A Fourteenth-century Well at the Bank of England

Extract

It is well known that wooden vessels were in common use for domestic purposes in medieval times: dishes, bowls, etc., almost certainly made of this material are shown in use in the kitchen and at table in several documents, for instance, the Bayeux tapestry, the Luttrell Psalter, and Queen Mary's Psalter. It is seldom, however, that the actual wooden vessels are found in excavations on medieval sites: mention may be made of ‘two turned saucer-like bowls of beechwood, 8 in. in diameter, and about 1¼ in. deep’, found with other wooden objects and early medieval pottery in the filling of a deep shaft at Pevensey Castle.

A remarkable find was made in 1929 during excavations on the site of the Bank of England beneath the NW. side of the old Power of Attorney, that is, about 100 ft. south of the Lothbury frontage and 140 ft. west of the Bartholomew Lane frontage. A well, 7 ft. 6 in. in diameter, built of chalk blocks, of which nine courses remained, to a height of 5 ft. 6 in., had been sunk through the lower deposits into the gravel. The well was filled with greenish black slime, from which were extracted pottery vessels, a number of wooden bowls, a few broken animal bones, and a hen's egg. All the pottery appears to be of about the same date in the fourteenth century, and is of value as a group of associated types and in giving a date to the wooden bowls.