Harwich: Essex Archaeological News, Autumn 1973

Essex Archaeological News, Autumn 1973 (No 44)

HARWICH.

It is high time, so I have been reminded, that Harwich is reported; and this I agree since this excavation in the furthest North East of Essex took place for thirteen weeks in 1972 between 20th March and the 18th June, and has been falling between editorial stools since then.

Directed by Steven Bassett for the EAS Research and Fieldwork Committee, the dig was financed by the DOE and Harwich Borough Council, and was given a final helping hand by the Harwich Society who raised a £100 to help the closing stages of the excavation.

Redevelopment in this venerable Essex port enabled three sites to be examined in detail.

With the capricious nature of town sites, one of these on West Street proved to have been completely removed by nineteenth century cellars, and was abandoned.

The site near the Ebenezer Chapel proved more fruitful and the initial clearance showed that a whole series of structures had occupied the site. The major masonry structure had been built in the mid fifteenth century, and represented the latest of three phases of stone building, the earliest of which was probably built at the end of the thirteenth century, a period which marks the foundation of the port of Harwich by the Earl of Norfolk.

Until the mid-seventeenth century the property appeared to have been extensive, and could have been owned by a succession of wealthy merchants. At its most extensive state the building enclosed the whole of the area between St. Austins Lane and the northern boundary of Ebenezer Chapel, and bounded on the east by Eastgate Street, and on the west by Kings Head Street.

The area excavated represented only half of the original plot, one half lying under the Chapel. Modern road widening had encroached until all the external walls are under road extensions.

Harwich.

Of the area available one half was excavated.

The earliest phase of the merchant's hall was found to be over fine masonry cellars, but there seems to have been a trend throughout medieval and the immediate post medieval periods, to abandon the use of cellars for storage, presumably because of water seepage. At least one of the cellars was infilled before the middle of the fourteenth century with deposits of clean sand and clay.

By then the building consisted of three wings of two or three storeys, built of large slabs and nodules of septaria (quarried at Dovercourt). The wings fronted onto streets on the east, west and south, and enclosed a courtyard with access from Eastgate probably through a gatehouse. The courtyard was cobbled with a wide access for wagons. A timbered staircase gave access to the first floor from St. Austins Lane.

At the mid seventeenth century all this substantial building was demolished and replaced by a timbered building which used the reduced masonry walls as beam supports. This building declined until its demolition in 1947.

The third site examined was at the Quay Pavilion, and merits the title of the Essex Watergate enquiry. Excavation located a series of medieval and post med. quays and jetties extending to some fifty metres behind the present quay face.

Each successive rebuild represented an advance seawards of the whole quay face.

The earliest quay seen was a complex of four masonry walls built of blocks and nodules of septaria. Three of the four form a watergate flanked by 'a masonry staircase the lowest course of which survived and whose foundations were massive.

The stairs may have replaced a timbered stairway since sockets for a wooden platform were found behind the wall on the landward side, from this platform a timbered stairway could have extended on the landward side of the wall, to sea level.

Several sherds of late twelfth, or early thirteenth century pottery were in the sand and clay layers which sealed the beach behind the watergate walls.

In the first quarter of the fifteenth century a new quay was built to the seaward of that just described. Deeply set timber shuttering enclosed masonry walls to form an indented quay face. The previous masonry stairs still served as access to the inlet some four and a half metres behind the new quay.

Further modifications of the new quay led to an unbroken quay face, and the addition of a timbered stairway (Lambard's Stairs) set in the surviving indentation.

The second phase of the quay was associated with extensive re-development of the building which occupied the quay front on the east side of Kings Head Street, which is thought to have been the Custom's House. An extension towards the sea incorporated a large portion of the former quay. Two small flanking structures with heavily cobbled floors leading to indentations in the timber quay wall, were probably the bases of timber framed, pivoting cranes by which cargoes could be unloaded.

By the first quarter of the seventeenth century a further pair of crane houses replaced the previous ones, fronting a straightened quay wall, and making way for two projecting wings from the Customs House.

In the mid seventeenth century a further extension of the quay was made by a jetty which still had an indentation associated with the original masonry stairs, although these were long out of use.

Further extensions of the masonry wings were built of brick, and the central inlet was eventually filled with pounded chalk to the jetty level, during the mid-eighteenth century, and the wings were amalgamated to form one brick warehouse. This survived until the arrival of the railway in the 1850s, when the latest quay was rebuilt to a line approximately that of today.

The excavation was carried out through the kind co-operation of the Harwich Borough Council and in particular Alderman L T Weaver who gave the excavations invaluable support.

Other individuals mentioned for their particular help and encouragement are Lt. Cdr. R.H.Farrands who not only made a generous donation but showed constant interest, and Mrs Winifred Cooper both in her capacity as President of the Harwich Society and for her constant help and encouragement on the excavation, and for her hospitality to the whole digging team at her house.

Steven Bassett also pays tribute to his team: Hal Bishop, Murray Sager and Ed Sinker(site assistants) and Linda Ritchie and Carol Simpson(draughting).

Members of the Borough Surveyor's staff are also thanked for their help, and Captain Lord of Navyard for the free use of a compressor.

It is so easy to recount the findings of a town excavation as has been done here, but we must put it into perspective by saying once more that it lasted for thirteen weeks, and how many tons of obstinate spoil must have been moved in that time, it is the enthusiasm which does all this to recover the town history, which is valued more than anything else.