This was the unsolicited comment on our Open Afternoon texted to us by one visitor following his visit, along with approximately 100 other visitors on the last day of our dig.
The thirteen days of excavation in the grounds of Monk Fryston Hall were coming to an end and some of the volunteers put down their tools and proudly escorted visitors around the site and showed them the new discoveries and explained the chronology of the site, which clearly illustrates the last 1000 years of our local heritage.
The thirteen days of excavation in the grounds of Monk Fryston Hall were coming to an end and some of the volunteers put down their tools and proudly escorted visitors around the site and showed them the new discoveries and explained the chronology of the site, which clearly illustrates the last 1000 years of our local heritage.
Another visitor said after visiting ‘it is remarkable that I have been walking past this site along Fryston Common Lane for 30 years and simply had no idea what I was passing and what lay just below the surface’
and someone else said
‘it’s hard to picture or imagine how so many different people lived in that relatively small area over the centuries now that all the layers have been revealed, one on top of another’.
About 50 trays of new artefacts were found during this continuation dig to add to the 10,000 plus found last year; these have now been washed and will be sorted and catalogued over the next few months. In due course, they will be displayed along with a full public explanation of what has been discovered.
In true Time Team fashion an exciting discovery was made in the last few days – an almost entire stone mortar, complete with the mason’s marks. This was discovered amongst a pile of stone rubble and has presented us with lots of new questions!
In the earliest written account of Selby Abbey written about 1174, there is a passage which says that one of the reasons Benedict, the founding Abbot, chose his site on this part of the River Ouse to build an abbey was its location close to the stone resources of Fryston with
‘its famous stone, renowned for every building purpose and most suitable for all types of carving’.
In the earliest written account of Selby Abbey written about 1174, there is a passage which says that one of the reasons Benedict, the founding Abbot, chose his site on this part of the River Ouse to build an abbey was its location close to the stone resources of Fryston with
‘its famous stone, renowned for every building purpose and most suitable for all types of carving’.
Could our limestone Mortar be an example of what Benedict was seeking? Could Fryston be a stone mortar production site and its products have been distributed widely across the Abbot’s territories; or could it simply be an example of a discarded broken medieval household artefact?
We’ll let you know what the experts say after they have examined it in due course.
We’ll let you know what the experts say after they have examined it in due course.
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