Monument record LVM 122 - Medieval to late post Medieval features at Land Adjacent to The Great House Hotel, Market Place, Lavenham

2018: Archaeological monitoring of the ground reduction within the footprint of a new building revealed medieval to late post medieval features.
The archaeological features were principally pits (10) but also ditches (3) and a gully. This archaeology is consistent with the enclosure and development of backyard plots within the urban core of Lavenham. Two pits contained small quantities of late medieval to transitional (mid 13th-16th century) pottery, however the presence of low quantities of CBM and clay pipe fragments suggests these sherds may be residual. The majority of the features dated from the 18th – 20th century. One pit was capped by a complete millstone which would have been a bedstone and had a quarter dress pattern. The millstone was used to cap the pit which was deep and may have functioned as a well or latrine (its base was not reached by the excavation). The millstone is typical of those employed in the 18th to 19th centuries, and it was almost certainly associated with the steam corn mill adjacent to the site. The mill building remains extant (Grade II listed; converted to residential use) and was built in 1865, although it there is no evidence (documentary or cartographic) as to if it was on the site of an earlier mill. The site would have been in a courtyard enclosed by the mill and an adjacent maltings, and the archaeological features appear consistent with the ‘backyard activity’ that might be expected within such a space, and are also consistent with the results of the preceding trial trench evaluation. (S1)