The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

• 220 • John Schofield
continuous facades and one room
deep, may be inferred from the
absence of rubbish pits near the line
of the street. One-room timberframed
houses of thirteenth- or early
fourteenth-century date have been
excavated at Lower Brook Street,
Winchester, and more substantial
examples in stone of the fifteenth
century at St Peter’s Street,
Northampton (Williams 1979). Work
in Perth has uncovered graphic
evidence of poor lifestyles, in singleroom
buildings with walls of posts
and wattle which were probably both
living and working space for cobblers
and other artisans (Figure 12.5).
Medieval towns, to varying
degrees, had building regulations that
sought to prevent fires and improve
Figure 12.5 Three houses and a latrine in thirteenth-century Perth at Kirk sanitation and drainage. Sometimes
Close.
the observance or flout-ing of these
Source: Scottish Urban Archaeological Trust, from Yeoman 1995
regulations can be seen in the
archaeological record: for instance,
walls only 1 m wide dividing properties in London. Buildings of stone lasted longer, and often
formed links with former topographic arrangements among the comparatively restless mass of
timber-framed buildings, which were easily taken down and reassembled, sometimes on a different
site.
Evidence of manufacture and crafts
Today, in many towns, we can see a Butcher’s Row or Ironmonger Lane. It is usual to think of the
craft areas of medieval towns as being clearly demarcated one from another; but this is only part
of a more complex picture.
Certainly, a common feature of twelfth-century and later urban industries is their nucleation.
Not only do some industries occur in towns but not in the surrounding countryside, but there are
distinct zones within towns. The existence of these quarters in the twelfth century can be
demonstrated both by street names, and also by the concentration of certain types of industrial
waste, such as large, brass-melting crucibles and bronze-casting mould fragments from certain
areas of the City of London. In Britain, as in France and Germany, such quarters seem to have
been more prevalent in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and significantly not later, when, after
the plague, these local boundaries appear to have broken down.
Sometimes any zoning will be explicable in terms of the requirements of the industry. The
fringes of a town will always be attractive to those industries that require large areas for storage
or preparation, for example timber yards, pottery or tile kilns and tanneries. Most urban crafts,
however, did not require distinctive workshops and many are therefore archaeologically almost
invisible. We can study those industries that required the provision of heat, or abnormally high
quantities of water or other unusual conditions. Medieval crafts that have left traces include the
making of pottery and tiles, various stages in the manufacture of cloth, making salt, bells, tanning