An archaeological find

We’ve had our archaeologist caps on at the Together Trust campus this week. The summer holidays often results in building work to the schools in preparation for a new academic year. The modern age mixes with old as the ground has been dug up to create a 35 metre trench to install fibre optic cabling. It’s this manual work that can lead to surprising discoveries and bring up questions as to how this site used to be.

Digging a trench

As readers to this blog will know, the charity moved across to Cheadle in 1920. Previous to this the land had belonged to the Milnes family, who lived in Belmont House. The estate consisted of around 22 acres and had a few coach houses and a bailiff’s cottage. Before this the area around Schools Hill was largely farmland with a few buildings dotted here and there.

During our trench dig this week, we found a small pot. Now ink wells (as we have now identified it to be), are common place in the ground. Thousands were made and must be scattered all over the country for people to find. This ink well was surprisingly undamaged (considering the trench was dug by our IT manager!). It may not be unique and earn us millions but it still makes for an interesting find. 

Our ‘Archaeologists’ with their find

It does pose questions as to how it got there. As previously mentioned the charity moved over to the site in 1920 and the children living within the homes all went to local schools for their education. Now I’m not an expert by any means with historical objects but it appears these ink wells were in use around the late nineteenth century. The building it was found next to was not built by the charity until the late 1950s and the surrounding land has always been agricultural. 

Ink well

It would be interesting to know where it came from and who used it, but it is likely we will never know this. It is fascinating however, to come across a historical object, which was used before our own residence on the land. It takes us back to a time in our own history when children under our care in Manchester and Salford would have used ink wells just like these. The tangibility of the object creates an increased connection between then and now.

There are perhaps more objects of curiosity buried within our grounds. For now however, their discovery will just have to wait.