Archaeology and Buildings: Papers from a session held at the European Association of Archaeologists Fifth Annual Meeting in Bournemouth 1999 9781841712246, 9781407352770

Table of contents :
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Table of Contents
Foreword
THE USE OF ARCHAEOLOGY IN BUILDING CONSERVATION AT DOWN HOUSE, KENT
DECLINE AND ADAPTATION: THE MEDIEVAL IRISH TOWER HOUSE IN EARLY MODERN COUNTY LIMERICK
BUILDINGS ARCHAEOLOGY IN ENGLAND: ARE THE FOUNDATIONS IN PLACE?
THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF SPACE: RITUAL AND METAPHOR
A PARISH CHURCH IN MURECK (STYRIA): THE MAPPING OF OLDER BUILDING PHASES BY GROUND PENETRATING RADAR
AN APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF INDUSTRIAL SITES: PROCESS RECORDING
VADSTENA ABBEY CHURCH AND ITS MASON'S MARKS
ARCHAEOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO EARLY MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE IN THE MID-DANUBE REGION
TWO BATH-HOUSES IN THE ARISTOCRATIC WARD OF SARAI

Citation preview

BAR S930 2001  MALM (Ed.)  ARCHAEOLOGY AND BUILDINGS

Archaeology and Buildings Papers from a session held at the European Association of Archaeologists Fifth Annual Meeting in Bournemouth 1999

Edited by

Gunilla Malm

BAR International Series 930 B A R

2001

Archaeology and Buildings Papers from a session held at the European Association of Archaeologists Fifth Annual Meeting in Bournemouth 1999 Edited by

Gunilla Malm

BAR International Series 930 2001

Published in 2016 by BAR Publishing, Oxford BAR International Series 930 Archaeology and Buildings © The editor and contributors severally and the Publisher 2001 Typesetting and layout: Darko Jerko The authors' moral rights under the 1988 UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act are hereby expressly asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be copied, reproduced, stored, sold, distributed, scanned, saved in any form of digital format or transmitted in any form digitally, without the written permission of the Publisher.

ISBN 9781841712246 paperback ISBN 9781407352770 e-format DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9781841712246 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library BAR Publishing is the trading name of British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd. British Archaeological Reports was first incorporated in 1974 to publish the BAR Series, International and British. In 1992 Hadrian Books Ltd became part of the BAR group. This volume was originally published by Archaeopress in conjunction with British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd / Hadrian Books Ltd, the Series principal publisher, in 2001. This present volume is published by BAR Publishing, 2016.

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Contents

THE USE OF ARCHAEOLOGY IN BUILDING CONSERVATION AT DOWN HOUSE, KENT (Kate Clark) .................................................................

1

Introduction ..............................................................................................................

1

Buildings archaeology ..............................................................................................

1

Conservation practice ..............................................................................................

2

The work of HART ...................................................................................................

2

Down House - a case study .....................................................................................

3

The role of archaeology in conservation ..................................................................

4

Conclusions .............................................................................................................

5

Acknowledgements .................................................................................................

5

References ..............................................................................................................

5

DECLINE AND ADAPTATION: THE MEDIEVAL IRISH TOWER HOUSE IN EARLY MODERN COUNTY LIMERICK (Colm J. Donnelly) .............................. 7

References ............................................................................................................

12

BUILDINGS ARCHAEOLOGY IN ENGLAND: ARE THE FOUNDATIONS IN PLACE? (Bob Edwards) ....................................... 19 Introduction ............................................................................................................

19

Current Data Storage ............................................................................................

19

Quality of Data .......................................................................................................

20

Generation of Data ................................................................................................

21

The Future .............................................................................................................

22

References ............................................................................................................

23

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF SPACE: RITUAL AND METAPHOR (Dragos Gheorghiu) .............................................................................................

25

Ritual .....................................................................................................................

25

Entrances and doors .............................................................................................

26

Space analysis through objects and metaphors .................................................... 26 The analysis of space in a prehistoric building ....................................................... 27 Conclusive remarks ...............................................................................................

28

Acknowledgments .................................................................................................

28

References ............................................................................................................

28

A PARISH CHURCH IN MU RECK (STYRIA): THE MAPPING OF OLDER BUILDING PHASES BY GROUND PENETRATING RADAR (Jiri Hruska and Gerald Fuchs) ...........................................................................

33

Introduction ............................................................................................................

33

Survey area ...........................................................................................................

33

Data Acquisition and Processing ........................................................................... 34 Survey Results ......................................................................................................

34

The church interior ......................................................................................

34

The area north of the church ....................................................................... 35 The area west and southwest of the church ................................................ 35 Conclusions ...........................................................................................................

36

Acknowledgements ...............................................................................................

36

References ............................................................................................................

36

AN APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF INDUSTRIAL SITES: PROCESS RECORDING (Brian A. Malaws) .......................... ............................. 49 What is process recording? ...................... .......................... ................................... 49 What is the purpose and value of process recording? ........................................... 50 How is process recording best carried out? ................................ ........................... 52 Note taking ..................................................................................................

52

Photography ................................................................................................

52

Film and video recording ............................................................................. 53 Presentation of results .................................................................................

53

Conclusion .............................................................................................................

53

VADSTENA ABBEY CHURCH AND ITS MASON'S MARKS (Gunilla Malm) ......................................................................................................

57

Introduction and purpose .......................................................................................

57

ii

The Abbey church ..................................................................... ............................ 57 The building process ............ ................................................................................. 58 The original building plan .............................................................................

58

The changed building plans ............. ............................................................ 59 The building process according to written documents ................................. 60 Mason's marks ...................................................................................................... Mason's marks in general ............................................................................

60 60

The mason's marks of Vadstena Abbey church ..................................................... 60 On what stones do we have the mason's marks? ....................................... 60 Four groups of marks ..................................................................................

61

Sizes and styles of the mason's marks ........................................................ 61 Who marked the stones? ............................................................................

61

The mason's marks, the groups and the building process ........................... 61 The mason's behind the groups .................................................................. 62 What does a marked stone mean? ............................................................. 63 What does marks means that occurr only once or a few times? ................. 63 Is it possible to associate some masons to certain building details or sculptured stones? ..................................................................................

64

Did main contractors exist? .........................................................................

64

The mason's marks of the arcades and the main entrances in the east gable ..........................................................................................

64

Summary ............................................................. ........................................... ....... 64

References ............................................................................................................

65

ARCHAEOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO EARLY MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE IN THE MID-DANUBE REGION (Tatiana Stefanovicova) ................................................. ..................................... 87

References ............................................................................................................

89

TWO BATH-HOUSES IN THE ARISTOCRATIC WARD OF SARAI (Emma D. Zilivinskaya) .......................................................................................

99

Acknowledgments ...............................................................................................

101

References ..........................................................................................................

101

iii

Foreword

ARCHAEOLOGY AND BUILDINGS In September 1999, the European Association of Archaeology (EAA) arranged its 5th annual meeting. On this occasion it took place in Bournemouth, England. One of the sessions was entitled "Archaeology and Buildings", and this BAR edition covers the papers presented at it. The topic "Archaeology and Buildings" includes studies on buildings and the built environment, irrespective of age, material or object function. Standing buildings still in use, ruins and archaeologically excavated remains, royal palaces or nomadic tents, all fall within the broad spectrum of this field of study. The topic also includes studies on sculptural decoration, painting or other decoration, as well as artefacts and tools used for building, or building functions. Building processes, materials, techniques and architectural forms, are all included, as are stratigraphical issues. The place of origin of building materials, and how any such materials are prepared, are also, of course, highly relevant to our topic. The materials are investigated, studied and analysed in the same way as any other archaeological evidence or artefacts would be. The EAA session-papers themselves, and the subsequent discussions on Archaeology and Buildings, were related to the topic in general terms and from different points of view. Problems on theory, practical works and cultural heritage management were all considered. Questions with regard to function and development of single objects were also discussed, as well as how buildings can mirror changes, or societal circumstances related to political, social, economic and/or ideological matters. Different working methods used in the analysis and study ofbuildings were discussed, as well as the use of techniques and other disciplines within building archaeology. There are problems connected to the topic. For example, documentation and study are always carried out on archaeologically excavated buildings. Conservation of standing, functioning buildings (or those in ruin) seldom includes documentation from an archaeological point of view. It should be an objective for those archaeologists studying buildings, or built environments, to include building archaeological documentation as a given part of any conservation process, and, furthermore, to give this kind of archaeology the same significance as rescue archaeology. The problem is how to achieve this objective. The chapters of this BAR edition all have buildings, built environments and building archaeology in common. Epochs from ancient times to the 20th century are presented from different perspectives. It is hoped that readers will find the volume interesting and enjoyable. It is also a hope that discussions on building archaeology will continue and engender further sessions, conferences and collaborations beyond boundaries. The chapters are presented in alphabetical order by author. V

In "The Use of Archaeology in Building Conservation at Down House, Kent", Kate Clark discusses how to make better use of the archaeological analyses of buildings to inform the conservation process. With "Decline and Adaptation - the Medieval Tower House in Early Modem County Limerick", Colm J. Donnelly explores and illustrates the process of decline and adaptation as expressed during the early modem period at a tower house in Ireland.

Bob Edward's chapter "Building Archaeology in England: are the foundations in place?" examines the ways in which information about historic buildings generally, and building archaeology in particular, is generated, stored and retrieved. In "The Archaeology of Space: ritual and metaphor", Dragos Gheorghiu discusses the relationship between material culture and architectural space. The author chooses the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture flourishing in Eastern Europe in the interval of the 5th-4th millennia B.C. as an example of a rhetorical analysis of space through the study of ceramic objects and metaphors. The chapter "The Parish Church ofMureck (Styria): The mapping of older building phases by ground penetrating radar" by Jiri Hruska and Gerald Fuchs, concerns the Baroque parish church of St Bartholomew in the Styrian town ofMureck (southern Austria). This church has undergone extensive reconstruction in recent years. Excavations were followed by a detailed ground penetrating radar survey of nearly the entire church and part of adjacent area; in all approximately 1800 sq.m.

Brian Malaws introduces us to 20th century research work in his chapter "An approach to the study of industrial sites: process recording". He underlines that the prime reason for the existence of an industrial site is that it was designed and built to carry out a particular job or process. The machinery, or equipment, that enabled the process to happen is the most important factor, and the architecture is of a secondary significance. In her chapter "Archaeological Approaches to Early Medieval Architecture in the Middle Danube Region", Tatiana Stefanovicova introduces excavations and analysis of early medieval stone architecture in the area of present Motavia and Slovakia. To date, more than twenty churches have been discovered as well as several rotundas and longitudinal three-naved buildings. Bath-houses constitute one of the main types of public building in the medieval Orient. Two bath-houses in the aristocratic ward of Sarai, enable Emma Zilivinskaya to give an introduction to this kind of building in the Golden Horde capital. They illustrate that two building traditions, the Roman-Byzantine and the Oriental, coexisted in the cities of the Golden Horde. The large dimensions of the rooms intended for rest and enjoyment imply a marked public character of bath-houses. Finally, my chapter on the abbey church at Vadstena, offers an insight as to how masons' marks on medieval abbey churches in Sweden might be approached. The aim is to give the masons behind the marks a face and, among other things, to find out if different groups of marks might mirror the different socio-economic status of the masons. Stockholm in January 2001 Gunilla Malm

Use cf Archaeology in Building Conservation

THE USE OF ARCHAEOLOGY IN BUILDING CONSERVATION AT DOWN HOUSE, KENT Kate Clark

Introduction Archaeology is a subject more often associated with destruction than conservation. Archaeologists are used to understanding sites through excavation, and in doing so, destroy that which they are studying. In addition, archaeology is something which is increasingly done in the context ofloss - the proposed destruction of sites through development, is often preceded by archaeological excavation. Future generations it seems, must make do with the paper record, rather than the resource. This paper presents a case study in which archaeology has been used in a more positive role, not to aid and abet loss, but to contribute to the conservation of the archaeological resource. Standing buildings are an aspect of archaeology, which is, at least as complex and interesting as any buried site. The role of archaeology in contributing to the understanding of buildings through the analysis of fabric is not a new idea. But whilst that analysis can make a distinctive contribution to architectural history, it also has a more immediate and practical application to the conservation and repair ofbuildings. Often the enthusiasm to restore or recreate a historic building can lead to inadvertent damage to fabric, as critical or illunderstood features are removed in the interests of a hypothetical version of what might have been. This can be true of even the most sensitive repair cases. In some cases, damage may be avoided through the use of archaeology to 'read' fabric, and to use that information to inform decisions. An archaeologist with skills in reading fabric, working as part of a team with skills in architecture, engineering and technical conservation, can make a useful contribution to the design and direction of a conservation project. Unfortunately, the link between building conservation and archaeology is not well-established. In part, this may be because the study of the fabric of historic buildings is rarely

part of an archaeological education and is a diminishing part of an architectural education. Yet the separation between the two subjects is in Britain a relatively recent one.

Buildingsarchaeology The study of classical buildings had, since the Renaissance, been fundamental to the practice of architecture. Architects and scholars visited first Rome and later Greece to draw and analyse classical architecture, and to reconstruct the rules, which governed it as a basis for their own work. Changing patterns in architecture through the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries - particularly in France and Britain - reflect differing interpretations ofaims and meanings of classical architecture as architects sought to recreate ideal beauty. The publication of key texts - Serlio's Rego le generali di architecttura in 1537-51 setting out the rules of the five orders - and of later books illustrating classical architecture influenced those who could not undertake the grand tour. Similar re-interpretations of Gothic architecture emerged during the eighteenth and the nineteenth century initially in France and later in England. The founding of the French Commission des Monuments Historiques with the task of classifying historic buildings as well as supervising and funding their restoration was in part generated by the outrage at the damage done to ancient buildings since the Revolution (Watkin 1986:386). Again, architecture of the period was recorded and classified, and a tussle between the classical and gothic as the most appropriate embodiment of public and national virtues in new architecture ensued. Behind this lay questions about morality and honesty, about beauty and principles, about form and function. Such work was based on what might now be described as the archaeology of buildings - the classification of elements, the

Archaeology and Buildinos

interpretation of form and meaning, the analysis of development through time, the creation of sequences, the use of absolute and relative dating'. The purpose of such work was initially to inform new design of major buildings, but the study of historic buildings generated concern over their condition, and in turn such knowledge became the basis for schemes of restoration. Viollet le Due (1814-79) in France and in Britain architects such as A.W. Pugin (1812-52) applied their knowledge of historic buildings to major restoration schemes as well as new design. A reaction against the perceived damage to historic buildings by restoration may have been behind the decline in such studies perceived early this century by Bond (quoted in Morris 1994: 15-16). Certainly the tradition of archaeological study of buildings as a basis for architecture had diminished by then. And indeed there emerged a widely held view that intervention to an historic structure should be so light that a detailed understanding of the building's history would not be required; a view perhaps exacerbated by a number of controversial archaeological interventions into buildings where in some eyes, information was gained at the expense of the fabric of the building. Archaeology as a profession concentrated more on earlier sites and despite the efforts of the Council for British Archaeology, "Somewhere between the Wars archaeology and architecture diverged. Like snooker balls clustered then struck into separate pockets, archaeology, architectural history, art history, and associated legislation parted company (Morris 1994:16).

Since then in England archaeology has become increasingly professionalised as a discipline. This is in part a response to government guidance, which stresses the need for the developer to pay for damage done to archaeological sites (DoE/DNH 1990). There are about 4425 archaeologists in 614 organisations in Britain (Aitchison 1999:6). No similar survey exists for architectural history, but anecdotal evidence suggests that it remains by contrast a predominantly academic discipline with relatively few members of the profession in private practice.

Conservation practice Meanwhile building conservation is flourishing. English Heritage spends over £34 million each year on conservation, most of which is matched by an equal or greater amount private sector funding (English Heritage 1999) whilst the Heritage Lottery Fund had by May 1997 announced grants worth over £614 million. The annual Building Conservation Directory (Cathedral Communications 1999) lists over 800 companies and organisations involved in conservation, from craftsmen through to bodies such as the National Trust. Much new research has gone into the materials used in conservation - from the rediscovery of traditional materials (e.g. Wingate Rodwell 1989 provides an excellent overview of the history of the archaeological study of churches, as well as a very useful general guide to the archaeological analysis of buildings using churches as examples.

1985) through to the identification of appropriate technical solutions to problems arising in historic buildings (e.g. English Heritage Research Transactions). Whilst shortage of skills and information remains an issue, it would be fair to say that the majority of conservation specialists are now very aware of technical issues. This emphasis on understanding historical materials and techniques in historic building conservation has not always been matched by the same degree of emphasis in analysing the fabric and significance ofbuildings. Brereton's advice on the principles and methods for the repair of historic buildings, whilst containing much invaluable advice, notes the importance of analysis of historic development but provides little practical guidance (1991:8). One reason for this may be professional boundaries. In the nineteenthcentury architectsanalysed historicbuildings whereas today most writing is produced by architectural historians or archaeologists. Thus the practice of conservation - supervised by architects - has tended to diverge from the study of historic buildings. Architectural history and archaeology have also diverged, with many architectural historians looking at the wider picture, placing buildings within their stylistic canon, emphasising attribution, exploring the social context of buildings and seeking to define quality. Those archaeologists who deal with buildings tend to concentrate more on individual structures, using drawings as the basis for an interpretation of sequence and typology, looking for parallels and reconstructing form. Each approach has its strengths and weaknesses, but it is rare for the two to be integrated.

The work of HART A rare opportunity for integrating archaeology, architectural history and building conservation exists in the Historical Analysis and Research Team, part of the Archaeology and Survey Division of English Heritage 2 • The team provides advice on the use of architectural history and archaeology in conservation, whether repairing a building, altering it or objecting to a proposal for its demolition. The team is multi-disciplinary, bringing together art history, history, architectural history, building surveying and archaeology with individual specialisms in, amongst other subjects, timber-framed buildings, brickwork, historic interiors, monuments and mausolea, schools and synagogues. Although the research is directed towards conservation decisions, academic standards remain important. The work of the team is perhaps best illustrated through its involvement in the recent restoration of Down House 3 . 2

English Heritage is the government's adviser on the historic environment, advising government, local authorities and others on the care of historic buildings, areas and monuments throughout England and providing grant aid for owners of buildings and areas. English Heritage also cares for some 406 monuments ranging from better known sites such as Stonehenge, to country houses and earthwork monuments. Research and analysis on the building at Down House were undertaken by a team of people, including Chris Miele and Richard Lea ofEnglish Heritage, Jo Cox and John Thorp, of specialist historic building

Use cf Archaeology in Building Conservation

Down House - a case study

The research informed major decisions about the scope of the project, such as the broad philosophy of the project, which did in fact involve the removal of poor quality 20' h century changes. The research contributed to decisions on which rooms were to be restored which were to be used as a museum how the building was to be entered and how circulation would take place. At this point the main project team was set up the architects appointed and work began on the more detailed design. Listed building consent was needed for the works before it proceeded, and the local planning authority would need to be supplied with sufficient information to determine the impact of the proposals on the historic interest of the building (DoE/DNH 1994:para 3.4). Again, information about the building as existing was a vital part of that package. Other teams began work on the restoration of the garden, and the choice of furnishings for the interior.

