47-67 Hopton Street, Southwark;
TQ 3182 8045; (Victoria Ridgeway, Barry Bishop & Gary Brown); evaluation & excavation; Nov 1994-March 1997; Manhattan Loft Corporation; HNT94
Natural sand at 0.99m OD sloping down 0.44m from north to south probably represented a
natural sand eyot which was overlain by silty sand up to 200mm thick. Nearly 500
stakeholes, postholes and several small pits were recorded cutting the silty sand. To the
south, a pit containing a whole pot (a closed Beaker bowl). The pit was sealed by a dark
peaty sand cut by over 100 linear grooves aligned either east-west or north-south and each
with a 'v' shaped profile, interpreted as ard- or plough-marks in an associated ploughsoil.
The silty sand and ploughsoil contained over 3000 lithics including 820 humanly worked
pieces and 300 pot fragments dating to the Neolithic and early Bronze Age, the majority of
the pottery being of Beaker date.
A series of water courses were recorded, one showing possible evidence of revetting.
during the prehistoric occupation of the site. These were sealed by alluvial deposits. The
many small water courses observed suggest a gradual rise in water levels leading to the
abandonment of the site in the mid Bronze Age. Further rising of the water level led to
the deposition of a thick layer of brown clay Roman and Medieval finds.
A pond and associated ditches contained finds dating to the late Medieval to early
Post-Medieval periods. These features probably represent a historically documented tidal
millpond and its associated ditches. During the latter half of the Seventeenth Century
these features were deliberately backfilled and the area levelled with a series dumps,
probably deposited to reclaim the marshy ground.
To the north of the site the remains of the furnaces and flues of an Eighteenth century
glasshouse were excavated. A glassworking kiln comprising a central furnace with two
opposing sieges (i.e. "platforms" from which glass would be worked) and flues was
constructed from brick during the mid Eighteenth Century with structural modifications
towards the end of the Century. A sequence of brick and stone floors were recorded within
the kiln. To the east of this structure was a sequence of internal floors all containing
glassworking debris. Ancillary structures were represented by cobbled surfaces and walls.
Further building remains, to the south of the site, may have been contemporaneous with the
glassworking structures possibly representing a residential block or factory outbuildings.
Substantial brick walls dating to the Nineteenth Century and dumps of cullet (ground
glass) were presumed to be related to the documented glasshouse of Pellatt and Green,
other structural remains may represent buildings associated with this later glasshouse.
|
