WORKMEN made a mystery find when they uncovered a 20ft hole in Queen Street in 1973.

The crater was discovered by council engineers who called in the archaeologists to 'look in to it'.

The hole turned out to be a freshwater well which nobody knew existed. It was inspected, measured, and photographed before signalling the all-clear to fill it in.

An archaeologist at the time said the well was almost certainly a remnant of Butchers Row, a shambles or a row of shops which used to be in the centre of Queen Street from the middle ages up to the end of the 18th century.

Butchers Row's notorious crowded slaughter houses led to much protest from the university, as recorded in the 17th century.

The 20ft hole was labelled 'quite an unusual feature' of such a relatively shallow road.