Ÿþm I C R O S O F T W O R

Home , History of Shrewsbury, Shrewsbury

An Archaeological Watching Brief on the Shrewsbury South Central (Phase 3) Water Main Renewal

by H R Hannaford

Archaeology Service Archaeology Service Report Number 199 © Shropshire County Council September 2001

AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL WATCHING BRIEF ON THE SHREWSBURY SOUTH CENTRAL (PHASE 3) WATER MAIN RENEWAL

by H R HANNAFORD MIFA

A Report for

SEVERN TRENT WATER

Archaeology Service Unit 4, Owen House, Radbrook Centre, Radbrook Road,Shrewsbury, SY3 9BJ Tel: (01743) 254018 Fax: (01743) 254047 TELFORD & WREKIN COUNCIL An Archaeological Watching Brief on the Shrewsbury South Central (Phase 3) Water Main Renewal

CONTENTS Page No SUMMARY 1 1 INTRODUCTION 2 2 ARCHAEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND 3 3 THE WATCHING BRIEF 6 4 CONCLUSIONS 9 5 REFERENCES AND SOURCES CONSULTED 10 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 10

ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1: Meadow Place, showing the location of sandstone masonry (58); 1:500 scale Figure 2: Barker Street, showing the location of brick and sandstone walls; 1:500 scale Figure 3: Barker Street; a) walls 17, 18, & 19; b) wall 16: c) wall 20; 1:20 scale Figure 4: Barker Street; a) wall 23; b) wall 22; c) wall21; 1:20 scale Figure 5: Barker Street; a) walls 31 & 32; b) walls 29 & 30; 1:20 scale Figure 6: Claremont Bank, showing the location of the Town Wall (42); 1:500 scale Figure 7: Claremont Bank; the Town Wall (42), west-facing section; 1:25 scale Figure 8: Princess Street, showing the location of sandstone wall (26); 1:500 scale Figure 9: Princess Street; sandstone masonry (26), northeast-facing section; 1:25 scale

SUMMARY Between October 2000 and September 2001, the Archaeology Service carried out a watching brief on Phase 3 of the Shrewsbury Town Centre Mains Rehabilitation. A number of significant archaeological features were recorded where the new main was laid in open-cut trenches. Remains of a section of the Town Wall were uncovered on Claremont Bank. In Princess Street foundation remains of a part of Old St Chad's Church which had been demolished c.1793 were revealed. And in Barker Street, the trench for the new main exposed the foundations of medieval and post-medieval buildings demolished when the street was widened in the 1930s.

Archaeology Service, Shropshire County Council 3 Report No. 199 September 2001 An Archaeological Watching Brief on the Shrewsbury South Central (Phase 3) Water Main Renewal

1 INTRODUCTION In 1998 work began on the Shrewsbury South Central Water Main Renewal. The works covered by this scheme included the replacement of mains within the historic core of central Shrewsbury and some of its medieval suburbs. Phase 1 of the project was undertaken between autumn 1998 and summer 1999, and the areas affected included the area between Castle Street and English Bridge, Coleham, and Abbey Foregate. Phase 2 was carried out between September 1999 and September 2000, and comprised the provision of new mains in High Street, Mardol Head, St John's Hill, St Chad's Terrace, Castle Gates, Castle Street, Pride Hill, Butcher Row, Fish Street, St Alkmond's Place, Church Street, St Mary's Street, and St Mary's Place (west side).

A programme of archaeological works was put in place to accompany these works, according to brief prepared by Severn Trent's own Archaeological Consultant, in consultation with the Head of Archaeology, Shropshire County Council, and English Heritage. The Archaeology Service, Shropshire County Council, was commissioned by Severn Trent Water plc to carry out this programme of archaeological work, which was reported on in December 1999 (Phase 1) and January 2001 (Phase 2) (Hannaford, 1999 & 2001).

Phase 3 of the project was carried out from October 2000 through to September 2001. This phase primarily involved the installation of new 125mm mains; usually in open-cut trenches. Roads affected included Beeches Lane, Town Walls, Murivance, Crescent Lane, Milk Street, Princess Street and Market Street, Barker Street, Claremont Bank, St Austin's Street, St Austin's Friars, Swan Hill, College Hill, Cross Hill, Belmont Bank, and Barrack Passage.