Down House was the home and workplace of one of Britain's greatest scientists, Charles Darwin, at Bromley in Kent., about 16 miles from London. Darwin was the author of the 'Origin of Species' (1859), a book which changed the world with its controversial theory of evolution through natural selection. His house and garden, preserved as a museum, have undergone a meticulous repair and restoration before being reopened to the public. The process ofbuilding conservation is a complex one. There are fine but very important distinctions between words such as 'preserve', 'restore', 'reinstate' or 'reconstruct' 4 . A seemingly simple proposal to return a building to a particular date can become fraught with difficulties. ls such an approach appropriate? Is the form of the building at that date known? Will the process ofremoving later fabric damage the historic interest of the structure? How much conjectural reconstruction will be required? At the end of the process, how much of the '.abric will in fact be new? For many, conservation philosophy 1sbased not on restoration, but conserving a building as found. Nevertheless, even the most sensitive repair decisions - for example the extent of timber replacement in a decayed roof structure - will require some degree of alteration to the fabric of the building. Recent changes to a site or building are invariably at risk in major conservation projects, particularly if the site is to be interpreted to the public.

As part of the project team, English Heritage appointed a small firm of archaeologists who had experience in both reading the fabric of buildings and documentary research. Their job was to analyse the fabric in more detail so that they could provide the architect and engineer with information about what fabric was original, what fabric dated to Darwin's period and what fabric was later. For each room, they were able to explain the date of the floor, walls or joinery; the function of each room and how it had changed, even during Darwin's period. Each of the window types was dated, and blocked doors and openings identified. This level of analysis was possible because of the extraordinarily large amount of documentary evidence, which survived - mainly letters and journals. The difficulty lay in organising such a quantity of material, and in tying that information to the fabric of the building. Documents and fabric proved to be complementary sources of information, but it was essential to use both if any useful results were to be achieved.

In order to make such decisions, it is important to first understand the building. Down House had, like all buildings, changed through time. One of the earliest tasks undertaken by the team was to make a very broad assessment of the basic building blocks of the structure without going into much detail. At the same time, the team's historian began to research the site, not focusing on the history of Darwin but on the evidence for the construction, use and alteration of the building itself.

The analysis also drew on explicitly archaeological techniques. A typology of window joinery was established as a means of dating the various types of windows around the building. The house itself was phased in order to identify the major changes it had undergone, making use of absolute and relative dating in the way that paralleled the techniques of excavation.

The first building on the site was built in the eighteenth century. Charles Darwin and his wife Emma came to live there in 1841, and his family remained therefor some years after his death in 1882. During this time, Darwin produced 17 books and n~merous scientific papers as well as with his wife raising 10 children and entertaining visiting relatives and scientists (Cookson 1997:19). Throughout this period, Darwin added to the house continually. Two wings were added, and rooms repeatedly changed their function. After Darwin's death, the house changed hands several times. The first attempts to restore the building were in the 1920s, and some of these considerably damaged the building. In the 1960s a succession of unsympathetic alterations were made to accommodate a flat within the house for the building's curator. English Heritage acquired the building in 1996, by which stage it was in considerable state of disrepair.

The archaeologists worked closely with the architects, attending project meetings and feeding information into the design process. They worked with the surveyor to refine the drawings of the building, and contributed information for the applications for statutory consent. The research did not stop once building works began. During the project the building archaeologists were on site to ensure that our knowledge of the building grew as the works progressed. New features were recorded, unexpected discoveries such as a huge cistern drawn and researched. The archaeological infonnation was used by the mechanical and electrical engineers when making decisions about fire protection, lighting and new services - often the most inadvertently damaging aspects of historic buildings works.

consultants Keystone, Exeter. Metric survey was commissioned by Bill Blake for English Heritage. The team worked closely with the incumbent curator Solcne Morris, the architects Donald Insall and Partners, Helen Hughes and Catherine Hassall (paint analysts). 4

These words arc perhaps most usefully defined in the Australian ICOMOS Charter for the Conservation of Places of Cultural Significance (Burra Charter) (Marquis-Walker and Kyle 1992).

3

Arc haeology and Buildings

As the project progressed the degree of resolution of the research increased. Initial research focussed on the building as a whole, but later in the project it was directed towards more detailed aspects of fabric. An example of this is the cooperation between the paint analyst and the archaeologists. Architectural paint research (APR) involves the understanding of the interiors ofbuildings using the microscopic analysis of layers of paint. APR is a very powerful tool for understanding change through time, but that analysis only relates to one part of the building. In order to interpret changing sequences of paint on one part of one wall, and to use that information to recreate a whole interior, it is necessary to be able to place that wall in the wider context of the pattern of alteration of the building as a whole. Thus, the archaeologists worked with the architectural paint researcher to phase the various decorative schemes undergone by the building. This information in turn enabled the architects and curator to devise the final paint scheme for the building, which drew upon an understanding of the decoration during Darwin's time, including the colours for the interiors and for the windows. One of the last tasks involved the archaeology of sun blinds. Illustrations showed that the house had blinds and minute evidence for screw holes suggested their position and a little about their form. From there, research into historic catalogues enabled us to find and recreate the most appropriate design, which await installation. Down is now open to the public. It is possible to walk into the study - the 'cluttered masculine room' described by Darwin, where he amassed the evidence for Origin of Species - fossils, notes, genealogical records and letters. Visitors can also walk out into the gardens and along the sand walk - Darwin's 'thinking path' where he walked every morning, and enjoy the gardens and the greenhouses where he grew plants. The aim of the work at Down was to open the house to the public, and the decision was taken to remove many of the twentieth century alterations to the building, and to reinstate some lost features, such as the sunblinds. Whilst the project did involve restoration - which in itself can be contentious there is no doubt that the quality and sensitivity of the work was enhanced, and the potential damage to the fabric reduced, through the careful analysis of fabric before decisions were made. Building analysis by archaeologists is often seen to be an additional, and unnecessary, cost in a conservation program. This view probably stems from the assumption that the purpose of such work is academic research, rather than to inform conservation practice. Nevertheless, it is interesting to place the cost of analysis at Down in context. Overall the cost of the conservation project is in the millions; of that, the cost of the research into the fabric of the building (inhouse and consultants) probably amounted to about 1.5% of the total project. The results of the work are reflected in the quality of the repair and restoration, in the care in the detail, in the lack of inadvertent damage to the original building. At Down House, archaeology was an active participant in the conservation process. Information was contributed to the

project at every stage in the process, from historical reports which were available before the project was conceived, to a series of interim reports which were supplied during outline and full design stages, as part of the applications for consent, and as importantly, during work on site. Archaeology and architectural history were not academic luxuries but an integral part of the design process.

The role of archaeology in conservation Any organisation concerned with the care ofhistoric buildings is likely to have undertaken conservation projects which, in retrospect have damaged sites or generated controversy, but unlike Yamin (1997:205-220) few have been prepared to openly discuss the issues. For this reason, the sensitive nature of conservation is often quietly ignored in efforts to stress the benefits of the process. What would have happened had we not undertaken the research and analysis at Down? In the early stages the health and safety requirements for circulation might have resulted in a new door cut into the fabric; upgrading for fire regulations could have inadvertently damaged historic joinery; the cistern and other new features might have gone unrecorded; the sequence of rooms may have borne no resemblance to the house in Darwin's day, with inappropriate interior and the wrong windows. A proposal to restore a laboratory was abandoned when it was found that the building was not associated with Darwin. Each of these decisions in their own right might seem a small matter; but the cumulative impact of many such decisions can result in a historic house which is large new, and for visitors, an impression of authenticity which is not justified. Authenticity has in recent years become an increasing area of concern in heritage conservation. The Nara Convention on Authenticity (www.international.icomos.org/icomos/ nara.htm), resulting from an international conference in Japan in 1994, stresses the importance of recognising cultural diversity, different values and authenticity in heritage conservation. In particular, the convention emphasises the role of knowledge and understanding of all aspects of a site. The Australian Burra Charter also stresses that the significance of a site is embodied in its fabric, content and setting, and that understanding these should be the basis of any conservation decisions (Marquis-Walker and Kyle 1992). Yet practice in this area varies greatly. There are relatively few explicit methodologies for establishing authenticity in any coherent way. In America historic structure reports have, since the 1930s been used in building conservation, although the methodology has been subject to some critical appraisal. Conservation Plans have been used in Australia as a consistent approach to assessing buildings as a basis for alteration or repair (Kerr 2000). In Britain as has been shown, the assessment of archaeological sites is more common than the assessment of historic buildings, whilst landscapes and museum collections have their own approaches to evaluating significance. These methodologies have come together in

Use cf Archaeology in Building Conservation

Conservation Plans, which now provide a way of integrating archaeological, architectural historical, museological, landscape and other aspects of a site. Yet such approaches whilst informing major conservation decisions - often do not provide a sufficient level of detail to inform specific decisions about the treatment of the fabric of a building. One of the reasons behind the variety of practice in defining authenticity lies in the difficulty of finding an appropriate word. There is no single word used to describe the practice of understanding a building. ls it documentation (as used in America), recording ( e.g. RCHME 1991 ), building archaeology (e.g. Wood 1994), architectural history, building history ( e.g. Molyneux 1994: 155) or simply the proper practice of architecture? The process ofreading a building - of understanding the construction of the fabric, the pattern of alteration and the evidence for its use; of attributing authorship and defining value or meaning - of reading everything from its microscopic paint layers to its place in the development of architecture - is a skill without a fixed name. The practitioner must be enough of a surveyor to understand how buildings are constructed and stand up, enough of a historian to deal critically with primary documents and enough of an archaeologists to understand concepts of stratigraphy and relative dating. They should be able to integrate the results of the engineer, scientist, architect and probably landscape gardener. They should be able to draw, write and analyse. There are few such leviathans. Nevertheless, some or all of these skills should be an integral part of every conservation project. Sometimes the builder, architect or chartered surveyor has the skills or time to do the work - more often there is too much else to do.

it is to be hoped that archaeologists will begin to re-establish their role in the analysis of historic buildings.

Acknowledgements

Thispaper draws heavily upon the work o_fmembers of HART, in particular Chris Miele who undertook documentary research into Down House and its garden, and Richard Lea who undertook building analysis. Jo Cox and John Thorp o_f Keystone undertook the consultancy work on the project on behalf of English Heritage.

References Aitchison, K 1999. Profiling the profession: A survey of archaeological jobs in the UK. York: CBA, EH, IFA. Brereton, C. 1991. The Repair of Historic Buildings: advice on principles and methods. London: English Heritage. Cathedral Communications 1999, Building Conservation Directory. Tisbury: Cathedral Communications. Clark, K. ed. 1999 Conservation Plans in Action. London: English Heritage. Crookson, P. 1997 'In the footprints of genius', Heritage Today, June 1997 Issue 38. Department of the Environment/Department of National Heritage. Planning Policy Guidance 15: Planning and the Historic Environment. London: HMSO. English Heritage, 1998. Guidebook to Down House. English Heritage 1999 Annual Report and Accounts. London: English Heritage.

Conclusions

Kerr, J.S. 2000. The Conservation Plan. Sydney: The National Trnst of New South Wales.

Archaeology as a discipline provides a series of analytical tools, which are immensely valuable in understanding building fabric. Typology, classification, stratigraphic analysis, context, drawing, the organisation of information about the past and interpretation are particularly useful. That being said, many archaeologists are poor documentary historians, weak architectural historians and know little about the construction history, and so cannot and should not claim to do the work of the architect, architectural historian or engineer. However, with the right training, and as part of a conservation team, archaeologists can deliver the recording, interpretation and analysis on which any degree of authenticity should be based.

Marquis-Kyle, Peter and Walker, Meredith, 1992 The Illustrated Burra Charter, Sydney: Australia ICOMOS.

The work at Down House demonstrates how a combination of archaeological and historical analysis can contribute to a practical programme of conservation. The skills and the approach are not new - indeed they were perhaps more familiar to nineteenth century practitioners than they are today. However, as the international conservation community is increasingly calling for authenticity in historical conservation,

Molyneux, N.A.D 1994 'Targeted Recording for limited alterations: secular buildings' in ed. Wood. Morris, R. 1994. 'Buildings Archaeology' in ed. Wood, J. RCHME (Royal Commission on Historical Monuments of England) 1991. Recording historic buildings - a descriptive specification. Swindon: RCHME. Rodwell, W. 1989. Church Archaeology. London: BT Batsford. Watkin, D. 1986. A History of Western Architecture. London: Thames and Hudson. Wingate, M 1985 Small-scale lime-burning. London: Intermediate Technology Publications. Wood, J. ed. 1994 Buildings Archaeology: Applications in Practice. Oxford: Oxbow. Yamin, R. 1997 'Museum in the Making: The Morven Project' in ed. Jameson, John H. Presenting Archaeology to the Public. Walnut Creek: Altamira.

Colrn J. Donnelly: Decline and Adaptation: The Medieval Irish Tower House in Early Modern County Limerick

DECLINE AND ADAPTATION: THE MEDIEVAL IRISH TOWER HOUSE IN EARLY MODERN COUNTY LIMERICK Colm J. Donnelly

In Ireland a tower house is a fortified medieval residence of stone, usually four or more storeys in height, in which the principal chambers are placed one over the other throughout the building. If we turn to historical sources, such as the various Irish annals (eg: O'Donovan 1848-56) or the mid 17thcentury Civil Survey (Simington 1938), the name is nowhere to be found and it is clear that tower houses were regarded as castles by their occupants. This classification continues today with the tower house viewed as a species within the overall castle genus (Thompson 1987, 2). The tower house belongs to the period between circa 1400 and circa 1650, a time when strong central government in Ireland was lacking and there was an onus placed on the individual to protect both family and possessions from the raids which were the primary form of warfare (Simms 1975). The tall tower house provided a secure environment while an accompanying defended enclosure or farmyard, termed a bawn, provided protection for the cattle herd. The evident defensive strength of the tower house should not, however, overshadow its residential nature, for tower houses were primarily defended homes of a wealthy landowning class and were erected by both Anglo-Norman and Gaelic families (Fig. 1). In the following paper an attempt will be made to explore the forces which led to their gradual abandonment during the 17th century as the primary form of lordly residence in Ireland, while also outlining what happened to the buildings following that abandonment. The text will be supported by examples drawn from the author's research in one Irish county, County Limerick.

murder hole, a defensive feature that enabled the occupants to dispatch an intruder from the safety of the building's first floor. On one side of the lobby there may be the entrance to a small chamber, while on the other side is the doorway leading onto a spiral staircase that gives access to the upper floor levels in the building. The lobby may connect with a large main chamber at ground floor level. Both the main and small chambers may lie under stone barrel vaults, but the stress which vaults placed on the building's long-walls often restricted their number . As a consequence, the builders often used wooden floors, set on joists spanning the chamber and supported on beams placed on stone corbels that project out from the wall-face on both sides of the room. It is usual to find the same floor plan repeated at each subsequent level in the building with each level's space divided between a main chamber and a small chamber, both accessed from the spiral staircase. Timber doors were hung throughout the building on "hanging eyes" placed at the top inner side of the doorway, into which the door-stile was inserted. The chambers can contain large, deep wall cupboards and fireplaces, while long stone-roofed mural passages lead to latrines set over a downward flue that allows waste matter to fall down through the shaft to an opening in the external wall-face where it is jettisoned out of the building. The narrow slit-like opes within their deep embrasures at lower floor levels allow little light to enter the building but have an evident defensive quality. At upper floor level where defence was not quite so paramount there might be elaborate mullioned windows with carved ogeeheads. Windows such as these could be accompanied by a stone seat placed on either side of the window embrasure. The spiral staircase terminated in a caphouse at parapet level where access could be gained to the wall-walk, protected by stepped crenellation, and the building's pitched roof. A stone box at this level may be set directly over the doorway far below. The open floor of this machicolation allowed missiles to be dropped on the heads of attackers who might be trying to break through the iron outer door (a yett) and the stout

While no two tower houses are ever identical, the presence of a shared assemblage of architectural features enables the buildings to be defined as a distinct architectural tradition. The majority of tower houses have a rectangular plan with walls which taper upwards from thick base battered foundations. The entrance is at ground floor level, framed by an arched doorway of dressed stone. The entrance may lead into a small lobby, in the roof of which might be positioned a 7

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county could be traced using John O'Donovan's documentation from the period (O'Donovan 1840) and local folk tradition and, since 1840, a further 24 castles have been demolished or destroyed (Donnelly 1994, 108-15). So what then were the forces which ended the tower house building tradition in Limerick?

wooden door that protected the entrance into the building. This then is the "typical" architectural layout and features that one might expect to find at a "typical" tower house. Within this framework, however, notable variations in format and detail occur. Samuel (1998), for example, has noted a number of buildings in West Cork which have entrances at first floor level. Nor do all tower houses have rectangular floor plans. At Castle Troy in County Limerick there is a unique use of space within a five-sided building and there is also a small group of round tower houses scattered across southern Ireland, as for example at Ballynahow, County Tipperary. Side towers can be incorporated into the plan, a feature that is found at many of the tower houses of North Leinster. Finally, at buildings such as Ballyvoghan and Castle Hewson, both in County Limerick, a straight mural flight of stone steps was favoured instead of a spiral staircase.

