresford churchyard, most of which have both polished and unpolished sections to create texture and contrast.

As the 20th century proceeded, the same stone type was used to make tiny grave markers usually laid flat, with white or gold lettering.  Because those commemorated by these stones are often within living memory of children or grandchildren, some of them may be visited and flowers often accompany them, real or artificial, a brightly coloured foil for the standardized lines of shiny black polished stone, quite unlike the earlier, upright headstones.  Although very different from their monumental antecedents they give a sense of continuity from the 18th century.

Grave locations

The irregularly shaped churchyard

The wish for burial within a church or as close as possible to the church, demonstrated by the two 13th century examples in the north and south aisles of the church itself, was driven by the belief that proximity to holiness would confer some form of additional divine spirituality on the dead.  The chancel, the east end section where the choir and high altar were located, was particularly desirable as a burial place.  Throughout history, burial within church premises was reserved only for a limited number of people including senior clergy, those drawn from the upper echelons of society, and those who had provided financial support to the church.  Others might be buried in private mausolea in their own premises, but most would be consigned to a churchyard or, later, a dedicated cemetery.  The north side of a parish church was often the last to be used for burials, in some cases because the cemetery might have been used in early years for village community events, but also because it, or parts of it, were sometimes reserved for unconsecrated burials such as babies who died before baptism and suicides; but in some cases it appears to be simply because the darker north side was seen as less attractive and further away from the divine.

Designs and motifs in the churchyard

Elaborate monument to William Trevor Parkins, Chancellor of St Asaph, who died in 1908 and is also commemorated with a stained glass window in the church. His wife and son are also commemorated on the the monument.

Although gravestones were primarily used for recording details of the deceased, motifs, emblems and symbols were introduced in the late 17th century, and became popular in the 18th century, establishing memento mori and other themes as part of the language of the grave marker.  Most of these helped to express ideas with which the deceased might wish to be connected, a visual reference to the connection between the living, the dead and the afterlife.  The range of visual features in the Gresford churchyard is fairly limited, but they echo churchyard motifs in other local churchyards, suggesting that there was a limited range of ideas with which local people were familiar or felt comfortable, such as as crosses, floral motifs and the letters IHS that stand for the first three letters of the name of Jesus in Latin.  Others are rather more specific, and convey a particular association, such as a cross showing the Star of David and a military grave showing the Canadian maple.  If anyone can enlighten me about the multiple serpents wending their way through half-globes on the Celtic-influenced cross on the image to the right, the 1908 monument to William Trevor Parkins, I would be very grateful!  There is a similar one in the Overleigh Old Cemetery in Chester.

Instead of looking at the limited range of symbols and motifs on gravestones at Gresford, a future post will look at some of these.

Challenges for grave architecture

Heavy central erosion to the headstone on the left; de-lamination of the sandstone of the headstone on the right, leaving a small part of the original surface containing the inscription in one corner

In all churchyards, some grave markers fare better than others, thanks to unavoidable natural processes.  Most of the graves at All Saints’ are in good condition, and the churchyard as a whole is well maintained and cared for.  Natural processes, however, can defy all attempts to conserve grave markers and there is no blame attached to this.  The greater percentage of grave markers at All Saints’ are made of friable yellow sandstone, which is susceptible to damage by extremes of the weather, to the impact of concentrated dripping from trees and to the fumes from motor pollution.  Some of this is mild erosion, some of it has rendered text illegible whilst leaving the basic form unharmed, but other cases are very severe, such as examples shown here, some of which have large patches resembling melted ice-cream, whilst others are suffering serious de-lamination.

Like most rural churchyards, some of the churchyard is well manicured, and other parts of it have been left to develop a more natural feel.  The dominant vegetation surrounding the 19th century headstones away from the trees is very tall grass, (very wet up to mid-thigh in some areas after rainfall – beware!).  The tall grass appears to do little harm to the headstones, although it does inhibit visits to those gravestones, and the build up of foliage at the bases eventually creates topsoil that covers up inscriptions at the bases, particularly in the case of pedestals at the bottom of crosses, obelisks and similar statues, where text may be confined to the base of the monument.

Carved ivy tendrils wrap around a rustic cross as real ivy on the ground just begins to encroach on the pedestal.

Under trees and in shaded areas invasive ivy does real damage, fastening itself to the stone, hiding inscriptions and, when removed, removes the friable surfaces of the stone. Ivy is very difficult to eradicate from an area once it establishes a network of roots, from which it sends out runners that in turn root themselves.  It is resistant to just about every form of weed killer, even if that were desirable in a graveyard that strives to encourage a natural environment.  One or two of the gravestones are carved with images of ivy spreading across their surfaces, which seems like an ironic acknowledgement of the inevitable blending of nature with death.  The only way of dealing with it is to keep cutting it back when it it begins to climb the grave stones – a thankless and endless task!

What appears to be one or more chest tombs, completely overrun and concealed by ivy.

A grave dedicated to Arthur Henry Leslie Soames M.C. and Légion d’Honneur, which had been partially hidden by ivy and other weeds, was uncovered in May 2018 by local historian Jimmy Jones, with the permission of the church.  His account, and the before-and-after photographs used to be on the now defunct Wrexham-History website, and described how the central grave monument and a horizontal slab to one side were visible, but once the full monument was uncovered, a second slab on the opposite side was revealed, indicating that this was a family plot.  This contributes to the biography of Arthur Soames, who died testing an experimental bomb for the army in 1915.

Moss is similarly invasive and destructive where conditions favour its growth and spread, and there are examples at All Saints’ where inscriptions on ledgers have been colonized and concealed.

Ledgers encroached on by moss as well as grass and lichen

Lichen is another natural invader of stone grave monuments, and is very difficult, if not impossible to tackle.  Different types of lichen prefer different environmental conditions, so can be very widespread in a cemetery, even in the most cared-for sections.  Where lichen spreads across inscriptions, it can obscure them completely, and it can eat away the friable surfaces grain by grain over the period of many decades, meaning that inscription, motifs and decorative features may be damaged, obscured or lost.  It can also add to the more abrupt problem of certain types of sandstone de-laminating, which can eliminate big sections of text very suddenly.

 

Fairly minor lichen damage to a gravestone, dating to 1807.  It has not completely obscured the inscription just yet, although the centre epitaph is illegible. but will probably become worse as time passes

An example of damage inflicted on an inscription by a combination of weathering and lichen, making much of the the text, including the date, illegible.

Lead lettering from 1882, some of which have parted company from the headstone leaving empty peg marks

A small number of the 19th century tombs were provided with lead lettering, hammered into peg holes in the stone.  Some of the lettering has been lost from these grave stones, leaving behind some whole letters, some partial letters and some of the peg holes.  Again, this is natural wear and tear over the centuries and in some ways it seems surprising that any of these lead inserts have actually managed to survive at all.

Some of the stonework of chest and table tombs has been damaged, with panels falling away and ledgers tipping to the side, but this is the usual wear and tear as trees grow and roots find new paths, and storms impose injuries.

Final Comments: The living, the dead and eternity

Although there is some uniformity in the appearance of the churchyard, with certain forms, motifs and shapes being repeated, when you stand in the middle of it all, with the wet grass up to your knees, the great sweep of gravestones and monuments spreading to the limits of the churchyard provides a great sense of individual character and personal commitment.  Each monument contains a fragmentary sense of how precious life could be.  The inscriptions, whilst often fairly formulaic, also represent choices and decisions about what what best represented the interests of the deceased, the living and how this connected to belief in an afterlife.  Churchyards are often places of sadness, but for a great many they also represented ideas of hope.

The grave marker links the living, the dead and Christian belief in a relationship that, particularly when the text survives, may still be engaged with.  Whoever made the decisions about the design of the grave marker, what stands out is how these inanimate objects, the material commemoration of the dead, reflect a wide range of understated emotional ideas a including love, commitment, devotion, fear, anxiety, grief and hope. Collectively they convey both the sadness that the living confront in death and the comfort they find in commemorating their lost loved ones.  People find solace where they can.

If you want to find out more about the owner of a particular grave, the findagrave.com website is a terrific resource.

A ledger and inscription dating to 1796, describing the pain that the deceased suffered.

Sources:

Frisby, Helen 2019. Traditions of Death and Burial. Shire Library

Hayman, Richard 2019.  Churches and Churchyards of England and Wales.  Shire Library.

Heritage, Celia 2022. Cemeteries and Graveyards. A Guide for Family and Local Hstorians in England and Wales. Pen and Sword

Post, W. Ellwood 1962, 1974. A Concise Dictionary: Saints, Signs and Symbols. SPCK

Yorke, Trevor 2017 (2nd edition). Gravestones, Tombs and Memorials.  Countryside Books

Websites:

Cemetery Symbolism
https://cemeterysymbolism.wordpress.com/

Interesting example of a chest tomb that has suffered de-lamination but where the carving of the inscription was so deep that even where it has de-laminated, some of it can still be read.  The ivy is beginning to gain a foothold.

