NHER 64900 (Monument record) - Medieval burials asssociated with St Julian's Church and post-medieval pits

September 2008. Desk-based Assessment and Building Survey.
Architectural and historical appraisal of Nos 120-140 King Street.
This site (Plot B) has two 19th-century houses on the King Street frontage (Nos 120 and 120A), with the remainder occupied by structures associated with a former motor workshop. Although the earliest of these buildings, 120 King Street, dates primarily to the 1830s its southern wall incorporates the fabric of several earlier houses. The outer ground floor walls of the industrial buildings also significantly predate the extant structures - the west wall potentially dating to the mid 16th century date and the north and south walls to the 17th century.
We know from the earliest available maps that both sides of this section of King Street were largely built-up by the mid 16th century but we don't have evidence for exactly what buildings occupied this particular site. Cleer’s map of 1696 shows a ‘U’-shaped arrangement of buildings fronting onto King Street. Hochstter’s map of 1789 shows the site to have been redeveloped, with the southern half of the King Street frontage demolished, leaving a different ‘U’ shaped development facing southward onto an open garden that extended to St Julian’s alley. This house was itself demolished during the 19th century, although as noted above the outer walls of the house and garden survive as part of the extant buildings. It is notable that these early maps show the alleyways running to the north and south of this block, but not the one that now forms its western boundary; the churchyard being shown to extend right up to the buildings themselves. The alley separating this block from the churchyard is first seen on the Ordnance Survey First Edition 1:500 Town Plan map published in the 1880s. The present form of the site, including the footprint of the industrial buildings had been largely established by this time.
See report (S1) for further details.
P. Watkins (HES), 12 May 2021.

September-October 2014 and October 2014-May 2015. Trial Trench and Watching Brief.
Archaeological work undertaken prior to and during the redevelopment of this site.
An initial evaluation saw the excavation of a single trial trench in the centre of the site, which had been an open area since at least the late 19th century.
A relatively undisturbed sequence of topsoil and subsoil deposits lay beneath the modern overburden, with natural sand deposits encountered at a depth of c. 1.0m below present ground level. A number of features were exposed, the earliest of which were probably two sub-circular pits that both produced medieval pottery. The most significant discovery was three east-to-west aligned rectangular graves. The smaller lay largely within the trench and was therefore fully excavated, revealing the body of a child. The other two graves were only partially exposed and therefore just subject to minimal investigation to confirm the presence of human remains. Although these graves produced no finds one was observed to cut a medieval pit and another was truncated by one of several post-medieval pits. The graves were almost certainly medieval and associated with the adjacent church of St Julian (NHER 572) - demonstrating that its churchyard had once extended as far east as King Street. The various later features were interpreted as probable domestic rubbish pits and produced medieval/post-medieval and post-medieval pottery, ceramic building material, clay tobacco pipe fragments and animal bone. An ashy deposit in one of the more rectangular pits was found to contain a particularly large quantity of animal bone.
Due to the nature of these discoveries a watching brief was maintained during subsequent groundworks.
Although the 19th- and 20th-century industrial buildings were largely demolished as part of this development, as much as possible of the earlier fabric within the outer walls was retained and incorporated into the new structures. The north and south walls were retained but unfortunately it proved necessary to demolish much of the west wall, with only short sections at both ends retained.
A number of engineers test pits were excavated against the retained walls, which revealed their footings as well as several adjacent brick structures. Also of interest was a brick passageway that ran beneath the western wall. This was blocked with bricks of later date at it western end, which lay beneath the present ground level.
The construction methodology for the new buildings was designed to both maintain the structural integrity of the retained walls and to minimise the need for excavations. The foundation trenches excavated did however revealed a number of archaeological features, which were then subject to hand excavation. These remains included four additional graves, one of which lay beneath the western wall. Disarticulated human bones was also recovered from post-medieval rubbish pits.
It was planned that further monitoring would take place during subsequent groundworks but it is currently unclear what was found (if indeed this work took place).
See assessment report (S2) for further details. It should be noted that this is essentially an interim report produced prior to the completion of the work and any detailed examination of the material recovered. A final report is expected once further analysis has been undertaken.
P. Watkins (HES), 12 May 2021.