Though out the late medieval period Limerick had been under the control of the earls of Desmond, a powerful gaelicised Anglo-Norman family. In the late 16th century the earldom was abolished following an unsuccessful rebellion in the early 1580s against the English government's increasing encroachment on the family's power. Control of the county passed to the English government who initiated a "plantation" of new settlers from England onto the Desmond's forfeited lands in an event known as the "Munster Plantation". Society remained unstable, however, and another rebellion broke out during the 1590s. While this insurrection led to the overthrow of most of the new English settlements in the county, the rebels were eventually defeated by the English anny. The aftermath of this period of violence saw a slow re-establishment of the plantation and there followed a period of 40 years of relative peace before the Great Rebellion of the 1640s (Dunlop 1888; MacCarthy-Morrogh 1986). As mentioned previously, the tower house was designed to protect its occupants from petty raids, but changes had been occurring in warfare in Ireland during the course of the 16th century. After two centuries of localised, minor warfare, the Tudor reigns saw Irish battles gain a wider significance as the English government displayed a determination to bring the entire island under its control. This English intervention led to increasingly large armies being sent to Ireland to engage in military campaigns, such as during the Nine Years War in Ulster (1594-1603). The leader of Ulster's resistance, Hugh O'Neill, second earl of Ulster, was well-versed in military affairs and realised that his army would have to match that sent by the English government ifhe were to succeed. The estimated size of his army was 4,000 men armed with calivers and muskets, 1,000 pikemen and 1,000 horse - an equal to anything Elizabeth I could send to Ireland (Hayes-McCoy 1969, 110). As long as O'Neill fought a defensive war from his power-base in the familiar territory of his native Ulster all went well. It was, however, the disaster ofKinsale in 1601, far from home and in foreign terrain, which destroyed O'Neill and his Ulster field army. This single engagement effectively won the war for the English and wiped out all previous Irish gains since one side could no longer place an army in the field and the English were effectively given free reign throughout the island. In warfare such as this, where the stakes were so high, the tower house was of no real military consequence.

At the close of the medieval period Ireland was heavily populated with castles; an English document of 1515 claimed that there were no less than 500 castles throughout the country. Even today knowledge of the exact number of castles which existed on the late medieval landscape is by no means certain, though it has been estimated that the figure may lie anywhere between 2,900 (Leask 1951, 153-62) and 7,000 (Barry 2000, 119) examples. The majority of this corpus are assumed to have been tower houses and there is a notable concentration of castellated buildings present in the southern half of the country. At the start of the 20 th century the antiquarian Thomas J. Westropp (1907a) undertook a comprehensive survey of the castles in County Limerick based on the surviving historical documents, research which identified a corpus of 405 buildings. No castle was included without "unequivocal trace of the building remains, or a specific statement of its existence" from "a reliable record" (ibid., 72). The reliable records included the various Irish annals, Patent Rolls, Account Rolls, deeds, the English government surveys of the 16 th and 17 th centuries, cartographic sources, and contemporary depictions of the buildings. His comprehensive survey listed each castle by name with its relevant documentary references, townland by townland, parish by parish and barony by barony. Westropp's research acted as the baseline for a modem evaluation of the county's castelated heritage which was undertaken by the current author during the early 1990s (Donnelly 1994). This research involved a major field survey ofall the castles surviving within the boundaries of the county. Its results have shown that the location of only 194 castles can be identified with any degree of certainty on the modem landscape, and that 102 of these sites have either been totally demolished or have been substantially damaged. Fieldwork identified that tower houses survived in a good state of preservation at only 42 sites, a figure that was augmented by the damaged remains of a further 28 examples. Between the medieval period and 1840 (the date of the publication of the first edition Ordnance Survey map series for the county) there had evidently been a severe attrition rate among the castle population in Limerick to the extent that some 211 examples had vanished from the landscape leaving no record of their exact location. The definite locations of another 54 sites destroyed prior to the work of the Ordnance Survey in the

At a similar time heavy artillery was increasingly being used during sieges. While hand-guns and other anti-personnel firearms may have been used in the attack and defence of tower houses (the county's later buildings in the tradition are certainly provided with shot-holes and gun-loops), during the early 16th century the use of heavy artillery was not a common occurrence in Munster. The first definitive use of cannon came in 1536 when Lord Grey used cannons to attack O'Brien's Bridge and Carrigogunnell Castle, the latter with great effect (Brewer and Bullen 1867, 101-7). One of the major problems 8

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in using large ordnance in Ireland in the late 16th century, however, was the difficulties involved in transporting the pieces through a land with poor roads (McCormish 1969, 16). Carew, for example, brought his cannon to Glin Castle by boat from Limerick City in 1600. This particular incident indicates, however, the impact that a cannon could have on the masonry of a medieval building during a siege and how its presence could tip the advantage in the attackers' favour. The prospect of a 3,000-strong relief army probably gave the Irish garrison good heart for the fight but the urgency of the situation was not lost upon the English attackers. Their demicannon and saker played on the walls of the castle's hall and soon opened a breach through which the English soldiers entered the building and captured it. The defenders retreated into the tower house, but the English set fire to the wooden door leading onto the spiral staircase, a technique designed to smoke the garrison out. When the smoke cleared the English soldiers climbed the staircase in single file. They encountered no resistance, however, since the smoke had forced the Irish garrison to vacate the upper rooms in the building and ascend to the castle's parapet, where they were then cornered and massacred by the victorious English force (O'Grady 1896, 87-93).

developmental sequence of tower houses, during the late 16th and early 17th century. For two hundred years the Late Irish Gothic architectural style had held sway throughout Ireland, displaying elements of the English Decorated style (though modified for an Irish audience) that had reached Ireland from its neighbouring island in the period between 1300 and 1350 (McNeill 1985-86, 62; McNeill 1997, 173). This distinctive architectural style was remarkably uniform in its expression and can be seen at both ecclesiastic buildings (for example, friaries) and secular buildings (for example, tower houses) of the period. By the late 16th century and early 17th century, however, new architectural styles and features begin to be detected in the tower houses constructed during that time, especially so in southern Ireland. These changes indicate that the building series was evolving, and the tower houses built during what would be the last era of the tradition display characteristics that include tall gabled walls, cruciform roofs, and large mullioned, transomed and hood-moulded windows. In addition, there is greater provision of gun defences, with shot holes and tourelles. It would seem that the buildings take their architectural inspiration from the same source as the small corpus oflarge rectangular fortified houses with corner towers constructed between circa 1590 and circa 1650 ( Craig 1982, 116-22). Buildings such as Oola (Fig. 2), however, retain the verticality that is the essential element of the tower house. This is a tall, elegant four-storey building, well provisioned with fireplaces and wide windows, under a cruciform roof. Access to the upper floor levels was provided by a stone spiral staircase located in the building's south comer, a feature common in numerous earlier tower houses, but the building does not have vaults over any of its chambers. This lack of vaults is a feature to be found at a number of other late tower houses, including Kilduff (also in County Limerick), Knockgraffon (built 1603), Behanmore and Shanballyduff, all in County Tipperary, and Derryhivenny in County Galway (built in 1643). There is, however, a vault over the ground floor main chamber in Gortnetubbrid, County Limerick, the first floor main chamber at Loughlohery, County Tipperary, and the second floor main chamber at Nicholastown, County Tipperary. All the listed examples from County Tipperary, however, have wall-stairs rather than spiral staircases and in this respect they are similar to Limerick's Gortnetubbrid. The chimneys and gables at Derryhivenny are set back from the parapet wall-walk, thereby allowing complete access around the parapet circuit. At the other sites considered (in those cases where the evidence survives) this is not the case. Nor do Derryhivenny or Behanmore have cruciform roofs. In summary, the greatest levels of similarity are to be found between those buildings at Gortnetubbrid, Loughlohery and Nicholastown. While none of these tower houses may be identical, however, they are all immediately recognisable as belonging to the one architectural family. In light of the comments made at the start of this paper concerning Ireland's Late Gothic tower houses this revelation should come as no real surprise. Consideration of the architecture present at these late tower houses only confirms that tower houses are never identical, irrespective of when they were constructed.

The defences of the tower house were not designed to cope with either of these military developments and many buildings suffered heavily in the wars and sieges that occurred between 1579 and 1653. Following the endemic warfare of the 1640s the Cromwellian conquest of the island in 1653 saw a degree of stability return to a war-ravaged land. It also heralded a period of activity in the construction of new fortifications by the New Model Army as it set its seal on its military victory. In Limerick a number of tower houses, including Ballyvomeen and Gortnetubbrid, were reused as garrison points to hold open major roads and keep the countryside at peace (Westropp 1907b, 164). The county does not, however, have any surviving purpose-built citadels such as Ireton's Castle, County Tipperary, built between 1650 and 1654 (Kerrigan 1980, 5) and designed with specific reference to gun-defence. With large ordnance now concentrated solely in the hands of the New Model Army, the Cromwellians no doubt recognised the defensive strength that a re-edified but pre-existing tower house would provide against raids by Tories, the last vestiges oflrish resistance to the new order. It is estimated in one mid 17t1,century source that there were 350 garrisoned strongholds in Ireland in 1652 and that a further 100 would be required to guarantee security (Loeber and Parker 1995, 82). Where a tower house was reused in this way by the army, however, then a distinction must be made between the role the building played in the late medieval period when it was a defended home and centre of economic activity for its owner, and the role it performed in the mid-17 th century when it was a defended garrison point. The discussion so far has concentrated on one of two elements in the story of why Ireland's tower houses went into a decline during the early modern era and it would not be correct to believe that military changes alone brought about their eclipse. A review of the architecture for the period indicates that change was already afoot in society - changes reflected in a series of buildings which belong to the last phase of the

Clearly, however, these buildings do represent a degree of architectural change that was occurring in Ireland at this time, but where did the inspiration for this change originate? Efforts g

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government's representatives in Dublin. The wars of the 1640s had, however, caused severe damage to the country's building stock, with countless castles, houses and churches destroyed. This state of affairs is reflected in a Cromwellian document from 1654 which relates that nearly all of the country's houses had been damaged during those turbulent times, and that there was a scarcity of timber (Loeber 1973, 3). The Civil Survey records a total of 181 castles in Limerick, with 77 of this corpus (43% of the total) listed as ruinous, broken, out of repair, roofless, decayed, demolished or reduced to stumps by the mid 17th century. While it is possible that these were old, tired buildings that had fallen into natural disuse, it is equally possible that they had been ruined following their involvement in episodes of recent warfare (Donnelly, forthcoming). The political changes associated with the Cromwellian and Restoration period led to a more stable society but it also corresponded with major changes in land ownership. A new social hierarchy had been established, comprising in the main of new settlers who had either taken over forfeited estates or had purchased estates from indebted Irish landowners, and representatives of the old native families who had converted from Catholicism to Protestantism. By 1703 it is estimated that only 15% of the land remained in Catholic hands (Simms 1951). Following the Restoration in 1660 Ireland experienced a period of 25 years of peace that enabled a new level of prosperity to be reached. Sir William Petty estimated that the period between 1652 and 1673 had seen improvements in Ireland quadruple (Hull 1899, I, 197). This combination of a depleted building stock, new landowners, and an increase in levels of prosperity conspired to lead to an increase in building activity throughout the island in the late 17th century (Loeber 1973, 5). Tastes in architecture had, however, changed and even the splendid early 17th century rectangular fortified houses with their square comer towers, as exemplified by Kanturk, County Cork, had fallen out of favour; there was now a move towards buildings of simple rectangular plan (ibid., 32). This process of change can be seen at sites in Limerick such as Morgans, where a long, thin farmhouse was constructed in the late 17th century to replace a medieval castle. A document of 1603 reported "the town of Morgans, or Morergans with an old stone Castle and bawne" (Westropp 1907a, 207). The house stands in the west corner of a walled rectangular enclosure, presumably on the location where the castle once stood). The enclosure walls are 0.60 m thick except for a section along the north-east stretch which is 1.20 m thick and contains two latrine chutes and a small projecting tower. These features probably represent the remains of the castle's defensive bawn. Clearly, this period had witnessed the old drafty tower house lose its role as the principal form of lordly residence within society. For those with restricted financial resources, however, there could always be renovation. In the 18th century the owners of the tower house at Ballinahinch (Fig. 4) decided that they could transform a probable early 17th century building - similar perhaps to the tower house at Oola - to imitate a house of the new style. The original doorway in the eastern gable endwall at ground floor level was blocked up and a new entranceway punched through the fabric of the northern longwall. It is probable that the building originally had a cruciform roof but that the gables for this roof along the north and south walls were removed to facilitate the addition of a pitched roof,

have been made to find parallels and inspiration for the architecture of the fortified houses (and, by extension, the architecture of the late tower houses) in some English buildings of the period. Craig (1982, 118), however, is correct in his assertion that "they resemble each other more than any of them resembles anything else". Just as three centuries before Irish masons had adapted the English Decorated architectural style to produce their own very successful variation, perhaps this building series and its architecture simply reflect new renaissance concepts of symmetry and plan married to the pre-existing building traditions of the country and modified to suit an Irish environment. Howard (1995, 2-3) noted a similar situation in her study of Scotland's architecture of the period, where incoming renaissance ideas were blended with the country's older building traditions to produce a new but distinctly Scottish architectural style. Nor was this process unique to the British Isles; it occurred throughout Europe in the 16th century, with each region's indigenous building forms absorbing the new ideas from outside in a dialogue between tradition and innovation. The desire for defensive capability was evidently still apparent in these later tower houses but greater emphasise was now being placed on privacy, symmetry of plan and increased provision of heat and light. While Oola, Kilduff and Gortnetubbrid reflect the new architectural style within Limerick, the county does not have any examples of elaborate fortified houses of a style similar to that of Bumtcourt in County Tipperary or Kanturk in County Cork. There are, however, documentary references to two buildings which might have been of this type. An ambiguous statement in Fitzgerald and MacGregor's text (1826-27, I, 304-5) provides a very slight indication that the demolished building in the bawn at Rawleystown Court had towers at each of the four corners of the main block. In addition, the Cromwellian Civil Survey states that in "Ballynoemore" in the parish of "Killcomane" in the barony ofKenry there was "an intended stone worcke, or building of seaven foote heigh with foure towers" belonging to "Sir Geffrey Gollway, Baront late of Lymicke deceased Irish papist" (Simington 1938, 357). Had Sir Geoffrey Galwey been involved in constructing a new fortified house on his Limerick lands, perhaps one that was never completed due to the intervention of the wars of the 1640s? Even in those cases where an old tower house continued to be the main residence, however, there is evidence to suggest that the occupants were conscious of the new architectural concepts. Contempory pictorial representations of the county's castles from cartographic sources such as the Down Survey (Westropp 1907a, Plate Xlll) occasionally illustrate a tower house accompanied by an additional building, as for example at Ballybricken or Killacolla. While it remains a distinct possibility that some of these additional buildings may be halls of late medieval date, it is equally possible that they represent depictions of early modern buildings, similar to the ruins of those that still survive next a number of the tower houses in the county, including Carrigareely and Rathcannon (Fig. 3), or within the bawn of the tower house at Ballygrennan. Following the wars of the mid-17 th century political control of the country had passed firmly into the hands of the English 10

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thereby providing the building with a more house-like appearance. The hood moulds in the western gable betray the location ofa series ofblocked windows in this end-wall. The reason for their blocking was to provide more heat within the building since the entire end-wall now came to contain fireplaces for each of the four storeys in the modified building. A similar fate befell the tower house at Ballyvomeen (Fig. 5). The castle, its bawn and an orchard are reported in the Civil Survey (Simington 1938, 68) and this was one of the castles reoccupied by the New Model Army as a garrison in the 1650s (Westropp 1907b, 164). The building is of importance since it is an example of medieval architecture transformed for use as a vernacular building. The tower house has been cut down in height to just above ground floor level, the remaining structure being modified for use as a two-storey farmhouse. At ground floor level a later dwelling room and hallway have been added to the south, but elements of the medieval fabric remains intact and betray the origins of the building. The arched doorway continued to be used as the primary entrance into the modified building, its stonework now whitewashed over countless times. The external base batter survives along the south wall, as does an embrasure with its narrow ope now blocked. A second large embrasure is present in the east wall, its opening now widened to accommodate the insertion of a later window. The north wall contains a large fireplace, some 2.25 m wide, while a medieval carved head has been inserted into the same wall's external wall-face at eaves level. Oral history associated with this site relates that the tower house was cut down in height to form a three-storey building under a thatched roof, but that the building subsequently had another storey removed and a slate roof added to produce the two-storey house that stands today. It was used as accommodation for servants working on the farm before later becoming reused as the farmhouse. A castle is always a good address, however, and throughout Ireland many old tower houses were retained by their owners and adapted for continued residential use. The adaptation and transformation of tower houses during this period has been reviewed by McCullough (1994, 53-86) in a work which highlights the process of alteration and expansion, often "to absorb or soften the rude verticality of the castle" (ibid., 57). Palladian, Baroque or Romantic wings might be added to a medieval core, while within the tower house the rooms might be altered, floor levels changed, internal areas divided by new partitions and fireplaces inserted. In some cases the old building was almost totally absorbed into the new design. At Maidstown (Fig. 6), however, a plain 19th -century house was constructed beside a small four-storey tower house, reported in the Cromwellian Civil Survey as "a good castle", accompanied by a bawn, an orchard and "indifferent houses" (Simington 1938, 124). The architectural style of the large hood-moulded windows in the castle's south elevation would indicate that the tower house had been constructed at some period during the late 16th or early 17th century. When the new house was added to the fabric of the medieval residence access was provided by cutting a new doorway through the castle's east wall at ground floor level. Other alterations to the tower house included the blocking of the original entrance into the tower house in the south wall at ground floor level, with a window inserted into the opening. Nine of the ten large

hood-moulded windows in the tower house's south wall were blocked, its external face was dashed, and the internal walls plastered. Despite these changes, however, the extent of the 19th century refurbishments would seem to indicate that little real effort had been made to merge the medieval building with the early modern architecture. This may have been governed by a desire on the part of the owners not to hide to their neighbours the fact that they were living in a castle. The property has recently been purchased by new owners and, perhaps significantly, their first action was to demolish the 19th century house and replace it with a modem building, while renovating the medieval tower house (Denis Power 1999, pers comm). Maidstown was not alone in the county; elsewhere at Castle Garde the old tower house was renovated in the 1820s, with a two-storey castellated wing added to its east. During the same period of work the bawn walls were crenellated and an elaborate castellated gateway was constructed (de Breffny 1977, 74: Bence Jones 1990, 69). A similar situation occurred at Castle Matrix when in 1837 John Southwell Brown renovated the old tower house and had a two storey castellated wing added to the north of the medieval building to provide a new suite of rooms (O'Donovan 1840, II, 62-3). While the narrow opes in the tower house were widened to enable more light to enter the building, Southwell Brown's entire renovation placed sole emphasise on the medieval building as the centrepoint of the complex. Although a necessary addition, his new wing remains painfully unimposing in appearance when compared to the adjoining renovated tower house. More prosaic fates, however, awaited other tower houses. During the 19th century Rathurd - a cylindrical tower house and the only one of its type to survive in the county - had its upper storeys demolished to second floor level and the remaining structure re-roofed (Fig. 7). A new farmhouse was constructed against the southern side of the tower house and the original doorway into the castle was now used to enable communication at ground floor level between the old building and the new house. A second communication doorway was then punched through the southern wall at first floor level while a doorway inserted in the eastern wall allowed access from the tower house to the farmyard. The ground floor of the tower house had now become a storage area, while its upper floors were used for accommodating the farm's servants and workers. Clearly, adaptation could lead to survival, but for every tower house in the county which survives in a good state of preservation it should be noted that there are three castles of known location which have been demolished or severely damaged. This process of decline and destruction of the old architectural order also occurred within urban settings during the early modem period. The merchant class who lived in Irish medieval towns tended to construct urban tower houses to protect themselves, their families and their wares from raiders. Examples of these buildings still survive in a number of small towns, including Ardglass, County Down, and Carlingford, County Louth, but these are exceptional cases and many Irish towns of medieval have precious few survivals of their medieval building stock. In Limerick the town of Kilmallock was once a flourishing mercantile centre during the medieval period. Lack of patronage, absentee landlords and economic eclipse by nearby Charleville, however, led to

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its decay during the 17th century (O'Connor 1987, 51-63). In 1690 John Stevens wrote: "The ruins show it to have been a good town, the houses being of stone, lofty and large, but most of them ruined, and but few of those that remain inhabited" (Murray 1912, 189). The last of Kilmallock's fortified medieval merchants' houses, the 16th -century Sarsfield's House, was demolished during the early 1940s to be replaced by a cinema (Leask 1941, 73: Lee 1962-65, 150) Limerick City also had many fine urban tower houses in the late medieval period, described in 1574 as houses made of "quadrangular blocks of black marble and built in the style of towers or fortresses" (Bradshaw 1975, 47). The large houses in the city's historic Englishtown and Irishtown were left to fall into decay, however, during the 19th century when the merchant class who had resided in them moved out to new suburbs such as Newtown Pery, "and the poor were left without resources to make repairs to what had become old houses" (Hill 1991, 65). While the truncated remains of two buildings from the late medieval period still exist (Bourke's House and Farming's Castle), the city lost a major intact tower house at the end of the 19th century when Galwey's Castle in Nicholas Street was demolished (Barry 1894, 386-9). Dating to the years around 1600 this building was mentioned in the Civil Survey as "a great stone house" (Simington 1938, 403) which evidently received renovation in the later 17th century when it had a brick curvilinear and pedimented front gable (known as a "Dutch Gable") added to its front elevation (Craig 1982, 157-58). The building also, however, had the misfortune of being known by an alternative name - Ireton 's House. Lord Deputy General Henry Ireton had led the successful Cromwellian siege of the city in 1651 and local tradition claimed that he had resided in the house during his stay in Limerick and prior to his death on 26th November of that year (McMains 2000, 29-59). In addition, the same local tradition held that seven eminent Irish leaders, exempted from mercy after the fall of the city, were supposed to have been hung out of one of the windows in the south gable. Despite protests from local antiquarians, late 19th century politics in the city dictated that it was better that the house be demolished since "it was undesirable that it should be preserved as a memorial ofa man of infamous memory" (Barry 1894, 389).

