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Feature archive

BDO04: 15-16 Bedford Street, WC2, watching brief, evaluation, excavation, PCA Archaeology Ltd

Summary

London Archaeologist Round-up 2004: Natural gravels were truncated by construction of the existing building but deep cut features, such as rubbish pits and cesspits, were recorded. The earliest of such features were seven mid Saxon rubbish pits recorded in the west of the site. Later features, dated to the 17th c, comprised brick-lined cesspits and a brick wall, also recorded in the western half of the site; this later phase is contemporary with the original layout of Covent Garden.

London Archaeologist Round-up 2005:  An excavation, following an evaluation in 2004 (LA 11, supp. 1 (2005), 21), found that features survived only on the western side of the site, cut into the natural gravels. Evidence for Saxon activity was represented by six pits of varying sizes dated to 7th-8th c. From the fill of one of the pits a large quantity of antler and bone working waste, including numerous comb blanks, was recovered, clearly indicating waste from a craft workshop nearby.  Another of the pits would have had a wooden base and its fill indicates that it may have been a cesspit. The next phase of activity was represented by a series of large 17th-c pits, probably a result of gravel extraction associated with the construction in 1631 of Covent Garden piazza and the surrounding roads.  Occupation was indicated by cesspits, drains and brick surfaces dating to the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.  The pits contained a large quantity of residual Saxon objects, including worked bone, pottery, fragments of lava quern and a spindle whorl.  From one of the 19th-c pits the waste from a printing press was recovered. The wall of a building - possibly external - was recorded towards the middle of the site; it had been constructed with reused bricks after the gravel extraction pits were backfilled.

 

 

Records

Project Planning Archive: project design (WSI), project brief

Site Archive: field records, photographic records, finds records, environmental records, reports, documentation 

Deposited media: hard copy, microfiche and selected digital records with metadata

Finds

Forty-eight finds boxes containing a range of prehistoric, Roman, Saxon, medieval and post-medieval finds