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Newham Museum Service, 2000. https://doi.org/10.5284/1000328. How to cite using this DOI
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- ADS Collection: 265
- DOI:https://doi.org/10.5284/1000328
- How to cite using this DOI
Thorne Close, Leytonstone (LE-TC 93)
Overview
Introduction
Thorne Close Avenue Estate (TQ 3903 8500) is located near to Leytonstone High Road. In advance of redevelopment from high rise to low level housing, an archaeological evaluation was undertaken by Newham Museum Service Archaeological Unit (formerly the Passmore Edwards Museum). There were two phases of evaluation, the first in August 1993 in the area of a car park and the second in the area of a playground in November 1993. This latter work led to a rescue excavation in December 1993 . The site is situated on a terrace of Taplow Gravel with a layer of brickearth overlying the gravel in the western area of the site.
Historical Background
The area now known as Thorne Close was first recorded as Hollywell (later Holloway) Down, and was located on the main medieval road from London to Epping. Holloway Down was part of Ruckholts Manor, situated a mile to the west of the site, and this estate was given by Gunnore De Valognes in 1201 to Haliwell Priory in St. Leonards, Shoreditch. Further to the north, a hamlet 'Leyton atte Stone' is thought to have existed by the fourteenth century and Leyton, a mile to the north east of the site, as mentioned in the Domesday Book was the main parish settlement or 'vill'.
The Leytonstone area had an agricultural economy, supplying London with produce and by the post-medieval period, its economy had diversified with the addition of horticulture. During the second quarter of the eighteenth century, Thorne Close was known as Blind Lane, and like the rest of Holloway Down, experienced an increase in housing development. During the excavation two cottages dating from this period were recorded, perhaps built to accommodate agricultural workers. By 1775, at least three nurseries existed. The earliest, the Holloway Down Nursery was established in 1761, and was located on the eastern side of Leytonstone High Road, but utilised rented fields on Blind Lane in the vicinity of the site. During the mid to late eighteenth century, potato cropping employed a large Irish labour force. Blind Lane was renamed Irish Lane and the social status of this road declined owing to the poverty of its seasonally employed inhabitants, who frequently over burdened the poor rate. Industrial activity in the area appears to have been largely confined to clay quarrying for local brick industries, gravel extraction and, less popular, soap boiling.
In 1865 the Holloway Down Nursery and surrounding land was sold to the Victoria Land and Settlement Company and by 1867 the Holloway Down area was being laid out for residential development. This resulted in the construction of terrace housing directly over the site, effectively sealing the archaeology. Low status housing continued into the nineteenth century with the succeeding terraced housing being demolished in the 1960's as it was over crowded and insanitary.
The Excavation
The Medieval Period
The earliest evidence for activity on the site was a 2.20m wide and 0.65m deep ditch on a north-west south-east alignment. It was initially recorded in Trench 1 and found to continue into Trench 6. The ditch contained a primary fill of gravel, which had resulted from the weathering of the ditch sides. This primary fill contained no finds, unlike the secondary fills which contained large, unabraided fragments of an Early Medieval Sandy Shelly ware bowl and jar. The presence of Medieval Coarse ware (Essex Fabric 20) dating from the late twelfth century to the 14th century, together with Early Medieval Sandy Shelly ware indicates a date of mid to late twelfth century. In Trench 4 there was evidence for at least four re-cuts of the ditch, which indicated that it was maintained frequently, however the lack of diagnostic finds did not allow the re-cuts to be dated.
The ditch appears to have been back-filled by the early thirteenth century, with material containing sherds of a late twelfth-century London type White Slip Decorated ware large squat jug, and a late twelfth to early thirteenth century London type Rouen Style baluster jug, as well as other contemporary fabrics. Later ploughing appears to have resulted in the truncation of the original level from which the ditch was cut, although a medieval layer, did survive and abraded pottery indicated that it was a plough soil, probably contemporary with the ditch.
