Site Event/Activity record ECH2825 - Salvage excavations at 26 - 42 Lower Bridge Street, Chester (Phase I) 1974 - 1976

Excavations carried out in advance of construction to the rear of 26 - 42 Lower Bridge Street, allowing for the investigation of the cellar and garden area (3). The first season of work from early summer 1974 to the beginning of the following year was limited to a long narrow trench on an east-west alignment and a more extensive one to the west (Areas I and II). Area I recorded significant post medieval disturbance from cellarage and pit digging. In Area II no significant evidence of Roman activity was noted with the earliest feature comprising a pebbled roadway on a north east to south south west alignment of a post Roman date (1). The significance of this excavation was how it has provided archaeological evidence for Saxon occupation in Chester and its architecture: showing the development of substantial, bow-sided cellared buildings laid out in the tenth century, which were then dismantled and replaced by structures used for tanning (10). Following the excavation of Areas I and II in 1974 - 1975, two further areas were excavated to the south betweem 1975 - 1976. The site is located on the western side of Lower Bridge St., midway between Castle St. and Grosvenor St., extending westwards for a distance of 45m. No traces of Roman structures were found, the only evidence of this period being several cess-pits and general spreads of accumulated refuse. The site appears to have been cultivated between the fifth and ninth centuries, when two timber huts were constructed. Later timber structures dating to the tenth and eleventh centuries were identified, when tanning-pits were present. Intensive occupation and construction activities continued until 1850 (1).