Saxon nunnery found at Edward Jenner Museum

News – With just a week to go on this year’s archaeological dig, the University of Bristol team make an exciting discovery at The Edward Jenner Museum in Berkeley.

It’s an exciting time for The Edward Jenner Museum, as representatives from the University of Bristol – who are working on an annual archaeological dig there – have just uncovered what they believe to be the first-ever excavated Saxon nunnery.

While The Berkeley Project – launched to uncover a Saxon Berkeley – has been running for five years, it’s a particularly exciting find for the archaeological team, who earlier this year uncovered a Saxon church at the foot of The Edward Jenner Museum’s garden, near the church tower.

Also on the list of finds for the team is a rubbish pit at the site of the church, dating to the time of Dr Jenner, which included broken snuff bottles amongst broken chinaware and other domestic waste.

‘In the 260th anniversary year of Jenner’s birth to find such a personal tangible link with him is a huge bonus on top of the other exciting by much earlier discoveries in our garden’, said museum director Sarah Parker.

Even more finds include the remains of a high status Saxon building under the museum’s lawn, complete with a cobbled entrance and a refuse pit with oyster shells – said to be a staple food of the medieval person. A William The Conqueror coin, a coin from the reign of Henry I, while various medieval items from horse bridle furnishings and buckles to clothing pins have also been discovered.

‘If the church was associated to the buildings, and they do turn out to be part of the Anglo-Saxon nunnery, it will be the first time that a nunnery of this date – 7th to 9th century – has even been excavated, and all the evidence to date support this hypothesis’, said Dr Stuart Prior of the University of Bristol.

With one more week to go on the archaeological dig – when members of the public can see the team at work – it is hoped there will be even more fascinating finds.

For more information see The Edward Jenner Museum, telephone (01453) 810631 or visit jennermuseum.com directly.

SoGlos.com
5 June 2009