Review: The Management of the River Stour from the Medieval to Modern Periods: Its Waterfronts and the Development of Sandwich
The Management of the River Stour from the Medieval to Modern Periods: Its Waterfronts and the Development of Sandwich. By Alice Dowsett, Damien Goodburn, Katya Harrow, Andrew Margetts and Chris Russel (SpoilHeap, Publications, 2024), 113 pp., 71 figures and 11 tables. £15. ISBN: 978 1 912331 40 6.
This is a fascinating and informative volume on the development of the medieval and post-medieval waterfront at Sandwich and the associated topographical development of the River Stour. Sandwich is well known for being a crucial site of riverine development and change throughout the centuries and it is excellent to see further archaeological evidence for these processes laid out with depth and clarity. This report analyses evaluations and watching briefs carried out by Archaeology South-East during the undertaking of the Sandwich Town Tidal Defence Scheme between 2013 and 2015. Results from the watching briefs and several targeted areas of study within and without the town are provided, highlighting the complex and multifaceted phasing of riverfront developments and the attempts of the townspeople to grapple with the changing land and waterscapes around them.
As the contributors articulate in the opening summary this report sits proudly alongside other important work concerning the development of Sandwich as one of England’s premier medieval ports and its gradual decline in prominence, which was acutely connected to changing nature of the Stour. Namely: Helen Clarke, Sarah Pearson, Mavis Mate and Keith Parfitt, Sandwich: the ‘Completest Medieval Town in England’. A Study of the Town and Port from its Origins to 1600 (Oxford, 2010). Furthermore, the riverine context is necessarily combined with the maritime given the complex relationship between the Stour, Sandwich, the Wantsum Channel and the English Channel. As a result, the report also can be considered alongside the similarly excellent: Stuart Bligh, Elizabeth Edwards and Sheila Sweetinburgh, eds., Maritime Kent Through the Ages: Gateway to the Sea (Woodbridge, 2021). Other features effecting Sandwich on the surrounding coast, like shingle spits are discussed in some detail and further highlight the multiplicity of factors at work.
The introduction, while providing geological context also helpfully situates the report within developments in the field of riverine archaeology and particularly the technological and material connections of shipping technology and riverfront reclamation schemes. Such schemes often used recycled ship timbers for their structures. Examples found in Sandwich from the post-medieval period are discussed here along with other types of timbers used in revetment construction. While dendrochronology provided limited results in this study the discussions of reused timbers in the construction of waterfront structures is of great value.
[pg385]Chapters 2, and 3 provide useful overview histories of the River Stour and its management over several millennia and concluding with the medieval period. While the full archaeological picture is integral to discussion of the early and later post-medieval periods in chapters 4 and 5. Seeing the interaction of the different phases of riverfront archaeology is particularly fascinating and what is clear from the report is that the strategies of water management were also rooted in a combination of natural processes and human influence both intentional and unintentional. One example given is a ship which sank in the Stour estuary in the fifteenth century and caused a large amount of silt build up to the detriment of the town.
Also included are intriguing discussions of post medieval ceramics and find deposits found during the evaluations. The prominence of imported Dutch ceramics is highlighted. It is then articulated how these may be connected to Sandwich’s substantial Dutch alien population in the early seventeenth century. Discussions also note Sandwich’s continued (though diminished) importance both as a port for overseas trade and for the coastal distribution of ceramics. This is an area where documentary evidence and archaeology can closely interact. Sandwich appears reasonably regularly in London’s Coastal Port Books in this period where shipments of ceramics – such as ‘stone pots, ‘earthen pots’ or ‘pots’ are very common in cargoes of general merchandise. The presence of Frechen stoneware meanwhile further highlights these trends. Seventeenth century German stoneware was mainly traded to England in the via London from the ports of Dordrecht and (later) Rotterdam by Dutch merchants and thus their presence in Sandwich may be a result of either direct trading or perhaps more likely this coastal redistribution. Thus, the archaeology presented here gives us a tantalising glimpse into other avenues of trade and migration in patterns of material culture.
The finds analysis also discusses ceramic building material (CBM) and clay tobacco pipes. The CBM provides some interesting multi period finds stretching from the Roman to the Post Medieval. One find of particular note was a Dutch delftware (tin glazed) floor tile. Tin glazed decorative tiles or ‘gallytiles’ as they are referred to in import records were heavily traded from the Low Countries in the seventeenth century. Meanwhile, the tobacco pipe segment highlights the case of a retained broken mouthpiece which was then trimmed to retain its function, an example of a cheap piece of material culture being retained and persevered with in the face of damage. Several uncommon types of clay pipe are also included which are speculated to possibly representing evidence of a remaining alien community in Sandwich during the mid to late seventeehth centuries. The report on fish bone finds contain helpful insights into the prominence of a variety of fish in the diets of Sandwich’s residents. Finally, the section on diatom analysis of silt deposits provides further evidence of the geological and riverine fluctuations that Sandwich underwent during its history.
The analysis is combined with a plethora of detailed full colour images, maps and charts throughout. Though some page flicking is needed to match the images with their associated textual discussion. The bibliography is similarly helpful and detailed. One minor suggestion is that while the report is well structured and signposted a subject index would have been helpful for the reader, especially when looking for connections across sites and contexts. Similarly, a full list of abbreviated technical terms would have been appreciated.
[pg386]This report therefore contributes much important material concerning the management of the Stour and the development of Sandwich waterfront in the medieval and post-medieval periods. Combined with the other aforementioned publications on Sandwich and Kent history, and wider work on riverfront archaeology it provides much of interest for both archaeologists and historians working on urban landscapes and their changing relationships with rivers. The find reports, meanwhile, contain much tantalizing material and it is also interesting to see the report coming from a context of continued river management. To see the work on both the town itself, and the increasingly expansive work on the River Stour outside the town is also important. Thus, anyone interested in these areas of research will find much of value in this fascinating publication.[pg387]