20 November 2024

Hangleton Archaeology

Judy Middleton 2002 (revised 2024)

 copyright © J.Middleton
The bleakness of the spot occupied by St Helen’s Church at the head of a windswept valley is emphasised in this early Edwardian photograph. Hangleton's lost mediaeval village is north of the church in the area covered in grass.

Early Finds

Revd Henry Hoper (1778-1858), vicar of Portslade and rector of Hangleton, took an interest in antiquities, and when anything ancient came to light in the neighbourhood, they found their way into his possession. For example in 1848, there was a celt (a prehistoric axe) found by a man digging for flints in a little valley on Hangleton Down, around a quarter of a mile south-east of Devil’s Dyke, and a spear-head was also found, adjacent to the same valley.

In January 1857 a burial mound was discovered on the open down forming a sheep-walk on part of the farm occupied by Mr Hardwick. He had requested that his workmen dig a pond, and when they removed the mound, they found seven full-sized skeletons around 2-ft below the surface of the turf. It looked as though the bodies had been laid on the surface of the ground, and then covered with earth and chalk from the nearby hollow.

No objects were found with the skeletons, but several yards away a corroded brass Roman coin was found, probably from the time of Germanicus. A similar coin had been picked up near St Helen’s Church some weeks earlier that belonged to the reign of Valerianus who reigned 253-260 A.D.

Henry Porter wrote that in January 1858 two further skeletons were discovered on Hardwick’s Farm.

Cinerary Urns

 copyright © Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
These four pottery sherds – excavated from Hangleton in 1976
make up an early Bronze Age collared urn.
This is on display at Hove Museum of Creativity.

In around 1896 some labourers were digging for flints in a bank between St Helen’s Church and Devil’s Dyke, some 30-yards west of the Dyke Railway, when they came across four urns that been placed in a row, around 1-yard apart. Three were broken, but they had been filled with bone fragments, dry and white. The fourth urn was much smaller, in perfect condition and empty, measuring 4-in in height, 2-in at the mouth, and seven eights in diameter; at the swell it was 3-in and three quarters, while the foot measured 1½ in.

The man who found it presented it to C. T. Phillips who in 1898 penned an article for the Sussex Archaeological Collections. Shortly after the discovery, Phillips visited the site himself, and picked up several small fragments of Celtic and later pottery. He also came across a dozen pieces of red Samian ware (brick-red or black pottery), ten of which he managed to piece together to form almost half of a patera (a round flat dish). He came to the conclusion that the fragments were most probably lids for the cinerary urns. He deposited both the urns and the patera portion to the Sussex Archaeological Museum at Lewes.

In 1976 George Trigwell was digging a trench in which to lay a water pipe to a new cattle trough, when he uncovered an early Bronze Age collared urn. It was light brown to brown on the inside, and reddish brown on the outside where it was decorated with a twisted herringbone design. It had been used for cremated remains. The site was 1½ miles south of Devil’s Dyke.

A Shepherd’s Crook

In the 1930s a shepherd’s crook dating to the 19th century was discovered in a ditch at Hangleton. In 1992 it was donated to Hove Museum.

A Mediaeval Village

copyright © J.Middleton
This map was drawn from the 1870 Ordnance Survey 6 inch map 
and shows the position of St Helen's, the lost mediaeval village
 and Hangleton Manor.

The site of the mediaeval village of Hangleton was correctly identified on the 1879 Ordnance Survey 6-in Map as being at TQ/268074. An opportunity to explore the site arose in the 1950s when new housing was proposed for the area. The land in question was partly owned by Hove Council, and partly owned by Tamplin’s Brewery.

However, there was so much work to be done that E. W. Holden was unable to cope with the whole site on his own, and a team from the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works excavated an area for ten weeks between 26 July and 3 October 1954. Even so it was impossible to cover the whole site, but a surprising amount of material and information was retrieved from the dig.

Building One

Flint-work was traced to a height of 6-in to 9-in, and the building had rounded corners. Inside, the measurements were 27-ft by 18-ft, and there were the remains of two hearths. The type of meal cooked on these hearths can be deduced from the discovery outside the north-west corner of several hundred oyster shells besides animal bones belonging to pigs, sheep and oxen. However, in the whole site there was a complete absence of rabbit and chicken bones.

Also found in the house was a glass smoother that was used to smooth out the wrinkles in linen. Glass smoothers must have been effective because examples were still in use in the 18th century although they were larger than the ones used during mediaeval times.

Building Two

The flint walls were still standing to a height of 9-in, but the spaces between the flints were filled with chalk and earth rather than the mortar used in Building One. It may be that this formed part of a main building, but unfortunately the site was cut through to the north when the Dyke Railway was built, and it is impossible to be certain.

Building Three

copyright © Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
This 1954 photograph is from the Brighton & Hove Herald, showing Building 3.

The north wall had been built close against the steep chalk scarp, and this had afforded some protection over the years so that the north-east corner still stood to a height of 3-ft 9-in. It too had been constructed of flints set in puddled chalk, and the walls varied in thickness from 13-in to 17-in. In around 1300 an oven was built in the north-west corner, and great care had been taken over the construction of the oven’s dome. Unlike the random flint-work in the building’s walls, these flints were especially selected and laid in headers. It is thought that this building was used as a bake-house, although people lived in the house as well. It was an important find because it was the only well-preserved mediaeval oven found in Sussex. Excavation showed that the oven replaced an earlier one that had been dismantled.

Nearby were pieces of pig tusk and ox jaw, while outside amongst the usual oyster shells and animal bones, there were 82 nails, knife blades, whetstones, a silver-gilt ring, and a buckle fragment.

