The county of Staffordshire has many a story of secret passages running beneath the landscape. The tales speak of hidden tunnels connecting the castle and the monastery, or the hermitage and the pub, or the church and the manor house. Often these are supposed to be escape tunnels, sometimes they are connected with hidden treasure, on other occasions the given reasons for their existence are somewhat salacious and scandalous.
Using case studies from towns including Stone and Burton upon Trent this talk investigates whether there is ever any archaeological evidence for these yarns. What are the underlying truths? How do these tales spring up? Can the stories ever tell us something about how people think about their communities and heritage?
The speaker, James Wright (Triskele Heritage), is an award winning buildings archaeologist. He has two decades professional experience of ferreting around in people’s cellars, hunting through their attics and digging up their gardens. He hopes to find meaningful truths about how ordinary and extraordinary folk lived their lives in the mediaeval period. He is the author of the popular Mediaeval Mythbusting Blog and his book Historic Building Mythbusting will be released via The History Press on 6 June 2024.
