EDO5409 - Shaftesbury Abbey, Shaftesbury: excavation 1931

Excavations directed by Mr J Wilson Claridge were the subject of the Fourth Summer Meeting of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society in 1931, and the visit is reported in a note in the subsequent Proceedings of the Society. Mr Wilson Claridge escorted members over the site, commenting on earlier excavations: in 1746, when some gold rings were found; in 1761, when a good deal of masonry, including 'the abbey arms', was unearthed; in 1861, revealing the so-called crypt, probably built in the thirteenth century, and tiled floors, and accompanied by the finding of more gold rings; and in 1902 when Mr Doran Webb began further explorations and re-opened the crypt. According to Mr Claridge, Mr Webb put in a great many trenches and made a plan of the Abbey which was not quite accurate. When funds ran out the excavations were left unfinished, and the tiled floors, being left poorly protected, suffered greatly from the weather.[1] The Rev S. F. Hancock carried on the work of Doran Webb where the latters explorations left off. He also tried to conserve some of the floor tiles which had been exposed in the Crypt by Doran Webb and left open to frost damage, he covered them with Shaftesbury Town Grit. [2] Mr Claridge, taking a more orderly approach, had discovered nineteen graves in the Lady Chapel, where Mr Webb had found three, and he had found the original footings. Society members noted that Mr Claridge had not found any trace of the Temple of Pallas (Minerva) supposed to have been there in Roman times, and upon which the abbey was alleged to have been built. The visitors had pointed out to them a Purbeck marble coffin, containing the remains of an abbess of the 14th century, and a stone-lined grave in the corner of the transept which proved to contain no human remains when opened. They inspected a portion of the footings of the east end, described as apsidal, of the south transept, which was destroyed when the south choir aisle (the Lady Chapel) was extended in the fourteenth century, and another Purbeck marble sarcophagus, with a skeleton of an abbess buried in 1267. Of particular interest to the party were the remains of the King Edward Chapel, and they visited the spot where the bones of King Edward were discovered on January 22 1931, having supposedly been hidden by nuns in 1539. Mr Claridge explained that the bones were found in a lead casket, which appeared to have been made hurriedly on the spot. Other features noted by the party were the site of the rood screen, the 'perfect skeleton of a lady who had been buried in a wooden coffin about the 15th century and had never been disturbed', and memorial slabs to Alexander Cater and Thomas Scalis, a priest. [1]