<p>Oxen were one of the most important sources of motive power in the British countryside. For thousands of years they cultivated the land and transported people and goods. The working ox has left a lasting mark on the language, landscape and culture but has now almost totally disappeared from the United Kingdom. Historians rarely mention or study them. It is as if a history of the twentieth century were to ignore the impact of the tractor and the lorry. The purpose of this book is to redress that balance.</p>

Working Oxen (Shire Library)

Science & Math

Watts, Martin

Biological Sciences

Shire

<p>Martin Watts traces the use of water and wind power in Britain and Ireland from the earliest times to the present. The author explains how windmills and watermills function and examines some of the uses to which they have been put.'</p>

Water and Wind Power (Shire Library)

Technology

Windmills have been in existence for over eight hundred years and, although only a small fraction of those that once ground corn, pumped water and provided power for industry and agriculture now survives, they still provide a distinctive and often dramatic presence in the British landscape. Among the most important features of these survivors are the variations in design that have come about through their different origins, the use of local materials in their construction, and the influence of the millwrights and millers who built and worked them in different parts of Britain. Understanding these variations is vital for the protection and maintenance of windmills, whose continued survival allows a fascinating insight into the historic use of renewable energy, the development of engineering, and the processing of grain, for flour and bread, as well as other essential products.

Windmills (Shire Library)

History

Shire Publications

Watermills were once commonplace but, because of their domestic scale and their often picturesque waterside locations, many have now lost their waterwheels and machinery and the buildings have been converted to other uses. Water power has been used for over 2000 years, initially for grinding grain and pumping water, and later for driving processing machinery for a wide variety of industries, which had a far-reaching effect on the economic and social development of Britain from the middle of the eighteenth century. In this new book, watermill expert Martin Watts, author of the Shire book "Water and Wind Power", explains the history and development of watermills as working buildings and the importance of the wider appreciation of the built environment and the use of natural sources of power.

Watermills (Shire Library)

Arts & Photography

Architecture

Corn milling, the reduction of hard cereal grains to form a usable foodstuff, is one of the oldest and most necessary crafts. While windmills and watermills are given deserved notice, the milling process and the modern development of the industry are usually taken for granted. The history of milling is exceptional in the necessity of the process and its continuing importance, and its unique buildings and machines, which had a marked effect on contemporary technology. With increased interest in wholesome foods, energy conservation and the preservation of technological history, the milling industry is in a unique position, with both traditional and modern mills presenting a working picture of the industry.

Corn Milling (Shire Library)

Business & Money

Industries

This account of mills and milling, from prehistory through Roman, Anglo-Saxon and later medieval times, to the post-medieval and modern centuries, is not just another book about windmills and watermills.The few mills that do survive, sometimes restored, need to be set in a broader context. Watermills, which have always played the more dominant role, developed over a period of 2000 years and windmills first appeared in Britain 800 years ago: Domesday Book records 6000 watermills and by AD 1400 there were about 4000 windmills.By interpreting the archaeological evidence and, for the later period, the documentary sources and above-ground remains, Martin Watts has pieced together a history of British molinology. Throughout he emphasises the development and use of artefacts and machines for grinding grain, their place in the historic landscape, and in the production of an essential food.

Archaeology of Mills and Milling

Politics & Social Sciences

Archaeology

Tempus Pub Ltd

Corn Milling (Shire Albums)

Archaeological work in advance of pipeline construction culminated in excavation at four sites on the Gloucestershire/Worcestershire border by the Carrant Brook and River Isbourne. Geophysical and cropmark evidence has been used to enhance interpretation of the excavated 'slices' across these sites, revealing a changing pattern of human activity and density of settlement from the Mesoltihic to the medieval period. Early features, including a possible Early Neolithic flat grave, suggest that activity in the area prior to the Middle Iron Age was largely ritual in nature. From the Middle Iron Age onwards substantial settlement enclosures were constructed and remained in use to the end of the 1st century AD, when an increased level of activity saw some enlarged and others abandoned and replaced. All four sites were typical of low status Iron Age and Roman rural settlement in southern England, and all were abandoned by the 4th century AD, but with some evidence for later Anglo-Saxon and medieval activity. These excavations add considerably to our understanding of life and death in the late prehistoric and Roman periods, and of the distribution of archaeological remains of all periods, in an area of known archaeological significance close to the confluence of two major rivers: the Severn and Avon.

