An Evaluation by Fieldwalking of Land at Sutton Scarsdale, Derbyshire

In October 1995, ARCUS commissioned was by Derbyshire Mining Limited to undertake an archaeological fieldwalking evaluation of land at Sutton Scarsdale. An archaeological inspection was required because of proposals by Derbyshire Mining to extract coal by opencasting. The area investigated by this evaluation produced little of archaeological interest. One piece of medieval pottery was found in Field 2 (S16). Apart from this one item, no pottery earlier than eighteenth-century date was recovered. This, together with the presence of hawthorn field boundaries, suggests that the locality was probably used for low intensity pastoral grazing until the time of the Parliamentary Enclosures. The slags and other residues found in Field 2 do not relate to industrial use of the landscape, and were imported from elsewhere as hardcore for the construction of the lane.