Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology		The Collections:
	PotWeb:	Ceramics online @ the Ashmolean Museum	•	Early Europe & Near East
			•	Classical to Medieval
			•	Europe from 1500
			•	Oriental & Islamic

People and their collections

Rupert Bruce-Mitford: A Case Study

The recording of the site

William Pantin had previously recorded the above-ground archaeology (the vernacular architecture), while Bernard Gotch made a series of watercolours of the site before and during demolition. Bruce-Mitford, sometimes aided by John Daniell, Martyn Jope and S. M. R. Gardner salvaged finds from the builders' excavations. Bruce-Mitford took the spoil back to the Ashmolean where he washed the sherds and attempted to reconstruct the vessels. Later he made drawings of them and published his findings. This resulted in the first-ever modern study of medieval pottery. His chronological sequence of pottery for Oxford has never been challenged, although it has been refined and extended.

Water colour of the backs of houses nos 35-47 Broad Street, Oxford during the process of demolition, signed Bernard C Gotch (1876-1964)

Water colour of lorries and a mechanical digger on the site of the demolition of houses 35-47 Broad Street 1937 by B C Gotch (1876-1964)

The soil from the site was dropped by mechanical diggers on to lorries. Bruce-Mitford and Martyn Jope remembered sifting through the soil for finds on the lorry journeys as they made their way to the spoil dump. "This was excellent training and experience on the job, thrown in headfirst, dealing all the time with new and original materials. It was also great fun".

The New Bodleian Collection

Rupert Bruce-Mitford

Material culture

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