SWAG Projects

Croome Park Carriage Splash

map and satellite photograph - please note that A on the photograph is the car park for the Landscape Park.

Project Leader - Dennis Williams

Since October 2005, SWAG members have been excavating and recording the roadways leading to a 'carriage splash' situated at the southern end of Croome Park, near Pershore. During the winter of 2005/6, SWAG completed a survey of the artificial ford that forms the 'splash', and discovered the remains of an associated footbridge.

At the 2006 National Archaeology Weekend event in July, SWAG joined forces with the Worcestershire Young Archaeologists' Club (in the orange T-shirts in the picture) in order to extend the excavations of the 'lost' roadways in the park, and in September further work took place, with a continuation of the uncovering and appraisal of the carriage splash.

So far, exposure and detection of the track away from the water in a northerly direction has revealed that the track is well built of individual stone pieces placed in a distinct pattern.

The surface is approximately ten feet wide and the edges are well-defined, with a line of stones along the centre of the track running in the same direction as the edge pieces. The main surface has stone lain at right angles to the side and centre stones and at right angles to the direction of traffic on the track (see pictures).

A test pit dug at about 15 yards in a northerly direction revealed the edge of the track, but no evidence was exposed of a side road which appears on maps.

On the southerly side of the splash, more ground was uncovered to expose and area of roughly laid stone, which it is speculated might have been a turing point for the carriages.

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