Monument record 758/1/9 - Robbed Wall, West of Vale Royal Abbey

<1> Lancaster University Archaeological Unit, 1997, Vale Royal Golf Course and Housing Developments, Cheshire: Archaeological Evaluation Report, R2167 (Client Report). SCH4048.

An archaeological evaluation was undertaken in 1996 at Vale Royal Abbey in advance of development of a proposed new housing development and 18 hole golf course. The first phase of assessment comprised a documentary study and identification survey; the second phase involved magnetometer and resistivity surveys. The results of the first two stages then informed the position of trial trenches in the third stage of work. The trenches were positioned to investigate areas of greatest proposed disturbance, areas of archaeological potential, and control areas where no archaeological resource had been identified. In trench 15, the line of a robbed-out wall was excavated, to the west of Vale Royal Abbey. It had been back-filled with rubble and rubbish in around the seventeenth century. The robbed-out wall possibly originally formed part of the claustral range of the monastery. It is known (see source 2) that Thomas Holcroft adapted parts of the claustral range as a dwelling, also that further building works were undertaken in the same area by the Cholmondely family who acquired the abbey in 1616.

<2> Lancaster University Archaeological Unit, 1995, Vale Royal Golf Course, Cheshire: Phase 1 Archaeological Evaluation Interim Report, R2124 (Client Report). SCH4087.