St Peter’s Wharf, St Peter’s Street, Maidstone

Last summer, Museum of London archaeologists, supervised by Nikki Rahmatova, carried out excavations at this Citygrove retail development site in central Maidstone.

In 2006, a substantial stone-built medieval drain, almost certainly associated with a 13th-century monastic hospital was discovered during a watching brief on remediation works on a former gasworks. The hospital was St Peter and St Paul's Hospital, or the Newark Hospital, which lay to the west of the site. It was founded by Boniface of Savoy, Archbishop of Canterbury and uncle of Henry III's wife Eleanor, in 1260 and was dedicated to SS Paul, Peter and Thomas of Canterbury. The hospital fell into disuse by the end of the 14th century, possibly as a result of the new bridge at Aylesford diverting pilgrimage traffic to Canterbury northwards. The hospital chapel became St Peter's Church, located near the corner of Buckland Street and St Peter's Street. A drain (the Great Drain) was a common integral feature of monastic developments, usually providing water for kitchens, domestic buildings, latrines and infirmaries, which would be ranged alongside it, and carrying away the waste resulting from associated activities; in this case, into the Medway. On the basis of this investigation, the monastic community would have lain to the north of the church.

A new planning consent called for further evaluation and for preservation of the drain in situ. MoLAS exposed its full extent on site (c. 33m), running towards the River Medway to the east, though it had been cut through by gasworks oxidising tanks at this end before it reached the river. The drain was built entirely in large Kentish Ragstone blocks and bonded with brownish yellow, sandy mortar. It consisted of two parallel walls, 1.00-1.15m apart, which stood to an internal height of 1.15m where they supported an arched roof. The base of the drain was constructed of tightly-packed small and large ragstone blocks and abutted the randomly-coursed internal faces of the walls. Overall, the internal height of the drain was 1.60m from floor to apex. In its central part, adjacent to where it had been cut through by a later service trench, the drain had been 'walled up'; possibly at the time of the construction of the gasworks. Once its orientation and extent had been established, MoLAS accurately surveyed it, so that the client's engineers could redesign new foundations to bridge the drain and so preserve it beneath the new building, and advised on the appropriate piling regime in order that the remains would not be damaged. This was all done in consultation with Kent County Council.

Council Archaeological Officer Adam Single.

Unexpectedly, during the evaluation to establish the extent and alignment of the drain, human burials, presumably associated with the hospital or its chapel, were found. Again, in co-operation with the Archaeological Officer, foundations were redesigned to minimise the impact on potentially surviving burials. Where impacts could not be avoided all human remains were excavated and removed.

Although construction groundworks for the 19th century gasworks had, presumably, removed or disturbed the great majority of burials, a total of 30 partially or fully articulated skeletons were excavated where the new building had an impact. These were associated with pottery dating to the 12th century at earliest. Recovered remains, including disarticulated and unstratified bone have been calculated to represent 133 individuals: 96 adults and 37 sub-adults. Of the 30 articulated burials, 25 were adults and five sub-adults: two of which were aged between one month and six years and three were aged between 13 and 16 years at death. Two burials were positively identified as male and eight as possibly male. Four were scored as possible female with 11 recorded as of indeterminate sex. In assessment, a number of features of the bones which may indicate disease or injury have already been noted.

Preliminary assessment of the findings has just been completed, with the results of further analysis, particularly of the human remains and documentary research, intended to be published in Archaeologia Cantiana.

Robin Nielsen
Museum of London Archaeology

RIGHT: Central section of drain with later blocking, looking west.