Chester Amphitheatre Project Blog

The remains of a 16th or early 17th century window. Small diamond shaped panes of clear glass are held together by a network of lead strips known as cames to create a large window.

Trench I

This piece of plaster decorated with a butterfly is one of several pieces of decorated plaster work found in Trench I. The other pieces show the remains of a strapwork design and are probably from a decorated plaster ceiling dating to the first half of the 17th century or possibly the late 16th century. The pieces are all in very good condition; it is rare to find plaster in such condition on an archaeological excavation. The pieces give us some clue as to how the interior of Cholmondeley's earlier house was decorated.

Trench I

Part of a medieval floor tile with a line impressed design showing a griffin. The edge of a wing is just visible on the broken edge of the piece. It was made in the 14th or 15th century. It may have been used in St John's church or a building belonging to the church.

Trench I

Fragment from a 17th century salt-glazed stoneware jug with a floral medallion on the front. This sort of jug often has a bearded face on the neck and was made in Frechen in the Rhineland area of modern Germany. They were exported in large numbers to Britain and the rest of Europe.

This model axe is a miniature reproduction of a common, everyday object, which served no useful function of its own. Model objects are well-known in Roman Britain and miniature axes first appear in the Iron Age. It may have been a simple good-luck symbol, as miniature axes were also worn as amulets. However, because of its weight, this particular example is unlikely to have been used in this way and may originally have been placed in a grave or a shrine as a votive offering.


The axe is quite crudely made, being roughly wedge-shaped with a narrow, rounded cutting edge. A socket for attachment extends through the head.

National Archaeology Days 2007
Saturday 14 & Sunday 15 July
10:30am-4:00pm
Chester Amphitheatre & Chester Visitor Centre

Help celebrate National Archaeology Days at the
Amphitheatre which will be brought to life by:

Spectacular gladiatorial combat
Roman military display
Talk to the archaeologists about their latest discoveries
Take part in the hands-on activities
Have your own finds identified

FREE ...

For further details ...
j.hebblewhite@chester.gov.uk

We have now excavated sections across both of the ditches uncovered in Trench III. The ditches are both aligned north-south and the most easterly ditch is definitely Roman in date (probably dating to the 2nd century AD). We think this ditch was found further to the north more than 100 hundred years ago when the public baths were built in 1899. The western ditch is more complicated as it appears to have been partly re-excavated in the medieval period and a stone pavement was set into the bottom at this time; possibly so that it could function as a track way?

Beneath the stone pavement are preserved the lower fills of the earlier ditch which we now believe to be Roman; we are still excavating this ditch to see how large it was. It would appear that the westerly ditch is the same one which contained the skeleton of a Roman woman that was uncovered to the north in 1994!

We have recently discovered a large circular pit towards the centre of trench. The original function of the pit is still unknown, though it may have served as a cess-pit. It is more than 1.2m deep and was clearly backfilled with domestic rubbish once it had gone out of use; amongst this material is pottery dating to the 15th or 16th century, which suggests that the pit is contemporary with the large timber building we have found traces of in the northern part of the trench.

An area of cobbling has been partly uncovered in the south western part of the trench. It is too early to be certain but this may be part of a Roman road running across the trench from west to east; the central portion has been removed by the large pit described above and we will have to uncover more of the suspected road on the eastern side of the trench before we can be certain of our interpretation.

We have now confirmed that the northern half of the trench contains a large cellar, which has been backfilled with a mixture of domestic and industrial waste dating to the end of the 17th century. The backfill is also made up of a range of building materials which are probably from the building that must once have stood above the cellar. This building material has included glazed medieval floor tiles and fragments of decorated wall plaster that together indicate a building of some importance.




Decorated wall plaster (butterfly)
and
Fragments of window glass and lead cames








The evidence would suggest that the cellar belongs to an earlier incarnation of Cholmondeley's House, and probably the one which was believed to have been destroyed during the English Civil War (1642-46) and so predates the building shown on McGahey's balloon view of 1852.

We are now in the process of excavating the southern half of the trench in order to locate traces of any earlier medieval buildings that may have occupied the area.

This trench was positioned to pick up the line of a large Roman ditch found when the nearby housing development was constructed in the 1990's. This ditch, of unknown function, contained the skeleton of a middle-aged woman. Carbon 14 dating confirmed that she died in the Roman period.

We have recently found another Roman ditch on a different alignment. It is about 3 metres wide. We have also found another ditch which may be Medieval. We don't yet understand the purpose of these features, but they may represent a long-standing boundary within the eastern suburb of the Roman and Medieval town.

This trench has produced interesting archaeology of several periods. Two 18th-19th century field drains run north-south across the site. These were commonly used to improve poorly drained land. One is lined with clay pipes, whilst the other has bricks along the base.

In the upper soils we found numerous musket and pistol balls which we think came from a skirmish between Protestants and Catholics in the grounds of Cholmondeley's mansion in 1641 - a year before the outbreak of the Civil War. Numerous Catholics were killed in the firefight and buried some-where nearby.

Trench I has been sited to see if we can find the remains of Cholmondley's mansion, an 18th century town house which we think was originally associated with the church of St John.

So far we have concentrated our work in the northern part of the trench. Here we have uncovered several stone blocks and foundations which we think belonged to the mansion. There is also a deep pit in this area. It contained a lot of interesting finds, probably thrown away in the mid-18th century when the mansion suffered a fire and had to be rebuilt. Beneath it there may be a Medieval cellar.


In this trench we also found the jetton and the Cologne stoneware mug ...

see earlier postings for details.

Twenty members of the The Whitehall Farm Roman Villa Project, came on a special visit to Chester for a guided tour of the amphitheatre and Grosvenor Park excavations.


http://www.whitehallvilla.co.uk/

They can be seen here examining some of the recent finds, which were explained to them by Gill Dunn, Chester Archaeology's Roman finds specialist.

A selection of the many pieces of lead shot that have been found so far, particularly in Trench II. The size of the shot depends on the type of gun for which it was made. Such shot is often associated with the Civil War in the mid-17th century but firearms wre being used before this time. The area around St John's Church is known to have seen a lot of activity during the Civl War so these pieces may well date to that time.

Members of MAD YAC (Merseyside & Dee Young Archaeologists Club) braved the elements to join Chester Archaeology and Chester University students at the Grosvenor Park excavation. Daniel and Robyn are pictured here examining one of their finds.

Part of a stoneware mug made in Cologne in the Rhineland c.1500 - 1550. Large quantities of stoneware were made in the Rhineland for export to Britain and elsewhere but these types of mugs are not very common in Chester.