Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- A Selective Chronology of the Civil Wars
- Maps
- Introduction
- 1 Of Guns and Gunners
- 2 ‘England's Vulcan’: Artillery Supply under the Early Stuarts
- 3 A Scramble for Arms: The War of Ordnance Logistics
- 4 Artillery Fortifications
- 5 Artillery and Sieges
- 6 Battle
- Conclusions
- Appendix I: Ordnance Types 1634–1665
- Appendix II: Shot Finds
- Appendix III: The Parliamentarian Artillery Train of 1642 details extracted from PRO WO 528/131/2, PRO WO 55/387, and the ‘Catalogue of the Names’, BL E 83 (9)
- Appendix IV: The Establishment of the King's ‘Trayne of Artillery’ (Oxford Army), June 1643 extracted from Rawlinson Ms D 395 ff 208-9
- Appendix V: The Equipment and Personnel for One Gun and One Mortar, and Infantry Munitions, dispatched from Oxford in May 1643: PRO WO 55/458.65, ff 7–8
- Appendix VI: Guns captured by the King's army at Bristol, July 1643 as Listed in Rawlinson Ms D 395 ff 138–139, ‘Survey’ by Samuel Fawcett
- Appendix VII: The Artillery and Officers of the New Model Army Details extracted from PRO WO 47/1, ff 108–118; CSPD DIII, 1644, pp 499, 500, 517; House of Lords Journal, 10, p 71, and J. Sprigge Anglia Rediviva, London, 1647, pp 329–330
- Appendix VIII: The Ideal Artillery Train according to BL Harleian Ms 6844, ‘A Short Treatise Concerning All Things Needfull in an Armye According to Modern Use’, c. 1660
- Appendix IX: The Masters and Officers of the Ordnance c. 1610–1660 extracted from Ordnance Quarter Books, DNB and State Papers
- Appendix X: Typical Firing Sequence for a Small to Medium Sized Gun using a crew of three: reconstructed from passages in various sections of William Eldred's Gunner's Glasse, London, 1646, and other manuals of the period 1620–1650
- Glossary
- Illustrations
- Bibliography
- Index
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- A Selective Chronology of the Civil Wars
- Maps
- Introduction
- 1 Of Guns and Gunners
- 2 ‘England's Vulcan’: Artillery Supply under the Early Stuarts
- 3 A Scramble for Arms: The War of Ordnance Logistics
- 4 Artillery Fortifications
- 5 Artillery and Sieges
- 6 Battle
- Conclusions
- Appendix I: Ordnance Types 1634–1665
- Appendix II: Shot Finds
- Appendix III: The Parliamentarian Artillery Train of 1642 details extracted from PRO WO 528/131/2, PRO WO 55/387, and the ‘Catalogue of the Names’, BL E 83 (9)
- Appendix IV: The Establishment of the King's ‘Trayne of Artillery’ (Oxford Army), June 1643 extracted from Rawlinson Ms D 395 ff 208-9
- Appendix V: The Equipment and Personnel for One Gun and One Mortar, and Infantry Munitions, dispatched from Oxford in May 1643: PRO WO 55/458.65, ff 7–8
- Appendix VI: Guns captured by the King's army at Bristol, July 1643 as Listed in Rawlinson Ms D 395 ff 138–139, ‘Survey’ by Samuel Fawcett
- Appendix VII: The Artillery and Officers of the New Model Army Details extracted from PRO WO 47/1, ff 108–118; CSPD DIII, 1644, pp 499, 500, 517; House of Lords Journal, 10, p 71, and J. Sprigge Anglia Rediviva, London, 1647, pp 329–330
- Appendix VIII: The Ideal Artillery Train according to BL Harleian Ms 6844, ‘A Short Treatise Concerning All Things Needfull in an Armye According to Modern Use’, c. 1660
- Appendix IX: The Masters and Officers of the Ordnance c. 1610–1660 extracted from Ordnance Quarter Books, DNB and State Papers
- Appendix X: Typical Firing Sequence for a Small to Medium Sized Gun using a crew of three: reconstructed from passages in various sections of William Eldred's Gunner's Glasse, London, 1646, and other manuals of the period 1620–1650
- Glossary
- Illustrations
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Many – probably thousands – of seventeenth century cannon shot have been found in the years since the Civil Wars. It is likely that the largest number were picked up and reused, or scrapped, within a relatively short period of the time they were fired or lost. Shot are recorded as having been removed from many of the major battlefields, notably Marston Moor and Naseby, over a very long period of time. More recently similar finds have been better recorded, and have added to our knowledge of artillery of the period. A 29 pound ball was recovered from the field of Hopton Heath, in 1940 helping to confirm contemporary accounts of a demi cannon being used during the battle. Similarly a 3 pound 7 ounce minion ball was found near Lansdown in 2002, and a saker ball at Cheriton at about the same time. Even more recently a 3.5 pound shot has been found at Taynton, Gloucestershire, probably indicating the site of a Civil War skirmish. Professionally organised archaeological excavation has also produced a sizeable crop of shot finds, notably at Longton Castle, Herefordshire; Sandal in West Yorkshire; Corfe; Dudley; Laugharne in Pembrokeshire; Banbury and Basing House.
Most Civil War cannon balls have simply been picked up from farm land, or, in the last few decades, found with the aid of metal detectors – but others have been located in rather more extraordinary circumstances. In 1845, for example, an ancient yew tree at Crowborough in Sussex was struck by lightning. When the shattered limbs were examined a ball was found still lodged in the wood. Later in the nineteenth century Bronsil Castle in Herefordshire only yielded up its secrets when the moat was being dredged. In 1915 a small round shot was removed from the tower of St Philip's church in Bristol, a relic of one of the sieges of the town. At a house in Maiden Street on the Melcombe Regis side of Weymouth there is still a shot wedged in the wall high above street level, and shot are similarly embedded in the masonry of Rushall Hall, Staffordshire. For many years there was also a ball cemented into the town wall of Hereford.
A newspaper story from 2001 describes the surprise of a couple at Bishop Auckland who found a cannon shot in their vegetable patch: this was later attributed to the nearby Civil War siege of Witton Castle.
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- `The Furie of the Ordnance'Artillery in the English Civil Wars, pp. 175 - 177Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2008