Site Event/Activity record ECH4220 - The Alderley Sandhills Project: The Archaeological Excavation of Two Rural Working-Class Cottages, Alderley Edge, Cheshire.

The Alderley Sandhills Project represents a collaboration between the Manchester Museum and the School of Art History & Archaeology in the University of Manchester, English Heritage, and the National Trust. Previous work within the region included the Alderley Edge Landscape Project (AELP), begun in December 1996, as a multi-disciplinary programme to study all aspects of the region's natural and human history. The site, which combines significant mineralogical variety, has been classified as both SSSI and RIGGS; it also has considerable archaeological importance with mining remains dating back to the Bronze Age. The AELP aimed to explore the story of the Edge with the aim of producing a management plan, also to raise public awareness through exhibitions, teaching and publication, and to identify avenues of further research. Over two years the project surveyed and mapped the topograpy of the Edge, also the mines beneath. Two small excavations threw light on the industrial mining processes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as confirming the Bronze Age dates of the earliest miners and identifying the first Roman mine shaft in England. The project produced a substantive archive of photographic, oral history, cartographic and documentary materials. Additonally, surveys of birds and vegetation were undertaken. As part of the AELP initiative, the site of Hagg Cottages at Nether Alderley was identified as an area of potential to progress knowledge of the local community's connection to the landscape of Alderley Edge. The Sandhills area is an SSSI and is also a Scheduled Ancient Monument (DCH618 - Wood Mine Cobalt Works and Associated Mines). The site lies east of Whitebarn Road and contains the sub-surface remains of the two Hagg Cottages, as well as their associated outbuildings, privies, gardens and rubbish middens. This project, commenced in 2003, was funded by the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund (ALSF). Hagg Cottages were part of the estate owned by the Stanleys of Alderley, established in the north-east of the county since the fifteenth century. There is documentary evidence that at least one of the cottages (the eastern) was built in 1746 or 1747. The sixth Lord of Stanley sold the estate, including the cottages, in 1938, and the cottages themselves were demolished in the early 1950s. A series on non-invasive surveys were undertaken on the site prior to excavation, these included a vegetation survey, a topographic survey, an electro-resistivity and a magnotometry survey. The excavations took place between 16th July 2003 and 12th September 2003; four trenches were excavated centred on the footings of the former cottages and ancilliary buildings. The excavation of Area A centred on the Stanley Cottage or east cottage, Area B centred on the southern cottage, Area C investigated anomalies identified through the geophysical survey, and Area D investigated an area of artefacts which was identified as a dump. The excavations dated the construction of the first phase of the Stanley Cottage to 1747-1808. The Southern Cottage, however, appears to date back to the mid-seventeenth century, this conclusion is based on the form of floor plan of the cottage which resembled a rural three-roomed, two storey farmhouse with a 'baffle-entrance' which commonly dates from circa 1600 to 1730. In this structure the entrance opens straight on to the chimney which is positioned in the middle between the first two rooms. In 1808, the Stanley estate records indicate that both cottages were divided into four households for the families of the new mine workers; the archaeological evidence also indicates this to be the case. The project produced a large volume of finds comprising 1385 bags and 370 special finds. The assemblage was similar to other Industrial era sites. Due to the volume of finds a sampling strategy was implemented. Artefacts chosen for specialist analysis were divided into eleven artefact types including ceramics, glass, metals, building materials, tobacco pipes, coins, animal bone, plastics and rubber, textiles and leather, fuel and floor coverings. (1)