During excavations undertaken by Canterbury Archaeological Trust, ahead of the rebuilding of the Townwall Street filling Station, Dover, the original course of Clarence Street was located. 50m of the former street fell within the excavation area and it was associated with deposits dating from the early medieval period right through to the later post medieval and modern period. (c. 1125 - 1950)

Throughout period 1 the recorded evidence suggests that Clarence Street was nothing more than a rough un-metalled trackway, regularly used as a place for dumping rubbish. To some extent the dumping may have been in an attempt to make up the ground and compensate for the continued subsidence, but the prepared bases for the flanking buildings and their yards rose at a faster rate, effectively turning it into a shallow sunken way. The line of Medieval Clarence Street, however, appeared to mark a change in the form and axis of the property divisions on the site. It would seem that individual boundaries had been laid out on either side of the street, rather than this being a later route subsequently cut across once continuous properties. Along the north-western side the successive plots A and B seem to have been laid out parallel to the road. In contrast few period 1 structures fronted onto the south-eastern side of the street, it would seem that these buildings fronted onto another street which has subsequently been lost to erosion.

Clarence Street continued on the same alignment in period 2 (c. 1300-1550). The masonry buildings and stone boundary walls constructed along either side formalised the route. Again there was no clear evidence of extensive metalling beyond occasional localised patches of pebbling and trodden chalk. More soil and domestic rubbish accumulated across the area, continuing to bring up the levels. Nearly 300 sherds of pottery, mostly dating to the 14th and 15th centuries came from the higher levels associated with the line of the road, small finds included part of a bone flute, a bone needle case, a decorated jet mount and a fragment from a stone mortar.

Again, in period 3 (c. 1550-1780), the road continued along the same alignment, new masonry walls were erected adjacent and the stone built boundary walls were maintained and repaired. There was little evidence of metalling to the road, although an extensive spread of flint cobbling laid up to the outer walls of building 42, did appear to represent an early post medieval surface. This continued north-west to the adjacent plot A, presumably to form an open yard opening off the street. Elsewhere further deposits of soil and rubbish accumulated along the line of the street. (1)

this road was also located during an archaeological excavation undertaken by Canterbury Archaeological Trust in 2015/2016 in the St. James area of the town. This revealed finds from the primary metalled surface of the road which indicated that it had first been laid out in the Norman Period, with contemporary buildings fronting onto it. (2)

<1> Keith Parfitt, Barry Corke and John Cotter, 2006, Townwall Street, Dover: Excavations 1996 (Monograph). SKE31840.

<2> Keith Parfitt, 2018, Dover St James redevelopment. Interim report on archaeological excavation 2018 (Unpublished document). SKE51627.