Gone Medieval - Medieval Ludlow

Episode Date: July 17, 2021

Founded in the late 11th century after the Norman conquest of England, the town of Ludlow is critical to Medieval history. From an impressive castle built to defend the borders of England against the Welsh, to a fortified town brimming with industry and commerce, to an archaeological gold mine, it offers incredible insight into the lives of people in Medieval England. In this episode, Matt speaks to the Resident Archaeologist at Ludlow Castle, Leon Bracelin, about his favourite finds. They delve into the fine details of the lives of former residents of Ludlow for a remarkably close look at Medieval England. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval from History Hits. I'm Matt Lewis and anyone familiar with my social media or my writing will know that Ludlow is a fabulous town near the Welsh borders and is a place that I absolutely love. It's steeped in medieval history with links to some of the people that I write about the most, the House of York, Richard Duke of York, Edward IV, Richard III, The town has a beautiful castle and church and is a great place to stroll around on market days.

So this episode is something of an indulgence for me, for which I hope you'll forgive me. I'm delighted to be joined by Leon Braceland, who is the resident archaeologist at Ludlow Castle, to talk about some of his work and some of his finds there. Thank you for joining us, Leon. Thank you. Thanks, Matt. A real pleasure to be on the program. Well, I'm 100% up for this. So can you tell us a little bit about the earliest history that we know of about Ludlow?

When does Ludlow begin to emerge as an important town? Now, the interesting thing about Ludlow is that it's really steeped in a lot of history. And I suppose the earliest reference to it, because it wasn't in the Doomsday Book, but we tend to go on the Doomsday Book, Primise, the good old Normans. You can imagine their scribes going around. They must have had a problem when they got to Wales. Of course, a Ludlow's on the border of Wales here because of the pronunciation. So it wasn't in the Doomsday Book.

It didn't exist at that point. And of course the Doomsday Book was around 1066, around that period. But we do know from the archaeology and what's been discovered over the past century with various bits that's gone on, that there was probably three farmsteads originally around Loveland pre-conquest. And that would have been Dinham down Jalford. and also down Corv Street as well. Corv Street in particular is interesting because in that 14th century,

you have that emergence of the Carmelite friary, and that was a big monastic building, bigger than the current St. Lawrence's church. And if anyone knows Ludlow, it's wonderful. As you approach Ludlow, you see the church for miles. It's like a beacon, a honing beacon. Kind of nickname the Cathedral of the Marches, isn't it? It's such a big parish church for a town, really.

I mean, it really, I mean, I'm quite honored because I got married there and it's beautiful and it's a very key location actually where it is. So the earliest sort of reference there to Ludlow, you've got the farmsteads, we know that there was a very strong probability of a settlement, particularly in Dinham, which is around the sort of where the castle is located. You've got this wonderful river that snakes round. Just north of the town, you've got a hive of archaeological activity that's been looked at over the years. You've got prehistoric landscape, Mesolithic and Neolithic as well. And it also links to the east side, Clee Hill. So it's had this wonderful emergence through the ages. But from that medieval period, yeah, on that Doomsday book, it wasn't in existence.

I think it was Stanton Lacey, the fortified manor house towards Graven Arms. The De Laces actually owned it. The Normans, when the Normans got here, they were given their lands to their military, if you like, boat. And then you had the emergence of all of Motten Baileys, you know, and particularly where we're located geographically. We are on the borders of Wales. and that whole castle which is really linked it was built 1086

Normans built it and you've got the castles up the marches which is the line dividing England from Wales really to keep the Welsh out because they were such troublesome folk I mean Welsh you know what Welsh

means it's an Anglo-Saxon term it means other people not like us to be foreign they were feared And I quite often say the Welsh marches for the Normans when they arrive and things like that. It's a lot like the American Wild West. So it's a big frontier. So the lords that go out to the Welsh marches, they have a degree of independence from the crown that maybe others don't enjoy.

But they tended to be a really tough breed. They knew how to deal with the Welsh. They knew how to deal with the Normans. And they kind of operate in that weird space in between, which is why you get that row of fortresses up there. I mean, Ludlow Castle is a big old fortress. of a castle made to defend the Welsh borders. It's fabulous. It is.

