Conjectural 10th century 'burh' ditch, St Peter's Hospital (EHER 14725)

A small-scale excavation in 1992 recorded a ditch, 5m wide and a minimum of 1.6m deep, with gently sloping edges and a flat base. Towards the south-east edge a deeper channel had been cut along the base of the ditch. One of the lower fills for the ditch produced a single sherd of pottery, dated to the mid-late 12th century, and provides the best dating evidence for the ditch. Despite the ditch being on the projected line of the 10th century burh defence ditch (EHER 7766) it could not be interpreted as the remains of this earthwork owing to the lack of material of this date being recovered from the feature.

August-September 1992. Archaeological excavation. A ditch, 5m wide and a minimum of 1.6m deep, with gently sloping edges and a flat base was recorded. Towards the south-east edge a deeper channel had been cut along the base of the ditch. There were no obvious signs of recutting, but the possibility of cleaning out the ditch and/or widening it cannot be ruled out. One of the lower fills for the ditch produced a single sherd of pottery, dated to the mid-late 12th century, and provides the best dating evidence for the ditch. The upper fills of the ditch were mixed and contained a piece of wood, probably a tree branch that had fallen in, and some residual Iron Age pottery. The recovery of 12th century pottery make the identification of the earthwork with the 10th century burh ditch (EHER 776) problematical. No evidence was recovered to support the theory that the earthwork ditch and bank dates from the early 10th century and formed part of the Late Saxon burh. Pottery from the lower fills of the ditch suggests a medieval origin, but the absence of datable material from the primary fill and the possibility of later recutting of the ditch does not entirely rule out a Late Saxon origin. Nevertheless, the main part of the ditch was undoubtedly filled after the mid-late 12th century. For the earthwork to be of early 10th century date, the narrow channel at the base of the ditch would have had to have remained open for two hundred years or more, which seems unlikely, or have been extensively cleaned out or deepened. <1> December 1992-January 1993. Watching brief. During the subsequent watching brief the course of the earthwork could be traced for 15m, confirming that the feature was a ditch and not a large pit such as a quarry. To the south-east of the ditch, a feature was not fully excavated but appeared to be a curving ditch, 1m wide and 0.6m in depth. Pottery recovered were dated with a range between the 14th-15th centuries. <1> Note: The ditch appears to be on the same alignment as that recorded to the immediate north-east in 1985 (EHER 14727), which the excavators concluded was highly probable to be the burh defence, despite the apparent lack of late Saxon pottery from the fills. The results of this excavation (St Peter's Hospital) have concluded otherwise from similar evidence. The two records should be considered together, and in conjunction with the record for the burh defence, EHER 7766.