Dan Swift
I have been in archaeology for over 30 years. My early fieldwork experience and degree are in Near Eastern Archaeology, but for the last 25+ years I have been working almost exclusively in Britain.
I have directed and published several multi-period sites in London for the Museum of London and in the South-East for Archaeology South-East, and have some other sites in preparation for publication.
For the past 14 years I have been a post-excavation project manager at Archaeology South-East.
I was selected by the CBA as the British representative on an excavation at Tell Abu-al-Kharaz in Jordan in memory of King Hussein of Jordan in 2001.
I have previously been a Fellow of the London Society of Antiquaries and a Member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists.
I have previously been on the editorial board of Archaeology International which is the journal for the Institute of Archaeology at University College London.
I have directed and published several multi-period sites in London for the Museum of London and in the South-East for Archaeology South-East, and have some other sites in preparation for publication.
For the past 14 years I have been a post-excavation project manager at Archaeology South-East.
I was selected by the CBA as the British representative on an excavation at Tell Abu-al-Kharaz in Jordan in memory of King Hussein of Jordan in 2001.
I have previously been a Fellow of the London Society of Antiquaries and a Member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists.
I have previously been on the editorial board of Archaeology International which is the journal for the Institute of Archaeology at University College London.
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Bradstow School
The most significant finding was a ring ditch of a substantial round barrow. The round barrow comprised a penannular ring ditch with an internal diameter of 23m and narrow causeway on the western side. A number of pits within the area enclosed by the ring ditch were investigated but none yielded any funerary evidence. Burial evidence was forthcoming however from a much smaller companion barrow, with a ring ditch with an internal diameter of just 4m. Three crouched adult inhumations were interred within this barrow, as well as fragmentary evidence for the burial of two infants. No grave goods were found accompanying any of the burials.
Other features recorded during the investigation included numerous postholes, some of which formed four-post structures and alignments that are considered to relate to Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age settlement in the vicinity of the site. A single east-west grave that had been robbed in antiquity is considered to form part of a well-documented Anglo-Saxon cemetery that lies to the north and east of the excavation area and a causewayed ditch that lay to the south of this grave; though poorly dated it is thought to delineate the limits of the cemetery.
Hereson School
The earliest activity on the site dates to the end of the Middle/Late Bronze Age and consists of an extended, supine inhumation, radiocarbon dated to 1406–1135 cal BC. The burial appears to be non-monumental, with no associated barrow evidence and probably represents later funerary activity peripheral to the well-documented barrow cemetery at Bradstow School to the east of the site. Other prehistoric activity on the site dates to the Late Bronze Age and includes a possible field boundary ditch and two curvilinear ditches of uncertain extent and function, although they may represent partially preserved ring-ditches. A group of small pits which yielded a moderately sized assemblage of Late Bronze Age pottery appears to post-date the ditches and probably represents activity peripheral to known Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age settlement elsewhere in the vicinity.
A full digital resource of excavated samples is available for researchers via Archaeology Data Service.
Monograph Series 54
MOLA 2011. ISBN 978-1-907586. Hb 144pp. 99 bw & col ills.
Reviews
"This book will be of interest to anyone who wishes to understand the changing landscape of the region over time, and is a must-have for those involved in fieldwork in east London and Essex, especially for the book’s extensive bibliography."
Alistair Ainsworth in London Archaeologists 2013
"…it does summarise the fieldwork nicely, placing what can be relatively sparse evidence into a well rounded narrative and should be useful to anyone interested in the archaeology of the Thames area."
John Naylor in Journal of the Medieval Settlement Research Group 2012
"This important publication is the result of a project funded by the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund. It rescues a large amount of archaeological information from obscurity but also places it in context to give a well-researched and well-presented story."
David Bird in Transactions of London and Middlesex Archaeology Society 2011
"Local history is, in effect, at its most expansive an inter-disciplinary approach to every aspect of the historic local landscape. Archaeological reports, such as this from Museum of London Archaeology, readily inform such an inter-disciplinary approach. The science which archaeologists apply is now giving immeasurable insights into the lives of people who lived where we live but who, unlike us, have left no written records. We now know something of their lifestyle and even their diets, and this gives us greater insight into the degree to which people had already made their mark on the landscape, well before the Roman occupation. Such reports as this should become part of the reference repertoire of local historians."
Trevor James in Local History Magazine 2011
Archaeology Studies Series 19
MoLAS 2008. ISBN 978-1-901992-62-5. Pb80pp. 60 bl/wh and col ills.