And it's a great demonstration. And I often say when people come in, the visitors come in to the castle over the summer months. I say, you know, look at this. Because people, I think sometimes wrongly assume that Lovlo Castle is all about a lordship. Well, that came later. It was a military building.

And they were making their mark on the landscape. And the hinterlands as well. And they were saying, we're here to dominate. we're here to rule you and you are subservient. When you walk round that castle, every aspect of it, you look at it and you think people made this with that, you know, they created this monument with their hands. It's astonishing, isn't it?

You can see for absolutely miles around, can't you? If you go to the top of the keep or anything like that, you can see literally for miles into Wales. Yes, and that's a really good point because I often say to people, I say go to the top, especially if the keep, and then do a 360 degree turn, and you will see aspects on the landscape, on the hinterlands, and you know, it's all part of this town, as far as you can see,

all links, trade was going on, movement was happening, life was living, and I suppose in the medieval period, it was much like really is today. People had their own concerns, you know, life goes on. We're living through a very unusual time at the moment, and last year when I was able to excavate, it just struck me as I was going through the levels on some of the digs I was doing in the key locations of the town.

When you get in the later period, that Victoria, the cholera, the TB, then you go down into the medieval, and you're looking at that period where they were dealing with the black plague, which kept coming back and the black death. And people were still like us living and getting on with it. Yeah, it really hits home. Yeah, I guess probably right now, it feels like such a strong parallel to the evidence that you're literally digging out of the ground for what happened 700 years ago.

So what kind of thing does the archaeology around Ludlow tell us about the town? So what kind of trades were prevalent there? What kind of evidence do we see of people's daily lives around Ludlow? A good point to this is a lot of people go, well, archaeology, you know, what's this about? And people often refer to time team and things like that, which has done a wonderful embodiment of work. It brought it into people's living rooms and raised away. fairness. And I often say to my students, you know, archaeology is about finding things out as opposed to finding things. We like detectives. They're clues. They're clues to what people were doing in the past, in the ancient past. And the finds here are varied from clay pipes, post-medieval. And that was because of the castle. And it demonstrates the affluence of wealth. Clay pipes, the early clay pipes, a very small bowl. heads, the later ones, a bit bigger, with the foot's on the end as well, and it's just showing

it was becoming cheaper, you know, but at the beginning, it was exclusive. Then you can go through, you know, musket balls, for musket balls, another later end of the medieval. But for me, in particular, as an archaeologist, is the medieval pottery. I really trying to get a foothold in understanding the typologies we have here in the medieval period, particularly between the 10th the 14th century. I'm trying to understand the fabrics. And what I mean by that is that looking at how these vessels were made, looking at the inclusions, working out how far they came.

The general rule of thumb in the medieval period is in pottery, it was a poor man's trade, really. And you can imagine the people making the pots and then going on horse and cart to market. And the general rule of thumb is you see a change every 20 to 25 miles. because they break, you see, and things like this. But vessels, pottery is very, very important because we have cups, we have tin cans, we have plastic,

we have all kinds of stuff to contain things, but they didn't. And pottery and vessels and jugs and all these kind of things, for me, as a find, really shows us an insight into medieval life here. Other things, unusual things come up. A seal matrix is probably one of the most interesting things I've found from the 14th century with a VW, no, it looked like a VW, you know, again, with parallels into today, you know, into modern life, really. It looks like a Virgin Mary stamp mark. Tiny little thing is, I think we had one medieval crossbow bowl that we found.