Smaller access trenches were cut for pipe-bursting or slip-lining along other streets including Smithfield Road, Victoria Avenue, The Square, Belmont, and Castle Foregate.

Although, as with the Phase 1 & 2 work, it was anticipated that much of the ground to be cut would have been disturbed by earlier excavations for other services, the watching brief on Phases 1 & 2 of the works had demonstrated that the current mains renewal would inevitably involve some fresh disturbance to buried archaeological features and deposits.

The Archaeology Service, Shropshire County Council, was commissioned by Severn Trent Water plc to carry out the programme of archaeological monitoring of the Phase 3 works, to the same brief as the Phase 1 and 2 works. The archaeological monitoring was carried out between October 2000 and September 2001, and this report details the findings of this work.

Archaeology Service, Shropshire County Council 4 Report No. 199 September 2001 An Archaeological Watching Brief on the Shrewsbury South Central (Phase 3) Water Main Renewal

2 ARCHAEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND Shrewsbury is first recorded in 901 in a charter of Aethelred and Aethelfleda, and is likely to be one of the towns or settlements fortified by Edward the Elder and his sister Aethelfleda during their campaign of reconquest of the Danelaw. Coins were issued from a mint in the town by Aethelstan (929-939), and were issued by his successors up until the Norman conquest, suggesting that the town was fortified, as mints were allowed to operate only in fortified towns in that period. The exact site and layout of the Saxon defences or of the extent of the Saxon settlement are not known, although late Saxon pottery has been found from a number of locations in the part of the town centre bounded by Castle Street/Pride Hill, High Street, and Dogpole, and also from College Hill. Five of the towns principal churches are of Saxon foundation. (Old) St Chad's and St Mary's are generally thought to have been the earliest of the town's churches. St Chad's was an episcopal minster belonging to the bishops of Lichfield; its large rural parish has led to the suggestion that it had its origins as a royal (Mercian) foundation of middle Saxon date. The church is traditionally thought to have been founded by King Offa of Mercia in c. 780, though there is no documentary confirmation of this.

Following the Norman Conquest, a castle was established at Shrewsbury c 1067-9 by Roger of Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury. The construction of the castle involved the clearance or appropriation of 51 burgage plots in the Castle Gates area. The castle was immediately besieged by men from Wales, Cheshire, and from the town itself led by Edric the Wild. The siege was unsuccessful, and the besiegers fired the town before withdrawing. Nevertheless, by the time of the Domesday Survey of 1086, Shrewsbury was a large royal borough, with at least 252 houses and six churches. (Thorn and Thorn, 1986, C14 and notes; Rowley, 1972, 197; Bassett, 1992, 1)

By the 13th century Shrewsbury had grown to become a prosperous market town, one of the twelve wealthiest towns in the country, its prosperity based largely on the growing wool trade. Two bridges were in place by the 12th century; the eastern bridge was divided into two sections, known respectively as the Stone Bridge and the Monk's Bridge, together forming a structure at least 290 metres long, which crossed river channels separated by Coleham Island. In the 13th century the town was provided with stone town walls, the road into town from the Abbey through to the castle was paved, a new paved market place was laid out in The Square at the end of High Street in 1272-5, and new corporate buildings (the Guildhall and the Exchequer House) were erected. Private town houses were also being built for merchants and local landowners. The town continued to prosper and in the 14th century it rated as the 7th wealthiest provincial town in England. Thereafter began a relative decline as the importance of the wool trade declined, and in the early 16th century it was reported that a great many tenements within the town were in ruin and decay. (Baker, forthcoming; Stamper, 1989)

By the end of the 16th century, the town's fortunes had recovered, at least in part due to a switch by the local cloth merchants from trading in raw wool to dealing in cloth bought from Welsh farmer-weavers for shearing and finishing

