Source/Archive record SCH6940 - The Medieval Plant Remains from Rock-Cast Pits at Watergate Street, Chester, Cheshire: New information on food remains

Excavations in the 1980s by the Grosvenor Museum at Watergate Street identified a series of pits, one of which contained a large amount of organic refuse and pottery dating to the thirteenth century. Samples taken from the pit yielded cereal remains with fragments of cornfield weed seeds that had probably been milled with the grain, consumed and defaecated. There were some charred grains, peas and beans, perhaps from household waste. There were also fruitstones and pips, and small fregments of Allium epidermis and a leek seed, also waterlogged pea and bean fragments.The importance of the material is its good level of preservation that allows new insight into past diet and farming.