Lincoln was the centre for a large Medieval pottery industry which flourished from the 9th to the 15th century. Pottery produced in Lincoln was traded over a large part of the east midlands and beyond - even as far as Birka in Sweden. Despite the presence of this local industry, pottery produced in the surrounding areas - such as Torksey, Stamford, Potterhanworth, Toynton and Bolingbroke - accounted for a large share of the pottery used within the city of Lincoln itself. This volume reports on the Anglo-Saxon and Medieval pottery found during various archaeological excavations in the city from 1970 until 1987. The authors present a city-wide pottery classification system and analyse the sequence of pottery types through time and at numerous sites. They make extensive use of petrological analysis, including the study of over 600 thin-sections. These have been used to characterise the local clay and temper sources exploited by Lincoln potters and to identify wares made in the vicinity of the city, those made elsewhere in the county of Lincolnshire, and to identify regional and foreign imports. The volume is arranged by pottery types, illustrated by typical and unusual examples and accompanied by descriptions of their visual appearance, petrological characteristics, source, forms, decoration and dating evidence.

Index to fascicules 6 and 7. XXVp (York Archaeological Trust 1999)

Owned by the National Trust and managed by English Heritage, Mount Grace Priory in North Yorkshire, established in 1398 and suppressed in 1539, was one of only nine successful Carthusian monasteries in England and one of the best-preserved medieval houses of that order in Europe. First excavated by Sir William St John Hope in 1896-1900 and in state guardianship since 1955 it is acknowledged as a type site for late-medieval Carthusian monasteries. The modern study of Mount Grace began in 1957 when Hope’s interpretation of the monks’ cells about the great cloister was found to be simplistic. This was followed between 1968 and 1974 by the excavation of individual monks’ cells in the west range of the great cloister and two cells in the north range, together with their gardens, areas not excavated by Hope. The examination of the monks’ cells was completed in 1985 by the excavation of the central cell of the north cloister range, together with its garden and the cloister alley outside the cell. The cultural material recovered from these cells indicated the ‘trade’ each monk practiced, predominantly the copying and binding of books. Because each cell was enclosed by high walls, the pottery and metalwork recovered could be identified to an individual monk. In 1987 English Heritage commissioned the re-excavation of two areas that had been examined by Hope, the water tower in the great cloister and the prior’s cell, refectory and kitchen in the south cloister range and the guest house in the west range of the inner court. The contrast between this semi-public area of the monastery and the monks’ cells was dramatic. Coupled with this excavation was a reappraisal of the architectural development of the monastery and reconstruction of lost structures such as the cloister alley walls and the central water tower.