Site Event/Activity record ECH6685 - Hooton Park Trust: Test Pitting Report

A series of ten 1m by 1m archaeological test pits were excavated in the summer of 2018 by the Hooton Park Trust excavation project, a community project, in conjunction with Big Heritage C.I.C. The test pits were excavated within the grounds of Hooton Park, also the site of Hooton Park Airfield (CHER 2855/0/0), developed in 1917 to train Royal Flying Corps pilots for service in World War I. Prior to this, a racecourse stood within the grounds of Hooton Hall which was demolished in 1932 due to neglect following wartime use. Buildings dating to World Wars I and II still remain standing on site. The workforce consisted of local volunteers from the Cheshire and Wirral area, also local school pupils and teachers, supervised by staff from Big Heritage. Volunteers were also involved in the initial post-excavation process, cleaning and sorting the resulting finds. The test pits were excavated in a series of 20 cm spits to provide a guideline for inexperienced volunteers. The 20 cm spits were used as a safeguard to prevent volunteers digging holes and all test pits were monitored by a member of Big Heritage staff who recorded changes in contexts as they presented in the trench. This process was undertaken to a maximum depth of 1.2 m (although occasional small sondages were excavated to test the depth of the final context) but often the natural was present before this depth.The test pitting was more successful in some locations than others due to significant re-landscaping. 749 individual finds were recovered, mostly of post medieval or modern date. However some notable finds were recovered including some 16-17th century pottery as well as an almost complete beer bottle dating to the World War I period. Two possible lithic flakes were recovered from test pit 4, one of these is likely natural, however the other is thought to be a waste flake from Neolithic tool production. The flake came from a context (401) thought to be re-deposited topsoil. (1)