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Kirkstall Abbey Postern, Leeds, West Yorkshire

The Vesper Gate at Kirkstall Abbey< Leeds, West Yorkshire — The Vesper Gate at Kirkstall Abbey, Leeds, West Yorkshire

The Vesper gate is the name given to a stone structure that stands on the north-western perimeter of Kirkstall Abbey monastic precinct to the north west of Leeds city centre. In contrast to the rest of the abbey, relatively little is known about the Vesper Gate. It seems to have served as a convenient gateway that gave access to the Cistercian abbey’s western properties. In the mid-1990s when the writer was first appointed as Curator of Archaeology at Leeds Museums and Galleries, the condition of the Vesper Gate was generating some concern in local newspapers and community

Plan of Kirkstall Abbey precinct. The Vesper Gate is at the top on the northern boiundary of the abbey precinct. From Hope and Bilson's 1907 Architectural Description of Kirkstall Abbey. — Plan of Kirkstall Abbey precinct. The Vesper Gate is at the top on the northern boiundary of the abbey precinct. From Hope and Bilson’s 1907 Architectural Description of Kirkstall Abbey.

newsletters (Kirkstall Matters 62, p.19; 64, p.15 and Yorkshire Evening Post 17.6.1996).

At the time it was claimed that no less than 1.5 meters of stonework had been stolen from the Vesper Gate over a five year period. This seemed to be excessive even for local vandals and so I made a search of local archives for historic photographs of the Vesper Gate. Some were housed at Abbey House Museum where the writer was based but other sources included Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Thoresby Society and Leeds Libraries.

The Vesper Gate in 1882 (courtesy of the Thoresby Society, the Leeds Historical Society).

In 1873 only the portals were recorded as still standing by Leeds historian and antiquary James Wardell (1813-1873). A 3” x 3” glass slide in the Thoresby Society collection shows the ruins from the south-east in 1888. A similar photograph appears in a guide to the public parks of Leeds. In both photographs two stone piers can be seen, one on either side of Vesper Lane, the narrow road that runs across the top of what was the mill pond dam for the abbey (see photo below).

During the first half of the 20^th century major changes took place. At some point during the 1920s or early 1930s Vesper Lane was widened. The 1921 and 1934 Ordnance Survey maps show this clearly. In Leeds Museums and Galleries collections there is another 3” x 3” glass slide showing Vesper Gate before the road widening. Unfortunately it is undated but Alan Garlick (former Assistant Curator of Social History, Abbey House Museum) dated it tentatively to the 1920s based on the clothing of a woman standing in front of the southern pier. The width of the Vesper Lane at this time must have been about 10-12 feet. In 1934 the Ordnance Survey map shows the Vesper Lane had been widened. A 1947 photograph in Leeds Local History Library shows only one of the portals still standing. So the widening of Vesper Lane in the 1920s or early 1930s had been achieved at the expense of the southern pier of the Vesper Gate. It may be that the loss is perhaps less tragic than it seems because St John Hope and Bilson, in their authoritative Architectural Description of Kirkstall Abbey (1907), refer to earlier road widening, so perhaps only a rebuilt stone pier was destroyed rather than intact and in situ Medieval stonework.

The Vesper Gate in 1996 with Kirkstall Abbey church tower in the distance. The road (Vepser Lane) runs over what was originally the Mill Pond dam.

These photographs enabled me to make a comparison between photos showing the Vesper Gate as it survived in 1996 and its condition some 60 years earlier. It rapidly became clear that whilst some stone had certainly been removed from the Vesper Gate, only one course of stonework had been taken off the top. One of the missing stones still remained at the foot of the portal, and, after consultation with English Heritage, it was replaced (it can be seen in the 1996 photo above, slightly to the right of the foot of the portal on the edge of Vesper Lane).

The Vesper Gate (14th September 2014). Note the replaced top stone.

To state, therefore, as was reported at the time that the Vesper Gate had been reduced to a stump of stone was misleading. That is not to say that no stone had been removed, simply that the degree of damage had been exaggerated. During the previous one hundred years the Vesper Gate had suffered its greatest damage during the 1920s and 1930s when Vesper Lane had been widened.

At the time, when I wrote a note for Kirkstall Matters, the local community newsletter, I couldn’t resist teasing the contributors to the Leeds newspaper article that had started this particular hare running. They claimed to remember when the Vesper Gate had an arch over its two portals but the archive photographs showed clearly it hadn’t had an arch since before 1873 at the very latest. I wrote that either the Vesper Gate had had some sort of temporary arch for a commemorative event of some sort (which seemed very unlikely), or else the contributors were a bit older than they were letting on… What laughs we had! However, maybe the last laugh is on me because there was another peripheral building at the abbey – the park keeper’s lodge – built in neo-Gothic style, which certainly did have an arch and it disappeared during the 1950s. Could that have been the building arch the local residents remembered?

