Monument record 8156/1/1 - Fortress Baths - Sandstone Block in the cellar of 59a Bridge Street Row

<1> Various, Written Communication to the HER, Leah, M. 23/08/2021 (Written Communication). SCH3756.

In 2021, a large sandstone block was exposed in this location which pre-dates the cellar. Given its massive size it may be Roman and something to do with the fortress baths. An overlain plan of the fortress baths shows a structure which coincides with this area. This was the open air pool in the south-west corner of the baths. The stone could be one of the walls of this or, given that the plot is not wholly exact, it could be a column base associated with the inner colonnade.

<2> Lloyd, K, Leah, M, Cootes K and Nevell, M, 2022, Cheshire Past in 2021. Part 1: Sites Investigated, p.50 (Article in Journal). SCH9331.

Following a visit to the Grosvenor Museum by the owner of the property, staff from the
museum and the Cheshire Archaeology Planning Advisory Service visited the address to
view a cellar that had recently been cleared of modern infill.

The cellar was accessed through a trapdoor in the floor of the property and a ladder. These led to a small brick-built chamber which provided access to the main cellar. This comprised a brick-built barrel vault area under the eastern part of the property, measuring c 6m by 4m, with the long axis aligned
north to south. In addition to the emptying of the cellar, a small area of the brick floor had
been lifted and the underlying deposits excavated. The finds from these layers contained
material of nineteenth-century date, so the cellar is not particularly early.

More significantly, the works had also exposed a large sandstone block, which measured c 0.8m square and possessed an apparent chamfer on its eastern face. The recent strata around the block were not excavated further, so the layers in which the stone was founded were not exposed and a definite date cannot be given. However, it is clearly not related to any extant buildings, and it is possible that it is of Roman date and was part of a structure connected to the legionary baths complex, within whose limits it lay. Interestingly, although this small surviving part of the bath’s complex has never been investigated, the records made during the construction of the Grosvenor shopping centre (Mason 2012, fig 32) show that this location would have lain at the western end of the open-air pool (natatio), in the south-west part of the baths complex. The stone may, therefore, be a surviving fragment of the western wall of the pool or part of an ancillary structure.

Mason, D J P 2012 Roman Chester: fortress at the edge of the world. Ed 2. Stroud: History Press