Site Event/Activity record ECH5347 - Watching brief at Bluecoat School, Upper Northgate Street, Chester in 2011

An archaeological watching brief carried out to the rear of the Bluecoat School, Chester (1). Below the modern paved surface and its associated sub base was a deposit dating to the post medieval period though to represent eighteenth century lowering and levelling of the courtyard surface. This deposit contained a great deal of disturbed disarticulated human skeletal material. It is thought that these relate to disturbed burials associated with the hospital that occupied the site from the twelfth to the seventeenth century. Three partial burials survived at the base of the excavation and skeletal assessment indicates that these showed signs of osteo-arthritis and as such could relate to the hospital activity on the site. At the base of the excavated area a silty deposit was identified. This is though to represent the upper horizon of Roman activity on the site and produced a single sherd of black burnished ware, dating to the second to fourth century (1).