An update on the Hopwood Mill Cottage excavation from MAS site director, Robert Huddart;
The evidence so far would suggest 3 or possibly 4 major phases of rebuilding on the site. The problem is that some of the brick has been reused so that the age of the brick doesn’t necessarily reflect the age of the structure. For example the fireplace (now destroyed by vandals) contained 18th/early 19th century hand made brick together with some modern machine made brick and at least one Tudor dimension brick. The hand made brick dimensions from the Millers Cottage are averaging 22cm x 11cm x 7 cm. We haven’t examined the internal drain brick properly yet but it is likely that the this was also reused like the capstones. Similarly I suspect that some of the lime mortar is due to re-pointing and may not help date the wall. We have reused roof stones to cap the internal drain structure and fragments from other parts of the site. Also large quantities of dressed slate which suggests that the earlier stone roof was later replaced with slate.
The stone foundation belongs to the earliest phase (so far) and may well have supported a timber frame building, We now have some pottery evidence to support this. The re-deposited fill from the interior of the building contained 3 sherds of iron glazed earthenware and a sherd of slipware all dating from the late 17th century. So we have evidence of occupation and in the 17th century the building is much more likely to have been timber framed than of stone or brick.