That was interesting. It was a 14th century. And an abundance of organic material. oyster shells, bones. There's bones everywhere. Everything I do in town, there's bones, an abundance of bones, because we talk about organic today, but these guys didn't know nothing but organic, you know. I think also a lot of people get confused with the shiny stuff in archaeology. I only found any gold. No, I haven't. Not that I tell them anyway. But some of the interesting finds broad date range, and it's really interesting. But a pottery for me

is the key, yeah. So, I mean, you mentioned a crossbow bolt being found there. Is there anything that you found, particularly in the castle I'm thinking of, that can tell us about what's going on at the castle? So it's a border frontier. It's a militarily operative building. And over the medieval period, I guess it becomes refined into much more of a comfortable palatial place as the Mortimer's become more wealthy. And the House of York gets control of it. And then it goes into crown hands during the Wars of the Roses. Can you see that kind of progression and change of use in the archaeology? Well, it's a really interesting point. I mean, the castle is a protected monument. It's scheduled monument. So there's very little in the way of what I would say investigative archaeology,

as in opening up trenches that go on there. But the work that does go on there, when we do open it up, for various things. So, for example, the festivals that we have, we have to monitor and make sure that don't do any damage to any archaeology with a tent page. you know because they can go quite deep. But invariably, the other interesting facet is that castle was very high status. And in reflection to the town, it's a bit of an anomaly because you've got the average working everyday people and the division between those in the castle was extremely sort of, the wealth was extremely sparse.

And so the finds that have come out, to me, again, some of the pottery that we have had, found in some of the trenches that we've done in our investigative work have possibly been as early as date between 1080 and 1250 and that ties in with other shirts that I've found across the other parts of the town as well and of course over the years there's stuff that's been cataloged you know the finest stuff has been cataloged and is in the museums one thing that comes to mind there was a lovely ornate 13th century ivory figure. I think it was a bishop and that was found in Mortimer's Tower. So there are some interesting things and in fact there's a whole embodiment of work

of really refreshing the fines that have come out over the last century because a lot of that hasn't been revisited and a lot of things that are stored away in dusty boxes sometimes. Yeah, do you see a noticeable difference in the pottery that comes out of the castle compared to what comes out of the town? So is it higher status? Does it seem to come from further away, maybe? Or are they using pottery that has been made in Ludlow? Yeah, well, this is what I'm trying to determine.

And there's a whole gaping, whole of knowledge we don't know. Because Ludlow, you see, it's a very well-documented medieval town. It's one of the best medieval documented towns in the country. So over 75 to 80 years, a tremendous amount of... of research has been done documentary evidence by the historical society. And they've done a tremendous amount of work, but they are different to us archaeologists. We deal with the physical remains, and that's why the police use forensic archaeology is because it's conclusive.

But we need to synthesize and work together. And the pottery linking in with your question that we found in the castle, a lot of it is very well made, but particularly in the post-medieval Tudor period, you're starting. to get these wonderful different treatments of glazing that you don't see anywhere else in the town. So there is a difference, but the early stuff between the pottery between 1080 and 1250 is very similar. Some of it is Malvernian where, so it's come all away from the Malvern hills, and it's got this beautiful crushed mica in it. So when you look at it in the sun, you can see it sparkling.

some of these shirts have sooting on them still when they come out the ground so it's something that we don't understand but it's something that the embodiment of work that i'm doing especially with a test project that i'm doing in the historic core of the town is collecting that data so we can analyze it and further our understanding of it more than what we currently know because archaeologically not a lot has been done in ludlow in the past only by association house extensions, what you're in Bruce that I do, especially around the town wall and ditch, you know, that's part of a scheduled monument as well,

so it's very very protected. It sounds like it's fair to say that the gulf between the town and the castle seems like it got wider as the medieval period went on, so they started off quite close together by the time we get to the Tudor period when I guess Ludlow was becoming a centre of government for Wales really. It's becoming much more apart from the town and the town's people. You're correct. In fact, up in the castle,

square where again once the castle was built and about a hundred years afterwards the emergence of the town market there but some of those key buildings like the castle lodge queen elizabeth's keeper of requests lived there you know he had a war chest and he was an incredible amount of wealth and then a quality square if you go around the back and look towards the entrance above you'll see these wonderful thin tudor bricks and they were terrible standard a lot of them were imported from Italy and they were really expensive because of course old medieval buildings were mainly stone rubble and wood and the emergence of bricks then later in that post-medieval period, it was about 1530s I think it was, was showing how much wealth people had. I often wonder as well,

