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M &S in Hereford is in the High Town, the site of
the City's Norman market place. The store is built on the site
of the northern part of the defences of the original Mercian
town. After Hereford was burnt by the Welsh under Gruffydd ap
Llywellyn in 1052, Harold Godwinson, who was then made Earl of
Hereford, widened and strengthened these defences. Harold was to
be the last king of England before the Norman Conquest.
When the old Greenlands department store,
which stood on this site, was
demolished in the 1960s and the new Marks and Spencer store was
built, there was no archaeological investigation done.
Such practices were commonplace in the 1960s. Now no such work
takes place without an archaeological project being fully funded by the
developer.
This excavation was beneath the basement
floor in advance of the construction of a new food hall. |
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Not just
archaeology .... but M&S archaeology. Cleaning preserved
timber structures beneath the floor of the basement. |
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'x' is the
position of M & S marked on this view of Hereford in
1142. The image was created by Enok Sweetland and based on a
model of medieval Hereford in the city's
Old House museum.
By this time the
new Norman-French market and suburb had developed to the north
of the old Anglo-Saxon town. It would be surrounded by a new
defensive circuit later in the century. |
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The narrow East
Street originated as the road behind the northern rampart of the
Anglo-Saxon town. The original rampart was on the left. |
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Hereford's old town hall stood in the market
place. Originally of three stories the top one was removed when
the structure threatened to collapse. The buildings behind it on
the left occupied what is now the site of M&S. On the right
is the entrance to Hereford
Butter Market
before the clock tower was built. |
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Some of the
complex and interesting archaeological stratigraphy underneath
the Hereford M & S store. This may be the northern edge of
the Anglo-Saxon ditch defensive which once surrounded the town. |
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Here the archaeologist is excavating timber wattle work. The
two circular features are later medieval rubbish pits |
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Exposed wooden wattle. The post on the right
formed the north east corner of a building or enclosure.
By the time this wattle was made the ditch
was long out of use as a defensive feature, but it still had
water in it.
Similar wattle was found in the Anglo- Saxon ditch when
the old City Arms hotel was rebuilt as Barclay's Bank in the
1970s
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The timber wattle in section - the section
exposed was fully excavated and retained for further analysis.
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The surface was laid in a thin band of clay
that covered natural gravel. There was no sign of the
southern edge to the Anglo- Saxon ditch.
Could this be the space or berm between the
rampart and the ditch? |
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Certainly the dating evidence suggested that
there was Anglo-Saxon period activity on this site.
'This
is a very unusual sherd the fabric is Stafford Ware
sometimes known as Chester ware (Fabric 48), and dates
from the mid 9th to early 11th century. The form is most
likely that of a lamp, although it is possible that it
could be a small crucible in which case it is rather
thin and has not seen a lot of use.' - Alan Jacobs of
Hampshire Museum
Services.
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'This
appears to be Cotswolds ware (Fabric 57) which was
dated from the early-mid 11th century , with the
possibility of them being 10th. They generally continue
into the late 12th century but this looks an earlier
form.' - Alan Jacobs |
