CAMBRIDGEARCHAEOLOGICAL UNIT

Interim Report No. 3

Manea Colony Investigations

OUSE WASHLAND ARCHAEOLOGY Manea Colony Investigations

(Interim Report No.3)

Marcus Brittain MA, Ph.D

Illustrations by Vicki Herring Studio Photography by Dave Webb

©CAMBRIDGE ARCHAEOLOGICAL UNIT

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE December 2016/ Report No. 1306

HER Event Number: ECB4807

INTRODUCTION

During September-October 2016 the Cambridge Archaeological Unit (CAU) in partnership with Wisbech’s Octavia Hill Birthplace House conducted fieldwork in Manea Fen, Cambridgeshire (TL 5122 9178; Figure 1), on the site of a former settlement originally established in the 1830s as an experimental Utopian community. This was undertaken with a team of volunteers as part of the Ouse Washes Landscape Partnership in the scheme’s third and final year of a Heritage Lottery Grant.

It is of no coincidence that the project was undertaken in the quincentenary of the publication of Thomas More’s Utopia, the title of which refers to futuristic visions of perfectibility, but combining the paradox of a good place (eu-topia) with an unachievable ‘no-place’ (u-topia). Inspired by the radical reformist ideas of Robert Owen, the establishment of a colony for cooperative living at Manea in 1838 was the initiative of a local (Upwell) businessman and landowner, William Hodson, who was able to bring together a community upwards of 100 members. The basic principles of the social experiment were straightforward: that the conditions of life could be improved by radical change in the structure of community and the relationship of society to its environment. The foundation for this lay in the land itself. New techniques of agriculture were tested across the site’s area of 1.25x0.25 miles (Figure 2); a quarry was sunk and expanded for the clay used to shape bricks fired in two large kilns; from these arose terraces of cottages, communal rooms, a kitchen and workshops arranged in a quadrangle, at the centre of which was an extravagant 60-foot tower. But in practice it was far more complex to achieve these aims in the day-to-day mechanics of cooperative living, and by 1841 the colony was formerly dissolved, just 25 months into its venture.

Much of what is known about the colony has been sourced from newspaper accounts. This includes the colony’s own ‘Working Bee’, published on site in 46 weekly issues during 1839-1841 (Figure 3). These have been critically unpacked in a number of scholarly works (Armytage 1956, 1961; Langdon 2000, 2005, 2012). Whilst questions remain concerning the physical structure and layout of the colony, there is also growing recognition that utopian communities in general hold considerable potential as subjects of archaeological analysis (Tarlow 2002, 2007; Van Bueren 2006). An archaeology of utopian or ‘ideal’ communities may provide alternative entries to the broader context of the societies from which they emerge and, moreover, with an eye to the perfectibility of society they are intrinsically linked to the concerns and assumptions of modernity. Nevertheless, empirical contributions to this field from a British perspective are lacking, and the current project is the first to address this though fieldwork.

The following is a summary statement on the first results of the work at Manea, with an extensive report currently in preparation. The fieldwork was conducted over a 1.6ha area of arable land that had been harvested and ploughed immediately prior to the project’s commencement (Figure 4). This combined surface finds collection with geophysical survey, evaluation trenching and test pitting. Under the direction of CAU staff a team of 29 dedicated volunteers undertook the entirety of the project’s fieldwork (Figure 5).

RESULTS

Given that the fieldwork was of only modest proportions, the finds return has been substantial (Table 1; Figure 6).

Find type Surface Feature

No. Weight (g) No. Weight (g)

Bone 365 886 1677 3471

Bone (worked) 3 9 0 0

Brick or Ceramic Tile 823 196040 1113 32180

Coal 24 73 18 5916

Glass 1368 5363 271 3584

Leather & textile 4 30 36 140

Metal 148 5875 52 5142

Plastic 39 97 7 15

Pottery 3340 9242 924 9879

Shell 33 39 35 47

Slag 47 2620 309 3081

Slate tile 400 2692 216 2487

Tobacco pipe 218 293 83 258

Table 1. Summary of the project’s finds archive

The distribution of finds recovered during surface collection shows a distinct area of clustering of hand-made brick, pottery and glass, with a separate concentration of tobacco pipe within the grid’s east corner (Figure 7). Magnetic and (though to a lesser degree) electric resistance geophysical survey further pointed to areas of archaeological potential that broadly corresponded with the finds distribution (Figure 8). The site’s clay geology, alongside the dry conditions experienced during the fieldwork, proved a challenge to the recovery of detailed geophysical responses, whereas the magnetometry was more effective at reading anomalies that were shown in two cases by subsequent trenching to be sunken floored structures lined with brick.

