Clarendon: Report on the medieval floortiles found at the ...



Birds, Beasts and Related Spoilheaps: a report on new discoveries concerning the 13th-century Wessex floortiles of Clarendon Palace

Between 2000 and 2005, the site of the late medieval palace of Clarendon underwent consolidation and conservation, largely funded by English Heritage, and as part of the endeavour, finds from the spoilheaps left by the palace’s 1930s excavators have been analysed. Although such an 'archaeology of archaeology' cannot be as conclusive as one would like, it has revealed much about the palace site, and particularly about Clarendon’s medieval floortiles.

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Composite plan of Clarendon Palace (author)

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Left: Wessex Group 1 Floortile from a Clarendon spoilheap.

Right: Typical Wessex Group 2 design made with a fleurs-de-lys –bearing stamp

Clarendon has a special place in the history of the floortile industry. Here in 1937 the (at that time) earliest known secular floortile kiln was discovered, along with the so-called king’s pavement for which it was made (below). The pavement’s tiles, designated Clarendon group I (c.1237-45) by Elizabeth Eames, almost certainly inspired the famous Wessex Industry whose traditions had spread as far as the west midlands and Wales by the early fourteenth century, and whose distinguishing characteristics can all be traced directly to Clarendon’s group II tiles (c.1250-2). These are chiefly associated with the what is known as the queen’s pavement, found in situ c.1936, which probably just predates or postdates the tiles laid in Salisbury and Winchester Cathedrals, whose designs are identical or very similar. The third, less well-executed Wessex/Clarendon group (after 1260) is less well-known, although it was widespread in Wiltshire in the last quarter of the thirteenth century.

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The King’s Pavement, as seen in the British Museum

Since c.1990 around 3,000 floortile sherds have been recovered from the palace site. In view of this large number it was decided not to attempt detailed fabric analysis at this stage due to constraints of time, although hopefully this will be done in the future. Few Wessex groups generally have been analysed in order to test links to local centres, and in view of the proximity of the Alderbury rooftile kilns and the pottery kilns at Laverstock, the Clarendon evidence might have implications for our understanding of the organisation of the medieval floor tile industry as a whole.

Distribution

On one level the distribution of floortile across the palace precinct of course reflects the provenance of the 1930s spoil heaps. On the other hand, it is immediately obvious that most of the sherds were present in the spoilheaps around the royal apartments. It may be argued that this is hardly surprising. However, qualified conclusions can be drawn. Although small amounts of each group were recovered from the Great Hall, the evidence suggests strongly that the hall itself was never tiled. Instead it was probably strewn with rushes or similar. Each floortile group is widely distributed across the palace site, although this is especially the case concerning groups I and II – those associated with the King’s and Queen’s Pavements respectively. Again, because the finds come from spoilheaps rather than stratified deposits it is unwise to draw firm conclusions, especially since finds away from the royal apartments are quantitatively insignificant (1kg or less) and prove little.

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Nevertheless, the floortile recovered from around the western gatehouse is intriguing. The gatehouse was the site of the relatively high-status apartments of the deputy forest warden/custodian of the manor, possibly from when it was erected in 1240. Moreover, the whereabouts of the forest warden’s lodge, perhaps on or near the periphery of the palace site, remains unknown, as does the ‘chapel in the outer court’ mentioned in the survey of 1276 - probably the ‘chapel in the midst of the manor’ alluded to in repairs of 1354. It would be going too far to suggest that a few floortile fragments betray the locations of these buildings, but it is as well to remember that, like other structures, they are as yet undiscovered.

Because of the close identification of group I and II tiles with the king’s and queen's pavements respectively, it comes as somewhat of a surprise to see that group I is well represented in and around the Queen’s apartments, and that more group II than group I sherds are associated with the king’s apartments (see illustration, above). This may have implications for the dating of the group II tiles, which has previously been tied only to documentary evidence concerning pavements ordered for the queen’s apartments in 1250-2.

Pavements and Technique

The figures recovered highlight a preponderance of group II tiles at Clarendon. This is not surprising since the earlier group I tiles, made on the site by tilers almost certainly paid a daily wage, represent only one relatively short campaign, while group III, perhaps made by inexperienced tilers, seems to have been relatively unsuccessful and to have been laid in limited contexts. Group II tiles, in contrast, were mass produced by technically accomplished craftspeople and are widespread across the region.

