Update! We now have a project homepage for this site with more detailed information.

Archaeologists from Wessex Archaeology continue to uncover evidence of Winchester’s past at 19-20 Jewry Street before the start of building work later this month.

Apart from the medieval cellar which extends the full width of the property, numerous pits and wells dug in the 16th-18th centuries have largely destroyed evidence of earlier periods.

However one exception to this is a piece of fine Roman pottery, of a type known as samian ware, which was being imported into Britain in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. It is of particular interest because it has a near complete maker’s stamp, SVRD–LVS.F. Research suggests that it is the mark of SVRDILLVS, a potter who worked in Lezoux in central France between 90-150AD. The F at the end of the name stands for fecit, Latin for ‘made (it)’.