Peter Davenport – författare

For almost three hundred years, excavations have been carried out in Roman Bath. At first these were rare and sporadic and archaeological finds were made by chance. Even fewer were reported. But from the 1860s, deliberate investigations were made and increasingly professional methods employed. The Roman Baths were laid open to view, but little was published. From the 1950s, interest accelerated, professionals and amateurs collaborated, and there was never a decade in which some new discovery was not made. The first popular but authoritative presentation of this work was made in 1971 and updated several times. However, from the 1990s to the present there has been some sort of archaeological investigation almost every year. This has thrown much new and unexpected light on the town of Aquae Sulis and its citizens. In this book, Peter Davenport, having been involved in most of the archaeological work in Bath since 1980, attempts to tell the story of Roman Bath: the latest interim report on the ‘Three Hundred Year Dig’.

This report describes three excavations within the town and some other fieldwork, including Swallow Street where substantial Roman foundations underlay late Saxon material. In Abbey St a Roman mosaic and post-Roman burials were excavated. The report includes finds from these sites, and other field investigations around the city.

Excavation of approximately a third of a hectare in the north-western part of the historic core of Worcester revealed evidence for activity dating from the Roman to the post-medieval and early modern period. The deepest deposits were recorded in geotechnical and archaeological boreholes, and in two sondages: the rest of the site was excavated to the depth of formation level for development. The earliest feature was a Roman road running on the approximate alignment of the present-day Newport Street. Deposits relating to road construction and ground consolidation comprised metal-working waste, with finds of later 2nd to 3rd-century date. No in situ evidence of Roman occupation was excavated. These levels were sealed by alluvial deposits. In the early 13th century the area was divided by boundaries, which were consolidated during the subsequent medieval and post-medieval periods into building plots with frontages onto both Newport Street and Dolday. The Newport Street frontage was developed with substantial stone and timber buildings, some over stone-built cellars. A series of ovens, hearths, structures and surfaces suggest a mixture of craft and domestic activities took place in the back plots of these properties. The style, construction and layout of some of the medieval buildings, coupled with artefactual and environmental evidence, suggest the occupants were relatively prosperous. The major plot boundaries changed little throughout the post-medieval and early modern period, although documentary research indicates a complex history of ownership and holdings featuring sub-division, amalgamation and multiple occupancy. The street frontages of both Newport Street and Dolday continued to be occupied throughout the post-medieval and early modern periods. Open spaces and structural remains, including wells, hearths, ovens and cess pits, in the back plots reflect a variety of activities associated with trade and domestic activity. Finds and environmental evidence has helped to link some of these structures to trades associated with the owners and occupants known from historical records. The remains of bread-ovens, a bake-house, a malthouse and a warehouse for hemp have been identified, and there is more tentative archaeological evidence for cordwaining, cloth-making, brewing and distilling, the latter trades replacing cloth-making as that trade declined in the 17th and 18th centuries. The sub-division of properties and the crowding of small cottages into the back plots during the 18th and 19th centuries reflect the increase in residential occupancy that resulted in over-crowding and a decline in status for this area of the city. The excavations represent the first large-scale archaeological investigation of this part of Worcester. The results complement those of previous major investigations of the Roman and medieval town and provide valuable insights into the economic and social status of the medieval town’s expansion onto the former floodplain. An integrated approach, analysing all aspects of the archaeological evidence in combination with detailed study of the available documentary and historical sources, has been particularly valuable in achieving an understanding of the site in later periods, providing the first major archaeological study of the post-medieval development of the city.