Wessex Archaeology was commissioned by Morgan Sindall to conduct a programme of archaeological monitoring and recording during ground investigation works at the former East Street Shopping Centre South (proposed Hope Community School), East Street, Southampton. The works comprised the monitoring and recording of 58 trenches, including ground investigation test pits, bore holes and three transect trenches within the 0.4-hectare site centred on NGR 442400, 111512. The requirement for the archaeological monitoring and recording came from pre-application discussions for the proposed school with Southampton City Council. The watching brief was undertaken 14 - 29 October 2024. Cut features, likely to date from the late post-medieval/ early modern periods, were recorded in three of the trenches, with a further 13 trenches noting a buried soil deposit. Natural deposits were recorded in 33 trenches, whilst 25 trenches were excavated wholly within modern made ground. The depth at which the natural deposits were encountered varied between 2.96 and 0.58 m Ordnance Datum. The central portion of the site is covered with a modern dump of material up to 2.5 m thick. The only artefactual evidence not clearly from the late 20th century comprised pottery, clay tobacco pipe stem and ceramic building material, although the later was consistent with modern machine-made bricks with cement-based mortar frequently noted. The pottery dates to the late 19th/ early 20th century.
Rachel Williams (Mon,) studied this question.