| ID: | SDV350301 |
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| Title: | Highweek Street Excavations, Newton Abbot, 1980 |
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| Originator: | Markuson, K. W. + Thomas, R. |
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| Date: | 1981 |
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| Summary: | Report of excavations in 1980-81 along the line of Highweek Street prior to widening. Site A was on the site of No. 13 which was demolished in 1980. The medieval building discovered to the north during excavations in 1976 was found to continue under No. 13. Site B was effectively on the site of No. 1. Here the foundations of 19th century buildings were found to cut through some 2 metres of sand used as make up material to build up the street surface. Below this was a thick deposit of silty clay which covered the remains of a medieval stone building with a heavy oak beam forming the threshold of its entrance from an earlier road surface of Highweek Street. A coin of circa 1464 was found. A large number of leather off-cuts suggests that the building was a leather workshop. The remains of a long medieval or post medieval building running parallel to Highweek Street were found below the late 18th/early 19th levels on site C which covered the area below Nos. 19-23. A stone hearth and several floor surfaces were found within the building. Site D, below No. 29, was only partially excavated due to lack of time. The last standing building which was recorded prior to demolition was a fine late Georgian structure with an earlier rear wall incorporated within it. Excavations showed that this building has two phases with two more prior to its construction. The earliest of these, of which only one wall was found running parallel to Highweek Street. This wall rested on a back-filled ditch which may have been a boundary ditch delimiting the northern end of Newton Bushel during the medieval period. There was some evidence to suggest that the ditch turned west along the north side of Bradley Lane. |
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