Monument record 0769500000 - Rear of 88 and 90 High Street, Marlow

Trial trenching carried out in October 2012 by John Moore Heritage Services in advance of redevelopment identified the brick and chalk wall of a small late medieval or early post-medieval building which appears to have been demolished in the late 17th or 18th century, before being replaced by a building demolished in the late 19th century. 4 undated chalk postpads cut into a medieval buried soil layer were found to the SW of the building. Medieval and post-medieval pottery recovered suggest occupation from the 12th century onwards. See report for detail (B2).
Subsequent excavation carried out in March and April 2013 by Northants Archaeology found a Medieval pit with the partial and disarticulated remains of at least 2 human skeletons redeposited at the base of the pit. The burials were radiocarbon-dated to the Early Bronze Age and were associated with a sherd of Beaker pottery. The presence of further sherds of Beaker pottery in the adjacent 1996 excavation suggest that the human remains were probably from a nearby barrow, possibly an oulier of the known barrow cemetery at Lower Grounds Farm. Overlying the medieval pit were the remains of a 16th century rectangular chalk and flint building aligned NW-SE and at least 8mX7m with external buttresses on the west wall and repairs in brick and 2 small internal pits. Closer to the street frontage, a large pit or ditch 4.1m wide and 0.8m deep, aligned NE-SW, and with a single sherd of 16th century pottery from the fill, was recorded in an area that had been heavily disturbed prior to the excavation. The whole site had been stripped by 0.4m to the top of the chalk building foundations immediately prior to the excavation, which had also removed the unexcavated post-pads identified during the earlier trial trenching. See report for detail (B3).