A63 Castle Street archaeology

The River Hull used to flow into the Humber Estuary along the route of what is now Commercial Road and Manor House Road.

This would’ve been a prime focus for settlement and economic activity recorded as Wyke upon Hull in the 12^th century.

Some time during the 13^th century, the Old River Hull appears to have become blocked and its importance was overtaken by the current course of the River Hull.

This led to changes in the settlements so that by the late 13^th century, when Edward I took a keen interest in the town and it was named Kingston upon Hull, the main settlement focus was Hull’s Old Town.  

We’ve found the partial footprints of two buildings at the east side of the Commercial Road site which don’t show up on any post-medieval maps which suggests that they are of medieval or early post-medieval date.

One of the buildings, constructed in limestone, was associated with a single fragment of a vessel made in Beverley in the late 13^th or early 14^th century. The other was built on top of the deposit that contained 13^th to 14^th century pottery. It had limestone elements and the remains of a brick sleeper wall. Brick has been used in Hull since the early 14^th century.

While the date and purpose remain unknown, the buildings could be significant for the history of Hull. They are well constructed and would have been expensive to build as stone would have had to be brought into the area.

It is thought the buildings could be connected to the poorly understood settlement of Wyke, documented in the 12^th and early 13^th century.

The Industrial Revolution and increased international trade during the 18^th and 19^th centuries transformed Hull into a large modern port, exporting manufactured goods from the industrial districts in the north of England and importing the raw materials that these industries needed.

Along with iron ore, one of the principal imports from Scandinavia was wood, and the significance of that material is apparent from the 1893 maps.

A sawmill can be seen in the north-eastern corner of the burial ground, on the site of a former gaol, and there are several large timber yards in the area.

The early 19^th century maps shows a large warehouse built just outside of the burial ground to the west, which was serviced by a network of railways associated with the railway dock.

Rows of substantial upright pine timbers from the warehouse were found during the preliminary dig and the timbers have been clearly burnt, something that is thought to have occurred when the site was hit by an incendiary bomb during the Second World War.

Aerial photographs and maps show that the building was rebuilt on the same footprint.

A late 18^th century jail – or gaol as it was known then - stood at the north-east corner of the burial ground at a time of prison reform when the likes of John Howard and Elizabeth Fry promoted the need for better conditions, productive labour and religious instruction.  

The Castle Street prison appears to fit a new model of prison design proposed by John Howard including six large rooms and 13 smaller individual rooms or cells.

It was known as the New Gaol, replacing the earlier House of Correction on Whitefriargate. It housed prisoners awaiting trial and those convicted of minor offences, as well as for prisoners awaiting transport to penal colonies like Australia.  It closed in 1829 when a new gaol was built on Kingston Street.

By 1869 the plot was redeveloped into a sawmill by the later 19^th century and by a brass and copper works (to the east) and a lead plant (to the west) by the early 20^th century.

All that remained visible of the Castle Street New Gaol were the heavily leaning walls that formed the western and southern perimeter of the gaol yard, separating it from the burial ground. These walls were built of typical Georgian bricks and had survived to about two metres high. Excavation of this area should reveal the plan and internal organisation of the gaol, whilst historical research may tell us about the inmates themselves.