The aims of the WAS

WAS was set up in 1999 by a group of residents with the encouragement of the East Sussex County Archaeologist to undertake a comprehensive geophysical survey of the buried remains of medieval Winchelsea. Our principal objective is to provide the hard evidence needed by archaeologists to reconstruct the precise layout of the 13th century town. Surprisingly, given the international archaeological importance of Winchelsea, very little of the town had been geophysically surveyed prior to 1999. Some pre-1999 survey records have even been lost.

The WAS also undertakes research. In 2005, it organised a team of volunteers to help National Trust archaeologists clear the cellars of Blackfriars Barn of the broken crockery that had been dumped there during the 18th and 19th centuries. The crockery will be sorted and classified by WAS volunteers trained by professional archaeologists, and the results analysed and written up by those volunteers.

In order to foster public support for the conservation of Winchelsea's archaeology, WAS tries to ensure that its importance is more widely recognised. We wish to make archaeological records more readily available to professionals and more accessible to the general public. WAS is therefore compiling a library of archaeological material  which will be made available in hardcopy and online. Some material is already available on this website (see the right-hand panel). WAS is also involved in a number of visitor information projects such as the Winchelsea E-Guide.

WAS assists visiting archaeologists. In 2003, it was able to help a team of archaeologists and geographers from Queens University Belfast in their pilot study of the planning of the new towns established by Edward I in England and Wales.

2007 also saw WAS take on its first archaeological watching brief on a development site in Winchelsea.

WAS was invited to comment on the draft Winchelsea Conservation Area Appraisal and submitted a response in January 2008.

Volunteers clearing Blackfriars Barn

WAS surveys

WAS conducts geophysical surveys using its own resistance meter. This was purchased with a lottery grant from Awards for All. The meter detects underground features by measuring the resistance to an electrical current flowing between fixed and movable electrodes. The movable electrodes are carried on a frame which looks not unlike a Zimmer Frame!

A team at work in Truncheons Field

Dry features such as stone foundations resist the flow of current; wet features such as filled-in ditches and cellars facilitate the flow. By placing the movable electrodes on the ground at a succession of points in a 20x20 grid, with each point one metre apart, a pattern of electrical readings is recorded. The readings are then processed on special software to produce a matrix of different shades showing the outline of what is under the ground. An example is shown below.

Resistivity plot of the northern half of Truncheons Field

In 2006, WAS also started to commission surveys with ground-penetrating radar (GPR) of areas that have had resistivity surveys. The first GPR survey was of the claustral area of Greyfriars monastery. The results were very exciting and have revealed a quite different layout to the one extracted from documentary sources and surveys of scorch marks (see the right-hand panel). WAS uses the services of Arrow Geophysics of East Dean, who have been pioneering more rapid and affordable GPR technology specifically for archaeology.

To date, WAS has completed geophysical surveys of:

• Pipewell Field (the site of the Blackfriars Monastery)
• field by the New Gate (the site of Bartholomew’s Hospital)
• proposed site of a public tennis court behind the New Hall
• Truncheons Field (Quarters 24 and 29 of the medieval town)
• garden of Eastwoods on Tanyard Lane (the site of the port) --- surveyed by auger.
• Greyfriars garden (monastery site) --- resistivity and GPR. 
• St Giles Close (site of St Giles Church).
• A private garden in Mill Road.
• St Leonards Marsh.

A number of these surveys have been written up and circulated around the membership. In due course, we hope to publish them.

The next surveys will include Greyfriars parkland (the site of the Monday Market square) and Castle Field.

In 2007, WAS began its first excavation. This is an exploratory trench across what may be a foundation wall of St Giles Church.

How you can help