Site Event/Activity record ECH6616 - Land at Holmes Chapel Road, Middlewich, Cheshire: An Archaeological Watching Brief

An archaeological watching brief was undertaken in July 2018 on land at Holmes Chapel Road, Middlewich, in advance of development. The development plot comprises a small area of land that once formed part of the garden to an adjacent property, no. 5 Holmes Chapel Road. Topsoil was stripped across the development site and foundation trenches excavated. The watching brief recorded a variety of features and deposits of Roman date, including a ditch, a pebble surface, a brine-evaporation hearth, and a pit. The find of the brine hearth is significant as salt production in the Roman period is well attested in Middlewich. The ditch may be a continuation of ditches recorded in earlier excavations, and potentially represents a boundary. The pebbled surface may form part the Roman road from Middlewich to Manchester. A total of 51 sherds of Roman pottery were recovered during the watching brief, dating to the late first and second centuries AD. The three slots excavated into the ditch produced the biggest assemblage, including samian and coarsewares, probably representing domestic waste deposited into the open ditch. Significantly, a greyware pottery waster was recovered from the ditch and is thought to represent a cheese press or wring, which was pierced through the base and lower wall with a square-sectioned tool, possibly a nail, to form drainage holes. This vessel provides further evidence for the production of greywares within the Roman settlement at Middlewich and represents a new form not otherwise represented in the existing corpus. A single sherd of Mancetter-Hartshill mortarium, dating to the mid-second century or later, was recovered from the disturbed fill of the brine-evaporation hearth. Four fragments of briquetage hearth furniture was also recovered from the brine-hearth, including a small, square-sectioned, tapering pedestal or wedge, similar to other examples found at other salt-making sites in Middlewich. (1)