| We have just completed excavations at our site on the
Wear Industrial Estate in Washington, Tyne and Wear. The site
lies north of the site of Harraton Colliery, which was potentially
in operation as early as c. 1590, while the site itself lay
within an area – generally known from the post-medieval
period as 'Harraton Outside'- that was dotted with outlying
coal workings and criss-crossed by numerous waggonways transporting
coal to staithes at Fatfield on the Wear. To read more about
this report follow this link:
Washington Waggonways
PRE-CONSTRUCT ARCHAEOLOGY LAUNCHES NEW OFFICE
Flying in the face of current economic indicators Pre-Construct
Archaeology Ltd has expanded its capabilities across the UK
and is delighted to announce the opening of its third office.
Click here for further info.
In addition to well established and successful London and
Durham offices, our new office will be in Sawston Cambridgeshire.
The new office is to be known as PCA South Central and will
provide a wide range of professional services to the surrounding
counties.
PCA publishes new Monograph !
On the Boundaries of Occupation: Excavations at Burringham
Road, Scunthorpe and Baldwin Avenue, Bottesford, North Lincolnshire
By Peter Boyer, Jennifer Proctor and Robin Taylor-Wilson
Pre-Construct Archaeology Limited, Monograph No. 9
The southern suburbs of the modern industrial town of Scunthorpe
perhaps seem an unlikely location for an important archaeological
record stretching back into prehistory. Nevertheless this
is precisely what was revealed by two archaeological investigations
at Burringham Road and Baldwin Avenue, Bottesford, in an area
that was, until the mid 19th century, a rural landscape with
a scatter of villages overlooking the River Trent and its
tributary, Bottesford Beck.
That humans were active in this area in prehistory is demonstrated
by flint tools at both sites. By the Late Iron Age, the Burringham
Road site probably lay at the southern limit of a settlement,
while for much of the Roman occupation it was utilised for
various purposes, mostly agriculture-related and including
several ‘corn-driers’, these indicative of the
crucial activity of grain processing. The Roman evidence raises
the intriguing possibility that a settlement of that period
- possibly a ‘villa’ - lay close by.
It was in the Middle Saxon period that a settlement lay close
to the Baldwin Avenue site, this situated close to Bottesford
Beck. Amongst artefacts recovered there are the remains of
three large Saxon lead vessels, probably dumped as scrap metal
for later retrieval, which have provided a wonderful opportunity
for an unusual and fascinating body of archaeological ‘post-excavation’
analysis.
‘On the Boundaries of Occupation’, price £14.95
is available from direct from Pre-Construct Archaeology or
Oxbow Books www.oxbowbooks.com
King’s Cross Central: Eastern Goods Yard
 A
programme of archaeological watching brief and excavation
was carried out by Pre-Construct Archaeology Ltd at the Eastern
Goods Yard, King’s Cross Central. The site was located
to the north of King’s Cross Station and comprised a
fine example of a near-complete 19th century railway Goods
Yard. The site is to be converted for use as a University,
and will also have shops, commercial and residential areas.
Much of the site lies within a Conservation Area and many
of the buildings are listed. See more of this article
here.
Links: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7773690.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/articles/2008/09/26/richard_meier_feature.shtml
Romano-British pottery from Drapers’ Gardens
The excavations at Drapers’ Gardens produced a vast
quantity of Romano-British pottery. Almost 45,000 sherds were
recovered weighing 1.57tonnes and the process of identifying,
dating and quantifying these sherds has just been completed,
although analysis of the data is still in its very early stages.
See more pictures of the Roman pottery here.
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