More about this blast from the past in a future blog. This will be discussed in the rejuvenated section journal Medieval Yorkshire, the second volume of which, I’m delighted to say, is taking shape under David Asquith’s editorial hand.

Flaumpens, Chewitts and Bakemetes

Pastry as a sculptural medium in late medieval and early modern Europe : a free illustrated talk by Ivan Day

Tuesday 23 September 2014, 6pm to 7pm, Castleford Forum Museum

In 1429 the eight year old Henry VI was presented at his coronation feast with a custard pie garnished with an English lion grasping a French fleur de lys in its claws. This edible emblem of territorial ambition and legitimacy to rule over the conquered is not an isolated example of a food item purposefully loaded with meaning at this period. Henry was also served with a pie in the form of a shield, garnished with ‘lozenges gilt” and borage flowers, chosen for the powerful ‘cordial’ effect they would have on the young king’s humours. From a pasty in the form of a bird served to the Worshipful Company of Salters at their Christmas Feast in 1394, to the funeral bake metes of Hamlet’s murdered father, pies and other pastry creations figured large in Renaissance culture.

In this free illustrated lecture, food historian Ivan Day will discuss the role of food as emblem, as a vehicle for Galenic dietary theory and as an occasional player in power politics.Booking is essential as places are limited. Phone Wakefield Museum on 01924 302700 or email museumslearning@wakefield.gov.uk

Lecture Programme for 2014-15


11th October 2014	David Harpin, Medieval Section, Y.A.S.	Richard, Earl of Cornwall, and King of the Romans.	silver penny
8^th Nov 2014	Kat Baxter, Leeds Museums & Galleries	The West Yorkshire hoard	Large gold ring
13^th December	Dr Robert Richards	All Saints Church York followed by Xmas party	All Saints Church, York
10^th Jan 2015	Prof. Ian Wood, University of Leeds	”It’s the economy, stupid”. The context for Anglian sculpture	Stone cross at Bewcastle. Photo: Ian Wood.
14^th Feb 2015	Tony Abramson, Yorkshire Numismatic Society (Joint lecture with Yorkshire Numismatic Society)	Northumbrian Sceats	Northumbrian silver sceat
14^th Mar 2015	Ian Roberts, West Yorkshire Archaeology Service	A Stamford Ware Pottery Kiln in Pontefract: A Geographical Enigma and a Dating Dilemma	$Medieval pots from Pontefract (WYAS)$ Medieval pots from Pontefract (WYAS)
11^th April 2015	Richard Thomason	Hospitality in a Cistercian Abbey: the Case of Kirkstall in the Later Middle Ages	Kirkstall Abbey: artist’s impression of guesthouse interior (Peter Brears)
9^th May 2015	Sam Sportun, Manchester Museum	Conserving Medieval Stonework	Norton Priory: statue of St Christopher

Dr Jonathan Foyle – 'A Bed of Roses: Henry VII and Elizabeth of York's Marriage Bed Rediscovered'

Here’s an event that may be of interest to Medieval section members. It’s a talk by Dr Jonathan Foyle about the rediscovery of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York’s marriage bed. Apparently the bed was bought at auction in 2010 and research showed it to have been made in 1485. It was most likely commissioned after Henry VII’s accession to celebrate his marriage to Elizabeth of York and the end of the War of the Roses. You can find out the full story of this astonishing discovery – what is surely the nation’s most exceptional example of historic furniture, and a seminal royal artefact with Dr Jonathan Foyle, architectural historian, broadcaster and CEO of the World Monuments Fund Britain.

The talk is part of the Wakefield Literary Festival and takes place at the Orangery between 7.30 and 9pm on 18th September 2014. You have to book on-line.

Presented in partnership with Wakefield Civic Society as part of its 50th Anniversary programme

Arncliffe- An Anglo Saxon Frontier?

Ruth Spencer has contacted me to say that Upper Wharfedale Heritage Group (UWHG) is organising a free Open Day on Monday, August 25^th in the Amerdale Hall, Arncliffe in Littondale (BD23 5QD or NGR SD 9328 7185) . The focus for the day is the recent UWHG project undertaken in the village to research and investigate the location of an interesting archaeological discovery found by a metal-detectorist in 2000 and is a direct follow-up to the ‘Festival of Archaeology’ display that the group will have in Long Ashes Leisure Centre in Threshfield between Sunday the 13^th and Sunday the 27^th of July. UWHG would be very pleased to see any YAS members at either (or both) of these events.