Reviews
"… it starts with an excellent piece of piece of work, combining an auger hole survey with a careful examination of the natural deposits. Together with the environmental evidence these are used to reconstruct the prehistoric topography and environment of the riverbank area… The publication is attractively designed and laid out, with clear figures and tables."
Tim Williams in Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society 2008
Archaeology Studies Series 10
MoLAS, London 2003. ISBN 1-901992-41-1. Pb89pp. 69 bl/wh ills.
Reviews
"In keeping with other titles in the series, the work is excellently illustrated, well organised and supported by concise specialist appendices, mercifully expressed without recourse to abstract terminology. In these aspects the book represents a fine work of compression of substantial value to our understanding of the extra-mural settlement of Roman, medieval and post-medieval London."
Stuart Brookes in London Archaeologist Spring 2005
"MoLAS studies nos 10 and 11 (Roman burials, medieval tenements and suburban growth by Dan Swift) in their series demonstrate the confidence derived from their editorial and production experience. Integration of the different contributions has been well thought through, and systematically presented, graphics and layout are well designed, to a format familiar to their readership."
Review in Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society 2005
Like Arundel and Bramber, Lewes was also clearly selected due to its topographic location. It is set within a dramatic landscape at the northern edge of the South Downs through which, in deep prehistory, the River Ouse has carved a deeply incised valley through the chalk hills. The town sits on the steep-sided hill to the west of the river, commanding a strong strategic position from which access to both the Wealden interior and the sea can be controlled. It can thus be described as a promontory town. Opposite, on the eastern bank of the river, steep chalk cliffs mark the periphery of the appropriately named medieval settlement of Cliffe, today flanked by the access road to the A27.
If one strips away the historic features of the town, the buildings, the castle and the streets, and tries to imagine the pristine prehistoric setting of Lewes, it is not too difficult to appreciate the numerous reasons for settling there. The hill provided a naturally defensible location with easy views to either side of the Downs and along the river, but equally, and importantly, it is not too tall or steep to have been quickly accessible from the river, and the surrounding lowlands, on foot. Woodland, wetland and freshwater habitats were all readily available and travel both to the Wealden interior, and to the sea via the Ouse, which provided a routeway for transport, import and export, would have been easily accessible.
The local Downland is rich in prehistoric monuments dating from the Neolithic to the later Iron and Romano-British period, including Offham Hill causewayed enclosure, various barrows and the Iron Age enclosures at Mount Caburn/Ranscombe Ridge: testament to the long-standing ancient importance of this location.
Antiquarian scholars noted the presence of ancient prehistoric funerary mounds in the town itself, now long since cleared, with the possible exception of Brack Mount, but firm evidence of prehistoric settlement activity in Lewes has remained elusive, most likely removed or masked beneath the town. However, chance finds of prehistoric material have been noted since the earliest of times as well as residually on archaeological excavations, and the present excavations have finally revealed tantalising evidence that such occupation did indeed exist at Lewes from at least the Middle Iron Age (see Chapter 2) and further evidence surely survives beneath the historic structure of the town.
For these same reasons antiquarian scholars such as Horsfield (1824), and more recent writers including Bleach (1997), Brent (2004) and Holmes (2010) have long considered the case for the Roman occupation of Lewes, but this concept has largely been morphologically based on Lewes’ grid-like street pattern and on its synonymy with planned Roman towns rather than on any great wealth of Roman finds. In contrast to prehistoric settlements, Roman occupancy tends to leave behind an abundance of cultural material; but there is not much Roman material from Lewes and therefore perhaps little to support models of intensive Roman occupation, though there certainly was some.
Whilst small amounts of residual early and middle Anglo-Saxon pottery have been recovered there are increased quantities of late Anglo-Saxon material and archaeology, and then a massive increase of post-Conquest evidence. This is consistent with the formation of Lewes as a burh in the late 9th century and its post-Conquest growth and success in the Norman period. In the present excavations, this includes direct and indirect evidence of buildings (Fig 1.1) with the vast majority of evidence coming from material within backfilled quarry and refuse pits, and wells. The stratigraphic data and the large finds, and environmental assemblages these features yielded undoubtedly reflect the importance of Lewes as a Anglo-Saxon stronghold turned-over to become a thriving Norman urban centre at the head of the newly formed Rape of Lewes and provide great insight into the socio-economic workings of the Late Anglo-Saxon and early medieval town.
