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Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service
Bury Resource Centre
Hollow Road
Bury St Edmunds
IP32 7AY
The site was open space within and to the rear of the Greyfriars’ development of commercial and residential units erected in c.1968. It was known to lie within the precinct of the medieval friary of the Greyfriars and adjacent to the known course of the River Gipping, which ran south to join the river Orwell at Stoke Bridge and was piped under Cecilia Street to the south in the late 19th century. The excavation was a pro-active evaluation prior to landscaping in 1974.
The only constraints were financial and the likelihood of excavation below the water table being required. Three NE - SW orientated trenches were cut at regular intervals across the site (0001, 0031, 0152). Trench 0152 was abandoned after machining, on health and safety grounds, with minimal recording.
Trenches 0001 and 0031 were machine dug down to medieval levels and then excavated by hand. An extension to trench 0001 was cut in a south-easterly direction, to provide additional evidence.
Natural sand and gravel was encountered 1.4m below present ground surface in Trench 0031 but, in trench 0001, the natural ground composition was a stiff marsh clay found at a depth of around 2.2m (0.4m OD).
The breakdown of context type was:
No pre medieval contexts were encountered. One sherd of Ipswich ware and 15 sherds of Thetford ware were found residual in later contexts and indicate sparse activity on the river bank during the Anglo-Saxon period.
Further information can be found in the Site Summary which can be accessed by selecting the 'Reports' tab on the 'Downloads' page.