17 Dean's Yard, Westminster: Archaeological Investigations

ARCHAEOLOGICAL investigations during underpinning works at 17 Dean's Yard, Westminster (Westminster School) revealed a deep sequence of medieval land-reclamation deposits overlying middle to Late Saxon alluvium and basal sand and gravel. The site lies within the area of the medieval Abbey precinct and also within a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site. The foundations of the present building were found to incorporate re-used stonework, possibly derived from earlier monastic buildings associated with Westminster Abbey close by to the north. The site was reclaimed from the peripheral marshy edge of Thorney Island in the High Medieval Period, though dumping to raise the ground level was undertaken as early as the mid-12th century. The discovery of a partial donkey skeleton in an alluvial deposit at the base of the stratigraphic sequence is of national and intemational significance, being the first Late Saxon example of this species found in the country to date. Documentary sources suggest that the cloister area was heavily damaged by fire in the late 13th century and rebuilt in the 14th under Abbot Litlyngton. 14th-century gothic stone mouldings were found in an early post-medieval demolition deposit.