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QUEEN STREET.

39-ft

Plan of the remains of the

GREY FRIARS MONASTERY, GT YARMOUTH. and of the walls of the CHURCH of ST FRANCIS.

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SOUTH QUAY.

--Entire Length of Church and Chancel 186′ 3′′

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STREET

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Recent Discoveries on the Site of the Grey Friars,

Great Yarmouth.

I. THE CHURCH. OF ST. FRANCIS.

COMMUNICATED BY

JOHN BATELY, M.D.

DURING the first week of this year, 1896, the Corporation workmen engaged in cutting a trench along Queen Street, wherein to lay a new sewer, came upon many items of interest in connection with the Church of the Grey Friars, which once stood upon that site. On a line with the front of the houses at the west end of the street, and a few inches

beneath the crown of the flint facings, running north It was 3 ft. in thickness bottom of its foundation.

roadway, a rubble wall, with and south, was uncovered. and 6 ft. in depth to the It was apparently no part of a building, both sides being similar, and, standing in the position indicated, it seems to have been the western wall of the precinct of the Convent. Its massiveness also suggests that it might have been something of a retaining wall to the soil within, and a defence against the tides without. The structure of the wall was not so dense, neither was its mortar so hard as that in other walls found later. Possibly saturation with salt water may have produced the latter condition.

At a distance of 39 ft. to the eastward of the wall just described, the workmen came upon another wall of rubble, running north and south, faced with cut flints on the west side, and rendered smooth with pointing on the other, which evidently formed the inside of some building-most probably the Church of St. Francis. This wall was more massive than the first one, being 3 ft. 6 ins. thick and 9 ft. 6 ins. from the top, i.e., from just beneath the crown of the roadway to the under side of its foundations. At about 3 ft. down a freestone plinth ran along the west face of the wall, the wrought stones of which were not at all decayed. And when this western side of the wall was quite uncovered and viewed intact, the whole fragment of wall had an appearance of newness and freshness which was surprising considering its age and the length of time it has been buried. Assuming the plinth to have been originally a foot or a foot and a half above the then ground level, I think we have good reason for saying the present surface of the west end of Queen Street and the Quay adjoining is between four and five feet higher than it was in the thirteenth century. The wall was exceedingly well built, and required much labour with sledge hammer and iron wedges to break through it.

Commencing about 10 ft. eastward of this second wall, and thence onwards for about thirty-seven yards up Queen Street, the workmen dug through what was evidently a burying place, turning out human remains so plentifully that it was impossible to collect the bones, and they went again into the soil with the filling of the trench. The foreman tells me he thinks they probably dug out thirty-five entire skeletons at least, and portions of many more. They were all quite 6 ft. in depth in the soil, face downwards, with heads generally at a higher level than the feet, and, although more or less

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