Site record MDR15121 - Site of Building, Whitwell Wood, Whitwell

Former site of building, Whitwell Wood, Whitwell, of unknown date. An evaluation carried out in 1989 provided some information on the nature of this building. 'No structure had previously been suspected to exist there, despite the known presence of a well or cistern…On discovering part of a wall and posthole, the Group traced the outline of the structure and excavated, to a greater or lesser extent, a number of postholes.' The building was of a flat wall foundation, 33m by 12m, with 42 postholes evenly spaced along the wall, there were two interior partition wall foundations, a subterranean cistern, plastered internally, lead slag associated with areas of burning both inside and outside the buildings, and a 'recent' concrete bird pond. In constructing the building walls, it appears that first a trench was dug with posts (as shown from excavated post holes) placed as required to support the wall built around them. Smaller stones were used as packing with large locally quarried blocks cemented by a simple and poorly mixed lime mortar, burnt locally, as shown by traces of charcoal within the mortar. It is suggested that the structure was barely completed before it fell into disuse, and attempts were made to recover and smelt metal. Two distinct areas of burning both with large quantities of slag, wood and wire were identified. Its age and function have yet to be discerned. Finds included extensive metal fragments, bottle fragments and cattle bone, but were not described in any extensive detail. (1)