During the excavation of a sewer shaft within the area formerly occupied by Dover Priory in 1998, traces of three substantial Medieval masonry walls, associated with a sequence of stratified archaeological soil deposits producing Medieval and early post medieval finds.

(summarised from source) The earliest wall was L shaped in plan and survived to a maximum height of 0.9m. It was 0.8m wide and was roughly faced with 5-6 courses of large greensand lumps set in a cream sandy mortar containing frequent small blue and brown pebbles. Its core consisted of chalk and flint rubble bonded in a similar mortar. The lowest courses were set within a 0.387m deep construction trench, the soil that this construction trench cut produced a single sherd of Brandsby-type ware (Yorks) jug base broadly datable to c. 1250-1400. Shortly after the wall had been built a shallow pit containing a few fragments of Medieval glazed roof tile had been cut down the face of the outside corner. A stone wall sealed this pit, it had been butted onto the corner of the first wall a short time later. It was constructed from mortared flint and greensand and survived to a height of 0.2m, the full width was not exposed but it was at least 0.29m across. A further wall was constructed on a similar axis to this second wall, it was of a broadly similar build to the earlier examples but included more flint in its face. It survived to a height of 0.48m and its full width was not exposed. The base of the wall lay about 0.5m from the bottom of the first wall, indicating that it had been built some time later.

Plotting the walls onto an overall plan of the priory complex it can be seen that they lie about 10m to the south of the south transept of the church and thus appear to be unrelated to any of the main monastic buildings, and it remains unclear as to whether these walls related to a former building or formed part of a boundary wall to the south of the church, in the area suggested to have been part of the priory’s cemetery. (1)

During borehole investigation in 1997. Small fragments of ceramic building material were recorded.(2)

<1> Canterbury Archaeological Trust, 1999, Dover Infiltration Reduction Scheme: Report on Archaeological Observations (Unpublished document). SKE7533.

<2> Wessex Archaeology (?), 1997, Dover Drainage Area Plan (DAP) Schemes (Unpublished document). SKE12105.