Archaeological Investigation of QUEEN SQUARE, BRISTOL
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I I I Archaeological Investigation I of QUEEN SQUARE, I BRISTOL I I I I I I I I I I I I Report No.466/1999 I I I Bristol and Region Archaeological Services I Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, Queen's Road, Bristol BSB lRL. Tel: (0117) 922 3580 Fax: (0117) 922 2047 Archaeological Investigation of QUEEN SQUARE, BRISTOL .centred on N.G.R. ST 58772 72561 Client: Bristol City Council Department of Planning, Transport & Development Services What can't Inventress Art and Labour do? This handsome Square from heaps of Rubbish grew; And tho' past Years the marshy Bottom saw Thick drizling Fogs from steaming Nature draw, No vap'rish Humours left, but only those Which Ladienickly Fancies discompose: Where Level-walks delightful Lanes display, There wat'ry Mud in deep Confusion lay. So, when Appelles drew his master frame, From jumbled Paint the pretty Venus came. So Holland's Province built on boggy Lands Consummate Neatness, and a Beauty stands: Thus (since the Objects Similies provoke) The whole Creation from a Chaos broke. Extract from 'A Poetical Description of Bristol' by William Goldwin (Master of Bristol Grammar School) London: Joseph Penn, 1712, 17-18. CONTENTS List of Illustrations Summary l. INTRODUCTION 2. THE SITE, LOCATION AND BACKGROUND. .................. .. 2 3. PREVIOUS ARCHAEOLOGICAL WORK ....................... .. 5 4. THE INVESTIGATIONS 7 5. CONCLUSION "II 6. BIBLIOGRAPHY. ....................................... .. IS 7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 17 Appendix I: Policy Statement Appendix 2: The Pottery and Other Finds Appendix 3: The Clay Tobacco Pipes Table I: Recovered material from sampled contexts, Trench 2 Table 2: Sample volume, weight and slag content, Trench 2 Table 3: Identification of material in slag samples, Trench 2 Abbreviations used in the text; aOD Above Ordnance Datum. BRO Bristol Record Office, prefix to document reference code. BUAD Bristol Urban Archaeological Database, prefix to site or monument reference code. NGR National Grid Reference. April, 1999. COPYRIGHT NOTICE:- Bristol and Region Archaeological Services retain copyright of this report under the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, and have granted a licence to the Department of Planning, Transport and Development Services of Bristol City Council to use and reproduce the material contained within. Plans reproduced from the Ordnance Survey mapping with the permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationary Office" Crown copyright. Unauthorised reproduction infringes Crown copyright and may lead to prosecution or civil proceedings. Bristol City Council, Licence Number LA090554, 1998. LIST OF ll,LUSTRATIONS Figures Fig.l Site and Trench location. Fig.2 Millerd's map of Bristol, 1673. Fig.3 Millerd's map of Bristol, 1710. Fig A Rocque's map of Bristol, 1750, with position of trenches overlaid. Fig.5 Plumley's map of Bristol, 1817. Fig.6 Archaeological investigations in the vicinity of Queen Square. Fig.7 Trench 1, main features. Fig.8 Section A, west facing. Fig.9 Interpretive illustration for P1.5. Fig. 10 Plan of Trench 2. Fig.ll Northwest facing section in Trench 2. Fig.12 Selection of finds; (i) Early-mid 17th century Nether Stowey dish with slip and sgraffito decoration, context 51, (ii) late 17th century North Devon dripping pan, context 27, (iii) barrel shaped bowl with initials IT and decoration incuse on heel made by John Tucker, 1662-1690, context 40, (iv) small pipe made by Richard Berryman 1619-1652 with initials RB separated by a dagger and heart incuse on heel, context 4, (v) and (vi) barrel shaped bowls with heels, context 50. Plates Cover View of Trench from the north after initial clean-up. Pl.1 Air raid shelters being excavated in Queen Square, October 1938. P1.2 View from the southwest of air raid shelter during archaeological investigation, December 1998. Pt.3 West facing section in air raid shelter after removal of back-fill. PIA Southeast facing section after removal of modern tarmac path, showing timber shuttering. Pl.5 West facing section after removal of modern tarmac path. PI. 6 Box Section in Trench 2, viewed from northwest. PI. 7 Nether Stowey dish, context 51, Trench I. PI. 8 Westerwald pottery from a vessel similar to that in Plate 9, context 2, Trench I. PI. 9 An example of a Westerwald mug, of late 17th century date, made in Germany with Roundel Medallion moulded with a portrait of King WilIiam III (1689 - 1702) (Gaimster 1997, colour plate 22). P1.10 Seventeenth 'century clay-tobacco pipes, context 50, Trench I. SUMMARY Archaeological excavations at Queen Square were undertaken by Bristol and Region Archaeological Services at the end of 1998 and early in 1999 as part of the program of restoration for the square by Bristol City Council, in partnership with the Heritage Lottery Fund. The aim