Shrewsbury North West Relief Road Trial Trenching: An Archaeological Evaluation Report

The evaluation comprised trial trenching along a 53 ha. linear road scheme on the north-west side of Shrewsbury. A total of 116 trenches were planned, targeting geophysical anomalies and providing a comprehensive coverage of the development area. AOC Archaeology completed these works between October 2021 and March 2022 and opened 115 trenches in total. Trench 9 on the floodplain was excluded and Trench 44 reduced in length due to presence of a live drain. The evaluation provided an insight into the archaeological potential/significance of the site. The natural geology was a mixture of light tan and orange/brown coloured alluvial sands especially close to River Severn and orange/brown sands and gravels. Moving east across the development area beyond the Shrewsbury to Chester railway there are pockets of clays and sand rich clays ranging in colour from yellow/orange to pink/grey. Many of the trenches recorded the presence of a subsoil between 0.05 m up to 0.50 m thick, but generally around 0.15 m to 0.20 m. The levels noted during excavations generally reflected the natural topography, with numerous dips and hollows across the development area. Ten trenches contained archaeological features. Eleven trenches contained ceramic field drains or drainage features. Of the ten trenches with archaeological features six contained ditches, four contained pit features and one a brick culvert. Five of the ditches correlated with anomalies noted by geophysical survey. Whilst dating evidence was scant it was clear that three of the pit features were relatively modern in date likely late 20th century and one was most likely a natural feature. Of the ditches the most significant were those in Tr.37, Tr.38 and Tr.40 which relate to a sub-rectangular enclosure and associated ditch detected by the geophysics. The ditch in Tr.30 may also be related to the enclosure given its scale and orientation. The remaining ditches noted in Tr.1 and Tr 67 were undated and most likely field boundaries which predate the major enclosures of the early to mid-19th century as represented on the First Edition Ordnance Survey Map.