A splendid introduction to stained glass artist Trena Cox by Aleta Doran

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Many thanks to Aleta Doran, Artist in Residence at Chester Cathedral for today’s introduction to stained glass artist Trena Cox, who was based in Chester for most of her long career.  Aleta is a brilliant and engaging presenter, currently working hard on the upcoming Trena Cox exhibition, which she is curating.  Although this was organized specially for Chester Archaeological Society, Aleta is doing more presentations during the Heritage Festival and if you get the chance to attend, do go.  It will give you a completely new insight into the world of 20th Century stained glass, as well as introducing you to a really creative part of the cathedral’s history.  I’ll keep this relatively short so as not to spoil the event for those of you who have tickets.

Trena Cox, apparently the least photographed artist in modern history, was born on the Wirral and trained at Birkenhead’s Laird School of art, learning her skills in traditional media before switching to stained glass.  She has created over 150 stained glass pieces that are known, but there are probably many more to be identified.  She worked mainly in the Cheshire and northeast Wales areas but her works are found further afield.  There are many in Chester itself, mainly in churches.  There are nine Trena Cox windows in the cathedral, one in the slype (a corridor) and the others arranged in groups of four, two at the top, two at the bottom, in adjacent aisles in the cloister (the walkway around the central garth or garden).

The big window in the slype shows the child Christ on one river bank, and St Christopher on the other.  This is very unconventional, as Christ is usually depicted being carried across the water on the shoulders of St Christopher.  Aleta described how this window clearly demonstrates many of the features of Trena Cox’s work, with the beautifully executed details of both figures, the surrounding landscape and the flowers, birds and animals that sit at the feet of the two figures.  Also typical are the portrait-style faces, which seem incredibly life-like.  The colouring of the glass, as in all her work, is vibrantly jewel-like and the background semi-opaque glass concentrates the eye on colours whilst allowing in light.  There are many emblems of international pilgrimage, known from badges purchased from the Middle Ages by pilgrims to commemorate their achievements.  As well as many others, these include St Thomas of Canterbury, St James of Santiago de Compostella, and of course Chester Cathedral’s own St Werburgh herself, her symbol being five geese in a basket. It is a rich and symbol-laden piece that rewards time taken to appreciate it.

The cloister used to open out onto the garth, with a stone arcade forming a corridor with the buildings that surround the cloister.  In 1920 Dean Frank Bennet was appointed as the new head of the cathedral, and decided to take measures to improve the cathedral’s fortunes.  In order to glaze the arcade that surrounded the garth, the dean decided to raise public funds.  It is thought that some funds were raised by allowing donors for the cloister glass to add commemorations to loved ones in panes withing the windows, which survive today.  Each window represents a saint, religious festival or holy day.  Trena Cox contributed eight panels in two adjacent sections of the cloister, showing eight different saints.  In one set of four, the two at the top are Hugh Lupus who founded the abbey and St Werburgh’s mother St Ermengild  In the lower section are St Thomas Becket and King Henry II.  In the other set, the two figures at the top are Abbot Witchurch and Ralph Higden and the two below King Alfred and St Piegmund.  Aleta talked us through the significance of each of these saints, and why there were chosen.  These are much smaller and therefore much simpler compositions, but again the colours are vibrant, and the faces resemble portraiture.

Aleta wrapped up by telling us something about Trena Cox and her influence on Chester life, not only as an artist but as something of an activist for the protection of local heritage.  It seems remarkable that she is not better known, at least in Chester where she lived nearly all her life.  Hopefully, the upcoming the exhibition “Trena Cox: Reflections 100”, which begins on the 7th October, will bring this under-sung local personality and talented, prolific artist to much wider public attention.  Do take advantage of a tour of the glass with Aleta Doran if you have the opportunity.  As an artist herself, she offers a unique insight into the work of Trena Cox.

You can follow Aleta Doran on Twitter (@StargazingAleta), or via her blog at https://www.aletadoran.co.uk/

“Excavations at Heronbridge 2002-5, Part 1: The Roman Settlement,”

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Great to arrive home from our trip to our CAS introduction to Wirral-born stained glass artist Trena Cox by Aleta Doran (about which more later) and find the Heronbridge report on the doorstep. The report, “Excavations at Heronbridge 2002-5, Part 1: The Roman Settlement,” is a satisfyingly chunky 207 pages with maps, illustrations and photographs. It describes Chester Archaeological Society’s excavations between 2002 and 2005 at the Roman settlement at Heronbridge, about 2.5km south of Chester City Centre. With numerous contributors, headed by David J.P. Mason, it is edited by Peter Carrington with Rowan Patel and Alison Smithson (Chester 2024).

For those who wish to know a bit more about this publication, here are the cover details, the Table of Contents and the list of contributors.  You can click to expand any of the images:

Birkenhead Priory – A 2-Minute Video

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This is a bit of an experiment, using my iPhone, which I’ve never tried before for video.  I did a lot of camcorder videos of scenery when I lived in Aberdovey on the west coast of Wales, but fell out of the habit when I moved to the Chester area, so I am out of practice, feel very peculiar using an iPhone to do video, and hate the sound of my voice, but here we go.  So here’s my two-minute introduction to the wonderful priory of St Mary and St James, aka Birkenhead Priory, for  better or for worse. I’ll get better!

Dazzle-camouflage building on Knox Street in Birkenhead

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At Birkenhead Priory the other day I very much liked this small building on Knox Street, very close to both Birkenhead Priory and the Cammell Laird shipyard.  It has been painted in the style of dazzle camouflage, used in the First World War, and to a lesser extent in the Second World War, primarily to confuse submarines.  “The primary object of this scheme was not so much to cause the enemy to miss his shot when actually in firing position, but to mislead him, when the ship was first sighted, as to the correct position to take up. Dazzle was a method to produce an effect by paint in such a way that all accepted forms of a ship are broken up by masses of strongly contrasted colour, consequently making it a matter of difficulty for a submarine to decide on the exact course of the vessel to be attacked” (Norman Wilkinson, 1969, A Brush with Life, Seeley Service, p.79, quoted on Wikipedia).

The moment I saw it, it reminded me of a 1919 painting by Edward Wadsworth (1889 – 1949) that I have hanging in my spare bedroom, showing a ship in dry dock in Liverpool receiving its new paint job.  Wadsworth painted in the style of the Vorticists, whose best known proponent was Wyndham Lewis, inspired by machinery and industry, and focused on clean lines, hard edges and planes of strong colour.  The dazzle ship was a near perfect subject matter for this style of painting, and Wadsworth was in an ideal position to get up close and personal with his subject matter, as in the First World War he worked as an intelligence officer, and one of this responsibilities was implementing dazzle camouflage designs for the Royal Navy.

I would love to know who came up with painting the building on Knox Street in the same style.  If you know anything about it, do let me know.

Below is a painting from the Merseyside Maritime Museum showing the Walmer Castle painted in her dazzle camouflage.  “The Walmer Castle was launched in 1901 for the recently created Union Castle Mail Steamship Company. The ship sailed between Southampton and Cape Town and in 1917 was requisitioned by the British Government. It is seen here dazzle painted for use as a troop ship in the North Atlantic. Walmer Castle survived the war and was broken up in 1932″ (National Museums Liverpool).

Monument to the building of the Queensway Tunnel under the Mersey, Birkenhead

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On a recent visit to Birkenhead Priory, which I am still writing up, I arrived some time before the Priory opened, and went for a wander.  There are some great things to see in the area, but this combined monument and street light really drew the eye.  I decided not to risk life and limb by flinging myself across the very busy road to read the inscription at its base, so did a web search when I returned home.  It is a monument to the building of the Queensway Tunnel under the Mersey.  It is Grade II listed (1217871), was designed by Herbert Rowse and erected in 1934.  It was shifted from its original position in 1970 due to changes in the road layout at the tunnel approach, but originally illuminated the first concourse / plaza.

The monument has the fluted elements of a Doric column clad in impressive black granite, hints at ancient Egyptian lotus-top capitals, has a light on top, and simply yells Art Deco creativity and optimism, with a touch of eccentricity.  It is such a hybrid of different ideas, incorporating ancient art and contemporary technology, and happily combining the functions of both monument and lighthouse that it has no chance of being rationally categorized.  Like Greek and Roman columns or ancient Egyptian obelisks, it looks as though it ought to be in company, not standing all on its own.

The monument did in fact have a twin, but instead of standing alongside its sibling was erected over the river in Liverpool, lighting the other entrance to the tunnel.  Sadly this was taken down in the 1960s, a period when so many bad decisions were made regarding architectural heritage.  There was some talk in the media this time last year about erecting a replica, but I don’t know if that plan went anywhere or has been abandoned.

The inscriptions on the bronze plaques on the base display the names of the engineer responsible for the civil engineering of the tunnel, Sir Basil Mott J.A. Brodie and the architect Herbert Rowse, as well as the names of the team who built the bridge and the  construction teams and committee members who oversaw proceedings.  The commemorative declaration reads:

Queensway, opened by His Majesty King George V, 18th July 1934 accompanied by Her Majesty Queen Mary.  The work on this tunnel was commenced on 16th December by Her Royal Highness Princess Mary Viscountess Lascelles, who started the pneumatic boring drills at St George’s Dock Liverpool MCMXXXIV

I love the monument.  It has a real sense of joie de vivre. It is a shame that it is no longer located closer to its original position as part of the tunnel’s original architectural vision.  On the upside, at least it has been preserved and not demolished like its twin.  Other aspects of the original Art Deco vision do survive in situ at the tunnel entrance, shown above right.