maybe you can help me out with this one. Ludlow when you walk through it, it feels like a really old historic town. So how different might Ludlow have looked in say the 14th, 15th century to what it looks like now because a lot of the shops, I think, are probably the same buildings. You know, it used to be a shop in the front and people would live or work, have a workshop out at the back and a lot of that narrow street, you know, narrow buildings are still there. So can we still feel like Ludlow is fairly similar to what people walked around 600 years ago? In the medieval period, it was grim. Unless you were in that top fraction, yeah, who had wealth, status, royalty even, life was just not worth. And in answer,

to the question, I'm thinking of the names of the streets, Fish Street, Frog Lane, that's now St Julian's Lane, all these medieval references, you know, especially Frog Lane down by the Wheat Sheaf there. The Wheathe there is built in the town ditch. And a subterranean survey I did many moons ago, I was looking underneath the town trying to find entrances to test the theory of that urban myth

that castle places, monastic places, they've all got tunnels and hidden entrances. And I thought, let's try, let's test it. And underneath the week, chief, lo and behold, we found the origins of the 14th century bridge that crossed the medieval ditch. And of course, Frog Lane is a reference to watery place. You know, so, I mean, even Ludlow, place names are important to us archaeologists.

I mean, Ludlow itself refers to a mound on the hill. This is very in general terms, overlooking the loud water, the noisy river. and that St Lawrence's Church is quite key actually because when they built that the church in 1199 they had a mound there which I think and other academics think is probably Bronze Age it certainly links to the racetrack

in the medieval period they didn't know what prehistory was they had no idea even when 1846 when they did the railway and they cut him through the barracks they didn't understand what it was you had the antiquarians treasure hunters looking for treasure. That must be frustrating for you though, looking at it today, thinking how much has been destroyed by all those people

just ploughing through things and taking away bits and pieces. Yeah, it does. And I think from the work that I do, from the work in the castle to the projects to all my professional work, watching briefs, people's house extensions, things like this, one of the things you realise is in the last 15, 20 years, we've been more on it as a nation. We've been more on it in looking after our heritage, our archaeology.

Because like my students, you know, the thing we've doing an excavation, it's the last resort. We don't just go in an excavate to find out what's there. There's a lot of background work that goes into it. And you have to, not everyone can just dig. You've got to be qualified and the rest of it. So it tells us a lot. But once it's removed, you can't put it back. It's gone.

and that's why we incessantly record, record, record, record. And we excavate in order to understand how the ground's made up. And on that point, let me tell you, this is really overlooked. Back of the castle, you walk round on the Duchess Walk, you walk around and it's like three tiers. And there's wonderful views. And I believe that pathway was putting in 1736, right? I often say to the kids, when they're up in the towel, we look out,

and I say imagine for nearly a thousand years of chucking your rubbish out because what you've got round the back of the castle is a giant midden what I mean by that folks is it's a rubbish heap so ever since when the castle was first built it was built on a geological outcrop because it's defensive there was a reason for it and over time that material was built up and in the winter months I go around to do a surface finds collection and we record it.

And the data that's coming out there is unbelievable. In fact, if you've got a JCB and just dug a massive trench through a wedge through all of it, you'd get stratified remains. What I mean by that is that there's one layer on top of another and it's not been disturbed. You go towards the top and you see the old 1960s bottle tops. And you can imagine, you know, in the 60s, 70s, 50s, 40s, you know, most of the population of what we know was ludlow, say it was probably conceived

around there in the summer months. I was walking around there, Ram Mortimer's walk around the back of the castle. I was walking around there last week. So I was effectively walking on hundreds of years of rubbish. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's all archaeology. I'm sure down at the bottom, you've probably got, you know, from when your Normans are eating their bits of chicken, throwing it, or whatever they ate. I don't know what they have. And that's probably down at the bottom.

You had one or two bodies down there, I reckon, pottery, all kinds. but I remember somebody saying to me, what's the soil black here? And I said, because it's organic. I said, when you walk around a castle when you consider all of the fireplaces, can you imagine the industry

of normal, genuine people that had to keep that castle going? It was a massive system. And only the tiny upper echelons. We hear of this, but they weren't visible. It was your everyday people. And the reason why that soil's black, I said, think about all the ash.