Archaeology Service, Shropshire County Council 5 Report No. 199 September 2001 An Archaeological Watching Brief on the Shrewsbury South Central (Phase 3) Water Main Renewal in Shrewsbury. New public buildings were erected at this time; these included in the 1580s and 1590s new premises in School Gardens for the town's grammar school (founded 1552), and a new market hall in The Square in 1596; many of the towns other public buildings were also repaired and renovated. At the same time, a sudden growth in the town's population, which doubled to 6000 between c. 1550 and 1630, was reflected in the appearance of cheap, speculative two-storey row buildings of late 16th- and early 17th- century date in the town centre and particularly in the suburbs, including Coleham and Abbey Foregate. In the second half of the 16th century a number of attempts were made to bring water supplies into the town centre. A first conduit, built in 1555, brought water to cisterns on Mardol Head and Wyle Cop; this conduit was replaced in 1569-74. Water was brought in lead pipes from Broad Well, about a mile south-west of the town, and further conduits were provided to the top of Pride Hill, the Square, and the High Street. (Baker, forthcoming)

Through the 18th century Shrewsbury experienced a steady if unspectacular growth, gaining a reputation as a fashionable market town. Defoe described the Shrewsbury as 'a beautiful and rich town', 'one of the most flourishing in England' (Pevsner, 1958, p271) and a number of improvements were made to the appearance and facilities within the town at this time. One of these was the provision of yet another water supply for the town: in 1705 a large waterwheel was installed under the third arch of the English Bridge, and pumps and other machinery built on an adjacent island in the river channel; river water was then pumped through a 574 yard long 3.5" lead pipe up Wyle Cop to a cistern at the Butter Cross. In 1747 the Royal Infirmary, one of the first such institutions in the country, was opened, situated in the eastern part of St Mary's Churchyard; the present building, the work of Edward Haycock snr., dates from 1830. Other public works included the building of a new Shirehall in The Square in 1786 and a new county gaol on The Dana in 1793, and the replacement of the town's bridges by the end of the 18th century. (Baker, forthcoming; SMR file SA1496).

Shrewsbury's entry into the Industrial age was marked by an expansion of the suburbs on all sides of the town. The town was linked to the national canal network in 1790s with the construction of the Shrewsbury Canal, with a terminus at Castle Foregate, and the railways reached the town in 1848; by the 1860s the town had two stations, in Castle Gates and Abbey Foregate. Although agriculture and trade were still of major importance to the town's economy, by now it also had an industrial base, including coal and limestone mining to the south and east of the town, several iron foundries, and a lead smelter. And the worlds' first multi-storey iron-framed building, Charles Bage's Ditherington Flax Mill, was built c.1796 in the town's northern suburbs for another of the town's major industries.

The 18th and 19th centuries also saw a series of measures enacted piecemeal to improve sanitation and drainage: roads were paved, widened and regraded to facilitate drainage; by-laws were passed concerning the disposal of waste, and the town's inadequate existing sewerage system was eventually replaced with the excavation of a number of new deep public Archaeology Service, Shropshire County Council 6 Report No. 199 September 2001 An Archaeological Watching Brief on the Shrewsbury South Central (Phase 3) Water Main Renewal sewers and the provision in c.1880 of a pumping engine housed in a building on the north side of Longden Coleham.

Archaeology Service, Shropshire County Council 7 Report No. 199 September 2001 An Archaeological Watching Brief on the Shrewsbury South Central (Phase 3) Water Main Renewal

3 THE WATCHING BRIEF Where the new main was laid in an open-cut trench, the trench was cut by machine, and was usually c. 400mm wide and about 700mm to 900mm deep (depending on obstructions caused by other services), and was cut in sections of about 25m to 50m length. Roads affected by these works included Beeches Lane, Town Walls, Murivance, Crescent Lane, Milk Street, Princess Street and Market Street, Barker Street, Claremont Bank, St Austin's Street, St Austin's Friars, Swan Hill, College Hill, Cross Hill, Belmont Bank, and Barracks Passage.

Meadow Place The new main was laid along Meadow Place before a watching brief on the works had been arranged. A local amateur archaeologist reported seeing red sandstone in the soil in the side of the trench between its western end and 23 Meadow Place, and between 24 Meadow Place and its junction with Castle Gates. And for a distance of about 5m east from the stone steps outside 24 Meadow Place, red sandstone blocks bonded in mortar (Fig. 1; 58) were visible in the north side of the trench. (I am very grateful to Mr J A Pagett for his observations on this section of the works.)

