When the University of Southampton, just a couple of weeks ago, conducted the New Winchelsea Harbour Geotechnical Survey at the site of the ancient port of Winchelsea in East Sussex (United Kingdom), the recording of the ship graffiti inside St Thomas Church and in the cellar underneath Blackfriars Barn was an important part of this project. The graffiti, although admittedly very hard to date, has the potential to inform us about the sorts of ships that were docking at the harbour in Winchelsea while at the same time giving us some insight into the mindset of people in a medieval port town.

The graffiti was recorded using a technique called Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI). This method produces images in which light and shadow can be manipulated on a computer. This allows us to pick up on the minutest details. The way it works is relatively straight forward. A camera is placed on a tripod in front of the image and a mobile flash is used to take images from different lighting-angles. All of these pictures are subsequently fed into the RTI-software which builds a manipulable image.

The RTI’s of the ship graffiti from Winchelsea are still being processed and analysed, but already they are revealing some interesting insights into life at medieval Winchelsea.

The RTI-image above shows a ship lying at anchor, with two of its anchors deployed. This most likely means it is lying at a roadstead and not at a dock. This makes sense because we know Winchelsea was receiving very large ships with a deep draft, too deep for the Brede, the river at which the waterfront was located. We also have historical accounts that confirm the off-loading of tons into smaller boats for transport to the shore. Winchelsea would thus have been a harbour where lightering was a common practice.

Next to examining the structural components of the depicted ships, we can also start hypothesizing why they were carved into the columns of a church. A reasonable explanation is that they were the ‘poor man’s votive ships’. People with considerable funds could have a ship model constructed out of wood and gift it to the church to put on display. It is believed that this was done to put the journey(s) of a particular ship (or shipbuilder or merchant) under the protection of God. The Norwegian maritime archaeologist Christer Westerdahl has recently suggested that the carved images found in Nordic churches had the same purpose. It is not unlikely that this was also the case in Winchelsea.

If this interpretation is true, it gives us a wonderful insight into the mindset of people living in coastal towns in the middle ages. The fact that they felt the need to place a voyage across the sea under the protection of God does not only show the religious character of life at that time, but also the way maritime activities were inextricably interwoven with religion. Today, they are a permanent reminder to residents and visitors alike that at one point in time, Winchelsea’s inception and success was dependent on the ships floating in the Brede, something which is easily forgotten in a town that today is about two kilometres away from the nearest coastline.

More details on the ship graffiti recorded in Winchelsea will become available on my research blog over the next few weeks.

If you are interested in RTI, the software to make your own RTI-images is available for free on the website of Cultural Heritage Imaging.

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As learners active on our MOOC ‘Shipwrecks and Submerged Worlds’ have learned during week 1, maritime archaeology does not always necessarily take place underwater. What we study is human engagement with the seas and the oceans and often, the evidence for this engagement is now to be found on land. One area that is of specific interest to me are harbour-sites, the interface between land and water par excellence, and the stage for a lot of human activity.

Only a couple of weeks ago, the University of Southampton conducted a survey at the ancient harbour site of Winchelsea in East Sussex (United Kingdom). Winchelsea, refounded in the 1280’s after severe coastal erosion of its original site, was a major planned royal port. Until its decline from the middle of the 14^th century, the town was an important member of the Cinque Ports confederation and one of the principal international ports of the English realm.

Perhaps surprisingly, even though it was the very reason for its existence, very little is known about Winchelsea’s waterfront and the survey was the first step in rectifying this lacuna. Due to the silting of the harbour, what was once a fairly large river canal, is now a small stream. This does mean however, that a substantial part of the ancient port might be preserved underneath some of the fields just north of the Winchelea hill.

A variety of methods were deployed to survey the fields underneath which the port is thought to be located, some of which you will familiarize yourself with in week 3. The results of the survey are still being processed and interpreted, but we can already reveal a sneak preview here.

At the location where private waterfront plots are thought to have been located, anomalies were found at right angles to one another. Current thinking is that these are drainage ditches dug to clear the water to subsequently build something more structural there. This would correspond well with how these plots are described in the surviving Rental of 1292 which describes them as ‘perilous at all flowings of the tide’.

The second field is more of an enigma. Three separate anomalies were found that are of interest. In the southwest corner, two ditches seem to run at a right angle to one another. Perhaps these are foundation-ditches for some sort of structure that was built there, but this is pure speculation so far. In the very northern end of the field, possibly something structural was found. This might be a storehouse known from mid-to-late-sixteenth century historical records. However, also this must remain speculative without excavation. Finally, between these two features, a fairly large ditch was dug, either for drainage or sewage. More information on the survey will become available on my research blog over the coming weeks.

If you want to learn more about Winchelsea, David and Barbara Martin wrote an excellent book summarizing most historical and archaeological work in 2004 while David Martin and David Rudling compiled most excavations in the town up until the year 2000.

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View of the Brede valley, taken from the Winchelsea-hill. © Thomas Dhoop

On the 26th of April 2015, the Winchelsea Archaeological Society (WAS) and members of the archaeology department of the University of Southampton are holding a one-day conference titled ‘Medieval Ports, Ships and Sailors‘. The central theme of the day will be the changing relationships between medieval cargo ships, waterfront infrastructure and the built-up town environment.

Program:

09:00     Registration and coffee

10:00     Welcome by the Winchelsea Archaeological Society
10:10     Prof. David Hinton (University of Southampton) – Port Development in Post-Roman England
10:30     Thomas Dhoop (University of Southampton)  – The Medieval Harbour of Winchelsea: Questions and Preliminary Findings
10:50     Questions

11:00     Guided tour of the town and cellars
12:00     Lunch (not provided)

13:00     Dr. Julian Whitewright (University of Southampton) – Sailors and Navigators on the English Channel
13:20     Dr. Joe Flatman (English Heritage) – Title TBC
13:40     Dr. Fraser Sturt (University of Southampton) – The Sea in Medieval Seafaring, an Environmental Study
14:00     Questions

14:15     Coffee

14:30     Prof. Jonathan Adams (University of Southampton) – From Iberia and Gascony to the British Isles: The medieval shipwrecks in St Peter Port, Guernsey
15:15     Panel discussion

15:45     End of conference

Date: Sunday 26^th April 2015
Venue: New Hall in Winchelsea, East Sussex, UK (Post Code: TN36 4EA)
Fees: £10 students, £20 working professionals, to be paid on the day of the conference
Registration: Please use the Contact form to email me.

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