SLIMBRIDGE DOWSING GROUP REPORTS
Archaeological dowsing in the grounds of Berkeley Castle
Professor Mark Horton explains progress to students
at the Berkeley Castle dig where Slimbridge Dowsing
Group recently had the opportunity to dowse
Arthur Marrow marks the continuation of an old road
already exposed by the dig
Peter Golding investigates the location of a number of
8th century burials There’s too much stuff to learn in this world. We had a glimpse of just how much on Monday 8th June when we were invited to dowse an archaeological dig in the grounds of Berkeley Castle. It was a history lesson, an archaeology lesson and a dowsing lesson all in one.
It was a privilege to be allowed in, since traditionally, archaeologists don’t have a lot of time for dowsers. With all their sophisticated equipment, experience and qualifications, they view our dowsing rods and skills rather like the medical profession used to regard chiropractors and acupuncture. As both are now available on the NHS, dowsers live in hope that one day archaeologists will accept dowsing too. It would save the students a lot of digging!
Undeterred, SDG member Arthur Marrow co-ordinated the occasion, and to be fair, Professor Mark Horton and Dr Stuart Prior, seen on Channel 4’s Time Team but also lecturers at the University of Bristol and directors of the three on-going Berkeley Castle digs, were open minded about dowsing. “And if you can locate the market cross shown on Henry VIII’s Tudor map dated 1541, that would be most helpful,” said Stuart.
The confusing thing for archaeologists is the layer upon layer of history beneath our feet. Stuart took time to point out various levels in the soil across the site, from 21st and 20th century at the top, then 19th to 18th Century garden earth, then the 17th century during which Berkeley Castle was the site of much civil war activity (1641-1651).
Lower still, we could see the level floor of a hall with stones marking a semi-circular hearth, thought to be Saxon (597-1066). There was a stone road beside it with a few Roman red bricks sticking up like old teeth, which were probably already there, and used as rubble or hardcore by the Saxons.
Yet for dowsers, what you ask for is what you get, and if we ask for, say, a religious building of the Saxon period, our rods respond to that alone. There might be layers of history in between, but our rods won’t react to anything else until specifically requested to do so.
We were able to dowse and find where the Saxon road ended, (not much further to go, guys), and Barry Goldring dowsed and recorded three Saxon houses, even though Stuart was only expecting two. Peter Golding established an area where there had been several burials in the 700s. Opinion was divided as to whether this was a church or simply a burial ground.
Later we headed off to the area believed to be the site of the market cross but had mixed success. Some of us found locations for two, one built in the 700s and long gone by the 12th century, and a second, further over, that was there in 1541 and likely to be the one on Henry VIII’s map. Yet another member, David Excell from South Herefordshire Dowsers, dowsed and found the site of a market cross almost under the boundary wall. So the jury is still out on market crosses.
We hope to return and do more work on this. The great thing about dowsing an archaological dig is that one day it will be completed and we will know whether our findings were right or wrong.