Archaeologists make potentially significant discovery in grounds of Edward Jenner Museum in Berkeley (From Gazette Series)

Archaeologists make potentially significant discovery in grounds of Edward Jenner Museum in Berkeley

8:30am Wednesday 10th March 2010 in

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ARCHAEOLOGISTS are on the cusp of making a historically significant discovery in the grounds of two of Berkeley’s most famous buildings.

A team from the University of Bristol believe they may be excavating the first ever women’s section of an Anglo-Saxon religious community in the garden of The Edward Jenner Museum in Berkeley.

They are very close to proving that a ‘minster’, an enclosure which housed a religious community, dating back to the 6th or 7th century, exists around Berkeley Castle and the Edward Jenner museum.

In fact from their excavations over the last five years, which are coming to a peak now, they believe that Berkeley could be home to a ‘double house minster’, a minster made up mainly of high-powered women, some of whom could have been royalty or aristocracy.

If this is the case it will be the first double minster ever to be properly excavated in Britain and would give the first insight into the life of women in Anglo-Saxon times.

Dr Stuart Prior, lecturer in archaeological practice at Bristol University who has been co-leading the dig, said if they can prove that it is an Anglo-Saxon double house minster then it would have huge historical importance because it would mean we will finally be able to learn about what women's lives were like around the time of the 8th century.

"What we have found so far in Berkeley has been very exciting," said Dr Prior.

"Nobody has ever really excavated the female part of a minster before. This is very significant because we don’t really know a great deal about women living in Anglo-Saxon times, especially within these religious communities."

A minster would have been a rectangular walled enclosure with several churches dedicated to various Saints inside. In Berkeley Dr Prior believes one of the buildings in the minster was effectively a nunnery.

Two skeletons have been found at the bottom of Dr Jenner’s garden, which the team believe are probably the bodies of women, and may date to the 9th or 10th centuries, to be confirmed by radio-carbon dating.

The digs, which were carried out by students on the Bristol archaeological degree course, have unearthed a decorative fitting from a horse’s bridle, which dates back to around 1050, an aestel, which is a pointer for reading aloud from manuscripts or bibles, and a whetstone pendant for sharpening knives - the latter two relating directly to monastic life further confirming the existence of the minster.

The team, which is co-led by BBC Coast presenter and historical archaeologist Prof Mark Horton, will be back at the Jenner museum this May in the hope of uncovering further evidence needed to prove the Anglo-Saxon minster’s existence.

"For Anglo-Saxon history this is a very important discovery," added Dr Prior. "We have been digging in Berkeley for the past five years and I can foresee us staying for another five years as there are so many things still to discover."