Return to Mint Yard The King’s School, Canterbury CAT staff returned to the Mitchinson’s House, Mint Yard as part of a watching brief to monitor groundworks associated with services for the new building and ahead of installation of a new paved walkway. Foundations of the Almonry Chapel built in c 1317–18 had been recorded and subsequently removed during construction of Mitchinson House in 1980, however the recent works exposed further surviving elements of this structure. This has included at least one phase of the southernmost wall of the chapel, built using stone and flint, with evidence for a number of buttresses extending from the outer face. The stonework included the reuse of earlier architectural fragments within its make-up and showed evidence for post-medieval brick refacing of the internal wall at the western end, along with other later brickwork additions inside the building. In some places the structural remains lay less than 0.2m below the existing ground surface. The presence of significant archaeology surviving at such a high level complicated the build as Historic England (HE) indicated that the structural remains were to be preserved in situ. Following consultation with HE, The King’s School and Coniston (the principal contractor), preservation in situ of the wall was achieved, though much of the site was excavated down to formation level. One area revealed a glimpse of what appears to be an early paved surface, perhaps contemporary with construction of the chapel, whilst others exposed patches of a much later post-medieval cobbled surface with a built-in drainage channel that pre-dates the modern tarmacked driveway which now extends from The Borough through to the Green Court.
this an especially arduous task, and we are grateful to everyone who assisted. Supplies of custard creams and chocolate biscuits went some small way towards to keeping everyone going! Trenching by the students from the University of Kent outside the villa to the north-west located undisturbed stratified Roman deposits. Finds from these layers included a CLBR stamped tile, a fourth century coin, painted wall plaster and Roman pottery.
Copt Point Overlooking the Roman villa site from the south stands the rising ground of Copt Point. Was there activity here in ancient times? One point of particular interest was a mound visible on the summit, surrounding the Coastwatch lookout bunker. Was this the remains of a prehistoric or Roman barrow overlooking the villa, which had been extensively remodelled during the Second World War, when the bunker was first built? In order to assess something of the archaeological potential of Copt Point, a series of hand-dug trial trenches was cut across the area. Trenches 1 and 2 produced a light scatter of prehistoric flintwork and one or two pieces of prehistoric pottery. Trench 3 confirmed that the existing earthwork was in part the product of modern soil dumping but also suggested that the basis of the mound was a heap of earlier stone rubble that included some Roman building material and tile. Futute funding The clay cliffs upon which the site stands are not stable and continuing coastal erosion means that everything will slowly fall into the sea over the coming years. If work is to continue at this crucial Kent site substantial sums of money will need to be raised to finance any future investigations.
Construction networking success CAT attended two construction industry exposition and networking events, the Kent Construction Expo near Maidstone and the South East Construction Expo near Crawley. Both provided great network opportunities and chances to engage with fellow professionals working in the construction industry. Many of the architectural practices, planning consultancies, small building firms and major construction companies were there and provided a good opportunity to connect.
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