Programme for the day:
From 11:00 until 16:00, Amerdale Hall in Arncliffe will
be open to present a range of project related items.
You are free to drop in anytime during the day:

11:00 – 13:00 Take part in a simulated burial
excavation with Kevin Cale, Community Archaeologist

14:00 – 14:30 Final Results for the Arncliffe Project
Dr Roger Martlew

Yorkshire Dales Landscape Research Trust
14:30 – 1500 Arncliffe’s Anglo Saxon Context –
recent excavations of Early Medieval sites in the
Ingleborough area.

Dr David Johnson, Independent Researcher and
Ingleborough Archaeology Group

15:00 – 16:00 Take part in a simulated burial
excavation with Kevin Cale, Community Archaeologist

Digging Opportunity at Fulford

Chas Jones who kindly showed some us around the 1066 battlefield site of Fulford last September has been in touch to let Medieval Section members know that he is doing some more digging at Fulford in July as a part of the CBA Festival of Archaeology. Last year a trial trench was dug and Chas talked about the results of that excavation when we did the walk last September. He has kindly invited Medieval Section volunteers to go and do some digging. The site has been in the news recently, and Chas told me that his day in court went very well but they are waiting, he said, for the judgement. Chas believes there is hope for the future. He tells me the trees along the whole of the ditch (see photo above) have been cleared so there is a great view of the battle site now! There is a web page saying how to sign up.

Medieval Yorkshire – Call for Papers

At its business meeting on 10th May the Section committee set itself the target of publishing the first issue in a new series of ‘Medieval Yorkshire’ by December 2014. A number of people have already generously offered to submit material and we look forward to receiving this in due course. Two long-standing members have kindly given a small grant to assist with the production of the volume. There is, however, still scope for additional contributions of papers given the amount of space likely to be available, and we very much hope that other researchers will be willing to support this new venture by providing accounts of their work.

We hope to achieve a degree of variety in the topics covered and to combine longer, feature articles with shorter reports, book reviews and accounts of lectures for example, all written by knowledgeable authors for an intelligent readership. Beyond that, the intention is that the result should reflect well on the Section and the Society as a whole, with whose other publications our journal will be co-ordinated.

Anyone who feels they may be in a position to offer material this year is invited to make contact with us as soon as possible. Technical matters such as word-processing and illustrations can be dealt with then.

Lecture: Cecily, Duchess of York: Queen by right

We are very fortunate in being able to offer members an additional lecture meeting, to be held at 2pm on Saturday 14th June on the Chantry Chapel on Wakefield Bridge. This is a joint lecture between Wakefield Historical Society and the Medieval Section of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society. The speaker, Dr Laynesmith, will talk about Cecily, Duchess of York. As I’m sure many readers and members will know, Cecily Neville was the wife of Richard, Duke of York, who was killed at the Battle of Wakefield. Dr Laynesmith will cover the tumultuous career of this mother of kings, who was the only major protagonist of the Wars of the Roses to live through the entire conflict. It will address the conflicting strands of her reputation for sanctity and recent debates about her adultery. Dr Laynesmith will focus on Cecily’s political role through the 15th century, her responsibilities as the wealthiest noblewoman in England and on her motherhood.

Please note that as space in the Chantry Chapel is limited, Medieval Section members should book their free place in advance by emailing pamjudkins@btinternet.com or phoning 0797 144 9463. Tickets for non-members (i.e. members of neither Wakefield Historical Society nor Medieval Section) cost £5. Please return the slip below with a cheque made out to Wakefield Historical Society to: WHS, 18 St John’s Square, Wakefield, WF1 2RA.

The Chantry Chapel can be reached by public transport from Wakefield Westgate Station on the free circular City Bus, getting off at The Hepworth Gallery, or on foot from Kirkgate Station. For more information see https://www.wymetro.com/BusTravel/freetownandcitybuses/Wakefield/

Pam Judkins has kindly pointed out that the venue is very close to The Hepworth Gallery in case people attending would like to combine the two. The Hepworth has a good café. Also it is on the free City Bus route and has parking nearby (double yellow lines on the bridge outside the Chapel, but never enforced).

Vikings Life and Legend at the British Museum

Vikings exhibition at the British Museum — *Vikings Life and Legend* exhibition at the British Museum

Last Saturday Christine and I went down to London to see two museum exhibitions: the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain exhibition at the Natural History Museum and the Vikings Life and Legend exhibition at the British Museum. For obvious reasons this blog post concerns itself with the latter.