Seven trenches were opened by machine excavator, revealing 80 individual archaeological features (Figure 9). Five test pits were also manually excavated to further characterise the project area’s deposit sequence. Four main phases of archaeology were encountered:

1. Pre-colony

2. 19th century occupation (including colony)

3. 20th century occupation

4. Post-occupation

Phase 1 – Pre-colony

Twenty-four oval or rectangular pits with undercutting sides were identified in all but one trench. These were up to 2m in length and between 0.5 and 1.6m width, and each contained the same primary deposit of dark greyish brown peaty clay to a depth between 0.1 and 0.52m. These were broadly aligned lengthways in series upon one of two perpendicular axes: NW-SE and NE-SW. These were clearly recognisable as marling pits; these are traces of a strategy found across the fenland employed as a means to reduce peat wastage by mixing the pits’ excavated contents into the plough soil, thereby increasing its density as a defence against erosion. The strategy is unlikely to have been successful, with only thin spreads of the peat surviving in trenches 3-6. A shallow linear (F.15 & 78) appearing to traverse trenches 1 and 5/6 may represent another strategy against peat wastage.

Phase 2 – 19th century occupation (including colony)

Disentangling the material culture of 19th and 20th century occupation is a notable challenge for this project, with is further met in attempts to refine distinction of 19th century phases of activity. These attempts are ongoing in the analysis stages. Nevertheless, a number of likely cases for distinct 19th century phases are evident. In trench 4 a large pit (F.43) produced the greatest quantity of material that points to the first half of the 19th century (Table 2). This included slag and hearth waste, with glass offcuts from the manufacturing process as well as shards of window and bottle glass; fragments of building material, including handmade brick and slate tile; fine ware and table ware pottery, with animal bones of pig, cow, chicken and rabbit, some displaying butchery through halving and portioning; a glass button, cotton textile and a leather shoe with copper loop holes; and metalwork that included two iron horseshoes, a copper alloy beer tap key and a coin. The latter was heavily eroded, but it may be possible that this is a George III farthing with a date beneath Britannia, although not absolutely clear, of 1775. With further analysis, the details from this pit should certainly be informative.

Find type Feature

No. Weight (g)

Bone 213 829

Brick or Ceramic Tile 294 11435

Coal 385 5373

Glass 83 319

Leather & textile 25 100

Metal 31 622

Pottery 301 7122

Shell 23 32

Slag 266 2406

Slate tile 77 1206

Tobacco pipe 19 30

Table 2. Summary of finds from pit F.43

Two sunken floored structures lined with un-bonded brick are also likely to be 19th century. Surviving to up to four courses and perhaps serving as cooling rooms, the proximity in trench 4 between one of these structures (F.29) and pit F.43 suggests that they may be contemporary (Figure 10). Moreover, the correspondence of the two structures with geophysical anomalies points to there being a number of similar structures along a NW-SE series that most likely relate to one of the cottage terraces. A number of bricks used for the structures was imprinted with ‘DRAIN’; this was required for bricks used in drainage infrastructure between 1826 and 1850, if they were to be exempt from taxation. Their use in the structures may be secondary; but if the structures’ dating is within the first half of the 19th century then the use of these materials may point to more ‘sideline’ intentions. Additional structural elements were registered in trenches 5/6 through 11 postholes and two foundation platforms, and a number of shallow linear ditches subdivide areas of the settlement; some of these register on the Ordinance Survey maps, whilst others appear to predate these (i.e. pre-1880s).

Following the demise of the colony the buildings underwent various phases of addition, demolition and other modifications, and continued to be inhabited by various scales of community into the 20th century (one building also being used temporarily as the parish church of St. Peter). This occupation is perhaps most evident in the surface collection assemblage, although a number of features will surely relate to this prolonged phase of the site’s use. Of note is a number of tobacco pipe fragments collected from the capping (tertiary) fill of marling pit F.27, from which at least one was marked with the name of W. Gallant of Wisbech, who was active in the pipe industry during 1847-1869.

Phase 3 – 20th century occupation

The main concentration of activity was centred upon trenches 5/6. It is likely that by the mid- 20th century the farm had entered into single occupancy with many of the original colony buildings having either been demolished or fallen into a state of disrepair. Most characteristic of this phase were two rectangular pits containing upon their base the skeletons of pigs, mature in one and 7-12 months of age in the other (Figure 11). There were no signs of any cause of death. The pits were partially backfilled with clay and the upper void received further material deposits before also being backfilled by a darker soil: a metal pot, tins and glass bottles in one, and a piglet in the other. Other pits (notably F.65 and 66) produced elements of ceramic dining sets and decorative glass, as well as the fragmentary remains of three leather hobnailed shoes. The latest feature was another rectangular pit, F.41. This was particularly shallow, and therefore slightly damaged during machine excavation, but it contained more than 12 glass bottles that could be dated to the 1940s/50s; other finds from this pit were two teapots, one made of tin and the other of decorative ceramic.

