EDO4972 - 7-9 Milhams Street (Site X4), Christchurch; excavation 1971

R. A. Hills conducted an excavation at 7-9 Millhams Street, Christchurch during 1971 in advance of development. Five trenches (A-E), each roughly 4m x 2m and a 1m square test pit investigated the slope at the rear of the tenement. All trenches had similar startigraphies with modern topsoil overlying dark grey andy subsoil mixed with clay which increased in thickness down slope and contained mixed medieval and post-medieval finds. Sixteen pits and post-holes with few finds were cut into the natural sand in trenches A-C. Trench E contained a dark grey sandy layer dated to the mid 14th-15th century. In trenches D and E a layer of heathstones overlay a layer of brown clayey soil, probably derived from the town defences and post dating the 14th century. Trenches A-C were excavated to natural but Trenches D-E only to the water table, 2.4m below modern ground level. At this depth the top of a drystone wall [F17] of limestone and ironstone with vertical stakes (0.05m diameter) and one course of horizontal wattling, was observed. The test pit F located stones in a clay matrix at a depth of 1.8m. Following the demolition of houses on the street frontage a further trench (G) investigated the Millhams Street frontage. Three undated features were excavated in this area and brick and stone walls, which suggest at least two periods of construction. The excavations suggest that the defences were robbed from the mid 14th century and that the surrounding marshy meadowland was gradually encroached upon from this time. The street frontage of Millhams street was not extensively occupied before the later post-medieval period.