A small excavation was undertaken during the lowering of the basement of no 70 Castle Street in the period 1987-9

No 70 Castle Street occupies a site which overlies the alignment of a major Roman street, aligned north-east to south-west separating the Roman theatre from the temple insulae. Monitoring of basement lowering was considered desirable to confirm the line of the street and to gain possibly further information for its construction date (believed to be c. AD 50-60).

The brick floor of the cellar lay around 2m below the surface of Castle Street and on removal of floor and floor bedding, the surface of natural brickearth was exposed. Gravel, perhaps residue from the removal of street metallings, was mixed with dirty clay floor bedding. The surface of natural brickearth was very hard, compact and heavily stained with iron panning (possibly indicating that the brickearth had been overlaid once by thick, laminated, impervious layers of rammed gravel for the Roman street).

Also observed and recorded was a small group of five intercutting pre-and early Roman pits, located against the Castle Street frontage wall. The latest of these pits contained rammed gravel and mortar, perhaps used to consolidate softer ground when the first Roman street was being constructed; this contained no artefacts. The earliest archaeological feature was a large clay quarry, which contained in its fills a large quantity of 'Belgic' coarse ware pottery and a struck bronze coin, which was possibly dated to c. 35-20 BC.

Hone, D. & Bennett, P., 1990, No 70 Castle Street (Article in serial). SKE30822.