Watching Brief at the former Sun Inn, 36 Charnham Street, Hungerford RG17 0EJ

Groundworks for the new development were monitored as a watching brief. The fieldwork monitoring took place as a series of visits to observe and record any new groundworks dug by machine by the contractors. The groundworks were plotted on various plans provided by the client and subsequently tied to the OS grid by MOLA Geomatics. A watching brief on ground works was carried out on the site between 12th June and 3rd December 2025. Although not listed an 18th century building, the former Sun Inn, was retained as part of the redevelopment of the site. A separate standing building report has been produced for the inn (MOLA pending). The watching brief found there were banded waterlain deposits in the west and southwest of the site that probably originated from the two nearby rivers. In the north and central areas there was a brown clay which was probably the local natural at c 97.40m OD. This was overlain in places by a garden or agricultural soil deposit. The only archaeological feature found was a north-south brick wall of an 18th/19th century building built behind the Sun Inn.