Monument record 8720 - Excavated Roman deposits, north side of Princess Street

<1> Oxford Archaeology North, 2022, Chester Northgate Redevelopment: Phase 1 Post-Excavation Assessment Report, R4690 (Client Report). SCH9431.

A small area of cut features of Roman date were recorded in 2020-1 during groundworks undertaken during the Northgate redevelopment. 'Core Base 1' was a larger, deeper, intervention on the southern edge of the grassy knoll, adjacent to the north side of Princess Street. Most of the archaeological strata in this area had been destroyed already by later development. The four small, shallow features, one of which was an oval pit (feature 686, circa 1.2m long and 0.92m deep, with a rounded, bowl-shaped profile and a fine, pale olive-green sandy silt fill), were cut into the natural clay and sealed by a thick layer of redeposited natural sandy clay (706, 707). This contained third century pottery and is thought to represent a levelling/make-up deposit. Spatially, the earlier Roman cut features appear to lie within the western end of barrack block B in Insula XXII.