The excavations at site B have revealed positive evidence of a large Late Anglo-Saxon ditch running north to south (along the western side of St Nicholas Lane) towards the crest of the ridge. This feature is interpreted as part of the eastern defences of the burh and seemingly marks the first physical evidence of its kind to be identified in Lewes. The dating evidence from the ditch shows that the feature was deliberately backfilled, at least in this location, during Norman times; during a phase of expansion and development from its fortified centre.
At site D, possible early medieval burgage plots appear to have been temporarily turned over for use as an enclosure within a ditched perimeter which it is postulated may have been involved in housing cavalry of Prince Edward’s forces prior to the Battle of Lewes in 1294. After this date, the former burgage divisions appear to have been reinstated.
The sustained success of medieval Lewes is reflected by a continuing abundance of stratigraphic, finds and environmental data yielded from features on the present excavations throughout the 12th and 13th centuries until the mid-14th century when the evidence of activity all but ceases on all four sites; though at least one significant household persisted in the later 14th and 15th centuries at site B. As is the case with much of medieval Britain, this cessation undoubtedly reflects the convergence of several diminishing factors including the Hundred Years War, extreme and prolonged bad weather, volcanic activity, failed crops and famine, and the Black Death. It was around this time that the location of Pinwell Street, known colloquially, locally, as the ancient or lost twitten, was defined by walls constructed at site A.
The revived success of Lewes in the Tudor period, leading ultimately to an elevation in status to County Town by the 16th century, is not particularly evident in the archaeology; but the fact that both of its hospitals, St James and St Nicholas, as well as its grammar school, were not destroyed in the Dissolution (as its priory and friary were), demonstrates that Lewes was held in some favour and importance by the new monarchy - perhaps because it was the second wealthiest town in Sussex at the beginning of the 16th century. Its civic importance is further highlighted by the fact that the Sussex County Court was alternated between Lewes and Chichester at this time; perhaps an early portent of the later division of the county between east and west. Assizes (early criminal courts) were also occasionally held here too, and county officers met at Lewes in a newly built session’s house.
The medieval and early post-medieval tenements recorded at sites A and C had probably all been cleared by around 1700 when the land became gardens and orchards to the rear of what became the large residences now known as Lewes House and School Hill House. The developmental history of site B is more complex and this area became increasingly more densely built-up throughout the post-medieval period; whilst site D only became developed towards the end of the 18th century.
For most of the post-medieval period, until the 19th century, Lewes remained key in Sussex both as an albeit small administrative and as a trading centre, and it remained at the centre of the Wealden iron-working industry until the late 18th century. The predominantly Protestant and perhaps anti-royalist disposition of Lewes that began in the 16th century was further cemented by its stance during the English Civil War. Throughout the 17th to 20th centuries, Lewes enjoyed success and became increasingly gentrified whilst remaining quite a small town until Victorian times.
Bradstow School
The most significant finding was a ring ditch of a substantial round barrow. The round barrow comprised a penannular ring ditch with an internal diameter of 23m and narrow causeway on the western side. A number of pits within the area enclosed by the ring ditch were investigated but none yielded any funerary evidence. Burial evidence was forthcoming however from a much smaller companion barrow, with a ring ditch with an internal diameter of just 4m. Three crouched adult inhumations were interred within this barrow, as well as fragmentary evidence for the burial of two infants. No grave goods were found accompanying any of the burials.
Other features recorded during the investigation included numerous postholes, some of which formed four-post structures and alignments that are considered to relate to Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age settlement in the vicinity of the site. A single east-west grave that had been robbed in antiquity is considered to form part of a well-documented Anglo-Saxon cemetery that lies to the north and east of the excavation area and a causewayed ditch that lay to the south of this grave; though poorly dated it is thought to delineate the limits of the cemetery.
Hereson School
The earliest activity on the site dates to the end of the Middle/Late Bronze Age and consists of an extended, supine inhumation, radiocarbon dated to 1406–1135 cal BC. The burial appears to be non-monumental, with no associated barrow evidence and probably represents later funerary activity peripheral to the well-documented barrow cemetery at Bradstow School to the east of the site. Other prehistoric activity on the site dates to the Late Bronze Age and includes a possible field boundary ditch and two curvilinear ditches of uncertain extent and function, although they may represent partially preserved ring-ditches. A group of small pits which yielded a moderately sized assemblage of Late Bronze Age pottery appears to post-date the ditches and probably represents activity peripheral to known Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age settlement elsewhere in the vicinity.
