In 1929 many old buildings were demolished to make way for the Wire Street Arcade and in this and other demolitions about the same time Smith's Yard and Albion Court disappeared. Besides the trenches cut for foundations of arcade there was an extensive lowering of the surface over much of the area. All this was watched for the Museum by EJ Rudsdale but the nature of the work was not such as to provide scope for archaeological research. The main discovery was a street - see . South of the street lay remains of Roman houses at a depth of 4ft. Two more red tessellated pavements, one 10.5ft wide and stopped 5ft short of the street from which point it ran at least 30ft S and continued under the buildings. The edges were clearly defined though no walls were found; it seems to have been a corridor or portico presumably serving rooms to the W as nothing lay to the E. Another pavement, apparently the floor of a large room but much destroyed by later pits and holes, lay 50ft E of the above. It was at least 34ft wide E-W and 24ft N-S. The edges were not well defined - on the W it abutted one of the two parallel walls running N-S 5ft apart. Between the 2 pavements lay a strip of red cement floor 9-11ft wide, 12ft long and 12ft E of the first pavement. In general the W end of the arcade was archaeologically disappointing since here the surface was scarcely lowered. <1>