[This is one of six reports covering past Antiquarian Society lectures for which the Consoc newsletter had no space at the time. We caught up in Newsletter 141 — except for the first one here, which still would not fit in the printed edition. —Ed.]

A talk by Cheryl Green (Allum)

As part of the Glastonbury Abbey Excavation Archive Project, Cheryl Green (Allum) of the University of Reading on April 12 reviewed the evidence for glass production during the Saxon period. The Abbey site had been part of a ritual landscape from the early sixth century, though there was no evidence for the origins of the Abbey before the seventh century.

   Ralegh Radford’s excavations in 1951–64 had concentrated on the Saxon church. He identified a Saxon precinct, marked by a deep ditch occupying roughly the northwestern quarter of the later mediaeval precinct. A three-phase stone church was immediately east of the Vetusta Ecclesia and a cemetery containing early cist graves south of the latter, and south of this was “Dunstan’s cloister” — the earliest in the British Isles.

   The glass furnaces were located under the later mediaeval cloister. Dr Donald Harden, an expert on glass furnaces, had dated them to the tenth century, supported by Justine Bayley, though Evison said glass was present from the seventh and eighth centuries.

      Cheryl Green’s review examined the construction of the furnaces. As well as Roman tile and pottery, they contained charcoal, which gave a radiocarbon date of about AD 680. Hugh Wilmotte and Kate Welham had reached a similar conclusion from the excavated items, which included part of a glassblowing iron, glass and crucible fragments. The glass was of Roman type: it may have been re-melted, and Gaulish artisans and materials may have been involved.

      The Saxon precinct ditch required better evidence for dating. In fact it may have been re-cut from an Iron-age predecessor. An area of post-holes and mortar floor under the west cloister included pieces of late Roman amphora from the period 450–550. These were of eastern Mediterranean origin, indicating high-status occupation of the area.

      The date of the construction of the Vetusta Ecclesia, owing to removal of all traces by the excavation of the later crypt, cannot be ascertained, but probably belongs to the last decades of British control of the area. The construction of the stone church by King Ine at the end of the seventh century may well account for the existence of the glass furnaces.

   So far the evidence did not support Radford’s idea of a cloister south of the cemetery, Ms Green said, though there were clearly various buildings of unknown purpose. The cist burials also appeared to be from the later mediaeval period.

      Further excavation is clearly needed to provide more insights into this complex period of the site’s origins, she said.    [2012 April 12]