The Dover St James’s Redevelopment

ArticlesIssue 104

1 Dec

By Keith Parfitt

Canterbury Archaeological Trust has now been working ahead of redevelopment in Dover’s St James’s district for more than a year. The new development covers about 7 acres of the historic town in total. Work across this area has allowed the recording of a broad range of new information, detailing the chronological development of the region. During the prehistoric and Roman periods the area had formed part of the broad estuary of the River Dour but during medieval and post-medieval times, after the old estuary had silted up, it constituted a densely occupied part of the town, situated east of the by then much narrowed course of the River Dour.

We last reported on our excavation of a complex site off Woolcomber Street, at the foot of Castle Hill (KAS Newsletter 102, p. 34-38). Since then we have formally excavated other substantial sites and made more ad hoc records across a wide area as opportunities arose. A new sewer trench and other deep excavations unexpectedly demonstrated that significant areas of well-preserved stratification still survived on western parts of the site, previously thought to have been largely destroyed by development in the 1970s.

With the completion of the original Woolcomber Street investigations in early November 2015, three new major excavation sites were opened up adjacent to historic Russell Street (formerly Fector’s Place), old St James’s Street and Clarence Street.

Russell Street car park site

In the former Russell Street car park a large area was cleared to reveal the lines of now lost lanes off St James’s Street, Russell Place and Golden Cross Passage, together with their associated buildings. Many of the walls exposed could be identified on large-scale nineteenth century maps of the area but what became apparent during the investigation was that a significant number of these walls were of pre-Victorian date, with several portions of late medieval and early post-medieval work surviving. The full depth of the archaeological deposits was not investigated as the footings of the proposed new buildings here are to be fairly shallow.

P&O office site

In late November 2015 the excavation team moved to a large new site, adjacent to Russell Street, on the site of the former P&O offices. Below the old forecourt, archaeology survived to an impressive degree. A row of early nineteenth-century cellared houses forming the south-eastern frontage of old St James’s Street, together with further post-medieval structures along Clarence Street, were amongst the later remains uncovered. These had all been demolished by 1905 and the area subsequently used as an open yard. Remnants of an important medieval stone building fronting Clarence Street and a substantial medieval chalk block-lined well were also uncovered. All deposits on the site had been deeply buried beneath modern overburden and had thus been well protected.

Yard areas containing a range of pits, tanks and wells were also examined, whilst the earliest deposits excavated have been provisionally dated to the late eleventh century.

Finds from the primary metalling layers of both St James’s Street and Clarence Street indicated that these roads were probably first laid out during the Norman period. One of the infilled cellars fronting Clarence Street and constructed with substantial walls of mortared greensand, was identified as being of late medieval origin. An integral garderobe shaft was incorporated into its north corner and this appeared to have been infilled during the sixteenth century. In addition to pottery, its filling curiously contained a significant number of cat skulls. The building itself was perhaps originally built as a house for a rich merchant residing in this eastern suburb of medieval Dover.

County Hotel site

Excavations on the site of the former County Hotel, on the southern side of Woolcomber Street, have been ongoing for some months and are nearing completion. Here, extensive remains of buildings fronting on to both Woolcomber Street and New Street have been uncovered. The investigations have demonstrated that development of this area began in the early thirteenth century and continued through to modern times. Several substantial medieval stone buildings have been revealed, together with associated wells and other features.

New Sewer trench

In the summer of 2016 a new sewer trench was cut across the western side of Russell Street, again revealed some significant remains relating to the medieval and early post-medieval town. A complex sequence of stratified deposits and structures was revealed and partially examined, with the earliest occupation here, again, provisionally dated to the later Norman period.

The trench was between 3 and 5m wide and up to 4.5m deep. It provided a valuable east-west transect across the development site, well beyond the areas previously excavated. A close inspection was maintained throughout.

A number of important observations were made along the length of the trench, not least concerning the character of the natural silting of the ancient estuary. In the base of the trench deposits of marine sand mixed with some beach shingle were revealed. Of particular significance was the discovery of a quantity of unworn Roman pottery just above these sands. This material seemed to predominate in the south-western half of the trench and must imply that the marine deposits here were laid down well before the Norman Conquest, apparently during the Roman period. This is considerably earlier than previously envisaged. Further evidence for the pre-Norman deposition of these marine silts is provided by the discovery of a rare Anglo-Saxon coin issued by King Coenwulf of Mercia (AD 796–821), which was also found just above the sand.

From the accumulating field archives, combined with existing documentary and cartographic records, we are starting to develop a more comprehensive view of the evolution of the St James’s district. Our understanding of the post-medieval period is greatly enhanced by a splendid series of historic maps extending back to the mid-sixteenth century. These make it quite clear that by the early post-medieval period, the St James’s district was a densely settled part of the town, and this continued to be the case into the early twentieth century. The general impression gained is that the overall form and structure of the district in the 1930s was little changed from the sixteenth century, with a by then long-established street system linking equally long-established building plots, mostly of quite small size.

When the evidence of the excavated archaeology is combined with the historical evidence, the story of the district is given much more time-depth, with the origins of settlement pushed back into the early Norman period and even before.