Where does it go? And I guess that was, mean that the castle was probably on much more of a sheer kind of cliff when it was built. If all of that ramp of stuff built up against it, if you walk around the back of Mortimer's walk now, around the back of the castle, it looks hugely imposing to look up on those walls, but it must have been almost twice as imposing originally before all of that accumulation of rubbish was there. It's very hard to imagine what it was like back then.

It is, it really is. It's hard in a sense of our own prejudice, our way of seeing. things and the layout like you were saying before the town would have been much different it would have been smaller less populated you probably would have seen curly unfurling smoke rising in the distance the noises and the smells and the see that's something that archaeology as well it can't pick up it's very difficult to do that that whole century sort of phenomenological sort of approach to it sometimes gets overlooked, and it would have been relevant. So some of the tanning areas would have stanked to high heaven.

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going on in Ludlow at the moment? What have you got planned? What would you like to find out? You know, where would you really like to dig? The great exciting thing about it is, is that because there's very little work that's been done in the past, there's a tremendous opportunity. And, you know, I'm based in my career. I've lived here. I've been here since the early 90s. I love the town. And really one of the aims, although I sort of specialize in looking at the pottery, One of the aims is really for me to understand the origins of the town because that's why I'm trying to look at the medieval pottery. So the projects currently what I've got underway is mainly the test pit survey.

And what I'm doing is looking in the historic core of the town in people's back gardens. I've been doing this for the last two years. And it's a very wonderful methodology that's very unobtrusive. So we can get to look, we go down a meter square. all of the finds are recorded, the archaeology, the archaeological deposits are recorded. That's the levels that are undisturbed. We're also getting to find out where the geology is, because, I mean, you know, it's got a wonderful, unique makeup geologically this town as well.

And that's very reflective, actually, in the town wall. You can see where it's made up one side and then on the other side. So I've got a test bit survey going on. And are people generally quite cooperative with that? Are they happy for you to go and dig up their back garden? I guess people are probably interested. They love it. They love it.

Honestly, every work that I do in every season, I put on a series of lectures for the town, and they can't get enough of it. And the local people, I mean, I post up here on a local Facebook group, memories, I think it is. And there's a thing that people miss a trick on, talking to older generations,

because they do remember stuff. You know, I had a guy, he said, yeah, yeah, in the 60s, I used to muck about with the Vickers' daughter. We used to go up and we found these alcoverts and tunnels and entrances. And then, you know, that links on to the subterranean survey that's ongoing as well. So I'm looking underneath the town survey and the cellars to understand the townscape underneath. Because what you don't see, we don't tend to think exists in our world.

The castle is really interesting because it's always under a constant state of repair. So there's a lot of work in recording that as well. And another interesting project that I started about two years ago was a apopatraic witch marking project where I came across. And this is through the subterranean because I started invariably looking up chimlies. And then I started finding these Georgian boots, single boots, stuffed up the chimneys. And then I started finding these markings, burn marks, Virgin Mary marks, Daisy Will. So it's weird.

And I thought, this is really interesting what's going on here. So I set about in the winter mums to, invariably they're up in loft spaces or above entrances, you know, of medieval buildings. And I've been setting out a project to record that with some of the students. So it's all ongoing, but truly fascinating, you know, really is. And what were which marks? What were they for? Why would we find those in buildings? Well, it's an old superstition.

I believe from what I've found so far, and there is other work across the country that's being done on it as well, which is good. It's a little bit like the graffiti work that's being done in Norfolk that started off there. Really, you know, wonderful insight into how we can capture archaeology in its unusual forms. But they were used really for country folk, for your average everyday person that had their old, I suppose, pagan beliefs still embedded. in the way they were living. You know, at that time in the medieval period, we were really into the cycles of the seasons. We had to be to survive.

You know, most tradesmen, whatever they were doing, everyone in the summer months had to stop whatever they were doing. Get out in the fields and bring the harvest in. And then you see the emergence of the medieval fairs, the Mayfair that was here. And all the youngsters would come to town and do what youngsters do like they do when they go around the fair today. So were the witchmarks, are they about warding off evil, that kind of thing?

