SWX8310 - Archaeological Observations at The Custom House, The Quay, Poole

Report of archaeological evaluation undertaken in advance of development. There was no coherent evidence of earlier structures on the site. Structural remains such as wall foundation, Context 5, probably relate to the late 18th-century rebuilding of the ‘Red Lion Coffee House’. The excavations outside the building revealed an oyster layer, context 14, which appears to be another sighting of the shell midden underlying the medieval Town Cellars some 10m to the north-west. This consisted of discarded oyster shells, thickening from 0.2m at the back of the Town Cellars to 0.5m at the front and increasing as the shells deliberately or inadvertently reclaimed the sloping foreshore beneath Paradise Street, and towards the present Quay. Samples from both the Town Cellars and Paradise Street have yielded a radiocarbon date of AD 1095+/-108. The limestone blocks observed in Area 3, may represent the southern line of the Great Quay conjectured by Hinton (1982). However, the small size of the blocks makes this unlikely.