Monument Type(s):

• SITE (Unknown date)

Summary

This site represents: a site of unknown date.

Related records

Associated Finds

• FSA482 - ANIMAL REMAINS (Undated)
• FSA1769 - PLANT MACRO REMAINS (Undated)

Associated Events

• ESA3620 - 1881 observation
• ESA3621 - 1885 observation

Description

The Shirehall extension, 1881. In October 1881 excavations for the new Shirehall extension took place. Immediately below the surface of the yard, which was practically on a level with the High Street, were found the remains apparently of a stable-yard, with the usual receptacle for manure bricked round, below this was found a quantity of black soil mixed with the horns, bones, and teeth of cattle and horses, and imbedded in it were several oak tubs piled round with oak piles, as well as scraps of leather, old boots and shoes with pointed toes ... Below this again is black soil and debris and at intervals what appears to be manure. The depth at present reached is upwards of twenty feet from the level of the street, and it is manifest that the original surface of the land has not yet been reached <1>

The following month an account recorded that during the last week a further depth of some 10 feet has been probed, all in peat; animal remains include stag, fallow deer, roebuck, goat, ox, sheep, wild boar and large fowl <2>; earlier that month (November), the Rev. W A Leighton had reported that boggy soil is now being raised from a depth of twenty feet <3>

. A note by William Phillips four years later stated that the 1881 excavations had been on the site of four houses on the High Street, between no.37 High Street and the Town Hall [i.e Nos 38-41]. About 15 feet below the present level [= approx. 58.20m AOD] the labourers came upon a row of oak piles in situ, running parallel with the street, and obviously placed there as a boundary of the bog, and for the purpose of sustaining the road way. The piles were six to eight inches in diameter, arranged about a foot apart, and were as sound as if recently placed there. I saw about three feet of their length uncovered when the workmen had attained as great a depth as was needed for their purpose, and the piles were left as they were found, a little outside the new concrete foundation . [This account suggests that the base of the 1881 foundation raft may be at c.57.20m AOD]. Phillips thought that the edges of the peat deposit were likely to be marked by the Unitarian chapel (no.38; see site 60200), Mardol Head, Princess Street, and the High Street, housing within this area having (said Phillips) persistent drainage problems, requiring deep wells as sumps, and pumping <4>

Sources

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