Woolaston

WOOLASTON GRANGE MEDIEVAL QUAY

The quay (ST 593981), reachable on foot from the main road, lies on the left bank of Grange Pill where it crosses the intertidal zone southeast of Tintern Abbey's Woolaston Grange. Post-medieval coastal erosion has destroyed the upper works and brought the present-day shoreline to landward of the structure. What excavation has revealed are extensive alignments of roughly dressed local rocks (Brownstones, Trias, Lias) that supported the superstructure associated with massive, horizontal soleplates of oak with mortise slots, together with lighter vertical beams and planks. Some of the larger timbers and stonework are usually visible among the cover of mud. The quay developed over a lengthy period. The upper quay dates from the mid twelfth century and was extended seaward in the early thirteenth century by the addition of a lower quay. In the fifteenth century or a little later, after the lower quay had suffered erosion, the upper quay was extended landward. Stone rooftiles and iron ore are known to have been among the cargoes handled at the quay, and vessels probably traded to Hills Flats on the opposite bank of the estuary, where further medieval wharfs are known and the Abbey also had property. To the southwest lies an outcrop of Holocene silts and peats in which fishtraps are preserved.