2022 – Turns out it can get worse.

With the dawn of a new year (yes, we know it’s already April May June July, no we are not accepting constructive criticism at this time) the Under Over team has hit the ground running. The dream of a leisurely start back to the working week was quickly dashed with the rise of the new Court Theatre build. Kirsa assured us it would be a straightforward and easy site. Kirsa was in fact wrong. We have also been juggling many other sites, as per usual.

So, what have we all been up to? Our historians are hysterically working their magic, Clara is buried somewhere in the lab, while Jamie and Carly are sticking it out in Moncks Bay and the redzone. Nigel is in a brick barrel drain and Ashburton AND Akaroa (at the same time?!), Hamish is covered in rust, and Tristan is glued to a microscope. Our lovely lab team, Wendy and Naquita have frantically been washing shoes and torpedo bottle bases, Kirsa has been on field school (lucky) and invoicing (unlucky), and Neda, Rebecca, and Alana can be spotted in the wild somewhere in the CBD. All in all, the whole team has been putting in some major mahi these past few weeks months, and we thought we’d kick off the blog this year with some of our cool finds (It’s still technically the start of the year because we haven’t hit June July August yet, that’s our story and we’re sticking to it). We’ve summarised it down to our most dastardly sites and exciting finds for you (translation: we wrote most of this in early March… we’ve been busy).

Buckle up kids.

Court Theatre – Performing Arts Precinct

If any of you readers have been watching or reading the news recently (yes, we are famous now) you may have heard about the Court Theatre site. Additionally, if you  visited the library in January or February you may have spotted us working at the new Court Theatre site on the corner of Colombo Street and Gloucester Street. We were easy to spot given we were in full cover white asbestos suits – which are great in 30-degree heat (Rebecca here, did you know you can still get sunburnt through a full coverage suit? *Single tear smiling face*). Fun fact: asbestos itself is one of the few weaknesses of the archaeologist (along with alcohol free beer and snakes – naturally).

Figure 1. An archaeologist in the wild. If you listen carefully, you can hear them begrudging the asbestos.

The new Court Theatre site was originally home to Cookham House, a boot factory in operation from 1851. Many other businesses were soon established on the site facing Colombo Street. These included grocers, a butcher, a jeweller, a China and glassware shop, a confectioner, photographers, solicitors, drapers, and more. Essentially, this was a major boujie shopping centre, comparable to The Crossing or Merivale (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Colombo Street looking south in the 1880s. Image: Burton Brothers Studio, c.1884c.

With it being the site of a former boot factory, we had initially joked about how we would find large pits full of shoes. Unfortunately, the joke was on us as this was literally what we found (Figure 3). Feature 1 was a very large rubbish pit with “an entire archaeological layer of compressed shoes” (any Douglas Adams fans out there?). How many shoes you ask? Two fridges full.

Figure 3. Feature 1 half sectioned with the compressed layer of archaeological shoes, some bottles, and underlying roofing slate.

In total we encountered 49 archaeological features. I too was disappointed we didn’t have one more to get to 50 but believe me 49 was plenty. We encountered all sorts of features including rubbish pits of the large, extra-large, and outrageously large variety; multiple wells and artesian bores; building remains such as foundations and pile holes; a brick cesspit; a latrine; an infilled gully; and much more. With bulk earthworks only recently finishing we haven’t completed our analysis just yet, so stay tuned for future updates. But in the meantime, here are some photos!

Figure 4. X marks the spot of yet another very large archaeological feature.

Figure 5. A brick cesspit – don’t wonder too hard about what those layers are made up of.

Figure 6. A red brick well!

Figure 7. A yellow brick well! (follow, follow, follow, follow)

Figure 8. A clay smoking pipe recovered from a rubbish pit at the Court Theatre site – we may have an upcoming blog on clay pipes so stay tuned!

Superlot 15 – Cambridge Terrace

Much like the name suggests, there were many super things about Superlot 15. The ground was super hard, it was super hot, and the archaeology was super cool. Unlike the Court Theatre rebuild, which featured a fun viewing platform shaped like a large library, you probably didn’t see us digging at Superlot 15. This is because we were hiding a metre below the surface in the one corner on the site that was filled to the brim with archaeological features. Fun fact – the metre-high edge-of-excavation was to the west, so we spent a lot of time baking in the sun! Luckily, we had Brent on site who took it upon himself to build us a sunshade made up of various bits and pieces lying around on site, which we highly appreciated. We love an innovative king. He also gave us biscuits. Is he the best digger operator ever? We think so.

Figure 9. Local archaeologists grateful for shade on hot day. Photo also featuring variations of the ‘sexy sunhat’ and ‘naughty neckshade.’ Safety first, everybody! Make sure to bring electrolytes to site on a hot day (it’s got what plants crave).

The area currently dubbed ‘Superlot 15’ is an area originally made up of parts of 6 town sections, which was used for residential purposes. The houses were owned and built primarily by Edward Coxhead Mouldey and Charles Wellington Bishop. While the Bishop family likely lived on the section until the 1890s, Edward Mouldey owned Town Sections 229-233, and we suspect he did not personally live in all 8 houses on his own. Following his bankruptcy in 1888, ownership of Town Sections 229-233 eventually passed to Alfred Bullock, who leased the 8 dwellings. Aerial imagery from the 1940s suggests the 19th century houses survived well into the 20th century!

