Trench IX provided us with completely unexpected information, for several unrelated reasons. Firstly, we thought we had located the trench just to the south of one of the minor entrances, against the inside (western) edge of the so-called ‘concentric wall’. We did not find it. This was because we had used the concrete markers in the grass to locate the trench. In doing so, I had forgotten that they do not mark the ‘concentric wall’ (for reasons that escape me) and we had in fact located the trench to the rear of the outer wall.
As this trench was designed to look for the traces of the timber amphitheatre found in this area in 1968, the discovery that it was in the wrong place soon made us realise that we would not find any. Instead, we hoped that we might find traces of the outer wall. What we found was the side-wall of one of the minor entrances which, according to the concrete markers, ought to have lain a metre or so to the north. As with the location of the earlier trench whose edge we located in Trench VI, which was out by a metre according to the concrete markers, exactly the same thing had happened here. Has then entire site been laid out with the concrete markers off by a metre in an anti-clockwise direction? |
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What was especially important about this discovery, though, was that the wall survived to a much greater height than we had anticipated. We were over two metres above the arena floor and the top of surviving masonry was over a metre higher than the masonry in the east entrance. Potentially, parts of this wall stand over a metre high, which is the best preserved section of the main superstructure of the amphitheatre yet discovered. This has implications for how we might consider redisplaying the site if the opportunity arose. Knowing that parts at least of the outer walls survive, it might be possible to expose those, too, so that the site is no longer just a hole in the ground with a stone lining (the arena wall).
It is also important that we found the robber trench and were able to excavate the deposits it had been cut through. Because of the nature of the 1960s excavations, we know next to nothing about the processes by the which amphitheatre fell into decay following its abandonment, its subsequent dereliction and ruination, and how the masonry came to be robbed out. The robbing was done so thoroughly that hardly any of the many thousands of cubic metres of sandstone that came on to the site for the construction of a massive building (remember, the outer wall stood at least 11.5 metres high and was 2.4 metres thick at the base) now remains there. If the amphitheatre had simply collapsed, we would be digging through solid rubble, not soil.
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These deposits contained only Romano-British pottery (subject, of course, to the confirmation by our finds specialists!). They were clearly abandonment deposits: the lowest we excavated (which shows up as a dark patch at the bottom of the face of the trench in the photograph to the left) was clearly part of a midden, or rubbish heap. The midden had begun to accumulate in the corridor that ran between the outer and concentric walls of the amphitheatre. This is not something that is likely to have occurred while the building was still in use. We know that it was abandoned by about AD 350, so the midden must belong to the later fourth century at the earliest. But it is not the first material to accumulate in the corridor. There are at least two deposits beneath it, which we did not have time to excavate. Both of these accumulated after the building was abandoned, pushing the date of the midden ever later. |
This means that there is a good chance that the midden belongs in the period about which we have virtually no archaeological information about Chester: the fifth to ninth centuries. Being a midden, it was full of organic débris, including animal bones and burnt wood. We took samples in the hope that we might be able to get some radiocarbon dates from them.
On top of the midden were the deposits that the robber trench had been cut through. These are the ones that contained only Roman material. This would be typical for sub-Roman (fifth- to seventh-century) and Saxon (seventh- to eleventh-century) Chester: pottery ceased to be used in any quantity in the region at the end of the fourth century, and only at the end of the ninth century did mass-produced pottery (so-called ‘Chester Ware’, known as ‘Stafford Ware’ if you’re in Shropshire) become available again. Even so, it was not available in large quantities, and many deposits that certainly belong to the period when it was in use do not contain it. Instead, they just contain Roman material, unless you are very lucky. Pottery does not really become common in Chester until the end of the twelfth century.
This could meant that the robbing of the wall that we can see cutting through this series of deposits could be as late as the twelfth century. So how can we set about dating it? Apart from the possibility or radiocarbon dating the midden, we can also look at the context of stone-robbing. Why was it done? We believe that it was usually to get building rubble for large masonry structures – the sort of material that would go inside massive walls that were faced with nicer, more recently quarried and shaped stone. When is this likely to have occurred on this site? Well, it can hardly be a coincidence that just a few metres from Trench IX stands St John’s church, traditionally the oldest church in Chester, believed to have been founded in 689 by King Æthelræd I of Mercia. This church might have been built from stone. On the other hand, there is a possibility that the date is wrong and that it should be in the reign of Æthelræd II (c 879-911). There was then a major building campaign in 1057, sponsored by Leofric, Earl of Mercia. This church was so grand that it became Chester’s first cathedral in 1075. The present building dates from the early years of the twelfth century. Any one (or a combination) of these dated events provides a plausible context for the robbing, which agrees entirely with the stratigraphy: seventh, tenth, eleventh or twelfth century, you pays your money and you takes your choice! It's also quite possible that the site was robbed of stone for some other purpose or at some other time. Such are the wonders of Dark Age archaeology in Chester!
There is clearly a lot for us to come back to on this part of the site, just like Trenches VI and VIII. Watch this space for further announcements and information about the project!