A desk-based assessment of the historic environment baseline conditions at a site on land at Upton-by-Chester High School and a 500m buffer of the site boundary. Data was reviewed from the Cheshire HER and Historic England. Included a site walkover, and a review of historic mapping, aerial photographs and LiDAR. Also included an assessment of the likely effects of the proposed development on the known and potential heritage assets, with conclusions and recommendations to avoid, reduce or mitigate the effects. The Environment Partnership (TEP) Ltd have been commissioned to undertake a historic environment desk-based assessment to assess the impact that a proposed development at Upton-by-Chester High School would have on the historic environment. Baseline conditions show that the 500m Study Area includes five designated heritage assets comprising four scheduled monuments and one Grade II listed building. One scheduled monument, 'Roman Camp 300m West of Upton Grange Farm', partly overlaps the northern boundary of the application area however there will be no direct impacts to the scheduled monument from the proposed development. There will be a temporary effect on the setting of this scheduled monument and the grade II listed parish boundary stone whilst groundworks and construction takes place. There are thirteen non-designated heritage assets within the Study Area of which one is located within the development site, comprising cropmark of an enclosure or field boundary. Due to the potential for the feature to have a Roman origin, a programme of trial trench evaluation was undertaken at the request of the Development Management Archaeologist at Cheshire Archaeology Planning Advisory Service. The work confirmed that the feature was likely post medieval in origin and formed a field boundary. No evidence for a Roman origin for the feature was revealed. This heritage asset will be partly or wholly removed during groundworks and construction of the new school building. It is assessed that there is a low potential for unknown heritage assets with archaeological interest to be present from the Roman period within the playing field of the proposed development site despite its proximity to other archaeological sites and remains of the Roman period. This assessment is informed by the results of the trial trench evaluation undertaken ahead of the planning application for the site. It is assessed that there is low potential for unknown heritage assets with archaeological interest to be present from the Prehistoric, Early Medieval, Medieval periods and the Modern period. It is likely that the construction of the existing school buildings will have truncated and removed any potential buried archaeological remains within those areas.
Bassir et al. (Mon,) studied this question.