NHER 69723 (Monument record) - Post-medieval well and medieval to post-medieval layers and unstratified finds

February 2025. Watching Brief.
Monitoring of groundworks associated with construction of extension at rear of 12 Bridewell Street (NHER 48621).
Natural geological deposits were encountered at a depth of c.1.15m within both the footing trenches for the extension and a soakaway trench dug to the south. These clayey deposits were overlain by a thick subsoil layer that produced pottery of late medieval to early post-medieval date. Within the footing trenches this soil was overlain by an upper subsoil or accumulated deposit containing pottery of 16th-century date and probable occupation debris in the form of butchered animal bones and degraded oyster and mussel shells. It also produced post-medieval brick and tile fragments, a post-medieval thimble and a piece of post-medieval bottle glass. This material was sealed by an extensive, thick trample layer containing lenses of soot and charcoal, mortar debris and occasional building flints and post-medieval brick and tile fragments. It is thought this material probably related to demolition and/or construction activities taking place around the time that 12 Bridewell Street was erected – which most likely occurred following clearance of the plot in the years that followed the Wymondham fire of 1615. A similar layer containing mortar, building flints and post-medieval brick and tile fragments was noted above the subsoil in the soakaway trench, which also produced a number of clay tobacco pipe fragments. This deposit was truncated by a brick-built dome capping a well.
The uppermost deposits encountered within the excavations produced a range of late post-medieval to modern finds, including a coin of 1862.
The only evidence for activity on the site prior to the medieval period was a flint scraper of probable later Bronze Age date.
See report (S1) for further details.
P. Watkins (HES), 10 February 2026.