 

Sources:

Ariadne Portal
Monument to the building of the Mersey Tunnel, Birkenhead Statement of Significance
https://portal.ariadne-infrastructure.eu/resource/81de5df3ed3619b3a955851dd28c44311e65fcefde36d151d655fdb6f35d49c2

Historic England
1217871
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Gop Cave and Cairn near Prestatyn #3 – The vast cairn

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Introduction

The cairn rising above the tree tops on Gop hill, with the cave visible as a dark line in the light limestone ridge below. Source: Coflein

Gop Cairn is at an elevation of 250m (c.820ft) above sea level  on the prow of a hill overlooking the Vale of Clwyd, just outside the village of Trelawnyd (formerly known as Newmarket).  It is oval rather than round, and measures roughly 101m x 78m (331 x 255ft).  It is the biggest man-made prehistoric mound in Wales, and in Britain as a whole it is second only to Silbury Hill in Wiltshire.

The cave has already been discussed in part 1 (Pleistocene and Mesolithic) and part 2 (Neolithic burials).

The Excavation

The plan of the cairn and excavations by Boyd Dawkins. Source: Boyd Dawkins 1901

Sir William Boyd Dawkins was hired by the landowner to excavate the cairn.  Boyd Dawkins had a simple, though labour-intensive strategy.  The plan that Boyd Dawkins made of the cairn shows the dip in the top that remains today.  Boyd Dawkins speculates that this could have been caused when the cairn was later used as a source of raw materials for local drystone walling, or alternatively by subsidence due to the collapse of an underlying chamber.

Although there is a thin covering of vegetation today, the cairn was found to be built of chunks of limestone.  Around the base of the cairn there seems to have been a more organized and well presented kerb of drystone walling.  Ian Brown suggests that when first built, and during the period when it still retained importance, it may have “shown a dramatic whiteness set against a blue or darkening site.”  The limestone ridge below, in which the cave is located and shown at the top of this post, certainly seems almost white in the sunshine, and the cairn may have had a similarly noticeable appearance, particularly given its great size.

Boyd Dawkins sunk a shaft (6ft 6 ins by 4ft / c.2m x 1.22m) vertically from the top of the cairn, which had to be shored up with timber to allow work to proceed safely.  The shaft reached the former ground surface, which was formed of bedrock.  A main “drift” (a mining term for a horizontal subterranean tunnel) was then tunnelled running 30ft (c.9m) to the northeast from the bottom of the vertical shaft towards the edge, followed by two shorter drifts.  The hope was to find a burial chamber at the centre.  It was not unreasonable to assume that there would be a burial chamber of some description.  Although Neolithic chambered cairns are not common in northeast Wales (examples are Tyddyn Bleiddyn near St Asaph and Tan y Coed in the Dee valley), there are many Early Bronze Age round barrows with cists, and there are several stone-built burial sites and a stone row on the Great Orme to the west.

Unfortunately, in spite of all the hard work, all that Boyd Dawkins and his team found were fragmented animal bones, which in spite of his considerable experience identifying animal remains, Boyd Dawkins was unable to identify with certainty: “hog, sheep or goat, and ox or horse, too fragmentary to be accurately determined.”  Overall, the suggestion is that these were domesticated species that could have been herded or penned in the area.

No artefacts were found.

Conditions were obviously very difficult, as Boyd Dawkins states: “The timbering necessary for our work was not only very costly, but rendered it very difficult to observe the condition of the interior even in the small space which was excavated.”  It is possible that the chamber, if there is one, is off-centre, and that any passage leading to it is in a different direction.  Until further survey or excavation work is carried out, there is no means of telling what lies beneath the surface.

Dating the Cairn

Neolithic arrowheads found on Gop Hill. Source: Glenn 1935

Data for the dating of the cairn is circumstantial.  Although domesticated animal species were found within the cairn, these could have been deposited at an any time from the Neolithic onwards.  On the other hand, arrowheads and other Neolithic stone tools have been found on Gop Hill. According to T. Allen Glenn in 1935, Gop Hill was known locally as Bryn-y-Saethau, the Hill of Arrows, due to the large number of Neolithic arrowheads found there over the decades.  Just below the cairn, just 43m (141ft) away, shown in the above photograph, is a shallow cave in the limestone ridge  that contained Neolithic burials.  There are ephemeral Neolithic sites nearby, identified by T. Allen Glenn during field walking during the 1920s, and there are other Neolithic cave sites in northeast Wales.  At the same time, nothing significant relating to the Bronze Age has been found in the immediate area.  Although Iron Age and Roman sites have been found in the area, Gop Cairn is not an Iron Age or Roman form of site, and there is no record of a medieval motte and bailey castle up on the hill.  On balance, accepting that it remains speculative, it seems probable that it will turn out to be a Neolithic site if it is ever properly investigated.

Myth: “Baseless Theories”

A local writer named Edward Parry, author of Royal Visits and Progresses into Wales, written in 1851, propagated the idea that Gop Hill and its cairn were connected with the battle between Boudicca and Suetonius Pauluins in A.D. 61.  It is a bizarre theory, that Ellis Davies, under the subheading “Baseless Theories” says in 1949 was a “false derivation” based on one of the names of the Gop, Cop Paulini.  It is otherwise incomprehensible why Parry should have come up with the theory, but it found its way into other pamphlets and local accounts.  As Davies points out in a rather aggrieved tone, “It would not be necessary to refer to these absurd stories about the association of Boudicca with Gop and neighbourhood were it not for the fact that locally they still persist!”

The Beacon

In his 1949 book “The Prehistoric and Roman Remains of Flintshire,” Ellis Davies notes that in the 17th century there was a beacon on Gop Hill, the purpose of which was to send up an alarm, when necessary, should pirates be spotted off the coast.  A small hut was built at the bottom of the cairn to store the combustible materials with which the fire would be lit.

Final Comments

It is a little ironic that there is such a lot to say about a rather small cave, and not a great deal to say about an absolutely enormous cairn on the prow of a hill that dominates the surrounding landscape.  It seems clear from the burials in the cave beneath the cairn, dated by association with distinctive artefacts, and supported by stone tools found on the hill, that this was an important location during the Neolithic. It seems likely that the cairn could have belonged to the same period, but it is also possible that it could belong to the following earlier Bronze Age.  Further investigation will be required to nail down the date of the site, and to establish if there are any additional structures, such as burial chambers, contained within.

 

Suggestions for the derivation of the name Gop. Source: Ellis Davies 1949, p.159

Sources and visiting details are shown in part 1

 

 

Gop Cave and Cairn near Prestatyn # 2 – The Neolithic burials

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Part 2 – The Neolithic burials in the cave

Introduction

Main entrance to Gop Cave

In Part 1 I looked at the excavations carried out at Gop Cave in 1886-7, 1908-14, 1920-21 and 1956-57 and talked about the pre-glacial levels of Gop Cave, with its finds of woolly rhino, hyaena and wild horse, and the Mesolithic tools found outside the cave mouth.

In this second part, the cave is still the topic under discussion, with a shift in focus to the Neolithic layers, whilst the cairn on top of Gop Hill is tackled in part 3.  During the Neolithic, the cave was used to deposit a number of burials, two thirds of which were contained within a walled-off section of the cave, and the rest within a narrow passage that linked two parts of the cave.  These burials are the subject of this post.  References used for all three parts are listed in part 1, together with visiting details.

The Excavations

Modern plan of Gop Cave by Cris Ebbs. Source: Cambrian Caving Council Survey 2013

Just to recap briefly on the details from part 1, the earliest excavations in the cave were carried out by Sir William Boyd Dawkins, a well known and respected early archaeologist who excavated the cave site over two seasons in 1887 and 1887, having originally been asked to assess the cairn on top of the hill.  The lowest level was barren , but the next contained numerous bones of Pleistocene animals, many of them now extinct.  The top two layers contained mainly Neolithic material including human skeletal remains.

In 1908 John H. Morris began digging at the cave, and was joined by T. Allen Glenn, who took systematic notes and made a plan of the newly uncovered sections of the cave.  They opened up a passage missed by Boyd Dawkins, referred to as the northwest passage, which linked to a very small opening just to the east of the main cave entrance.  During these excavations a further six partial skeletons were found, two of them children.  The skeletal remains in both cases were associated with artefacts and animal bones.

Most of the bone collection collected by Boyd Dawkins, and stored in a pigeon house at Gop Farm, were disposed of in 1913 by the tenant of Gop Farm, who threw them down a local mine shaft – which is particularly sad as Glenn had just received permission to take charge of them.  Most of the Morris and Glenn finds, both bones and objects, were sent to the National Museum of Wales.  Some finds from Gop Cave are also retained by Manchester Museum and Aura Museum Services, and possibly by the Grosvenor Museum in Chester.

The Neolithic burials at Gop Cave

In total, at least 20 individuals were recorded in Gop Cave.  The 14  found by Boyd Dawkins and the 6 found by Morris and Glenn may have been deposited at slightly different times, due to the different character of the deposition.  Whereas the individuals discovered by Boyd-Dawkins  seem to have been buried whole, Glenn is fairly confident that the ones discovered by himself and Morris in a different part of the cave were only partial when they were interred.

Boyd-Dawkins excavations showing the chamber (feature B) above layer 3 and abutting layer 4, which contained skeletal remains of humans with artefacts. Source: Boyd Dawkins 1901.  See other cave plans in part 1.

