Agricultural History Review, Volume 70 Part 2 (2022), p. 310

British archaeology is riddled with tantalizing discoveries which lie unpublished for decades, despite their national importance. Such was the case with David Peacock’s 1967 rescue excavations at Fladbury, whose publication has until now been restricted to two brief reports printed in Current Archaeology and Medieval Archaeology shortly after the excavations. The late Professor Peacock’s friend and colleague David Hinton has now brought the Fladbury findings to full publication in this compact but thorough monograph, arranged in four parts.

Part 1 presents the original draft excavation report which Peacock prepared (but, for unclear reasons, never published), augmented by new observations from Professor Hinton. It is a classic and well-illustrated descriptive report, placing the site in its topographical context in the Vale of Evesham then detailing the archaeological sequence including a prehistoric ditch and pits, 11 burials (not closely dated but thought to be most probably late Roman), and – the site’s dominant feature, though incompletely excavated – a sunken timber-and-daub oven, with three phases of use or construction. It is this oven, believed on the basis of its cereal contents to have been used for parching grain prior to milling, which makes the site so significant for scholars of early medieval farming.

Part 2 contains the specialist reports on human, environmental and artefactual remains, some produced as part of the original post-excavation programme in 1967–68, others presenting wholly new research using methods unavailable in the 1960s. Among the latter, the osteological and isotopic study of the (challenging) skeletal archive by Ellie Brown stands out, suggesting a degree of migration and the possibility of a post-Roman date for the burials. With regards to the oven, the newly precise radiocarbon dating report by Alex Bayliss places the last firing of the oven most likely somewhere between the late eighth and late ninth centuries: a result which fits remarkably well with that of the pioneering original analysis by F. W. Shotton. This date is critical to the interpretation of both the oven and the charred plant remains discovered therein, which are analysed in a new report by Rob Scaife. Although these plant remains are not especially rich, and are typical of the period (dominated by grains of hulled barley and free-threshing wheat), they provide a valuable addition in a region which is relatively poor in Anglo-Saxon archaeobotanical data. The authors seem unaware, however, that another archaeobotanical analysis of material from the oven was undertaken by Mick Monk for his (unpublished) 1977 Masters’ dissertation. This was a much richer assemblage, with some different species identified, so it is a shame that Monk’s work is absent here; presumably his data never found their way into Professor Peacock’s archive.

Christopher Dyer’s vital historical review (part 3) – updated from his 1960s original – situates pre-Conquest Fladbury within the ecclesiastical estates of Worcester. Between the seventh and ninth centuries it was at least ‘nominally the site of a monastery’, and certainly at the heart of a substantial and productive minster estate. The documentary record is thus found to be entirely consistent with the discovery of both small finds suggestive of an establishment ‘with some social pretensions’, and a large grain dryer suitable for providing for the periodic needs of a large royal or episcopal household. Whether or not the presence of this single oven warrants the designation ‘drying complex’ is more debatable, especially given that there are other sites of this period with more than one such oven (such as the recently discovered brewing complex at Sedgeford, Norfolk, with three or four ovens). Nonetheless, Hinton’s concluding discussion (part 4) highlights how this grain dryer – an unprecedented discovery in 1967 – now fits well within a small corpus of large ovens excavated at high-status settlements of this period. The estimated dimensions of the oven chamber (2 metres by 2 metres) are very similar to those of a malting kiln excavated at Higham Ferrers (Northamptonshire), for example, which has been associated with a royal tribute collection centre. Hinton’s extended discussion, incorporating comparisons such as this, not only provides an excellent context for the Fladbury oven, but also makes an important, original contribution to the wider study of grain ovens in Anglo-Saxon archaeology.

As such, this modest volume bears witness to the great significance of both Peacock’s original project and Hinton’s admirable ‘impingement’ to bring this important site finally into the spotlight. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the agricultural activities of this corner of Anglo-Saxon England, and a perfect example of how decades-old excavations can be revisited with valuable results.