ABSTRACT
At the beginning of 1996, archaeological monitoring was carried out on a site in St Mary’s, Southampton prior to the erection of student accommodation for the Southampton City College. 1 While its prime objective was to assess the potential danger to Saxon and medieval deposits, in the course of clearing a late eighteenth-century basement was found in very good condition and back-filled with brick rubble. This chapter grew out of an interest in this building and its associated features; the process of tracing its history led back, ironically, to the new student accommodation being erected on top of it. Indeed it is the historical continuity between the buildings and the micro-urban landscape along a small stretch of St Mary’s Street that can be said to characterize the purpose of this chapter, which begins with that late Georgian basement (Figure 8.1)