The erosion of Limerick's castellated heritage, however, remains a continuing process and the county's tower houses remain under siege today from the combined effects of neglect, frost-damage, stone robbing and vandalism. The tower house in Ballybricken South, for example, remained a substantial building until the 1960s when it was judged to be unsafe and had its upper floor levels blown down using explosives. The fallen masonry was then used for field drains. In addition, the last remaining vestiges of Cullam Castle, its north-east corner, were finally demolished during 1998. At Caherelly West the tower house was used as a barn until some fifty years ago when the west and south walls collapsed, bringing down all the vaults within the building. The threat of further masonry collapse at this delightful building is very real since there is a gapping crack running up the external face of the building's east wall. The story is similar, however, outside the boundaries of Limerick. At Drominagh, County Tipperary, the south corner of a magnificent tower house collapsed due to frostdamage at Christmas 1978 and a similar event recently occurred in County Clare at Urlanmore, an incident reported within the pages of Archaeology Ireland in 1999. In the face of this slow but steady erosion of their numbers, it becomes clear that those buildings that have survived the centuries represent an important resource that should be treasured by the nation and given assistance in their preservation either through state intervention, private enterprise or local community-based initiatives.

As stated previously, of the 405 castle sites recorded in the historical documentation the location of 194 castle sites can still be traced on the Limerick landscape. Of that number, however, 102 have been demolished or severely damaged over the centuries. Grange is typical of many castles within this unfortunate corpus, with grass-covered stone foundation courses all that remain to mark the location of the building. The tower house at Baggotstown was of probable early 17th century date. It was visited and sketched by the antiquarian John O'Donovan in 1840 but the building was demolished in 1947 to make the foundation fill for a new road nearby. O'Donovan's sketch survives, however, and it depicts the building's east and south walls, the north and west walls having already collapsed. There was a gable surviving on the south wall with similar gables on the north, east and south walls of the north-east corner tower. The tower and main block were of one build and, as such, this sketch enables us to determine Baggotstown as a tower house with an L-shaped plan, the only example of its kind known to have existed in the county.

Brewer, J.S., and Bullen, W., 1867: Calendar of the Carew Manuscripts preserved in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth, Longman, Green, Reader & Dyer, London.

References Barry, J.G., 1894: "Galwey's Castle, known as Ireton's House, Limerick", Journal of the Royal Society a/Antiquaries of Ireland 4, 386-89. Bany, T., 2000: "Rural settlement in Medieval Ireland", A History of Settlement in Ireland, edited by T. Barty, 110-23, Routledge, London and New York. Bence Jones, M., 1990: A Guide to Irish Country Houses, Second Edition, Constable, London. Bradshaw, B., 1975: "Fr. Wolfe's description of Limerick City, 1574", North Munster Antiquarian Journal 17, 47-53.

Craig, M., 1982: The Architecture ofirelandfrom the earliest times to 1880, Batsford, London. De Breffny, B., 1977: Castles of Ireland, Thames and Hudson, London. Donnelly, C.J., 1994: The Tower Houses of County Limerick, two volumes, unpublished PhD thesis, the Queen's University of Belfast. Donnelly, C.J., forthcoming: "Tower houses and Late Medieval Secular Settlement in County Limerick", Settlement and Landscape in Gaelic Ireland, c.1350- c.1600, edited by P.Dutly, D. Edwards and E. FitzPatrick. Dunlop, R., 1888: "The Plantation of Munster, 1584-1589", English Historical Review 3, 250-69. Fitzgerald, P.J., and McGregor, J., 1826-27: Histo1y of Limerick, two volumes, George McKern, Dublin.

Colm

Donnelly: Decline and Adaptation: Tho Modioval Irish Tower House in Early Modem County Limerick

Hayes-McCoy, G.A., 1969: Irish Battles: A Military History of Ireland, Appletree Press, Belfast.

McNeill, T.E., 1997: Castles in Ireland: Feudal Power in a Gaelic World, Routledge, London and New York.

Hill, J., 1991: The Building of Limerick, Mercier Press, Dublin & Cork.

Murray, R.H., 1912: The Journal of John Stevens, containing a briefaccount of the War in Ireland, 1689-1691, Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Howard, D., 1995: The Architectural History of Scotland: Scottish Architecture.fi'om the Reformation to the Restoration, 1560-1660, Edinburgh University Press Ltd, Edinburgh. Hull, C.H., 1899: The Economic Writings a/Sir William Petty, two volumes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Kerrigan, P.M., 1980: "Seventeenth-century fortifications, forts and garrisons in Ireland: A Preliminary List", The Irish Sword 14, 324; 135-56. Leask, H.G., 1941: "Sarsfield's House, Kilmallock", Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society 46, 73-5. Leask, H.G., 1951: Irish Castles and Castellated Houses (Revised Edition), Dundalgan Press, Dundalk. Lee, G.A., 1962-65: "Medieval Kilmallock", Antiquarian Journal 9, 145-54.

North Munster

Loeber, R., 1973: "Irish Country Houses and Castles of the Late Caroline Period: An unremembered Past Recaptured", Quarterly Bulletin of the Irish Georgian Society 16. l & 2, 1-69. Loeber, R., and Parker, G., 1995: "The military revolution in seventeenth-century Ireland", Ireland from Independence to Occupation, 1641-1660, edited by J. Ohlmeyer, 66-88, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. MacCarthy-Morrogh, M., 1986: The Munster Plantation: English Migration to Southern Ireland, 1583-1641, Clarendon Press, Oxford. McCullough, N., 1994: Palimpsest: Change in the Irish Building Tradition, Anne Street Press, Dublin.

O'Connor, P., 1987: Exploring Limerick's Past - An Historical Geography of Urban Development in County and City, Oireacht na Mumhan Books, Newcastle West. O'Donovan, J., 1840: Letters containing information relative to the Antiquities of the County of Limerick, collected during the progress of the Ordnance Survey in 1840, edited by Rev. M. Flanagan in 1929, two unpublished typescript volumes, Bray. O'Donovan, J., 1848-56: The Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters from the earliest period to the year 1616, Hodges and Smith, Dublin. O'Grady, S., 1896: Pacata Hibernia, two volumes, Downey & Co. Ltd., London. Samuel, M., 1998: "A tentative chronology for tower houses in West Cork", Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society 103, 105-24. Simington, R.C., 1938: The Civil Survey AD 1654-56: VolumeFour: County of Limerick, Irish Manuscripts Commission, Dublin. Simms, J.G., 1951: "Land owned by Catholics in Ireland in 1688", Irish Historical Studies 7, 180-90. Simms, K., 1975: "Warfare in Medieval Gaelic Lordships", The Irish Sword 12, 98-108. Thompson, M., 1987: The Decline of the Castle, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

McMains, H.F., 2000: The Death a/Oliver Cromwell, The University Press of Kentucky, Kentucky.

Westropp, T.J., 1907a: "The Ancient Castles of the County of Limerick", Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 26C, 55108; 143-200; 201-64.

McNeill, T.E., 1985-86: "Church building in fourteenth-century Ireland and the 'Gaelic Revival'", Journal of Irish Archaeology 3, 61-64.

Westropp, T.J., 1907b: "The Principal Ancient Castles of the County of Limerick", Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 37, 24-40; 153-64.

Arc haeology of Buildio9s

Fig. 1 - Rockstown Castle

Fig. 2 - Oola Castle

14

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Donnelly: Decline and Adaptation: Tho Modioval Irish Tower House in Early Modem County Limerick

Fig. 3 - RathcannonCastle

Fig. 4 - BallinahinchCastle 5

Arc haeology and Buildinos

Fig. 5 -

Fig. 6 -

Ballyvorneen

Maidstown Castle

16

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Donnelly: Decline and Adaptation: Tho Modioval Irish Tower House in Early Modem County Limerick

r

I

Fig. 7 - Rathurd Castle

Bob Edwards: Buildings Archaeology in En9land:

the Foundations in Placo?

BUILDINGS ARCHAEOLOGY IN ENGLAND: ARE THE FOUNDATIONS IN PLACE? Bob Edwards

repository for archaeological data generated through planning conditions and research (DoE, 1990) and should be regarded as the natural home of archaeological information about buildings although not necessarily for the complete drawn archive (Molyneux 1994, 161-2). However, SMRs often treat historic buildings very differently to other archaeological data. Some SMRs do not include standing historic buildings whilst others contain information on particular building types, for example, medieval churches or manor houses, or buildings that fall within a set date range, and only a few SMRs contain information about all the listed buildings of their area.

Introduction Buildings Archaeology is a re-emerging and increasingly debated area of the archaeological profession. However, there are serious concerns regarding the way that archaeological and architectural information about historic buildings, particularly vernacular buildings, is both generated and managed. There is often a conception that buildings archaeology and building conservation are two entirely separate fields with little relevance to each other but this is far from the truth. The appropriate use of archaeological recording can usefully inform the decision making process when dealing with proposals affecting historic buildings, whilst poorly collected and managed data can jeopardise the conservation of one of the most visible aspects of our heritage. Building recording undertaken within a research framework will also assist in developing a better understanding of the built environment in archaeological terms. Research frameworks, quality data and good data management are essential foundation stones in any research into and curation of the historic built environment.

In Hampshire historic buildings have, until recently, been selected by both date and function for inclusion in the SMR so that only religious, pre-1600 domestic buildings, postmedieval industrial and military buildings are included. The reasoning behind the use of a cut-off date is that the pre-1600 buildings serve as an indication of medieval settlement more than representing important archaeological entities in their own right. But, as will be discussed below, the available information on the dates ofbuildings can be grossly inaccurate resulting in buildings containing medieval fabric being dated to the post-medieval period in the lists and so being excluded from the SMR. Other factors, such as the resource implications of creating SMR records for all listed buildings in the county and the experience of the staff, may have also influenced the original selection of which buildings to be included.

This paper will aim to examine: • Where and how data about historic buildings is held • The quality of the existing data • The generation of data • The future of historic buildings data management

Hampshire County Council has also maintained a separate computer database of listed buildings based on the information in the List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest published by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The list is organised on a parish basis within district or unitary authority areas and uses the address as the principal identifier. The County Council is the only authority that holds the listfor the whole ofHampshire. The lists are statutory documents and are accompanied by

Current Data Storage Archaeologists in Britain are familiar with Sites and Monument Records (SMRs ), maintained by county, unitary or district authorities, and are accepted as being both a planning tool and research resource. SMRs are the recognised 9

Arc haeology and Buildinos

non-statutory listing maps, usually at 1:10,000 scale, on which the location of listed buildings are marked with the reference number which accompanies the description in the list. The DCMS do not supply a grid reference or a map extract when a building is added to the list and the scale of the listing maps held by the local authorities often make it difficult to accurately identify a buildings location. Therefore, when details on listed buildings were added to the database there was usually d(fficulty in generating accurate grid references. The database was created before the arrival of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and so there was no appreciation of the level of accuracy that would one day be required. This means that when the data is viewed through GIS the point for a listed building might land in the street near-by, or worse on another, unlisted, building effectively rendering the GIS capability useless for historic buildings on anything but a very general level. This problem is not unique to Hampshire - it exists in some other SMRs that carry historic building data. The County Council is currently addressing thisproblem and is checking the details of every listed building in the county to ensure that the name, address,parish, map reference number and grid reference are correct, and informing the DCMS where there have been changes affecting the statutory lists.

generally (ALGAO 1999, 21). It is clear that there is a sign(ficant proportion of SMRs that do not consider that they have a role to play in the management of data regarding historic buildings. The report also acknowledged the difficulties of the two tier local government system and the fact that 'the lack of systematic documentation for the conservation of historic buildings is becoming increasingly untenable' (ibid., 47).

Quality of Data For anyone interested in historic buildings the principle source of information is the statutory list, which provides the address, grade, date and a short description of the building. The process by which most listed buildings were selected normally involved an external inspection only and so older buildings hidden behind later facades may have been either missed completely from the list or were incorrectly described and dated. The list description is provided for identification purposes only and is not meant to be a comprehensive or exclusive record about the history and development of a particular building (DoE/DNH 1994, 28). It is argued that the rapid listing surveys achieved the most important aim of protecting the buildings and that more detailed information can be obtained during grant or listed building consent works (Ward 1991, 21). Until data management systems capable of handling historic building records are developed the lists will remain the primary source of information.

Archaeological advice regarding development proposals is often supplied to district councils by the county council, which maintains the SMR. In the case of listed buildings development control advice is more often available from conservation ofjzcers employed by the district councils themselves. However, many district councils do not have a system where architectural or archaeological information about historic buildings can be stored, easily interrogated and the information retrieved. If recording is called.for by the conservation officer, either to inform the decision making process or as the mitigation strategy, where does the subsequent archive get deposited? Planning Policy Guidance Note 15 (PPG 15) remains silent on where such new information should be deposited (DoE/DNH 1994). In a.few cases a copy is sent to the county SMR but the.frequent lack of an equivalent system at district level means that (f the county SMR does not accept data on historic buildings or links between authorities have not been developed, the surveys may end up in the general planning files or in a box under the conservation officers desk. The question as to what happens to records generated by building recording and the need for appropriate record systems has been previously identified (Molyneux, 1991, 29; ALGAO 1997, 9). The important role of the National Monuments Record (NMR) is accepted but there is a need.for the data to also be closer to the people who regularly need to use it. At present there is little understanding of how much information is held in the NMR that is relevant to Hampshire and the county council does not get informed when emergency building recording has been undertaken nor a copy of the survey. At a local level, the d(fficulties of SMRs not accepting information about buildings or dealing with that information in a structured way has not been.fully explored. A recent survey ofSMRs in England revealed that 72% of SMRs consider they have a direct role in archaeological buildings analysis but only 29% felt the same about listed building consent applications

Another criticism of the list is the way that several buildings are often dealt with in one entry. This may be acceptable when dealing with a single-phase terrace but in many cases the buildings within the one entry are of varying periods and styles. This problem can be illustrated by a row ofbuildings in Chesil Street, Winchester (Figure 1). A row of seven houses are described together in just three and a halflines in the list which describes them as being eighteenth-century in date. On further inspection one of the houses was found to contain a king-post roof that has been dated through dendrochronology to 1292/3 (Roberts 1996). Also within this 'eighteenthcentury' row are at least two other medieval houses, one has a lap joint that may also indicate the remnants of very early framing survive, the other a hall house with smoke-blackened rafters. The holding of information about historic buildings in databases is one issue, being able to interrogate the databases effectively is another. The historic building database held by Hampshire County Council had a classification system of broad and narrow terms. For example, a barn would have the broad term AGRICULTURE and the narrow term BARN. The system was only capable of holding one broad and one narrow term which of course did not allow for the fact that there are often changes in the use of buildings, for example, mills and barns get converted to houses, some country houses have become hotels or offices etc. In some instances such changes have led to a barn being entered as AGRICULTURAL - HOUSE when it should have been either AGRICULTURAL - BARN (previous use) or DOMESTIC -

20

Bob Edwards: Buildings Archaeology in En9land:

HOUSE (current use). Either way important information about the function of the building is lost. The SMR was not any better. The majority of medieval buildings in Hampshire are timber-framed but unfortunately some of the terms used to classify the buildings were useless. How does a 'Regular timber-framed building' differ from an 'Irregular timberframed building' and what do these terms mean?

the Foundations in Placo?

Hampshire the County Archaeologist and his staff provide development control advice to all but two of the districts of the county. Those two districts have their own archaeological curators to provide advice on planning applications. The situation is different with regard to historic buildings. Conservation officers, employed at district level, deal with listed building consent applications, some of which do not require planning permission. The Hampshire County archaeological curators generally do not get involved in listed building consent applications or planning applications affecting standing structures. It is, therefore, left to the district conservation officers to determine whether sufficient information has been provided by the applicant to enable an informed determination, whether there is an archaeological implication to the proposed works, and if there is a need for recording.

Most of the data held on buildings relates to listed buildings. However, there are many buildings that are important historic structures that contain valuable archaeological information but which do not fulfil the criteria far being added to the statutory list. Listed buildings are those that are deemed to be of national importance because of their 'special architectural or historic interest' but where does the medieval house that has been so altered that is does not meet the requirements for listing fit into the picture? That building may still contain important archaeological information but lies almost completely outside the current data sources.

