Waterway Recovery Group Canal Camps

This page illustrates objects recovered during the 2017 excavation of a test trench beside Lower Brake Lock and a building beside Shop Lock, on the Ty Coch series of locks west of Cwmbran, Monmouthshire. The finds are from two locations: the first was a shallow test trench dug roughtly east-west to the south of the planned main excavation. This was excavated to give volunteers some experience of handling tools in an archaeological environment, and of the sort of material they might come across. A small trench was also dug in an attempt to locate the continuation of the terracotta drainage pipe found in 2016. This produced a number of finds, but not the pipe! Both these trenches were not continued beyond day 1. The second area was the excavation of the site of a building seen on nineteenth and early twentieth century OS maps. It was hoped that excavation would reveal the remains of the lock keeper's cottage. [See my interim report here].

1. Test trench finds

There was no surface or recorded indication as to the origin of this material. The site lies south of the area beside Shop Lock where there was a workshop and cottage in the nineteenth century, the latter surviving until the first half of the twentieth century. The area may have been used by the canal workers for growing vegetables, the material being deposited in "night soil" used as fertiliser. Another explanation could be that it was imported with soil used in construction/landscaping. However given the spread of dates suggested by the ceramics, this is unlikely, and there is no obvious reason why the soil would have been deposited on what was fairly level ground beside Lower Brake Lock. Some may have been dredged from the canal itself during routine mintenance, but the material spreads more than 50m east of the canal bank.

The material is remarkably varied, especially considering its rural location. For example, as well as the very familiar "Willow Pattern" desgn, dozens of other designs of decorated vessel can be identified. Whether this represents just the rubbish from 150 years of cottage occupation (plus the workshop) or includes material discarded by passing boats, it is of course impossible to say. The finds display a wide range of dates, which suggests continual disturbance and discard, evidence perhaps of cultivation. The area was used as a picnic site in the 1970s, which no doubt explains the presence of some more recent material.

At this time no attempt has been made to analyse each individual artefact in detail. The finds have been sorted into a number of categories that hopefully demonstrate both the date range and variation of types of ceramics etc. Dating is of course approximate; wares and designs were produced over lengthy periods and would have been cared for by their owners. Discard dates may thus be much later than dates of manufacture.