We had to book in advance to see the Vikings Life and Legend and had to choose a time slot.The BM’s bookings management system has to accommodate the large numbers of visitors who come to see their Blockbusters. However, we wondered why we bothered because when we went in, the first room was very small and the previous intake of visitors were still looking at, or rather waiting to look at, the exhibits in the cases. Even with a booking system and tight control of what time you went in, visitors still had to queue to see the exhibits. As many visitors had opted for audio tours and insisted on remaining at the display cases until they’d heard every word of the commentary, everyone else was left ‘rubber-necking’ in a largely vain attempt to peer over their shoulders to see or read something. We somehow walked past the Vale of York hoard without realisiing it was there the press of visitors around the case was so thick. Thank heavens Joyce Hill is talking to the Medieval Section on 10th May on this topic.

The choice was to wait an excessively long time to try and see what was in the cases or to pass on to something else in the hope of coming back later in the hope that the crowd would pass. But it never did because the next lot of visitors was already coming in and so we didn’t bother. This set the tone for the whole exhibition, which I regret to say is badly laid out, poorly lit and with often illegible labelling, even if you do have the luxury of being able to see the exhibits through the surrounding scrum.

The exhibits can be the best in the world – and these almost certainly were – but if you can’t see it’s a waste of time. Wasn’t this what the booking system with the time slots was supposed to avoid?

We weren’t the only visitors to feel this way. Neil Handley writing in the Museums Journal this month (May, 2014) commented that if ever a major exhibition was ruined by poor layout and a fraught visitor experience, this is it. He called it a ‘cattle crush of an exhibition’ and we agree entirely.

We hoped things would get better in the main viewing gallery – the specially-funded Sainsbury gallery was built precisely to help the British Museum put on these kinds of popular exhibitions. The gallery was dominated by the remnant of the longest Viking surviving longship from Roskilde (no.6) but the timbers were dwarfed by the armature which extended to show just how big the vessel had been when complete. It seemed to be the tail wagging the dog. The same effect could have been achieved by marking out the ‘footprint’ of the vessel on the floor of the gallery.

Again this set a trend for the exhibition. The size and scale of the cases seemed hopelessly out of kilter with the exhibits they were supposed to show off to best advantage. A small object was often lost in a massive case. Perversely, a large case with plenty of room for a label inside had its label outside. In one case this was in the dark and low down out-of-sight. At first we and another visitor complained bitterly that there was no label at all. It turned out the lady was standing just in front of it and we couldn’t see it in the gloom. Sometimes it was all but impossible to tell which label related to which exhibit. Personally I’m not a fan of number keys but they were badly needed here.

One of the most moving exhibits is a selection of Viking skeletons discovered at Ridgeway Hill in Dorset. The men appear to have been the crew of a Viking ship that was perhaps shipwrecked. They were beheaded one-by-one on the edge of a pit. A blood-chilling artist’s reconstruction of the massacre in the published account of the discovery ‘Given to the Ground’: A Viking Age Mass Grave on Ridgeway Hill, Weymouth by Louise Loe, Angela Boyle, Helen Webb and David Score (2014, Oxford Archaeology: £29) isn’t shown in the exhibition. Perhaps that would have brought home to visitors some of the hard realities of life at this period, hard realities that it has become fashionable in academic circles to ignore or explain away as historical hyperbole and racial stereotyping. I was left reflecting on what those men went through waiting in line to be executed, like the victims of Katyn. That the Anglo-Saxons meted out this sort of brutal treatment to their captives may say something about how Vikings treated Anglo-Saxons.

Vikings Life and Legend is open until 22nd June but a word to the wise: try to go during the week when its quieter.

We came out of the exhibition little the better in temper for our visit. I seriously considered asking for our money back but things looked up when we went to see the newly redisplayed Sutton Hoo exhibits which have been given more space in the early medieval gallery. More about that in another post.

Simon Tomson: Looking for Pontefract’s Blackfriars (11th January 2014)

Excavations at Pontefract Friary in 2011 (courtesy of Simon Tomson)

St Richard’s Dominican Friary in Pontefract was one of 56 Dominican friaries in England by 1300, but, as our speaker told the audience, it was not known precisely where it was until very recently. The opportunity to locate the missing friary arose when the A & E department of the local hospital was demolished. Pontefract Castle dates from the 1080s and Pontefract was laid out as a planned town by the de Lacys in front of the castle along an east west ridge. The present town centre overlies the medieval suburb. A number of place names clues suggest that the friary had once been nearby: Friar Wood and Friar Wood Lane. Pontefract Friary Action Group (PFAG) gathered 2000 signatures in just a fortnight to press for the site to be explored archaeologically. The hospital authorities planned to reduce the ground surface by a metre. WYAS conducted a desktop assessment which showed there was a high likelihood of there being archaeology beneath the hospital estate. Balfour Beatty Heathcoe provided £10,000 to fund the excavation.