The Eighteenth Century
In Trench 5, the rectangular brick footings of an eighteenth-century building were uncovered. From cartographic evidence, the house is thought to have been built between 1721 and 1728. The layout of the foundations of this building suggested it formed two semi-detached cottages. The houses survived as rectangular brick foundations with a central H-shaped chimney stack dividing them. The floor levels of the houses were lost with the demolition of the building. At the end of each house was an ancillary room, integral to the original building, with sunken brick floors. These rooms were interpreted as kitchens or sculleries. From this area, each house had a brick drain running south, probably towards a central drain.
As there was no indication of a timber structure built on brick footings, it seems likely that the houses were of brick construction. The bricks from the foundations were of different sizes and this suggested that possibly one or more brick manufacturers were involved. A pan-tiled roof is suggested for the building on the evidence of large quantities of tile recovered from demolition material sealing the house foundations.
The layout of the cottages suggests long, narrow front and back gardens, the width of each house. Evidence for one brick boundary wall belonging to the eastern house was uncovered. The property to the west of the houses contained a number of shallow pits which have been attributed to horticultural activity. The property adjacent to the eastern house contained the footings for a brick structure, probably an outhouse, which was largely outside the trench. To the north of the outhouse was a large, linear rectangular pit, over one metre deep, steep sided and extending outside the area of excavation. The steep edges suggested that a wooden lining to the pit would have been needed to stop the sides slumping. The two earliest fills of the pit had formed in waterlogged conditions as indicated by their silty matrix. These fills contained no finds, except for a wooden brush, but environmental analysis has indicated a seed assemblage of blackberry or raspberry, strawberry, grape and plum usually associated with a cess pit. The cess pit also contained two later fills with large amounts of pottery and glass with some animal bone. The pottery was analysed using estimated vessel equivalents (eves), and this showed that the main fabrics present were Tin-glazed Earthenware (dated early eighteenth century), Staffordshire Slipware (early eighteenth century), Post-Medieval Redware, and Staffordshire White Salt Glazed Stoneware, in that order of frequency. Imported pottery was rare and only represented by Chinese Porcelain (dated c.1720-40, 0.48 eves or 3.68% of the pottery). The ceramic vessels were largely complete with the main forms being firstly chamber pots, then ointment pots (dated early eighteenth century), pedestal bowls, plates and cups. The presence of a large number of chamber pots further supported the interpretation that this feature was a cess pit. Functionally the pottery was primarily concerned with food consumption, then sanitary, medicinal and drinking activities. No vessels could be connected to cooking food. The glass consisted largely of mallet and transitional cylindrical wine bottles and window glass, as well as pharmaceutical or medicinal bottles, a phial and a small ten-sided beaker crudely decorated with wheel engraved flowers (dated c.1730-80). The pottery and glass dated the cess pit to between 1730 and 1750, however the pottery seems to be c.1740 at its latest.
The Early Nineteenth Century
Until 1845, when the two cottages were demolished, they appeared to have undergone no structural alterations. The cottages on Irish Lane seem to have been low status, low rent dwellings for farm labourers. The 1841 Leyton Parish tithe map names the owner of the plots containing the cottages as a William Wellesley, and the Leyton Parish census shows that one of the excavated cottages was occupied by a "Patrick Muldoon and others". Patrick Muldoon, an Irish immigrant, his wife Catherine and three daughters occupied the cottages from at least 1821 until the demolition of the property. Muldoon and his wife are listed as agricultural labourers by profession who only started paying rates in or a little before 1839, presumably before this they were too poor. Patrick died in 1847 and Catherine was listed in the 1861 census as an inmate of the West Ham Union Workhouse, which was located on the opposite side of Irish Lane to the cottages. No indication of the identity of the occupiers of the other cottage within the same building has been traced and they are simply recorded as 'others'.