Dawkins describes how he found a thick layer of charcoal over slabs of limestone at a depth of 4ft (c.1.2m) from the surface, which formed an old hearth.  Blackened slabs were found throughout the area excavated, and there were also burnt and broken bones of domestic animals and fragments of pottery.  “Intermingled with these were a large quantity of human bones of various ages, lying under slabs of limestone, which formed a continuous packing up to the roof.  On removing these a rubble wall became visible, regularly built of courses of limestone.”  These limestone blocks made up walls on three sides, with the cave wall itself making up the fourth wall, to form a chamber 4ft 6 by 5ft 4 (c.1.4m x 1.65m).  Inside the chamber was what Dawkins describes as “a mass of human skeletons of various ages, more than fourteen in number, closely packed together, and obviously interred at successive times.” Individuals were deposited in a crouched position, “with arms and legs drawn together and folded.”  His assessment was that the bodies were buried whole. When the chamber became full, another area of the cave was used as an overflow for new burials, identified on the section plan above as area A.  Because layer 3 was found beneath the burial chamber, as well as beneath layer 4, Boyd Dawkins concluded that layer 3 had formed a habitation area prior to the burials, in a similar way to two other cave sites in north Wales.

Glenn’s plan of the 1912 excavations. Source: Davies 1949

When Morris and Glenn opened up another passage, and found another six individuals, Although the view was confused by rock fall and a very uneven floor, it was thought that limestone slabs may have been used to create a wall around some of the skeletons.  Glenn describes the bones as fragmented and partial.  Glenn ascribes this to the remains having been brought from somewhere else, rather than having been depleted due to roof fall damage of fragile bones, or the work of the “burrowing animals” that caused disruption in the stratification within the passage.  He was methodical and a good observer, so presumably had good grounds for suggesting this, and it is certainly in keeping with other, more recent archaeological evidence for Neolithic burials where partial skeletons are found, apparently due to having died elsewhere and been moved to a particular site for burial.  Another possibility is that the body had been excarnated, a practice involving the ceremonial placement of a body in the open air to allow it to be processed naturally so that it was defleshed and partially disarticulated before being collected for interment, which often resulted in the bigger longbones and crania being collected whilst finger and foot bones were left behind.

Having opened the cave out and discovered the second entrance, Morris and Glenn found that it was blocked with limestone slabs, apparently deliberately, although it is by no means certain when this was done.  It is not unlike the blocking of entrances to Neolithic burial monuments towards the end of the Neolithic period.

The artefacts associated with the burials

Polished blade found by Boyd Dawkins in Gop Cave. Source: Dawkins 1901

The artefacts associated with both sets of skeletons are all Neolithic in date.  Boyd Dawkins assigned them to the Bronze Age on the basis of the pottery, but this has since been re-dated. Both the Boyd Dawkins and the Morris and Glenn excavations produced stone tools, most of which are fairly generic but can be assigned to the Neolithic.  One of the Boyd Dawkins discoveries was a long, curved blade, very carefully carved and polished to provide it with smooth surfaces, and showing no signs of usage.  He also identified quart pebbles, which he refers to as “luck stones.”  Another notable stone tool, this time found by Harris and Glenn in the part of the cave undiscovered by Boyd Dawkins, was a bifacially worked axe head made from Graig Lywyd stone from the well-known Neolithic stone mines at Penmaenmawr, which was apparently unused.

Objects found by Harris and Allen in Gob Cave, including the Graig Lwyd axe at top. Source: Davies 1949.

The pottery was Peterborough ware, and it has been determined that the Gop Cave type was the Mortlake variant of Peterborough ware,  which dates to between about 3350 and 2850 BC.  All were fragments, and were either grey or black or burnt red.

Pottery found in association with the skeletons by Boyd Dawkins, since identified as Mortlake Ware. Source: Boyd Dawkins 1901

Kimmeridge sliders. Source: Boyd Dawkins 1901

Two unusual items were referred to by Boyd Dawkins as “links,” which he thought were proably used to fasten clothing, and are referred to by some others as belt-sliders.  He described them as being made of “jet or Kimmeridge coal,” or “Kimmeridge shale.”  As these items are now lost, they cannot be tested (they were last known to be in Manchester Museum, but now cannot be found).  He gives the measurements as 54mm L x 22m W and 16mm H; and 70mm L, 22mm W and 27mm H.  Boyd Dawkins says that they showed no signs of any usage, and according to Alison Sheriden’s analysis of these object types, this is typical.  They appear to have been kept for show rather than being attached to clothing or employed in some other everyday capacity, much like the curved blade and the Graig Lwyd axe head.  As jet and Kimmeridge coal come from Yorkshire, and a third of all known sliders have been found in and around Yorkshire, they are certainly exotic goods in northeast Wales, and the rarity of the substance may have endowed it with a particular cachet.  Jet has the very unusual property of being electrostatic, so that when it is rubbed it can make one’s hair stand on end! If it was jet, this would certainly have added to its novelty value.   29 of them were known when Sheriden was surveying them in 2012, of which only 6 were certainly of jet, one of which was found in Wales.  12 or 13 were from burial contexts and distribution showed  “a marked tendency towards coastal and riverine finds” that are a reminder of the extensive networks that operated in the Neolithic. 

Although the objects in the cave are few and far between, some were unused suggesting that they highly valued and retained for special occasions or as prestige items.  It is unclear whether any artefacts were associated with any particular individuals, although Boyd-Dawkins describes the the jet sliders and the polished flint flake forming one group together.

Animal remains

Although he does not list numbers, Boyd Dawkins says that the remains of the domesticated species “were greatly in excess of those of the wild animals, and the most abundant were those of sheep.”  He also comments that the horse listed under wild fauna may actually be domesticated, and that foxes were using the vicinity of the cave area at the time of the excavation.  All bones were found in what he describes as “prehistoric refuse heaps and that nearly all were broken and burnt.


As all the bones were discarded in 1913, none of the identifications can be checked, but Boyd Dawkins was very experienced in the identification of animal remains, giving some confidence that his work reflected the reality of the situation.  Sheep and goat are notoriously difficult to tell part, so the question-mark against goat is not surprising.  That sheep are dominant is not a surprise, as the area around Gop would be ideal grazing for them.  The valley bottom would have been well-suited for cattle and horse.

Dating the skeletons

Mandibles used in radiocarbon dating of Gop Cave skeletons. Source: Schulting 2020

Although the artefacts found in the cave, loosely associated with the skeletal remains, are indicators of a mid-Neolithic date, as described above, in 2020 Rick Schulting was able to pull together 23 samples from a number of caves for radiocarbon dating, including three samples from Gop Cave, comprising two mandibles and one cranium.  Although some samples had been tested previously, an error in the sampling method had led to them being withdrawn in 2007.  For Gop, the new dates lie firmly with the Middle-Late Neolithic range, tending towards the middle of the Neolithic (between c.3100 and 2900 BC).

This date range backs up the findings of the Mortlake variants of the Peterborough ware, the jet sliders and the Graig Lwyd axe.

The practice of non-monumental burials

The main form of burial recognized throughout most of the Neolithic Britain is the long barrow or cairn, or the round passage grave.  In each case, there was usually an accumulation of burials over time, referred to as collective burials.  These were not, however, the only forms of burial during the Neolithic. Although less often found, because of the lack of monumental marker, flat interment cemeteries are known, burials in the ditches of the so-called causewayed enclosures are often recorded and there is some, uncertain data that there may have been burials in rivers.  During the later Neolithic, cremation became the norm.

Jawbone of skeleton from Gop Cave. Source: National Museum of Wales (47.97/104)

By far the most common non-monumental form of burial, however, is deposition within a cave.  Cave burials of various dates are known from all over Britain.  In his survey of cave burials in 2020, Rick Schulting noted examples from the Palaeolithic through to the Anglo-Saxon period.  From the Neolithic in north Wales, contemporary with Gop Cave, nearby Nanty-Fuach rock shelter above Dyserth produced five burials, all contracted, and without grave goods.  Outside the cave there were fragments of Neolithic pottery, a large barbed and tanged arrowhead and, nearby, some Peterborough ware.  In the Alyn valley 16 burials were deposited within Perthi Cawarae, and 6 within Rhos Ddigre, the latter associated with a Graig Lwyd axe and pottery fragments, both in the Alyn valley.  Other examples are known from Loggerheads and Mostyn with Neolithic flint implements.  It is clear that Gop Cave is by no means an isolated example, although the precise arrangement of the skeletal remains within containing walls may be unusual.  As many caves were excavated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when excavations lacked today’s precision, it is impossible to know what was missed by excavators.  Finally, Schulting notes that there is a gap of “several millennia” between the last Mesolithic cave burial and the first Neolithic ones, indicating that there is no continuity of burial tradition in caves between the two periods.

