During the1980s, I was involved in an unusual search – looking for a lost fort.
You might think something as big as a fort wouldn’t be difficult to find. After all, we knew when it was built, who by and at least an approximate location.
We even had a drawing of it, albeit sketched 859 years after its construction.
But trying to unravel its precise shape and size proved to be a complex piece of detective work that extended over five years.
As the saying goes, “nothing is forever”, but I bet the Saxons believed their fort, or ‘burh’, would be.
Chronicles tell us that it was in 916, “before midsummer” (around June 21-24), that Edward the Elder came to Maldon and had the ‘burh’ built.
He chose high ground - a strategic point that overlooked the river and surrounding network of trackways.
The new fort would have afforded protection for the locals, acted as a defence at time of attack and housed the town’s mint.
As well as exploiting the natural topography, it was encircled by a deep, water-filled ditch, topped by a wooden palisade.
It served its purpose well, withholding an attack by the Vikings in 917. However, it finally succumbed as a result of the Battle of Maldon on August 10/11, 991.
Notwithstanding its fall, the mint continued until the reign of Stephen (r. 1135-1154) and the site would go on to be re-fortified during the (much later) English Civil War of 1642-1651.
After that, amazingly, it just “disappeared”.
Intrigued by the story, the 18th Century antiquarian Joseph Strutt investigated and believed that he could just about make out what was left of the ‘burh’.
He drew a picture of it and, along with a ground plan, published it in volume one of his The Complete View of the Manners, Customs, Arms, Habits of the Inhabitants of England (1775).
To assist with bearings, Strutt helpfully included the top of All Saints' spire as a landmark.
Through the centre is a track, which must be today’s London Road.
So, in 1980, having extrapolated Strutt’s lines, members of the Maldon Archaeological Group (me included) under the chairmanship of Paul Brown, went in search.
Reports of previous excavations were reviewed – including that at the old London Road Youth Hostel site (now the front playground of St Francis' School) dug in 1973 - and extension work to the former telephone exchange in Gate Street in 1974.
Then, in 1980, the group was given the chance to undertake its own excavation - at 33 Beeleigh Road.
I still remember how terribly cold it was, trowelling away in winter at the bottom of a pumped-out, frozen ditch.
But it was worth it – late-Saxon pottery turned up and it was evident that the ground had been disturbed and to a substantial depth.
Fast forward to 1985 and we opened up another trench in the back garden of 20 Spital Road.
Again, the ground proved to be disturbed, there was evidence of an earthen bank and the cut of a deep ditch.
Work continued and then, all of a sudden, it began to make much more sense.
The clues came thick and fast – a dip at the London Road junction with Beacon Hill, a drop in the footpath between the back of the Lodge and Beeleigh Road, a crack in the wall at Bright’s Solicitors, the Ware Pond, and a very clear corner section in the grounds of St Peter’s Hospital.
These were like pieces of a jigsaw and were pulled together in a report that was published by the group in 1986, entitled (appropriately enough) The Maldon Burh Jigsaw. The booklet contains all the pieces and rightly concludes that we had found the earthworks sketched by Strutt and, therefore, the long lost fort of Edward the Elder.
The icing on the cake occurred in the July of 1986, with the unveiling of a plaque, fixed to a brick wall in the grounds of St Peter’s Hospital.
I was there and remember the event well, attended by councillors, NHS management, Paul Brown and other members of the excavation team.
It was reported in the Maldon and Burnham Standard, and, over the subsequent years, I used to look at the plaque every time I had cause to visit the hospital.
All these years on, I am now proud to be the archaeological group’s president, but as I write this article, I am sorry to say that I can no longer locate the hospital plaque.
I suppose, as I said at the start of this feature, nothing is forever – that is, unless you care to search for it.
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