A full digital resource of excavated samples is available for researchers via Archaeology Data Service.
Monograph Series 54
MOLA 2011. ISBN 978-1-907586. Hb 144pp. 99 bw & col ills.
Reviews
"This book will be of interest to anyone who wishes to understand the changing landscape of the region over time, and is a must-have for those involved in fieldwork in east London and Essex, especially for the book’s extensive bibliography."
Alistair Ainsworth in London Archaeologists 2013
"…it does summarise the fieldwork nicely, placing what can be relatively sparse evidence into a well rounded narrative and should be useful to anyone interested in the archaeology of the Thames area."
John Naylor in Journal of the Medieval Settlement Research Group 2012
"This important publication is the result of a project funded by the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund. It rescues a large amount of archaeological information from obscurity but also places it in context to give a well-researched and well-presented story."
David Bird in Transactions of London and Middlesex Archaeology Society 2011
"Local history is, in effect, at its most expansive an inter-disciplinary approach to every aspect of the historic local landscape. Archaeological reports, such as this from Museum of London Archaeology, readily inform such an inter-disciplinary approach. The science which archaeologists apply is now giving immeasurable insights into the lives of people who lived where we live but who, unlike us, have left no written records. We now know something of their lifestyle and even their diets, and this gives us greater insight into the degree to which people had already made their mark on the landscape, well before the Roman occupation. Such reports as this should become part of the reference repertoire of local historians."
Trevor James in Local History Magazine 2011
Archaeology Studies Series 19
MoLAS 2008. ISBN 978-1-901992-62-5. Pb80pp. 60 bl/wh and col ills.
Reviews
"… it starts with an excellent piece of piece of work, combining an auger hole survey with a careful examination of the natural deposits. Together with the environmental evidence these are used to reconstruct the prehistoric topography and environment of the riverbank area… The publication is attractively designed and laid out, with clear figures and tables."
Tim Williams in Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society 2008
Archaeology Studies Series 10
MoLAS, London 2003. ISBN 1-901992-41-1. Pb89pp. 69 bl/wh ills.
Reviews
"In keeping with other titles in the series, the work is excellently illustrated, well organised and supported by concise specialist appendices, mercifully expressed without recourse to abstract terminology. In these aspects the book represents a fine work of compression of substantial value to our understanding of the extra-mural settlement of Roman, medieval and post-medieval London."
Stuart Brookes in London Archaeologist Spring 2005
"MoLAS studies nos 10 and 11 (Roman burials, medieval tenements and suburban growth by Dan Swift) in their series demonstrate the confidence derived from their editorial and production experience. Integration of the different contributions has been well thought through, and systematically presented, graphics and layout are well designed, to a format familiar to their readership."
Review in Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society 2005
Like Arundel and Bramber, Lewes was also clearly selected due to its topographic location. It is set within a dramatic landscape at the northern edge of the South Downs through which, in deep prehistory, the River Ouse has carved a deeply incised valley through the chalk hills. The town sits on the steep-sided hill to the west of the river, commanding a strong strategic position from which access to both the Wealden interior and the sea can be controlled. It can thus be described as a promontory town. Opposite, on the eastern bank of the river, steep chalk cliffs mark the periphery of the appropriately named medieval settlement of Cliffe, today flanked by the access road to the A27.
If one strips away the historic features of the town, the buildings, the castle and the streets, and tries to imagine the pristine prehistoric setting of Lewes, it is not too difficult to appreciate the numerous reasons for settling there. The hill provided a naturally defensible location with easy views to either side of the Downs and along the river, but equally, and importantly, it is not too tall or steep to have been quickly accessible from the river, and the surrounding lowlands, on foot. Woodland, wetland and freshwater habitats were all readily available and travel both to the Wealden interior, and to the sea via the Ouse, which provided a routeway for transport, import and export, would have been easily accessible.
The local Downland is rich in prehistoric monuments dating from the Neolithic to the later Iron and Romano-British period, including Offham Hill causewayed enclosure, various barrows and the Iron Age enclosures at Mount Caburn/Ranscombe Ridge: testament to the long-standing ancient importance of this location.
Antiquarian scholars noted the presence of ancient prehistoric funerary mounds in the town itself, now long since cleared, with the possible exception of Brack Mount, but firm evidence of prehistoric settlement activity in Lewes has remained elusive, most likely removed or masked beneath the town. However, chance finds of prehistoric material have been noted since the earliest of times as well as residually on archaeological excavations, and the present excavations have finally revealed tantalising evidence that such occupation did indeed exist at Lewes from at least the Middle Iron Age (see Chapter 2) and further evidence surely survives beneath the historic structure of the town.
