Book Review: The Archaeology of Herefordshire: An exploration by Keith Ray Herefordshire

Submitted by Energyman on Thursday, 14 April 2016 Page Views: 3038

Country: England County: Herefordshire
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**Dorstone Hill** submitted by Adam Stanford : Excavations at Dorstone Hill in the UK centered around a pair of nearly 6,000-year-old set of burial mounds that were created from the ashes of an ancient long hall. Image credit: Adam Stanford - Copyright © Aerial-Cam Ltd 2013 - Licensed to University of Manchester. (Vote or comment on this photo)

The Archaeology of Herefordshire: An exploration - Keith Ray, This is a very readable, knowledgeable, and up-to date reference book. Although it is nominally about Herefordshire, it overlaps with adjoining neighbourhoods - the Welsh Mountains, the Forest of Dean, and the Malverns - and draws from a wide variety of national sources, making it applicable to many locations.

It is arranged broadly chronologically, from the times of the first expeditions by Man to the edges of the retreating ice sheets in 12,000BP (Before Present) to the 18th Century. About a third of the book is devoted to the Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages and forms an exhaustive repository of information from these eras.

The remainder of the book covers the Roman occupation and medieval times to 200yrs ago. It then has 60 pages of Bibliography, End notes and Indexes.

I thoroughly recommend it to anyone seeking to broaden their scholarship of these times.

Review by David Smyth (Energyman)

From the publisher: Keith Ray, leads Herefordshire Archaeology, the county archaeology service, together with local archaeologists and historians, contract archaeology companies, English Heritage, The National Trust, Manchester University, Channel 4’s Time Team and other experts, to generate a wide range of exploratory projects, including many excavations. Much new knowledge and understanding of Herefordshire’s archaeology has been gained as a result of these investigations. In this entirely new study, the author has described what is now known of the county’s archaeology, assessing both the work of past generations and the discoveries of this modern era of enquiry.

Major excavations on Dorstone Hill and at Wellington Quarry have shed light on the activities and rituals of our Neolithic ancestors, while the excavation of a cairn in the Olchon valley has illuminated the ebb and flow of beliefs at the transition of the Neolithic into the Bronze Age. In Hereford the site of part of the Saxon cathedral has been identified, along with a possible Mercian royal residence, helping reshape ideas about the Saxon city. The extent of iron working near Ross-on-Wye and in Hereford has been revealed, showing that Herefordshire was once a surprisingly industrial county. What have traditionally been considered to be earth and timber Norman castles have in some cases been shown to include major structures built in stone, perhaps from the very beginning. And detailed programmes of excavation at some sites, such as Croft Castle, have not only redefined the sequence of construction of the building concerned, but have also traced the extensive redesign of gardens and parkland down the centuries. These are just a handful of the new insights into many periods of Herefordshire’s remote and more recent past revealed by this fascinating study.

The Archaeology of Herefordshire: An exploration
Author: Keith Ray
Published by Logaston Press, 2015

RRP: £15

Contributor Bio for Energyman: Based in Forest of Dean, contributing since 2004. Favourite site: Maen Llia. Occupation: Natural health practitioner.

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