Richard Morris pointed out that building recording can fulfil some of the needs of conservation officers requiring information to inform decisions about repair but asked the question 'why should it be archaeological recording?' (Morris 1994, 18). Historic buildings can have many audiences (ibid.) and no one group can or should claim that their needs or aims outweigh those of other groups. Indeed, the various interested parties should look for points of mutual interest. Building recording is an area where building archaeologists and building conservationists can learn to assist each other, but the different perspectives, aims and needs of each party need to be understood. Conservation officers are drawn from a variety of backgrounds but are usually architects or planners by training. Archaeology is unlikely to have formed a significant part of their training, and these disciplines do not have the culture of collecting and analysing data in the way that archaeologists are trained to do. This is not intended as a criticism - it is a fact that needs to be understood by archaeologists who may expect conservation officers to think about the resource in archaeological terms. The sometime lack of an appreciation by conservation officers for the importance of data often leads to the charges that archaeologists involved in building recording are collecting data for the sake of it, whilst archaeologists can find it difficult to accept what may be regarded as disinterest in the context of historic buildings or data about buildings in general.

Figures 2 and 3 show two late medieval houses of very similar style, plan form and date. The two houses lie next to each other, separated only by a small paddock (which contains earthworks suggesting that there was once a building between them). One house is Grade II listed (Figure 2), the other (Figure 3) has no other than normal planning restrictions. The unlisted house appears to have substantial remains oftimberframing surviving and it is likely that the roof is original but there has been an extension to the front elevation which, admittedly, is not really in character with the rest of the property. The precise reasons why this building was not selected for listing are not known but alterations such as the extension are likely to have contributed to the decision. Because the building was not listed, despite its clear medieval origins, there is no record of it in the SMR. What happens when a listed building is removed from the list either because of demolition or alteration? When a listed cruck house in the west of Hampshire was destroyed by fire and subsequently de-listed the response was to delete all reference to it in the database.

Generation of Data

So how should archaeologists go about convincing conservation officers that there is a need to gain a greater understanding about the archaeology of buildings and that it is not just recording for the sake of it? This is where the research framework has a vital role to play in that it is through the research frameworks that archaeologists can justify their recording. Such agendas can have been produced for most aspects of archaeology at both national (English Heritage, 1991) and local levels (for example, Hinton and Hughes, 1996) both of which make brief mention of historic buildings but more detailed and wider ranging frameworks are required. Do archaeologists really know what information they want out of the fabric of historic buildings? If so, this needs to be communicated to the conservation officers together with how it could be obtained with their help and what benefits they can get from the archaeological recording of buildings.

It is not intended to discuss in detail the differences and merits in the application of Government Planning Policy Guidance Notes 16 and 15 (PPG 16 and PPG 15) (DoE 1990; DoE/ DNH 1994) in relation to building recording as part of the consent for works process here. However, the way that records are generated is pertinent to the way that data is eventually handled. The majority of archaeological data generated in this country is as a result of conditions being applied through PPG 16 (DoE, 1990) to planning applications on the advice of a local government archaeologist. He or she will have used the SMR to inform the decision and new data arising from the archaeological work undertaken as part of the development process is reported back to the SMR. For example, in 21

Arc haeology and Buildings

One clear benefit of good data and data management is the ability to clearly define and understand what it is we are trying to conserve and why (Stocker 1994, 3). The existing systems for handling historic buildings data rarely allow an analysis of the relative importance of particular building types or features within any given area simply because it would be so time consuming to even locate the buildings that have a particular attribute in the first place. Without being able to characterise the historic building stock how can local authorities begin to produce and support policies on how the resource should be managed at a strategic level? Well informed policies are required if the increasingly scarce financial resources are to be directed to the points of greatest need. Without keeping records in systems that allow useful interrogation we cannot begin to assess the rate ofloss of any particular building type or style. For example, in Hampshire it has been decided that long straw thatch was the vernacular thatching tradition in Hampshire and it was perceived that it was being threatened by its replacement with combed wheat reed or water reed. A policy was created whereby the council will only grant aid the use of long straw. Due to the lack of data in a form that can be easily manipulated we can not make definitive observations about the state of the long straw thatch resource. We can not say exactly how many buildings in Hampshire are thatched or effectively demonstrate to the Members of the County Council that the use oflong straw is in decline, whether the policy is working or whether there are so few buildings left with long straw thatch roofs that extra efforts should be made to avoid the complete disappearance of the long straw thatching tradition. It is only within the last few years that any major work on the history and development of thatching nationally has been undertaken that can be used to understand the thatching traditions and developments at a local level (Moir and Letts, 1999; Letts, 1999). Thatch also is an archaeological resource. Long straw and combed wheat reed thatching often encourage the build-up of layers of thatch of different dates. In some cases the underside of the thatch is blackened from the rising smoke of a fire in a one-time medieval hall house. There would be little doubt that the suggested removal of smoke blackened timbers ofa medieval roof would be strongly opposed by conservation officers but smoke blackened thatch (SBT) is almost certainly being lost without record. Conservation officers from the County Council have, in the past, found examples of SBT but in most cases the DCMS have not been requested to update the list description to reflect what must surely be regarded as part of the 'special architectural or historic interest' of the building. Such demonstrably medieval thatch can provide important information about the agricultural practices and environment of the area in the medieval period - if the opportunity to sample and record it when it is found could be taken. This requires an understanding of the archaeological potential of the thatch by conservation officers who are most likely to encounter this feature. The publication of Smoke Blackened Thatch (Letts 1999) has raised the awareness of the archaeological importance of this relatively rare resource clear to everyone involved in working with historic buildings.

The Future At a national level, the lead bodies and government departments need to accept that if local authority curators, whether conservation officers or archaeologists are going to make the best decisions for historic buildings they must be supplied with accurate data. This may be achieved through improving the list descriptions or by continuing to encourage the development of appropriate recording systems. English Heritage is the key player in facilitating communication between the archaeological and conservation worlds to ensure that some of the current mis-understandings and difficulties are over-come to the benefit of both disciplines and, most importantly, for historic buildings. The need for research frameworks is clear. In the current environment it is not enough to demand that archaeological recording of buildings be undertaken without a clear expression of exactly why the recording is required and how it fits into the research objectives of the discipline. Frameworks need to be developed at national and local levels.

Hampshire County Council is actively working to improve both the data available by commissioning surveys to address specific problems such as the recognition and dating of timber:framed buildings concealed behind laterfacades. The historic building data is being amalgamated with the county SMR utilising exeGeslS' SMR to create the Hampshire Heritage Record (HRR). The new software incorporates the Thesaurus for Monument Types and a materials thesaurus developed by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England and will assist in the recording of information about historic buildings to a national standard. However, it is recognised that recording and data is not an end in itself (Grenville 199 7, 13) but that the well managed and accessible data should be a starting point for many avenues of enquiry and a greater understanding of the historic built environment. The questions could rangefrom the social use of space or what strategic policies should be developed to protect those buildings or styles that are considered to be important to the county. The marriage of the two data sets, together with the use of GIS will hopefully put historic buildings on the archaeological map of the county. There is a need for greater communication between archaeologists and conservation officers. Archaeologists need to make the conservation officers aware of what it is they want to know, how their aims can be achieved and how the conservation officers can benefit from the involvement of archaeologists. Archaeologists need to review the handling of historic building data. If suitable repositories for this information can be developed that can allow data to be easily retrieved then conservation officers may, gradually, become more willing to co-operate by sharing the data they gather and generate and use them to obtain information to help them with their decision making. From the solid foundations of proficient data management and well structured research frameworks the field of buildings archaeology can develop and begin to really show its true to value.

Bob Edwards: Buildings Archaeology in En9land :

the Foundations in Placo?

References

Moir, J, and Letts, J, Thatch Thatching in England 1790-1940 English Heritage Research Transactions 5 English Heritage

ALGAO, 1997, Analysis and recording for the conservation and control of works to historic buildings Association of Local Government Archaeological Officers

Molyneux, NA D, 1991, 'English Heritage and Recording: Policy and Practice' in Recording Hist01ic Buildings RCHME 24-30

ALGAO, 1999 An Assessment of English Sites and Monuments Records Report 97/20 Association of Local Government Archaeological Officers

Molyneux, NA D, 1994 'Targeted Recording: Secular Buildings' in Wood, J [Ed] Buildings Archaeology Applications in Practice Oxbow Monograph 43 155-162

DoE. 1990, Planning Policy Guidance Note 16: Archaeology and Planning HMSO

Morris, R, 1994 'Buildings Archaeology' in Wood, J [Ed] Buildings Archaeology Applications in Practice Oxbow Monograph 43 1321

DoEIDNH, 1994, Planning Policy Guidance Note 15: Planning and the Historic Environment HMSO

Roberts, E, 1996 'A Thirteenth-Century King-Post Roof at Winchester, Hampshire' in Vernacular Architecture 27, 65-8

English Heritage, 1991, Exploring Our Past Strategies for the Archaeology of England English Heritage

Stocker; D, 1994 'Introduction: Understanding What We Conserve' in Wood, J [Ed] Buildings Archaeology Applications in Practice Oxbow Monograph 43 1-9

Grenville, J, 1997Medieval Housing Leicester University Press HMSO, 1993 Planning Policy Guidance Note 15

Hinton, DA, & Hughes, M, 1996 Archaeology in Hampshire: A Framework for the Future Hampshire County Council Letts, J B, 1999 Smoke Blackened Thatch English Heritage and The University of Reading

Ward, A, 1991, 'The Listing of Historic Buildings' in Recording Historic Buildings RCHME 18-23

The views expressed in this paper are entirely the authors, and are not necessarily those of Hampshire County Council.

Fig. 1

Arc haeology and Buildinos

Fig. 2

Fig. 3

24

Dragos Ghcorghiu: The Arc haeology of Space: Ritual and Metaphor

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF SPACE: RITUAL AND METAPHOR Dragos Gheorghiu

An "archaeology of buildings", as the subject of the present book, is an opportunity to bring to light a topic so far generally neglected, that of the difference between the archaeology of "construction" and the archaeology of "architecture" or of "space". Could a building be analyzed as an archaeological artefact (i.e., described in context), or does it imply a different approach?

25), that is "a process of symbolic action focussed upon the body [that permits] ( ...) performers of the ritual passage [to] find and resituate themselves in cosmological space" (Werbner 1989: 1). A ritual is a "repetitive, ordered performance of certain embodied actions attached to social values and purposes." (Strathern and Stewart (1998: 237-238) and could be identified after its "structuring" into sequences and hierarchies that are in a symbolic relationship (see Riviere 1996: 233).

An answer could come from a tentative definition of"space". Architectural space could be perceived as the phenomenological result of the configurational and symbolic relationships between building, fixed and mobile objects, and human body (see also Tilley 1994: 14) throughout the performance of a rite of passage, set by the boundaries of the constructive elements. This definition pleads for an evocative approach to architectural space, as the phenomenological nature of space is to avoid description/representation.

Among the rituals related to buildings, the rite of passage is simultaneously the most visible and invisible for the archaeologist. Generally the identification of ritual in the archaeological record is a difficult task for the archaeologist, therefore it is recommended to use indirect evidence such as that "reflected in the art or iconography or decorations or images" (Colin Renfrew 1997: 52). All this indirect evidence is related to rites of passage under the shape of "attention focusing devices reflected in the architecture [...] and in movable equipment" (Renfrew and Bahn 1991: 359-360; Renfrew 1997: 51).

In order to identify the way people experiment space, phenomenological attempts to "put people back into the space of the past" (Thomas 1993: 74) have been made in the recent years, but there were debates focused mainly on landscape (Bender 1993; Tilley 1994; Tilley 1994; Johnston 1998; Nash 1997), or on environmental spaces (see also Johnston 1998: 315) as megaliths (Thomas 1993) or causeways enclosures (Edmonds 1993).

Ritual

The rites of passage are structured into three sequences (van Gennep 1969: 25) of important symbolic power: separation, transition (or liminality) and re-incorporation. The limen (Turner 1967) or threshold is metaphorically associated to '"death and rebirth"', because "the individual in the former category 'dies' and is 'reborn' into the new category" (Rosman and Rubel 1998: 229). The threshold dimensions determines the kind of re-incorporation space, bidimensional, as a separation plan, or tridimensional as a corridor, in this case the length of the liminal space separating two antagonistic spaces allowing the performer to prepare psychically to resituate himself/herselfinto a new space (cf. Werbner (1989: 1).

The first step in the evocation of an architectural space is the study of its generative rite of passage (van Gennep 1969:

One can conclude that space is generated by the relationship between human agency and the bi- and tridimensional

Considering the complexity and resistance to description of the architectural space, the aim of the present approach is the identification, in the archaeological remains of a prehistoric society, of material evidence that could store such elaborate information.

25

Arc haeology and Buildinos

architectural elements that delimit passage and action as a plan of separation between two symbolically different areas. The decoration of the separation plan between spaces with different social value and signification (see also Edmonds 1993: 111) produced a psychological effect on the visual perception of the person entering that space (see also Thomas 1993: 87), which can be compared to the 'jump" in punctuated equilibrium theory (Gould and Eldredge 1977). Meanings, "crucial" (Strathern and Stewart 1998: 237) in a ritual of passage, could be communicated through physical actions and spoken words but also by means of "attention focusing devices" (Renfrew and Bahn 1991: 359-360; Renfrew 1997: 51 ), of which the most common are the entrances and doors.

157), and in the anthropomorphization of the two vertical elements that delimit a "passage", whose symbolic interpretation could be that of "protection" or "interdiction of the passage" (see also Granet 1968). A survey of the documentation on entrances through history provides strong evidence of anthropomorphic images in relation to the separation plan. Additional arguments in favour of embodiment come from the "face-like" entrances that visualize the "jll111p"of passage as a swallow, and from the tight link of the passage with two fundamental ritual moments in human life, i.e., wedding and death (Marian 1995), the latter being associated symbolically with "threshold" and "passage". Finally, the separation plan of the entrance generates a special form of embodiment that is group identity between "us" and "them" (Paul-Levy and Segaud 1983; Kaufmann 1996: 281).

Entrances and doors

Space analysis through objects and metaphors

The interior-exterior antinomy generated by a built space sets a rite of passage materialized architecturally as entrances and doors. Every entrance materializes a liminal zone under the minimal shape of threshold and door frame, and under the extended shape of covered passages or corridors, which could be perceived from a ritualistic perspective as separation frames with an extended width. In every pre-modern facade, the entrance and door were the most important architectural elements, as one could infer from their attributes as proportion, width, decoration, positioning in the facade plan. A survey of the literature through history provides strong evidence that pre-modern architects established rhetorical relationships between the dimension of parts of the building, especially in doors and entrances (Ruskin 1851: 158). Other relationships formed a special case of embodiment between the building and human body (Wittkower 1971 ).

How can the analysis of entrances and doors help the archaeologist to understand the spaces of prehistoric societies? A rhetorical analysis of the dimensional importance of passages and of the liminal space or of the decoration in relation to the other dimensions or decorations of the building, operating in a historical society does not offer in this case enough data to allow the evocation of spaces. Such a comparative approach is also invalidated by the insufficiency of available material in the archaeological record. Taking into consideration these disadvantages, I believe that an operative method of ritual analysis ( and subsequently of space) would be an analysis of the rhetoric of the objects that are in some relation to the rites of passage. Ceramic objects, which could be better preserved than buildings in the archaeological record, store that kind of ethnographic information that only living informants could provide, referring to space for example.

There is more to rhetoric than relationships in the separation plan; a heavy monumental door, a high threshold, a large entrance width, a decorated lintel, or accessories such as hammers, door handles, or hinges are metonymies of the quality of the space of reincorporation separated by the door plan. Such "attention-focusing devices" (Renfrew and Bahn 1991: 359) are evidenced in the entrance's design through time, as written ( Gilgamesh Epic first tablet: 11-14) or archaeological sources indicate (Dumitrescu 1979: fig. 169). Aside from the rhetorical examples mentioned, there is another case of metonymy that reduces all architectural evidence to a separation plan, transforming the reincorporation space into a virtual space. Such rhetorical operation is to be found in the "triumphal arch", which persuades the passers-by that they have entered a virtual space instead of a real one.

One explanation for this attribute would be that ceramic objects are able to represent beside the skeuomorphic reality also metaphoric images that could model the mental imagery and therefore the visual perception (Finke 1990: 188). A survey of the European buildings of the last seven millennia, from Chalcolithic up to Early Modernism at the beginning of the twentieth century AD, reveals the perpetuation of two metaphors that obviously influenced visual perception, a dominant one the "building-as-human-body" and a subordinate one, the "domesticated-Nature", the latter being materialized mostly in objects that metonymically evoked domesticated and wild animals and plants. There is the same rhetorical idea in a Chalcolithic stool (preserved as a ceramic miniature), as well as in a Roman, a Renaissance or a Neoclassical one, which displayed parts of a buck or a ram in a functional object. Since in prehistoric societies the metaphors discussed were materialized in ceramic objects, it is the task of the archaeologist to identify the rhetorical links between these and the buildings' remains and to evoke space.

