urban archaeology

Excavating the Oxford Jewry

The dominance of skeletal fragments from domestic fowl, and the absence of pig specimens and species of fish other than herring, which is kosher, provides evidence that the inhabitants followed a Jewish diet.

LEFT The waterlogged deposits permitted spectacular preservation of wooden artefacts. This 13th century wooden head, which probably belonged to a staff, was found lying in a medieval ditch.

The Follo Line Project: Exploring medieval Oslo

Since 2013, the largest infrastructure project in modern Norwegian history has granted a team of more than 40 archaeologists an extraordinary glimpse of medieval Oslo. One of the biggest questions they aimed to answer is what the medieval town really looked like. Thomas Wrigglesworth shares some of their discoveries.

Left Many of the ornate tiles used in the Mayfield Baths were found during the excavation.

Victorian bathhouse revealed in Manchester

The remains of a Victorian bathhouse have recently been discovered beneath a car park in the Mayfield area of Manchester. The site was excavated by archaeologists from the University of Salford’s Centre for Applied Archaeology in advance of the development…

Above More than 350 skeletons were recovered during recent excavation in Leith. Above right Underneath the medieval cemetery was a stand alone crouched burial when and why this woman was buried here remains a mystery.

Unusual burial discovered in Leith

A recent excavation along Constitution Street in Leith, in advance of an extension to the Edinburgh tram line to Newhaven, has uncovered hundreds of human remains from a late medieval cemetery and, underneath it, a mysterious stand- alone burial. The…

Above View of the River Avon and Broad Quay from the East, taken by George Love Dafnis in 1892 (colourised by Rob Goller).

Pandemics and public health: cleansing Bath’s ‘Great Unwashed’

Excavations in Bath have revealed the remains of one of the earliest Victorian wash houses. Constructed during a time of revolutionary social reform and seismic shifts in attitudes towards poverty and public health, what can it tell us about how local authorities and community campaigners strove to improve the well-being of the poor following the arrival of a devastating pandemic? Current Archaeology explores recent research by Cai Mason.

IMAGES: Tom Ferraby; Rose Ferraby, using data from Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire, CC BY SA 3.0

Illuminating Isurium: exploring Aldborough’s Roman remains

Isurium Brigantum was a thriving and prosperous Roman town in what is now North Yorkshire, but it has attracted relatively little modern archaeological attention. Now, though, a decade of geophysical surveys have shed vivid light on its make-up, and a wide-ranging new book presents a compelling narrative for how the once-bustling settlement evolved. Carly Hilts reports.

LEFT Around 600 beer bottles were found stacked beneath the stairs of a building next to Scarborough Castle Inn in Leeds. BELOW A set of six ducts were uncovered beneath the floor of South Terrace.

Urban insights at Leeds’ Tetley’s Brewery

Excavations on the site of Tetley’s Brewery in Leeds have revealed intriguing insights into the 18th- and 19th-century development of the city. Carried out by Archaeological Services WYAS, the investigation explored buildings along Hunslet Lane, including the location of the…

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You are what you eat? Excavating the Oxford Jewry

Excavations in the historic heart of Oxford have shed light on the city’s origins and development – including uncovering some of its earliest-known Anglo-Saxon structures, remarkable evidence for the medieval city’s Jewish inhabitants, and aspects of city life away from the colleges, as Edward Biddulph explains.

Below London’s Black Friars, showing the precinct at its most developed, in the early 16th century.

Urban orders: touring the friaries of medieval London

Almost nothing remains above ground of London’s medieval friaries: only the names of places like Blackfriars Bridge and station, the street – and City pub – called Crutched Friars, and the City street of Austin Friars, now overshadowed by Tower 42 (the former NatWest Tower), testify to their presence. By combining maps, archives, and archaeology, Nick Holder has succeeded in reconstructing their stories and assessing their impact on the London landscape, as Chris Catling reports.

Left An artist’s impression of the former precinct of St Mary Spital in c.1640, looking north west towards Bishopsgate and showing (foreground) the Civil War Star Fort; (right) the converted medieval chapel with its charnel crypt; and (centre) the Earl of Bolingbroke’s house (Spittle House), with Spital Yard and the principal tenement to its right.

Excavating Spitalfields Market

The MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) Spitalfields Market excavations in 1991-2007 were one of Britain’s largest ever digs. Four major publications are being produced to cover the results. The latest volume concerns the post-medieval era (1539-1880), which was a period that saw vast social transformations, as Chiz Harward and Nigel Jeffries explain.

Below Overlooking some of the male felon cells, which were arranged in threes on either side of a corridor, in blocks linked by communal dayrooms. The walls of an exercise yard can be seen at the bottom of the picture, while the remains of a series of felon workshops are just visible top right (and more clearly shown on p.32).

New Bailey, Salford: prison’s industrial revolution

At its peak, New Bailey was the largest jail in England, but its imposing Georgian buildings were designed on the basis of radical progressive ideals. Modern development has wiped away all traces of the pioneering prison above ground, but archaeologists are now bringing its methods to light once more, as Rachael Reader and Michael Nevell explain.

Above Adam Wightman, pictured excavating the Fenwick Treasure.

The Fenwick Treasure: Colchester during the Boudiccan War of Independence

Excavations in Colchester have revealed where a couple stashed their valuables before Boudicca sacked the city. These artefacts, and the charred debris found strewn above them, provide a poignant insight into those on the receiving end of the Iceni’s wrath. First, Philip Crummy and Adam Wightman shed light on a dark day in Colchester’s past, and then Nina Crummy guides us through the treasure itself.

Opposite Prior Park, home of philanthropist Ralph Allen, who transformed Bath’s small scale stone mining industry into a major commercial venture. In the foreground can be seen the wooden railway Allen built to transport the stone. above An artist’s impression of working in the part of the quarry known as the ‘Grand Canyon’.

Hollowed Ground: the archaeology of Bath’s stone mines

The hills around Bath look solid enough but below the surface they are riddled with tunnels and stone quarries. When some of these began to collapse, putting the village of Combe Down at risk, Oxford Archaeology was called in to record this vast labyrinth before it was filled with concrete. Chris Catling reports on the record they made of an industry that helped create the beautiful buildings of Georgian Bath’s ‘Golden Age’.