Colchester Archaeological Trust

CAT Report 512: summary

An archaeological evaluation on land adjacent to 9 Walters Yard, Colchester, Essex: April 2009
by Ben Holloway and Howard Brooks

Date report completed: May 2009
Location: land adjacent to 9 Walters Yard, Colchester, Essex
Map reference(s): TL 9955 2537 (c)
File size: 443 kb
Project type: Evaluation
Significance of the results: *
Keywords: Roman clay floor, medieval robber trench, post-medieval pit

Summary. This site is on the eastern side of Insula 11 of the Roman town. An archaeological trial-trenching evaluation established that the highest significant archaeological horizons were Roman in date, and were at depths ranging from 1.0m to 1.4m below present ground-level. The Roman horizons were overlaid by a considerable depth of post-medieval and modern strata. As would be expected in the Roman town, the post-medieval soils contained a quantity of Roman brick and tile and other building material derived from the robbing of Roman buildings in the vicinity. A robber trench marked the position of the wall of a Roman building (robbed out in the medieval period) which stood in the north-eastern quarter of the insula, and an adjacent fragment of compacted clay represented the floor of a Roman building probably pre-dating the robbed wall. Historic maps indicate that this was an area of gardens in the post-medieval period. That fact, combined with the gradual infilling of previous garden areas with new buildings during the 18th-20th centuries, would explain the depths of modern and post-medieval soils identified on the site.