In order to accommodate a concrete support base for the proposed display cabinet that is to hold the Stepney armorial dinner service, a large trench had to be excavated in the centre of the room, which offered archaeology the opportunity to evaluate the floor deposits below the 17th-century floor level more thoroughly than was possible for the already re-opened trial pit in this room. Excavations for this trench revealed that approximately 0.35 metres (14") below the 17th-century floor was an earlier floor level of compacted orange/buff coloured clay. This surface had been covered over with a loose demolition deposit of soil/sand, lime mortar and wall plaster, which in turn had been compacted with earth. Initially it was thought that this compacted clay floor was the natural clay, however a small trial pit was sunk through this deposit, which showed that the compacted clay floor was approximately 0.10 metres (4") thick and was covering a dark soil intermixed with irregular shaped stones. Luckily, positioning of the small trial pit happened to be positioned directly over a small post-hole, approximately 0.20 metres (8") in diameter and 0.30 metres (1') deep, filled with the same loose dark soil material. Providence also allowed the recovery of a large fragment of medieval glazed pottery in the form of a jug handle from this underlying deposit, with a date range of between the 14th and 16th centuries.