NHER 1165 (Monument record) - Remains of medieval house, 50 King Street

Systematic observation and recovery during rebuilding.
The rebuilding of a single tenement produced enough evidence to reconstruct the form of a 13th to 14th century building, the plan of which resembles the south range of Lattice House, Chapel Street (NHER 12005). The medieval walls were built on alternating bands of sand and gravel. Scraps of 13th-14th century pottery (Grimston and Yorkshire wares) were found in all foundation trenches. All the medieval walls were of flint and mortar. Some were faced with knapped flints, others were faced in unknapped flints and further walls were of mixed construction. The westernmost wall which would have faced onto King Street was of irregularly coursed brick and knapped flint capped with a chamfered plinth of Barnack-type oolitic limestone. The brick used was not seen elsewhere on site and it is possible that this front wall was rebuilt during the 14th or 15th century. The fact that it is set back approximately 0.45m (18 inches) from the modern building line perhaps suggests a jettied first floor. Behind this two-storey building a series of beaten earth floors indicating two rooms to the rear of the plot, reached via a passageway to the south, onto which their windows faced. The excavator interpreted the westernmost room as a workshop, the central room as the hall and the easternmost room as a heated parlour with hearth against the east wall.
Grimston, Raeren, and Yorkshire pottery sherds were recovered.
See (S1) for further information and plan of excavated features.
A. Carter (KLAS), amended by A. Cattermole (King's Lynn UAD), 10 January 2019.