Friaries came late (from the 1250s) on the medieval monastic scene and, having to set up where they could, tend to be extra-mural and Simon showed a map of medieval Bristol for comparison. The friaries were outside the town on the flood plain. Beverley Friary set up over the town sewer! In Pontefract Eric Holder and Pontefract and District Archaeology society excavated pits at the bottom of the hill where it was thought the friary might lie. Joining up dots from the exploratory trenches enabled the excavators to tentatively mark out the plan of the cloister. Drought marks in a garden suggested a possible guesthouse on the west side of the cloister. It appears the friary garderobe flowed into a duck pond.

The society had to meet a number of health and safety requirements in order to dig but within 10 days of coming back off holiday, the Chairman supported by the society had mobilised 30 volunteers and were ready to start digging. They sank a number of 2m square sondage pits but they only revealed an undifferentiated five feet thick grey garden soil which had been turned over repeatedly. It had been the dumping ground for the contents of privies mixed with ash and contained lots of clay pipe fragments and broken pottery. Black and white photographs of the site showed how it had been used to grow liquorice, which requires deep well-drained soils, during the early modern period.

Liquorice from Manchester Museum Botany collection (courtesy of Claire Miles)

The grey layer rested on top of the local coal measure sandstone. The surface of the sandstone contained one burial: that of a man who had been hanged. The radiocarbon date suggested he’d lived between 1283 and 1394. Simon speculated he might be a veteran of the Battle of Boroughbridge (1322) in which Thomas of Lancaster, who had risen in rebellion against King Edward II, was defeated. Afterwards the Earl was brought back to Pontefract, tried and executed.

The site where the skeleton was found lay against an 8 metre vertical sandstone cliff face which had been quarried extensively for the stone from which the friary had been constructed. A rock-cut foundation trench was found providing the footing for the North wall of the friary church. The friary was extensively robbed when Pontefract was being rebuilt after three destructive sieges during the English Civil War. However, the excavators found a major east-west wall with three buttresses and an impressive but unfinished broken grave cover incorporated into a buttress. It had been damaged by the stonemason during manufacture and had been re-used. Against the wall a line of whitewash could be seen. Black and white floor tiles had butted up against the wall. On the inside of the east wall was found what was believed to be part of the base of the altar. The dating of the tiles suggests they were made prior to the founding of the friary and may have been used and re-used several times before being given to the friary.

Head niche of Purbeck marble (courtesy of Simon Tomson)

The head niche of a sarcophagus of Purbeck marble was found near a rebate in one side of the chancel. This sarcophagus would have been expensive and shows that the person buried there was of high status. Unfortunately most of the sarcophagus appears to have been made into lime for mortar after the Dissolution in 1536. Several brass letters dating from the early to mid-15^th century were also found. Nevertheless there are a couple of candidates, whose last resting place this might have been. The battle of Wakefield took place in 1460. Richard Duke of York and his son Edmund Earl of Rutland both lost their lives. There is historical evidence that they were buried at Pontefract Friary. In 1476 Edward IV and Richard Duke of Gloucester arranged a funeral cortege to take their father’s remains for re-burial at Fotheringhay. Pieces of window tracery dating from about 1375 were found. There is also historical evidence that John of Gaunt provided wood for rebuilding the friary roof after 1365.

To the north lay the cemetery. The society sampled one of the skeletons. Simon thought the radiocarbon date obtained for the skeleton (1283-1394) was suspiciously close to that of the skeleton of the hanged man. He suspected that radon gas seeping up out of the coal measures might be blurring the precision of the results. The partial plan revealed by the excavation enabled Simon to overlay onto it a plan of a surviving friary, such as that of Norwich to give an impression of the complete plan of Pontefract Friary. This enabled him to predict the line of the south wall and he tested the theory by digging in a narrow piece of land between the children’s ward and the public road. The south wall of the church was found and it was the buttress was only half a metre out! Simon showed a photo of the Blackfriars Theatre in Boston which gives an idea of how the building next to the cloister might have looked.

Simon Tomson is Excavation Field Director, Pontefract and District Archaeological Society. Our sincerest thanks to Simon for giving his lecture and providing images for use in this blog post.