Arley Golf Course Development

As reported in Newsletter 23, the golf course at Arley has now been extended to 18 holes. To comply with PPG16 regulations, evaluation trenches were dug prior to construction work, to check the extent of any archaeological remains. This task was carried out by Lindsey Archaeological Service (LAS) of Lincoln, who completed the work in July last year. It may seem strange to employ a southern group to do this work, until you realise the contractors, Gaunt & Marnoch, also come from the Lincoln area. I have now received their report and it makes interesting reading.

Here are the details.

Disturbance

Two trenches were machine-cut into the underlying clay, each 1.8m by 25m long. The location was selected at the northern edge of the field to provide possible evidence for Iron Age or Roman-British settlement. These settlements are typical of promontory positions such as this, although they are more usually found on gravel sub-soils. The evidence from the excavations, however, was of extensive disturbance, with little or no evidence of occupation layers. This could be the result of either surface mining activity or the construction of the nearby Arley reservoirs.

Layers of dumping were observed, in some places to a depth of over 1.5m. In trench 1 a mineshaft was detected 5.15m in diameter, cutting vertically through this re-deposited material. This is unusual in ground that tends to be less stable, implying that the disturbances were much earlier. LAS suggest that it may have occurred as early as 14^th or 15^th century when coal could be extracted from near the surface. The geology map shows the Arley seam outcropping all along this ridge, which would be very attractive to early prospectors. LAS also suggested that the vertical shafts could be the capped airshafts from the River Douglas culvert, which was dug in the 1850s.

Interpretation

Tim McAvoy and myself examined the site soon after the excavations had been completed (but not back filled). We noticed that developers had stripped away the topsoil from the whole field, revealing a number of mineshafts in the excavation area. These were too close together to be capped airshafts and must therefore represent later mining activity. As mentioned in the previous newsletter, our interest in this field, centres on the possibility of Roman mining activity, as reported by Edward Hull, the 19^th century government inspector. Our interpretation, therefore, is that this disturbance may well be a lot earlier than the Middle-ages. No early dating material, however, came out of the excavations, but opinions that the promontory is an artificial build-up, suggest that the evidence could still be buried deep below the present surface.

Next Meeting

Wednesday 1st November at the BP Centre (Scout HQ) in Greenough Street, at 7.30 pm as usual. This month’s speaker is Dr Tim Strickland, who is the Regional Chairman of the CBA North West (Council for British Archaeology). He will be talking on ‘Roman influences in Armenia’

Hope to see you there - B.A.