St Peter's Wharf

1 August 2008

Museum of London Archaeology Service (MoLAS) archaeologists, supervised by Nikki Rahmatova, are currently excavating parts of this Citygrove retail development site in central Maidstone.

In 2006, a substantial stone-built medieval drain, associated with a 13th-century monastic hospital (St Peter and St Paul's, or the Newark Hospital, which lay to the west of the site), was discovered during a watching brief on remediation of a former gasworks.

A new planning consent called for further evaluation and for preservation of the drain in situ. MoLAS has now exposed its full extent on site (c. 33 m), running down to the River Medway to the east. MoLAS has also accurately ‘surveyed in’ the structure so that the client's engineers could redesign new foundations to bridge the drain, and advised on the appropriate piling regime. This was all done in consultation with the Kent County Archaeologist.

Unexpectedly, human burials, presumably associated with the hospital or its chapel (later St Peter’s Church after the Dissolution), were found during this exercise. These are also being excavated where the new building might otherwise have an impact. The latest discovery on site is a well, with a domed 19th-century brick capping over a possibly earlier stone shaft. It still contains water at about four metres below ground.