Entrance as a component of a symbolic process involving the human body (Werbner 1989: 1) is characterized by a process of embodiment materialized in human sacrifices ( see Joshua 6: 26) in the assignment to various protective deities (i.e., Hermes was named "the threshold protector", Vemant 1990: 26

Dragos Ghcorghiu: The Archaeology of Space: Ritual and Metaphor

The analysisof space in a prehistoricbuilding As exemplification of a rhetorical analysis of space through the study of ceramic objects and metaphors I chose the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture that flourished in Eastern Europe in the interval of 5 th-4th millennia BC, because here can be identified relations between material culture and architectural space. Cucuteni- Tri po lye culture developed in the eastern Carpathian-north western Pontic area from the south-eastern Transylvanian plateau in Romania up to the Dnieper river in Ukraine. Its material culture was characterized by incised and painted clay vases and female figurines, copper instruments, as well as surface architecture with platforms. Houses made of wattle-and-daub with wooden structure were rectangular and rarely "L" -shaped. Generally buildings had a single room and some of them were built over offering (Bilcu 1997) or sacrificial pits (Dumitrescu 1957). Since there is not an evident hierarchical difference between buildings, one can conclude an isomorphism between "house" and "temple" as in some contemporary cultures from the Near East (Maisels 1993: 183). A continuous demographical intensive growth generated complex models of spatial organization as the very large flat settlements with concentric circles of houses (Markevici 1981), with adjacent circles, with oval shape, with concentric circles with radial streets, and with concentric circles and straight rows at the periphery (Sorokin 1993: 81). A single gigantic village of300 hectares with 1,575 houses sheltered approximately 9,000 people in the last cultural phase of Cucuteni-Tripolye (Sorokin 1993 :93). It is plausible to presume that a circular shape could have acted as a dominant locale, and influenced the imagery of the Cucuteni-Tripolye population as a dominant metaphor. Such inference of "protection" and "human body" could be made from the many anthropomorphic vases and circular architectural models or vase-architectural models as well as from pictures of settlements on round vases. A second authoritative metaphor in relation to built space seems to have been the "domesticated Nature", as one could infer from vegetal and osteological remains (Ellis 1984), as well as from fitomorphic and zoomorphic ceramic objects. Because there is insufficient data on Cucuteni-Tripolye entrances and interior spaces, a possible approach to the incomplete archaeological remains would be the rhetorical analysis of the "complex figurative systems" (Renfrew 1997: 53) copied by ceramics, which are in a relationship of meaning with architecture. In Cucuteni-Tripolye, as well as in other Chalcolithic cultures of Eastern Europe, building models and building-like oven models exhibiting the interior space were common objects both in an iconic or a metaphorical form. An exemplification of such metaphorical cases are the architectural models whose overall shape does not copy the real rectangular pattern of the wattle-and-daub buildings' floor, but display in exchange some invisible data for the perception of the people living in these spaces, as the pits under the floor and the wooden posts of the structure. Other

data displayed by these models, also invisible, but this time in the archaeological record, are in relation with the rites of passage and are visualized in the central position of the door in the facade, the shape and dimensions of the threshold, decoration of the facade, decoration of the interior walls, and sometimes the anthropomorphic image of the entrance "guardians". A minute analysis of this category of objects would bring valuable data for the evocation of the rite of passage, by allowing the mental reconstruction of the sequences of separation and liminality, of the moment of "jump" at the threshold crossing and of embodiment, through the analysis of the change in the visual codes and in the orientation of objects that resituate the entrant in the reincorporation space (cf. Werbner 1989: 1). An additional factor of information provided by the above mentioned models is the hologramic 1 mental mechanism of space perception. Support for this assertion is provided by an analogous model from Archaic Greece, the metaphor of "world-as-a-vase" (Vernant 1990: 105). The miniaturization objects or buildings, or their incomplete construction plead for the existence of a metaphoric and metonymic relationship between them and the real space, or in other words, the existence of micro-spaces in a holographic (i.e., rhetorical) relationship of dependency with real space. A result of the comparative analysis of the dimensions of constitutive parts of the models, as well as of the analogies with the human body, infers the following figures of (rhetoric) persuasion: • the symmetry of the main facade and the interior separation of objects following a left-right symbolism persuade upon an anthropomorphic symbolism of the house that reincorporates ("re-embodies"); • the positioning of objects in the interior of the building persuades upon a relationship of exclusion between the oven and the ceramic containers; • the main facade decoration that surrounds the entrance, analogous with that of the pelvis of female ceramic figurines, underlines the metaphorical relationship of embodiment; • the overdimension of anthropomorphic figurines flanking the entrance, compared with the overall dimensions of the model persuades upon the character of"protection" of the interior space; • the threshold, as the most emphasized architectural feature in some models, persuades upon the importance of the sequence of separation in space perception; • the difference in the decorative patterns between facades and the interior space persuades upon the difference of symbolism between spaces and upon a "jump" in pattern perception, and subsequently in space perception; • the circularity of interior space persuades upon the anthropomorphic quality of interior space; Holography is the holistic property of the matter to keep all information of the whole in every fragment. Some scholars prefer to use "holographic analogy" or "holographic metaphor" when referring to the relationships between parts and the whole (Talbot 1991 :7).

Archaeology and Buildinos

• the central positioning of pits, materialized in models as supporting hollow cylinders persuades upon a continuous spatial relationship between the living and the dead, probably materialized in the ritual of second burial and skeletons fragmentation;

changes in it, and who also helped me to improve the English version. I thank also Dr. Dan Monah, who kindly permitted me to use the model illustrations.

• the holographic visualization of the space of the living together with the space of the "ancestors" persuades upon the existence of space "past-oriented" (see Giddens 1990: 102).

References Bender, Barbara, Theorising landscapes, and the prehistoric landscapes of Stonehenge, Man, 27, 1992, pp. 735-755. Dumitrescu, Hortensia, Decouvertes concernant un rite funeraire magique dans l'aire de la civilisation de type Cucuteni-Tripolye, Dacia, l, 1957, pp. 97-116.

An inference from the described material would be the existence of a micro space, probably belonging to magic, and being in a certain relationship (subordination? control?) with the real space of the buildings. A second inference would be that the round pattern of certain objects, or operations of stockage, would possibly have influenced visual perception and probably generated a spherical perspective of perceived space (see Vernant 1990: 213-214).

Dumitrescu, Vladimir, Arta culturii Cucuteni, Metidiane, Bucharest, 1979. Edmonds, Mark, Interpreting Causewayed Enclosures in the Past and the Present, in Christopher Tilley (ed.), Interpretative Archaeology, Berg, Oxford, 1993, pp. 99-142. Ellis, Linda, The Cucuteni-Tripolye Culture: A Study in Technology and the Origins of Complex Society. Oxford, BAR, International Series, 2 I 7, 1984.

Conclusiveremarks

Finke, Ronald, Mental Imagery and the Visual System, in Irvin Rock (ed.) The Perceptual World, Freeman and Company, New York, 1990, pp. 179-190.

As 1have argued in the introduction of this paper, space avoids representation and could be only evoked, condensing in a hologram all its descriptions. This dilemma was felicitously solved by Ruth Tringham (1992: 118, fig.4.9) at the Opovo site when she evoked a South Eastern European Chalcolithic building through the metaphor of a painting of Peter Bruegel.

Gennep van, A., Les rites de passage. Etude systematique des rites, Mouton & Co and Maison des Sciences de !'Homme, 1969 [ 1909]. Giddens, Anthony, The Consequences of Modernity, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1990.

My first evocation of the space in Cucuteni-Tripolye will use the holographic (i.e. synecdochic) rule of the part containing (or evoking) the whole, applied to the descriptions of models and settlements, and using the shape of the human body as the symbol of the whole.

Gilgamesh Epic (French transl. Rene Labat), Lucien Mazenod, Paris 1961 ). Gould, Stephen, and N. Eldredge, Punctuated Equilibria - The Tempo and Mode of Evolution Reconsidered, Paleobiology, 3, 1977, pp. 115-151.

In a second conventional way, the evocation of the CucuteniTripolye space would bring into view the following attributes: discontinuity (inferred by an emphasis of liminality and passage), an anthropomophic symbolism (inferred by the axiality of the entrance and by the right-left symbolism), a rhetorical character (inferred by the metaphors and metonymies ), a protective, or risk-reducing character (inferred by the entrance "guardians"), a character of continuity with the past, all being centralized into the dominant metaphors of "the house-as-human-body" and the "domesticated-Nature".

Granet, M., La civilisation chinoise, Paris, Albin Michel, 1968. Johnston, Robert, The Paradox ofLandscape, EJA, vol. I, no.3, 1998, pp. 315-325. Kaufmann, Jean-Claude, Portes, verrous et cles: Les rituels de fermeture du chez-soi, in Ethnologie Francaise, 2, 1996, pp. 280288. Maisels, Charles Keith, The Near East. Archaeology in the 'Cradle of Civilization', Routledge, London and New York, 1993. Marinescu-Bilcu, Silvia, Consideratii pe marginea organizarii interne a unora dintre asezarile culturilor din complexul Precucuteni-Cucuteni, in Prehist01y of the Lower Danube, Calarasi, 1997, pp. 165-173.

The conclusion of this paper is that space could also be analyzed indirectly from the building remains, by means of objects and dominant metaphors. As some objects could store rhetorically (holographically) information that is invisible in the archaeological record, such as ritual sequences for example, the task of the archaeologist is to identify and use them for a more subtle understanding of the past.

Markevici, V., Pozdne-Tripol 'skie Plemena Severnoj Moldavii, Kishinev, 1981. Simion Florea, Inmormantarea la romani. Studiu etnografic, Bucharest, Grai si suflet, 1995 (1892).

Marian,

Monah, Dan, Plastica antropomorfa a culturii Cucuteni-Tripolye, Memoria Antiquitatis, Piatra Neamt, 1997.

Acknowledgments

Monah, Dan and Stefan Cucos, Asezarile culturii Cucuteni din Romania, Iasi, 1985.

Parts of this paper were presented at the TAG conference in 1998 and at the 5th EAA Meeting in 1999. 1 owe a great debt to Gunilla Malm who patiently waitedfor the innumerable

Nash, George, Archetypal landscapes and the interpretation of meaning, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 7, 1997, pp. 5769.

28

Dragos Ghcorghiu: The Arc haeology of Space: Ritual and Metaphor Thomas Julian, The Hermeneutics of Megalithic Space, in Christopher Tilley (ed.), Interpretative Archaeology, Berg, Oxford, 1993, pp. 73-98.

Paul-Levy, F. and M. Segaud, Anthropologie de l'espace, Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou - CCI, 1983. Renfrew, Colin and Paul Bahn, Archaeology, theories, methods and practice, London, Thames and Hudson, I 991.

Talbot, Michael, The holographic universe Harper Perrenial, New York, 1991.

Renfrew, Colin, The Archaeology of religion, in Renfrew, Colin and Ezra Zubrow,( eds), The Ancient Mind. Elements of Cognitive Archaeology, Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Tilley Christopher, A Phenomenology of Landscape. Places, Paths and Monuments, Berg, Oxford, 1994. Tringham, Ruth, Households with faces: The challenge of gender in prehistoric architectural remains, in Joan Gero and Margaret Conkey (eds.), Engendering Archaeology. Women in Prehistory, Blackwell, Oxford and Cambridge, 1992, pp. 93-131.

Riviere, C., Les rites profanes, Paris, PUF, 1995. Rosman, Abraham and Paula G. Rubel, The Tapestry of Culture, McGraw-Hill, Boston, 1998. Ruskin, John, The Stones of Venice, London, Dent and Sons, 1921. Sorokin, Victor, Modalitatile de organizare a asezarilor complexului cultural Cucteni-Tripolye, Arheologia Moldovei, XVI, 1993, pp. 69-85. Strathern, Andrew and Pamela Stewart, Embodiment and communication. Two frames for the analysis of ritual, Social Anthropology, 6, 1998, pp. 237-252.

Turner, Victor, Betwixt and between: The liminal period in rites of passage, in his The Forest of symbols: Aspects of Ndembu ritual, Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1967, pp. 93-111. Vemant, Jean Pierre, Mythe et pensee chez !es grecs, Ed. de la decouverte, Paris, 1990. Werbner, Richard, Ritual passage, sacredjourney. The process and organization of religious movement, Washington D.C., Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989. Wittkower, Rudolph, Architectural principles in the age of humanism, The Norton Library, New York, 1971.

29

Arc haeology and Buildinos

/

~

f

0

1

\

0

Fig. 1 - Architectural model from Ghelaiesti, Cucuteni culture (after Monah 1997: 264, fig. 12).

30

Dragos Ghcorghiu: The Arc haeology of Space: Ritual and Metaphor

Fig. 2-Architectural

model from Ghelaiesti, Cucuteni culture (after Monah 1997: 265: fig. 14).

3i

Jiri Hruska,

Fuchs: A Parish Church in Murrrck (Styrirr): The Mrrppinq

Older Building

by Ground Prrnctratinq Radar

A PARISH CHURCH IN MURECK (STYRIA): THE MAPPING OF OLDER BUILDING PHASES BY GROUND PENETRATING RADAR Jiri Hruska and Gerald Fuchs

The Baroque parish church of St. Bartholomew in the Styrian town ofMureck (southern Austria) has undergone extensive reconstruction over recent years. Previously, it was only possible to carry out limited archaeological excavations but the recent work has revealed extensive remains of an older building, while the detailed ground penetrating radar survey has mapped nearly all of the church interior and part of the adjacent areas (altogether approximately 1800 sq.m), and so completing the survey's main aim of mapping the church's underground structures and its surroundings. The GPR survey has detected a number of distinct, anomalous objects of varying dimensions and shape. It also revealed the site's long and complicated building history. The extent of the church's Baroque foundations became clear, while the extensive masonry remains beneath its floor were also outlined. As a result of this mapping, it was possible to trace an almost entire, and very detailed, ground plan of a smaller and older (Gothic) church.

the church itself. Deep anomalies indicate the possible presence of unknown and older building activities, again on a different ground plan. Several earlier ground surfaces were also mapped, which correspond with successive building phases.

Introduction During the restoration works undertaken inside the parish church of St. Bartholomew (Mureck), the remains of an unknown and older church building were found. They were documented during the archaeological investigations, but these were limited, however, to a series of trenches at certain areas of reconstruction activity. An extensive georadar survey was then proposed in order to complete the archaeological study of the church's interior and exterior. The georadar survey was chosen for following reasons:

The most evident anomalous complex presented itself at the eastern end of the nave, and was interpreted as a burial chamber or crypt. This was located at a position confirmed by a test opening. Another complex may indicate older altar foundations. Numerous other and smaller anomalies reveal a series of interments. Inside the nave, other deeper remains were detected in a pattern indicating the ground plan of another, even smaller and older (Romanesque) church building. Deep anomalous objects around the southwestern corner of the church suggest the possibility of very ancient building activity on a different ground plan. The age of these remains has not yet been established. Outside, the partial remains of several structures, oriented parallel with the church, were found north and southwest of

• it is relatively cheap in comparison with excavation, • it causes no damage to surfaces and objects surveyed, • the field measurements can be performed within days, simultaneously with any reconstruction and building work and with minimal interference, • the data may be interpreted together with the results of the archaeological and structural/historical investigations, which can provide detailed and reliable information regarding the construction history of the object.

Survey area The church is located in central Mureck, southern Styria (Austria), at the border with Slovenia and about 60 km. south

Arc haeology and Buildings

of Graz. The present building is of Baroque style, and at the time of survey was undergoing extensive and complex restoration. Beneath the structure, remains of older buildings were visible in the open trenches along the nave and there were also shallow excavations in the choir area showing multiphase floor and basement remains.

filtering. The results were then enhanced by AGC-type gain function and the line sections were merged where necessary. A time-to-depth conversion, using the above mentioned velocity value, was undertaken, and all survey lines printed out. The EKKO TOOLS 4.22 software package was used for the data processing.

The area surveyed incorporated a rectangle approximately (50 x 36 m, and extending both inside and outside the church), and covered roughly l 800 sq.m. Nearly all the church interior was included in the GPR survey, while the exterior work concentrated on the northern and west/southwestern sides of the building (Fig. l ).

The anomalous signals were detected on scans and correlated between them. Most of the anomalies were of diffraction character with typical hyperbolae, revealing the presence of localized structures beneath the surface. In addition, signal disturbances and weak anomalies were present in many places. Such cases were treated coherently with the surroundings and with the archaeological and historical information of the location. Several reflexive boundaries could also be distinguished in the scans. They were interpreted as historical surface levels and older church floors. At levels deeper than 2.5 m such reflexes were considered as being of a natural, i.e. geological, origin and without much relevance to the project (Figs. 2 - 6). Correlation lines were drawn into the plans for several underground levels and then compared with the archaeological evidence under evaluation. The results were interpreted as older church building remains over several levels, corresponding to several historical building phases and styles.

Data Acquisitionand Processing The eastern half of the church (including the choir, the area in front of the high altar, the eastern part of the nave, the Chapel of Lourdes (north of the choir), the sacristy, the northern entrance area, and the tower ground floor) was surveyed by the georadar in a l sq.m grid, while the rest of the church building employed the standard 2 sq.m grid (but after preliminary on-the-spot data evaluation, the grid was narrowed to 1sq.m for those areas showing clear anomalies). The side chapels' interiors, and the sacristy, were partially inaccessible and these locations remain unsurveyed, as well as the narrow passages around the high altar.

Survey Results

Outside the church, the basic survey grid used was 4 sq.m. Again, after preliminary on-the-spot evaluation, certain areas of special interest were surveyed with narrower grids (2 sq.m and even lsq.m in places). Along the church's northern perimeter wall, a rectangle, 29 x 8 m, was surveyed, while in front of the western fa9ade, around the main entrance, a rectangle 2 l x 9 m was covered, and around the southwestern corner an area 19 x 9 m was explored.

Plans of georadar indications were compiled for four separated underground levels: • for depths less than 0.2 m, mostly underground sections of the present Baroque church building, but also the upper parts of older remains, and some modern interferences (Fig 7), • for depths between 0.2 and 0.8 m, above the first buried surface level and with older, probably Gothic, church remains (Fig 8),

A pulse-EKKO l 000 georadar system (Sensors & Software, Canada) was used for the survey, with a centre frequency of 450MHz and scan-step O.l m. The total length of the GPR lines was 1485.9 m, which equates to 15060 GPR points scanned.

• for depths between 0.8 and 1.6 m, above the second buried surface level, and representing the height difference between the level of surface elevation in and around the church, and that of its surroundings, and containing building remains, presumably from the Romanesque era (Fig. 9), • and for depths of more than l.6 m, i.e. under the second ancient surface, with some remains of unknown age and character (Fig. 10).

For the time-to-depth conversion, CMP/WARR measurements for signal velocity determination were carried out at two locations. The first area selected was in the middle of the church nave and gave a result ofv = 0.100 m/ns. The second location was outside the church, on the southern side near the tower, where the velocity value was v = 0.096 m/ns. From this, an effective velocity value v = 0.100 m/ns was taken, which corresponds well with the locally developed sandy soil and gravel, well above groundwater level. For the velocity analysis, a standard EKKO CMP/WARR ANALYSIS software package was used.

Specification of the levels is based on the results of the archaeological investigations and on historical knowledge.

The church interior Immediately under the present floor (Fig. 7), striking anomalies were detected everywhere along the walls. Correlation was easily possible in all areas and they are, without any doubt, the foundations of the present building. (They are 10 - 20 cm wider than the walls). The inner pillars (along both sides of the nave) have foundations l.8 x l.8 m

Considering the survey task and the strict time and funding restrictions, only those steps necessary for satisfactory task solution were carried out in the data processing. The data was de-wowed and random noise reduced by down-the-trace 34

Jiri Hruska,

Fuchs: A Parish Church in Murrrck (Styrirr): The Mrrppinq

Older Building

by Ground Prrnctratinq Radar

on the ground plan. The tower foundations are appreciably wider (30 - 50 cm) than the walls. The perimeter wall foundations reach a depth of3.2 - 3.5 m, while the foundations of the inner walls are shallower - only about l .4 m, and in places even less.

front of the high altar, the anomalies show the remains of an apse of an older building. An anomalous object (4 x 3 m and partially concave) located at the eastern end of the older church is of a very complicated nature; it is on the site of an older, and now vanished, altar.

