Site Event/Activity record ECH3062 - Excavations at Pleasant Street. Roman Northwich

Programme of rescue excavation undertaken in advance of redevelopment of the area behind the bakery in Pleasant Street (Site B). The site produced evidence of multiple timber buildings, forming part of a row of barracks flanking the western defences of the fort. (Source 1) Excavations comprised a single T‐shaped trench. The precise location of this excavation, in the car park behind the current TESCO store on Chester Road is difficult to define. It lies within the western third of the auxiliary fort and located foundation trenches for timber buildings. A brief interim report was published (Jones 1991, source 1) though there is a fuller unpublished version (Jones 1992, source 3). The excavation archive is held by Cheshire Museums. (Source 2) Trenching revealed 'coherent elements of Period I barrack blocks in the retentura. One of the cross-walls of the barracks was also identified in a second trench where the presence of fairly modern stave-lined pits had substantially disturbed the Roman remains.' The pattern fitted in with remains recorded in 1983 and 1985. (source 3) See also sources 4-6