Winchester A City in the Making Oxford monograph 12 & Specialist Reports

This volume presents the results of two adjacent,
large-scale, archaeological projects that took place
sequentially between 2002 and 2007 within the
north-west corner of the historic core of the city of
Winchester. The two sites, Northgate House on
Staple Gardens and Winchester Library on Jewry
Street, were located on ESE facing slopes overlooking
the Itchen Valley, and it is precisely this
topographic position that shaped the earliest settlement
of the area and provided the legacy that influenced
all subsequent 2600 years of change and
development. The majority of the evidence focuses
on the 9th to 14th centuries, although significant
remains from the Iron Age and Roman periods were
also recovered.
The earliest evidence related to successive groups
of roundhouses positioned along a slight terrace
that followed the contour of the hillside dating to
the early and the middle Iron Age. The latter phase
was contemporary with a holloway located 50 m
down slope, which linked the northern and
southern entrances of a large enclosure called
Oram’s Arbour. The apparent linear nature of this
part of the Iron Age settlement, combined with the
lack of evidence for contemporary pits and other
settlement features, suggests a sustained and organised
layout with potential zoning of activities.
After a possible hiatus in activity, part of the
Oram’s Arbour enclosure was developed into a
major Roman town, Venta Belgarum. The principal
north-south street of the town was located at the
eastern edge of the excavation area, and took its
alignment from the pre-existing holloway. The
street was associated with a substantial stone lined
water channel/culvert that appears to represent the
urban continuation of the aqueduct located outside
the North Gate. Occupation during the early part of
the Roman period does not appear to have been
intensive, but included the remarkably wellpreserved
remains of a timber-framed house that
had burnt to the ground. In the later Roman period
there are indications of greater activity, with timber
structures aligned along the principal street. Further
upslope a focus of iron working activity developed
along a secondary east-west street, and another
property at some distance from these yielded a full
set of bone weaving tablets from its floor. A significant
amount of late Roman finds were recovered
from Dark Earth deposits that began to form in the
late 4th century, after which there is no evidence of
significant occupation until the imposition of
tenements in the 9th century.
Alack of modern development along the western
frontage on Staple Gardens (Brudene Street)
resulted in the very exceptional preservation of
nearly 350 years of structural development and
property usage for five neighbouring tenements.
There is also partial evidence for six other
tenements opposite these and a further three from
the contemporary parallel street (Snitheling Street)
to the west. Therefore, aspects of fourteen different
properties were excavated and analysed, and links
can be suggested between the archaeological data
and contemporary documentary sources.
A unique set of scientific dates was obtained and
used to create statistical models, which suggest the
urban tenement form commenced along Staple
Gardens prior to Alfred’s burh works in the late 9th
century. Nearly 1500 post-Roman small finds were
recovered, and for the first time from Winchester, a
collection of such significant size is considered with
reference to its full archaeological context,
documenting details of domestic and artesanal
activity and trends. These results combine with a
wealth of environmental data that provides information
on the occupants’ diets, the wider environment
and rural practices in agriculture and animal
husbandry.
As this part of the city became less intensively
used in the 13th century, the Archdeacon of
Winchester developed a large residence by amalgamating
a number of earlier properties, including a
small chapel, to create a ‘complex’ similar in form to
a rural manorial model. A handful of finds from the
14th and 15th centuries confirm documentary
sources that state the area was depopulated and
given over to ‘market gardens’ as the town
contracted.