Striking linear anomalies were detected between the pillars along both sides of the nave. They are interpreted as older, late Gothic, building foundations, which were unearthed in the archaeological trenches. They are more massive on the southern side (the Chapel of St. John Nepomucensis) and may indicate some special situation, possibly the older entrance. Here the depth of the remains is about 3 m, and elsewhere 2.5 m.

The most striking anomalous complex at that level is the main volume of the crypt mentioned above. It has external dimensions of 5 .2 x 4 m, and an inner size of approximately 3.3 x 3 m. The height of the cavity is approximately l.5 - l.8 m, and there is a vaulted ceiling. The pillar foundations of the older Gothic building on the nave axis have a ground plan extent of l .5 x l .2 m, to 2.2 x 2 m at this level. Eight rectangular anomalies in the nave indicate grave chambers. Several other smaller sets of remains were detected in various places.

The foundations of the eastern end of the older building were detected I - 1.5 m in front of the eastern side of the choir (along line 58) as a strip slightly curved in the centre, some 50 - 70 cm. wide and 1.5 m deep. Other wall remains were detected in the sacristy. A group of linear anomalies in the choir may indicate the remains of an older altar. They cover an area 3 .2 sq.m, with a shallow perimeter (depth 1 - 1.2 m) but with a deeper central section (2.5 m). At a depth of 0.2 0.8 m (Fig. 8), the foundations of some present structures may still be observed. In places they are wider, with smaller reinforcing footings. The same may be observed on the older building foundations.

Below 1.6 m (Fig. 10), the present building foundations are still wider and reach a width of about 2 min places, while the width of the older supports remains unchanged. Most of the anomalies referred to above may also be seen at this level, showing the depth of both the present and earlier building phases. In addition, there are further anomalies in the southwestern part of the church, which have a different direction (oblique to the church axes). These may be the remains ofa structure of unknown age and nature, but there is not enough data for closer analysis here.

A new anomalous zone was located in front of the high altar, in an area about 4 x 2 m, and obvious fragments of a substructure in front of and beneath the altar. The maximum depth is around 1.2 m. There were also three anomalies creating a complex structure in the western part of the choir. Near the eastern wall of the older building there is a cavitylike anomaly, perhaps a burial, or relic of a chamber beneath the older altar.

The area north of the church There are no larger anomalous indications in the shallowest level (Fig. 7), only certain small and weak signal disturbances. These may be traces of destruction and/or the modem surface layout. Deeper (0.2 - 0.8 m, Fig. 8), a greater number of anomalies indicates the remains of two or three buildings. They may also be traced at the next level (0.8 - l .6 m, Fig. 9), but in parts they are of a somewhat different shape and size. If the structures in both levels are the same, which is possible but cannot be determined by the georadar data alone, it will indicate several building phases. All these structures are taken to be Gothic but archaeological evidence is not yet available.

A conspicuous complex anomaly was found at the eastern part of the nave axis (at the intersection of the nave and transept). Its size is 3.2 by 1.6 m, at a depth of2.4 - 2.8 m. lt marks the top of a crypt vault, or burial chamber, with its entrance at the western side. On the basis of these results, the crypt was judged to be later and was investigated by opening a small hole. It enabled us to confirm the georadar interpretation results. The crypt is taken to be of Gothic origin.

Only small fragments of these structures may be detected in the deepest level (more than 1.6 m, Fig. 10), but, on the contrary, numerous anomalies, with a completely different ground plan, are present at a depth of more than 2.5 m along the northern church wall, and from there to the northwest. They may indicate the presence of another, and probably very old, structure.

Two parallel anomalous lines can be followed inside the nave, from the crypt to the west, towards the main entrance, and it indicates the possible remains of an even older building (Romanesque?). Four quadrate anomalies were found on the axis of the nave, each in the middle of the side pillars. From it, the conclusion may be drawn that the older Gothic building had two naves with a row of pillars between them.

The area west and southwest of the church This area has been heavily disturbed by modem interference (the drainage system, other utilities and surface layouts), so that in the shallowest level (Fig. 7) it is very difficult to decipher the complex signal. At a deeper level (0.2 - 0.8 m, Fig. 8 and 0.8 - 1.6 m, Fig. 9), the remains of two different structures of rectangular shape, and again probably covering several building phases, can be clearly distinguished. They

Some other indications in the nave, as well as in the side chapels, may signify other minor masonry remains and graves. In the next level (at a depth of between 0.8 - 1.6 m, Fig. 9), the foundations of the present church became even wider in places, as did the foundations of the older Gothic church. In

35

Arc haeology and Buildinos

have deep foundations, sometimes more than 2.5 m, and are thought also to be Gothic. Other very deep anomalies create two separated clusters here, again showing the presence of at least two different structures of unknown age and function.

The georadar survey inside and around the vicinity of the parish church of Mureck has detected a number of distinct anomalous structures of various dimensions and at different depths. It has also revealed a long and complicated building history on the site.

Numerous remains were also detected under side rooms of the church, and, because of their fragmentary character, their context with the older buildings described above remains unclear. Deep anomalous objects around the southwestern corner of the church suggest the possibility of very early building activity on a different ground plan, and perhaps of a non-religious function. However, all this has to remain conjectural, as the available data is too fragmentary and has not yet been confirmed by any excavations. Outside the church, parts of several structures, oriented parallel with the church, were found north and southwest of it. These are likely to be the remains of extinct auxiliary church buildings, and are thought to be Gothic, but there is no archaeological evidence.

The extent of the Baroque church foundations was plotted. These reach a depth of 3.2 - 3.4 mat the perimeter walls, about 2.8 m for the choir, side chapels walls and inner side pillars, and 3.8 m for the tower. All the foundations became wider in proportion to their depth. The foundations of the smaller inner structures are remarkably narrower and shallower. Some underground substructures were detected around the present high altar, but they could not be fully understood from the limited data available.

Deeper anomalies signify the possible presence of unknown and earlier building activities, again on a different ground plan, and perhaps, too, of a non-religious nature. Several earlier ground surfaces, corresponding with successive building phases, were also mapped: 0.8m for the Gothic level, 1.6m for the supposed Romanesque level, and 2.5 m of unknown date. The latter two are un-excavated and not explained, but the earlier remains seem to be connected with them.

Conclusions

Extensive masonry remains were found under the floor of the church, and, as a result of the mapping, an almost complete and very detailed ground plan of a smaller and older (presumably Gothic) church could be plotted. This was of the double-nave type with row of supporting pillars on the long axis, and which were clearly detected. A possible southern entrance was also traced, as well as the remains of the apse on the eastern end. Including this, the church is approximately 40 x 10.5 m in length. The most extensive anomalous complex was located at the eastern end of nave and was interpreted as a burial chamber or crypt. Its shape is roughly rectangular in size (5 to 4 m). The inner dimensions of the chamber itself are approximately 4 x 3 m, with a height of 1.5 - 1.8 m on the axis, and 1.2 m along the walls. The ceiling is vaulted with a high point of about 1m. The entrance is on the western side, and connecting substructures reach the nearest central pillar. The crypt's characteristics were later confirmed by a test opening (Fig. 13). Another complex anomaly may indicate the substructural remains of an old altar. It seems to have developed from a set of smaller structures, probably of different character and origin. The presence of a hollow area (a burial or relic chamber?) in the central part is not excluded (Fig. 13). Other, deeper remains were detected inside the nave, in a complex revealing the possible ground plan of another, even smaller and older (Romanesque?) church building. Its width was approximately 6 - 7 m, and although not exactly determined, it would seem to be around 25 m in length.

Acknowledgements The authors are grateful to thefollowingfor their cooperation and support of this project: Mr. Dieter Dorner (Mureck), Dr. Friedrich Bouvier, Dr. Bernhard Hebert and Mrs. Eva Mohringer (Bundesdenkmalamt Graz), M1:Jorg Furnholzer (ARGIS, Graz), Mr. Vicar Kiigerl (Parish of Mureck), and Mr. Markus Zechner (Splitterwerk Graz).

References Christine Bachinger-Dengg ( 1993): Pfarrkirche Mureck, Bestandsplan, ErdgeschoJ3grundriss. M = I :50 (Archiv Bischi:iflichesOrdinariat,Bauamt, Graz). Gerald Fuchs, Jiri Hruska, Irmengard Kainz (1998): GeoradarUntersuchungen in der Pfarrkirche Mureck (SG, KG Mureck, BH Radkersburg) - Endbericht. ARGIS, Graz - Geofyzika Brno. Adalbe1iKlaar (1953 ): Pfarrkirchedes hi. Bartholomausin Mureck, Bez. Leibrutz, Steiermark. Grundriss, M = I: 100, 29.5.1953 (ArchivBDA Graz). Peter Krenn ( 1981): Die Oslsleiermark. Oslerreichische Kunstmonographie,Bd. 11, Salzburg, 199 - 201. Alois Ruhri (1998): Die Pfarrkirche von Mureck. Unveri:iff. Manuskript(Dii:izesanmuseum Graz), 15.7.1998, 3 S., I Abb. Kurt Woisetschlager, Peter Krenn (1982): Dehio Handbuch Steiennark. Wien, 307 - 308.

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47

Brian A. Malaws: An Approach lo

Study of Industrial

AN APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF INDUSTRIAL SITES: PROCESS RECORDING Brian A. Malaws

Summary: Industrial processes whether operational or not, particularly those with local applications, should be recorded as an integral part of any field recording project wherever possible. Such records will not only contribute towards a more comprehensive insight to the nature of industries and their sites, when studied alongside the more usual architectural and historical aspects, but will stand as an accurate historical source of information and as an aid to interpreting incomplete, damaged or long defunct sites.

frequently seen as ends in themselves, a view perhaps unwittingly reinforced by the numerous publications on industrial archaeology field recording, in which the subject of process recording receives no more than a passing mention. 1 But is a measured or photographic survey of a site of more value than a record of the process and operations carried out at that site? Successful achievement of the former, properly presented and accessible, certainly contributes significantly to any worthwhile record, but what may be missed in compiling such an 'objective' survey are the faint traces that a recorder, informed about the process carried out, would recognise as crucial evidence of function. Of course the reasons why industries become established and develop do not lie in the impressive architecture of the buildings nor the sophistication of the engineering, but in the effectiveness of their process. 2 The adequate recording and interpretation of industrial operations is something that is too often taken for granted; there seems to be an unconscious acceptance that production of drawings, notes and photographs, however detailed and thorough, is a substitute for an understanding of the industrial processes. Supporting this is a widely-held belief that information on processes is readily available in contemporary sources. Certainly a great deal has been published and can be consulted, but it must be treated with caution - is it the sort of information that can be used to understand processes rather than merely the operation of individual machines and how does it relate to the surviving remains?

What is process recording? The broad-based subject of industrial archaeology encompasses the studies ofarchitectural, engineering, social, economic, political and industrial history, geography, geology, and, on the other hand, study and interpretation of the archaeological remains. It draws together many of the present day specialised aspects of the broad term 'archaeology'. With so many disciplines to consider it is easy to lose sight of the archaeological component, but what it can provide is essential to the proper practice of industrial archaeology. Although recording of remains in the field can give an insight to the nature, layout and development of a site, often the opportunity is missed to interpret findings and explain the activities carried out. This can happen through lack of time or through an assumption, conscious or otherwise, that the processes are obvious and not worth recording, that the information is available in a text-book or manual, or sometimes even through lack of proper understanding of the operations by the recorder. Naturally, not all industrial sites lend themselves to operational interpretation - it is not necessary to explain the working of a masonry bridge or retaining wall. However, measurement and photography are

Many of the books on methodology ofindustrial archaeological recording produced from the 1970s onwards were at least partly responsible for kindling the now-widespread interest in the subject and for establishing frameworks and methods still in use today. Although processes are indeed recorded alongside the physical attributes of sites, this has usually been done for a specific purpose rather than as a normal part of field survey. 2 And the abi1ity to adapt to changing markets; sec Buttcrfic1d, R., 'The Shredded Wheat Factory at Welwyn Garden City', Industrial Archaeology Review XVI, no.2 (Spring 1994) 196-215.

49

Arc haeology and Buildinos

Most industrial archaeologists may know in general terms how industrial sites function, but of course although basic principles may apply to any type of similar site, each site itself is unique. That detailed design of machinery and plant differs between sites carrying out ostensibly identical processes is to be expected, but more importantly the local application of machines to their tasks and the methods of operation varies also, so the practice can sometimes be significantly at odds with the theory. It is thus potentially misleading to take process for granted.

architecturally or aesthetically, but its proximity to raw materials and transport systems - the significance of the local geology for minerals exploitation, the geography for such considerations as power source, whether water, steam or electric, and transport - road, rail, canal, and whether preexisting or purpose-built. 4 Second, how material is processed within the works: what machinery and techniques are used, whether 'standard' applications have been adapted and developed for local conditions, such conditions including human nature and traditional working methods, economics of operation, nature of material and market requirements. Third, the 'output' side: how the product is stored, loaded and transported to market.

In the three Royal Commissions, process recording at industrial sites has in the past been limited largely to photographing or sketching individual machines and perhaps relating these to a general ground plan; usually little attempt has been made to link the components other than through their physical relationship or proximity. A simple installation, such as a watermill, might have been separated into component parts, each drawn individually in some detail, but devoid of context. This approach meant that some elements, vital to the operation but which were not readily measurable or not photogenic might not have been recorded at all: for example, a length of baler twine performing an essential function for the fine control of a sluice mechanism, or, at the other end of the scale, a mobile crane used to transfer minerals from one part of a process to another - until recently, such elements have not really been seen as either 'ancient' or 'historical' monuments and have usually been ignored. This is not to criticise the work of the Commissions, which have traditionally been concerned more with the structures or 'hardware' of heritage than the operation or 'software', although there are notable exceptions. 3

What is the purpose and value of process recording? Personal experience and observation indicates that, in general, the study of techniques and operation of industry through its archaeology has been overshadowed by the architectural and historical aspects of monuments and their industries, typified by a common approach to 'preserving' industrial sites and also by a desire to create typologies for them. It appears to have become quite accepted, amongst amateur and professional archaeologists alike, that the successful preservation of a site equates to retention of the gutted shell of the largest or most impressive building on a site, shorn even of its ancillary lean-to buildings and structures. Retention of any evidence of the processes carried on within seems to be oflittle importance. Although often of undoubted historical and architectural significance, the remaining shell, maybe even re-roofed and fitted with new windows and doors, is oflittle value to students of the industry concerned. In extreme cases, apparently sound industrial buildings are demolished and modern interpretations, bearing some visual similarity to the former structure, are erected in their place. The archaeologists' and conservation officers' roles, when dealing with the retention of redundant industrial sites, are reduced to seeking adaptive re-use for the building shells, stripped of evidence of their original functions. It seems common that those looking for new uses for old industrial sites think largely in terms of 'usable space within an architecturally acceptable envelope'. This undoubtedly has its place alongside preservation of associated machinery in museums, in the continuance of some vestige of the industry's presence. But without some record being made of the process for which the buildings and machines were erected, it cannot be said that industrial archaeology is being taken very seriously. Of course, in many cases, it is visually more satisfying to retain old buildings, particularly in appropriate townscapes and sensitive landscapes, not least as reminders of the industries associated with the locality. However, it must be remembered that such reminders are just that and little more; the successful industrial archaeologist still needs to understand, record and interpret operation of the site.

The larger and more complex the installation, it seems the more the architectural and aesthetic aspects are recorded in place of understanding what went on within. In some circumstances this approach is perfectly justifiable: if there is a constraint on time, it is considered better practice to get some photographic record of the appearance ofa threatened site than to start and not finish investigation of a complex process. But even where time is available, the sheer scale and extent of some mechanical installations will deter wouldbe recorders and encourage them to assume that details of the process are bound to be available somewhere. It is sometimes the case that only the architectural attributes of a site are of interest to the recorder, again a justifiable approach, but a claim cannot be made that the site has been fully recorded. Process recording, then, should be a study of all aspects relating to the physical operation of a site. First, the 'input' side: how the site relates to its surroundings - not RCAHMW, Anglesey, (HMSO, 1937) clxv: an early attempt to describe the operation of an industrial site, in this case Llynon windmill, rather than just its architectural features; Hay, G.D. and Stell, G.P. (RCAHMS), Monuments of Industry, (HMSO, 1986): contains several well illustrated examples of process description; the RCHME have carried out recording projects on the explosives manufacturing industry, where the form of buildings and their function are closely related, see The Royal Gunpowder Factory, Waltham Abbey, Essex, (1994) and also Cocroft, W., Dangerous Energy, (English Heritage, forthcoming) which traces the development of processes through archaeological evidence.

4

50

Sec Palmer, M. and Ncavcrson, (Routledge, 1 994) I 3-1 7.

P., Industry in the Landscape,

Brian A. Malaws: An Approach lo

Many important industrial processes were carried out in the most architecturally undistinguished buildings (perhaps more so than ever these days); the opposite is also true and in yet other cases the high quality of the architecture, perhaps built to impress, to stand out or sometimes to harmonise with the surroundings, was quite irrelevant to the actual operations carried on within. However, it is likely that a proper understanding of the processes can give a fuller appreciation of the development of other aspects of the industry, such as the architecture or engineering; few worthwhile conclusions can be drawn from the narrow study of one set of attributes in isolation. 5

an industrial operation. 6 There are few modem equivalents, largely because books of this sort would quickly become obsolete, reflecting the pace of change and technical development today. Technical journals of the early twentieth century did however describe new installations and major improvements at specific collieries, steelworks, &c. Although such early publications were technically explicit in descriptions of machinery and plant, they were not guides to running an industry. Setting up and operating an industrial site involved somewhat more than constructing buildings and installing machines; these publications also tended to be somewhat theoretical or idealistic regarding local conditions. Despite being of great value and interest, not least for background information before venturing into the field, the study of contemporary technical publications is no substitute for a first hand record of how the theory was applied in practice.

The creation of typologies of industrial sites undoubtedly has its place and purpose, although there is a need to be aware of whether it is the architecture or the industry which is being examined. The value of typologies as a tool for the study of technology transfer is more worthwhile the earlier the site. With the communications explosion, modem (late nineteenth to twentieth century industrial installations would seem to owe less to technology transfer by geographical proximity than to adoption and adaption of machinery, techniques, materials and architectural styles available almost anywhere in the world. In order to understand more of the importance of processes, it may be considered a worthwhile study to compare the siting of similar types of industry and how any differences were linked to local variations in the process carried out, i.e. whether there were local conditions demanding different techniques, operation and type oflocation in order to produce a standard, consistent output.