Elizabeth Eames has suggested that the Clarendon and Salisbury Cathedral pavements (laid before 1258) may have been made at the same place, although she has stated that ‘it is not possible to determine whether the examples used at Clarendon were made there or elsewhere’. However similarities between the fabric of Clarendon floortile and rooftile have been noted, so that the rooftile kilns at nearby Alderbury are a possibility.

The Clarendon assemblage is a rich source of information concerning manufacturing technique. On occasion it seems some experimentation was going on - or perhaps apprentices were being trained. An example is an entire group I dragon tile with a lack of inlay so complete that it must never have been there, and the fragment of group II plain green tile ‘glued back together’ with mortar, and presumably reused. Finally there is the well-known example of the group II stamp that gradually lost its Fleurs de Lys. An impression of this, notably very worn and with no fleurs-de-Lys remaining, was recovered from the area between the Great Hall and the king's chambers.

Complete tiles were found in almost every shape and size - although these are almost all plain, probably because intact decorated survivals have been robbed from the site over the centuries. Possible new designs represent variations on known themes rather than anything dramatically different, suggesting that more stamps bearing the same design were in operation than has previously been thought.

Floortile from elsewhere on Clarendon Estate

Fieldwalking in 2002 in Hockamore Field, intervisible with the palace and sited to its north-east, turned up three floortile sherds. These included a group I inlaid fragment weighing 206.4g and a group II inlaid sherd of 157.2g. That these were both inlaid is significant, as Hockamore was almost certainly the site of an early high-status hunting lodge at Clarendon; the romantically- named ‘Lodge on the Laund’ (the ‘launds’ being the area in the park where the fallow herds were kept). Indeed there are substantial remains of a building in the north-east of Hockamore, above the present Queen Manor Farm. The Farm may have replaced the earlier lodge in the late seventeenth century, and significantly reused timbers in it have been dendrochronologically dated to c.1330. Documents first mention the Lodge on the Laund in 1341 when it was being repaired, so it is possible that it already existed in the thirteenth century when the Clarendon floortiles were being produced, and that Wessex pavements were laid in its floors. One solution would be detailed excavation of the northern end of Hockamore, which certainly exhibits many intriguing lumps and bumps that cry out, at least, for geophysical survey.

The work on the Lodge on the Laund specified in 1341 involved the removal of rubble, and the few floortile fragments found in Hockamore may have come from the lodge at that time. However in view of documentary evidence regarding re-use of materials from the palace after its demise in the late fifteenth century, it seems more likely that the fragments were brought from there along with other hardcore. In 1495-6, for example, the chimneys of another Clarendon Park lodge were mended with ‘tylesherdes’ from the palace, and in 1607-8 lodge-repairs were carried out during a campaign which included ‘wages for digging…stone’ at the palace site. Unfortunately the quantities of floortile from Hockamore are too small to confirm or deny either hypothesis.

Conclusions

The tiles from Clarendon may have much to tell us about the workings of the medieval floortile industry as a whole. Detailed study of their fabric and designs might answer many questions and resolve a number of problems. For example it has long been accepted that the same stamps were frequently used for numbers of years, perhaps treasured as prized tools-of-the-trade by one or more tilers. However, designs that vary even slightly from those previously illustrated may indicate that more stamps were in circulation than has been realised, and that therefore they may have been expected to have much shorter life-spans. Accordingly, it is hoped that it will be possible to record and analyse in detail the designs on the thousands of sherds discussed, accompanied by scientific fabrics analysis that may pinpoint with accuracy the point of origin of each group and perhaps establish relationships with other local industries.

However, the most notable conclusion that can be drawn from the floortile evidence concerns the distribution of the tile groups. I and II are spread widely across the palace site and group III less so. Probably far fewer group III tiles were made in the first place, and their use was almost certainly confined to the royal apartments, whereas group I and II pavements may have existed elsewhere in the palace precinct. This said, the quantities recovered away from the royal chambers are generally small, so that the evidence is inconclusive. In itself, however, this indicates that finds excavated from the spoilheaps left by the 1930s archaeologists do bear some relation to their original provenance - albeit to a lesser degree of archaeological accuracy than would usually be acceptable.

Amanda Richardson.

Senior Lecturer in Late Medieval and Early Modern History

University of Chichester

Bibliography

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