Land Off Perkins Road Bedford

The excavations at Perkins Road revealed a prehistoric ring-ditch monument and the margins of a Roman farmstead, which may have had its roots in the late Iron Age. The farmstead had a primarily pastoral economic basis, but also included a pottery kiln. Extensive alluvial deposits along the southern excavation edge indicate that this part of the site and particularly the lower-lying land to the south were subject to flooding, which may be the reason why the settlement was located primarily on the higher ground to the north. Post-Roman activity on the site was limited to medieval / post-medieval cultivation. Bedford Borough Council granted planning permission to Waitrose PLC Ltd for a retail development at the former Courts Furniture Store, off Perkins Road, on the eastern edge of Bedford. As the development threatened the survival of any archaeological remains that existed there, Bedford Borough Council's Senior Archaeological Officer requested a programme of work to assess the site's archaeological potential and mitigate any impact that the development would have. The presence of significant archaeological remains was confirmed in 2011 by a trial-trench evaluation, and a condition was therefore attached to the planning permission requiring further archaeological work before any development took place. Albion Archaeology was commissioned by Wates, on behalf of Waitrose PLC Ltd, to carry out an archaeological excavation, which took place between early February and mid-April 2012 and covered an area of c. 5,800m2. The site at Perkins Road is centred on NGR (5)08368 (2)50731, at a height of 27-28mOD. Prior to excavation, the archaeological excavation area comprised farmland, with the flood plain of the River Great Ouse to the south. The underlying geological deposits comprise sandy gravel and gravelly sand. The Great Ouse valley is rich in prehistoric and Roman archaeological remains. Much of this evidence lies south of the river, but does include Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments c. 500m to the south-west at Bury Farm, Goldington (HER 1905), where there were also the remains of prehistoric field systems and Iron Age and Roman activity. Further Iron Age and Roman settlement remains were identified c. 500m north-east of the Perkins Road site (HER 1830). The excavations at Perkins Road revealed a prehistoric ring-ditch monument and the margins of a Roman farmstead, which may have had its roots in the late Iron Age. The farmstead had a primarily pastoral economic basis, but also included a pottery kiln. Extensive alluvial deposits along the southern excavation edge indicate that this part of the site and particularly the lower-lying land to the south were subject to flooding, which may be the reason why the settlement was located primarily on the higher ground to the north. Post-Roman activity on the site was limited to medieval / post-medieval cultivation.