Garden Archeology

Garden Archeology

The garden around Glebe Cottage has been in use at least since the early 1600s assuming that no other dwelling previously existed on the site.

The Glebe field to the rear just behind the old pig sty was used for many years as a domestic rubbish dump.

In 2007 I cleared the area of small trees and in doing so found a whole array of buried objects. Old lamps, broken pottery, many horse shoes, gate hinges, and other less identifiable objects. This was garden archeology! There were two interesting finds in the garden which were not found in the old rubbish dump.  

The first was a Leatherworkers Bodkin (a large needle) found in 2003 along with a Palm Guard, a beautiful, small, hollowed out pebble which I nearly threw away thinking it was a natural object of no particular consequence. Whether a leatherworker ever worked from Glebe Cottages I don’t know; maybe most house had such tools to carry out repairs on leather clothing.

The second object which was also found in 2003, was a well crafted beaten metal cover for a Powder Pouch, a shooting accessory. It has been dated around 1750. The raised design shows hanging pheasants with a hare in the centre.  The presence of the hare probably does not have any deep significance linked to the name Harley; it is perhaps just an illustration of what was hunted at the time.

Both objects were exhibited in Much Wenlock Museum in May 2005. At the time of writing, 2009, they were 259 years old.