Broadgate Excavations

April 1933

BROADGATE EXCAVATIONS. (III.)

If Broadgate should be excavated, it would be found to be honeycombed with cellars. Until early in the 19th century it was little wider than Grey Friars Lane, and just before Hertford Street was made, a row of old houses extended to the site of the Cross, which stood in the centre. Extending from Smithford Street into Broadgate by Messrs. Burton's are cellars which have been filled in of late.

Beneath Messrs. Boots' new building a clay pit once existed, worked to a depth of about 16 feet, and of excellent clay. This had been filled in with all kinds of rubbish, containing both medieval and Norman pottery. In one spot at a depth of about 9 feet, a cellar floor was discovered, under which the skeleton of a young person was found, covered with a rough hewn plank which had perhaps been part of a wood shed. At some distance from this a small garden was discovered, the fencing and stakes being still intact. In this garden where a rockery had been made a piece of the Cross (which stood opposite until 1756-71) was found. This stone retained the leaf gold with which at was gilded in 1667, and also the red paint.

Beneath Messrs. Flinn's premises it was revealed that the cellar floor at the rear was on the virgin soil, and beneath the dry floor three fuzz or puff balls were found, measuring 14-ins. across, in perfect condition. These must have been there for a very long period, as they would only grow in moisture.

At Messrs. Tetts, in Pepper Lane, the making of alterations for additions to Messrs. Lyons' premises revealed interesting foundations. The old stone foundations of the former building were 3 feet inside the later building, making the lane narrower when the brick building was erected early in the last century. At the back quite a large piece of stone wall was discovered, and a photograph taken. To show what buildings stood there (and parts of those buildings are to be seen today in Derby Lane) may I quote Dugdale. "In 29 yr. Henry 2nd (1182) Earl Kevilock (this was the Earl who built the Leper Hospital at Spon End) making an exchange of grounds with the monks, states - "And to the end that posterity should not be ignorant which were the metes and bounds betwixt both their Sees, that is to say of the Prior's part and Earl's part, he by the same charter fully describes them, including lands of the said Monastery, within the following limits, viz, beginning at St. Michael's churchyard (which was then where the road passes the south side of the present Cathedral) and from thence going directly to the broad gate of the castle, leaving the houses of Will de Repyndon and Will the Son of Ric Trorthing (tenants to the Monastery) on the north part and the Earl's see on the south."

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