Monument record IPS 720 - Franciscan Way/Wolsey Street, Ipswich, (IAS 5003).

1990:The site lies on the south-western edge of the Saxon and Medieval town and during the latter period it formed part of the Greyfriars precinct . The River Gipping, which at this point now runs underground, is very close and the low lying nature of the area must have made flooding a regular event'in the past. Because of this danger the site is in an area that has always been peripheral to the urban development of Ipswich and this characteristic is reflected in all of the phases of activity that can be recognised. Very little evidence was found for domestic occupation of the area in either the Saxon or Medieval periods and the amount of pottery and number of artefacts recovered from the site was relatively low compared with other Ipswich excavations of a similar size. Finds include Middle saxon Wells and Ditches. Iron working remains and debris date from the Middle Saxon and Early Late Saxon periods. Early Medieval Ovens were excavated. The most significant aspect of the medieval and later sequence was the use of the site for burial. A total of 150 individuals were excavated, which have been divided into three groups:

Group 1 was an isolated small group of 4 graves on the eastern edge of the site.
Group 2 was a large group of 87 bodies in the north-west of the site. The graves were in slightly haphazard north-south rows and buried deep enough for grave edges to be defined.
Group 3 was a group of 59 bodies in the centre of the site, mostly in north-south rows but with outliers. They were shallow burials, sometimes with multiple burials in one grave, and grave edges were more difficult to define.

There were also possible fishponds or we industrial features from the late Medieval to the Late Medieval Transitional Periods (S1).

2002: A small excavation was undertaken during late 2002 on the corner of Wolsey Street and Franciscan Way, Ipswich. Within a small strip of land along the southwest edge of the corner plot a number of pit features belonging to the early medieval period and over fifty inhumations of a possible 13th/14th century date were excavated and recorded. The site was an extension to an excavation carried out across the remainder of this corner plot in 1990, which revealed two other areas of human burials as well as evidence for Saxon and medieval occupation. These excavation areas were situated within the former precinct of the medieval Greyfriars Friary, now only known from documentary evidence (S2).

2006: The area was increased to the west; the excavation was funded by Swift Develeopments Ltd which went into liquidation without satisfying its planning obligations to ensure an archive and report (S1).

See also (S3-S5).

Skeleton report, (S6).

Environmental report, (S7).

Slag report, (S8).

For antler moulds finds report, see (S9)

Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2003 (S10).