History beneath our feet
Colin Smale reveals some of the many historical artefacts found in the county.
Lincolnshire is one of the best counties in the UK in which to find ancient coins and artefacts.
If you could clear away today’s landscape and reveal that of Roman or Saxon times, you might be very surprised by what there once was near you. Your house may well have been right in the middle of a settlement site that has long been forgotten. While weeding her garden in Cleethorpes, one elderly lady pulled out a 1,000 year-old Saxon finger ring. It begs the question, what happened there 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 coin or artefact is immediately recognisable for what it is, such as a button, but more often than not the item is enigmatic, such as the strange bit of pottery shown in PIC 1.
What could this be? 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 had been used as such for well over 7,000 years! This 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 expect. Just take a look at the one pictured 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 around it. 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!
Well, treasure in the form of gold or silver does surface from time to time and PIC 3 shows a Celtic gold stater of Dumnocoveros, ruler or king based in the English East Midlands around the time of the Roman conquest of Britain.
He is traditionally thought to have been a ruler of our own (Lincolnshire) Celtic tribe, the Corieltavi, sometimes called the Coritani, who inhabited this region in the Roman period and perhaps before.
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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...