With contributions by Eric Boore, Sarah Brown, Phil Greatorex, Michael Hare, Caroline Ireland, Arthur MacGregor, Donald MacKreth, Arthur Price, Richard Reece, John Rhodes, Juliet Rogers, Alan Vince, Malcolm Watkins, Michael Webber and Felicity Wild.
A ruined arcade of 12th- and 13th-century arches in the suburbs of Gloucester is all that remains of a minster church founded c 900 AD by Æthelred, Ealdorman of Mercia and his wife Æthelflæd, daughter of Alfred the Great. The minster was established at the time of the refoundation of the town of Gloucester, and the new church was given the relics of St. Oswald of Northumbria.
This site has become a major example of the combination of standing and buried archaeology, and the recovered detail enables both the plan and elevation of this important early 10th-century church to be reconstructed. The evidence is all the more valuable because it represents a period of Anglo-Saxon architecture when information about new buildings is very sparse. After the Norman conquest it became an Augustinian priory and then a parish church, only to be pulled down in the 17th century. This report describes the excavations of the late 1970s, and incorporates detailed accounts of the preconquest documentary evidence, the spectacular collection of Anglo-Saxon and later sculpture, and other finds including medieval floor tiles, and small finds. There is a full analysis of the human skeletal remains which provide important physical information spanning more than a thousand years.
The evidence is combined to produce a full account of the site from its origin as a Roman tilery and cemetery, through the Anglo-Saxon years when the church may have been known as the Golden Minster, to its end as a ruin in an obscure corner of the town of Gloucester.
Author(s): Carolyn Heighway, Richard Bryant
Series: Council for British Archaeology. CBA Research Reports, 117
Publisher: Council for British Archaeology
Year: 1999
Language: English
Pages: 288
City: York
List of figures vi
List of tables x
Preface: English, French and German xi
Acknowledgements xiv
PART I: GLOUCESTER AND THE MINSTER OF ST OSWALD: A SURVEY OF THE EVIDENCE by Carolyn Heighway and Michael Hare 1
PART II: THE EVIDENCE
Chapter 1: The documentary evidence to 1086 by Michael Hare 33
Chapter 2: The excavation and the structural evidence by Carolyn Heighway and Richard Bryant 47
Chapter 3: The finds
General introduction by Carolyn Heighway 108
Roman building materials by Richard Bryant, Carolyn Heighway and Arthur Price 108
Medieval building materials: Anglo-Saxon and medieval building stone by Carolyn Heighway and Richard Bryant 108
Medieval roof tile by Philip Greatorex 109
Medieval floor tiles by Alan Vince 110
Medieval stained glass fragments by Sarah Brown 119
Anglo-Saxon and later medieval wall plaster by Michael Webber 122
The Roman pottery by Carolyn Heighway, Caroline Ireland and Felicity Wild 124
The Medieval pottery by Carolyn Heighway and Caroline Ireland 126
The Post-medieval pottery by Caroline Ireland 128
Miscellaneous small finds 130
Roman coins by Richard Reece 144
Medieval and later coins by John F. Rhodes and Malcolm Watkins 145
Reckoning counters and tokens by John F. Rhodes and Malcolm Watkins 145
Chapter 4: Sculpture and architectural stone by Richard Bryant 146
Chapter 5: Burials: the cultural evidence
The cemeteries 194
The burials 201
Analysis of burial rites 202
Roman, Anglo-Saxon and medieval coffins by Michael Webber 207
Post-medieval coffins and coffin furniture by Carolyn Heighway and Eric Boore 219
Post-medieval gravestones and epitaphs by Carolyn Heighway 226
Chapter 6: Burials: the human skeletons by Juliet Rogers 229
Appendix: list of context groups 247
Abbreviations 251
Bibliography 252
Index by Susan Vaughan 260
