Excavations at a site in North Street - 1958-9
By K. M. E. Murray, F.S.A. and Barry Cunliffe -Cont.

 

 

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At the extreme west end of the site the area between gulley I and the limit of the excavation at the wall bounding North Street was covered with a mass of charcoal and iron slag. A slight dip disappearing under the wall was very probably the site of the actual bloomery.

 

The slag was submitted to Mr. Cleere, Assistant Secretary of the Iron and Steel Institute, who sent specimens to the G.K.N. Group Research Laboratory at Wolverhampton. Through the kind co-operation of Dr. T. Emmerson. Director of Research, Mr. G. T. Brown and Mr. R. Moxon carried out a full metallographic examination and chemical analysis. The following notes are extracts from the report written by Mr. Cleere on the results of the scientific analysis.

 

'Some of the specimens are the product of the bloomery process of smelting ore without flux. Other specimens containing pieces of charcoal are described as cinder from the cooler zone at the bottom of the furnace. They were formed by viscous slaggy material trickling slowly down the furnace to form a " bear " or cake on top of which the reduced iron collected.

 

One small piece is identified as a porlion of the clay of the refractory lining of the furnace containing streaks of slag which in a liquid state had filled cracks in the clay as it dried out, Other samples come from the secondary process whereby the blooms were worked up in an open pit-type furnace into relatively slag-free wrought iron. They included samples of a fused mass of hammer scale, of the residue from the hammer pit or reheating furnace and of portions of the bloom broken off during forging. A heavily corroded iron bar was probably one of the jaws of a pair of tongs which broke offwhile the bloom was being handled in the reheating furnace.'

 

Phase III. 100-150 A.D. (See Fig. 4).

 

In this period the street, which must originally have been much narrower, was metalled and widened by at least 10ft. so that it was sectioned in Trench A. The metalling was extremely well preserved, carefully laid in even alternate layers of coarse gravel and brick and finer grave), representing a series of resurfacings and bringing the total depth of metalling to about 3ft.

 

To this period also belonged a thin layer of clean brick earth 3in. to 5in. thick laid down as the basis of a small oven in Trench C. Of the oven, which was badly cut by later pits. only the two lower courses remained. It was built of tile fragments set in yellow clay which had subsequently been baked red.

 

The oven chamber was circular, a little over 2ft. in diameter with a short entrance 8in. long and approximately 15in. wide. In front of it a working surface of a single row of tiles 17.5in. by 11.5in. had been laid. This structure probably functioned as a bread oven; a fire would have been lit inside it, after some lime the embers would have been raked out and the bread placed inside to bake.

 

Spreading out in front of the oven for about 7ft. was a layer of gravel which extended into Trench A and ended in a diagonal line across trench B. Also belonging to this period was a shallow gully (gully 2) which ran in a north-south direction across trench A and ended short of the north face of the excavation.

 

The pit sectioned in trench B also belonged to this phase.

 

Phase IV. Mid-second century (See Fig. 4).

 

In the middle of the second century a layer of clay was deposited over practically the whole site. Two lines of greensand blocks about one foot square were associated with this. one line in trench B ran in an east-west direction, another in trench A ran north-south across the trench. Isolated blocks also occurred in the clay.

 

Phase V. Second-half of the second century.

 

From this phase onwards the levels had been very disturbed by medieval pits cutting into them. Consequently information about the site during the latter part of the Roman period is very incomplete. At this stage a layer of gravel 6in.-9in. thick was spread over the whole site. The only features associated with it were two post holes dug in front of wall B in trench A.

 

Phase VI. Late third century (See Fig. 5).

 

In this period the site was occupied by a flint-built house, three rooms of which were sectioned in the excavations. The room east of wall A was originally floored with a coarse tesselated pavement of red and white tesserae 1.25in. square, but later the whole floor had been destroyed.

 

Wall A, built entirely of flint, was three feet wide and survived only as a foundation three courses deep. The second room, between walls A and B, was floored with a 6in. thick layer of cream mortar. The room was 19ft. wide in an east-west direction but appeared to extend westwards across the north end of wall B which here ended in a course of greensand blocks.

 

The rest of Wall B was built of flint 2ft. 3in. wide on a chalk block foundation 3ft. 9in. wide. The position of wall C as shown on the plan is entirely conjectural, as its site was cut into by the medieval builders who laid chalk foundations here in phase VII.

 

That there must have been a Roman wall here is evident from the existence of the floor of opus signinum west of wall B, broken by a late pit. This floor belonged to a room the west wall of which must have lain somewhere between it and the street.

The dating evidence for this building is scanty, but in the make up beneath the opus signinum floor a few fragments of purple gloss New Forest beaker and a sherd of Castor ware beaker show that its construction must post date 250 A.D.
Nothing is known of the history of the site in the later Roman period.

 

Phase VII. Early Medieval (See Fig. 5).

 

In this period the footings of a medieval building which faced onto North Street were dug into the Roman levels. The 3ft. wide footings of the west wall of large blocks of chalk puddled together were very substantial, but the remaining walls were of lighter construction and the superstructure was probably wattle and daub.

 

The group of medieval pottery on the pottery pages came from the debris within this building which must therefore date to some time after the beginning of the twelth century. The street still made use of the Roman metalling and into the surface was cut a small east-west channel which may have served as a drain for the building.

 

 

 

Fig. 6      Fig. 7      Fig. 8      Fig. 9      Fig. 10

 

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