Source/Archive record SCH6586 - Excavations in the Upper Garden, Quarry Bank, Styal, Cheshire: Archaeological Excavation Report

The National Trust, in conjunction with the South Manchester Archaeological Research Team (SMART), planned to conduct a community-based archaeological project targeted on the buried remains of an early nineteenth-century glasshouse at theUpper Gardens of Quarry Bank House, adjacent to Quarry Bank Mill in Styal, Cheshire (centred on NGR SJ 83347 83200). Oxford Archaeology North (OA North) was invited to supervise the archaeological works, and provide on-site training for the volunteers undertaking the work. The excavation was scheduled to coincide with the celebratory activities carried out nationally as part of the Council for British Archaeology’s annual Festival of Archaeology in July 2011, and was undertaken in conjunction with other events organised by the National Trust at Quarry Bank Mill. The Upper Garden was probably established as a productive kitchen garden for Quarry Bank House in the late 1790s. During the nineteenth century, a large linear hothouse, known as the vinery, was erected in the Upper Garden, together two smaller heated glasshouses, often referred to as the melon pit and pine pit. The melon pit is referred to in invoices of building work dating to 1814-15, and is thought to have been located on land adjacent to the surviving small greenhouse, a later addition to the garden. Confirmation of the precise location of the documented melon pit was one of the objectives of the archaeological investigation. This was also intended to provide a community archaeological event, in which members of the local community would undertake archaeological work in a supervised environment, and to assess the survival, condition and character of any archaeological remains of the melon pit. Two trenches were excavated in the Upper Garden. The principal area of excavation (Trench 1), located immediately to the west of the surviving small greenhouse, was targeted on the projected position of the former melon pit. A second, small area (Trench 2) was placed across the projected route of a former garden path depicted on historical mapping. Trench 1 measured 16m long and up to 9.3m wide, and exposed the remains of a structure thought to have been the melon pit. The remains included the south-western corner of the melon pit, and the possible remains of a brick floor that was likely to represent a twentieth-century alteration. The surviving masonry was only one brick wide, although it is quite possible that a second outer skin of brick was lost during its demolition. The foundations and interior flooring of a two-roomed extension to the melon pit were exposed in the area immediately to the south. These remains comprised two east/west-aligned brick-built foundations, and a further foundation that formed an internal partition. Excavation of Trench 2 revealed a 0.10m thick spread of material that contained numerous sherds of fragmented pottery. This overlay the natural geology, and probably represented the hardcore foundations for the path depicted on historical mapping.