EH

(fig. 50)

(Teresa Clay, 1990)

Fig. 50: EH: the trebuchet platform, plan and section.

Objectives

Investigation of the circular stone structure recorded by Brown's initial survey was prompted by surface finds of medieval pottery.

Dimensions

A trench measuring 9 x 6m. was placed over roughly a quarter of the structure, so as to include a segment of the city wall.

Stratigraphy

The excavation (pl. 34) did not continue to bedrock. The earliest excavated deposit was a substantial rubble make-up (9), onto which was constructed the circular structure (4). This consisted of no more than two courses of large, un-worked blocks on both its inner and outer faces, with a core between them of earth and small stones. The structure abutted the city wall, which was partially destroyed down to the level of the walls of the circular structure. The circuit was filled with a fairly uniform deposit of fine, silty material with small stones, which had been tipped in from both sides (7,8,3). The structure thus consisted of a drum-shaped platform about 1.3 Ò 1.5m. high, with its top roughly level with the surviving height of the city wall on the east. A pronounced slope was visible running up from west to east, but this may have been caused by erosion. No floor surfaces or post-holes were identified. The ground level within the circuit rose about 0.5m. from the upper course towards the center. This suggests that there were originally one or two more courses, which later collapsed or were robbed, leaving the outer part of the fill to erode away. But it is unlikely that the wall ever stood much higher, since little destruction debris was found around it. The structure is dated to the early fourteenth century (or later) by the latest sherds in its fill⁵. The area seems not to have been occupied in the late Roman period, since the residual material from the fill was all Republican or Augustan in date.

5. Fentress et al.1991, 225.