An Archaeological Evaluation at St Nicholas Walk, Leicester.

An Archaeological Evaluation has been carried out by University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) at St Nicholas Walk, Leicester. (SK 58224 04494). ULAS have been commissioned by Arcadius (on behalf of Leicester City Council) to carry out the work in advance of the proposed installation of a new pedestrian path. Assessment of the area took the form of five evaluative trial pits. These were excavated by hand to the level specified by the engineer to assess the requirements of remedial works on the path and side walls of St Nicholas Walk. A graveyard soil was identified across the area, just below the path at the south of the area but at progressively deeper levels in the north where it was sealed by modern aggregate making up the level for the path base. In the southernmost trial pit, excavation through this graveyard soil produced what is probably a disturbed burial, a right tibia and fibula in an articulated position and of a juvenile individual. Adjacent to the west wall of St Nicholas church a modern culvert was exposed in one of the trial pits, and examination inside this indicated that the culvert cut an east-west mortared structure 1.5m to the north of the trial pit. Based on the previous work on site, it is likely that this structure is the south wall of an earlier church, the original Saxon church and potentially being of 7th century date. In addition to the human bone, Roman building material fragments from modern levels were also recovered, this was logged then discarded. Roman pottery recovered consisted of three sherds of grey ware, and a copper alloy dress pin of Medieval or later date was also identified from the graveyard soil at the south end of the site. The site archive will be held by Leicester City Museums under the accession number YA1.2021. Assessment of the area took the form of five evaluative trial pits. These were excavated by hand to the level specified by the engineer to assess the requirements of remedial works on the path and side walls of St Nicholas Walk. A graveyard soil was identified across the area, just below the path at the south of the area but at progressively deeper levels in the north where it was sealed by modern aggregate making up the level for the path base. In the southern-most trial pit, excavation through this graveyard soil produced what is probably a disturbed burial, a right tibia and fibula in an articulated position and of a juvenile individual. This bone was exposed at 0.5m below the current path level. Previous work on the line of St Nicholas Walk in the 1930's had identified burials further to the north of the location of this trial pit, the indication being that the graveyard of St Nicholas church originally continued westwards of its modern extent. Disarticulated human bone was also recovered during the current work, and was also reburied on site. It is likely that further burials may survive at shallow depth along the line St Nicholas Walk. Adjacent to the west wall of St Nicholas church a modern culvert was exposed in one of the trial pits, and examination inside this indicated that the culvert cut an east-west mortared structure 1.5m to the north of the trial pit. Based on the previous work on site, it is likely that this structure is the south wall of an earlier church, the original Saxon church and potentially being of 7th century date. During the current work this structure was also observed at a shallow level below current ground level, an additional indication that significant deposits may still survive at superficial depths. To the north and to the required excavated levels for the remedial works the majority of deposits below the path surface were of a modern date, consisting of levelling and make up layers for the current path surface, with several An Archaeological Evaluation at St Nicholas Walk, Leicester. �ULAS 2021 Report No. 2021-071 2 Accession Number YA6.