Sandstone Walls, Keel Square

A series of sandstone walls identified during archaeological monitoring which was undertaken during groundworks prior to piling works at High Street West, Keel Square, Sunderland. The walls comprised of sandstone blocks with a mixture of finishes ranging from unworked, roughly-hewn and squared with tool marks. The stones were laid in regular courses and bonded with a crumbly grey mortar. The walls are likely to pre-date the late brick cellars which were recorded at the site. A series of palaeoenvironmental samples were obtained during the works in which frequent clinker/cinder, coal and coal shale, and trace quantities of charcoal were identified it is suggested that these deposits probably relate to the later medieval/post-medieval period. During the monitoring, fourteen sherds of pottery were obtained, the earliest comprised of a small-abraded body sherd of medieval reduced greenware of late 13th- to 15th-century date in addition to 18th- and 19th- century pottery, 19th- to early 20th- century glass and fragments of tobacco pipes and a damaged modern metal spool containing part of a reel of 16mm film. Faunal remains included the remains of limpet shell, sheep rib shaft fragment, mussel shell and winkle shell in addition to small unidentifiable fragments.