NHER 67182 (Monument record) - Late Saxon to post-medieval remains

August 2016. Excavation.
Excavation of footprint of extension to Cintra House (31 White Hart Street; NHER 46400).
This work exposed a dense area of intercutting pits, which appear to have represented multiple phases of past activity from the Late Saxon period onward.
An Early Neolithic flint end scraper and a prehistoric flint flake provide some limited evidence for earlier activity on the site, although both were residual within later contexts.
The earliest features were a number of pits of probable Saxo-Norman date. These included a elongated cess pit, samples from the fills of which were found to contain dietary refuse including bone fragments, fish bones, marine shell and grape seed pips. Another Saxo-Norman pit had vertical sides, the uppermost part of which had been reinforced with chalk blocks. This shaft-like feature was shown by auguring to be c.2.2m deep, suggesting it had potentially acted as a cold store for foodstuffs of some kind. Finds from its fills included pieces of fired clay that may represent oven or furnace lining and a fragment of copper working slag. Another, partially exposed pit was also probably Saxo-Norman, as was an undated post-hole. A very deep square or rectangular probable quarry pit partially exposed in the north-west corner of the site was also potentially of a broadly similar date, its uppermost fills producing pottery of 11th- to 12th-century date.
Two intercutting pits were potentially medieval in date, although this suggestion is largely based on the stratigraphic evidence, as only a single medieval pottery sherd was recovered from their fills. The larger of the two was probably another chalk extraction pit.
Six pits of probable late 15th- to early 16th-century date were also recorded, most of which were concentrated in the northern part of the site, possibly indicating the presence of a former east-to-west aligned plot boundary. The earliest contained quantities of pottery, animal bone and oyster shell and were probably rubbish pits, while two of the later features contained crushed mortar and chalk rubble that potentially represented construction or demolition waste. One also contained the apparently deliberately buried remains of a magpie – possibly a pet. Other notable finds from these features included fragments of medieval brick and tile, all made from poorly mixed estuarine clay.
A 19th-century rubble-filled well was presumably constructed around the same time as Cintra House (which was erected in 1821). This is marked as a pump of the Ordnance Survey 1:500 Town Plan map of 1883 (S1). A large trench or pit filled with a firm silty clay containing much chalk and flint waste was probably associated with the construction of Cintra House itself.
Unstratified finds recovered from the overlying soils included a small assemblage of Saxo-Norman, medieval and medieval/post-medieval pottery, an iron nail, a lump of puddled lead and fragments of animal bone.
See full report (S2) and assessment report (S3) for further details.
P. Watkins (HES), 31 July 2023.