Young Archaeologists in the Pandemic

The church of St Helen and the Holy Cross. This artist's impression places it in the position it held in Crouch Street, Colchester. I received two items posted through my letterbox this week which relate to our project "caught in a Tudor Web". These included some notes and puzzles on the Reformation from a new ten-year-old member of the club. She had studied the reformation and provided additional information on the religious houses in Colchester, which were closed and demolished in the Tudor period. She writes:- "Crutched Friars or The Hospital of the Holy Cross and St Helen, was founded before 1230 by William de Lanvelli, became a secular hospital or free chapel. Dissolved 1538.   Greyfriars, founded before 1237 by Robert, Lord Fitzwalter, dissolved 1538."   Articles in copies of "The Colchester Archaeologist" confirm the Hospital of the Holy Cross and St Helen, was indeed founded to support the poor and the sick. Those services were lost when it was

 Perhaps the most spectacular ruins in Colchester are those of St Botolph's Priory. They are familiar to many who walk to and from Colchester Town railway station or the car park on the site of the former Britannia works. Adam from Colchester YAC writes:- "Saint Botolph's Priory. Founded in 1093. Re-founded 1100. Dissolved 1536. Order Augustinian. Crutched Friars. Founded in 1230 by William de Lanvelli. Re-founded in 1496. Dissolved in 1538. Order:unknown. Greyfriars. Founded in 1237. Dissolved in 1538. Order Franciscan." Greyfriars was the only religious house to be founded within the walled town. Its site is now occupied by a hotel. A wall from the friary and statue niche can be seen in an adjacent car park and the repaired and rebuilt wall of the former friary runs along the east boundary of Castle Park down to the Roman origin wall. The Priory Church of St Botolph's remained to serve as a parish church, but was finally ruined during the Siege of Colchester (16

 The south side of the great entrance to St John's Abbey Colchester, above, would have been familiar to its last abbot John Beche. Adam of Colchester YAC writes:- "John Beche was a member of the Colchester Beche family, who were renowned pewter smiths in the town. He studied at Oxford and graduated in 1515. He eventually became abbot of St John's Abbey in 1530.  In 1534 he took a seat in the House of Lords. The same year the reformation began with the Act of Supremacy. He agreed to the act, as he considered Henry Vlll to be head of the church in all temporal matters. In 1538 Beche denied Henry's right to seize his abbey. Beche was arrested tried and executed in front of his own abbey in 1538"

 Upheavals and reform in the Tudor period transformed the built environment in Essex. All that is left of a once great Benedictine Abbey, south of Colchester's town walls is its magnificent gatehouse. YAC Adam writes:- "St John's Abbey was founded in 1096 by Eudo Dapifer with the order of St Benedict (Benedictines). The Abbey was the largest abbey in Colchester and the fourth largest abbey in England. It was built where "miraculous voices" could be heard. Eudo even claimed to have witnessed a miracle at that site. Eudo is also known to have laid the first stone of the Abbey and the Abbey was burned partially in a large fire that affected the town in 1133. The Abbey also received a vial of St Thomas a Becket's blood from a monk named Ralph. This vial was the Abbey's most important relic. The Abbey was the victim of a mob attack during the peasant's revolt. The Abbey was also believed to have supported the Plantagenets leading to Richard lll's mothe

Discussions on the Reformation in England at Fordham last year had impressed the archaeologist running our GPR sessions. Leading that debate was Adam, a valued member of Colchester's YAC for six years. Here are his notes on two notable Catholic martyrs caught in the "Tudor Web" in the county of Essex. He writes:- "St John Payne was born in Peterborough, England in 1532. He moved to Douai in 1574, where he was ordained two years later. He returned and stayed at Ingatestone Hall with the Petre family. He went on missions to reconvert the English to Catholicism. He went on to be arrested in 1581 and was indicted at Chelmsford after being held in jail for 9 months. He was executed for treason. The execution was controversial as he proclaimed his innocence. St Anne Line was born some time in 1563 as Alice Higham in Essex. Some time she converted to Catholicism in the 1580s. She converted with her brothers, leading them to be disinherited. Around the same time she began he

The YAC's were enthralled, yet again, at Colchester's Natural History Museum.     It had been more than two years since the club last met there. At that time we made plans to go beach combing and fossil hunting on the Essex coast. But every plan we had made for 2020, bar our January and February meetings, had to be cancelled due to the pandemic.    Today we learned about shark's teeth and handled examples. We identified and dated fossil shells from the red crag. We revived our plan for beach combing and fossil hunting.     The local rate of infection is currently quite high for the omicron variant of the virus. Five members of the club sent in last minute apologies as they felt unwell and tested positive for covid 19. One volunteer was unable to come to the meeting due to an appointment for a booster jab.    Members who were able to meet up, brought their researches for our lottery funded project. But the number of absentees due to the virus made it impossible to complete t

 Colchester YAC's trail has been approved and checked for historic accuracy by two leading local historians and is set to be updated on Monday  One of our teenage members is writing up some of the tragic stories of the ordinary people who were caught in the web and suffered an extraordinary fate. Two other members have made a study of the Reformation and will write up their findings, highlighting the terrible fate which befell the last abbot of St Johns Abbey.      We have received more enquiries for membership in the past week. Hopefully they can all be accommodated as the worst of the pandemic subsides are we are able to ensure we have enough volunteers to monitor them at meetings. We are also planning an event, at the end of July, at Roman Circus House and gardens. All potential members will be invited to that. We will also showcase the research and artworks members and volunteers have produced for our project "Caught in a Tudor Web" and the trail of the town we explor

 Young archaeologists adapted a map from more than 400 years ago to show the reach of the deadly persecutions of protestants in the county. They replaced symbols of their own archaeological and historical interests in heraldic shields and put their club, project, and county logos in medallions. They coloured in the woodlands, sea and estuaries and highlighted the towns and villages where it was known the protestant martyrs lived. Their instructions were carefully followed by a graphic artist. One of our YAC volunteers worked diligently on a google map. The link is below. Click on the pips to reveal the names of the protestant martyrs who lived in these towns and villages....  Caught in a Treacherous Tudor Web – Google My Maps