The Commandery Excavation 2006:

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 The Commandery Dig Archive 2006
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 Week 6: 25th Jul to 30th Jul
This was the last week of the excavation, and the weather was glorious. The end-of-dig barbeque on Friday afternoon was a chance to thank all the volunteers for their efforts over the last six weeks. The fieldwork is now complete, and the work of analysing the finds and stratigraphic deposits has just begun.
[ See pictures of our volunteers]

Trench 1
In Trench 1 we sampled a deep layer of medieval soil. The dark soil was full of charcoal (the sweepings from hearths and ovens) and kitchen refuse including pottery and animal bone. This layer was sealed beneath late medieval rubble, and shows that this part of the site was probably used for growing garden crops in the 14th to 15th century, before the hospital complex was reorganised in the later 15th century.

Trench 2 [ See pictures of Trench 2]
This trench continued to produce a complex sequence of buildings. The earliest structure was a medieval stone building, built of red sandstone (probably from Holt or Ombersley, north of Worcester) with a stone floor. We only exposed a small part of this large building, which was probably built in the 13th or 14th century, and demolished in the 15th century. This building was aligned east-west/north-south, on a different alignment to all the other excavated and standing medieval buildings: the standing ranges are perpendicular to Sidbury and aligned SSW to NNE. The change in alignment during the medieval period is intriguing. This building was buried beneath a thick dump of soil and rubble, and new buildings were constructed at a much higher foundation level in the later 15th century. This deliberate dumping was a response to flooding of the site.

Trench 6
We now understand that this part of the site was landscaped in the later medieval period, prior to the construction of the 15th century timber-framed complex. Beneath medieval demolition horizons and dumping, we exposed a medieval ditch and a fragment of stone wall foundation (the latter was revealed by members of Worcestershire Young Archaeologist’s Club). The depth of this trench is a slice through successive layers of deliberate dumping from the medieval period through to the 19th century, again in response to regular flooding of the site.

Trench 7 [ See pictures of trench 7 ]
In Trench 7 the team continued to uncover the impressive remains of medieval stone buildings. The east end of the earlier stone building is complete, with two square buttresses on the corners, and chamfered lower courses – part of this building was found a few weeks ago inside one of the standing Commandery buildings, below the floor. The surface of the stonework is in unweathered condition, showing the diagonal marks of the chisel used to dress the surface, sharp angles on all the corners, and fifty mason’s marks. There are several different marks, but the commonest is a five-pointed star. The foundation courses of the wall, of roughly-dressed stone, have also been exposed. The stone used in this building is greenish-grey sandstone from the quarries at Highley, next to the River Severn north of Bewdley – this stone was commonly used in Worcester during the earlier part of the medieval period (the 11th and 12th centuries), but only for the most important buildings. This wall forms the east end of the hospital chapel.

The small portion of medieval stone building to the north is clearly a later addition, and was built of the red sandstone (probably from Holt or Ombersley). This structure appears to be a separate chapel, added on to the main chapel in the medieval period but demolished in the 15th century when the timber range was built.
[ See a picture of this structure ]

Links to Pictures on this page:
[ See pictures of our volunteers ]
[ See pictures of Trench 2 ]
[ See pictures of trench 7 ]

[ News from the Finds Room 05 ]