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No.58 January 2004 | Contex HOME

EXCAVATION REPORT

COLAS in Cable Street, E1
Alan Thompson

Original contact with Dave Lakin of MoLAS was made in May, 2003, by Mr Mark Willingale regarding work to be carried out to the basement of his terraced house at Cable Street, E1. During the preparation work he had come across what he believed was an old brick-lined cesspit in the rear garden, beneath an old external WC. The terraced house is shown on Horwood¹s 1813 edition map but not on the 1799 edition, and from pavement tax notes Mark Willingale estimated that it was built around 1806 and that this was the probable date of the cesspit. The external WC is shown on the 1873 OS map edition, so the cesspit would have been filled in by then. Excavation for a garden terrace already recovered a number of clay pipes, pottery and oyster shell fragments. The house is grade 2 listed and the works had listed building consent, but there were no conditions on archaeology.

The request to MoLAS from the owner to examine the brick-lined pit was thought to be a suitable project for a local archaeological society to undertake. It was offered to COLAS through the good offices of Vanessa Bunton (at that time Community Archaeologist for the Museum of London), as Shadwell is a particular interest of the Society in relation to other work it is currently doing in the area. On Monday 2nd June I was asked by Vanessa Bunton if I would oversee the work, which was carried out over the weekend of 7th and 8th June, 2003, with a hastily drummed up team of COLAS members and splendid help from Nigel Jeffries of MoLSS (who did some digging and spot dating of the pottery recovered).

As mentioned above, the excavation was of a single feature in the back garden of the terraced house and represented a brick-lined rubbish/cess pit which produced at least four deposits containing pottery, glass, clay pipes and animal bone, etc. The brick lining was well built and consisted of 25 regular courses of brick, laid in a random header and stretcher bond. Only the top two courses were bedded in mortar (light cream in colour, hard and sandy in texture, with no other inclusion), all other courses of brick were laid directly on top of each other, with minimal gap separating them. Bricks measured c. 220 x 100 x 50mm (some had slight depression, frog, on top surface of brick), most of which were red-brown in colour, with some red-orange and some cream-yellow.

The brick-lined feature sloped/stepped out with each course to form a batter from top to bottom, and in plan was roughly oval in shape. The east wall of the feature (top course of which was half bricks laid against the garden boundary wall of the property) was reasonably straight, as was the western wall. Both the north and south walls had rounded corners where the brick courses haphazardly/alternately interleaved across the corners to complete the shape. At the top of the feature and in the south-west corner was a square opening (drain/culvert), capped with a stone slab.

After the deposits within the brick-lined feature had been removed, it was noticed that the next deposit ran under the lowest course of brick. The deposit was only examined briefly and seemed to directly underlie the cut of the brick lining, or it may be a deposit into which the brick-lined feature had been constructed.

My thanks for their efforts over the weekend to Vanessa Bunton, Carol Bentley, Nigel Jeffries, Jan Thompson, Linda Jarvis and Ro Michaels. Also I would like to thank Mark Willingale and his family for their patience and understanding, especially as the feature deepened in their back garden, and lots of people tramped all over their property.

Since the above was written we have started processing material recovered from the site and have completed the washing and marking of the pottery, as well as formally spot dating it onto record sheets with Nigel Jeffries (MoLSS). In December 2003 we started accessioning the finds, and this and other elements of the processing will go on into 2004. To this end we need help from COLAS members (a sort of "on call" team), on the first and third Saturday of each month at LAARC, who will be prepared to assist with this work. If you are interested please contact mail@colas.org.uk.