CAER: Chester Amphitheatre Environs Research Project

After a bit of a slow start quite a large assemblage of finds has been retrieved over the last 3 and a half weeks and predictably this week the excavation of part of a ditch running north/south across the site is producing bags and bags of animal bone and pottery. Last year’s backfill produced an amazing range of finds: clay tobacco pipes, lead shot, fragments of Samian pottery, as well as Westerwald stoneware and post-medieval Spanish olive jar and a variety of other post-medieval wares, including slipware dish fragments, blackware vessels and pieces of Cistercian ware cups. It’s interesting to see what ended up on last year’s spoil heap rather than in finds trays but it is easy to miss fragments when it’s wet and muddy. Once the backfill had been removed the quantity of clay tobacco pipes found fell considerably and stopped completely after the last of the 17th century demolition deposits were removed from the south side of the trench. It looks as if we are firmly in the 16th ce...

Julie, our finds expert, hghlights some of the great artefacts uncovered so far: A quick update on finds. We’re continuing to find large amounts of building materials: roof slates, ceramic crested ridge tiles in white and red fabrics, mortar, white wall plaster, brick, apparently structural ironwork and floor tiles. Most of the floor tiles are medieval with two colour or line impressed designs but a few fragments are from large square tiles which are possibly late 15 th or early 16 th in date. These tiles have two types of design: one is   line impressed with floral (daisy like) designs similar to those found at the 25 Bridge St excavations in 2001, the other   has unglazed relief moulding   and is similar to tiles found associated with the redesign of the west entrance of Chester Cathedral in the early Tudor period. Some of the medieval designs are types that have appeared in previous seasons a griffin and the remains of this stylised lion’s head (14 th centur...