| Abstract: |
Cornwall Archaeological Unit was asked by Jim Parry from the National Trust to submit a WSI for phase 2 trenching works which were to run through St Michael's Mount village. CAU was then commissioned by Cornish Heritage Builders and St Aubyn Estates to undertake the archaeological recording. Trench E produced pilchard processing deposits, coal yard residue, a series of cobbled surfaces including internal floors, yards and former track surfaces, the upper fills of cellars and a well-preserved wall running along the north-eastern edge of the trench. Finds included a musket ball, a weight and a 15th century sherd of pottery. Trenches E/N, E/N2 and E/S contained a very similar range of features, including walls and floors. Trench F produced evidence for a probable cellar, two wall terminals plus another wall which crossed the trench and a slate 'platform'. Trench F/S produced internal cobbling at its southern end, external yard/lane cobbling and pockets of shell midden. Trench G - G/E produced two walls, cobbling and a cellar running along the southern edge of the garden wall. Trench G/W produced four walls, five different areas of cobbling, a clay floor, and other miscellaneous features, including an unexpected, unusually shaped well. It was not bottomed, and is at the moment un-dated. Trench H produced a cellar at the western end, a wall and robber trench, two differently dated postholes, two or three geological layers including a raised beach, and three cultivated layers, one of which produced a medieval 13th to 14th century pot sherd. Trench I - I/1 produced laundry related features and deposits, including a short stretch of stone flooring and a robbed wall. Trench I/2 produced further miscellaneous laundry-related deposits and cut features. In addition to the trenches recorded above, a shallow, narrow drainage Trench J was partly seen and a rapid record was made. |
