New Street Square (NSS05)

Clients: Land Securities plc

Author: Alison Telfer

Site supervisor: Alison Telfer

MoLAS carried out an extensive excavation and watching brief for Land Securities between April and October 2005 at New Street Square on the west side of the Fleet in the City. Five large buildings from the 1960s were demolished over this period in a phased operation with MoLAS working in several long trenches during the same period.

The area lay outside the Roman and medieval City but adjacent to the main roads leading to the west. Roman burials have previously been found in the vicinity but the area was not fully developed until the 17^th century.

In fact the site contained much evidence for the development of street patterns in this outer suburb of the historic City. The archaeological remains included 17^th- and 18^th-century foundations fronting the roads and probably representing several properties. Dumped deposits represented open field or garden activity and overlay possible Roman subsoil layers (though no Roman burials were found). Sizeable and interesting assemblages of domestic ceramics from the early 17th century, including much imported wares, were also recovered.

In addition, two late medieval field ditches were identified. Both ditches were likely to have been for drainage, but the latter also had the remains of a wall built along its southern edge . This probably represented a property boundary, although it may have been part of a larger structure. One ditch truncated an earlier Roman drain containing the remains of an iron 'collar' which would have originally joined together two sections of wooden drainpipe.

See also Archaeological strategies in France.

This site report is extracted from MoLAS 2005: annual review