Site Event/Activity record ECH5025 - Excavations at Chester Royal Infirmary in 1998 (Infirmary Site)

Large area excavated in advance of development proposals for a housing estate throughout the year. Results include a cobbled roadway of possible medieval date, possible Saxon pebbled surface as well as several Roman features, finds include medieval roof tile, bone toothbrush, sixteenth century Nuremburg jettons, and a Roman lion's head mortarium (2) some amber in the shape of a cockle shell (3) a seventeenth century cloth seal, a medieval cauldron leg and one of the earliest clay tobacco pipe kilns in the country dated to c 1630 (4) later work in Water Tower Street recorded a Roman hypocaust pila of local red sandstone (8). The road is on a north-south alignment with evidence of several phases of repair and continued in use until the eighteenth century. A large assemblage of medieval and Roman pottery and roofing tile was also noted. Roman features so far recorded include a gully running parallel to the roadway and a north-south V-shaped ditch. A large sandstone structure of a probable medieval date was recorded in the southern part of the site and may have been a timber framed building. Three possible cremations were also recorded (9). The clay pipe kiln was recorded in situ comprising a circular structure about 0.5m in diameter and made of brick and clay. No associated structures were recorded due to the extent of disturbance by the construction of the Infirmary (10). It is often possible to date features such as the pipe kiln from the typological analysis of the clay pipes that they produced, hence the Ancient Monuments Laboratory was contacted with a view to sampling the kiln to improve archaeomagnetic calibration information for the period. Unfortunately, despite the magnetisations of samples from the kiln being stable, it appeared that the feature had slumped since it was last fired and it was not possible to date magnetically. (15)