Ipswich UAD child record record IPS 1336 - Dominican Friary Refrectory

All of this building, with internal dimensions of c.21m by 6m, lay within the site, apart from most of the south wall footing. Unfortunately post-demolition grading of the site had removed the demolition layers and upper levels of the medieval and post medieval stratigraphy and the truncation increased from north to south. Even at the north end of the building, only about 15cm of vertical stratigraphy remained and the sequence was difficult to resolve without the aid of the useful plan made by Kirby in 1748, some 19 years before the demolition of the building.
Only three fragments of the external walls survived robbing along the west wall line, but substantial footing trenches indicated the location of the walls.
There was a gap of 10-20cm between both the east and west wall footing trenches and the south wall of the parlour, indicating that the refectory had been joined on to a pre-existing parlour. No relationship could be established between the east and west foundation trenches and that underlying the south wall or that between the south foundation trench and that of the north wall of the south range which was roughly on the same east-west line to the east.
There were two phases recorded in the east and west footing trench indicating a modification of the original structure.
In its first phase, the refectory was a simple rectangular building and, in the second phase, both east and west walls were widened on the outer face. The widening on the west foundation trench included three western projections indicating the projecting pulpit, at the north (0698) and two buttresses to the south (0716, 0815). The widened eastern trench has two projections indicating buttresses (0692, 0706).
The earliest floor was clay with two areas of burning indicating hearths in the centre of the building and towards the north. A second clay floor survived above the earlier floor in the northern half of the building and was overlain by a tiled floor on a bed of mortar, on a clay layer.(S1).