Barker Street The trench for the new main was cut along the west side of Barker Street. This side of the street had been cut back and widened in the mid 20th century, and not surprisingly the foundation remains and cellar walls of the buildings which had formerly fronted onto the street were revealed in the trench. Most of the walls revealed were of 18th- and 19th-century brickwork (Figs. 2 - 5; 16-9, 21-3, 29-31), and these were seen to correlate with properties shown on the OS 1:500 Town Plan of 1882 (and still preserved in a truncated form in the modern properties here). The tops of most of these walls lay immediately beneath the stone hardcore (14) of the modern road surface (13) and were buried in a deposit of very dark grey silty sand (15) with brick and mortar rubble. The line of the new main ran more or less along the frontages of these former buildings, for as well as the west-east aligned side walls of the properties, three stretches of end walls (19, 21, & 31) running along the street were exposed in the east side of the trench. One of these (21) still preserved an opening - either a window or coal-chute - into a cellar.

There was also one stone wall (Figs. 2 & 3; 20), of probable medieval date, aligned east-west at right angles to the street. The wall was mainly of red sandstone, bonded in a grey-brown mortar, but had been patched with buff sandstone and brick. The top of this wall lay 450mm below the street surface, immediately below the hardcore (14) of the modern road, and it also lay along one of the property boundaries shown on the 1882 Town Plan.

The remains of a second stone wall (Figs. 2 & 5; 32), probably also of medieval date, were seen at the northern end of the street. This wall, built of red and purple sandstone bonded in a buff-brown sandy mortar, appeared to have been largely cut away and removed by the insertion of an 18th- or early 19th-century brick wall (31).

Archaeology Service, Shropshire County Council 8 Report No. 199 September 2001 An Archaeological Watching Brief on the Shrewsbury South Central (Phase 3) Water Main Renewal

Claremont Bank Claremont Buildings on Claremont Bank are an early 19th-century terrace by Carline and Tilley, built before 1815 (Pevsner, 1958, p275). The road here, which had run immediately behind the Town Wall prior to the construction of the terrace (Rocque, 1746), was now widened out across the line of the Wall, with the new terrace being built outside the Wall line.

Outside no. 6 Claremont Buildings, the top of the Town Wall (Figs. 6 & 7; 42) was exposed in the trench for the new main. The wall and associated deposits were best seen in the west-facing section of the pipe trench, as other services ran along the western edge of the roadway, removing earlier deposits on that side. The wall consisted of red and purple sandstone blocks and fragments; its lower visible courses were bonded in a brown sandy mortar, its upper courses in a light grey mortar. The top of the wall lay just 300mm below the road surface, below the tarmac (40) and a layer of dark grey brown clay with pebbles and stone chippings (43). On the north (outer side) of the wall was made-up ground of grey brown silty clay sand with brick rubble, mortar, and pebbles (41) much cut about by other services. To the south (inner side) a deposit of brown silty sand (45) with small sandstone fragments, mortar, and pebbles butted against the face of the wall. A little further to the south, this deposit was seen to overlie a layer of brown sand with pebbles, cobbles, and rounded gravel (46). This deposit proved to be the natural subsoil; the top of the natural rose to the south to lie at a depth of 350mm below the road surface opposite St Chad's Cottage.

Princess Street Opposite no. 12 Princess Street, a sandstone wall (Figs. 8 & 9; 26) was seen in the northeast-facing section of the trench for the new main. The wall was bonded in a brown gritty mortar, and a length 4.3m long by 550mm in height was exposed, with the top of wall lying just 300mm below the road surface. The wall was set slightly into the natural subsoil (27) which here comprised a brown to greyish brown sand with rounded gravel and grit. A small deposit of grey sandy silt with pebbles (28) lay against the northwest edge of the wall. The wall was sealed by a deposit of greyish brown sandy silt with rubble and chippings (25) and the tarmac of the road surface (24).

