Jo Bell - Archaeologist
DERBYSHIRE
Calke Abbey – the challenges of building conservation
Calke Abbey is a real ‘tip of the iceberg’ property: the buildings and gardens seen by visitors give only a fragmentary understanding of the busy social, aesthetic, agricultural and industrial activity which took place across the estate.
Acquired in 1985, Calke is characterised by an atmosphere of ‘arrested decay’. Former owners, the Harpur Crewe family, included a number of eccentric, reclusive bachelors, whose absent-minded benevolence left it in something of a timewarp.
This has been a blessing in terms of preservation. Features like garden buildings and outhouses have not been swept away, but it represents something of a challenge in terms of conservation.
In the extensive limeyards, where a complex of kilns, quarries and transport links survives amongst luxuriant nettles, a small tramway bridge is in danger of collapse. Badly damaged by winter frosts, the faces of this bridge began to fall away – revealing, in the process, the scars of former abutments.
The line of the bridge had been altered, and a kiln that had been partially obscured by the later bridge is now clearer to view. Revealed in section, the track or tramway over the bridge is also showing stone sleepers in the track bed.
Whilst interesting to archaeologists, this is small consolation to the buildings team, who have to consolidate and re-face the crumbling stonework.
In advance of that project, Network Archaeology’s Geraint Franklin is recording elevations and plans to make sure that the new information about the limeyards is not lost.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen gardens, a range of outhouses and garden buildings including a mushroom house and heated walls also need repairs. Before rebuilding obscures phasing and other important details, Jamie Preston of Babtie has produced measured drawings.
Calke has a number of other buildings including a brick kiln, deer shelter and attractive little aviary which are all due for repair in coming months. Archaeological recording continues, one step ahead of the buildings team!
High Peak Estate
The farm at Upper Booth, Edale, on the High Peak estate lives up to its name as it nestles in the shadow of particularly impressive peaks.
Its on-site campsite offers immediate access to some of the finest open country in Britain. Wishing to provide a better range of accommodation for campers, the Trust and the tenant Mr Helliwell planned to convert an existing barn into a camping barn, building an extension onto it.
The extension would have cut into the remains of an earlier building, whose footprint was still visible as a clear earthwork, and it was decided that an evaluative excavation should be carried out. Network Archaeology of Lincoln undertook this with help from a JCB contractor.
Their excavation and map research showed that as expected, the foundations of a nineteenth century brick-built barn did indeed survive. Finds were few, but included a Victorian coin. The building’s layout and size suggested that it had been a cattle byre. Having established this useful but unsurprising fact, the Network team cut a sondage down to ‘natural’ to see if any other remains survived.
A short length of wall was exposed, but it is hard to draw meaningful conclusions as to its nature or function. It lies immediately on top of natural boulder clay, and there seems to have been an accumulation of around 0.5m topsoil before the later barn was constructed. In an exposed location like this, 0.5m of topsoil may represent a long passage of time. The wall is on roughly the same line as a nearby field wall, but at a much greater depth. It is hoped that further evaluation may cast light on the earlier history of Upper Booth.
The volunteer archaeological monitors of High Peak have continued their programme of visiting and reporting on all monuments on this large estate. Their reports are extremely helpful in evaluating the condition of, and prioritising a programme of works for these sites.
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE
Clumber Park – The Lady Garden
Clumber Park is one of the Trust’s best enjoyed public open spaces. But it is a property with much more going on below the surface than readily meets the eye.
The demise of the great house in 1937 leaves the range of service buildings as a useful visitor reception resource, and yet strangely out of context. Similarly Clumber’s designed landscape history tends to intrude little into the impression made on the modern visitor.
Equally, the great mineral resources under the park, and the industry extracting the coal, are little visible at the surface. That is until old workings fail, or worked out panels collapse, and suddenly, like a force of malice, the ground rips asunder or even sinks wholesale. An example of the former occurred in 2001, near Carburton Ponds, and was recorded by Ed Dennison Archaeological Associates.
Work by UKCoal in 2002/3 meant that a substantial area of the western end of the lake (and only that end of the lake) was likely to sink by several feet. Plans were put in place to minimise the impact on the landscape. These included recording the existing condition of the bridge, and the archaeology of the associated landscape garden, known as the Lady Garden.
The results of this research show what richness lurks just beneath the surface at Clumber.
Making virtues of necessities the focal feature of the complex – the Grotto – is in fact a pump house running the main water supply to the estate. It is sited at the end of an artificial inlet formed by a promontory running parallel with the shore. The survey discovered that this was lined with imported limestone boulders, a theme continued across the lake to form a cascade. Towards the tip of the promontory there were the remains of bridge abutments, completing the enclosure of this small harbour for pleasure boats.
Less well preserved, and requiring further investigation, were remains of what may have been a bog garden, lying at or below the level of the lake. This may have had water flowing into it from several directions including a well-built culvert gathering water from beside the bridge.
Fortunately, the area was not completely flooded by the mining subsidence, and it is hoped that the new discoveries may be taken in hand and maintained.
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