Site Event/Activity record ECH6470 - Oddfellows Arms, 64 Frodsham Street, Chester, Cheshire: Archaeological Watching Brief

Aeon Archaeology undertook an archaeological watching brief in 2017 as part of the repair and rebuild of a former cart lodge located to the rear of the grade II listed building, Oddfellows Arms, 64 Frodsham Street, Chester, Cheshire. The watching brief area measured approximately 7.7m by 1m. It revealed that the land to the rear of Oddfellows on which the cart lodge was originally built was set within a topographical depression, possibly a quarry pit that had subsequently been infilled with night-soil and refuse material from the medieval and post medieval periods. The Oddfellows finds assemblage comprised the following range of artefacts: a single fragment of late medieval pottery; 6 fragments of medieval floor tile, 67 sherds of post-medieval pottery, 19 clay tobacco pipe bowls, 22 clay tobacco pipe, 7 animal bones and 3 Oyster shells. The finds span approximately a 600 year period between the later medieval period through to the 19th century. Although unstratified and near a pub, the decorated medieval floor tiles nonetheless provide examples of designs previously recorded at religious houses elsewhere in Cheshire. The majority of the post medieval finds are typical for a dig located in an urban context however the density of finds is testament to the level of activity associated with a tavern in a large town. (1)