Building Four

The greater part of this site had been obliterated by a mechanical excavator used for building a new road. All that could be discovered was a corner of a flint and mortar building plus some early 14th century shards of pottery, and some snail shells to add to the usual animal bones.

Building Five

It appears that this building was occupied for longer than the others because small quantities of pottery from the 14th and 15th centuries were unearthed. The structure may have been rebuilt, and in its final plan had flint and mortar walls on three sides wile the north side had an open yard. It most probably measured around 25-ft by 15-ft. Besides the usual debris, there were two roofing tiles and several broken ones, a silver penny, a bronze sword pommel, and two iron knife blades. Excavations had to be halted abruptly when time ran out because house-building operations were due to start.

Building Eight

A golf bunker was constructed on what was the west side of the building, and bulldozing caused further destruction. There were no surface signs of this building. However, it was possible to state that the distance between the north and south walls was 18-ft, while the maximum thickness of the east wall was 18-in. It is interesting to note that the flint east wall also contained a large example of Sussex marble.

There was a semi-circular hearth set into the south wall. It has been suggested that this might have been a corn-drying kiln, such as were discovered at West Blatchington, but at Hangleton no carbonised grains have been found to lend support to this theory. Buildings Three and Eight were close together, and it is possible that members of the same family occupied both of them. It may be that Building Eight was used as a barn because three horse-shoes were found, and parts of two sickle blades.

Other Buildings

Besides the eight buildings that were excavated, there were indications of three or four further structures with another two or three east of the church.

More house-building in 1960 revealed traces of a building around 150-ft of the church. Some small pieces of slate were also found.

The excavations show that the houses in the mediaeval village were flint-built, small cottages with only one storey. They probably stood no more than 5-ft high and were roofed with thatch, slates or clay tiles. Inside, the floor was chalk, the small window opening was unglazed, and there were wooden partitions. One of the cottages was carefully dismantled, and re-erected at the Weald and Downland Museum at Singleton where it is known as Hangleton Cottage, and can still be seen today. Very often a fire burns on the open hearth, and so visitors can see the smoke escaping through an opening in the thatch.

copyright © J.Middleton
The Hangleton Cottage re-erected at the Weald and Downland Museum at Singleton, West Sussex.

Houses One and Twelve were long houses, where animals and humans shared a roof. It used to be thought that such long houses were a later feature but now it is believed that they were in use by the 13th century.

A peculiar, and largely unexplained, feature at Hangleton was the ‘many attached out-shots containing ovens’.

The Parsonage House

  copyright © J.Middleton
The Revd John Temple recorded the following event in the Portslade Parish Register:
 ‘By the Sacred Providence of Almighty God the old Church Register of Portslade was burnt by lightening together with ye Parsonage House of Hangleton on 31 May 1666’. 
 Ironically, it was in the same year as the Great Fire of London.

On 31 May 1666 the Revd John Temple, rector of Hangleton, noted in the Parish Register that the Parsonage House had been struck by lightning, and burned down as a consequence. The house occupied a position at the south-east corner of the glebe land north of the church.

During excavations an 8-in layer of burnt material was discovered, plus some pieces of crown glass once used for diamond-shaped window-panes. They displayed the fracture lines you would expect to see after a fire. They had not been a recent addition to the house because one side showed signs of weathering. Also discovered was a cellar some 4-ft deep on the north-west side, two yellow-glazed tiles, and several dark green glazed pavings tiles.

Pottery

Unfortunately, because the site was so near the surface, all the pottery was broken, and consisted of bowls, storage jars, and cooking pots. Altogether, 188 pieces of pottery were found, as well as 372 fragments of glazed jugs. The colours were varied – from red to pink bluff, and from grey or green to light buff. It was deduced that the site had been occupied from around 1150 to around 1450.

Among the most interesting finds was a large group of Bellarmine stoneware jugs at the Parsonage House. Belleramine jugs had a large belly, and often incorporated an ugly bearded face. It is said that such jugs were created originally by Dutch Protestants in mockery of Cardinal Bellarmine (1542-1621). It is not clear whether the Hangleton jugs were foreign made or English copies.

Querns

A quern is a stone hand-mill, and would have been used in ordinary, domestic surroundings. A number of rotary quern fragments were found at Hangleton. However, nearly all the pieces uncovered were less that 3-in square; this leads to the supposition that the quern might have been smashed deliberately in order to force people to have their corn ground at the windmill owned by the Lord of the Manor.

Blue Slates

E. W. Holden stated that a green slate was found at Building Five; they were usually called blue slates but in fact there was a wide range of colours – there was a grey-black slate from the same building. Other shades were olive, grey, green and lilac. There was a pink slate from Building Five, but the colour might be due to the fire that destroyed the Parsonage House in 1666.

Fragments of a Roman slate were also discovered, similar to those used at West Blatchington.

Coins

Inside Building One a coin of Domitian (81-96 A.D.) was discovered, while near Building Three there was a silver penny from Edward III’s reign that had been struck in around 1351. A worn silver penny came from Building Five.

Water

At the south-west corner of the site there was a depression measuring 50-ft by 30-ft. Although there was no sign of puddling, such as was used in the construction of a dew pond and stopped the moisture from escaping, it was most probably used as a dew pond. As if to confirm this theory, there was a heavy rainstorm during excavation, and the water remained there for some time.

Sources

Encyclopaedia of Hove and Portslade

Middleton, J. A History of Hove (1979)

Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove

Sussex Archaeological Collections

Copyright © J.Middleton 2024

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