During excavations at the Cups Hotel in 1973-4 (EVT3008) three rooms of a pre-Boudican Roman building (Colchester Archaeological Trust Building 152) were examined. Two of these were semi-basements. The first sunken room had a timber plank floor which survived as patches of charcoal. The walls were timber-framed sitting on top of a timber ground-plate. The second sunken room was set into natural sand with a sandy clay floor with burnt cereals lying on it. no walls were recovered. The third room was not sunken with a floor of sandy clay which had been intensely burnt and included burnt flax in its covering. The base of the rooms east wall survived as a mortar and tile plinth.
The building appeared to have been destroyed during the fires of the Boudican revolt.<1>