Essex Archaeological News,
Autumn 1973 (No 44)
CHELMSFORD.
Chelmsford Excavation
Committee have one more important find to their credit. The identification of
the position of the Dominican Priory Church, in 1969/70, and the assembling of
other evidence of wall foundations under the Rural District Offices on New
London Road, led to an estimate of the extent and position of the Priory
buildings.
The recent destruction of the
Electricity Showrooms gave an opportunity to test the extent of these buildings
since this site was thought to have the North East corner of the buildings
under the foundations.
Paul Drury put in a clearance
of available ground by machine, there being cellars, an air raid shelter and
many pipes and cables on the site. The result has been more than satisfactory
since the excavation has found the reredorter, or latrines of the Priory.
In common with most religious
houses of the time the brethren were well served by their architect. A conduit
led water through the reredorter wall, along a channel running the length of
the building and then through the wall again.
The conduit is built of close
packed tiles and faced Caen stone, and the archway through the wall is most
impressive, since it is all made of well carved stone and includes the groove
for a sluice gate.
There was probably a similar
arch at the other end of the building, but the carved stone arch was destroyed
during the building of the air raid shelter, needless to say, the destruction
of such a peculiar find was not recorded.
The conduit was probably fed
from a leat running parallel to the building, and made to flow over a weir.
Such an arrangement would give
a channel full of water which could be released to flow through the latrine
channel when the sluice gate was lifted. The latrine channel itself appears to
have had a depth of some ten centimetres of water standing in it when the
sluice was not operating, and this water would be swept out to the lower level
of the leat and then to the river.
The close parallel to the
modern flushing water closet is remarkable, when one considers the date, the
turn of the fourteenth century, and the conditions in most other circles which
did not reach the flushing stage until the mid nineteenth.
The excavation has side
benefits in that the latrine channel was later used as a midden, and several
late medieval pots have been recovered in -a broken state, and one ewer
complete.
The excavation has been the
chance for publicity on the part of the Excavation Committee, having been given
up to full page treatment in the local papers.
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