Site Event/Activity record ESF21795 - Evaluation, Proposed Student Village, Fore Street, Ipswich, (IAS 5908).

Glaciofluvial sand and gravel, sloping down from northeast to southwest, was overlaid in places by a prehistoric buried soil horizon. Occupation of the site in the prehistoric period was represented principally by a pit containing Neolithic-earlier Bronze Age worked flints and a ditch containing decorated pottery of a similar date. There was little evidence for the use of the site in the Roman period, and Anglo-Saxon occupation was indicated principally by moderate amounts of residual pottery. During the medieval period much of the site was used as a cemetery, which is thought to have been that of the 'lost' church or chapel known as Ostirbolt. Thirteen burials were identified in the south-western, northern and eastern parts of the site. The corner of a postulated timber building, represented by beam slots and adjacent post holes, was identified near the centre of the site. It is likely that this building was contemporary with the cemetery, if not earlier. Other significant evidence for medieval activity included dumping for land reclamation along the southern edge of the site, in what must have previously been the inter-tidal zone of the river, and the subsequent construction of a waterfront building, represented by a flint and septaria foundation. The cellars of at least two Tudor buildings (one of which has been identified from early maps as a malt house) were found along the southern frontage of the site.