Site Event/Activity record ECH4363 - Hawthorne Cottage - 7 Victoria Road, Little Neston, Cheshire.

40m of foundation trenches for house extension on north side of existing house dug to .30 - 1.0m in depth. All trenches dug too solid sandstone bedrock. Upper top soil adjacent to house contained concrete from previous extension (owners believed date of previous extension to be 1979) and modern services. Elsewhere clay garden soil overlaid shattered bedrock. Trench sections also contained some small pieces (less than 5cm²) of C19th & C20th pottery and one fragment of clay pipe. The natural sandstone bedrock at the bottom of the trenches although varying in depth across the site had a clear and sheer drop of .60m visible as a slightly curving arc stretching from the south east corner of existing garage to the northern exterior wall of the existing house (i.e. along the proposed eastern wall of the Hall/diner. The sheer drop probably represents the cut for building material for the original C17th house? (i.e. on site quarrying). The foundation trench abutting the northern wall of existing house also revealed one of the foundation stones of the main house measuring .40 x 1.0m laid directly onto the sandstone bedrock. The implication being that the original sandstone building blocks for th C17th house were quarried on-site and thereafter the original house was built directly onto sandstone bedrock. Foundation trench running on north side of propossed lounge toward existing garage also revealed angular sandstone foundation stones measuring .25 x .15m. The foundation stones were much cruder than the overlying rectangular cut sandstone walls of the existing garage. The trench west of the current entrance to house i.e. at the SW junction of the proposed dining room also appeared to contain back-filled sandstone tumble.