What is recorded here

Under Market and Emmet streets, a wide ditch dropped into the earth before human memory, then filled with its own cast-out soil. People cut shallow pits through that buried ridge, dropped kitchen scraps into them, and built small clay rooms at the edge of the ground. The layers record no grand event, only the patience of a town learning the shape of its own hole and living around it.

Archaeological testing (02E1671) on a development site at the junction of Market Street and Emmet Street identified medieval deposits (Duffy 2006) that were resolved under the same licence (Fallon 2006). A section of the large ditch (ME036-048039-) was one of the earliest features. This was sealed beneath an extensive layer (T 0.6-1m) that is interpreted as the outcast of the ditch (Fallon 2003, 14). A number of pits were cut through this layer but the surface from which they were cut had been truncated. The pits, all unlined and containing some domestic refuse, respected the position of the underlying ditch, but only one is described as a cess pit. The footing of an E-W wall was uncovered at the N extent of the development site with a number of metalled surfaces to the N that are interpreted as a succession of street surfaces interspersed with inorganic layers (ibid. 17), and the stone-lined well (ME036-048077-) could be contemporary. The well was sealed by mixed layers including burnt clays, ash and organic material, with post-medieval ceramics appearing in the upper levels. Two small, post-medieval, clay-bonded structures were uncovered at the SW corner of the site (ibid. 18). One (ext. dims 2.2m x 2.9m) is attached at its SE corner to the NW corner of the second (ext. dims 2m x 3.8m), with a mortar floor W of the latter. (Fallon 2006) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 9 July, 2019

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