Household rubbish from 38 North Street

Arguably the most spectacular single group of finds recovered so far from excavations in Exeter, this illustrates strikingly the quantity of imported goods to be seen in the wealthiest households of the city, dating to c. 1680. The group was salvaged from the jaws of a mechanical digger by Exeter Archaeology in 1974; the site is now occupied by Sainsbury's. More than 100 fragmentary pots, with glasses, clay pipes, bones and small metal finds, were found packed into a stone-lined garderobe pit. They included seven Chinese Ming porcelain vessels, five Venetian drinking glasses, many stonewares from the central Rhineland, eight delftwares of very high quality from the Netherlands and maiolica from Liguria and Lisbon.

Acknowledgments: RAM Museum Exeter Archaeology