EDO6329 - Priory Cottage, Christchurch; watching brief 2011

A watching brief was maintained during groundworks on the ground floor commissioned by the Priory House Trust. Groundworks comprised the removal of a concrete floor screed and lifting of Purbeck limestone flags from the hallway and manual excavation of a linear trench of apx 300mm wide by 450mm deep. The trench revealed a stratigraphic sequence of 70mm thickness of Purbeck limestone flags laid on lime mortar and 40mm of rubble bedding. The flags extended the entire length and width of the hallway apparently supporting the partition walls and continued beyond the building. Beneath the flags layer there was a broad shallow depression apx 120mm wide by 40mm deep, parallel with the southern wall of the building, filled with fine grade lime mortar with lenses of orange hoggin and clean sand. Below this was rubble masonry wall foundation formed of large cobbles and boulders in coarse grit/lime mortar. This displayed definite faces along its south and north sides and appeared to be parallel with and supporting the south wall of the building apx 1580mm wide. This layer was consistent with medieval construction in southern England but too large for the existing building. It may be of early monastic origin and be part of a much larger building or the south wall of the cottage has been built on foundations of a precinct wall about 7m to the south. The base of the excavation was formed at 400mm and consisted of darkish yellowish brown silty sand with moderate quantities of flint gravel. A small quantity of modern building materials were found, clay pipe and post-medieval ceramics and not retained. A single fragment measuring 120x60x20mm of an encaustic floor tile bearing what might be part of a personal initials was recovered from the mortar bedding of the internal flagstones. This was retained and deposited with the St Michael's Loft Museum. The flags were undatable but probably 19th or early 20th century installation.