Site Event/Activity record ECH5418 - Gasworks, St Anne's Lane, Nantwich: Archaeological Watching Brief

A watching brief was undertaken in 2012 during geo-technical works (test pits and boreholes) carried out by Cheshire East Council on the site of Nantwich's former gasworks in connection with proposals for the preparation of a development brief for the site. The main focus was to record any evidence for waterlogged medieval or Roman deposits, specifically those relating to the salt industry, also to assess the ground contamination of the site. The watching brief monitored the digging of 12 test pits and drilling of 11 geo-environmental boreholes. The trial pits highlighted the potential for buried deposits of medieval date to exist through the presence of a small amount of medieval pottery and possible wooden structures (trial pit 10) at the eastern end of the site, close to the pre-1950s riverbank. Also a single worked flint fragment was recovered from borehole 3 at a depth of 2.9m, this possibly represented the broken tip of a tool. Other finds and deposits recorded were largely of 19th-20th century date. (1)