Site Event/Activity record ECH7105 - Grosvenor Museum Cellar: Service Watching Brief

On 11 November 2022, APAS carried out a service watching brief in the cellar of the Grosvenor Museum where a new drainage pipe was being installed to convey water from an extant sump in the cellar floor to a new outflow connection in the yard to the south of the main building. It had been understood that a section of the concrete floor of the cellar was to be cut out and this was thought to provide an opportunity to establish whether the concrete surface was founded on natural deposits or whether archaeological strata still survived beneath the cellar floor. The work occurred at approximately SJ 4047 6594. In the event only a narrow linear slot, c 0.1m wide, was cut to accommodate the pipe and this was not excavated to a significant depth below the bottom of the concrete. This was, however, sufficient to reveal a deposit of mixed orange sand and sandstone lumps which could represent natural bedrock although it is possible that it might also be evidence of a crushed sandstone sub-base established as a bedding for the concrete floor.