The wall almost certainly represents the remains of one of the medieval outbuildings of the collegiate church of Old St Chad. The mortar suggests that the wall was probably early medieval in date, though there were no associated finds which might have helped to produce a closer estimate of its age. A building is shown in this location on Rocque's plan of 1746, on the eastern side of the 18th-century churchyard, and the wall exposed in the trench corresponds in location to the eastern wall of this building, fronting onto a Princess Street narrower than at present. This building is likely to have been demolished at the same time as or soon after the demolition of Old St Chad's church, following the collapse of its tower in 1788. The building had certainly been demolished and Princess Street widened by 1832 (Hitchcock, 1832; Woods, 1838)

Archaeology Service, Shropshire County Council 9 Report No. 199 September 2001 An Archaeological Watching Brief on the Shrewsbury South Central (Phase 3) Water Main Renewal

Archaeology Service, Shropshire County Council 10 Report No. 199 September 2001 An Archaeological Watching Brief on the Shrewsbury South Central (Phase 3) Water Main Renewal

4 CONCLUSIONS The watching brief on the laying of the new main found that much of the ground beneath the streets affected by the new main had been damaged by the laying of previous services in the late 19th and the 20th centuries. Only occasional and often casual archaeological observations were made during the course of these earlier works, and these have only been properly collated and referenced as late as 1997 with the compilation of the Shrewsbury Urban Archaeological Database.

In general, the present street pattern along the line of the new main has been in existence since the late medieval period at least (Speed, 1610). The watching brief on the Phase 1 & 2 works noted that it was generally (though not exclusively) in the areas where the present roads had evolved more recently or whose layout had been radically altered where archaeological deposits relating to the medieval town survived best. Examples included St Mary's Place and Abbey Foregate, the English Bridge area (where new bridges were built in the 1770s), or High Street (which had been cut back and widened in the 1780s at its junction with Fish Street).

The same was true for the Phase 3 works. Remains of medieval and post- medieval structures were revealed on the west side of Barker Street, where the street had been widened in the mid 20th century. These remains consisted of sandstone and brick walls, lying immediately beneath the modern road deposits.

The south end of Princess Street had also been widened, in this case at the end of the 18th or beginning of the 19th century. This road widening encroached onto the churchyard of the demolished Old St Chad's Church, and in the process demolished a building, shown on Rocque's 1748 plan of the town. Here the watching brief on the current works recorded the sandstone foundations of a possibly early medieval building, probably the one shown on the mid 18th-century plan. This building may well have been associated with the former medieval collegiate church of St Chad.

And on Claremont Bank the modern road line was extended outwards across the line of the medieval Town Walls, probably when the terrace Claremont Buildings was constructed in the early years of the 19th century. Again, here the watching brief recorded the remains of the medieval Town Wall immediately beneath the modern road surface. Some of the stonework of the wall was seen to have been bonded in a sandy, medieval-type mortar, but the upper courses of the wall appeared to have been consolidated in the post- medieval period.

Archaeology Service, Shropshire County Council 11 Report No. 199 September 2001 An Archaeological Watching Brief on the Shrewsbury South Central (Phase 3) Water Main Renewal

5 REFERENCES AND SOURCES CONSULTED Baker, N J, Lawson, J B, Maxwell, R, and Smith, J T, 1993: Further Work on Pride Hill, Shrewsbury, TSAHS LXVIII 1993, 1-64 Baker, N J, forthcoming: Shrewsbury: an Archaeological Assessment, English Heritage Barker, P A, 1962: Excavations on the Town Wall, Roushill, Shrewsbury, Medieval Archaeology, V, 1961, pp181-210 Bassett, S, 1992: Anglo-Saxon Shrewsbury and its Churches, Midland History, 16, (1991), 1-23 Burghley, 1575: map of Shrewsbury Carver, M 0 H, 1978: Early Shrewsbury: An Archaeological Definition in 1975, TSAS, Vol. LIX Part III, 1973/74, pp225-263 Carver, M 0 H, (ed.), 1983: Two Town Houses in Medieval Shrewsbury, TSAS, 61 (1977-8) Hannaford, H R, 1999: An Archaeological Watching Brief on the Shrewsbury South Central (Phase 1) Water Main Renewal, Shropshire County Council Archaeology Service Report No. 171 Hannaford, H R, 2001: An Archaeological Watching Brief on the Shrewsbury South Central (Phase 2) Water Main Renewal, Shropshire County Council Archaeology Service Report No. 193 Hitchcock, 1832: map of Shrewsbury Hobbs, J L, 1954: Shrewsbury Street Names, Shrewsbury Lawson, J B, in Baker et al, 1993, 44-45 Ordnance Survey 1882: Shrewsbury Town Plan 1:500 1st edition Owen, H, & Blakeway, J B, 1825: A History of Shrewsbury Pevsner, N, 1958: The Buildings of England: Shropshire, Harmondsworth Rocque, J, 1746: map of Shrewsbury Rowley, T, 1972: The Shropshire Landscape Rowley, T, 1986: The Landscape of the Welsh Marches Speed, J, 1610: map of Shrewsbury Stamper, P, 1989: "Medieval Shrewsbury" in Shrewsbury: A Celebration of 800 Years, Shrewsbury Wood, J, 1838: map of Shrewsbury Thorn, F and Thorn, C (eds), 1986: Domesday Book: Shropshire, Chichester

