Pages tagged with "Winchester"

19-20 Jewry Street Winchester

admin — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:43:43 +0000

An aerial view of the Jewry Street siteAn excavation is being carried out in Jewry Street, Winchester, ahead of development on the site by Mr M Bakhaty. The site is in the north-west corner of the historic core of Winchester. This area of the town is known to have been occupied throughout Winchester’s post-medieval, medieval and Roman past.

For more information about the archaeology and history of Winchester, visit the Winchester Museums Service website.

Listen to the Podcast "Excavations in Winchester"

Archaeocast #3: Winchester Excavation Podcast

admin — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0000

The latest episode of “Archaeocast”, our archaeology podcast, is now available to download from our Events blog.

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Roman finds in Winchester

admin — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Update! We now have a project homepage for this site with more detailed information.

The latest discovery at Jewry Street has been a row of up to 8 Roman cess pits, running in a line north to south through the middle of the site. They lie half way between two Roman streets and either served a public building or, more likely, lay to the rear of the houses which fronted the two streets. The pits are cut 5-6 metres deep into the underlying chalk and only one other like them has been found in Winchester.

The pits are an exciting source of evidence: as well as degraded human waste, they contain fragments of pottery, building materials and many animal bones.

Small items have been found: bronze finger rings, a fine bone pin, tweezers and coins accidentally dropped into the pits nearly 2,000 years ago.

The most valuable information may well come from the smallest finds of all - the remains of mineralised seeds, fruit stones and insects, which will give us more evidence of the diet and way of life in Roman Winchester.

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Excavation continues in Winchester

admin — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Update! We now have a project homepage for this site with more detailed information.

Archaeologists from Wessex Archaeology continue to uncover evidence of Winchester’s past at 19-20 Jewry Street before the start of building work later this month.

Apart from the medieval cellar which extends the full width of the property, numerous pits and wells dug in the 16th-18th centuries have largely destroyed evidence of earlier periods.

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Excavation in historic Winchester

admin — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Update! We now have a project homepage for this site with more detailed information.

An excavation is being carried out in Jewry Street, Winchester, ahead of development on the site by Mr M Bakhaty. The site is in the north-west corner of the historic core of Winchester. This area of the town is known to contain archaeological evidence of Winchester’s medieval, Saxon, Roman and Iron Age past.

A large cellar was built in the middle of the site in the medieval period. It was finely built and some evidence of its thick mortared chalk footings remain. The cellar presumably belonged to a substantial property fronting what is now Jewry Street. This was a prosperous area of the town between the late 11th and 14th century, known as ‘Scowrtenestret’ (Shoemakers’ Street), and later ‘Gywerystrete’. Documents from the fifteenth century list the occupants of the three medieval properties on the site. Amongst them were weavers, labourers, poor men, carpenters, a book binder, a tinker and a widow’.

In the northern part of the site we are uncovering very slight traces of late Saxon floors, but these have for the most part been destroyed by deep pits of later date.

Several pits which date from the Roman period (AD43-410) are being investigated and contain pottery and animal bone. The soil from these pits will be analysed for information about the contemporary environment. On the western side of the site we may find traces of a Roman street, linking the south and north gates of the Roman town (Venta Belgarum).

No remains of Iron Age date have yet been found.

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