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The Friary Archaeology


Friary Archaeology


Author Manshead Archaeological Society


Excavations of Medieval Features on the Site of Dunstable Friary


The Journal of the Manshead Archaeological Society of Dunstable has published many articles about Friary Field, which was the site of the Dominican Friary in Dunstable. There are reports of the Society’s excavations which continued from 1965 to 1980, an analysis of the medieval pottery found in the excavations, and short reports of excavations by the Department of the Environment and by Bedfordshire County Council. There is a good summary of the excavations in the introduction to the pottery report by Green and Horne (1991).


The articles here do not cover the Roman features in Friary Field. Those features included a cemetery (final report in Bedfordshire Archaeological Journal 15, 1981) and a well (final report in Bedfordshire Archaeological Journal 7, 1972). Note that the interpretation and dating of some of the features has changed since the earlier reports were written.

These files have mainly been produced by scanning original copies of the journals. Unfortunately, the stencil printing processes that were used before 1988 did not always produce a sharp result.


C. L. Matthews, “Excavations on the Site of the Dominican Friary, Dunstable, 1965”, Manshead Magazine 16, 1966, pages 3–33, i–iv. PDF


C. L. Matthews, “Dominican Friary Excavation – Season 1966”, Manshead Journal 17, 1967, pages 1–21. PDF


C. L. Matthews, “The 1967 excavations on the site of the Dominican Friary, Dunstable – Medieval period”, Manshead Journal 18, 1968, pages 20–23, 30. PDF


C. L. Matthews, “Excavations carried out on the Friary Field, Dunstable, 1969/1970”, Manshead Journal 20, 1970, pages 3–16. PDF


C. L. Matthews, “Excavations – Friary Field 1971”, Manshead Journal 21, 1972, 15–27. PDF


C. L. Matthews, “Friary Field Excavations 1972”, Manshead Journal 22, 1973, pages 19–20. PDF


C. L. Matthews, “1974 Excavations – Friary Field”, Manshead Journal 24, 1975, pages 3–15. PDF


Royston Clark and Anthony Maull, “Dunstable Friary Excavations 1988”, Manshead Journal 29, 1989, pages 26–29. PDF


Mark Green and Barry Horne, “Analysis of the Medieval Pottery from Friary Field, Dunstable”, Manshead Journal 31, 1991, pages 1–31. PDF


I. M. Stead, “An Excavation near the Dominican Friary at Dunstable”, Manshead Journal 32, 1992, pages 1–4. PDF


P Pain and B Horne, “Archaeological Investigations of the Religious Houses of Dunstable”, Manshead Journal 38, 1998, pages 22–23. PDF




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