This barrel was found by archaeologists when the north
side of Sidbury was being cleared to make way for the
City Walls Road in the 1970s. It had been sunk into
a pit dug into one of the back gardens.
Usually organic
materials such as wood or other plant or animal remains don't
survive for long in the ground, and when they are found they
can be a very important source of information on life in the
past.
Only the bottom half of the barrel had survived, the end had
been removed, and it had been carefully set into a small pit,
supported by stones, to be used as an outside lavatory, probably
during the 15th century AD.
It was what was found inside the barrel which was particularly
exciting for the archaeologists - the remains of seeds, bones,
pollen, beetles and parasite eggs. The barrel would have had
to be cleaned out regularly, so what was found inside the barrel
must represent the last few months or even weeks of its use.
The seeds showed that the people living here had been eating
a wide variety of fruits. Some of these would have been grown
locally, such as gooseberries, strawberries and apples, but
others (figs and grapes) were probably imported from the Continent.
Other seeds included pear and bilberry, and herbs such as chervil,
coriander and fennel. Damson and sloe stones were also found,
though these had presumably been thrown in along with hay and
straw to cover the contents of the cess-pit - chicken and fish
(eel, herring and river fish) bones probably also made their
way into the barrel in this way.
The beetle remains were typical of medieval cess-pits, and eggs
of whipworm and roundworm showed that people here were infected
with these intestinal parasites.
Some wool cloth fragments were also found, coloured brown and
blue, and may be waste from tailoring.
