Description:
The accompanying news report reads as follows: A foot-thick lid of limestone was hoisted from a medieval coffin lying in the earth on Castle Hill, Thurgarton, on Saturday. As the stone slowly rose, a group of archaeologists of national and local repute saw disclosed the skeleton of an unknown person. In charge of the opening of the coffin was 33-year-old Henry Hodges, of the Institute of Archaeology, a brilliant investigator of the past, who is spending his summer holiday on Castle Hill directing the diggings at a site first opened at the instigation of the late Sir Jack Drummond, in 1948. Watching intently, too, were Prof. H. H. Swinnerton, noted geologist, formerly of Nottingham University, and Mr. Charles Coulthard, vice-president of Nottingham Field Club, which in 1951 discovered the grave beside the underground ruins of a late Saxon chapel. Nottingham University students and members of the Peveril Club were witnesses also. Mr. Hodges stepped down into the grave, beside the coffin, which was of thick limestone and conventional Norman pattern, lay another which had been found already uncovered. Mr. Hodges examined the bones, but said it was too early to make any conclusive statement about identity or sex. Prof. Swinnerton also examined the stone of the grave with a magnifying glass. He had already identified it as oolitic limestone, possibly quarried at Ancaster, near Grantham. As he inspected it again he remarked that the Romans had quarried such stone at Ancaster. In the other grave had been the bones possibly of a middle-aged woman. The latest skeleton may be that of her husband. Presumably the couple were connected with the family of landowners awarded acres at Thurgarton after the Norman conquest. Castle Hill - it is by no means certain there was ever a castle there - is within a stone's throw of Thurgarton Priory an agricultural research centre of Boots, surrounded by their experimental farms. The grave lies outside the door of a chapel about 47 feet long. On the other side of the chapel, the grave of a child aged about.12 has been found. Other discoveries are expected soon and the highest archaeological authorities have recently visited the site in connection with further digging. Mr. Coulthard declined to disclose what the new operation would be. Evidently Saxons lived and worshipped at the spot, and the region is rich in bones and relics. In conversation with Mr. Hodges, Mr. Coulthard agreed that an important archaeological discovery had already been made on the hill. This was that samples of late Saxon pottery of a kind which no one knew existed in Nottinghamshire had been found beneath the walls of the chapel. Hitherto, it has occurred only further south and east between the Wash and the Thames, and now extends the archaeologists' map of Saxon activities. Until now, only the much later 'green glaze' pottery has been found in the country. Mr. Hodges paid a tribute to Boots, the owners of the land, who finance the excavations, and to students and, Peveril club members who are assisting him skilfully. Mr. Coulthard is head of Boots bacteriological research.