NHER 68106 (Monument record) - Potentially medieval buildings

February 2018. Trial Trench.
Evaluation of proposed development site.
The earliest deposit encountered was a dark grey silty clay containing occasional brick, mortar and shell fragments. This deposit was truncated by two north-west to south-east aligned wall foundations thought to represent the remains of two adjacent medieval houses. These wall foundations consisted of bricks and mortar on a base of rounded flints. Both buildings were associated with probable floor surfaces of dark clay and the southern building also contained the remains of a brick-built fireplace. The floor layer within the northern building contained sherds of medieval and late medieval/early post-medieval pottery and was overlain by a fairly thick charcoal-rich deposit, perhaps suggesting this building had suffered a fire prior to its demolition. The floor within the southern building also produced several sherds of medieval pottery. Samples taken from these two floor deposits both produced small assemblages of material likely to represent trampled hearth waste and culinary debris, including fish bones/scales, bone fragments, charcoal fragments and high densities of coal and material likely to represent by-products from the combustion of coal. A single very abraded spelt wheat glume base was probably residual from earlier activity. Possible mortar/plaster fragments were also noted.
A compact deposit with frequent rounded stones between the two buildings probably represent the remains of an external cobbled surface. This material was overlain by a probable demolition deposit containing building rubble likely to have come from the adjacent buildings (unfortunately it appears no samples were retained). A thick layer of dark brown silty clay containing frequent brick fragments that sealed all of the medieval remains was presumably a make-up deposit lain down prior to the construction of the present yard surface.
See report (S1) for further details.
P. Watkins (HES), 19 February 2024.