NHER 65585 (Monument record) - Medieval walls and post-medieval features and deposits

February-July 2015. Watching Brief.
Maintained during various works associated with the refurbishment of the Assembly House’s East Wing. This work saw the demolition of a 20th-century kitchen block and its replacement with new accommodation, as well as the remodelling of the interior of the East Wing.
A natural geological deposit was only exposed in the deepest of the foundation trenches for the new building on the former kitchen site. This sandy clay lay at a depth of c.2.00m below ground level and was overlain by a deposit interpreted as a medieval soil. The work at this location recorded two walls of likely medieval date that both probably truncated this buried soil. These included a substantial north-north-east to south-south-west wall at the western edge of the footprint of the former kitchen block, which was constructed of flint, mortar and a small number of 'early' bricks of 13th- to 15th-century date. This was almost certainly associated with the college of St Mary in the Fields, its position suggesting that it served as the east wall of the barrel-vaulted undercroft to the west, as well as a foundation for the cloistral buildings above. A small trench excavated at its southern end demonstrated that the modern stairs that give access to the extant undercroft were built on the site of a medieval access point. The excavation of the foundation trenches for the new building at this location also exposed a perpendicular, west-north-west to east-south-east aligned flint and mortar wall. This was probably also medieval, although it was much less substantial and had no brick in its fabric. This and an adjacent mortar layer were sealed beneath a soil layer containing post-medieval material. Elsewhere the foundation trenches exposed a layer of mortar, flint and ceramic building material that probably represented rubble associated with the demolition of medieval structures following the Dissolution.
The excavation of a service trench along The Chantry revealed the top of another flint and mortar wall that was possibly also aligned west-north-west to east-south-east. A reconstructed plan of St Mary in the Fields produced in the 1950s suggests this wall may have been associated with the north aisle of the college church’s chancel.
All other features and deposits recorded were of probable post-medieval date, including a possible pit, a brick-lined soakaway and an associated brick drain.
The limited number of medieval finds recovered included a single pottery sherd, a fragment of window glass and a small assemblage of brick and tile fragments. Unsurprisingly, the bulk of the artefacts recovered are likely to have been associated with 17th- to 18th-century activity – that is, the period prior to and immediately after the construction of the Assembly House.
See report (S1) for further information and NHER 618 for details of internal features of interest recorded during the refurbishments.
The archive associated with this work has been deposited with Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 2017.291).
P. Watkins (HES), 21 May 2022.