Our Blog
#ThrowbackThursday High Street Manningtree
May
For #ThrowbackThursday this week, we are remembering our site on the High Street in Manningtree, Essex that we visited in August 2019🎉
We conducted monitoring on this site of groundworks for a single-storey extension as this property is a Historic England Grade II listed building, and this and the adjacent property originally formed one 16th century town house. The site is also located on the southern side of Manningtree High Street within the town’s conservation area 🏠
The groundworks excitingly exposed a late medieval or early post-medieval culvert or soakaway. A culvert is a tunnel that carries water and waste down a drain or stream and out of the area, and a soakaway is another type of buried drainage feature. This particular structure was arched in shape and was constructed of reused late medieval or early post-medieval floor tiles, peg-tiles and large pebbles bound with lime mortar. The interior of the structure was 2.12m long and 0.75m wide📏
The floor tiles that this structure was composed of were probably recovered from a high-status building dating from the 14th to the 16th century, the remains of which are likely situated nearby as it was unlikely that these tiles would be transported far🧱
What an unexpected, but very exciting find!😮
To learn more about this site, please check out CAT Report 1464 at http://cat.essex.ac.uk/reports
Image: Interior of culvert/soakaway – looking south
