Site Event/Activity record ECH6174 - Archaeological Evaluation at Land East of Chester Road, Malpas, Cheshire.

Archaeological evaluation which identifies features primarily relating to the post medieval agricultural land use of the site. Trenches 2 and 4 both identified post medieval field boundaries which correspond to field boundaries recorded in the Tithe map for Malpas. The boundary ditch within trench 4 incorporated pottery from the 16th to 19th centuries within its fill and is shown to be no longer extant by the 1875 Ordnance Survey Map. The boundary ditch identified within trench 2 is still in use and shown on the early 20th Century OS maps of the site. The only other features of interest were an undated pit within Trench 2 and a possible hollow way within Trench 3. The small pit contained frequent small and medium sized glacial pebbles and sandstone, none of which appeared to be burnt. The date and function of the pit is unclear. Similar pits have been identified on recent excavations on the A556 to Knutsford to Bowden Road Improvement Scheme and have been interpreted as being used for field clearance. The potential hollow way took the form of a shallow and ill defined depression sealed beneath a layer containing two abraded sherds of Romano-British pottery. However, given the depth at which the feature was identified (c. 1 m below ground level) and its ephemeral nature it is unlikely that that the potential hollow way corresponds to the purported Roman road identified by aerial photography. The feature is also not conclusively dated, given that the Romano-British pottery identified at the interface of the feature and the subsoil above is heavily abraded. No features relating to the medieval find spots identified during the recent Metal Detecting Survey were identified during the evaluation trenching. It would seem likely therefore that these items were imported onto the Site through manuring or deliberate dumping rather than representing settlement/land management within the immediate locale.