Site Event/Activity record ECH3517 - Hough Hill Quarry: First Stage Archaeological Assessment at Lea Forge Farm, Wybunbury, Cheshire

An archaeological assessment undertaken in 1991 at Lea Forge Farm, Wybunbury in advance of a planning applciation to extend sand and gravel extraction at Hough Mill Quarry. The assessment comprised an appraisal of existing data, field and geophysical survey and selective trial trenching. The application area contains the presumed site of Lea Forge, a post-medieval ironworks on Checkley Brook known from documentary sources to have been in operation from c.1650 to 1820. The location of the three trial trenches was informed by the results of the ground and geophysical surveys where the combination of possible earthworks and negative magnetic anomalies held the best potential for buried remains. The trenches did recover finds of brick and roof tile fragments, lumps of slag and pottery sherds of the 18th-19th centuries concentrated along the bottom of the topsoil, however, no structural remains were identified.