For these same reasons antiquarian scholars such as Horsfield (1824), and more recent writers including Bleach (1997), Brent (2004) and Holmes (2010) have long considered the case for the Roman occupation of Lewes, but this concept has largely been morphologically based on Lewes’ grid-like street pattern and on its synonymy with planned Roman towns rather than on any great wealth of Roman finds. In contrast to prehistoric settlements, Roman occupancy tends to leave behind an abundance of cultural material; but there is not much Roman material from Lewes and therefore perhaps little to support models of intensive Roman occupation, though there certainly was some.
Whilst small amounts of residual early and middle Anglo-Saxon pottery have been recovered there are increased quantities of late Anglo-Saxon material and archaeology, and then a massive increase of post-Conquest evidence. This is consistent with the formation of Lewes as a burh in the late 9th century and its post-Conquest growth and success in the Norman period. In the present excavations, this includes direct and indirect evidence of buildings (Fig 1.1) with the vast majority of evidence coming from material within backfilled quarry and refuse pits, and wells. The stratigraphic data and the large finds, and environmental assemblages these features yielded undoubtedly reflect the importance of Lewes as a Anglo-Saxon stronghold turned-over to become a thriving Norman urban centre at the head of the newly formed Rape of Lewes and provide great insight into the socio-economic workings of the Late Anglo-Saxon and early medieval town.
The excavations at site B have revealed positive evidence of a large Late Anglo-Saxon ditch running north to south (along the western side of St Nicholas Lane) towards the crest of the ridge. This feature is interpreted as part of the eastern defences of the burh and seemingly marks the first physical evidence of its kind to be identified in Lewes. The dating evidence from the ditch shows that the feature was deliberately backfilled, at least in this location, during Norman times; during a phase of expansion and development from its fortified centre.
At site D, possible early medieval burgage plots appear to have been temporarily turned over for use as an enclosure within a ditched perimeter which it is postulated may have been involved in housing cavalry of Prince Edward’s forces prior to the Battle of Lewes in 1294. After this date, the former burgage divisions appear to have been reinstated.
The sustained success of medieval Lewes is reflected by a continuing abundance of stratigraphic, finds and environmental data yielded from features on the present excavations throughout the 12th and 13th centuries until the mid-14th century when the evidence of activity all but ceases on all four sites; though at least one significant household persisted in the later 14th and 15th centuries at site B. As is the case with much of medieval Britain, this cessation undoubtedly reflects the convergence of several diminishing factors including the Hundred Years War, extreme and prolonged bad weather, volcanic activity, failed crops and famine, and the Black Death. It was around this time that the location of Pinwell Street, known colloquially, locally, as the ancient or lost twitten, was defined by walls constructed at site A.
The revived success of Lewes in the Tudor period, leading ultimately to an elevation in status to County Town by the 16th century, is not particularly evident in the archaeology; but the fact that both of its hospitals, St James and St Nicholas, as well as its grammar school, were not destroyed in the Dissolution (as its priory and friary were), demonstrates that Lewes was held in some favour and importance by the new monarchy - perhaps because it was the second wealthiest town in Sussex at the beginning of the 16th century. Its civic importance is further highlighted by the fact that the Sussex County Court was alternated between Lewes and Chichester at this time; perhaps an early portent of the later division of the county between east and west. Assizes (early criminal courts) were also occasionally held here too, and county officers met at Lewes in a newly built session’s house.
The medieval and early post-medieval tenements recorded at sites A and C had probably all been cleared by around 1700 when the land became gardens and orchards to the rear of what became the large residences now known as Lewes House and School Hill House. The developmental history of site B is more complex and this area became increasingly more densely built-up throughout the post-medieval period; whilst site D only became developed towards the end of the 18th century.
For most of the post-medieval period, until the 19th century, Lewes remained key in Sussex both as an albeit small administrative and as a trading centre, and it remained at the centre of the Wealden iron-working industry until the late 18th century. The predominantly Protestant and perhaps anti-royalist disposition of Lewes that began in the 16th century was further cemented by its stance during the English Civil War. Throughout the 17th to 20th centuries, Lewes enjoyed success and became increasingly gentrified whilst remaining quite a small town until Victorian times.