ABBREVIATIONS AOD Above Ordnance Datum DoE Department of the Environment OS Ordnance Survey SMR County Sites and Monuments Record, Shire Hall, Shrewsbury SRRC Shropshire Records and Research Centre TSAS Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological Society TSAHS Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological and Historical Society VCHS Victoria History of the Counties of England: A History of Shropshire

6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The writer would like to thank the staff of Severn Trent Water and of Kennedy Ltd, the contractors for Severn Trent Water, for their help and co-operation during the course of this watching brief.

Archaeology Service, Shropshire County Council 12 Report No. 199 September 2001 58

Based upon the Ordnance Survey mapping with the permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office © Crown copyright. Unauthorised reproduction infringes Crown copyright and may lead to prosecution or civil proceedings. Shropshire County Council. LA 076821. 30/08/01

SHREWSBURY SOUTH CENTRAL WATER MAIN RENEWAL PHASE 3 Figure 1: Meadow Place, showing the location of sandstone masonry (58); 1:500 scale 31-2 30 29

17 18 19

21 20

22 23

SHREWSBURY SOUTH CENTRAL WATER MAIN RENEWAL PHASE 3 Figure 2: Barker Street, showing the location of brick and sandstone walls; 1:500 scale N S

17 18 19

N S N S

13 13

20 15 15 15 1516 b c

0 1 metre

SHREWSBURY SOUTH CENTRAL WATER MAIN RENEWAL PHASE 3 Figure 3: Barker Street; a) walls 17, 18, & 19; b) wall 16: c) wall 20; 1:20 scale N S N S

13 13

15 14 23

15 15 1522 a b

N S

21 15 15

0 1 metre

SHREWSBURY SOUTH CENTRAL WATER MAIN RENEWAL PHASE 3 Figure 4: Barker Street; a) wall 23; b) wall 22; c) wall21; 1:20 scale NW SE

31 15 15 32

NW SE

15 29 15 30 34 0 1 metre b

SHREWSBURY SOUTH CENTRAL WATER MAIN RENEWAL PHASE 3 Figure 5: Barker Street; a) walls 31 & 32; b) walls 29 & 30; 1:20 scale 42

SHREWSBURY SOUTH CENTRAL WATER MAIN RENEWAL PHASE 3 Figure 6: Claremont Bank, showing the location of the Town Wall (42); 1:500 scale N S

43 44 45

42 41

0 1 metre

SHREWSBURY SOUTH CENTRAL WATER MAIN RENEWAL PHASE 3 Figure 7: Claremont Bank; the Town Wall (42), west-facing section; 1:25 scale 26

SHREWSBURY SOUTH CENTRAL WATER MAIN RENEWAL PHASE 3 Figure 8: Princess Street, showing the location of sandstone wall (26); 1:500 scale SE NW

25 sewer 25

26 26 28 27 27

0 1 metre

SHREWSBURY SOUTH CENTRAL WATER MAIN RENEWAL PHASE 3 Figure 9: Princess Street; sandstone masonry (26), northeast-facing section; 1:25 scale