Site Event/Activity record ECH6421 - Archaeological Monitoring of a Service Trench. Lower Bridge Street, Chester

The failure of a water utility located beneath the highway in Lower Bridge Street, Chester, required the excavation of a trench by Welsh Water to investigate and repair the failed service. Following an initial inspection by the Development Control Archaeologist with the Cheshire Archaeology Planning Advisory Service, Chester West & Chester Council (CWaC), it was considered that further observation and rapid recording of any archaeological deposits exposed within the trench was necessary. Arrangements were made between Welsh Water and Earthworks Archaeological Services to undertake the archaeological monitoring and recording of the trench. The trench proved an opportunity, albeit limited, to examine the ground in this location for the potential survival of archaeological remains and, although clearly heavily disturbed by existing service trenches, the results suggest that a stratigraphic sequence of archaeological deposits does survive beneath the road surface to this particular stretch of Lower Bridge Street. The horizontally laminated sequence of soils deposits and crushed sandstone encountered within the trench may be tentatively interpreted as levelling layers deposited to raise the ground level on the approach to the River Dee crossing or, perhaps in the instances of the sandstone material, deposited as road metalling. The depth of these deposits suggests that the route of Lower Bridge Street and its predecessors may have followed a hollow-way formed within the natural bedrock geology leading down to the River Dee. This interpretation is supported by the shallow depths at which bedrock occurs close by; to the north at St. Olave’s church and towards the south end of Lower Bridge Street. Two Pits were recorded in section and a single stratified piece of 18th century pottery was recovered from the section. In addition to the single stratified sherd of post-medieval pottery, a not insubstantial unstratified assemblage of post-medieval finds was collected by staff of the utility contractor during the initial excavation of the trench. The overall character of the assemblage does suggests that it was disturbed from a securely stratified deposit, probably the fill to a rubbish pit. The assemblage is late 18th / early 19th century in date. To conclude, observation of the utility trench has demonstrated that archaeological deposits do survive beneath the Highway to Lower Bridge Street, not withstanding the presence of extensive utility-related intrusions.