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No.57 October 2003 | Contex HOME LECTURE REPORT EXCAVATIONS AT FENCHURCH STREETROSE BAILLIEThere was a special reason for wishing to hear about Wessex Archaeology’s recent excavations at 60-63 Fenchurch Street. The site was in front of Fenchurch St BR station and only yards from our meeting place, St Olave’s Hall. The area excavated was in the footprint of the previous building and extended over almost all of the area available. Those who went on our site tour in 2002 will recall various portacabins stacked vertically on the edge of the development. Vaughan Birbeck told the July meeting that post excavation analysis had divided the archaeology into 10 periods, from the prehistoric to post medieval. However as the higher stratigraphy was most damaged by later disturbances, it was the Roman period that yielded the fullest picture. The story began in the Middle to Late Iron Age, from which a portion of buried topsoil was found together with pottery and pollen grains indicating a lightly wooded habitat. The Roman period (50-70AD) began with the digging of boundary ditches that foreshadowed the later major road, and a strange corpse. Namely that of a middle-aged or elderly man, who was discovered in a ditch, with his lower legs missing and the partial skull of a younger woman placed between his stumps. Some cremation burials of this period were also found, thought to be outliers of a cemetery nearby, that appeared to have been damaged by ploughing. Perhaps these are traces of deliberate desecration of the cemetery during the Boudiccan revolt, although this must remain speculative. Subsequent Roman development of the site was determined by the building of a major road across its north side. This was a proto-Fenchurch Street, from the East Gate at Aldgate to the Forum. Five thick, compacted gravel surfaces were identified, with a Flavian period coin in the lowest deposits. The later 1st Century buildings on the site were of clay and timber. They appear to have been used for workshops e.g. or iron or glass working, or for roadside shops or warehouses, and to have burnt down with almost monotonous regularity. One at least had the sophistication of painted plaster on its clay walls and to have lasted long enough to have several layers of flooring. The early 2nd Century saw the continuation of metal working on the site, with copper as well as iron being worked, as shown by hammer scale, crucibles and slag. An amphora, with its neck removed and heat damage around the top edge was probably used for a quenching process. The best find from this period was a steelyard balance, but whether this was used by the smith or was one of his products is not known. The aroma of the neighbourhood was not improved by the close proximity of middens. The next phase, c. AD 120-30, saw the first appearance of stone buildings. One with scanty remains of opus signinum and tessellated floorings surviving may have been domestic. These buildings themselves later underwent modifications, but their large hearths suggest they were still predominantly used for some manufacturing process. In one was found a mystery iron artefact that may be some sort of fire-grate. The later Roman levels were truncated and the story resumed in the 11-13th Century with masonry buildings, since heavily robbed, and a large number of intersecting cess and rubbish pits. Horn working and tanning may also have been going on. St. Olave’s neighbours continued to be a smelly lot, and a bit weird. One pit contained a unique animal burial of mid 14th – 15th Century: a complete pig, with a cat whose hind legs were in the pig’s mouth. Where the cat’s skull ought to have been was the skeleton of a bird. Another pit nearby contained a complete, but skinned cat. A nicer find was a goblet in ‘Tudor Green’ fabric. Maps of the late 18th Century show the area of the excavation as being in the back yards of buildings fronting Fenchurch St, but it was completely built over by 1847. The new office building on the site can therefore be seen as only the latest in a long series of predominantly commercial premises in this small slice of the City. Further
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