NHER 624 (Monument record) - Precinct of the Great Hospital

Great Hospital founded on north-west side of the present St Helen's in 1246.
Dissolved 1547 but refounded later.
Bell of 1547 preserved inside.
See (S1), (S2) and (S3).

September 1991. Watching Brief.
Swan Pit drained.
See NHER 48209 for further details.
Amended by P. Watkins (HES), 24 January 2018.

Detailed description by S. Heywood (NCC) in file and (S4).

August 1997. Trial Trenching.
Trial excavations at rear of Suffield Court produced redeposited medieval pottery, tile and animal bone, post medieval pits and posthole, indicating dumping in marsh in medieval and later hospital occupation.
See report (S5) for further details.
E. Rose (NLA), 9 October 1998.

8 January 1999. Watching Brief.
Observation of construction of flats at Youngs Green, TG 2374 0913, revealed that at least 1 metre of 19th century garden soil overlies any archaeology.
See report (S6) for further details.
E. Rose (NLA), 2 July 1999.

August-October 2000. Watching Brief.
An archaeological watching brief was undertaken during repairs to two sections of the boundary wall of the Great Hospital, Bishopgate. Evidence of Late Saxon and early medieval activity, in the form of pottery and a bone pin or needle, was found in deposits beneath and adjacent to the wall during underpinning of a twelve-metre-long section. Two pits revealed beneath these deposits, cut into the natural sand, are probably Late Saxon in date and may represent occupation in an area previously thought to be on the margins of the Late Saxon town.
The wall itself has seen many phases of repair, but it is possible that parts of it may be of Medieval date; a piece of late 12th-15th century pottery from the lower part of the rebuilt wall section supports this possibility.
A single residual Mesolithic/Early Neolithic flint blade was also found.
Contexts 21-31.
See report (S7) for further details. The results of this work are also summarised in (S8).
D. Gurney (NLA), 21 December 2000.

2003. Dendrochronological Survey.
Timbers taken from throughout the Great Hospital site showed a range of characteristics with may being fast-grown and others such as those used in the relict St Helen's Church truss being slow grown, which suggests a variety of sources for the timber. The analysis provided added dating evidence to assist with the interpretation of the development of the site and confirmed the date of the cloister roof as between AD 1447 and 1457. The analysis of the western truss of St Helen's Church indicated that the trees were felled between AD 1378 and 1799 and the Parker Ward roof was dated to AD 1403 which is later than the previous dates of around AD 1380 or AD 1430.
See report (S10) for further details.
S. Howard (HES), 25 October 2010.

See press cutting (S11) in file.
T. Sunley (NLA), 7 November 2007.

See The Great Hospital Norwich Online (S12).
D. Gurney (NLA), 27 March 2008.

January-February 2016. Watching Brief.
Monitoring of excavation of cable trench running between western wall of Birbeck Hall (NHER 26024) and TG 2370 0910. This narrow trench revealed several post-medieval red brick walls and surviving floor surfaces, all of which were likely to relate to structures shown on the Ordnance Survey 1:500 Town Plan map of 1885 (S13). These included two red brick walls and a tile floor associated with a narrow row of outbuildings that extended northwards from the north-east corner of the Chaplain’s House (NHER 26105), forming the eastern side of a small courtyard. Another red brick wall and a second tile floor were probable associated with the building that formed the northern side of this courtyard. A red brick wall encountered towards the northern end of the cable trench and an adjacent surface of limestone slabs probably represented the remains of a small rectangular outbuilding that had lain at the junction of two boundaries walls.
All of these buildings were probably associated with the 19th-century expansion of the Great Hospital complex.
See report (S14) and NHER 68340 for further details.
P. Watkins (HES), 26 May 2024.