Archaeology Warwickshire 3.3 - Warwickshire Web

Archaeology Warwickshire
Stratford-upon-Avon, Alveston Manor Hotel 2002-3
In 2002 proposals were put forward for the construction of a new health club at the Alveston Manor Hotel on the south side of the River Avon at Stratford-upon-Avon. Because the site lay immediately to the south-west of a rich and extensive Anglo-Saxon cemetery previously excavated in the 1930s and 1970s a field evaluation was carried out on behalf of MacDonald Hotels. This took place under the direction of Christopher Jones and Cathy Coutts in December 2002 and involved a single, long trial trench. Finds included early Anglo-Saxon pottery and an iron arrowhead. No graves were found but a possible disturbed cremation urn and the presence of human bone in a gully and other features suggested the cemetery might extend into this area (Jones 2002). As a result planning permission for the health club was conditional on further excavation within the footprint of the new building. This was carried out in January-February 2003 and covered an area measuring 38m x 23m. The earliest evidence found consisted of a Neolithic/Bronze Age pit containing heat-cracked pebbles, perhaps used in cooking, and other charred material, together with a number of worked flint tools. A small possible posthole and gully may have been contemporary features but had been much disturbed by tree roots.
Alveston Manor Hotel 2003, Excavations in progress.
In the north-east part of the area there was a single complete male inhumation belonging to the Anglo-Saxon cemetery. This had grave goods including a shield boss, two knives, two spearheads and a buckle, all of iron (see photo below). To the south west there was another grave disturbed by later activity where only the legs and some disturbed grave goods were recovered. The grave goods, a penannular brooch, a glass bead and an iron knife blade, indicate that the burial was that of a woman. Anglo-Saxon male burial. Evidence for another disturbed female inhumation was provided by more grave goods redeposited in a later ditch to the north east. The grave goods consisted of two gilded bronze saucer brooches (see photo below) with a spread of nine decorated glass beads between them. The beads would have been linked on a thread running between the brooches which themselves would have formed clasps for a cloak. The beads and brooches appear on initial examination to be of a type dating to the late 5th/early 6th century AD. The fragmentary remains of three cremation urns were also recovered all from the northern half of the excavation suggesting that the cemetery was petering out in this area. Anglo-Saxon gilded saucer brooches. The cemetery was abandoned later in the Anglo-Saxon period and a number of successive boundaries were laid out. The early boundaries took the form of small gullies, larger ditches and posthole alignments. The line of these moved about over time but for the most part converged in the north eastern corner of the current excavation where there appears to have been an entrance way from the north. It is possible that these features relate to an Anglo-Saxon settlement located to the south and west of the hotel. A series of pits and postholes in the south east corner of the excavation may have been associated with this settlement but could not be related to individual structures. Some may have been small quarry pits later used for waste disposal. A separate enclosure in the southwest corner of the excavations was linked to the eastern area by a posthole alignment.
Other finds from the excavations were limited. Some bone, both animal and human, was recovered but in a deteriorated state. A small number of potsherds was recovered but in most cases these consisted of the fragmented remains of cremation urns redeposited in later features. At some stage in the medieval period the arrangement of boundaries changed and a new boundary ditch or gully was cut running north west-south east across the site. This cut across the backfilled earlier features and pottery from the fill suggests that it continued in use into the 16th/17th century. The ditch may have formed a boundary to the manor house whose existing structure dates from the late 15th/early 16th century. Plough scars in the surface of the geological natural may give an indication of land use at this time. Subsequent activity is evidenced by a garden soil that probably developed during the period of the manor house in the 18th-20th centuries. The final phase of activity was associated with the current hotel building and included the cutting of drains and the creation of the rear access road. Material associated with the construction of the hotel wings together with subsequent landscaping was also identified.

Reference: Jones, G C, 2002 Archaeological evaluation at Alveston Manor Hotel, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, Warwickshire Museum Report 0250.
Archaeology Warwickshire, Warwickshire Historic and Natural Environment The Butts, Warwick, CV34 4SS Tel: 01926 412280/412278 Fax: 01926 412974 Email: fieldarchaeology@warwickshire.gov.uk

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