Cusop Castle Dig Progress Report

 Last night I was at Clyro Village Hall for a meeting of the Cusop History Group, where archaeologist Tim Hoverd was giving a progress report on the findings from the Cusop Castle Dig this summer.

I don't think I've ever been in Clyro Village Hall before.  There is no parking attached to the hall, unlike Cusop Village Hall, but the friend who gave me a lift was able to park close to the entrance because we arrived early for an informal meeting of the committee.  I'm pretty sure the hall used to have a stage - at the end where the speaker stood there is now a flat wall, but on either side there are doors up a short flight of steps, so it looks to me as if there is a stage area behind that wall.  I picked up on this because the junior school I went to had done the same thing, to fit an extra classroom in where the stage had been.

They also have a very well stocked drinks cabinet in the kitchen - probably because the hall hosts a pop up pub!

Tim was able to report that the three pieces of medieval pottery that were found near the bottom of Trench 3 have been sent off to the specialists in Birmingham for analysis.  One piece is part of a cooking pot, there's a jug handle, and a piece of glazed pottery which would have been better quality and more expensive pottery.

He also showed slides of the coin that was found - a Charles II farthing - and a piece of iron with a small iron frill with holes in it along one side, which was a purse clasp.  The holes were used to attach the fabric of the purse.  These were from a later period that we were hoping to find, but the site has had an interesting history after the medieval period, including a substantial building and allotments, as well as a marl pit (used to spread on the fields of nearby farms) and a rubbish tip (filling up holes like the marl pit, when it went out of use).

The ramparts on the side towards the church were also much more substantial than they now appear (more Victorian pottery and animal bones showing that the ditch was also used to dump rubbish).  The trench outside the rampart didn't get to the bottom of the ditch, and it went down 1.2 metres.

So, the castle probably wasn't a castle.  It certainly was a defensive ringwork, but it seems not to have been used as a military site after it was built.  The earliest evidence of occupation on the site was a building where metal was being smelted, possibly in the 12th to 13th century.  This was quite common in the Marches - Mouse Castle was quite probably never finished as a castle, and the motte and bailey at Longtown was built and then never used, because the military activity had moved on further into Wales.  The reports of old people in the area remembering a stone gatehouse on the site, which were written down by a Victorian antiquarian, are probably memories of the 17th century stone building when it was demolished - and it was never part of a castle. 

The evidence provided by the dig has been very useful in showing the actual use of the site, and has also thrown up new questions such as: What was the building shown on the 1772 map?  Why was it built so it cut into the rampart nearest to the church?  Who was dumping their rubbish there?  Why was the road across the site re-routed around the outside of the ramparts?

The full report should be ready by Christmas - but it's only one of the projects that Tim has been working on this year.  He's also been busy with the Arthur's Stone dig, the Snodhill Castle dig, and the Dorstone community dig. 

Chloe Jones Music

 I picked up a flyer for Chloe Jones' UK tour Feels Like Fiction.

She'll be performing literature inspired songs and storytelling at the Globe on 26th November - but on the 18th November she's performing at the Portico Library in Manchester, which is where the Witches and Healers Exhibition is on (with my pictures in it!).  So that's a nice link between Manchester's oldest library and the Globe.

More details at www.ChloeJonesMusic.co.uk 

Mithras Trio

 That was a MAGNIFICENT concert!

The trio is composed of Thomas Mathias on violin, Ben Tarlton on cello and Dominic Degavino on piano, and they are brilliant musicians.  The trio was founded in 2017, but Thomas and Ben only joined the line up this year, so they haven't been playing together for very long.  You'd never know, though, because they seemed perfectly matched.

They started with Mozart - the Piano Trio in B flat from 1786, which is beautiful.

Then they played a piece from a composer I was unfamiliar with.  George Enescu was Romanian, and he wrote his Piano Trio in A Minor in 1916.  However, it remained unfinished until after his death in 1955, when it was found among his papers and edited by the pianist Hilda Jerea.

The musicians said that it was a difficult piece to play for all three instruments, and they'd enjoyed the challenge of getting to grips with it.  They also spent the afternoon in one of the local schools, working with the children and introducing them to the music.

After the interval (with amazing cake as usual - I had the Spanish orange cake) they played the longest piece, Brahms' Piano Trio No. 1 in B Major.  This is an unusual piece because Brahms first wrote it in 1854, when he was twenty one, and came back to it in 1889 to revise it.

The applause was rapturous.  Everyone I spoke to afterwards agreed that we'd been listening to something very special. 

In the interval I met a couple who are new to Hay, as they were admiring the church organ.  So I was able to tell them the story of how it came to be in the church, thanks to Father Richard.   

Return of Hay on Fire

 There are plans to hold Hay on Fire again in 2027.  

I was there at the very first Hay on Fire, when the procession went through the town and ended up on the riverbank where the canoes are now.  There was a fire labyrinth, and people out on the river playing with fire.  I was involved in the charity bucket collections - including the very, very wet year when we had to pour the buckets into a sieve over a sink to get the coins out (we didn't get any notes that year - they would have disintegrated!).  That was the year the theme was Midsummer Nights Dream, and there were some very soggy fairies about!

I also remember the vicar at the time (before Father Richard) believing that Hay on Fire was Satanic, and ringing the church bells to drive away the Devil!

Later the fireworks moved to the Warren, where the fireworks - and the cars with flamethrowers - were kept well away from the audience.  I remember the Mayor of Timbuktu, with wellies under his robes, going down the track to watch when he came to visit Hay.

And then it stopped happening - I think there were problems with getting insurance, amongst other things.

Now a new group wants to revive Hay on Fire, for the fiftieth anniversary of Hay Independence, and they're holding a fund raiser on Saturday night at the Globe to start raising the money to put it on again next year.  It'll be mostly in the garden of the Globe, because there will be fire juggling from Pyro Cymru!  They will be encouraging people to have a go, from people who are already performers to complete beginners.  And Goffee, the creator of the original Hay on Fire, will be there to give them his blessing.

Entry is free. 

 

Flu Jab

 I had my first flu jab yesterday afternoon (I should have had one last year, but I didn't get round to organising it).  I was impressed at how smoothly it all went, from the lady in the hi-viz vest standing outside the waiting room, the short queue, and the friendly nurses.

It only took about twenty minutes from me leaving work to walk round to the surgery to me getting back to the bookshop, so very quick and efficient - and well worth having. 

Friends of the River Wye at Westminster

Friends of the River Wye have been in Westminster to lobby MPs to vote against the government's proposed Poultry Growth Strategy.  There has been no local community engagement by DEFRA and the big chicken factory farm owners, and here's a map of the chicken units that already exist in the Wye catchment area:

 Campaigners are arguing that this is already too many chickens, and the River Wye is already negatively affected by the pollution from these farms.

 

Digging for Cusop

 Tim Hoverd, the archaeologist who was in charge of the Cusop Castle Dig this summer, will be giving the interim report on the findings next week, Wednesday 28th October at 7.30pm.  Donations of £2 are requested on the door.

The venue is Clyro Village Hall, which is larger that Cusop Village Hall.  The dig committee wants there to be enough room for everyone who is interested - 112 volunteers took part in the dig!  They won't all be able to be there, but there are plenty of other people locally who are interested, too.