Abstract: |
Report on an excavation and watching brief in 1996--7 at the site of a substantial Roman townhouse previously identified in 1969 in Upper Thames Street, City of London. Although investigations were limited, a hitherto unsuspected prehistoric marsh was recorded. a pair of structures constructed from timbers apparently felled in AD 84 were tiebacks for a north-south quay, probably the east end of a river wharf. A post-and-plank revetment constructed between c. AD 100--20 was also identified, across the top of which a box-drain was cut in AD 125--6. Walls and floors of a number of buildings were recorded on the terraces overlooking the river, including two early structures predating the townhouse phase, one of which may have been a goldworker's premises and the other of which was rebuilt, possibly to form the north wing of the townhouse. Further details of the townhouse were recovered, including an area of the west wing with an underfloor heating system. Part of the drum and capital of a Roman Tuscan order column was recovered from a medieval pit overlying a corner of the building. Remains of contemporary buildings to the east of the townhouse were also recovered. Roman occupation apparently continued at least into the late-fourth century when the townhouse was demolished. Early-eleventh-century pitting was succeeded in the late-eleventh to early-twelfth centuries by a series of sunken-floored and cellared buildings constructed in dark earth deposits laid over the Roman remains. These were succeeded by later medieval chalk walls and foundations along the Laurence Pountney Lane frontage; a chalk and gravel foundation on cleft beech piles from the southern part of the site was of a type found from the early-twelfth century. Walls of at least two phases of the fourteenth-century Pountney's Inn, later the Manor of the Rose, were found; a chalk-lined well and cesspit associated with the manor may have been in use until the seventeenth century. The development of the site from the prehistoric marsh, through the Roman occupation, to the early and later medieval period, is discussed. The stratigraphic evidence is supported by specialist contributions, and an attempt is made to determine whether or not the results of the two phases of the project were successful in answering the research questions outlined before each began. The success of the mitigation strategy and its ramification for future management of the archaeological resource are also considered. Includes French and German summaries, and specialist appendices on |