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The confluence of the river Trent with the rivers Mease and Tame in Staffordshire is an excellent example of extensive ancient activity which formed the focus for a large-scale landscape project funded by the ALSF. Named Where Rivers Meet, the project was overseen by English Heritage and undertaken by Birmingham Archaeology between 2002 and 2004. The ALSF also supported the publication of the fieldwork with a grant in 2006.
A cursory scan of the river Trent on Google Earth highlights the sheer scale of quarrying in the past and today. Aerial photography during the 1960s and 70s revealed a complex cultural landscape in this area leading to the statutory protection of many archaeological sites. Commonly, these cultural landscapes are focused around the river confluences, but the clustering of monuments in this area was extremely unusual – some have no direct parallels. Conventional archaeological interpretation was therefore somewhat restricted. The principal cluster, known as the Catholme ceremonial complex, covered a relatively small area directly north of the confluence near Alrewas.
| 'Sunburst' cropmarks. |
Catholme overview. |
Inside the Sunburst. |
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The most striking feature was what became known as the Sunburst Monument. This consisted of a 16m-wide ring ditch from which 12 radiating lines of up to five pits or large postholes extended over a total diameter of nearly 60m. A second monument had been identified 150m to the east-southeast. Also circular, this was formed by five concentric rings of pits or large postholes with a total diameter of 50m, enclosing a central area over 20m across. This second feature was less unusual, displaying apparent similarities with the second phase of Durrington Walls Southern Circle, or with the rings at Mount Pleasant in Dorset, or even the Sanctuary near Avebury – all late neolithic or chalcolithic structures of around 2600–2200BC, typically thought of as distinctive of Wessex. We called this feature the Woodhenge Monument.
These two were not alone. The cropmark of a possible cursus monument lay 130m to the west. Aligned east–west and at least 110m long, it points towards the Sunburst Monument; only the western terminus survives, where it is 45m wide. To the east, on islets within the network of branching and reconnecting streams of the floodplain, two possible hengiform monuments have been identified on aerial photographs, at Fatholme and Borough Holme.
The cropmarks also suggest boundaries for the complex. To the east, a natural edge is provided by the anastomosed river Trent, which has been reconstructed as part of the Where Rivers Meet project by Neil Davies and Greg Sambrook-Smith using techniques such as coring and GPR, and historical mapping. To the west, the complex is bounded by rising ground beyond the cursus. To the north and south single and double pit alignments over 1km long run east–west, providing symmetry to the other monuments and linking the floodplain to the higher ground. On the west, around the cursus, these alignments are just 130m apart; as they extend eastwards, the area that they enclose broadens into a wide funnel up to 250m across as it meets the floodplain.
Whilst this complex appears distinctive, it lies within a densely packed prehistoric landscape. To the west are the two causewayed enclosures of Alrewas and Mavesyn Ridware, which provide evidence of earlier activity. At least three additional cursus monuments have been identified within the broader area along the Trent, and at least two further hengiform sites, to the southwest at Wychnor Bridges and near the National Memorial Arboretum. By the earlier bronze age (2200BC), an explosion of cultural activity appears in the form of numerous ring ditches, with a marked concentration on the higher areas overlooking the Catholme complex.
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