Because obviously witchcraft is a significant belief in the Middle Ages, isn't it? People genuinely believe that witchcraft was real and dangerous and a threat. Yeah, well, it's something that's very close to my heart. My dad was an anthropologist in the 60s or 50-60s. He did a lot of work. And there's a lot of stuff in the Boss Castle Witchcraft Museum on old folklore. It's something that truly fascinates me. But yeah, it was all to do with superstition and fear, really.

you get these scorch marks. Now you normally find them at the top of barn buildings or hidden away. And of course today what people do is convert barns and they put in floors and levels. So when you go up, you start seeing these deep scorch marks. And I think they were put there as a superstition for the house not to be struck by lightning. It's sort of like a synthesis of religion, folklore, really governed by fear in a way. So what in your years digging around Ludlow? What's your favourite find so far?

What's the best thing you've ever pulled out the ground? I love it all, but I suppose very simple. To me, I found a lovely 13th century, almost whole, but it was a jug spell. Now, I just loved it for what it represented, the way it was made, the finger marks that were still in it, the glazing that they experimented on with it, where it's dripped. That was one of my favourite finds. The other favourite find has got a bead of seal matrix as well, a little tiny thing that I'm having research, because that's the other thing with archaeology is that the time periods and the finds are so variable that you can't be an expert in it all.

And there are other experts in different fields. Clay pipes, for example. I love clay. I love them. You get the stamp marks. And the ones in Ludlow with the heart shape mark when it's got a W. It was a chap, I think it was William Underwood, who was made. making them in 1620. Now it's post-medieval.

But it's fantastic. And I think I had a moment. A student, I mean, you know, I smoke roll-ups and the rest of it. And my students there with one of these, what do they call them, electronic things? And he says to me, how do you smoke that without a field? And I said, well, it's easy. Just put it in your mouth in your socket. And I looked at him and thought, do you know what?

My God, there's a moment in the future. They're going to be digging up fake machine parts and mods and putting them in museums. and what the hell were we doing? You know what I mean? I mean, we know better now, but back then in that sort of post-medieval period, it's very fashionable, you know. So the seal matrix, jugspouts,

I found some lovely shirts of medieval pottery, tiles, monastic floor tiles. I found a lovely one down Mill Street. I mean, again, it's about 15th century, but it was beautiful. It had this inlay, Tudor Rose. Oh, and then also, other floor tiles a little bit earlier, 13th, 14th century,

where you see them being worn down by the people constantly stepping on them. You know, they're amazing. It's that real tangible link to what was, you know, these are things, but they were used for stuff. So the pottery and the drugs were used every day and the floor tiles were walked on by people. That's right.

And of course, you can imagine them making it. Imagine that whoever was pouring it and then it slipped and it broke. And there's probably a story behind that. And it broke and she swept it up, chucked it out. Because, you know, what do you do? What do you do? But it's just that insight into everyday life. Medieval tokens, farmers' tokens,

where they used to exchange sort of like for goods at the end of, you know, working in the fields and the seasons. That gives an indication of people in their circumstances. So would that have been a form of bartering rather than using money, exchanging a token to be retrieved later on for other. services or goods. Yeah, that's it. That's totally it. It would have kept the economy local as well before really people started travelling much further afield. But yeah, and a way of control as well, form of control. So I guess as a last question then, if you were given absolute free reign,

where would you love to sink a trench in Ludlow? I would love to get down in the castle well, right and I think you know why is because it would be completely intact stratified deposits layered because it's got a wall round it hasn't been interfered either side and just what that could tell us with the fines that you can imagine getting to the you know because I watch people throw coins down there now and where I take people around the summer months and I talk about the archaeology I mean I don't shut up and they love it though they love And we've got a little basis now of a museum in there, so I started to show all the fines to the kids and the adults. And they loved it, and they learn.

You never stop learning. I don't stop learning. And, you know, you look down that well and you think you can see all the coins, yeah, the people throw today. So you've got that. You go underneath that. If you were down there, you'd get predecimilization. Underneath that, you get the Georgian, or Victorian. And go underneath that, you get the sort of like, Tudor period.

then you get to the medieval period, then you get all kinds of. But, you know, you don't know what kind of goodies are down there and it's been left alone and no one's touched it. And it's just waiting to be discovered. There might be charms down there.