Meaning in collective burial

Frances Lynch suggests that the use of caves for burial, occurring in many areas at different periods “seems to be  a matter of convenience rather than cultural preference” but there are alternative views on the matter.  In his book on the materiality of stone – Christopher Tilley does not discuss caves, but he references almost every other aspect of stone as a natural material that becomes objectified by human uses and actions.  He comments that social identity requires “specific concrete material points of reference in the form of landscapes, places, artefacts and other persons.” Topographic and other natural features are often used by humans to anchor and fix memory and establish places of meaning in landscapes.  Carole Crumley highlights the phenomenological experience of features like caves, mountains and springs, and their role in connecting the mental with the material to create both individual and social identity.  In their chapter on the uses of landscape features like caves and springs by the Maya in Mesoamerica, James Brady and Wendy Ashmore describe how caves, eternally damp and dripping water, were connected with the sacred and the ritualization of water. By appropriating and modifying such natural features, people have embedded them with meaning to form bridges between the natural, supernatural and the manufactured, blurring the differences to confer special status on these dark places where the dead might be deposited safely.

Artist’s impression of what an excarnation platform might look like. By Jan Dunbar. Source: BBC

A number of authors have suggested that collective burial of humans, and in particular the mingling of bones rather than maintaining skeletons as delineated individuals, is an indication of the individual being subsumed into a collective identity, privileging the group identity over the authority or status of any one individual.  Of course, these collective burials, whether in monument or cave, are representatives of much larger communities, and the criteria used for selecting one person for burial over another are lost.  It is possible that in order to transform an individual into a representative of the community, a two-stage process was undertaken whereby an individual is excarnated or buried elsewhere, and then moved to a collective burial site, a transformative process during which the individual member of the community loses their individuality and becomes representative of a communal and ancestral link between the past and the present.   With the addition of each new individual to the cemetery, another layer of communal meaning was added to the cave, reinforcing the message that the existing burials already encapsulated.

In the contrast between the brightness of the light-coloured limestone reflecting in the sun, and the darkness of the hidden, secret interior there is a resemblance between the relationship between the visually striking chambered tomb and the sepulchre within.  Not forgetting, of course, that there is an enormous cairn on top of the hill, just 43m (141ft) away from the cave, which may in itself have been a marker rather than a grave.  The cairn is discussed in part 3.

Final Comments

Neolithic stone implements found in and near Gop Cave. Source: Davies 1949, p.283

Gop Cave is often left out of accounts of the Neolithic in Wales, or merely mentioned in passing, which is surprising given both the number of its human occupants and the unusual combination of artefacts found within the cave.  Cave burials are given secondary status to monumental constructions, but given the number of them in Wales, it is good to see that they are now being researched as valid contributors to the corpus of knowledge about the Neolithic both in Wales and the rest of Britain.

Graph from Jonathan Last showing the usage of caves at different periods in England (The Archaeology of English Caves and Rock-Shelters: A Strategy Document. Centre for Archaeology Report 2003)

Sources and visiting details are in part 1

 

The Roman Bath House at Prestatyn

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Introduction

The Roman bath-house at Prestatyn, discovered in the 1930s, is located in a rather nice little housing estate on the edge of Prestatyn, which hems it in but does not overshadow it.  Today the site is pleasantly presented in its own space, accessed via a gate.  There are two information posters, and a raised area from which one can look down into the site before walking in and on it.  There has been a lot of work carried out to stabilize and preserve it with concrete and mortar, so it is a distinct mix of old and new, but the essential layout has been preserved.  On the day that we were there, a blue tarpaulin was lying over a small part of the walkway around the site, presumably either due to unsecured damage or to protect repairs.

Roman sites in Clwyd. Source: Blockley 1989, fig.5 p.9. Click image to enlarge

Excavations in the 1930s (Professor Robert Newstead), the 1970s and again in the 1980s (Kevin Blockley for CPAT) revealed an Iron Age farmstead (to be described on a future post) and a Roman and Romano-British (indigenous) settlement dating from the late 1st century AD, some time soon after AD 70.  The combined excavations revealed a Roman complex of structures over a number of periods.  The main period of Roman and Romano-British activity, spanned two periods, defined by Blockley as IIA and IIB.  This included eleven timber buildings, seven in Phase IIA and four in IIB, a water well, and three stone-built buildings, including the bath-house with its furnace and its water management system.  The bath-house itself was built in around AD 120, quite late into the history of the site, and was extended in AD 150.  The entire group of buildings appears to have gone out of use towards the end of the 2nd century.  Originally it was thought that the bath-house and other buildings may have been outliers of a fort.  There is no known fort in north-east Wales in spite of the existence of other Roman sites and three Roman roads, and it was hoped that this might fill a gap in the data.

The Bath House

Detail from one of the information boards at the site showing the various components on the ground

Today all that remains visible of this complex of buildings is the bath-house. When it was found, much of the bath house and surrounding area were covered with c.60cm (2ft) of rubble, described by Newstead as:  “tumbled masonry, broken roof tiles, bricks and quantities of tile-cement flooring etc” a well as box tiles and ridge tiles.

The foundations of the bath-house preserve the main features of a very small but classic Roman bath house, the plan of which is clearly visible on the ground. It measures c.11.7m x 4.5m (c.38 x c.15ft).  What you can see today was the under-floor part of the bath-house.  Over the top of most of these features, except for the D-shaped plunge pool, would have been a tiled floor.  The bath-house was built in two phases.

The bath-house in AD 120

Antefixes from the Roman bath house at Prestatyn. Source: Newstead 1937 (National Library of Wales)

The walls of the building consisted of three courses of ashlar (dressed stone, to present an attractive appearance) filled with rubble and mortar to create the thick walls visible today.  The rubble within the outer walls was locally sourced, probably picked out of glacial soils near the site.   Of the exterior ashlar, Newstead found purple micaceous sandstone blocks in situ along the base of the northern wall of the bath house, the nearest source of which was around 6 miles away (and can be seen in use today at Rhuddlan Castle and St Asaph’s Cathedral). Broken roof tiles were also used in the construction.  Inner walls might have been plastered and could have been decorated.  The roof was tiled, and provided with decorative triangular antefixes showed LEG XX V V legend as well as the legion’s wild boar emblem, which like the tiles were provided with stamps identifying them as work of the 20th Legion.  The 20th Legion’s tile-works at Holt near Chester clearly provided the tiles and bricks required or the bath-house in AD 120, and it is possible that they assisted with the construction works, but there is no sign that this was a legionary base, or that the 20th Legion controlled whatever activities took place at the site.  Apart from the tiles and bricks, all of the stone used at the site was sourced within a few miles of the site.

Information board in the Grosvenor Museum, Chester, showing how antefixes were used

 

The first phase of the bath-house with the hot room and warm room in Period IIA. Source: Blockley 1989

The plan to the left excludes the later cold room (frigidarium) with the D-Shaped plunge bath, showing the stone-built components of the bath-house in AD 120, when the bath house was built.  There is no sign of a stone-built cold room, which was was either missing, which would be very unusual, or was built of wood.  The two rectangular rooms, both of which sat over two hypocausts were both built in this first phase.  Hypocausts are artificial floors set on small pillars made of bricks and tiles (pilae) into which hot air, supplied by a furnace, is channelled.

In the tepidarium, Room B, Newstead found only two of the short hypocaust pillar bases, each bearing the stamp of the 20th Legion.  An internal doorway gave access to the Room C, the hot room or calidarium which was nearest to the furnace, where the remains of another fourteen pillars (pilae) survived.  The pillars were made of a c.28 x 28cm (11 x 11 inches) brick stamped with the 20th Legion’s name:  LEG XX V V (an abbreviation of Legio XX Valeria Victrix: 20th Legion, Valiant and Victorious). These were placed face down into the floor.  These was then topped with tiles c.19 by 19cm (7.5 x 7.5 inches) set into clay, none of which were stamped.  The hypocaust bricks and tiles were sourced from the specialist tile and brickworks at Holt on the Dee just south of Chester.

Tile bearing legionary stamp from Prestatyn. Source: Newstead 1937 (National Library of Wales)

Illustration of a 20th Legion stamp on one of the bath house tiles. Source: Roman Inscriptions of Britain (RIB-2463_29_xiv)

Praefurnium leading into the calidarium and the tepidarium beyond.

The technical challenge for the builders came in the heating process, which required a furnace to provide the required heat to the two rooms. The remains of the furnace were found by Newstead, built into the centre of west end of the building and projecting 1.4m (4ft 6inches) beyond it, providing heat via a channel known as a praefurnium.  Its floor was originally flagged with large blocks of purple sandstone. You can still stand in the praefurnium, shown left, to look into the hot room (caldarium, room C) and the warm room (tepidarium, room B) room beyond.  Ducts or flues conveyed heat from Room C to Room B.

Like feeding a steam engine, this furnace would have required a considerable amount of fuel to keep the heat supplied, and this would have required manpower both to collect the right sort of wood and to feed it into the furnace.  There would have been storage nearby to dry and store wood.

The video below is a 3-D animation of how the hypocaust at Brading Villa on the Isle of Wight functioned, which gives a good idea how the smaller example at Prestatyn worked too:

Also see the excellent video at the end of the past where the Roman hypocaust at the bath house at Bath are described.

Beyond the bath-house, to its east, was a stone-lined well, and a drain that was also partially stone-lined.  The well was 1.6m deep and 1.1m sq at its base, flaring to 2.5m wide at its top.  It was probably used to supply the bath-house and the two nearby buildings R4 and R5, both of which were copper-alloy workshops dating to IIA.

AD 150 – the extension of the bath-house

The cold room (left) and D-shaped plunge room, right.

