Site data from an Archaeological Evaluation at Bond Street Phase 2 Development, Chelmsford, Essex 2013
Archaeology South-East, 2021. https://doi.org/10.5284/1084796. How to cite using this DOI
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Resource identifiers
- ADS Collection: 3889
- DOI:https://doi.org/10.5284/1084796
- How to cite using this DOI
Introduction
This collection comprises the Digital Archive (reports, images, finds data, GIS data and a site drawing) from an evaluation undertaken during development at Bond Street in 2013.
The site is located to the rear of buildings fronting Chelmsford High Street in an area presently used as a car park. Twelve evaluation trenches were excavated. Undisturbed natural sandy gravels were recorded at 23.30m OD in the northwest of the site, 21.80m OD in the south. A number of alluvial deposits were observed relating to flooding events of the River Chelmer, particularly in the east.
The earliest datable feature was a north-south aligned Roman gully found in the north of the site, although a large number of pits, post-holes and gullies cut into the natural gravels remain undated and may be prehistoric in origin.
A large late medieval ditch was recorded in the central part of the site, running north – south and broadly parallel to the river, which may have acted as a flood defence measure and demarcated the eastern extent of activity extending back from the High Street until the Tudor period. Residual medieval pottery was also found to the north.
The site was more extensively occupied in the 15th and 16th centuries with evidence for cess and rubbish pits, metalled surfaces, a well and a foundation cut for a substantial timber structure recorded in trenches in the west of the site. A possible alluvial flood deposit was identified in all but the most westerly trenches. Late medieval/early post-medieval remains were found both above and below this deposit.
In the post-medieval period site use was predominantly that of cultivation/agriculture, with a substantial dark soil forming across much of the site. The remains of two brick-built structures, possibly of 18th century date, were noted in the central part of the site. Nineteenth and early 20th century features were also recorded, including a pit containing a large quantity of 1914 ‘Princess Mary tins’. Two further brick structures were built in the 19th century, close to the River Chelmer, in that part of the site known as ‘Mesopotamia Island’. These archaeological remains were overlain by a considerable thickness of modern overburden and surfacing, and only modest truncation/disturbance from the site’s use as a car park was identified.
