On Saturday we completed the interim alalysis and recording of all the finds from trench 14. The attached document shows what trench 14 looks like, who the "finds" team are, gives some statistics and also shows some photographs of some of the special finds.

Caer Alyn Summer School The Caer Alyn story has progressed steadily and has now taken on a new and dynamic dimension.

Over the last 3 weeks work on trenches 14 and 15 have continued at a good pace with more volunteers and students joining in well with our existing team. Our new volunteers have been busy cleaning back large areas of trench 14, and our experienced team have continued with work on possible post med medieval features to the south east of trench 14.

Elizabeth I Penny 1567-70

On Friday 2nd March 2007, members of the project team (Russell Evans, Neil Adams and Phil Cox) visited Gresford Church to investigate and photograph possible church furniture that might be connected to the Chapel of St Leonard's. The visit was organised by Dr Colin Jones of Gresford.

It is only through documentary evidence that we know anything at all about the medieval chapel of St. Leonard’s; the precise site of the building is still a mystery and the extant documents give us very few clues in this respect. The documents in which the chapel is mentioned are listed below: The Norwich Taxation of 1254 (Pope Innocent IV).

It is only from the late eighteenth century that we have any specific evidence for the use and development of the Bryn Alyn site. The earliest cartographic sources we have are two estate maps from the Trevor family archives, 1Footnote 1: The map dated 1784 (Flintshire Record Office -NT/M/100 ) is simply a larger-scale version of a portion of the 1790 map (Flintshire Record Office – D/BC/4368), and it would appear that the two maps are copies of yet another, earlier map, in that Peter Shakerley is named as a land-owner on both maps, although he is known to have died in 1781.

Certainly, at the time of Domesday Book in 1086 the whole of Flintshire and a great deal of Denbighshire were under English control, recorded in Domesday in the same way as land in Cheshire. 1Footnote 1: Burnham, Clwyd & Powys, p 129.

The early medieval period was a crucial time in the political and cultural development of Wales; it was in these centuries that the nation’s major kingdoms were formed. Sadly, the period is also a very real ‘Dark Age’ in terms of archaeological evidence for the way of life of ordinary people.