Archaeological Evaluation at Dee House Chapel, Chester

two investigative test pits. The trial pits were recommended on the advice of Ramboll (consulting engineers to CWaC) to investigate the depth and construction of the Dee House chapel foundations. This was to determine the cause of the movement of the 'outrigger' at the south of the building and to provide recommendations to halt the movement and repair the building. The upper sequence of structures and deposits were very similar in both trial pits. A ceramic drain pipe was found to be running parallel to the chapel wall and a section of this pipe had previously been removed in the location of trial pit 2. Where the section of the ceramic drain had been removed in trial pit 2 it was noted to be dry and choked with tree roots, which suggested that it was not in use. The ceramic drain had originally served 2 surface water grids located against the chapel wall which in turn were fed by gutter downpipes from the chapel roof. To the east of the ceramic drain was a substantial brick wall foundation which was present in both trial pits and had previously been encountered at the northern end of Dee House chapel during the 1993 evaluation. The historic mapping would suggest that this earlier structure was the original eastern boundary wall to Dee House as depicted on Laveaux's map of 1745. The brick wall foundation was cut into a backfilled pit in trial pit 1 which produced late medieval pottery. This pit bottomed out at about 1.9m below ground level and could be seen to be cut into fairly sterile sandy deposits which are typical of backfill within the Roman amphitheatre arena. These backfill deposits were also encountered at the base of trial pit 2. No structural elements of the Roman amphitheatre were uncovered within the trial pits but this was partly because they were not excavated to enough depth to encounter the arena floor.