| HER Number (PRN): | 60120 |
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| Name: | Waterlogged deposit, The Shirehall rebuilding, The Square, Shrewsbury |
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| Type of Record: | Monument |
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Protected Status: | None recorded |
Monument Type(s):
Summary
Considerable waterlogged deposit, infilling kettle hole, recorded during observation on rebuilding of The Shirehall in 1832-1834.
| Parish: | Shrewsbury, Shrewsbury and Atcham, Shropshire |
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| Map Sheet: | SJ41SE |
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| Grid Reference: | SJ 49160 12473 |
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Related records
| 60201 | Related to: Find of an Axe hammer in 1886 in High Street, Shrewsbury (Find Spot) |
| 60204 | Related to: Finds during excavations in November 1932 in the yard of Lloyds Mansion (Monument) |
| 62610 | Related to: Gumbestolesmore, Gombestalmere, The Shirehall Bog (Monument) |
| 60203 | Related to: Peat deposits, Statue of Lord Clive, The Square, Shrewsbury (Monument) |
| 60200 | Related to: Possible postholes exposed during alterations to the Unitarian Chapel, High Street, Shrewsbury (Monument) |
| 60202 | Related to: Really an event (ESA3705?): Surfaces, The Square, Shrewsbury (Monument) |
| 60121 | Related to: Really an event (not sorted yet) The Shirehall (1881 extension) (Monument) |
| 62440 | Related to: Street block on SW side of High Street, Shrewsbury (Monument) |
| 62463 | Related to: The Square, The Corn Market, Corn Chepying (Monument) |
| 60119 | Related to: Waterlogged deposit recorded during building of the The Shirehall, The Square, Shrewsbury (Monument) |
Associated Finds
- FSA481 - ANIMAL REMAINS (Undated)
- FSA1764 - SHEARS (Undated)
- FSA332 - UNIDENTIFIED OBJECT (Undated)
Associated Events
- ESA3617 - 1832 observation
- ESA3618 - 1837 observation
- ESA3619 - 1836 subsoil test pit
Description
Shirehall rebuilding, 1832-4.
By 1832 the 1785 Shirehall was suffering from subsidence. Thomas Telford's associate Rickman wrote home in a letter that it was: built on a bog 60 years since and the intervening platform and its imperfect under-piling quite rotten; so that the Superincumbent Structure cracketh fearfully for the Assizes and Sessions . In that year Telford was commissioned to investigate and dug nine test pits: (he) produced evidence of untoward foundation,-one or two good, of solid clay, others trifling piles on which had been laid oak plank, and as if that was too good occasionally Beech plank, on which to build the first course of masonry, but no more of either left undecayed than to show its species.-One Corner of the building on no foundation at all <1>
When Smirke rebuilt the Shirehall in 1834-7 he took out the whole of the soil, replacing it with ten feet of concrete <2>
Assuming that the 1783-5 excavations /foundations were, as reported, 19 feet deep (c.5.80m: site 60119), and that, as reported, 10 feet of concrete replaced the remaining peat deposit in the 1830s, a possible maximum depth for the Shirehall deposit (thought to represent an infilled kettle hole) may be estimated at 29 feet (c.8.8m).
From the Donations Book of Shrewsbury Museum, Chitty extracted:
1836, March, Dr Butler, 1 portion of skull of the Red-deer dug up 19 feet below the surface in excavating the foundations of the New Town Hall, Shrewsbury,
1834. 3 boar s tusks and Iron Instrument found with above.
1836, Apr.16th Mr Wm Baker, Shrewsbury, 1 pair of Shears found many feet below the surface in excavating foundations of the New Town Hall, Shrewsbury <3>
Sources
| [01] | SSA10342 - Monograph: Gibb A. 1935. The Story of Thomas Telford. p281. |
| [02] | SSA10341 - Monograph: Pidgeon H. 1837. Memorials of Shrewsbury. p114-115. |
| [03] | SSA390 - Article in serial: Chitty Lily F. 1951/ 1953. Prehistoric and Other Early Finds in the Borough of Shrewsbury. Trans Shropshire Archaeol Hist Soc. Vol 54. p105-144. p117-122. |
| Date Last Edited: | Sep 28 2021 9:23AM |
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