Archaeologists say Lady Jane Grey birthplace is "as good as it gets" as six-week dig begins

This article originally appeared on Culture24.

Archaeologists descend on site where likely prehistoric remains surfaced in preliminary surveys

Archaeologists have begun investigating a prime piece of historical territory in Leicester, where a section of upland, set in an 850-acre deer park established in the mid-13th century and best known as the birthplace of Lady Jane Grey, could lead back to the Ice Age.

A moated site at Bradgate Park, in Leicestershire’s Charnwood Forest, is the focus for a six-week programme of excavations near a house thought to have been the home of a medieval park-keeper. Lady Jane – known as The Nine Day Queen thanks to her reluctant reign in 1553 – was born at the park in 1537.

“Bradgate Park is about as good as it gets,” says Dr Richard Thomas, the Co-director of a project which has seen dozens of experts from the University of Leicester begin to examine trenches at the site.

“We have identified multiple sites of interest spanning the past 12,000 years.

“Careful excavation will not only allow us to explore the world of Lady Jane Grey and her family, but chart how people have engaged with and altered this landscape since the last Ice Age.”

The date and purpose of the buildings close to Bradgate House are a mystery.

“We don’t know a lot about many of the features of the park,” admits Dr Thomas.



“This is the start of a really exciting project for us. We are incredibly grateful to the Bradgate Park Trust, Historic England and Natural England for helping make this project a reality.”

A rare Palaeolithic open site, an enclosure of possible prehistoric origins and the grounds of Lady Jane Grey’s house, set four kilometres north-west of Leicester, could all be topographically and geophysically surveyed, excavated and reconstructed during a project which is expected to last five years.

Peter Tyldesley, of the Bradgate Park Trust, says the guardians of the site hold “sheer intellectual curiosity” about the excavations.

“We know that there is a lot of history and archaeological interest here, but we want to know more about what it is,” he explains.

“The more information we know about the site, the better we can manage and protect it. We can share the story with the public.”

First documented as a deer park in 1241, the beauty spot hosts around 400,000 visitors annually, having been designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

The house, built nearly 500 years ago, was one of the country’s first unfortified brick-built aristocratic houses. An in-situ stone tool assemblage was recently excavated at a late Upper Palaeolithic open site on the spur of a gorge overlooking the River Lin which runs through part of the park.

Early work by the team has revealed a medieval building with “very impressive” granite masonry on top of the moat. Their early radar and walkover surveys, carried out last year, found more than 250 “curious” undocumented potential archaeological features, including apparently archaeological terracing and enclosures predating the supposed origins of human territory in the area.

One substantial building, constructed on a platform to the south of the walled garden and shown in the estate map drawn by Nicholas Kiddiar in 1746, could have been a stable block created to house 100 horses ahead of the visit of King William III in 1696.

Writing in A Description of Bradgate Park and the Adjacent County, in 1829, Andrew Bloxham said the stables "were erected in the short space of 19 days...built in a very massive and substantial manner; they serve at the present time as shelter for the deer in the winter, and during the summer months, when numerous parties visit the place, as receptacles for their horses".

Alternatively, the buildings could have been kennels, as noted by Nicholas Throsby in his Series of Excursions to the Villages and Places of Note in that County in 1790.

Fragments of Swithland slate roof tile and a sherd of green-glazed medieval pot were found during preliminary work. Zooarchaeological and archaeobotanical evidence is also expected to help explore how food and drink were used as social capital during the early modern period.

• The season runs until July 16. A public open day will be held at the site on June 27. Tours of the excavations take place as part of the Festival of Archaeology on July 11. Visit the Bradgate Park Field School on Facebook for updates.

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Source: http://www.culture24.org.uk/history-and-heritage/archaeology/art528697-archaeologists-say-lady-jane-grey-birthplace-is-as-good-as-it-gets-as-six-week-dig-begins