Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-ndmmz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-31T13:09:07.826Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A Nineteenth-Century Livery Stable and the Morris Garage Workshop: Investigations at the Morris Building, Longwall Street, Oxford

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2024

Get access

Summary

Oxford Archaeology (OA) was commissioned by Austin Newport Ltd, on behalf of New College, to undertake an archaeological investigation ahead of development at the Morris Building on Longwall Street (Fig. 1). Following an earlier evaluation, an archaeological strip, map and sample excavation was carried out during the course of the groundworks between August and November 2017. This report summarises the main results of the excavation; the full report is available to download from the OA Library.

The area of development, formally a gravel courtyard to the rear of the Morris Building located at grid reference SP 5192 0645, encompasses an area of c.170 sq m. The site lies at about c.60.40 m above Ordnance Datum (OD). The site lay within the footprint of the defensive ditch of medieval Oxford. The extant thirteenth century city wall lies about 10 m to the south, immediately to the west of a bastion that formed the north-east corner of the town defences. It is believed to follow the line of the late Anglo-Saxon burh defences or its postulated eastward extension. During the thirteenth century or later a second line of stone defences were added, c.10 m in front of the town wall. Excavations undertaken by Brian Durham during earlier redevelopment of the former Morris Garage site revealed a 1.0-m thick stone wall corresponding with the southern boundary wall of the present site and a projecting bastion on its north-east corner, both constructed over the partially backfilled town ditch.

The maps of Agas (1578) and Speed (1610) depict the intact city walls and ditch but do not indicate the outer stone wall which is shown intact on Loggan’s map of 1675. It is speculated that the outer wall was repaired and the ditch to the north was recut during the Civil War, though by the time of Loggan the ditch had been infilled and both sides of the newly Holywell Street built up. The area of the site appears to have remained open until at least 1750 when Taylor shows the site as a garden with a small house on the Holywell Street frontage.

In the nineteenth century the land was occupied by the printing office of Jackson’s Oxford Journal with the rear of the site occupied by livery stables.

Type
Chapter
Information
Oxoniensia 88 , pp. 365 - 372
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
First published in: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×