Site Event/Activity record ECH3237 - Investigations at the Nun's Field / Police Headquarters, Chester in 1964 (St Mary's Priory)

Permission for excavation on the site of the nunnery was granted in advance of the redevelopment of the site for the new Police Headquarters (1). The excavations mainly confirmed the position of the church and cloisters, the excavated evidence comparing reasonably well with the suggested plans of the nunnery from the Elizabethan period. Specialist studies of the medieval tiles recovered have also been undertaken (3). The walls of the church were recorded along with a substantial portion of the cloisters. A Partially completed stone mace head, with evidence of a perforation, was found on the spoil heap at the Nun's Fields / Police Headquarters site in 1964 (4). Additional information on other, Roman, finds is in the catalogue of Roman mirrors in the Museum (3). Excavations are published in detail as a monograph including more detailed references to earlier finds in 1939 (ECH2489) when a number of skeletal remains were uncovered. Although published by Newstead in 1948 the monograph includes a report on the bones not previously published (6). GIS has 1m buffer applied to the trench plan due to uncertainties with the georectification of trenches.