Figure 10. Detail from Strouts’ 1877 map of Christchurch showing buildings present on the relevant town sections. Town Sections 227 and 228 (coloured blue) were owned by the Bishops until the 1890s. The project area is indicated in red. Image: Strouts, 1877.

Figure 11. Aerial image from 1946, showing buildings previously on Superlot 15. 263 Cambridge Terrace (Town Sections 227 and 228) indicated in blue. The project area is outlined in red. Image: LINZ, 1946.

We had already spent quite a bit of time on Superlot 15 since works began and had found a scattering of archaeological features across the site, but nothing too dramatic. Turns out this gem was truly saving the best (?) for last. In the space of two days, we went from 10 features to 29, and we entered what I like to call ‘Survival Mode.’ There’s nothing quite like densely packed earth to push your excavation skills to the limit. The crew at Superlot 15 were very patient with us while we desperately tried to wrap our head around these features.

Figure 12. A small portion of our small area, showing rubbish pits in the fore, mid, and background.

Figure 13. Facing the opposite direction from the previous photo, some more features. A lot of the features on this site appeared to be connected for various reasons; these rubbish pits were connected/disturbed via a 20th century drainpipe. It made for some interesting digging!

A large amount of drainage features were encountered on site – earthenware pipes, a brick sump, and a brick chamber for an artesian well. This confirmed what we had suspected all along – whoever was living here did at some point have running water and plumbing – wow! The rubbish pits on this site came in all shapes and sizes, mostly containing a lot of household refuse typical to the 19th century including a wide range of ceramics, torpedo bottles, condiment bottles, tonnes of sheep bones, piles of oyster shells, and some other fun finds. Pictured below is Rebecca holding an anchovy paste jar. You can see by her expression that she is shocked people would eat something so repugnant. Another fun find was the Cavalier smoking pipe pictured below. This site is not yet finished, so stay tuned for more hard-packed earth.

Figure 14. Rebecca gasping at the anchovy paste jar recovered at Superlot 15. Endorsed by her Majesty Queen Victoria, we however, remain sceptical of the product.

Figure 15. Local French man featured on smoking pipe.

Figure 16. A half-sectioned rubbish pit with layers. From this view we can tell the rubbish was being deposited from the west (right) side of the feature. Feet included for artistic purposes only.

Updates from The Lab

The stoneware bottle pictured below is an unusual find. It was made for a specific pub, but not a pub in Christchurch, or even New Zealand. The impression on the bottle reads “BRAY/ Six Bells/ Chelsea base: FULHAM/ STONE/ POTTERY”. This tells us the stoneware flask was made by the Fulham Pottery, which was founded by John Dwight in 1672 and primarily manufactured stoneware up until the 1950s (Oswald, et al., 1982). Six Bells was a public house located at 197 Kings Road in Chelsea, that was established by at least 1722 and is still operating today as a restaurant. Members of the Bray family are listed as the publicans from at least 1823 until at least 1866. By 1881, a Christopher J. Aston is listed in the post office directories as the manager, indicating that the Bray’s association with the pub ended sometime after 1866 and before 1881 (pubwiki, 2022).

This suggests then that the stoneware flask was made by the Fulham Pottery specifically for the Bray family and the Six Bells pub – in Chelsea. It is hard to date the flask based on the available evidence, but a manufacture date range from approximately 1823 until 1866 is assumed.

While examples have been found on other Christchurch archaeological sites of table wares that have been commissioned specifically for hotels, there have not been any examples of stoneware bottles commissioned by, or for businesses located outside of New Zealand. Searches of Heritage New Zealand’s digital library revealed that it is probable that this is the first example of this type of bottle found on a New Zealand archaeological site. Google Image searches could not find a similar bottle, suggesting that either not many of the bottles were produced, or that not many have survived and that they are rare. It is likely that the stoneware bottle was brought specifically by Mr Bowley to New Zealand. Further historical research would need to be conducted into the Bowley family to determine what their connection to Chelsea and the Six Bells pub was, but the presence of the bottle would suggest that there was some connection.

Figure 17 . The stoneware bottle manufactured for the Six Bells pub in Chelsea.

To Conclude

All in all, the team have been working really hard (as per usual) and it’s been a rather exciting start to the year. Christchurch continues to surprise us with new archaeological discoveries and while we jest about how exhausting our sites have been recently, we wouldn’t have it any other way (Rebecca here – still advocating for a three-day weekend personally). While we quietly pray for a brief reprieve from field work to tackle our reports, we do in fact thrive in the chaos. Stay tuned for future finds as rumour has it, someone has a stadium to build or something.

-Rebecca and Alana <3

2 thoughts on “2022 – Turns out it can get worse.

  1. Love it!
    Figure 6, the brick lined well, is a soakage pit.
    We found one of these during roadworks on the main street of Coromandel Town a few years back.
    The brick work is designed to let water out not keep it in.
    The stray bricks at the top indicate the direction that it was designed to receive inflow.
    I have pictures of the Coromandel one if you would like them, and I also have pictures of our 35ft 1872 brick well at the homestead here for comparisons.
    My warmest regards
    Ash Franklyn
    Geologist
    Karamana Homestead;)

  2. Thanks, very interesting for a Christchirch old girl to read. Fish paste sandwiches were eaten a lot in our house in my youth but I don’t think it was anchovy paste. That’s pretty exotic.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Time limit is exhausted. Please reload CAPTCHA.