Monument record BUN 194 - Foundations of the Outer Bailey wall of Bunday Castle at Land at the rear of 51-55 Earsham Street, Bungay

2019-2020: Monitoring of ground works for a new dwelling following the demolition of a workshop just within the outer bailey of Bungay Castle was carried out under a SMC as well as a planning condition as it affected parts of the scheduled outer bailey wall on its western side and north-eastern edge. With close cooperation it was possible to photographically record the surviving wall foundations and leave the majority of it in situ with some wall foundation being as built and some appearing to be large blocks of collapsed masonry. No archaeological features or finds of any age were revealed below the workshop floor.
On the western side of the site the surviving flint and mortar bailey wall foundation proved to be 2100mm wide and up to 1200mm high with some portions robbed away and this large foundation continued under the adjacent Post medieval wall of the house to the west. This western wall was partly faced on the side facing the workshop with concrete. At its southern end this western wall foundation continued out of the site with the ground rising steeply towards the adjacent garden with later Post medieval brick, tile and fragments visible in the exposed sloping material. A block of flint and mortar masonry was visible in the south-western corner of the former workshop and with subsoil visible below it this appeared to be a block of fallen castle wall. In addition when the workshop floor and underlying subsoil had been removed it became apparent that part of this western wall had large crack lines running vertically suggesting that part of this wall represents at least partially collapsed masonry that has slipped downwards since the medieval period. In the north-eastern corner of the former workshop another flint and mortar stub of a foundation that was 1900mm wide and 900mm high was exposed and this could be seen to be continuing to the east under the existing garden bank though with a more recent facing. Across the former front to the workshop area this foundation had been removed. (S1)