Cellared remains of Simon Oliver's house on the north side of the Church of St Peter

Summary

The below ground remains of the cellar to an early-C15 merchant’s house and shops on the north side of the Church of St Peter in Castle Park.

Reasons for Designation

The cellared remains of Simon Oliver’s house to the north of St Peter's Church in Castle Park are scheduled for the following principal reasons:

* Survival: as the cellar of a C15 high status, urban building that retains a significant amount of medieval fabric;

* Potential: for the survival of further remains which will contribute to our understanding of the construction of medieval town houses as well as the development of Bristol as a significant mercantile centre;

* Documentation: the house is referred to in historical sources and features in C19 illustrations, and the cellar has been subject to archaeological investigation.

History

During the medieval period Bristol was one of England’s largest towns and its second largest seaport, trading with Ireland, France, Spain and Portugal. It became very wealthy, minting its own coins and holding a weekly market (Boore, see Sources). A commercial district of shops, inns and tenements was established in the vicinity of the Church of St Peter which is first documented in 1106, and to the west of Bristol Castle, a Royal stronghold. Much of the area was redeveloped during the later medieval period by local dignitaries and wealthy merchants including Simon Oliver (died 1419) and Sir Richard Newton (died 1448) who were both Recorders of Bristol and, according to the antiquarian, William of Worcester (also Worcestre), they both owned property in the area. Simon Oliver’s house and four shops (Leech, 2014) at 6 Peter Street occupied a corner site at the junction of Peter Street and Chequer Lane, which had become known as Church Lane by the early C19. The building is depicted on several early-C19 watercolour drawings and on early-C20 photographs which show a three-storey timber-framed building with jettied upper floors.

The area suffered extensive bomb damage in November 1940, and many buildings were destroyed. The site was levelled, leaving only the ruins of St Peter’s Church. The cellared remains of part of Simon Oliver’s house were uncovered in the mid-1970s during an excavation (Boore, 1982) to the north of the church. A plan from 1896 indicates that the building had an L-shaped footprint, extending westwards behind several other buildings on Peter Street, although it is not known if any buried remains of the north-west part of the building survive since there has been no excavation in this area. The building was found to have been in continuous occupation from the late medieval period until its destruction in the mid-C20 and had undergone some modifications over the centuries.

The cellared remains that are known to survive below the present ground level have been overlaid with concrete slabs, and the footprint is marked by paving slabs.

Details

PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS
The monument includes the buried remains of an early-C15 cellar of a merchant’s house and shops. The rest of the building was destroyed during bombing in 1940. The remains are situated beneath a paved area on the north side of the Church of St Peter (listed at Grade II*) in Castle Park.

DESCRIPTION
The cellared remains form part of the original structure of the late-medieval house and are constructed of rubble and dressed stone, probably of Pennant sandstone. The cellars measure 6m by 13m and comprise two adjoining chambers orientated north to south that were originally approached from ground-floor level by a curving staircase lit by a small single light.

The excavation uncovered evidence that the access stair at the south-east corner of the north chamber had been blocked sometime between the C16 and C18 and a double-flued chimney inserted into it. The north chamber originally had a timber ceiling which does not survive. There are several small recesses in the walls for lights and the remains of a chute in the east wall. An opening at the north-west corner appears to have originally opened onto other chambers. In the south wall is a dressed stone doorway with a round-arched head and a relieving arch that connects the two chambers. The walls of the south chamber continue upwards to form a barrel-vaulted ceiling. The chamber had a mortar floor, and the remains of a possible hearth was located during the excavation. The southern end of the south chamber is understood to be full of earth.

EXTENT OF SCHEDULING
The area of protection is based on available evidence about the current known extent of the surviving remains of the cellar to Simon Oliver’s house as identified from archaeological investigation. The monument boundary has been drawn, therefore, to include the nationally important remains understood to survive as buried features together with a 2m margin on all sides for their support and protection.

EXCLUSIONS
The stone paving, brick pavers, inspection hatch, metal access steps and concrete slabs are excluded from the scheduling, but the ground beneath these features is, however, included.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

BS 163

Legacy System:

RSM - OCN

Sources

Books and journals
Leech, Roger, The Town House in Medieval and Early Modern Bristol, (2014)
Webster, L E, Cherry, J, Medieval Britain in 1975 in Medieval Archaeology, Vol. 20, (1976), 187
Webster, L E, Cherry, J, Medieval Britain in 1976 in Medieval Archaeology, Vol. 21, (1977), 242
Boore, E J, Excavations at Peter Street in Bristol & Avon Archaeology, Vol. 1, (1982), 7-11

Websites
Hugh O’Neil watercolour, 1821 in the Braikenridge Collection of Bristol Museum, Know Your Place, accessed 3 February 2025 from https://maps.bristol.gov.uk/kyp/

End of official list entry

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