| Summary: | Watching Brief on conversion of former fish store in Sun Lane, to dwelling.
Fish smoking hut thought to date from early 19th century. Lower floor of rough red sandstone blocks, with the upper storeys being constructed around a timber frame clad in weatherboard and roofed with asbestos sheeting. Removal of modern concrete floor revealed underlying cobbled surface (removed before archaeological monitoring began). This overlay a series of deposits c.0.45-0.5m deep, which extended beneath the S wall of the building into the open yard to the S. These consisted of dark grey/black ashy silty deposits separated by several lenses of clean sand. They contained occasional crushed mortar, slate + charcoal frags, and several sherds of post-1770 china, with a single sherd of North Devon ware (c.1500-1800). These overlay a homogenous, clean, mid red sand, which extended beyond the base of the trenches.
Observations indicated that the W wall of the building was primary, with deep foundations extending beyond the base of excavation. The S wall appears to have been inserted at a later date, and has comparatively shallow footings. Area thought to have formed part of the town's medieval waterfront. No evidence of this was encountered. This may have been an extensive sandbank between the line of the tame brook and teign street, which remained undeveloped possibly as late as the early/mid 18th century. |
|---|