Site Event/Activity record ECH6151 - Land East of Chester Road, Malpas, Cheshire: Metal Detecting Survey

Wessex Archaeology was commissioned to carry out a metal detecting survey on land east of Chester Road, Malpas, in advance of a proposed residential development. This was undertaken between 2nd and the 7th December 2015. At the time of the survey the fields contained short grass ideally suited for metal detecting, although a period of extremely wet weather resulted in the southern 50m of the survey area being inaccessible. The survey recovered 90 objects from the survey area with a concentration of objects from the central section. The earliest objects date to the 14th and 15th centuries, although the majority of the finds recovered were of post medieval and modern date. The survey identified an area circa 150m north-south by 60m east-west within the northern half of the site which contained a scatter of medieval to early post medieval finds. Moreover the presence of lead spindle whorls of a probable medieval date suggests that the area was settled during this period and not simply agricultural land. No finds were identified along the projected line of the Roman road, or indeed, from the Romano-British period at all.