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Context Description:
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Room 7, a quite large room, was most unusual in that it combined the functions of staircase and lavatory. There had been a doorway to the alley through the SE wall, but this had been bricked up at an early date. The lower flight of steps was against the SE wall and started from the NE jamb of the blocked doorway; the second, third and part of the fifth treads were left; the stairs, resting on solid packing, continued to a point 0.70 m. from the east corner of the room, where the packing (retained, necessarily, by a screen wall, as in
other cases) ended and in the east corner was a paved recess with a lavatory drain. The stairway, 0.70 m. wide, must have returned and run against the NE wall of the room, constructed in wood, and probably continued along the SW side to issue at a door above
that of the room opening on the court. The rest of the room was paved with brick. Had not the steps been preserved we should not, from the character of the room, have deduced their former existence; the evidence forthcoming in this case may explain the apparent absence of stairs in some other houses.2
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