Monument record 14994 - Post Medieval Fire Pit, North of Main Street, Frodsham

<1> Aeon Archaeology, 2019, The Cheshire Cheese PH, 29 Main Street, Frodsham, Cheshire, WA6 7AZ: Archaeological Evaluation, R4343 (Client Report). SCH8750.

An archaeological excavation was undertaken in 2019 on land to the west of The Cheshire Cheese Public House (29, Main Street) in advance of the area being re-developed for residential purposes, including the conversion and refurbishment of the public house itself.

The archaeological evaluation identified a single feature at the site; a square, brick-built ash pit pertaining to a fireplace. Although no associated archaeological remains were uncovered it is almost certain that the fire pit belonged to one of the post medieval houses depicted on the 1846 Tithe Map as fronting on to Main Street and was the only structural element to have survived a phase of demolition at the site. The survival of the ash pit is due to it having been cut into the natural glacial substrata and thus situated at a lower depth to the associated house structure. The use of ash pits were common throughout the post-medieval period and functioned partly as a flue bringing air into the fire base, but also as a pit to collect the associated ash. These required regular emptying so that the fire would draw as efficiently as possible. Covering the fire pit was a large spread of wire-cut, unfrogged red bricks and black fly ash which were employed to level the area in advance of it being utilised as a car park. The wire-cut nature of the bricks suggests an origin somewhere near the beginning of the 20th century but the presence of modern plastic within the matrix of the bricks suggests that they were deposited within the last forty years.

Five individual artefacts were recovered during the excavation phase; two examples of clay pipe stems, a single sherd of Victorian blue transfer ware and two examples of Annular ware.