During our 2024 efforts in the View Garden and the subsequent archaeological investigation we uncovered a number of curious artefacts. This time we found a few new fragments.

One was fired clay, similar to parts we’ve uncovered before, and that we now think were ornamental strawberry planters, or stump planters.

These were made as rustic ornaments, designed to look like decaying stumps, and in which strawberry or other small plants were panted. There were several UK manufacturers of these and they came in a variety of sizes.  These may well have been bought by the Miles family to decorate their recently set-out garden and provide fresh berries for the tables of kings Weston house.

Other fragments have a less obvious function. Previously we’d thought that a number of bricks slathered in a molten glaze were part of the same ornamental planters, but these are now thought to be from a different source.

Collecting together a number of these  distinctive fragments it’s clear that they once formed a continuous circular  structure of about 2ft in diameter. It was built with roughly cut bricks  mortared together with lime mortar and then, somehow, the dark treacly glaze  or molten slag applied and fired onto the whole thing. The parts recovered show  that  there were gaps between some of the  bricks from the start

The structure looks like it had some sort of industrial origin, but perhaps the rustic finish and irregular construction were intentional. Was it another planter or something else? If anyone has any suggestions, we’d love to know.