The Bath house as it was found when Newstead excavated it. Rooms B and C were included in the original building of AD 120; Room A, the D-shaped plunge-pool, and the masonry drain under the cold-room floor and a drain out of the plunge-pool were added in AD 150.  Source: Newstead 1937 (National Library of Wales)

As already mentioned above, there is no sign that a cold room was included in the first phase of the bath house.  It may have been built in timber, now lost, or it may not have been built at all. Perhaps given the climate, a rectangular cold room and accompanying apse-shaped cold plunge pool, Room A, were not considered necessary, although this is not true for other bath-houses in Britain.  The stone-built cold room was only built 30 years after the original construction of the bath house, measuring 32m by 4m (104 x 13ft).  A new entrance was presumably provided in the cold room, with an internal doorway into the warm room.

Plan and hypothetical elevations of bath-house water supply. Source: Blockley 1989, fig.28 p.51. Click image to enlarge.

The accompanying D-shaped plunge pool was lined with a 12cm (c.4.5ins) thick layer of opus signinum (a type of waterproof pink mortar) on a base of limestone and mudstone fragments set in to clay.  It was around 1.4m (4.5ft) deep.  Blockley describes the water supply to this plunge-pool as the “most completely recovered layout known in Britain,” which included a stone and timber drainage channel, an aqueduct fed by a natural spring, and possibly water tanks.

The diagonal drainage channel crosses the cold room, originally under the floor of the cold room. Blockley believes that this was probably connected to an internal basin.  A second drain leads from the apex of the D-shape as shown on the diagram above, the first 1.6m (c.5ft) within the bath-house had a floor of 40cm sq (c.15.5cm) bricks and was lined with limestone. South of the masonry section it was made of wood, and extended for 14m (c.46ft).  The wooden uprights survive along one section, probably used to hold planks in place along the sides of the drain, which was 25cm deep and 70cm wide with stakes at c.20cm (c.8ins) intervals.

The line of the aqueduct, found in the 1980s excavations, was indicated by a row of parallel postholes.  It ran from the east of the bath-house into the plunge-room, running over the top of the external drain.  Nine of the postholes had timbers of alder-wood in situ, up to 65cm long and 35cm (c.13.5ins) diameter.  The distances between timbers varies along the route, between 1m (c.3ft) and 1.5m (c.5ft).  A water tank may have been sited part way along.  It is thought that a spring further up the slope would have taken the aqueduct over a gradient of some 3m.

Using the Roman bath-house

A section of one of the information boards at the site showing the hot room, far left next to the furnace, the warm room in the middle and the later cold room and plunge pool. Click to expand and see the text clearly.

Had you been lucky enough to be a Roman official with access to a local bath house, bathing followed a sequence of steps that was imported from the core of the Roman Empire.  Movement was through a sequence of warming and cooling experiences.

Roman bathing followed a specific process. Bathers would get changed, and in bigger bath-houses there was a room put aside for this.  They would then progress from the unheated cold room (frigidarium) to the warm room (tepidarium) to acclimatize and then to the hot room (caldarium) before heading back to the cold room to cool down and take a cold dip in the plunge-pool.  All well and good in southern Italy during a balmy Mediterranean summer, and perhaps even in a good Welsh summer, but that cold pool really didn’t look that appealing to me on a chilly day in April!  A bathhouse was often accompanied by an outside, walled exercise area, but there is no indication that the Prestatyn bathhouse offered such a facility.

The Melyd Avenue complex of buildings

1930s survey of the masonry buildings at the site, showing the stone buildings including the bath house (B3 near the bottom of the image) and the trial cuts cut across the site. Source: Newstead 1937 (National Library of Wales)

The bath house was part of a bigger complex of buildings, only some of which have survived.  The site was discovered and informally investigated in 1933 by Mr F. Gilbert Smith, who noted objects and carried out surveys.  It was thought that it might have been a component of a Roman fort.  It was excavated between 1934 and 1937 by Professor Robert Newstead, who found both the bath house (his Building 3) and two other stone-built buildings (Buildings 1 and 2).  He also investigated a section of “paved causeway” found by Smith, and made 9 “cuts” (investigative trenches) at other parts of the site.  The bath house has been described above.  Building 1 consisted of three rooms in a line, with what had once had a tiled floor at one end, and measured c.19 x c.7m (62ft 6ins by 23ft). It produced a coin of Vespasian dating to c. AD 71, as well as pieces of a Samian ware platter also dating to the late 1st century. Samian ware (terra Sigillata) is a bright, glossy red high-status pottery often highly decorated in relief, which is often stamped with the manufacturer’s mark, and is very useful for dating (see image further down the page, and the excellent video at the end of the post by Guy de la Bédoyère). Building 2 was less clearly defined and far less informative, at least c.11m long (36ft), producing a single undated piece of amphora, and had been damaged by fire.

Samian pottery found at the Prestatyn site. Source: Newstead 1938

The cut through the section of “paved causeway” identified by Smith and shown on the above plan revealed that it was made of flat sandstone slabs over large pine logs on top of “a  mess of brushwood in a peaty matrix.”  Within these layers there were Roman potsherds and pieces of window glass as well as animal bones.  The other cuts revealed no features but the one in front of building 3 produced a piece of millefiori glass, 7 pieces of window glass, some fragments of a glass flask and a small black counter as well as some samian ware.  In 1938 further excavations produced no more buildings, and consisted mainly of taking sample cuts through the site, and these produced Roman levels that contained fragments of Roman objects.  All of the data from the site over the years of excavation placed it within the later 1st to the later 2nd centuries AD. As well as tiles and antefixes stamped with 20th Legion stamps, diagnostic finds included a Vespasian coin, some distinctive pieces of samian,  other dateable types of pottery and fragments of decorative and glass as well as some fittings for horses and some jewellery.

The 1972-73 rescue excavations followed another building development in nearby Prestatyn Meadows, during which Roman materials were found, including a column base and tiles stamped with  LEG XX VV. Excavations could not take place at the precise location of the discovery due to building regulations, and were therefore carried out a little to the south, with three trial trenches opened to sample the area.  No structural remains were found, but there were plenty of objects dating to the late 1st and 2nd centuries AD, consisting of building fragments and domestic rubbish including samian, coarse ware, window glass, flint, animal bones and coal.

Period plans showing the location of major features. Source: Blockley 1989, fig.6 p.12

The 1984-5 excavations, undertaken and published by Kevin Blockley in 1989 on behalf of the Clwyd and Powys Archaeological Trust (CPAT), considerably expanded the view of what was going on at the site.  Excavations took place over two seasons, or 47 weeks, and uncovered 1544 sq m (c.5065) sq ft).  As well as both pre-Roman and post-Roman discoveries, he found eleven timber-built buildings over two phases of Roman occupation, most of them with both postholes and stakeholes, indicating a probable timber frame with wattle-and-daub wall construction.  Over 2000 small-finds were excavated.  Blockley and his team were also responsible for the discovery of the well and the water supply to the new cold room and plunge pool added in c.AD 150, described above.  Most importantly, the excavations were able to make more sense of the chronology of the site, making use primarily of pottery types to derive date-ranges for different buildings and phases.

Sequence diagram for Period II, and location plan. Source: Blockley 1989, fig 31 p.54. Click image to enlarge.

Blockley concludes that the earliest phase of the site was building R1, which, judging by Flavian date pottery and Vespasianic coins, both of which showed significant use-wear, suggest a start date somewhere in the AD 70s.  The bronze-smith workshops were first established in around AD 90-100 with buildings R3 and R4, and the site continued to develop until around AD 160, when it was abandoned.  The bath-house, established in AD 120, was therefore built when the site was already some 50 years old.

The data in the timber-built buildings included features (like postholes, wall trenches, hearths and floors) and finds (industrial tools, industrial waste, and manufactured objects like horse-ware fittings, whetstones, querns, millstones, spindle whorls, pestles and mortars, brooches and finger rings, tableware glass, window glass, both fine and coarse pottery, ceramic crucibles and moulds, items made of bone, leather, wood and clay, and bricks and tiles).  Pulling all the data from all of the timber buildings together, Blockley found that a picture of a copper-alloy works emerged, an industrial site that was producing goods that were probably purchased both locally and sent further afield, making use of the Roman communication network.

Brooches of copper alloy of the Colchester type. Source: Blockley 1989, fig 36 p.89

The metalwork, including some lead (including weights and pot rivets) and heavily corroded iron, was dominated by copper-alloy, a form of bronze.  This was used to make brooches, studs, plates, simple finger rings, pins, needles and shield-bindings.  Of particular interest are the enamelled brooches, with coloured enamel inlays in different patterns, of which a number of complete or near-complete examples were found.  These include Colchester, Headstud, trumpet, plate and penannular types, all popular fashion items in late 1st and 2nd century Britain, and some unclassified types.  Only one of the finger-rings stood out, and this was a copy, in tin, of a 2nd century Roman type of silver ring using yellow glass in place of a precious or semi-precious stone.

The glass includes 600 fragments, 377 of which were table- and kitchen-ware (the bulk of which were bottles) and 159 from window glass.  It all falls within the time-range of the first half of the 1st century AD to the end of the 2nd century.  Some of the table-ware was brightly coloured and highly prestigious, but most of it was blue-green.  The window glass is thought to have come mainly from the bath-house, and was notably smooth and of very high quality.

