| Abstract: |
Excavations at 114-19 St Aldates and 4-5 Queen Street, Oxford, shed light on some of the
oldest and grandest parts of the medieval city. The earliest evidence comprised sunken floors
and pits that date to the middle/late Saxon period. The evidence, relating to wooden
buildings, predates the Saxon burh, which was founded by the early tenth century. A series of
later rubbish pits dating to the late Saxon and early Norman period was cut through this
horizon. The pits contained pottery and bone fragments, representing general rubbish, as well
as faecal material and the raked-out fuel waste from ovens, fires and hearths. A stone-lined
latrine cut through the rubbish pits. The latrine contained a rich assemblage of twelfth- or
early thirteenth-century pottery, animal bone and other domestic material. The well-constructed nature of the feature suggests that it was associated with a house of a wealthy
individual. It is known that during this period part of the site was in Jewish ownership, and
this is supported by the faunal remains and organic residues on pottery, which are consistent
with Jewish dietary laws. A stone-built structure, part of a below-ground cellar, lay to the east
of the latrine. The later fills of the cellar contained a small assemblage of fifteenth- or
sixteenth-century pottery, which almost exclusively comprised drinking vessels that are likely
to have derived from Battes Inn (by then known as the Fleur de Luce) that fronted St Aldates.
Another latrine, of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century date, contained an assemblage of
pottery, vessel glass, clay pipes and fruit remains that indicate wealthy inhabitants here
during this time. Subsequent levels were poorly preserved owing to modern truncation. |
