HISTORY of SUSSEX
Excavations at a site in North Street - 1958-9
By K. M. E. Murray, F.S.A. and Barry Cunliffe
This article reports the results of some
of the excavations carried out by various groups of people during the years
1958-60. The reconstruction of Page's Garage at Northgate furnished an opportunity
to examine the foundations of the Roman wall in Priory Lane, adjacent to
the wall of Priory Park (site A) and also revealed a fleeting glance at
the junction of the wall and Northgate (site B). Owing to a collapse due
to frost, and the threat of subsidence of North St. and Priory Lane only a few hours observation
was possible there.
The City Corporation proved most helpful in affording facilities for a
careful investigation of the site on the north side of the demolished St.
Peter's Church, North St. (site C). Miss K. M. E. Murray and Miss J. G.
Pilmer carried out the work with the help of some students of Bishop Otter
College at the North St. end of the long cutting and Mr. Barry Cunliffe
with help from members of the joint excavation committee was responsible
for the rest.
Introduction
Through the kind co-operalion of the City Surveyor, the demolition of
St. Peter's Church provided an opportunity for the exploration of the area
immediately adjoining the church to the north and east. (See
Fig. 1)
The area east of the church, investigated by Mr. A. H. Collins in 1958,
proved to be very disturbed by medieval and later pits. The bottom of a
first century pit was the only surviving Roman feature. Later in 1958 Dr.
A. E. Wilson and Miss C. Wilson dug three trenches, D, E, and a trench later
incorporated in trench C.
The last mentioned struck a mortar floor and a masonry wall of the Roman
period. From October 1958 to August 1959 Miss Murray, helped by students
and staff of Bishop Otter Training College and by Miss J. G. Pilmer. excavated
trench A and part of trench C. Trench B and the lower levels of trench C
were excavated between April and July 1959 by a team sponsored by the Joint
Archaeological Committee under the direction of Mr. Barry Cunliffe.
Summary
Mr. Collins' 1958 excavations and the eastern 15ft. of trench B showed
that the area lo the east of the church was too disturbed by post Roman
pits to warrant further excavation. As the site of the church was not available,
the only area remaining was the strip of land between the north wall of
the church and the building immediately to the north. In such a small area
it was not possible to excavate any complete structures, but seven phases
of occupation, six of them Roman, were sectioned, all of which provided
stratified pottery. (See fig.3,
fig4, fig5
).
In phase I two ditches or pits
had been dug which must have been refilled soon afterwards. Finds from them
can be dated to between the Roman conquest and about 80 A.D. In Phase II
iron smelting was carried on in a bloomery at the west end of the site and
the blooms were worked up into wrought iron in a smithy close by.
Finds from other iron-making sites of the Roman period show that the two
processes were invariably carried on in close proximity to one another and
usually not far from the source of ore.
The main concentration of Roman iron manufacture was in the district
just north of Hastings, an outlying site has been found at Arundel but Chichester
is the first working identified further west. While it would seem likely
that in this case the ore came from deposits south of the Downs rather than
from the Weald, since it would have been uneconomic to transport it far,
no source has been identified.
To Phase II also belong a number
of shallow gullies. One at the east end of the site was a beam slot for
a timber building, others appear to have been drainage ditches. The occupation
debris in and around them belongs to the late first century.
Round about 100 A.D. the original street on the line of modern North Street
was metalled and widened and a section of its eastern edge was exposed at
the west end of Trench A.
At the same time (Phase III) a
layer of gravel and clay was spread over part of the site and on it was
built a small bread oven. This continued in use until the middle of the
second century at which time the whole area was covered by a layer of clay
(Phase IV) which was later overlaid
by a gravel spread (Phase V).
At the end of the third century (Phase
VI) a masonry building with floors of hard pink opus signinum, cream
mortar and a tesselated pavement was constructed. This was badly damaged
in the medieval period by the digging of pits.
Phase VII was represented by the
chalk footings for the wall of a medieval house built along the frontage
of North Street.
Detailed description of the excavations.
Phase 1. Flavian (See Fig. 3).
In this phase two ditches or elongated pits were cut into the natural
brick-earth: both were deliberately filled with gravelly clay soon after
their construction.
Ditch I ran in a north-south direction and ended I ft. north of ditch
2: it was more than 4ft. deep and probably about 5ft. wide.
Ditch 2 ran in an east-west direction. It did not end within the limits
of the excavation, but its western limit could be judged to within about
2ft. It was 3ft. 6in. wide at the top but its sides were undercut, giving
a width at the bottom, 2ft. 6in. below the natural surface, of 4ft. 6in.
A layer of charcoal occurred towards the bottom.
Phase II. Late first century. (See
Fig. 3).
To this phase belong four shallow gullies which were cut into the natural
gravel and the filling of ditch 2. The two most westerly (I and 3), which
were parallel to the street, may have in some way marked the limits of the
narrower road which ante-dated the metalled one and was not wide enough
to extend into the excavated area. Gulley 6, which had more the appearance
of a sleeper beam trench, being cut square and I ft. deep, probably represents
the southern beam slot of a house. From the bottom of it a post hole 1in.square
and 20in. deep had been dug.
Gulley 5 running in an east-west direction into the deeper road-side ditch
3, may have drained this habitation site.' The gullies were filled and sealed
with an occupation layer 12in-18in. thick of brown clayey soil mixed with
pottery, bones and patches of charcoal.
1 The Gulley numbered 2 belongs to Phase III, see page2.
4 was a shallow depression on the north side of 5 and not a gulley proper.
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