The town of Hartlepool, on a coastal promontory in North-East England, was in the 7th and 8th centuries AD the site of a monastery named Heruteu. Confirmation that modern Hartlepool is the Anglo-Saxon Heruteu came in the 19th century with the discovery of name-stones from the monastic cemetery. This was followed by the first direct evidence of monastic structures in 1968 when Professor Rosemary Cramp of Durham University excavated in the town at Lumley Street. Further confirmation of the monastic site came with Robin Daniels' excavations of 1984-5 in Church Close, immediately north of the parish church of St. Hilda.
In Robin Daniels' excavations, remains of the later medieval era were clearly separated from the earlier Anglo-Saxon phase by a layer of sandy ploughsoil which had built up after the buildings of the earlier phase had been abandoned. Features of the Anglo-Saxon phase included a boundary ditch, a set of buildings and associated artefacts. The buildings were small rectangular structures of two sorts. The earliest were timber buildings whose main uprights were earthfast, set in rock-cut foundation trenches or post holes. Later, the construction technique was changed and the timbers were set on stone footings. Sizes of the earliest buildings were within the range 16 to 27 square metres in floor area; the later stone-footed buildings extended that range up to 35 square metres.
The experimental reconstruction at Bede's World is modelled on Building VIII from Daniels' excavations, one of the earthfast structures of the earliest stage with a floor area of 17 square metres. No above-ground part of the structure survived: the timber uprights had been removed at the end of the building's life. Surviving evidence is limited to the foundation trenches which had been cut to receive the uprights and, in places, evidence for the positions of the timbers within the trench lines from organic staining or deeper scoops in the ground. The surviving evidence is thus similar to that at Thirlings and the interpretative process leading to the reconstruction is also similar.
These buildings showed no evidence of exterior supporting timbers nor of any interior divisions of space. They can be compared with buildings from about the same period in the monastery of Whithorn in south-west Scotland. (See Peter Hill, 1997. "Whithorn and St. Ninian". Sutton Publishing.) The Hartlepool buildings, as identified from archaeological works, give a basis for understanding the buildings of the monastery of Coldingham whch were described (Bede; Ecclesiastical History Book IV chapter 25) as "cells which were built for praying and reading" (domunculae quae ad orandum at legendum factae erant). In their architectural form, materials and construction technique, the Hartlepool buildings are likely to have been typical of those of the first generation of Northumbrian monasteries before stone came into use. They are akin to buildings in contemporary use in the secular world, though they are smaller than many. (Compare the Hartlepool and Thirlings buildings at Bede's World.
For a detailed presentation of the archaeological evidence of Building VIII the Church Close site, users should consult the definitive study by Robin Daniels, "The Anglo-Saxon Monastry at Church Close, Hartlepool, Cleveland." Archaeological Journal Vol 145 (1988), 158-210.
Some aspects of the archaeological evidence and the techniques of excavation which have been discussed in relation to the Thirlings building reconstruction also apply to the Hartlepool building.
