Exeter College, Ruskin Building, Walton Street, Oxford

Between April 2014 and February 2015, Oxford Archaeology (OA) undertook an
archaeological watching brief at The Ruskin Building, Exeter College, Walton Street,
Oxford (SP 509 066). The watching brief revealed the banded gravel and clay
deposits which are characteristic of the natural geology on the periphery of the
second (Summertown-Radley) gravel terrace upon which Oxford is located.
The majority of the site had been subject to heavy truncation, both from the original
construction of the Ruskin College building in 1912, and from subsequent redevelopment
of the site in the 1930s, 1960s and 1980s. However, this truncation
was less severe in two areas of the site to the rear of the buildings fronting Walton
Street and Worcester Place. The watching brief on these two areas revealed a c
4.5m wide roughly east-west aligned ditch which almost certainly corresponds with a
section of the 17th century Civil War defences depicted by Bernard de Gomme on
his contemporary map of the fortifications around the city.
The lower fills of the ditch were waterlogged and contained organic inclusions which
were indicative of fluvial deposition of sediment in the base of the ditch. This may
reflect the location of this feature on the edge of the flood plain, and it may have
originated as one of a series of drainage channels shown on a number of
cartographic sources pre-dating the construction of the defences in the mid 17th
century.
The remaining deposits encountered reflect the use of this site as a timber yard in
the 19th century until the construction of Ruskin College in the early 20th century.