The Salisbury Sites: 40 years of Wessex Archaeology excavations

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Public Archaeology

Since 1980, when an embryonic Wessex Archaeology was formed, archaeologists have been recovering information about Salisbury.

Not much is known of this work – we think it’s about time you learnt about it.

Each week for the next year, we’ll be releasing news of a Salisbury site to form an important part of the puzzle that tells the story of the city.

Some of the results will appear more interesting than others - that’s the nature of archaeology!

They cover all aspects of our work, including survey, geophysics, making records of standing buildings, excavation and finds. Collectively, they all contribute to the story. Some sites may never become accessible again.

Dip into our weekly webpage release below - you’ll be surprised at what you find out!

Phil Harding, Fieldwork Archaeologist

The results have now been brought together in a publication called Joining the Dots: uniting Salisbury's past through holes in the ground. This book contains the descriptions and results of Wessex Archaeology's excavations across the city, and is available for FREE download via our online library HERE.

Salisbury Sites

07.02.2020

Salisbury Sites 1: Bourne Hill Council Offices & Salisbury Arts Centre

We start our journey through the archaeology of Salisbury in the North East corner of the city. This group of projects show how the modern archaeological process can develop stage-by-stage according to the results of preceding work.

14.02.2020

Salisbury Sites 2: Belle Vue House and United Kingdom House

Our journey through the archives at Wessex Archaeology in Salisbury moves to the North East corner of the medieval city. This area, which occupied the land between Castle Street and Endless Street, has undergone considerable changes since 1987 when the first phase of work was undertaken.

20.02.2020

Salisbury Sites 3: Belle Vue Garage, Castle Street

Most archaeological work undertaken by Wessex Archaeology results from requirements placed by the Local Planning Authority as a condition of planning consent. Such was the requirement to observe work associated with construction of a new workshop at this site, which lay immediately beyond the northern fringes of the medieval city.

28.02.2020

Salisbury Sites 4: Duct Installation, Castle Street

Archaeological fieldwork is not always the glamorous process depicted on film or television, but can be a relatively menial task; nevertheless, potential for discovery is ever-present in a medieval city. This small watching brief, along a duct installation trench running along Castle Street, was routed to pass through to the site of the Castle Gate.

06.03.2020

Salisbury Sites 5: Land to the rear of 52-54 Endless Street

The journey through Salisbury’s archaeology moves into the medieval city where it will remain for much of the year. This small contribution, in 2005, involved test pitting to evaluate the archaeological potential of land located at the rear of properties in Endless Street.

13.03.2020

Salisbury Sites 6: 24 Endless Street and land off Rollestone Street

These two projects take our tour of the Salisbury sites into Gore’s Chequer, which fronted onto Endless Street and Rollestone Street. The two sites, which were approximately 80 m south from last week’s site, were of considerable interest.

20.03.2020

Salisbury Sites 7: Salisbury Bus Station

As we progress towards the central market square, the economic hub of the medieval city, we arrive at the Three Swans Chequer. Documentary sources indicated that this location attracted potentially wealthy owners, including the Weaver’s Guild, who acquired revenue from wool.

Excavation at Winchester Street and Rollestone Street

27.03.2020

Salisbury Sites 8: Winchester Street and Rollestone Street

Our review of archaeology in the Three Swans Chequer is completed by looking at five small conjoining areas which were investigated in 1988 before the area was redeveloped. The premises demonstrate how buildings and their use are liable to change, often quite dramatically, at relatively short notice.

Phil Harding excavating trench at Salt Lane

03.04.2020

Salisbury Sites 9: Bedwin Street and Salt Lane

On a personal level this is a site that I can’t forget in a long time, it was while digging here that I learned that my good friend Mick Aston had passed away, an unforgettable time.

10.04.2020

Salisbury Sites 10: Clay Pipe Makers

We saw in Endless Street, our stop-off point in week 6 around Salisbury’s archaeology, that objects sometimes link directly to former named residents, their lives and professions. So, this week we are staying in Vanner’s Chequer, where we are taking a ‘short break’ with members of the Morgan family.

16.04.2020

Salisbury Sites 11: 69 Greencroft Street

We resume our tour of Salisbury’s archaeological heritage by making a short journey from Salt Lane into Greencroft Street, which forms the east side of Griffin Chequer. The north end of this street now looks out over a swathe of open grassland, the Greencroft, but our view would once have been dominated by the rear of the city ramparts.

Archaeologist excavating trench at 7-11 Brown Street

30.04.2020

Salisbury Sites 13: 7-11 Brown Street, 32 Winchester Street and 13 Brown Street

From St. Edmund’s Church Street, we arrive behind the former Black Horse Inn, an establishment which gave the chequer its name. These three small projects, which were undertaken in adjoining properties in 2014 and 2015, show how archaeology now extends beyond digging to also compiling records of standing buildings which help document the past.

View of Salisbury Market Place, during process of excavation

08.05.2020

Salisbury Sites 14: Salisbury Market Place

As another week passes, we arrive in the Market Place, the trading hub of the medieval city and still, twice weekly, the home, since 1227, of the Charter Market. For those of you who know the city, this large open space was originally much bigger and extended from the south side of New Canal to include the area around St Thomas’ Church.

