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Ingram : Rectory Gardens Excavation

Further evidence for the development of the village is provided by the small-scale excavations undertaken in Ingram Rectory Gardens in the summer of 2001 (Frodsham & Waddington 2004, 188-189). These were carried out as part of the Breamish Valley Archaeology Project, with the aim of investigating the area where it was proposed to construct a number of holiday cottages. The site lies adjacent to St Michael’s Church and it had been hoped to find traces of early medieval settlement, however no such remains were uncovered. Instead more than 600 sherds of medieval pottery, predominantly of 12th-13th century date, were recovered by the excavation. These sherds represent the residue from the manuring of fields of ridge and furrow which clearly covered this area during the 13th century. By contrast the absence of significant quantities of material post-dating the 13th century in the overall pottery assemblage suggests these fields had been turned over to pasture by the early 14th century.

Some activity, which is most plausibly assigned to the late medieval/early modern period, was revealed in this area, in the shape of two pits and a drainage ditch which cut into the old ridge and furrow. These produced no dating evidence other than sherds of redeposited 13th century pottery deriving from the earlier plough soil. Some charred grain was found in these features, but also many charred seeds of grasses and weeds, suggesting an open, disturbed landscape in the immediate vicinity of the site.

All this would be consistent with the evidence from documentary sources for a much greater emphasis on pastoralism in the economy of Northumbrian upland communities during the later medieval period, as compared to the medieval high noon of the late 13th century. Whereas in the latter period arable land was in short supply and every available scrap was seemingly being used, after 1300 much arable land in the Northumbrian uplands was abandoned in response to first to a worsening climate and the chronic insecurity along the Border and then the savage onslaught of the Black Death.

The latter had a catastrophic impact on the rural population levels, leading in turn to a steep decline in agricultural rents and land values. It is unlikely, however, that the late medieval/early modern populations along the Breamish entirely abandoned subsistence arable cultivation. In the face of such chronic uncertainty and so many hazards, a degree of economic diversification was essential to the survival of all the Border communities, but it is likely cultivation was restricted to the communities’ most favoured land with many former arable fields being converted to meadows.