Monument record MNL 674 - Medieval and post-medieval features and buildings 16 Mill Street, Mildenhall

2012 February: All the trenches revealed well preserved features, comprising pits, ditches, postholes and building footings, which appear to be either medieval or post-medieval, although two large pits and the postholes are currently undated. The finds were made up of medieval pottery, medieval and post-medieval CBM, animal bone and mussel shells (S1).

2012: December: Significant activity on this site did not occur until the medieval period. A substantial boundary ditch was dug into the natural chalk at the north end of the site, parallel with Mill Street. Its fills produced small amounts of 12th-13th century pottery in association with charred cereal remains. It has been suggested that the ditch might have been associated with a former bailey, since this part of Mill Street was known as Le Bayle in the 15th-16th centuries. Other medieval evidence consisted of a much smaller but parallel ditch and a few pits containing 12th-14th century pottery. Medieval features were sealed by thick deposits of worked soil, which were truncated by post-medieval cess/refuse pits. A large rectangular cut close to the northern edge of the site might have been the cellar of a late medieval building fronting on the churchyard to the north. It was backfilled in the 16th-17th century and a sequence of three buildings was constructed on the same plot. Only the backs of these properties were recorded and their forms and functions are unknown. In the 19th century several large outbuildings (one of which was demolished only recently) were constructed around a yard to the rear of 16 Mill Street (S2).

Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2012 (S3).
Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2013 (S4)