of the project was to identify and record any features of the original 18th century layout of the square so that they could be incorporated into the designs for the restoration work. The archaeological trenches were positioned for optimum results based on cartographic evidence showing cross paths in the mid-18th century that have since been removed or superseded by the present diagonal path. This position was also chosen so that the possible location of a bowling green, shown on Millerd's maps of the 1670's, could be investigated. The evaluation revealed that one of the original paths had largely been removed by 20th-century work in the square, such as the construction of an air raid in 1938, while the other had largely been removed by the construction of the present tarmac path. Surviving elements of the 18th-century path were identified and investigated revealing that they were possibly constructed of gravel obtained from the River Avon near Saltford. The investigation also revealed that over 2.5m of black ash and cinder layers had been deposited on the area at the end of the 17th century prior to the construction of Queen Square. Analysis of bulk samples taken during the fieldwork and documentary research has suggested that this material is likely to have originated from a number of sources with the main bulk of the cinders deriving from the cleaning out of industrial furnaces, probably those of the glass houses. A sondage excavated at one end of the' trench revealed the alluvium at a depth of 7.l5m above Ordnance Datum, approximately 3m below the present ground surface. No evidence for the 17th-century bowling green was identified. I 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Queen Square in the centre of Bristol, (NGR ST 58772 72561) is one of the largest Georgian urban squares in England. It forms the heart of the City and Queen Square conservation area (designated in 1972) and is an historic public space listed within the Bristol section of the "Gazetteer of Historic Parks and Gardens in the County of Avon" (1991). Surrounding it are listed buildings such as the Custom House and the Mansion House. 1.2 It is intended by Bristol City Council to restore the "formal landscaped layout and setting" of Queen Square (Bristol City Council 1996, 6) and as part of the programme of proposed works an archaeological investigation was requested to add detail to what is known of the 18th century design of the square. 1.3 Conforming to a brief provided by the Bristol City Archaeologist, the project aimed to provide "evidence for the various elements of the square, pathways, edging treatments, drainage, borders etc. ,and their development through time" (Queen Square, Brief for Archaeological Investigation 1998). It was also the intention to examine the make-up deposits of the square and the buried alluvium of the marsh on which it was built. A further aim was to confirm the location and layout of a bowling green depicted on plans of the city by lames Millerd in the late 17th century. 1.4 The archaeological investigation was undertaken by Bristol and Region Archaeological Services (BaRAS) and was carried out, under the supervision of Peter Insole, between November 9th 1998 and March 17th 1999. The archive for the work will be deposited at Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery under the Accession Number CMAG.1998.0068. 1 B~RAS Report No.466{I999 Archaeological Investigation of Queen Square, Bristol. 2. THE SITE, LOCATION AND BACKGROUND 2.1 Queen Square lies on a spur of reclaimed land, immediately to the south of the city centre. It is surrounded on its west, south and east sides by the Floating Harbour. The square is underlain by alluvial clays which rest on Triassic sandstone and mercia mudstone and lies at an elevation of approximately iOm aOD. 2.2 The full historical background to the square can be found in "The Detailed History and Development of Queen Square" (Hughes, Root and Heath 1996), What follows is a short summary of the main historical points of the square's development. 2.3 The form of the spur of land in which Queen Square is located derives from the diversion of the river Frome from its original course, somewhere to the south of Baldwin Street and joining the river Avon in the area of Welsh Back, south to meet the Avon by Canon's Marsh. The diversion of the Frome was completed in 1247 (BaRAS Report BA/D209), leaving the spur bounded on its west, south and east sides by water. For the rest of the medieval period this area was marsh land which lay outside the city beyond the Marsh Wall, one of Bristol's defensive boundaries, which ran close to the present line of King Street. 2.4 In the later medieval period the marsh was used for a variety of purposes; the Bristol Corporation were taking revenues for grazing on the marsh from the city's butchers in the 16th century (Brett forthcoming) and the Mayor's Audit of 1557 mentions two rope houses in the area (ibid.).