north wall of edge of 



kitchen excavation 



line of north exterior 

 face of chimney 



edge of 

 excavation 



modern surface 

 afie'r bulldozing 



Figure 8. — Section through the filling of Pit B. 



Other finds included fragments of English delftware, 

 among them a very large polychrome charger thai 

 had been intended as a wall or dresser ornament, and 

 a most unusual saucer-shaped vessel, ornamented 

 with splashes of blue, that resembles a reversed form 

 of the London copies of Nevers faience." Additional 

 finds included North Devon oS and other coarse 

 earthenwares, a millefiori bead, and an English wine- 

 glass in the Hawley Bishop style dating about 1690. 



Dating: The evidence of the bottles indicates a 

 filling date in the first decade of the 18th century. 



PIT C 



Covering the top of this pit was a layer of reddish 

 clay, the same type of clay that was used in the 

 backfilling of the builders' trench around the kitchen 

 foundations. The clay was directly covered by 

 brick rubble from the building's destruction stratum. 

 From between the clay and rubble (T.N. 15) came 

 fragments of an iron saw some 17 in. long and a 

 brass harness fitting of unusual form. Set into the 

 clay level was the base of a brick pier made from 

 brickbats and intended to provide added support 

 over the soft filling of a pit measuring approximately 

 6 ft. by 4 ft. 3 in. and having a total depth of 2 ft. 



57 See F. H. Garner, English Delftware (London: Faber and 

 Faber, 1948), p. 15 and fig. 30a. 



3S See C. Malcolm Watkins, "North Devon Pottery and 

 Its Export to America in the 17th Century" (paper 13 in 

 Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology: Papers 

 12-18, U.S. National Museum Bulletin 223, by various authors; 

 Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1963). 



PAPER 53: EXCAVATIONS AT TUTTER's NECK 



6 in. The walls were carefully trimmed and the 

 bottom was flat, leaving no doubt that this cavity 

 was dug as a refuse pit and was not a converted 

 stump hole. 



The red clay described above gave way to a yellow 

 clay beneath the brick pier from which level (T.N. 

 16) came a few unimportant pottery fragments, a 

 shoulder fragment from a wide-mouthed jar, and an 

 iron harness buckle. Beneath this stratum was en- 

 countered the main pit filling, comprising a thick 

 stratum of wood ash (T.N. 17) which blended towards 

 the corners of the pit into pale clay (T.N. 18) that 

 has probably silted in from the sides. From the ash 

 deposit came part of a sickle, the bowl of a much- 

 decayed pewter spoon, objects of turned bone, tobacco 

 pipes, and a silvered-brass harness ornament. Some- 

 what surprisingly, the stratum also contained part of 

 a plate comparable to the delftware charger from 

 Pit B, though the date of the deposit was probably 

 20 or more years later. 



The silted clay at the bottom of the pit included 

 numerous clay-pipe fragments whose stem holes, 

 following the Harrington theory, pointed to a date in 

 the period about 1735-1750. Other finds included 

 coarse earthenwares from Yorktown, delftware, 

 part of a pewter spoon handle. 



Dating: About 1740 



PIT D 



This was a rectangular rubbish pit measuring 

 approximately 5 ft. 10 in. by 4 ft. and having a maxi- 



mum depth of 2 ft. 8 in. 



measurements closely 



17 