The property to the east of the cottages, was also owned in 1841 by Wellesley, but rented to a James Mann, and the land use described as gardens. In this area the rubbish fills of the eighteenth-century cess pit slumped and the surface was levelled with refuse in the early nineteenth century. This area continued to be used for gardening and the digging and infilling of rubbish pits. One of these refuse pits, contained the rare find of a complete Blanc de Chine, Chinese Porcelain miniature seal, dated to c.1720, and bearing the family name 'Cheng'. The seal was probably intended for use as a stamp with ink, however its value was probably more as an ornament or trinket. Finds were studied from the fills of rubbish pits. The clay tobacco pipes from these pits are typologically dated to between c.1800-1840 while the initials of the manufacturers of the pipes ranged from c.1810 to 1837. The rubbish pit activity resulted in the truncation of the eighteenth-century cess pit fills. The pottery analysed from the nineteenth-century rubbish pits showed Creamware to be the most important ceramic, followed by Transfer Printed ware, Post-Medieval Redware (dated late eighteenth century to early nineteenth century), Pearlware and London Stoneware. The main vessel forms were pedestal bowls and ordinary bowls followed by plates and jugs. Functionally the pottery was concerned primarily with tablewares for serving and eating food from and secondarily for drink serving or consumption with very few kitchen or food preparation vessels present. The glass largely consisted of cylindrical wine bottles dated to c.1790-1820, and a residual miniature pharmaceutical bottle. Small finds recovered from the refuse pits included a copper alloy decorated button (dated c.1780-1840) from rubbish pit and a furniture related back or escutcheon plate, from a drop handle assembly (dated c. 1820-40), came from pit. The finds assemblage from the nineteenth-century rubbish pits seems to infer a drop in social status compared to the early eighteenth-century finds.
Conclusions
The excavations at Thorne Close identified an agricultural landscape with plough soils dating from the twelfth to nineteenth centuries as well as eighteenth-century agricultural labourers cottages. The earliest activity on the site was the twelfth-century ditch, probably a boundary ditch. Little is known archaeologically of this period in Waltham Forest, with only similar, but small quantities of Early Medieval Sandy Shelly ware as well as contemporary pottery occurring at Chingford Manor House and Knots Green, Leyton, to indicate activity of this period. Before the creation of the Haliwell Priory Estate, it was believed that there was no settlement in the area of Hollywell Down, however the large sherds of unabraided pottery may indicate that a settlement existed in the vicinity, before the establishment of the estate. Similarly the medieval pottery may indicate occupation close by. The abandonment of the ditch in the early thirteenth century may have been the result of reorganisation of land boundaries, as no later land use respected the alignment of the ditch as demonstrated by cartographic evidence. The pottery from the tertiary fills of the ditch seem to coincide with the formation of the Haliwell Priory estate, which may have caused reorganisation of the settlement around Leytonstone High Road.
The rubbish in the eighteenth-century cess pit contained an important ceramic assemblage because the pottery comes from a narrowly dateable period, and is significant for the forms of ceramic wares which are poorly dated, such as the Staffordshire Slipwares. The cess pit did contain some mid to late seventeenth-century wares, such as Post-Medieval Black-Glazed earthenware and two brown glazed Border Ware chamber pots (dated to mid seventeenth century) but essentially the pottery is largely early eighteenth century with the latest pottery dated to c.1740. Importantly, Staffordshire White Salt Glazed ware began to be manufactured in c.1720 and its cheaper version, Drab ware with its characteristic brown rims was introduced from c.1730, and therefore the rubbish fills of the cess pit contain early examples of these ceramics. An indication of the eighteenth century social status of the people can be implied from the rubbish they threw into the cess pit and contemporary finds from the same property. Amongst the pottery were good quality Chinese Porcelain, including the seal, vessels associated with tea drinking and hair curlers (dated c.1700), which seems to indicate a 'middle class' owner, perhaps of comfortable means.
The early nineteenth century activity on the site seems to confirm the documentary evidence of a general decline in status of the area. This continued into the late nineteenth-century with the construction of terraced housing which coincides with the merging of the area into Leytonstone and the general suburbanisation of London. The continuation of impoverishment of the area lasted until the demolition of the terraced housing and the construction of Thorne Close Avenue housing estate in the 1960's.
