I WAS interested to read about the current dig in St Ebbe’s. When I was a pupil at Notre Dame High School in Woodstock Road in the 1960s, my classmates and I participated in an archaeological dig in this area.

The object of the dig was to find the remains of a medieval friary, I think Dominican, although it may have been Franciscan. We were digging in the back yards of Victorian terraced houses which were due to be demolished to make way for the new development.

We had to stay on at school until the end of term after our exams were over and were at a loose end, so were allowed to spend a couple of weeks helping at the dig. It was either 1964 after O-Levels or 1966 after A-Levels.

We were supervised and spent hours digging. I remember we found a midden, which contained all sorts of broken objects, including a large number of clay pipes, and also the excitement when bones were found. But they did not look human and the puzzle was solved when I found an old dog collar with a disc attached bearing the word “Fido.”

Unfortunately we found nothing any older than the houses themselves and certainly nothing relating to a friary.

CATHERINE KIDD
Meols, Wirral