History beneath our feet – October 2023
Colin Smale examines fascinating historical artefacts found in our county.
If you could clear away today’s landscape and reveal that of Roman or Saxon times, you may be very surprised at what there once was near you. Your house may have been right in the middle of a long-forgotten settlement site! While weeding her garden in Cleethorpes, an elderly lady pulled out a 1,000 year-old Saxon finger ring. It begs the question, what was going on there in Cleethorpes 1,000 years ago?
POTTERY SHARD
Discoveries can surface at the turn of the archaeologist’s trowel, the farmer’s plough or from the beep of a metal detectorist’s machine. Sometimes the artefact is immediately recognisable, such as a coin or a button, but more often than not the item is enigmatic, like the strange shard of pottery shown here [PIC 3]?
What could this have been, it was obviously created for a purpose?
According to recent research this type of perforated pottery was used to separate cheese curd from whey, it was for making cheese and has been used as such for well over 7,000 years! This piece has been loosely dated as Romano-British (AD 43-410).
BUTTONS
I mentioned buttons; well, ancient buttons can also be more interesting than you might think. Just take a look at the one featured here [PIC 2], known as a ‘livery button’, found on farmland in Caistor. It shows a covered wagon pulled by two horses and you can even see the harnesses. It reads ‘Brocklesby Caister’. It’s a bus and dates from around 1770-1850!
Today’s Caistor was obviously yesterday’s Caister because such a wagon is hardly likely to have plied between Lincolnshire and Caister in Norfolk.
CELTIC GOLD!
Gold or silver does surface from time to time and here is a beautiful Celtic gold stater of Dumnocoveros [PIC 1], ruler or king of our own Celtic tribe, the Corieltavi (sometimes called the Coritani) who inhabited this region in the Roman period and before. Its diameter is 19 millimetres and it weighs 5.40 grams.
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Grantham school joins Carol Service in celebration of town’s hospital![]()
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Pupils from St Mary’s Catholic Voluntary Academy are taking part in the first Carol Service to celebrate the special relationship Grantham and District Hospital has with the town and surrounding communities.![]()
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The school children will join in the singing of favourite Christmas Carols as well as perform their own set musical piece at the Carol Service on Thursday 11th December at 7pm, in St Wulfram’s church, Grantham.![]()
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Deputy Head Teacher Olivia Mumford said: “The Carol Service is a fantastic opportunity for our pupils to share the joy of music while showing appreciation for the incredible work done at Grantham and District Hospital. It’s a privilege to support such an important event in our town."![]()
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The Carol Service has been organised by United Lincolnshire Hospitals Charity, who work closely with staff at Grantham and District Hospital and provides those extras for staff and patients that NHS budgets are unable to fund. ![]()
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Further details on the Grantham NHS Carol Service can be found by visiting www.ulhcharity.org.uk/news/christmas-carols-at-grantham-st-wulfram-church-in-thanks-for-towns-sup...