ARCHAEOLOGY IN BIRMINGHAM

Sutton Park as you’ve never seen it before!

A LiDAR (aerial laser) survey was carried out to assist future management and protection of this multi-period historic landscape. It provided a detailed record of features that were already known but obscured by vegetation, such as the banks and ditches subdividing the medieval deer park and the quarry pits alongside the Roman road, and revealed many previously unrecorded features. These included embanked pits, possibly used in the production of whitecoal, ridges indicating former cultivation, former field boundaries, earthworks that may be related to the Roman road, and two possible burnt mounds. In addition, a local researcher has located many sawpits in the Park’s historic woodland.

The Park’s potential to provide information on past environmental conditions was assessed. The undated results of previous pollen analysis of peat deposits up to 0.9m deep in the Longmoor Valley and antiquarian records of Scots Pine under the peat suggest that it dates to at least 5000 BC, but any later deposits have been destroyed by peat cutting which was taking place here in the 18th century and probably earlier. Augering showed that other valleys in the Park contained well-preserved peat over 0.6m deep which had not been affected by peat cutting.

Fig. 1: LiDAR (Light detection and ranging) survey of part of Sutton Park

Birmingham city centre: backyards and a brassworks

In Carrs Lane (Fig. 2), behind the High Street, there were several pits dating from the 14th to the 18th centuries, separated by layers of soil dumped to level up the ground surface. The oldest pit was roughly circular and was covered by a layer containing medieval pottery. Following further dumping, two pits were dug which were both lined with clay to retain water. A later pit was also clay-lined and was covered by planks held in place by a jointed cross beam. The pits are likely to have been originally intended for an industrial process but may have been used as cesspits when their industrial use ceased. Cattle horn cores show that leather tanning or horn working was taking place.

In Dean Street, near the Markets, excavations revealed a former stream, probably the Dirtey Brook which is marked on historic maps. Timbers and wood fragments found lying on the surface of a wide expanse of river gravels and silts may be part of a revetment along the stream. A pit partly lined with wooden planks and plant debris, including willow twigs, dug into made ground over the silts may be one of the osier pits marked on a map of 1808, which were used to soak willows for basket making. Basket makers were working in this area between 1770 and 1830.

Fig. 2: Part of the Carrs Lane site being excavated by staff from Birmingham Archaeology