Post-Medieval Archaeol 39 (1)

The site at 43--53 Narrow Street, located in the Ratcliff area, produced finds relating to the period of London's expansion as a mercantile centre during the seventeenth century. Discoveries included a late-fifteenth-century brick clamp, and building remains with associated pits and ditches dating from the sixteenth through to the eighteenth centuries. The remains dating from the late-sixteenth through to the end of the seventeenth century proved to be former properties of people with a maritime focus, probably heavily involved in piracy and privateering. The pits and ditches, particularly those of seventeenth-century date, were filled with pottery, glass and other objects, a significant proportion of which originated in the Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Turkey, Iran and China, and many of the examples recovered have otherwise rarely if ever been found in Britain. It is argued that the most appropriate interpretation of the finds assemblage is as the remains of booty and global mercantile and illicit trade at a time that access to the New World and the Far East was being opened up and fought over. The discoveries offered an opportunity to view a seventeenth-century community of seafaring families from the perspective of their land-based material culture and the remains of their homes. The paper focuses on the development of the site from the late medieval period to the early-eighteenth century, and places the finds for this period in their historical context. Includes specialist reports on

As part of a broader study of the Elizabethan colonization of Munster, the home of a member of the colonial elite was the object of four seasons of fieldwork, 1993--6. Kilcolman Castle in north County Cork now comprises a ruined tower-house and some mounds of masonry overlooking Kilcolman Bog. The castle and 3,000 acres had been granted to the poet Edmund Spenser, who refurbished and occupied it from 1588 to 1598, when Tyrone's rebellion burned Kilcolman. Spenser's family fled, the poet soon dying in London, and the castle was finally abandoned after a second fire ante 1622. The excavations established that archaeological remains survived to a significant extent: the bawn (bailey) wall line was traced, structures identified as the Great Hall and Parlour were located, and artefacts and ecofacts from the occupancy of Spenser's family were recovered. Includes specialist reports on

see also Appendix 1