Source/Archive record SCH8797 - Hazelbadge Road, Poynton, Cheshire: Desk-Based Assessment

A desk-based assessment and walkover field survey were undertaken in 2017 for land off Hazelbadge Road, Poynton, Cheshire (NGR SJ 91238 83891), in support of proposals for a residential development. Research for the report indicates that there is no direct evidence of activity within the Site prior to 1770, when fields occupied the east and west parts of the Site and the central area formed part of Poynton Moor. A house and outbuildings along the south-east site boundary were the only buildings within the Site at that date. Small-scale clay extraction may have taken place within the western part of the Site between at least 1770 and 1793. By the latter date, the buildings had been demolished and the field boundaries removed, with the land being emparked as part of Poynton Lower Park. A new field system had been established within the Site by 1849. The new fields did not follow the boundaries of their 18th-century predecessors and no buildings stood within the Site at that date. With the exception of the western part of the Site, the land remained in agricultural use into the late 20th century. In these areas, any archaeological remains are likely to be low-level agricultural features relating to land division and drainage, perhaps with items deposited through casual loss. Poynton Brick Works and Poynton Gas Works were constructed in the western part of the Site in the 1870s. The brick works was disused by 1920 and had been demolished by 1938, while the gas works closed in 1935 and had been demolished by 1945. The works’ respective railway sidings were also dismantled. Footings, foundations, the bases of walls and possible former floor surfaces of buildings may survive at the sites of both the brick and gas works, along with chimney bases and subsurface features such as pipes and flues. The sites of the both works are now occupied by woods and root action is likely to have impacted on any subsurface remains. The remains of retorts, machine bases and walls survive as upstanding features within the woods, while the clay pits and the remains of one of the gasometers survive as ponds.