Excavations on the Wormington to Tirley Pipeline, 2000: Four Sites by the Carrant Brook and River Isbourne - Gloucestershire and Worcestershire (Cotswold Archaeology Monograph)

Coleman, Laurent

Hancocks, Annette

Europe

Cotswold Archaeology

Two reports are published in this volume: excavations in 2004 at Henbury School, Bristol (by Derek Evans, Neil Holbrook and E.R. McSloy) and excavations in 2005 at Hewlett Packard, Filton, South Gloucestershire (by Kate Cullen, Neil Holbrook, Martin Watts, Anwen Caffell and Malin Holst). Excavations in 2004 at Henbury School, Bristol, revealed the truncated remains of 21 inhumation burials, making a total of 28 burials recorded at the site since 1982. Of these, 24 burials formed a dispersed cemetery of crouched inhumations, the vast majority of which were aligned north/south and lay on their left sides, with equal numbers of males and females (where sex could be determined) and only one child. Poor bone survival rendered radiocarbon dating invalid, and the cemetery is dated by only one grave good: a finger ring from the mid to late Iron Age. However, the cemetery clearly pre-dated a later rectangular enclosure of very late Iron Age (early 1st-century AD) date. Crouched inhumations from the later Iron Age are known from the region but usually from pits or scattered, so the presence of this cemetery at Henbury is significant. Inhumation cemeteries of this date are rare in Western Britain, although they may have been quite widespread. Despite the dearth of surviving features within the subsequent enclosure, the scale of the ditches suggests it was a farmstead, and environmental evidence hints at both livestock rearing and cereal cultivation. Subsequent Roman activity was clearly intensive, and included a further four burials; although difficult to interpret, it adds to a substantial amount of evidence for Roman activity to the north-west of Bristol. Excavations in 2005 at Hewlett Packard, Filton, revealed the truncated remains of 51 inhumation burials within an isolated post-Roman cemetery. All of the burials were extended and east-west aligned, and were arranged in rows and groups. The tradition of east/west-aligned graves is a common late Roman and post-Roman practice, and these were not necessarily Christian. The largest group comprised 24 burials clustered around a central grave that contained an unusual skeleton and evidence for a distinctive burial rite. Overall there were slightly more females than males (where sex could be determined) and ten children. Adult stature could only be calculated in a few cases; males were generally taller that the early medieval average, females shorter. No grave goods were recovered, but four radiocarbon dates obtained from human bone suggest a period of use sometime between the 5th and 7th centuries AD. There was no evidence for contemporary settlement within the immediate vicinity. Other post-Roman cemeteries that are culturally distinct from Anglo-Saxon influenced burials are known from the region. The absence of Anglo-Saxon cemeteries in South Gloucestershire suggests this area remained under British control in the 5th and 6th centuries. The abandonment of this cemetery may have been the result of changes in the religious landscape once the area finally came under Saxon control in the late 7th century.

Two Cemeteries from Bristol's Northern Suburbs (Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Report)

Two reports are published in this volume: excavations in 2003 at Blenheim Farm, Moreton-in-Marsh (by Jonathan Hart and Mary Alexander) and excavations in 2004 at 21 Church Road, Bishop's Cleeve (by Kate Cullen and Annette Hancocks). Significant remains recorded at Moreton-in-Marsh include a Middle Bronze Age settlement of four post-built circular structures partly enclosed by a segmented ditch, and a series of medieval fields and paddocks with a possible sheepcote structure. A Middle Palaeolithic handaxe was also recovered. The Iron Age and medieval remains recorded at Bishop's Cleeve add to our understanding of past settlement in and around the village, where extensive development has resulted in a number of significant excavations in recent years.

Prehistoric and Medieval Occupation at Moreton-in-Marsh and Bishop's Cleeve, Gloucestershire (Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Report)

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