Untitled - Council for British Archaeology

the east range. This interpretation was in fact suggested for
foundations discovered there in 1973. This possibility is not
invalidated if the new diécovery was a subsidiary reredorter; in
any case it did not last long as a reredorter'and some other
arrangement must have replaced it. The need for a reredorter at
the west end of the south cloister range may indicate that there
was a dormitory on the first flOor of the range, as at Gloucester
Blackfriars where study cubicles survive: for as large a house as
Oxford it may well have been necessary to use more than one range
for the dormitories. It would also have been convenient if the
guest rooms were in the west range. It is not clear why.this
reredorter should have been abandoned and there.remains the
possibility' that i new one was built using the same culvert, but
that no trace of the buildings has yet been fourid.
The.new evidence for the suspected Little Cloister helps
to reinforce the beliefthAt the priory.had a high status amcing
Dominican houses, though several apparently lesser ofies'also had
subsidiary cloisters. Some.of these such as Bristol (another big
priciry) did not have a Complete quadrangle with covered walks and
at OXford-it is clear. that the covered walk east of the reredorter
was added to one at the back of the main south range. There'is no
firm evidence yet that the cloister was in fact complete.
Although substantial evidence is lacking, the amount of refuse
beneath the reredorter range may indicate that the kitchens and
refectory were in the south range (the normal arrangement). The
later fishbone deposits could also be connected with this.
It is hoped to conduct.further excavation in the next year.
9. OXFORD, 21 Longwall Street, the Outer Town Wall - Brian Durham
New College are converting William Morris's garage of 1910
into student accommodation, and very kindly arranged for early
démolition of the workshop buildings to enable the Unit to
investigate the outer town wall here. This feature is unique
amongst English medieval town defences and has been excavated
previously at St Helens Passage by the University Archaeological
Society (see N. J. Palmer, 'Excavations on the Outer City Wall ...'
Oxoniensia XLI (1976), 148-160).
The new excavation (Fig ) exposed the north face of the outer
wall and part of the ditch. Despite a very deep recut of the ditch
apparently no earlier than the seventeenth century (layer 8/2), a
wedge of medieval layers survived against the wall overlying the
foundation offset. The footing itself stood on a layer of firm
sandy silt which produced no finds but which seemed to be the primary
silting of the early ditch. This layer in turn overlay a layer of
concreted gravel and the disturbed surface of the natural clay,
presumably the original cut. In a second trench Nicholas Palmer
and the Oxford University Archaeological Society exposed the curved
- 155-