In 1973 and again in 1976 archaeological excavations were carried out at Upper Maudlin Street before construction work at the dental hospital, opposite the Bristol Royal Infirmary (BRI). The archaeologists from the Bristol City Museum found evidence of a Roman site, the first to be found in central Bristol. Pottery dating from the late 2nd century AD until the 5th century AD was found, although much of the evidence had been disturbed by later use of the site. Though there were not many Roman finds it was possible to work out what kind of a site it was from the few clues discovered.
During the medieval period, approximately 800 years after the Romans, part of a Franciscan friary stood on the Upper Maudlin Street site. This friary was replaced by houses in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and a chapel and burial ground in the eighteenth century.
The site today.
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