Site Event/Activity record ECH7222 - Gasworks Yard, King Street, Middlewich, Cheshire: Post-excavation Assessment Report

A programme of archaeological strip, map, and record was undertaken in 2021 at Gasworks Yard, west of King Street, Middlewich (NGR 7040 6646), ahead of an extension to a waste-water pumping station. This work followed on from an archaeological evaluation, in 2014 (ECH5949), which recorded numerous archaeological features, the majority of Roman date. This report presents the results of a post-excavation assessment of the data from the investigations to mitigate the impact of the construction works on the site’s buried archaeology. The brine springs at Middlewich have been exploited since at least the Iron Age. At Gasworks Yard many features of Roman date clearly associated with saltworking were recorded. A paleochannel was not closely dated, though its upper fills yielded a few sherds of Roman pottery, suggesting that it had largely filled by then. Most of the Roman-period activity can be assigned to a single broad phase of occupation (Phase 1a), followed by a less intensive phase (Phase 1b). The few post-Roman features are all attributed to the late post medieval period (Phase 2). The area investigated was subdivided into three rectilinear plots (Plots 1-3), defined by shallow ditches aligned north-east to south-west, perhaps in the late first or early second century AD. The features were broadly perpendicular to the probable line of the Roman road beneath King Street, which seems to have been the settlement’s principal thoroughfare. The most intensive activity appears to have occurred in the central plot (Plot 2), which contained two timber-lined brine wells and a probable rectilinear timber building, in addition to several large pits and many smaller features. The most notable features of Plot 3, to the east, were a large, clay and timber-lined brine-settling tank, and several other large pits, including another probable brine-storage pit, lined with wattlework and timber. Ceramic evidence provides a strong indication that most on-site activity occurred from the late first century AD to the mid-second century. Only very small quantities of pottery were deposited after c AD 150, the latest being from the second half of the third century (mostly from a single pit), and it seems that the site had been largely abandoned by the late second century at the latest. In addition, a comprehensive programme of environmental sampling was undertaken from the waterlogged Roman deposits, including:- - 208 bulk soil samples for the recovery of charred plant remains and charcoal. - 9 monolith soil samples for pollen analysis. - 12 monolith soil samples for soil micromorphological analysis. - 53 large pieces of worked wood, preserved by anoxic conditions within discrete features such as Roman timber-lined wells and pits, for species identification and to advance understanding of Roman period woodworking and construction techniques, and also the potential for dendrochronological dating. (1)