There could be all kinds of things because we've always done that, thrown things, offering, offering, offering. I'm right in thinking that bit around the well, which is kind of at the back of the keep, isn't it? If you go in there, it seems like the ground is really, really high,

but that's just what's built up over the period because if you try and get into one of the back doors of the tower, it feels like it's really low, like it's about four foot tall, isn't it? But that's because the ground level's higher than it was. That's right. That's totally right, yeah. Similar principle, we've seen churches. You know, I do a lot of work in churches.

And quite often the church is sunk, or the earlier churches, they're sunk, and the ground's been made up. Again, the same principle as the back of the castle around the other side where the giant midden is, really. All that's been made up. and it would have been bare rock. So, yeah, the levels are really, they can trick you.

You know, all is not what it seems. Yeah, we tend to think people built all the door frames really low in those days, don't we? But it's not necessarily that, where sometimes the ground level has changed. The other area, which I'm tackling this year, I just started largely,

is the Dinam area, which is near the castle. And that will be able to tell me quite a lot by the geology levels, the fines that are there. Hopefully any architecture. archaeological deposits that have been untouched, stratified remains, all of this, that would tell me a great deal. And it's pretty much the earlier part of the town. I know when I've excavated down out towards Corb Street, the layers are so deep of Victorian disturbance because of a hell

of a lot of building works. I mean, they built the Victorian chapel down there, you know, St. Lawrence's press. Those buildings either side on one side of the road, they'd go down about three metres. and it's all just Victorian stuff, you know. And you can always tell by the soils, the finds that come out. You know, if there's a bottom of a trench and you get a Victorian shirt, it's been disturbed. You can't put your hand inside and underneath. So, Denham area is exciting.

Any time we open up the castle, that's exciting to me as well. When things are getting back to a little bit more normality and Ludlow castles open, when can people come and see you and hear about these fascinating things around the castle? The castle is looking to open again over this year. Last year they successfully managed to do this, put things in place. So that should be back to normal. Usually we normally kick off in there around Easter time, but it's going to be a bit later this year.

I will be in there from May onwards for the rest of the year. You can find me in there on a weekend. Usually on a Saturday, I love taking a tourist round. I'm quite unusual like that. Some of my peers don't like to engage. I love engaging with the public. I love it. It gets me thinking, I'm always doing lots of work around the town. People, if you've got any questions, you'd always contact me on my email,

Leonabbracelyn.co.uk. Now looking to put together, or we've just done the basis of it now, we'll be launching that, a YouTube channel so people can see what I'm doing. And I've been experimenting late last year with two-minute clips, so I've been putting that on a channel because people love it. they want to see and the thing is if you have a website but it takes me forever to type it up and that ain't going to happen i do too many reports because everything you dig you got to write it up that's another thing guys as well you know there's you know one day's digging a week writing

it up one day of fun and a week of torture afterwards so i'm always about and and you know in the summer months i put on sort of regular talks how that's going to go this year i don't know i've been doing a lot of zoom and if we want to come and get a tour of the castle do we have to book or anything like that or are you just there at weekends and generally available you can drop me a line on my email and i do take private tours around so people you know i'm there for hire for private tools for schools universities families all kinds so i'm there generally for the public over the summer months but i do get booked out in weekdays other days that suits you and i'm now bringing a town tour where i'm starting to put together this year

a unique archaeological town tour. So I want to take people around the town as well so they can see the archaeology in relation to the castle. They both go together. Thank you very much, Leon. I mean, that was a fascinating tour through the centuries with Ludlow

and it'll certainly, I think, add to my future visits to Ludlow where I'm frequently to be found wandering around. If you found this episode interesting and you'd like to hear more from Gone Medieval, then subscribe wherever you get your podcast from and tell all your friends and family that you've gone medieval.

While I've got you, I caught an episode of Dan Snow's history hit the other day on Vikings in America, which kind of ties in with the archaeology here, looking at the earliest evidence of Vikings making it across the sea to the Americas. And it's well worth a listen if you want to learn a bit more about those Viking settlements. Anyway, I've been Matt Lewis, and we've just gone medieval with history hits.