Chapter 1 archaeology.indd

The Revised History of Great Yarmouth

Chap-

ter One

Geology

and Ar-

chaeol-

Chapter One

The Geology and Archaeology

Geology

and

Archaeology

From the end of the ice age, when the ice receded,

leaving a chalk valley overfilled with sand, there

was dry land at Yarmouth continuously to this day.

In Neolithic times there was rich and well drained

soil, and the land was intensively farmed. At the

time when the Romans came, the sea was still some

miles further out. The Romans settled widely in the

area, though which useful navigable rivers flowed.

The rich farmland was a highly attractive source of

food for their army in Europe. A navigable river was

essential for trade. All traces of Roman occupation

in Yarmouth itself are gone or deeply covered, but

certainly there were two Roman forts in the vicinity,

built at different times. Later, in Saxon times, the

town itself was substantial, but built entirely of

wood and thatch; it was totally destroyed by a

Viking Raid.

The top photograph shows the pipe trench in

Nottingham Way. Middle picture, the deeper pit at the

west end of Nottingham Way was dug well below 5

metres to allow the passage of the pipe under South

Quay without disturbing trafﬁc on that road. Bottom

picture, the new bypass was cut along the line of the

railway, underneath Middleton Road Bridge, Gorleston.

Archaeological examination of the town of Great

Yarmouth has been scanty in the extreme. The

only systematic dig of any kind was undertaken by

the Norfolk Archaeological team run by Andrew

Rogerson on a site at Fuller’s Hill in 1974. A major

problem encountered then, which has tended to

inhibit further work, was the depth of the artefacts,

combined with the nature of the ground. Rogerson

excavated down to a level that appeared to just

predate the conquest, but problems were encountered

with shoring the sides of the dig, and deeper levels

were not exposed. Covering the ancient land surface

at Yarmouth is an accumulation of soil and sand

that is mostly a full five metres deep. This layer is

soft and dangerous to work without shoring. Most

foundation work for new building does not penetrate

that deeply, so that the full depth is never probed

or excavated. Excavations at other towns such as

London and Lincoln have revealed the existence of

dark earth and animal bones that were deposited in

the last part of the Roman occupation. It is still not

officially known why they are there, but I think that

we can assume that animals were kept within the

town as a source of convenient fresh meat and milk.

In fact the practice of animal husbandry within the

rows of Yarmouth continued into the 20th century.

It is now known that the present day level of the

Thames is some 15 feet higher than in Roman times,

and Roman huts have been excavated at Tilbury,

13 feet below the present high water mark. Ref [i]

Yarmouth in ancient times was at about the same

depth.

20

Chapter

One

A New Perlustration of Great Yarmouth

This spade is just into the peat layer at Corton

Cliff known as the “rootlet bed”.

Before the ice ages, Yarmouth was situated in a valley

in rolling chalk hills that were part of the South

Downs. There was then a thick layer of peat laid

down on the land surface, in which the animal and

vegetable remains of that period have been preserved

(from as long ago as 1-200,000 years). The present

surface of the sand at Yarmouth is 350 feet above

the chalk. The cliffs on the North Norfolk Coast at

Runton are only about 70 feet above the sea and the

chalk which is often exposed at low tides. The peat

layer is a few feet above the chalk at Runton, and

so at Yarmouth may be a good deal of that 350 feet

down. It is hardly surprising therefore that it has not

been uncovered at Yarmouth, yet is visible sometimes

as near as at Caister and Corton. It has always been

assumed that Yarmouth was under the sea

in Roman times and even in the first few

centuries after Christ, and that the sand here

was washed up by the sea. Roman artefacts

in low ground at Runham, and the digging of

broadland peat below current sea level in the

middle ages made this scenario completely

impossible. It remained though to examine

the make up of the land under Yarmouth, to

be quite sure.

There are 5 pages of correspondence in

Rumbelows Diary vol 18, 1945-6, regarding

the Lacons Brewery. Find them on the internet,

or on the superdisk.

In 1990, a new sewer was constructed in the

town, to run from the new pumping station

on South Quay, where formerly the town’s

sewage had been discharged straight into the

river. The pipe picks up this effluent and takes

it up Nottingham way, round the St Peter’s

Road junction, and down Lancaster Road

to the Marine Parade. From there it runs all

the way north to the Caister treatment works

and the new outfall. The pipe trench was

very important archaeologically, because for

the first time, it excavated the ground to a

depth of 5 metres right across the town. For

the first time the geological structure of the

layers below the surface could be examined.

By good fortune the excavation was just

deep enough to reach and penetrate the same

undisturbed sand surface that is so easily

seen at the very top of the cliff at Corton,

at Gorleston and Runton. This was proof

that the land surface at Yarmouth remained

undisturbed as it was at Gorleston. It was laid

down as glacial outwash, and was not a spit of

sand washed up from the sea. This fact is of

great importance in determining Yarmouth’s

origins. The geological and archaeological

findings in the pipe trench will be related in

detail. It can be categorically stated that Yarmouth

was dry land during the whole period from the end of

the ice age, supported some sort of Roman presence,

and was a substantial Saxon settlement that was razed

to the ground by the Vikings in 1013.

Rumbelow’s Diary, Lacon’s Brewery Items

http://www.greatyarmouthhistory.com/Rumbelow’s Diary

(Item 1)

21

The Revised History of Great Yarmouth

Chap-

ter One

Geology

and Ar-

chaeol-

It had once been thought that the sea in recent times

was higher than now, but the broads were created in

medieval times by systematic peat digging in areas

which are about a metre lower than the sea is at present,

including Lound run and Fritton lake. These have only

flooded recently, as the sea level has gradually slightly

risen. It has been suggested that these peat diggings

would have had to be regularly drained or bailed out.

However, the flooding even now only occurs every thirty

years or so, and in the meantime any area of working

would be quite confined, and unaffected by any previous

flooding. Therefore, bailing out of these would be

entirely unnecessary. The workings that flooded could be

left, separated by a few feet from a new digging, with a

straight intervening section in-between to keep the new

working dry.

It was only

after several

h u n d r e d

years that the

average water

level became

too high to

sustain the

process.

As far as

economics

are concerned,

as the amount

of remaining

peat became

m u c h

depleted;

coal became readily available, transported around the

coast by sea from the north during the 14th. and 15th.

centuries. It is also important to point out that the peat

layer, formed after the last ice age, that was dug out to

form the broads, could not have formed or survived,

had it been under the sea!

Geology

and

Archaeology

This pit was dug on the west side of South Quay, to

enable the pipe to be passed under the intact road.

The much deeper layer of peat that was formed in the

warm period between the last two Ice Ages, around

200,000 years ago, was full of roots, dead beetles

and bones. It was called by earlier archaeologists, the

“rootlet bed”.Since the “rootlet bed” at Corton, Caister

and Runton is clearly continuous, it can be seen that

the two main glacial deposits of sand and gravels,

the Devensian and the Anglian, above and below this

“rootlet bed”, are likewise continuous deposits. This

peat bed is just below current sea level at Corton and

Runton, and is not the higher recent level excavated

to form the broads.

To run the pipe under the South Quay without

diverting the trafﬁc, a borehole was sunk and the

water pumped out of the ground across the whole

area.

In post Devensian times, the river Yare, approx. 10,000

years old, wandered across the low sandy area between

Caister and Burgh Castle. In fact the glacier had already

created the valley with a huge melt flow. This can be

deduced from a study of the aerial photos and the cliff

geology. Ref iii

Details of the pipe trench and the burned layer

22

Chapter

One