EDO5634 - Land to the rear of the Angel Inn, St Aubyn's Court, Poole; observations and recording 2003

Terrain Archaeology carried out a watching brief during the digging of the footings for a new development on land to the rear of the Angel Inn, 28 Market Street, Poole. The development consisted of five new houses on the southern side of the site, now known as Angel Mews. Groundworks consisted of strip footings for the walls. These were excavated using a mechanical excavator. Before the observations, the ground level of the site was reduced by up to 0.3m. Most of the footings trenches were observed, though most of the south wall footings trench had been filled with concrete prior to observations. A feature was uncovered in the southwest corner of the site. It measured over 1.8m wide with steeply sloping eastern side and flat base, and cut about 0.55m into the natural sand. The entire profile of the feature was not found. A circular brick-built structure was exposed immediately below the surface of the yard. This was a brick-lined circular shaft about a metre in diameter with vertical sides over 3.6m deep. This was capped by flat concrete slabs. This structure was probably an ice well. Thirty two sherds of pottery were recovered from the same context (context 2) mainly from the surroundings of the ice well. Two sherds of medieval pottery were recovered, while the rest were post-medieval in date. Seven fragments of tobacco pipe were found in context 2 of 19th century type, while three fragments of glass were recovered, all indicative of 19th century date or later.