The pottery assemblage, consisting of broken pieces, included both fine wares and coarse wares.  It ncluded items made of local raw materials, making up 44% of the assemblage, and imports.  The imports included black-burnished ware from Dorset (10%), samian (14%) and amphorae from Spain and Italy (19%).  A small number of white-ware flagons from Mancetter were also found (1%).  Some were manufactured from the Holt kilns, near Chester, and others were probably made on the Cheshire plains.

Spelt. Source: Wikipedia

Botanical and faunal remains give some indication of diet.  Although botanical remains tend to be fairly rare, the waterlogged conditions in the well preserved 13 samples of plant remains that were sent for analysis, and included carbonized grain, chaff and seeds.  The well was abandoned after Period IIA, so these survivors probably belong to IIB, contemporary with the second phase of the bath-house.  Of the grain remains, spelt was the dominant species, followed by emmer wheat and small amounts of barley and oats, probably all crop-processing waste.  Spelt is particularly resistant to cold, wind, diseases and pests, so would have been the most suitable crop for an exposed area without good quality soil.   Weeds found in the samples represent those that grow in amongst crops, and are well adapted to disturbed conditions.

Animal remains, some of which retained butchery marks, include sheep, the dominant species, cattle and pig remains.  Some fowl were kept and horse bones were found in small numbers.  Wild species include red and roe deer, goose, duck and hare.

Interpretation – what did these buildings represent?

Coarse pottery from the Prestatyn site. Source: Newstead 1938 (National Library of Wales)

Although this all suggested a well-built if fairly modest settlement, neither Newstead nor Blockley discovered any indications of a potential fort.  A ditch with a clay “rampart” was found, but this was later interpreted as an enclosure for the settlement.  However, the idea that there may have been a fort at Prestatyn continued to linger, as this could have been a civilian settlement on the outside of a fort.  In 1973 Roman building rubble was found c. 30 to 40m south of the bath-house, and judged to date to not later than c. AD 150.  This rubble included a column base, some 20th Legion roof tiles, and fragments of building stones, pottery, window glass, fine and coarse pottery and flint, all dating to the 1st and 2nd centuries AD.  When planning permission was granted for the housing estate, it was excavated by archaeologists in the 1980s, published in 1989, discussed below, producing numerous timber buildings of 1st-2nd century Roman date.  Geophysical survey in the grounds of Ysgol y Llys in the mid-1980s and further evaluations in 2001 and 2003 failed to provide any Roman features or material.  Overall, the idea that the bath house was associated with a fort has now been rejected.

So what was the bath house doing in this particular location?  It so often happens that prominent Roman sites lie in unexpected places.  The one that springs to mind is Silchester (Calleva Atrebatum) which  was once a bustling walled town in Hampshire, an administrative capital with all the buildings, facilities and services that Roman Chester once had, but is now just a set of fields and ruined walls in agricultural land, which requires (and has received) research and explanation.  The Prestatyn settlement is very small by comparison, but equally requires contextualization and explanation.

Detail from one of the information boards, showing the relatve locations of the bath house and its associated buildings, the nearby lead mines and St Asaph, which may have been Roman Varis.

The buildings themselves and the objects found suggest that the site probably represents an industrial site with a Roman lead-mining operation and harbour, which attracted Romano-British metallurgists who set up workshops nearby.  There was certainly a lead ore mining operating dating to the Roman period in nearby Meliden, and this seems like a good match for the location the site, sitting between the mines and the sea.  It is not the only lead-mining operation in northeast Wales. The best known source of lead locally in the Roman period was Halkyn Mountain, which had rich veins of lead ore (galena).  Another site exploited by Roman miners was in the Pentre-Oakenholt area of Flint, accompanied by a number of masonry buildings, and another was found at Pentre Farm, where timber structures and 20th Legion stamped tiles were found.

David Mason has described the Prestatyn site as “most likely a transhipment centre if not the actual focus of ore-smelting.”  He believes that one of the ingots of lead found in Chester, dated to AD 74, probably originated in Prestatyn (see image below).  It was marked with the word “DECEANGL,” meaning “mined in the land of the Deceangli tribe,” in whose territory it was found.  According to Roman records, at the time of the Roman conquest, most of Britain was divided into tribal areas, and the Deceangli were based in northeast Wales, giving the area a geographical as well as a tribal identity.  The ingot (or pig) was discovered in 1886 in the remains of what is thought to have been a Roman timber quayside on the Dee in Chester.  This quayside location for the ingot, together with the 20 ingots of lead found in the river at Runcorn, thought to have been lost in a shipwreck, underline the importance of moving lead by boat.

Lead ingot from a river jetty site at the edge of Chester racecourse dating to 74AD. Source: David Mason’s “Roman Chester. The City of the Eagles,” p.45

Three lead pigs (ingots) in the Grosvenor Museum, Chester, including the example shown above

In fact, given the sheer quantities that David Mason estimates would have been needed for the building of the fort at Deva (Chester), it is difficult to imagine the significant amounts being moved any other way: 39 tons or 50 wagon-loads for water pipes, and 34 tons or 43 wagon-loads for reservoir linings.

Roman lead pipes in the Grosvenor Museum, Chester

Lead stamp used to mark bread. The abbreviated inscription reads “Made by Victor of the Century of Claudius Augustus”

The Coflein report suggests that “a vicus-like settlement associated with a harbour installation designed for the shipment of lead and silver from nearby the mines, though its precise nature is unclear.”  A vicus was a small settlement (plural vici), usually rural, that springs up on the edges of a centre of Roman activity such as a fort or mining or quarrying operation in order to sell goods and services.  It has been suggested that some of those connected with larger military forts were established intentionally, but at smaller military and industrial sites there may have been a more spontaneous development of such vici.

The mixture of Romano-British timber buildings and more official stone-built structures argues for a pragmatic working relationship between the Roman military, the Roman industrial team operating at Prestatyn and local metallurgists, each benefiting from the resources, skills and knowledge of the other, as well as the potentially extensive through-traffic – although whether a British copper-alloy worker ever had the opportunity to test out the joys of the bath-house is an other matter!

A Roman Road?

Information board at the site showing linkages between different sites in the Roman period. Click image to expand to read clearly.

Most of these proposals would make sense if the bath house and the related structures that must have accompanied it were on a road that connected into the road network; or that it was associated with a port, or both.  The Antonine Itinerary lists a route in north Wales as Iter IX, which ran between the legionary fortresses at Chester (Roman Deva) and Caernarfon (Roman Segontium) at the crossing to Anglesey.  This bypassed the north coast in favour of a more direct route, which still, however, had to skirt the Clwydian Range, nearing the coast at the northern end of the range, which would not have been too far from Prestatyn .  As the CPAT report puts it:

It is assumed that a major Roman road ran the length The Vale of Clwyd, linking military sites at Caer Gai near Bala and an assumed fort in the Corwen area with sites in the neighbourhood of Ruthin and St Asaph. The course of this road and its relationship with Roman settlements and possible military activity in the vale will no doubt be discovered in the future.

The Roman fort of Canovium at Caerhun with St Mary’s Church in one corner. Copyright Mark Walters, Skywest Surveys, CC BY-NC-DD 4.0. Source: Vici.org

The route is presumed to have proceeded to the fort at Caerhun (Roman Canovium) in the Vale of Clwyd before heading towards Segontium and Anglesey.  A bath house with a hypocaust was found in the Canovium fort, which was built in c.75 AD and destroyed in c.200, with tiles similarly stamped with Legio XX markings. The Antonine Itinerary’s description of Iter IX mentions a Roman way station named Varis. Although its precise location is unknown, and there were suggestions that this might have been located at Prestatyn, the most likely candidate at the moment is thought to be St Asaph. It is possible that a branch road could have connected a settlement at Prestatyn to this route, possibly at St Asaph, particularly if it was being used as a coastal port.  Looking at a map, Rhyl might seem a better choice for a port, but there may have been political as well as economic reasons why Prestatyn could have been more suitable.

A Roman milestone was found at Gwaenysgor in 1956, dated to AD 231-5.  The nearest known Roman road was 6km away, so it was either brought from there or an as-yet undiscovered off-shoot of that road.

The site and its objects in the 20th and 21st Centuries

The bath-house site

Although the site was opened up for excavation in 1937 and 1938, it was covered over afterwards to protect it.  When planning permission was granted for the building of the housing estate, which began in the 1980s, archaeologists were allowed in to excavate, after which the site was left uncovered and preserved for visits by the general public.

Screen grab of part of Steve Howe’s Chester Walls page showing what Melyd Avenue looked like on one of his visits, as well as one of the stamped tiles in situ. Source: A Virtual Stroll Around the Walls of Chester website . Click to expand.

The modern story of the Prestatyn Roman baths as a visitor attraction is described by Steve Howe on his A Virtual Walk Around The Walls website here.  Steve Howe visited in 1998, when the hypocaust was in good condition, preserving tiles stamped with the name and symbol of the 20th Legion.  In subsequent visits in 2001 and 2008, Steve Howe talks about the the deterioration of the site, the absence of the stamped tiles and the general state of degradation.  Writing in 2022, in County Voice (a Denbighshire County Council newsletter), Claudia Smith outlined a series of works being proposed in order to repair the site and to improve its public appeal.

