page_title: King John's Palace
section_title: Archaeological investigation
hierarchical_section_title: King John's Palace / Archaeological investigation
caption_attribution_description: English: High Status tracery discovered in 2014 by Keith &amp; Andrea Laver, King's Clipstone land owners
context_page_description: King John's Palace is the remains of a former medieval royal residence in Clipstone, north-west Nottinghamshire. The name "King John's Palace" has been used since the 18th century; prior to that the site was known as the "King's Houses". It is not known how or when the building became associated with King John as he only spent a total of nine days here.
  The earliest reference to the King's Houses dates back to 1164 during the reign of Henry II. The first period of significant building took place between 1176 and 1180, when Henry ordered £500 to be spent, and also created a deer park at Clipstone. Hunting game was the preserve of the aristocracy and deer parks provided a form of recreation, foodstuffs for feasting and an arena for crucial political and economic deals to be made. In 1194 Richard I arranged a meeting with William, King of Scotland at Clipstone, and in 1290, Edward I convened Parliament here.
  The King's Houses were once very well-appointed. The ruins that are visible today are the remains of a Romanesque chamber dating from around 1180.
context_section_description: Broadly there have been three distinct levels of archaeological research into the site. The first of these is evaluation excavations conducted by Philip Rahtz (1956), Trent & Peak Archaeology (1991) and archaeological television programme Time Team (2011). The second of these were geophysical surveys, which took place under Masters (2004) and Gaunt (2010). Masters surveyed limited sections of the site using both magnetometry and resistivity; Gaunt surveyed the entirety of Castlefield using resistivity.
  In the third level of research the built environment was analysed by Wright in 2004, 2005 and 2007; in the form of a condition survey of the extant ruin and a survey of stonework in a number of properties in the parish. Rogan also produced a second condition survey archive for the ruin in 2008.
  Philip Rahtz's 1956 excavation dug over 700 feet (210 m) of trenches and revealed a large medieval complex, spread over around two acres. Relatively little debris from the occupation of the site, however, was found during the work.
  The 2004 geophysical survey of the site identified the hidden foundations of walls, "robber trenches" where older walls had been dug up in the past for their valuable stone, and ditches. A possible rectangular enclosure around the lodge was also discovered.
  Andy Gaunt's 2010 resistivity survey widened the area selected by Masters to incorporate the entirety of Castlefield and proved many of Masters' findings as well as adding new anomalies to the data-set. Gaunt's work discovered the following anomalies and is summarised from:
  1) A large rectangular area and surrounding the monument appears to be a courtyard area, with a number of buildings around the perimeter and a wall or palisade surrounding the possible courtyard.
  2) A large high resistance linear anomaly is interpreted as probably a ditch filled with rubble or the remains of a wall, and probably represents the edge of the manorial complex this is corroborated by 17th century mapping evidence which shows the 'Manor Garth' (manor enclosure) being separated at this location from the 'water field' to the west.
  3) A large sub-rectangular area probably representing the rubble spread from a substantial building.
  4) The location of a road, with drainage ditches either side of a metalled higher resistance surface. One suggestion is that there was a gateway to the site from the road side to the north, which would fit in with this interpretation.
  5) Potential robbed out wall foundations perhaps providing a defensive element, or to define the edge of the site to the northeast.
  A full condition survey was undertaken in 2004-5 by Nottinghamshire County Council and again in 2008 by Peter Rogan. The 2004-5 survey recorded the condition of the rubble core walls of what appears to have been at least a two-storey building.
  Wright also undertook a stone survey in 2007 of a sample of properties within the parish. This is unpublished with the archive held by Nottinghamshire County Council. It revealed the survival of stone fragments of both medieval and post medieval date, with notable high status examples of carved and chamfered material visible in the garden of Maun Cottage in particular and potentially relating to the gateway of the palace complex. Many of the properties have stone foundations, cellars and walls which may be the result of robbing from the palace.
  In April 2011, Channel 4's Time Team filmed an episode of the long running archaeological television programme at King John's Palace. A number of evaluation trenches and areas were opened to test anomalies identified by Gaunt in 2010. The excavation was directed by Professor Mick Aston. On site experts included Paul Blinkhorn and David Budge (pottery), Andy Gaunt (landscape archaeology), David Crook (historian), Dr Naomi Sykes (zooarchaeology), Alex Rowson (researcher), James Wright (buildings) and regular members of Time Team. The project design for the programme was written by Jim Mower and James Wright. A report was generated by Wessex Archaeology.
  During July 2012 James Wright, Andy Gaunt, Ben Crossley an
caption: High Status tracery discovered in 2014 by Keith & Andrea Laver, King's Clipstone land owners.
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