Monument record 10894 - Late Eighteenth Century Quarry Waste in Medieval Moat, Chester Castle

Two evaluation trenches were excavated to a depth of 2.5m in the parade ground of Chester Castle, the area adjacent to A Block, to examine the cause of subsidence at this location (1). It was confirmed that the subsidence corresponds to the location of the moat of the medieval castle, and at the base of Trench I was a substantial deposit interpreted as a dump of imported quarry waste (1).

It did not appear to contain demolition material from the medieval castle, but it did contain some brick and mortar indicating some building activity. The not infrequent pieces of sandstone were fresh and only roughly shaped. It is thought that the deposit dates to the Harrison reconstruction of the castle in the 1780s (1).

<1> Chester Archaeology, 1993, Chester Castle Archaeological Evaluation 1993, R2035 (Client Report). SCH4154.