CANNON BALL

A complete sandstone cannon ball from the Post-Medieval period c. AD1400-1700.

The cannon ball is sub-spherical and the surface is mainly smooth, with some dents and areas of pitting. Just under half the cannon ball is light brown in colour, next to this is a strip of orange and then an uneven band of dark brown around the centre and the other side of the band is uneven in colour with patches of orange and dark brown to black.

The cannon ball is c.185mm diameter and weighs approximately 20lbs.

The cannonball was recovered from the River Wear in the vicinty of Framwellgate Bridge, found partially buried in river silts, hence the dark brown strip around the middle of the stone. Such dressed stone 'round shot', commonly referred to as gunstone prior to the 17th century, were fired from smoothbore cannons. The cannonball under discussion here is uncommonly large, and cannot be definitively assigned to a particular type of cannon; nevertheless, it is likely that the cannonball could have fired by a demi-cannon or larger artillery.

Natasha Ferguson, commenting on a much smaller stone cannonball recovered from Trimdon (DUR-2A7B53), comments that 'Dating these things closely is impossible as they occasionally used stone cannon balls during the English Civil war if supplies or iron or lead were low'.