St Peter's Street, Ipswich - IAS5203

Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service, 2015. https://doi.org/10.5284/1034358. How to cite using this DOI

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Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service (2015) St Peter's Street, Ipswich - IAS5203 [data-set]. York: Archaeology Data Service [distributor] https://doi.org/10.5284/1034358

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Primary contact

Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service
Bury Resource Centre
Hollow Road
Bury St Edmunds
IP32 7AY

Resource identifiers

Digital Object Identifiers

Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) are persistent identifiers which can be used to consistently and accurately reference digital objects and/or content. The DOIs provide a way for the ADS resources to be cited in a similar fashion to traditional scholarly materials. More information on DOIs at the ADS can be found on our help page.

Citing this DOI

The updated Crossref DOI Display guidelines recommend that DOIs should be displayed in the following format:

https://doi.org/10.5284/1034358
Sample Citation for this DOI

Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service (2015) St Peter's Street, Ipswich - IAS5203 [data-set]. York: Archaeology Data Service [distributor] https://doi.org/10.5284/1034358

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Introduction

St Peter's Street, Ipswich - IAS5203

Circumstances of excavation

Planning permission was granted to Heriot Hotels, on behalf of the Novotel chain, for the construction of a hotel subject to an agreement providing for the prior archaeological excavation of the site and the ownership of all finds by Ipswich Borough Council.

This site, and the Greyfriars Road (island) site (IAS 5204) to the south, were part of the same land parcel prior to the construction of the new stretch of Greyfriars Road through it as part of the ‘Stoke Bridge and Approaches’ road scheme in 1982. The whole of this land parcel was scheduled as an Ancient Monument (Suffolk County No 193). Scheduled Monument Consent for the development was granted by the Secretary of State for the Environment to Heriot Hotels on 30th June 1986.

The site was excavated by the Suffolk Archaeological Unit, over a six month period, from September 1986 to February 1987.

Site constraints

The hotel buildings were to be located on the east and south road frontages with the area behind left as surface car parking. Excavation was, therefore, restricted to this area fronting St Peter's Street, with later extensions in the south and north-west, and a separate trench to the west of the main area.

The requirement to retain public car parking on the west of the site up until a development start meant that it was not possible to excavate the whole footprint of the proposed hotel.

Site summary

Two sunken featured buildings and nine pits were attributed to the Early Middle Saxon period (EMS: c.600-700/720), defined by handmade wares and/or 7th-early 8th century imported wares. As a whole, the site produced 1500 handmade sherds but only 131 of these were in the EMS features. Sunken featured buildings are the common building type in the Early Anglo-Saxon period in East Anglia and no examples are known from Middle Saxon settlements, as defined by the use of Ipswich ware.

The Middle Saxon (MS: c.700-825) features, defined by the presence of Ipswich ware in their fills, were concentrated at the south end of the site, as in the EMS period. No definite buildings were recorded but there were 30 pits, two wells, one ditch and evidence of two fenced enclosures. Two main phases of occupation can be defined on stratigraphic evidence. Although no certain MS buildings were recorded on the site, the pits and ditch 0044 are filled with occupation rubbish. A small section of one possible building belonging to phase 1 was found in the south-east corner of the site and if other buildings did exist they might well have been destroyed by the heavy later pitting across the site and the post medieval cellars fronting St Peter’s Street.

49 pits, a ditch, a small cemetery and one linear feature belong to the Early Late Saxon period (ELS: c.850-900). At least three phases are evident on the basis of their pottery content and relationship to the small cemetery. A small cemetery of ten inhumation burials lay in a north-south row in the south-west corner of the site.

Three buildings (0064, 0487, 0707) and seven pits (0008, 0082, 0171, 0300, 0523, 0692, 0699) were attributed to the Middle Late Saxon period (MLS: c.900-1000) defined by Thetford ware and St Neot’s ware. The fills of the three buildings contained a large quantity of pottery.

Three sunken featured buildings (0600, 0695, 0830) and 61 pits were dated to the Early Medieval period (EMED: c.1000-1200). The buildings produced a large amount of pottery from their backfill with relatively low amounts of Early Medieval ware.

No Late Medieval (LMED: c.1200-1450) buildings were found, but the 25 rubbish pits imply their existence. The widening of St. Peter's Street in the early 20th century and the damage from the cellars of building 0004 may explain the lack of any buildings fronting the street. The distribution of pits tends to support this conclusion. They are grouped in an east-west line just north of the PMED building 0004 and a second east-west line south of it, probably marking tenement boundaries.

Thirty pits were attributed to the Late Medieval Transitional period (LMT c.1450-1600), spread across the whole site, apart from the south-west corner, and with a concentration in an east-west line across the centre. As with the LMED period, any structures on the St Peter’s Street frontage could have been removed by PMED building 0004 or lie under the 5m strip of early 20th century road widening.

The Post-Medieval (PMED: c.1600-1900) features included a large cellared building fronting St Peter’s Street, 3 outbuildings, a well and 11 pits. Six of the pits were intercutting in the north-west corner of the site, overlaid by one of the outbuildings (0720). They probably all date to the 18th or 19th century. The east side of St Peter’s Street has a high survival of timber framed buildings, mainly dating to the 17th century. Those on the west side were removed, early in the 20th century, to widen the street.


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