Latest Archaeological News from Worcester City - A very busy six months has concentrated on smaller projects which, at the time of writing, are still underway or reports are awaited.

An evaluation on the site of the former cattle market at The Butts (Mike Napthan Archaeology) showed that the lower courses of the city wall were preserved here, as well as part of the north aisle of St Clement’s church. This church is thought to have been built just before the Norman conquest (a unique gold coin of Edward the Confessor was found in the walls when it was demolished in the 1820s). St Clement’s had an extensive parish on the west side of the river (it was just next to the medieval bridge), and was replaced by the ‘new’ St Clement’s in Henwick Road. It also had a special responsibility for the river, and a floating church was in use for much of the 19th century before being parked on the old church site and used as a church hall.

A watching brief at 11 Edgar Street (Mike Napthan Archaeology) provided evidence of what may have been the medieval monastic precinct wall which now forms one wall of the cellar. Soft deposits are extremely deep here, probably because deep Roman ditches run below this area. Close by, at 26 College Street (Worcester City Council), the deposits are much shallower. Minor works to a cellar floor produced a slag surface of probable Roman date.

A much larger watching brief took place during the resurfacing of Fish Street (Mike Napthan Archaeology). Here, medieval occupation deposits occur almost immediately below the modern road surfaces. It was possible to avoid extensive damage to these, but where service connections and other deeper works were needed it was possible to do much excavation by hand. The reason for the very high level of these deposits is still uncertain - medieval deposits on the south side of Fish Street are generally buried about 1m deeper - but it may be associated with the Roman defensive bank which is known to have run through this area. The steep incline of Deansway between Copenhagen Street and Fish Street has long been thought to have been related to this feature. It may be, therefore, that the bank survived as an earthwork well into the medieval period, and that instead of being levelled later on, soil was dumped around it, preserving it intact, as appeared to be the case at the Lychgate Centre.

Finds from Fish Street included an almost complete medieval baluster jug, and several fragments of 17th century carved tombstones which had been discarded from St Helen’s church in the 1890s. A much larger block of worked stone was also found, which may have been part of a cross base.

Other work has taken place at St George’s Church (Sansome Place), King’s School (Mill Street), Diglis, City Walls Road, South Quay, the Hopmarket, and Sidbury, and reports on some of these will appear in a future column.