SNN112196 - Excavations at the Cluniac Priory, Daventry

The Cluniac Priory of St. Augustine is recorded as being present on the site c1100-1526. Next to Holy Cross churchyard, late Saxon pottery was recovered from several inter-cutting pits and ditches, above which an extensive build up of more recent 18th20th century deposits formed a raised terrace. On the western side of the site excavations showed extensive medieval quarrying of Northampton Sand Ironstone for building materials contemporary with the priory’s occupation. Subsequent deposition of medieval refuse was used to landscape and reinstate the hillside and a series of later structures encroached onto the land, the last of these was a row of post-medieval cottages known to have been demolished in the 1960s