| Title: |
Watching Brief at Oxford Magdalen College Winter Common Room December 2020 |
| Series: |
Oxford Archaeological Unit unpublished report series
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| Downloads: |
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oxfordar1-502963_183185.pdf (8 MB)
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Download
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| Licence Type: |
ADS Terms of Use and Access
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| DOI |
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| Publication Type: |
Report (in Series)
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| Abstract: |
The SI works comprised the excavation of three Trial Pits (each measuring between 0.60 - 0.70m wide by 1.2m long, and excavated to 1.5m b.g.l) located within the northern part of the Maintenance Yard (Fig. 2). A single 10m deep borehole (for dynamic probing and window sampling) was placed at the eastern end of Trial Pit 3. The trial pits were positioned to give good coverage over the footprint of the proposed Kitchen and Servery to reveal information on the nature of the ground in the area, and the nature, form and depth of existing foundations to the extant buildings that bound the area to East, West and North. The length of the trial pits has been extended to increase the probability of revealing in-situ archaeological remains beyond the construction cuts for these buildings. All the information gained will be used to inform the final foundation design, which currently includes a limited number of piles and relatively shallow ground-beams.The second phase of the archaeological watching brief initially focused upon excavations for a new kitchen drain, but also observed ground reductions within the northern part of the Maintenance Yard, the northern ground floor area of the Chaplains III East Range, and within rooms and corridors on the ground floor in the south-east corner of the southern range of the Great Quad.Modern overburden was removed by hand or a small mechanical excavator to formation levels for the various foundations and the new kitchen drain. All archaeological remains that were encountered were excavated/examined and recorded stratigraphically in accordance with the WSI (OA 2019a). Spoil was monitored to recover artefacts.Oxford Archaeology (OA) also undertook a historic building recording at Magdalen College, Oxford in relation to the Winter Common Room Project. The recording focused on the areas being directly impacted by the development works and was undertaken in a phased programme. It included initial outline recording prior to the development and further recording during the works to cover features which had been exposed. It was also supported by historical research based on historic maps, previous studiesand the principal secondary sources. The evidence from the trial pits strongly suggests that the truncation from the construction of the Maintenance Department in the late 20th century has removed all significant archaeology within the northern area of the Yard to a horizontal depth of between 0.63- 0.68m b.g.l or 56.95 - 57.06m OD.Below this level construction horizons consisting of building debris and ground-raising deposits associated with the building ranges on the north side (15th century) and west side (17th century) of Maintenance Yard survived, although they appear relatively homogenous in nature and of some, but limited significance.The second phase of the works identified the unremarkable remains of disparate lengths of limestone foundations immediately beneath the existing floors, as well as the uppermost courses of the foundations to extant walls. None of the structures encountered are likely to be related to the putative infirmary building of the medieval Hospital of St John, as previous archaeological works had identified these at levels between 56.00m and 56.60m OD, whilst these more recent discoveries were at higher levels between 56.92m and 57.51m OD. The internal remains probably relate to previous structural divisions within the southern range of the Great Quad and the Chaplains III East Range. Their undiagnostic construction combined with the lack of any associated datable artefactual evidence (no associated floor or occupation deposits were encountered), prevents a more accurate date estimate than late-15th century - 20th century. However, the RCHME phased college plan of 1939 would suggest those in the south range of the Great Quad (labelled ‘Senior Common Rooms’) probably pre-date the illustrated 18th century partitioning. |
| Author: |
Adam Fellingham
Tom Black
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| Publisher: |
Oxford Archaeology
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| Year of Publication: |
2020
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| Locations: |
| Parish: |
Oxford, unparished area |
| Country: |
England |
| County: |
Oxfordshire |
| District: |
Oxford |
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Grid Reference: 452099, 206159 (Easting, Northing)
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| Identifiers: |
| OASIS Id: |
oxfordar1-502963 |
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| Note: |
This report was uploaded to the OASIS system by the named Publisher. The report has been transferred into the ADS Library for public access and to facilitate future research.
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| Created Date: |
17 Jun 2022 |