It is perhaps worth stressing that the opportunity should be taken to record processes at all appropriate types of industrial site, whether operational or not, as a matter or normal recording practice. Even incomplete records are better than none at all, provided that what has been done is accurate in itself, and can be used to interpret remains at other similar sites, piecing together bits of information like a jigsaw. Such recording is particularly important when applied to installations where the more fragile components are likely to be removed or damaged - for example, where an industrial site is to be prepared for public amenity, a certain amount of 'vandal-proofing' is carried out by salvaging vulnerable components and landscaping away any possible hazards.7

One of the most valuable uses of understanding and properly recording a process in relation to its surrounding structures is to give an insight to the relative importance of those structures and draw attention to those worthy of further recording or even preservation. Knowledge of a process and recognition of the physical remains associated with it can also assist when trying to identify similar installations, but comparisons must be made with great care. The failure or the development of part of a process may leave behind redundant equipment which can easily mislead; similarly, equipment installed but never used will often be some of the best preserved and hence the most readily recordable although possibly to little purpose. The range can include small items of machinery, which only upon close inspection and with detailed knowledge of a process can then be disregarded, to entire industrial sites, built as speculative ventures purely to attract investment or constructed in good faith just as the intended market collapsed - examples of both types still exist.

A minor but important application of process recording is for training within the industry concerned. Of course this can only apply to industries which are still active, where it is perhaps instructive for trainees to be aware of how processes have developed, improving both production and working conditions. An understanding of how techniques have developed may enable a company to identify areas where further improvements might be made. Unfortunately, industrial processes are frequently superseded or altered and there is often no commercial reason for companies to make or keep records of the earlier operation. The reasons for recording industrial processes can be summarised as follows: • Recording of the industrial process will complement a structure or building survey, provide a more complete and integrated site record and allow a mutually enhanced understanding ofboth the operation and architecture of the individual site. The resulting records will allow the more

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century many substantial 'technical educator' -type textbooks were available; some were wide ranging and could be studied by workers wishing to better themselves, industrial managers wanting to keep abreast oflatest developments and potential industrialists wishing to find out what equipment to buy in order to set up 5

Study of Industrial

6 For example, the series of books published by the International Correspondence Schools. 7 As an illustration, surface remains at the former lead mine of Y strad Einion, Ccrcdigion, in Mid-Wales, where many archaeological features have been removed in the interests of public safety. The site and its processes were recorded beforehand (Palmer, M. and Neaverson, P., 'Nineteenth Century Tin and Lead Dressing: A Comparative Study of the Field Evidence', Industrial Archaeology Review XII, no. I (Autumn 1989) 20-391.

See Patrick, A., 'Establishing a Typology for the Buildings of the Floor Malting Industry', Industrial Archaeology Review XVIII, no.2 (Spring I 9961 180-200, where the process of floor malting is explained in order to show the close relationship between process and building design.

51

Arc haeology and Buildings

confident creation of typologies, drawing on several aspects which may have influenced development of the particular area of interest. • Study of industrial processes will give an insight to the reasons for the location of particular industries in a region and in relation to their immediate environs. • Records of industrial processes can be used as a research tool, quite distinct from architectural or engineering aspects, for studying the historical and local, regional and international development and variations of technique or operation. • Process records, properly integrated and related to surveys of associated structures and buildings, can be of great value when interpreting the archaeology of damaged, incomplete or demolished sites of similar type. • An accurate record of industrial processes can stand as an objective historical document, allowing future researchers to understand new information or re-interpret existing surveys or descriptions. • A study of individual company history can be enhanced by tracing the development of operation, using the records of process made at different periods. The perspective gained by such information can assist in training and indicate possible areas of improvement.

How is process recording best carried out? All archaeological recording is carried out under one or more resource constraints, commonly time, money and ability of the recorder. As an example, the industrial archaeology section of the Royal Commission for Wales is a minor part of a small organisation with a very wide-ranging brief; the aim is to record the architectural history, engineering and detailed process at every site of every industry in Wales. The reality is that widely varying industries have to be recorded at a level appropriate to resources. At even quite small sites, this has meant that rapid photographic coverage of buildings and structures, together with limited investigation of function, has had to suffice. However process recording is carried out, it needs to be done soon. First-hand practical recording can only be done while the industries are operational; a poorer alternative is to record intact but defunct plant, supplemented by information from people who worked it. It must be stressed that operations cannot properly be re-created from documents, drawings or images produced for other purposes, whereas it is much more likely that the history of an industry or the architectural style of its buildings can be studied subsequently from such sources.

Note taking Notebook and pencil are the basic too ls for process recording. An organised approach is required to follow rigidly the process around the installation, describing operations objectively in

writing and complementing such notes copiously with sketched diagrams. Measured survey of buildings may be required also as part of the recording programme, but this should be kept as a separate exercise; some processes are so complex, especially where flows divide and rejoin, that it is necessary to concentrate on only one task at a time. Notes and sketches should be supplemented with photographic cover; it is probably more efficient to take photographs (with details noted) at the same time as making descriptive notes and sketches so that the record is more integrated, with less chance of duplication or omission.

Photography Both ground and aerial photography have distinct roles as tools for recording processes; although photographs should normally be taken on proper monochrome film (not colour dye) for archival purposes, colour can have uses especially for aerial views, for publication or where colour is important to the process. Use of a hand-held and a portable tripod-mounted camera is a very cost effective method of gathering graphic information, but should be considered as an adjunct to written description and not a substitute. Technical difficulties aside, such as adequate lighting and vibration causing blurred images, a photographic image can not only give a three-dimensional appreciation of component relationship but can convey atmosphere and conditions on site and include the human operators and their activities where relevant. Photography demands an ordered approach, with notes made on each image at the time of exposure and a logical sequence followed through the process from start to finish - the architectural or other features of interest can be photographed in their own sequence. Thorough photographic cover also imposes its own discipline and creates the need to visit, understand and photograph all parts of a site, however difficult or unattractive, and not to take aspects for granted, although the 'point and shoot' ability of a small automatic camera held at arms length can be of great value when recording in hazardous or inaccessible areas. If it is not possible to undertake aerial photography, any existing cover should be obtained to study the threedimensional aspects of buildings, layout, topography and development of a site, to complement map and plan evidence. Aerial photographs generally have to include all aspects of a site and its setting and cannot be posed or set up as can a ground photograph; in effect they are uninterpreted images but can be easily understood on many levels. Such photography is a very quick, cost effective way of recording sites and those parts of their processes which are more landscape and environment related, especially when colour is used, e.g. vegetation discolouration indicating old tips, outlines of demolished buildings or structures, giving relationships between components of industrial complexes and insights into historical aspects of processes not always available from maps or ground photographs.

Brian A. Malaws: An Approach lo

Film and video recording Recording by film or video would seem an easy solution, although the process being studied still needs to be properly understood as it is of little value to film moving machinery without a context. To put together a worthwhile tape or film would require informed accompanying commentary and careful editing, especially where production flows split or rejoin. Undoubtedly the medium has a valuable role in process recording alongside other methods, but has several disadvantages: special equipment is needed, both to record and view the film or tape, the finished product has uncertain archival qualities, and a film or video cannot readily be studied at a level of detail or generality appropriate to the needs of every researcher, i.e. the process has already been interpreted by the film-maker.

Study of Industrial

however, experimentation in this medium may prove of value.

It will be seen that the most practical approach lies in compromise: by careful design, combining the simplicity and economy of paper documents with the interactive principle of CD-ROM, an illustrated description can be produced capable of being studied at several different levels and able to be searched easily. 8 Using one page or sheet for each discrete part of the overall process, containing title, simple one-line summary description, perspective cutaway drawing, detailed description and flowchart, supplemented with captioned photographs will enable the process to be read at whatever level is appropriate - each element should stand on its own as a description of the process. The page or sheet titles or the illustrations can be searched quickly for a subject or area of interest, which can then be studied on the same page at an appropriate level of detail.

Presentation of results Information gathered in the field is only of use if it can be interpreted and presented properly - there are many conditions to satisfy that do not apply to a straightforward measured survey, for example. To make available the details of a complex industrial process in a way that is easy to follow on several levels, including technical, graphical and pictorial; is capable of being searched to some degree; contains all relevant aspects to allow further interpretation by others, yet is reasonably concise, requires careful assessment of possible presentation methods. A conventional written report on specialised and technical processes can make for tortuous reading, although it is relatively easy to produce. Such a report would normally be written at only one level of detail according to the intended audience, even so a continuous narrative can be difficult to follow and to search for particular areas of interest. A chart or a series of annotated diagrams is an effective way of depicting process visually but skill and time are needed to produce sufficiently clear drawings and annotations may need to be extensive to explain complex events of low visual content. A single chart has the great advantage of presenting the process in one view, enabling appreciation of the relative importance of the parts and easing the search for particular aspects, but can be visually complicated and even daunting to study. Photographs are essential for conveying the actual appearance of machinery and are very easy and quick to produce in quantity. It is doubtful whether photographs alone could convey, successfully, all aspects of an industrial operation; extensive captioning and explanation would be needed where the nature of the process is not visually apparent. An electronic display, stored on CD-ROM, combining the advantages of the methods mentioned above would seem to offer the ideal solution but would need properly designed interactive capabilities to be a worthwhile research tool. This may currently be too expensive to produce and given the likely frequency of use might not justify the input of effort,

Conclusion The techniques of recording and presentation outlined above have been applied successfully to a colliery in South Wales,9 illustrated in plate 1 and figure 1, and have since been applied to subsequent projects. One of the principal aims of future industrial work at RCAHMW is to ensure that where possible the processes are fully understood and appropriately recorded alongside the architectural and engineering aspects. A summary of practical observations applicable to similar process recording projects is set out below: 10 • It is important to get in early while the industry is still working in advance of closure - plant will be complete, the process will be identifiable and there will be experienced workers on hand who are the key to the whole operation, no matter how mechanised it is. If the site is working, local Health & Safety precautions must be observed; however, unescorted access will cut time on site dramatically. • The workforce may be just about to lose their jobs, and should be treated with respect and diplomacy. • A lot of time will be saved by doing some homework before a site visit and understanding the basic principles of a process. Details of 'standard' machines or operations may be freely available in technical journals; it is how these are applied to a process that is important. • Primary data should be gathered for others to edit in the future. Findings should be interpreted to a reasonable degree 8 The Historic American Engineering Record and Historic American Buildings Survey have been successfully recording and illustrating processes for several years; however there seems little comparable work done in the UK. 9 This text is extracted from: Malaws, B. A., 'Process Recording at Industrial Sites', Industrial Archaeology Review XIX, (1997) 75-98, which gives a detailed account of the colliery, its survey and presentation ofrcsults. 10

Adapted from a list originally compiled by Miles Oglethorpe of the Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments of Scotland for dealing with large industrial sites.

Arc haeology and Buildinos

but not exhaustively. 'Primary data' in this case means observing and recording the actual operation of a process at first hand.

• Indiscriminate 'magpie' collecting, whether of photographs taken during a visit, or drawings and plans discovered on site, although unfortunately sometimes necessary, invariably causes later problems of identification, copyright, proper storage, and so on.

• Original design drawings are interesting, but oflimited value for recording an existing site, and little help in understanding processes. Drawings of any sort are rarely made of existing structures, especially at many self-contained industrial sites where detailed planning permission is not required. Standard installations can be modified locally, sometimes without record, so even official documentation cannot always be relied on.

• Field notes should be checked immediately upon return from a site and photographs identified and correlated to those notes as soon as possible. • Redundant or unused plant is not always removed, but left in place to confuse industrial archaeologists.

Plate 1 -Aerial view of Taff Merthyr Colliery in South Wales from the south east. This site was selected as a pilot to develop techniques of industrial archaeological process recording. The site has since been demolished and cleared. Note that this photograph was selected to complement the aerial view depicted in figure 1. (925054/48). Crown copyright; reproduced by permission of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales.

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Gunilla Malm: Vadstena Abbey church and its mason's marks

VADSTENA ABBEY CHURCH AND ITS MASON'S MARKS Gunilla Malm

Introductionand purpose On the eastern shore of a lake in the south of Sweden we have a little medieval town named Vadstena (fig 1). A century before the town developed there was a royal manor here. In 1346 king Magnus and queen Blanka donated the manor and the royal palace to be changed to an Abbey - a new convent for nuns and monks - to a member of the royal family, Birgitta Birgersdotter. Not until 1370 the pope granted his permission for the founding of this convent (Berthelson 1947, Anderson 1972). Most certainly the royal donation was a result of Birgitta's own influence upon the royal family. Written documents tell that she far before 1346 had put forward visions and wishes for how to plan this Abbey. The purpose of this paper is to give a short presentation of the building process ofVadstena Abbey church and to discuss some questions concerning its mason's marks. The base is publications of field researches of the royal palace and the Abbey (Berthelson 1947, Anderson 1972), publications of field registrations of the mason's mark of the church (Ljungstedt 1966-1967, 1999) and building archaeological analyses of the church that I have had the possibility to make in connection to other researches in Vadstena. It must be underlined that what I put forward with this paper neither is publiced nor examined in academic discussions. So far there is no answer to most of the questions. The questions put forward are my own thoughts of how to find the best method to clear working circumstances of the medieval masons and the organisation of the building workshop of the church. The paper is primarily intended for a base to further discussions on Vadstena Abbey church and its mason's marks.

The paper also is a part of a larger research work that concern medieval builders and my aim to give them a face. When Swedish medieval written documents talk about persons connecing to, what we nowaday call buildings of a high cultural value, it is almost allways persons from the social top of the society- the elite. Seldom we find any information about common people - for instance the workers who with their own hands took part in buildings abbeys, cathedrals, palaces etc. We have to find the knowledge about this social group by analysing the buildings - i.e. the prime sources. Vadstena Abbey is an exception to this rule since written documents sometimes are mentioning its builders. The questions concerning the mason's marks that I discuss cannot be answered by these documents though.

The Abbey church As distinguished from the palace with building material of brick stones, the Abbey church is built oflime stone ashlars. Sand stone ashlars are to be seen in its oldest building stage though and the vaults are of brick stones. The Abbey is a hall church with a narrow chancel to the west and a nave with three aisles each with five bays (fig 2). The main entrances, consisting of two double doorways, are on the east gabel. In other words, the orientation of the church is reversed. In the north wall of the chancel there are five recesses with small openings going to a building for the nuns' confession outside the wall. This building outside the wall does not exist today. The remains have been discovered in archaeological excavations.

Arc haeology and Buildinos

The level of the chancel floor is ca 1 m below the floor of the nave. The nave floor is leaning ca 0.4 meter from the east down to the west. The level of the nave pillar bases is reduced successively according to the leaning of the floor. The sacristy to the south of the chancel was built in 1926 on the place of a medieval sacristy. The high altar stands in the west on a podium beneath the arch between the chancel and the nave (fig 2). A staircase leads down from the podium to the floors of the chancel and nave. The high altar probably has its original position (Hildebrand 1898 - 1903). The reversed orientation of the church and the different levels of the chancel and nave floors belong to the building process of the church. The decoration and sculptural details of the Abbey are simple. Outside the main entrances in the east is the churchyard. Buildings of the palace to the north of and close to the church were changed to suite the convent of the nuns. To the south of the church buildings of the palace were changed for the monks. To the west of the church there was a parlatorium (Berthelson 1947, Anderson 1972).

The buildingprocess Soon after 1346 Birgitta went to Rome. She never returned to Sweden to take part in the building process or to see the Abbey completed. She died in 1373. According to written documents building the church most probably was started in 1369 or 1370 (Anderson 1972). Birgitta left distinct directions to the reuse of the palace buildings as well as to the layout, orientation and size of the church. She also left distinct derections to the interior of the church - to decoration and sculptured matters, to staircases and ambulatories, to entrences, to the place of the altars, to galleries, to a balcony for bishops, the royal family and noble men etc (Anderson 1972). When planning the layout and the orientation of the church she had to regard to the topography and to the layout of those buildings of the palace manor she wanted to reuse. Those buildings were situated close to the place where she wanted the church to be built. The ground sloped heavily from southeast to the north and the lake. It seems as the only orientation the church could have to function properly here was a reversed one - i.e. with the chancel and high altar to the west, the main entrances and the church yard to the east (Anderson 1972). It is also possible that Birgitta found the royal palace, manor and topography useful to be reused to the abbey, if she wanted the church to have a certain symbol in which a reversed orientation was included. According to Birgitta's directions the chancel should be built at a higher level than the nave. A staircase should lead from

the chancel down to the nave. Most probably she planned the floor of the nave to have the same level as the buildings of the palace manor to the north meant for the nuns. According to the topography this meant that the nave floor must have a level some 2 meters below the ground outside the main entrances (Anderson 1972). That meant transporting away soome 3000 m 3 earth. These large works Birgitta surely was well aware of, but they were possible be done. Further on Birgitta wanted the arches of the east gables' main entrances to have a level of 6 m. above the nave floor. This large heigh must mean that their thresholds were not meant to have the same level as the floor but higher up, probably at the same level as the ground outside the entrances. From here staircases were to lead down to the floor (Anderson 1972). Did the church then once built became a result of Birgittas' directions? The answer is no. The building process is quite hard to interpret and to this also is added large changes during the 16th century that makes the process even harder to clear. During the 16th century the church was adapted to the Lutheran lithurgy, the nuns and monks had to leave, the south portal (fig 2) was probably built, all interior wooden ambulatories, staircases, balkonies were demolished. The original function of now dressed in medieval portals and other openings in the walls are forgotten. Though the building process of the church is hard to understand a lot of scolars have put forward interpretations of it. In my opinion lwar Anderson's is the most truthful. According to him building the church probably started with the aim to follow Birgitta's directions which would give the church a plan as fig. 3 shows. Among other things the main entrances in the east gabel of the nave was meant to have their tresholds at the same level as the ground outside it and steps leading down to the nave floor. The floor level of the chancel was meant to have a 2 m. higher level than the nave. Of reasons we do not know this original plan was changed during the process. What was allready built was not demolished though, but used in the continuing work. Fig 4 is showing the church when finnally built according to this changed plans. Here the chancel floor is of a 1 m lower level than the nave floor - as it is today (Anderson 1972).

The original building plan

With regards to joints, visible in the interior (figs 5 - 7) and the difference cut surfaces of the stones there is possibilities to give a more detailed interpretation of the building process (figs 8 - 14). It must be underlined though that more stages may exist than is presented here. So far there has been no analyses and documentation of the masonry that is needed for a fully inerpretation. Buildnig stage 1 (fig 8) The regular geomethrical system underlines that the plan was fixed when building the church started and that the plan was not changed during the building process. The ditches for the

Gunilla Malm: Vadstena Abbey church and its mason's marks

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Gunilla Malm: Vadstena Abbey church and its mason's marks

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Arc haeology and Buildinos

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