ST ANDREW'S HOSPITAL, DENHALL CHESHIRE
Author(s): Marcus Jecock
In late 1996, Adrian Tindall, the Principal Archaeologist within Cheshire County Council's Environmental Planning Department, approached the RCHME to request an analytical survey of earthworks in Chapel Field, Denhall, assumed to be those of the documented Medieval hospital of St Andrew. The survey has shown that the traditional site of St Andrew's Hospital correlates to a complex of buildings and structures situated at the northern edge of a small cove on the Wirral shoreline. The site is badly robbed, but evidence has been found for a possible L-shaped infirmary hall and chapel surrounded by a number of other buildings of mostly indeterminable form or function. Half the area of the hospital seems to overlie the silted floor of the cove, while the other half was constructed on an artificial terrace levelled into the former estuarine scarp. It is suggested that a previously unrecognised stone wall retaining the rear edge of this terrace - now heavily robbed - formed the eastern boundary of the hospital precinct. The terrace is located next to a natural spring which may have been the main source of fresh water for the hospital. A number of possible platforms and banks have been identified built out into the cove. Although these are difficult to interpret satisfactorily, it is suggested that the most probable explanation of them is as simple quays for the offloading of small boats acting as lighters for sea-going vessels anchored further out in the Dee estuary. The documentary evidence for Denhall as an outport of Chester between the 13th and 17th centuries is briefly reviewed.
- Report Number:
- 116/1998
- Series:
- Other
- Pages:
- 31
- Keywords:
- Electromagnetic Medieval Stone, Worked Survey Archaeology
