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Jaime
Kaminski
Sussex Archaeological Society
Barbican House
169 High Street
Lewes
BN8 1YE
In advance of its recent redevelopment, The Marlipins - New Shoreham's sole remaining known medieval vernacular building and a local museum since the 1920s - was subjected to a programme of archaeological survey and recording which has shed new light on its constructional history. Emphasis is placed on integrating new details relating to the earliest (12th-century) phase of the building, including the tree-ring dates returned by the heavy timber joists spanning the ground floor, which must now have a strong claim to be the earliest in-situ survivals of domestic structural timber-work in Sussex, and the buried foundations for a previously unknown north wall incorporating a rectangular stone-lined pit - interpreted as the subterranean remnant of a first-floor garderobe. In addition to refining the chronology of its constituent phases, the opportunity is taken to reassess the likely function of the building as originally intended. A wider archaeological context for the historic range was provided by the results of an adjoining excavation which uncovered the footings for a medieval timber building or buildings, a group of medieval and post-medieval pits and foundations for 18th- and 19th-century workshops and sheds. Finds from this sequence included the first closely-dated assemblages of post-medieval pottery and glass to have been recovered from the town.