Archaeological finds relate to Plymouth life in the mid-17th century

More than 1,300 significant archaeological finds have been discovered in Plymouth thanks to a rescue and recovery project run by Plymouth Archaeology Society.

The project, which began in January this year, has taken place at Commercial Wharf, Lambhay, Plymouth.

The site is located just outside the Stuart town. The area known as ‘The Barbican’, the medieval and Tudor heart of the town, extended south to the armed quay, at the entrance to Sutton Pool, which was replaced in the late 18th century by the much larger Barbican West Pier (now incorporating the Mayflower memorial).

Just south of the West Pier, part of the stone quay wall of Commercial Wharf was failing - bulging, with cracks appearing in the tarmac surface - leading to emergency conservation work needing to be carried out to prevent the wall collapsing into the sea. As part of this, the ground behind the wall was being removed by a mechanical digger when it was noticed that it contained early clay pipes and ceramics, identified as coming from the Mediterranean.

Since mid-January 2022, volunteers from Plymouth Archaeology Society under the direction of Martin Read, have been carrying out rescue work to recover as much archaeological information as possible from the site, given the difficult circumstances and timeline necessitated by the emergency work.

Historical Background 

There is no evidence of any development on the site prior to the English Civil War and Civil War maps also show no development. However, there are few maps of the area until ca.1660. 

The Strode family, of Newnham Park near Plymouth, had tried to develop the waterfront on their land in the Lambhay from the late 16thc, but there is no certain evidence of any actual development prior to the building of Phoenix Wharf as a Victualling Office on land leased from the Strode family in 1654. [A victualling yard is described as a public establishment for the collection and supply of provisions to the navy].

It is likely that the original wharf on the Commercial Wharf site was built c1650 by the Strode family as a commercial development.

The earliest map showing building development on the site, in 1665, shows a star-shaped proposed design for the Citadel as well as the medieval Castle Quadrate and part of the town. To the east of the Castle, the wharf is shown running south from the Barbican armed quay, with six buildings at the southern end and a road heading south towards the existing Victualling Office and the lower defences at the front of Plymouth Hoe.

Lambhay Victualling Yard 

Plymouth has been used as a base by the Navy for centuries, but there were no dedicated facilities in the town for supplying the fleet. This changed during the Commonwealth when part of the Lambhay, the steep valley to the south of the Barbican and east of Plymouth Hoe, was chosen as the site for the earliest Victualling Yard. 

In 1654 Captain Henry Hatsell was appointed as Captain Commissioner of the Navy and Victualling in Plymouth. He leased land from the Strode family to build storehouses and had an office on Lambhay Hill. Phoenix Wharf was built at this time, towards the southern end of the present Commercial Wharf. The Victualling Yard expanded to the north over time, eventually including a quay connecting the Phoenix Wharf development with the Strode wharf, probably in the late 18th century (though further research is needed on this).

After the opening of the Dockyard on the Hamoaze in 1693, the Lambhay Yard was in the wrong place to easily supply the Navy and was eventually moved to the more convenient Royal William Yard in the 1830s. The old yard was then sold for commercial uses and in the 1830 sale details the northern end of the Yard was leased from Plymouth Corporation, and described as ‘Barbican cellars with granaries over, storehouses with lofts over’.

Rescue and recovery 

The rescue archaeological project was carried out by volunteers from the society, with the co-operation of Plymouth City Council and their contractors, JNE Construction Ltd.

The lowest walls of the warehouse still remained along the waterfront, above the quay wall, which still included holes relating to the wooden landing stage (with one retaining a sawn-off wooden beam). The mostly limestone warehouse wall included a granite threshold to a blocked door towards the northern end. The quay wall was made of large limestone blocks, roughly faced, with smaller blocks between these. Concrete mortar could be seen between the blocks, as elsewhere along the waterfront. To the south, outside the area of the site, there seemed to be several builds/repairs of the quay wall.

At the start of the project the contractors had already removed about 2m of fill, including all the floor levels belonging to the warehouse. Stabilisation of the wharf involved the removal of about 1m of fill from behind the quay wall, then the casting of reinforced concrete to hold back the remaining wharf fill. The removed material seemed to consist of 2 or 3 contexts at a time, which were put into skips and gone through by the volunteers, who could usually recognise the separate contexts as they worked through them.

Finds recovered from below the warehouse do not relate to the Victualling Yard, but to the life of Plymouth in the mid-17th century and seem to, at least partly, reflect the triangular fishing trade between Plymouth-Newfoundland-Iberia/Mediterranean.

Every year many boats and fishermen (thousands) from all over Devon and Cornwall would journey to Newfoundland in the spring, processing & salting the cod caught on the Grand Banks (and in New England). Some vessels would then journey to Iberia and/or the Mediterranean to sell the salted fish. During their return, they would buy salt for the next season, but also cargoes of fine tableware, etc to be sold in Plymouth and other ports in the SW.

Finds 

So far, over 1,300 finds have been recorded from the site. The finds mostly consist of ceramics, including from Italy (Pisa and Montelupo), Iberia (Spanish amphora, Portuguese faience and coarseware) and SW France (Santonge). Northern European ceramics are represented by stonewares from the Rhineland (Rhenish, Freshen and Westerwald), ‘delft’ tin-glazed earthenware and North Holland slipwares. English ceramics include mostly North Devon and Donyatt/South Somerset earthenwares, but also examples of Borderware and, so far, one English ‘delftware’ probably from London. There are also 4 small fragments of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain (possibly Ming). All have been kindly identified by John Allan.

Other finds indicate other aspects of daily life in the town, including clay pipes, butchered animal bone and marine shells such as oysters and cockles. There are several fish vertebrae, probably from cod – though we have not been carrying out environmental sampling and fish bones are very hard to spot.

Our ‘star’ find is a Star glass bead from the island of Murano in Venice lagoon. Also known as a Chevron or Rosetta bead, complete 17th century examples can be found in museums around the world, such as the Corning Museum of Glass in New York. They have also been excavated previously in Plymouth, such as St Andrews Street.

Once more research has been carried out, we should know a lot more about the Lambhay Victualling Yard, the 18thc redevelopment and the buildings on this site, as well as life in Plymouth in the mid 17thc. 

By Martin Read, Chairman of Plymouth Archaeology Society