Ipswich UAD child record record IPS 1056 - Building 0643

This sunken featured building was 4.5m long (west-east), by 2.9m wide and 80cm deep. A wall footing trench of the LMED friary had cut the building from north to south, close to its eastern edge, and only the north half of the foundation trench (0708) with two post holes (0715, 0728) survived of the east wall.
The intact western end of the structure however confirmed a structural arrangement of individually positioned, evenly spaced post holes along the gable ends.
The north and south walls were set in foundation trenches but the west wall comprised individual post holes. No traces of any posts survived in the south foundation trench (0673, 0674), probably due to heavy disturbance above. Five post impressions (0737, 0738, 0739, 0740, 0741) were recorded in the north trench (0773). All were rectangular in profile, and probably reflected the sizes of the original posts. The largest (0737) measured c.30cm by16cm, and 0740, was 34cm by 6cm.
The west wall comprised four individual postholes (0713, 0714, 0752, 0753).
No evidence of any flooring was found on the base of the pit, but one of the horizontal layers filling the pit and some 30cm above the base, comprised a thick layer of orange / brown sand which was overlain by a layer of loam with charcoal patches. The horizontal nature of the layers implies that they were occupation layers, rather than backfilling after demolition.
The building was probably constructed early in the MLS (phase 1) as the pottery assemblage from the construction features contained only one sherd of St Neot’s ware. The sunken feature also cut MLS pit 0711 with a very low proportion (0.5%) of St Neot’s ware. The infilling of the cellar pit was also MLS apart from six EMED sherds which were from the top layer which also included one sherd of Scarborough ware which must be contamination from the LMED foundation trench which cut the building, (S1).