Bishops Palace, Howden

This community excavation project was created under the auspices of Howden Civic Society and was led by Howden Archaeological Society's founder, Mike Hatfield, overseen and supported by Jon Kenny, Community Archaeologist and Karen Adams, archaeologist of Past Search.  In turn, the project was supported by a team of volunteers, who carried out the excavation during the course of two seasons in 2018 and 2019.  Unfortunately, a third season in 2020 had to be cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

The Bishops Palace in Howden was once the residence of the Bishops of Durham, when they were visiting the area.  There were several buildings surrounding a courtyard, with an entrance at the front (onto Market Place) and one at the rear from the fishponds and orchard.  The Old River Derwent, running past to the east, allowed the Bishop to travel to the residence.

Today only the Great Hall, Court House and the Langley's Gateway with some walls of former stables survive, the remainder having been demolished over time and the foundations buried below ground.

Approximately half of the site of the Community Dig was within the Scheduled Monument for Bishops Manor House (1005227).  The Great Hall, dated to 1388-1405, is also within the scheduled area, but has a separate Grade 2* listing (Monument 1083181).

Previous excavation work had been carried out close to the Great Hall in 1984-1985.

All of the archaeological digging was done by hand, even removal of the topsoil, by the volunteers who came to work on the site.  They had to work carefully and watch out for the change of soil colour and texture.  Every time there was a difference, a new 'Context' number was allocated and recorded on a work sheet gving details of soil colour and type.  Each new context was photographed, scales being recorded to help understand the dimensions.  When each trench was completed a plan of the base was recorded.

Any archaeological material that was found whilst digging each new layer, deposit or fill, was put into a tray along with a tag with its corresponding context number.  The items were subsequently washed on site, using a bowl of water (no detergent) and a soft toothbrush or nail brush.  The soil was carefully washed off each fragment, rinsed and then allowed to dry.  Once dry, they were bagged up, per material type, and then into boxes, again per material type and trench.  The boxes of material were then delivered to the relevant specialist for them to write up their assessments.

Once the specialist assessments were received, a full excavation report was compiled by Karen Adams (PastSearch).  We are extremely grateful to Karen for the above synopsis, taken from the "Bishops Palace Community Dig 2018-2019" short report.  Paper copies of this illustrated report are available from HAS and from Howden Civic Society at a cost of £10.