At the end of the 1984-5 report, published in 1989, Blockley suggested that looking for the postulated harbour would be a logical follow-up project, in the Fforddisa area of Prestatyn, but this has not yet taken place.

In 2018 the Daily Post reported that an area of land earmarked for a housing development near Dyserth (to the south of Prestatyn) was under assessment by the Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust with a view to excavating it to attempt to find the elusive section of Roman road that it is thought must have connected Prestatyn with the wider world, but I have not yet tracked down any follow-up to this story.

Artefacts

Professor Newstead describes, in his 1937 publication, how some objects remained in the private collection of Mr Smith, the discoverer of the site, and how those that Newstead himself had excavated were removed to the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff.  The Roman Inscriptions of Britain website mentions that many of the inscribed objects from Prestatyn were in the Prestatyn Museum, but also notes that this appears to have closed down.  There is no note of where either Mr Smith’s collection or the Prestatyn Museum’s objects (perhaps one and the same) may have ended up.  I cannot find a record in Kevin Blockley’s account of the 1984-84 excavations of where the artefacts from that excavation were eventually sent.

Final Comments

Although the bath-house, built in around AD 120, was small, by AD 150 it contained the three main components required for a bath-house: the hot room, warm room and cold room with plunge pool.  This required two technical elements – a means of heating the two heated rooms (furnace, flues and hypocausts) and a means of channelling cold water to and from the cold room (aqueduct and drains, and possibly water tanks).  A store for wood would have been required adjacent to the bath-house.  The bath-house was the leisure-centre for a settlement dominated by industrial workshops, notably for the manufacture of objects made of copper-alloy (bronze).

The site is a bit like a glacial erratic – something unexpected left during a substantial invasion and after a substantial retreat.  There is not a great deal of Rome surviving above the ground in northeast Wales, and that gives the Prestatyn Bath House all the more kudos. As more sites are discovered and more stretches of road revealed, the picture should become clearer.  In spite of neglect in the past, during which some of the stamp-marked tiles were apparently removed, it is a great little site to visit, for which details are provided below.

Visiting

As mentioned above, this is right in the middle of a small housing estate, a cul-de-sac.  It is just off the A547 (Meliden Road) to Prestatyn on Melyd Avenue.  Its What3Words location is ///unfocused.detective.jetting. There are two car parking spaces at the site, and a limited amount of on-road parking, but this is not a busy destination.  It was nice that we were not the only people there when we arrived, and I am sure that there are occasional school trips to a local heritage celebrity, but it was a quiet visit whilst we were there.

The two information boards at the site were helpful, and each of them had a QR code.  Very sadly it comes up with a “404 Page Not Found” message.  Always a disappointment when this happens and a good idea to provide additional information is allowed to lapse.

The approach pathway to the bath house ends in three steps.

Always thinking about people with unwilling legs, I would give this a thumbs-up based on my Dad’s experiences (walking with a stick due to a dodgy leg, but okay for the three steps at the site if there was an arm to lean on).  There are no handrails accompanying the steps, and part of the circuit around the site was blocked by repair works.

If you are coming at it from Chester, and want a day trip, it is worth coming off the A55 at Junction 31 and taking the opportunity to visit Gop Cairn, Gop Cave (see details on the Coflein website – parking in Trelawnyd and reached via public footpath, and about which much more on a future post) and the stunning Dyserth waterfall as well, which is just a few seconds from the road (operating a 50p per person honesty payment system, with a small car park next door).  Take a raincoat or hat – the spray from the waterfall is considerable and we got quite a good soaking!

There seem to be plenty of places to stop for a coffee in the villages, and we had a very good lunch at the newly renovated The Crown public house in Trelawnyd after walking up to Gop cairn and cave.

Sources

Books and papers

The site under excavation by Newstead in the 1930s. Source: Newstead 1937 (National Library of Wales)

Arnold, Christopher J. and Jeffrey L. Davies, 2000.  Roman and Early Medieval Wales. Sutton Publishing

Blockley, Kevin. 1989. Prestatyn 1984-5. An Iron Age Farmstead and Romano-British Industrial Settlement in North Wales. BAR British Series 210

de la Bédoyère, Guy, 2001. The Buildings of Roman Britain. Tempus Publishing

de la Bédoyère, Guy, 1988. Samian Ware. Shire

Dark, Ken and Dark, Petra 1997. The Landscape of Roman Britain. Sutton Publishing

Mason, David J.P. 2001, 2007. Roman Chester. The City of the Eagles. Tempus Publishing

Newstead, Robert 1937. The Roman Station, Prestatyn. First Interim Report. Archaeologia Cambrensis vol.92), p.208-32

Newstead, Robert 1938. The Roman Station, Prestatyn. Second Interim Report.  Archaeologia Cambrensis vol.93), p.175-91.


Websites

Coflein
Prestatyn Roman Site
https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/306722?term=prestatyn%20roman%20bath%20house

Clwyd and Powys Archaeological Trust (CPAT)
Historic Landscape Characterization. The Vale of Clwyd. Transport and Communications
https://www.cpat.org.uk/projects/longer/histland/clwyd/cltransp.htm

A Virtual Walk Around the Walls of Chester
The Roman Bath House near Prestatyn, North Wales by Steve Howe
Part 1, 1998
https://chesterwalls.info/baths.html
Part 2, 2001 and 2008
https://chesterwalls.info/baths2.html

County Voice, Denbighshire County Council
The Roman Baths: A Roman Mystery in Prestatyn? December 2022
https://countyvoice.denbighshire.gov.uk/english/county-voice-december-2022/countryside-services/the-roman-baths-a-roman-mystery-in-prestatyn

Roman Britain
Caerhun (Canovium) Roman Fort
https://www.roman-britain.co.uk/places/canovium/
St. Asaph (Varis) Roman Settlement. Possible Roman Fort and Probable Settlement
https://www.roman-britain.co.uk/places/st_asaph/
Ruthin Roman Fort
https://www.roman-britain.co.uk/places/ruthin/

The Roads in Roman Britain
Roman Roads in Cheshire > The Roman Road from Chester to North Wales
Margary Number 67a. By David Ratledge and Neil Buckley
https://www.romanroads.org/gazetteer/cheshire/M67a.htm

Deganwy History
Roman Roads in North-West Wales. A talk by David Hopewell (Gwynedd Archaeological Trust (GAT), October 17th 2019. Written up by Lucinda Smith.
https://www.deganwyhistory.co.uk/roman-roads-in-north-west-wales/

Roman Insciptions in Britain
RIB II.2404.31-2 lead ingot found in Dee at RooDee in 1886
https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions/2404.31
Leg XX VV inscriptions found in Prestatyn both at the Baths and beyond
https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions/search?qv=prestatyn&submit=

Wales Live (The Daily Post)
Archaeological dig could unearth Roman road on site earmarked for new homes. October 16th 2018. By Gareth Hughes
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/archaeological-dig-could-unearth-roman-15285372

Vindolanda Charitable trust
A closer look at Samian pottery
https://www.vindolanda.com/blog/a-closer-look-at-samian-pottery

English Heritage
Baths and Bathing in Roman Britain
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/story-of-england/romans/roman-bathing/

 

 

April’s ‘Chester Archaeological Society’ visit to St Collen’s Church in Llangollen

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The Chester Archaeological Society 2024 season of excursions started excellently today with the CAS visit to the Church of St Collen, who gave his name to Llangollen. It is the only church in Wales to have taken the saint’s name. Like most Medieval churches in Wales, St Collen’s has undergone considerable alterations, including an 18thcentury tower and a 19th century chancel, vestry and south nave, but there are some very fine 13th century features to be seen, in the Perpendicular Gothic style, including an impressive shrine canopy and mason’s marks. There are also intriguing signs that a Lady Chapel was once incorporated into north aisle. The most remarkable feature of the church is a really superb hammerbeam roof bedecked with ornamental sculptures, both religious and secular, from the early 16th century.

Today, to ensure the survival of the church as a living and breathing community asset, it is undergoing extensive but very sympathetic re-forming.  Suzanne Evans is the Project Manager of this massive task, and was our superb guide today. Suzanne described how the reinvented church will be fully inclusive, not only of the existing congregation who are much-attached to the church, but of the wider community as well, taking into account the needs of those currently unable to make the most of what St Collen’s has to offer. At the same time, the exciting opportunity will be taken to investigate as much of the church’s architectural and funerary history as possible, adding to the community’s understanding of this important contributor to the town’s impressive ecclesiastical heritage.

Suzanne guided us around both the key features and recent discoveries, explaining all the steps to be taken in the upcoming weeks and years. As well as replacement glass doors and the opening up of the nave to enable the interior to be visible by passers-by, there will be new lighting, heating, kitchen and toilet facilities, as well as a large stage, which will all contribute to enhancing the value of the space and improving the visibility of the superb architecture. All archaeological and architectural discoveries will be professionally recorded and published.

After a very welcome cup of tea, there was a round of applause as we thanked both Suzanne for being our terrific guide and Pauline for making all the arrangements. It was great to meet some of the other CAS members, and to hear all the questions and observations. There was a lot of information sharing, which is exactly what one expects of CAS members. What a great start to the year’s excursions! Many thanks again Suzanne and Pauline.

The 13th century exterior