Monument record DUN 016 - Greyfriars (Franciscan Friary)

October 1992: A 1.4m by 1.3m trench was excavated through deposits on the line of the Greyfriars precinct wall. The footing trench for the wall was found and turned out to be 1.4m wide and 0.8m deep. The footing trench, which bottomed out on natural, was composed of alternate layers of clay, mortar and gravelly loam. Both the footing and the layers it cut through produced finds. The ground level on the inside of the wall was 0.7m higher than that of the outside of the wall.
Finds consisted:- Layer A (Footing trench for Med wall) - 22 sherds of Med coarse pottery (plus 2 rims & 1 base), 1 piece iron slag, 1 piece lava quern, 5 peg tile fragments (1 green glazed), 1 ? pantile or pipe fragment and 1 fragment brick. Layer B: 1 Med coarse sherd. Layer C: 9 Med coarse sherds (plus 3 base, 1 rim) and 1 piece slag (S1).
For Friary, see DUN 003.

2022: Monitoring of excavations for new storm drains showed that well-preserved and stratified archaeological deposits existed below an augmented (800mm) depth of topsoil. At the top of the archaeological levels, a spread of rubble that may relate to the dissolution of the monastery, sealed a worked medieval topsoil. The topsoil produced a large quantity of finds, relative to the excavation size, and eight medieval pottery sherds; five pieces of CBM, including fragments of glazed floor tile; animal bones; fish bones and shells and daub were recovered. The finds dated from the 14-15th century and earlier, suggesting that the topsoil had been sealed by the rubble at the end of the medieval period. A large posthole, part of a late medieval or post-medieval structure, cut the medieval topsoil but its relationship to the putative dissolution rubble layer was uncertain (S2).