12.05.2020

Salisbury Sites 15: New Canal

The tour across Salisbury’s hidden archaeological landscape now moves to the New Street Chequer, where New Canal formed the south side of the Market Place, the hub of the commercial life in medieval Salisbury.

Archaeologists working at Old George Mall, New Street

22.05.2020

Salisbury Sites 16: Old George Mall, New Street

Last week we considered work at a site in the New Street Chequer. The results were not entirely satisfactory, because legislation did not then exist to safeguard archaeological remains within the planning process before any redevelopment took place. This omission was remedied by new planning guidance, introduced in 1991, which required that archaeological remains should be considered as part of the planning consent. The Local Planning Authority implemented this policy when another part of the chequer, the Old George Mall, was redeveloped in 1994-1995.

Wessex Archaeology's excavations at Brown Street seen in 1994

29.05.2020

Salisbury Sites 17: Ivy Street and Brown Street

The number of archaeological projects undertaken in Salisbury increased in the years after 1991. These projects were marked by ever improving standards of excavation, which reflected on the value of the results. It is with this knowledge that we approach the corner of Ivy Street and Brown Street.

04.06.2020

Salisbury Sites 18: The Red Lion

Our journey now moves to the northern end of Antelope Chequer. This area was originally named White Bear Chequer after the hotel, now the Red Lion, by which the establishment was formerly known until it was renamed in the 17th century.

12.06.2020

Salisbury Sites 19: Elim Chapel, Milford Street

We next move to Trinity Chequer, a block of land that has been subjected to more separate archaeological investigations than any other chequer in the city.

Excavations at the former Anchor Brewery on Gigant Street

18.06.2020

Salisbury Sites 20: Anchor Brewery, Gigant Street

Last week we focussed on a site in the 'back-lands’ of Trinity Chequer and saw how the findings helped fashion our ideas about land use and the appearance of the city behind the street frontages. We now move to those street frontages themselves.

03.07.2020

Salisbury Sites 22: 39 Brown Street

Our field of interest now resumes by moving to the west side of Trinity Chequer, on the Brown Street frontage at Nos 37 and 39 Brown Street.

Children visit the excavations at Nos 47, 49 and 51 Brown Street

10.07.2020

Salisbury Sites 23: 47-51 Brown Street

We now move a short distance to our next destination, three tenements, Nos 47, 49 and 51 Brown Street, where excavations sampled both the street frontages and the ‘back-lands’.

17.07.2020

Salisbury Sites 24: Love Lane

Many of Salisbury’s streets bear unmistakable links with trades and professions of the sort perpetuated by Fish Row and Butcher Row. These names carry useful hints of their medieval roots and local inhabitants; such being Love Lane, which has traditional links with the city’s ‘red-light’ district.

24.07.2020

Salisbury Sites 25: Emmaus and Damascus House

So far in this journey through the archaeology of Salisbury we have been concerned with examining sites which relate to the medieval city. We now ‘hop over the fence’ from last week’s site in Love Lane to travel back further in time and encounter communities who occupied the area before the city was founded.

View of excavation at Tollgate Road and Fowlers Hill

31.07.2020

Salisbury Sites 26: filling in the gaps

So far in this weekly series we have considered Wessex Archaeology’s work in Salisbury on a site-by-site basis highlighting aspects of the archaeology and what that tells us about the city and the people who lived there.

07.08.2020

Salisbury Sites 27: The Close

We now draw towards the most notable feature on the city skyline, the cathedral with its imposing spire. The building is surrounded by the Close, the largest of its type in Britain, which was carved out of the greenfield, to accommodate the cathedral, the bishop and other officers of the church.

10.08.2020

Salisbury Sites 28: The King’s House, The Close

This week we stay in the Close and focus on one particular building, its archaeology and role in communicating the subject to a wider audience. The King’s House formed the original Prebendal residence of the Abbot of Sherborne in Salisbury.

04.09.2020

Salisbury Sites 31: St Thomas's Church

This week we feature another of the principal religious buildings of the city, St. Thomas’s church, and include a contribution made to its study by geophysics – ‘geofizz’ to many watchers of TV!

11.09.2020

Salisbury Sites 32: The Maltings

Just like London busses, religious sites in Salisbury arrive together. In the past few weeks, we’ve progressed from the cathedral, to St Thomas’ church and now arrive on the west bank of the River Avon, immediately north of Fisherton Bridge, where a friary of the Dominican Order was located.

A view looking over the water meadows to Salisbury Cathedral

18.09.2020

Salisbury Sites 33: Mud, mud glorious mud! The archaeology of the flood plain

Water, and its management, together with the associated archaeology of the flood plain, forms an important part in any study of the city. The subject remains as relevant today as ever, when issues of global warming and flood relief are discussed increasingly.

25.09.2020

Salisbury Sites 34: Back to the Iron Age

Much of the work to unravel Salisbury’s past has centred on the archaeology of the city and its medieval remains. However, our journey has acknowledged that people lived in the area long before the city was conceived. We therefore turn our attention back in time and where better to start than in the Iron Age (800BC – 43 AD) with the formidable defences of Old Sarum.

An artist's interpretation of Mesolithic life: three people sit around fire, a boy holding a fish stands next to them

02.10.2020

Salisbury Sites 35: 120 Fisherton Street, Salisbury

In 2007 Wessex Archaeology excavated two small trenches at 120 Fisherton Street before the site was redeveloped.