Heritage Assessment at Land South of Post Hill, Tiverton Devon

The archaeological evaluation was conducted following consultation with the DCHET and in line with CIfA guidelines and best practice. A total of 49 trenches, each 1.85m wide and totalling c.2,445m in length, were laid out using a Leica GPS and opened by 13t tracked mechanical excavator to the depth of in situ weathered natural using a toothless grading bucket. Exposed archaeological deposits were excavated by hand and in accordance with best practice and CIfA guidelines. The evaluation was designed to establish the presence or absence, extent, depth, character and date of any in situ archaeological deposits to inform any further planning decisions within the development site. The trenches were located to target anomalies identified by geophysical survey (Balmond et al 2024, Edwards 2019), within the restriction of avoiding overhead power cables and buried services. Note, two further trenches within the agreed trench plan (Trenches 12 and 13) were not excavated due to responses picked up during a Cable Avoidance scan of the area; whilst an additional trench (Trench 39a) was added to establish whether or not one of the enclosures continued north of a ditch terminus. This report provides the results of an archaeological evaluation carried out south of Post Hill, Tiverton, Devon. This work was carried out following phases of geophysical survey as part of a planning application for residential development of the land. A total of 48 c.50m trenches and one c.20m trench were opened, most of which targeted geophysical anomalies identified by the preceding surveys. The evaluation largely validated the results of the surveys, identifying a total of 67 archaeological features which confirm the presence of a prehistoric settlement enclosure; a series of other prehistoric (Iron Age) to Romano-British settlement enclosures; and phases of prehistoric to medieval and post-medieval field-systems. The archaeological potential for much of the site is low (fields F1-F2, F5, F9-F10), both the geophysical surveys and evaluation trenching indicating only restricted archaeological potential, and further intervention here is unlikely to be particularly rewarding. The remaining parts of the site, however, are considered of moderate or high potential (within fields F4 and F6-F8) and though none of the identified features are of Schedulable quality, these areas of prehistoric and Romano-British activity are of local and regional significance, and it is expected that further archaeological mitigation will be required in these areas.