The Waters Flowing Through Mottisfont

Recently I revisited Mottisfont Abbey in Hampshire. I haven't been back there since 2006 when I was working on my dissertation for my degree. It's such a beautiful place, and luckily we had beautiful weather the afternoon we were there.

Mottisfont

The Priory at Mottisfont was established in 1200 for Austin canons, and dissolved in 1536. After this it was turned into a private house. Not much of the original priory remains, but there is the original cellarium, and some earthworks in the grounds. 

The Cellarium

Water is a very important feature of the site, and from which Mottisfont is named. The old English word motes funta means 'spring near the confluence or stone'.  A spring lies in the grounds of Mottisfont, just in front of the main building. 

The River Test

The Test river runs past the Abbey, and the surrounding fields are dotted with evidence of water management. Monastic life would have relied on agriculture and cultivating the landscape, and water would have played an important part. There are ditches that are thought to be duck decoys and fish ponds. Nearby Romsey has evidence of mills being in use from 1086. The area I was focussing on was the Water Meadows, field systems set up to direct water through the fields to provide nutrients to help the grass grow quickly. The project was done with help from the Hampshire County Council and the National Trust, and I was given information, support and access to the field I was researching. 

I carried out a desktop survey of the area, using the Hampshire Records Office. It was so fascinating to look at all the old maps of the area to see how the landscape had developed and changed. I also used aerial photography provided by the National Monuments Record in Swindon to look at the evidence of features seen from the air. This turned out to be really useful, and the features of the water meadow were really clear. 

The last part of the project was to carry out a resistivity survey. This was done with help from a team of friends from university, and my mum (who became an expert in geofizz!). It was not without peril though. I was surrounded by a group of very enthusiastic young cows whilst surveying, and had to use the resistivity machine as a cow prod to fight my way out. My car was also broken into in the carpark, and the university laptop with some of the geofizz results was stolen - I think the university was delighted they could get a new one! But the project battled through, and the geofizz results came back as clearly showing the water meadow features. 

The geophysics results placed on a map of the field

The digitised version of the geophysics results

Digitised tithe map of the surrounding area, showing the land use. 

This is a very 'watered down' (excuse the pun!) version of the project, and a lot more maps and aerial photographs were produced, sadly I'm not sure I can put them up on the blog due to copyright. It was a project I really enjoyed doing, and spent hours pouring over maps and manipulating images on the computer. 

As well as the history of the property, there is a lot to see for gardeners. Mottisfont is famous for it's collection of roses, and the beautiful rose garden. Our visit was a bit too early for most of the roses, but there were still lots of beautiful flowers to see. 

Mottisfont is owned by the National Trust, more details of the property and visiting details can be found here: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/mottisfont/

The Vikings arrive at the British Museum

A few weeks ago I went to see the Vikings exhibition at the British Museum. I was so excited. I love the British Museum, and I'm a member of it (really worth it, not only can you visit every exhibition without booking, but they have the most amazing members room, with great tea!) I was always disappointed with the exhibition space. It was too busy, and I always struggled to see the artefacts, it was a case of deep breathes and keeping calm. So much so that whilst viewing the Pompeii exhibition for the second time I felt very faint and had to leave quickly. It was also very sad that visitors could no longer see the reading room in it's full glory- I'm hoping that it'll be reinstated soon?

So with some excitement and in-trepidation I entered the new exhibition centre. I was so overjoyed I even treated myself to an audio guide.

I stepped in and started to move around the first room. I was confused, I couldn't actually see any artefacts, or information about the Vikings. Then it dawned on me, there was a queue meandering round the interesting bits of the room. Slowly. I had to precede back to the entrance and join the slow shuffle round. I was so glad for the audio guide, it meant I had something to concentrate on when I wasn't near any of the cases. Although at first I felt a bit suffocated the queue worked to the exhibitions advantage - when I was in view of something, I spent far longer examining it and reading the signs than I probably would have done. Some of the exhibits were placed so only one person could view at a time, and I think it was difficult for some children to see - I let some stand in front of me at one point so that they weren't pushed out of the way by overexcitable adults!

The main issue I had with the exhibition was that the text accompanying the exhibits had been placed really low, so it was difficult to read. I think this is an issue that the Tate cope with really well - you're given a little booklet of the text at the beginning, which is the same as what is written on the walls. Then if it's busy and you can't get near, you can read the booklet.

After the first room though the crowd dispersed (I'm still not sure how this happened) and suddenly there was air and space around everyone and everything. I loved the objects, and the exhibition, there's so much to the Vikings that is forgotten. The art is beautiful, and too often it is presumed that they were just barbarian warriors. These people had culture and style. Even though I'd studied the Vikings at university, I was still surprised by the quality and beauty. The exhibition was great at looking at both sides of the Vikings, raiders v traders, with evidence of violence and slavery displayed near evidence of trading across Europe and East through Russia.

Entering the final room is amazing, with the vast Viking ship in the centre of the room. It takes your breathe away. There is so much space to look around and to take your time. It is the perfect exhibition to open the new space with, and I'm hoping I'll have time to visit again before it closes on 22nd June.