Monument record FML 027 - The Maltings, Bridge Street (Med)

2000: Desk-based assessment & trenched evaluation of site suggest presence of Med water mill (also see FML 023) bridge and a LSax/Med manorial boundary. (S1).
A desk-based assessment concluded that the nature of the documentary evdience makes it difficult to argue that a mill has existed on this site from the late medieval period. The evidence for a mill is suggested by the name of the bridge first recorded in 1589 and by the discovery of mill timbers in the area in 1833. However, the timbers were not carefully described and all the other mills mentioned in Framlingham were windmills. The descriptions of the adjoining properties along Bridge Street are consistent with descriptions in the Glebe Terriers of lands owned by the church and suggest that the eastern corner of the site joins close to the boundary of the rectory manor. The site of the rectory and its gardens can be associated with a late Saxon manor of pre-conquest date and as such this boundary is of significance in the understanding of the development of Framlingham in the early medieval period. (S1).
Evaluation of a site north of bridge street identified archaeological fetaures associated with the medieval management of the naturally formed Framlingham Mere. These included a mill leat, mere boundary ditch and mill bank, all previously known from documentary and map evidence. Structural evidence was limited to features of indeterminate function on the western bank of the River Ore. While the association of these features with a watermill could not be ruled out, it was considered more likely that they were related to an earlier bridge or river revetment structure. (S2)
Includes (?) part of mere site (see FML 021). For details see (S1)(S2).

October/November 2000: Monitoring of ground disturbance associated with development. Also recording of Medieval dressed and moulded limestone blocks re-utilised in Post Medieval wall - details in (S3).