ABSTRACT
The industrial remains of medieval England have not been studied so extensively as the churches or houses. For one thing, they are less easy to recognise, being less monumental in construction, and at the same time being mare vulnerable to technological change. Just as today, industrial processes in the iron and steel or textile industries rapidly become obsolescent and arc swept away, so medieval industries often had quite a short life. This means that they arc less likely to have left standing buildings behind. Churches and houses, to a lesser extent, were not so liable to destruction. They could be added to or adapted for new purposes to a far greater degree than industrial premises, and so are more likely to survive to the present day. Secondly, the interest in industrial archaeology is comparatively novel and has tended to concentrate on the beginnings of the modern period, the age of canals, railway and industrial inventions. Churches and houses, on the other hand, have been intensively studied since the mid-Victorian period and there is a huge body of accurate information about their styles, building construction and functions, which is being continually added to. Thirdly, although both great churches and large houses of the Middle Ages are well served with building accounts and other records, much of medieval industry is poorly documented. We know very little from records about the pottery industry, for example. The archaeologist is not able to seek out the material remains to illustrate the documents; rather he needs to use the remains themselves as the primary source of information because these are all that are left.