Phase 4 – Post-occupation

The last buildings of what was termed ‘The Colony’ (not Colony Farm, which was sited north of this) were demolished in the 1950s, returning the land to arable use. It is clear that the removal of much of the buildings’ foundations was successful, which raises a

number of questions about the architectural qualities of the buildings themselves, these seemingly without cut footings. It may therefore not be a coincidence that localised across the areas of the main finds distribution and archaeological anomalies were shallow and flat based linear cuts confined to trenches 4 and 5/6. It is possible that the method employed in the removal of the buildings was to track a trench cutting plough over the areas of the remnant structures for the manual collection and removal of the building material debris.

SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION

As the first investigations at Manea Fen, the principle aims have been towards a characterisation of the site’s preservation and its archaeological potential for addressing nineteenth century ‘ideal’ communities and the nature of their subsequent legacy. The site of the ‘Hodsonian Community’ has been subject to over 100 years’ settlement activity, with differing forms of landuse either side of this. Identifying short and distinct phases within this timeframe with any certainty, notably the period of the colony’s establishment in 1838 through to its demise in 1841, is a considerable challenge. Nevertheless, blocks of material and feature groups active around this time may be represented within the project’s findings, such as pit F.43 and the sunken floored structures. These point to a degree of preservation at the site from which it may be possible to target particular and detailed research questions.

REFERENCES

Armytage, W.H.G. 1956. Manea Fen: A experiment in agrarian communitarianism, 1838-1841. Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 38(2): 288-310.

Armytage, W.H.G. 1961. Heavens Below: Utopian Experiments in England, 1560-1960. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Langdon, J.C. 2000. Pocket Editions of the New Jerusalem: Owenite Communitarianism in Britain 1825-1855. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of York.

Langdon, J.C. 2005. The Great Moral Lever: Life at the Owenite community of Manea Fen, 1839-1841. In Tsuzuki, C., Hijikata, N, and Kurimoto, A. (ed.), The Emergence of Global Citizenship: Utopian Ideas, Co-operative Movements, and the Third Sector. Tokyo: Robert Owen Association of Japan, 81-93.

Langdon, J.C. 2012. Social Change and Personal Experience at the Manea Fen Community, 1839–1841. Utopian Studies 23(2): 504-531.

Tarlow, S. 2002. Excavating Utopia: Why archaeologists should study “Ideal” Communities of the nineteenth century. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 6(4), 299-323.

Tarlow, S. 2007. The Archaeology of Improvement in Britain, 1750-1850. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Van Bueren, T. (ed.) 2006. Daring Experiments: Issues and Insights about Utopian Communities. Historical Archaeology 40(1).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The project was made possible through a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund distributed through the Ouse Washes Landscape Partnership. We offer our thanks to the staff and Project Board of the Ouse Washes Landscape Partnership for their support throughout the project.

We are grateful to the landowner, Mr John Heading, for permission to carry out the fieldwork and for continued assistance throughout the project.

The Manea Colony investigations have been carried out in partnership with the Octavia Hill Birthplace House, and we thank Peter Clayton in particular for bringing to the project his knowledge and unfiltered energy.

The fieldwork was directed by the author with the management of Chris Evans, and was conducted by 29 volunteers through the guidance of Sabrina Salmon and Ros Quick of the CAU. Members of FenArch and FEAG assisted throughout the project, and Alex Fisher, Andy Ketley and Garry Monger provided information concerning local archives and an earlier resistivity survey of the site.

The project’s Open Day involved a morning event at the William Marshall Centre in Welney, entitled ‘The Manea Colony Story’, and the event’s speakers are warmly thanked for their interesting contributions. The afternoon tours included access to Colony Lake, granted by Peter and Sandra Crout.

Additional thanks go to Grahame Appleby (Leicester City Council, formerly of CAU), Robert Bell (Wisbech & Fenland Museum), Nick Edwards, Dr. John Langdon (Archives & Special Collections, SOAS Library, London), Mike Petty, David Redhouse (Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge), Sophie Stewart (National Co-operative Archive, Manchester) and Kasia Gdaniec (Historic Environment Team, Cambridgeshire County Council); the staff at Cambridgeshire Archives and at The University of Cambridge Library Rare Books and Manuscripts department; and all of those that have communicated with and offered advice to the team during the project.

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Figure 3. 1841 artist’s illustration of the colony (above); the site today before harvest (below)

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Figure 10. Sunken floored structure F.29 with pit F.43

Figure 11. 20th century burial pits