The third run of the free popular ‘England in the Time of King Richard III’ online course will be launching on Monday 16 February – and will offer a fascinating insight into life during 15th century England in the build up to the reinterment of Richard III on Thursday 26 March. The course, which is…
Tag: Leicestershire
Archaeologists return to Roman mosaic site
In Autumn 2014, ULAS archaeologists returned to a site in Leicester, that they first investigated in 2012, to carry out a second phase of work. The site is on the corner of Highcross Street and Vaughan Way, between All Saints’ Church and the John Lewis multistory car-park. In 2012, archaeologists excavated seven trenches in order…
Flint knife found near Asfordby
Recent fieldwork near Asfordby in north-east Leicestershire has recovered a significant assemblage of seventy-four worked flints, including forty tools; comprising cores, scrapers and piercers. The remainder of the assemblage was made up of flakes, some of which had been retouched. One noteworthy find was an unusual scale-flaked knife (which coincidentally resembles a leaf-shaped arrowhead). The…
Rediscovering Coleorton Pottery
Monitoring of the clearance of the former Coleorton Pottery site at Lount in north-west Leicestershire in 2012 has given ULAS archaeologists a rare opportunity to excavate a series of 19th and early 20th century kilns in the county, which has far fewer recorded potteries than Staffordshire or Derbyshire. The Coleorton Pottery was established in 1836…
2014: A year in reflection
As the year comes to an end Patrick Clay (co-director) looks back at the highlights for ULAS during the year. Some have already featured in our blog, others we will take a closer look at in the new year. The overwhelming impression of this year has been that it has been the busiest in over…
King Richard III Identity: CASE CLOSED AFTER 529 YEARS!
An international research team led by Dr Turi King from the University of Leicester Department of Genetics has published overwhelming evidence that the skeleton discovered under a car park in Leicester indeed represents the remains of King Richard III, thereby closing what is probably the oldest forensic case solved to date. The team of researchers,…
Latest volume of Transactions published
The latest volume of the Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society (vol. 88, 2014) has been published. This year’s volume includes a new article co-authored by John Morison and ULAS’s Vicki Score on ‘The Lost Chapel of St Morrell, Hathern’ (Previously reported on by ULASNEWS). John Thomas has compiled the latest ‘Archaeology in…
Recording Leicester’s hidden medieval heritage
Medieval is probably not a word often conjured up by people if asked to describe Leicester today; Victorian, perhaps Georgian, will be more commonly used but hidden behind the 18th and 19th century shop fronts little known fragments of the medieval town still survive. In 2012, ULAS carried out an historic building assessment of No….
Fifteenth century religious precinct wall discovered in Leicester
A small excavation carried out by ULAS has recently recorded a 15m long section of the medieval Newarke Wall, a 15th-century precinct wall surrounding the Newarke, a religious close containing a college of canons and a hospital which was once situated immediately south of the medieval town. The work was carried out for De Montfort…
Rare decorated Iron Age chariot fittings found at Burrough Hill hillfort
University of Leicester archaeologists have made a ‘once-in-a-career’ discovery of the decorated bronze remains of an Iron Age chariot. A team from ULAS and the University’s School of Archaeology and Ancient History has unearthed a hoard of rare bronze fittings from a 2nd or 3rd century BC chariot which appears to have been buried as…
Exploring the ponds of Grace Dieu Priory, Leicestershire
This summer, ULAS carried out a small archaeological investigation of a large earthwork bank, part of a medieval/post-medieval fishpond, next to the ruins of Grace Dieu Priory in north-west Leicestershire. This was to try and explain why water is being lost from the pond so that the Friends of Grace Dieu Priory can implement repairs…
Iron Age settlement excavated near Lutterworth
During the autumn of 2013 ULAS carried out an archaeological excavation on land at Leaders Farm, on the south-western edge of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, for Bellway Homes (East Midlands) Ltd. prior to construction of a new residential development to be known as Whittle Fields. An evaluation carried out by ULAS in 2012 identified two areas containing…
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