Land at Water Lane, Winchester

Existing garages present within the site were demolished and the Modern surface asphalt was removed, prior to the commencement of the archaeological works. The initial phase of the archaeological investigation consisted of a mechanical strip across the area of the proposed house and associated parking bays. Nonsignificant overburden was removed to the top of the archaeological deposits by use of a suitable mechanical excavator, equipped with a toothless bucket, whilst under constant archaeological direction. The initial mechanical strip extended to an average depth of 0.37m below the Modern ground surface. The revealed archaeological features and deposits were cleaned and recorded in plan. A total of five archaeological investigation sondages/sections were manually excavated and recorded, in order to provide a general characterisation of the archaeological sequence at these depths. The second phase of works comprised mechanical reduction down to the formation levels for the proposed house, the foundations for which were envisaged to consist of a flat-based concrete raft. The reduction was undertaken by use of a suitable mechanical excavator, equipped with a toothless bucket, whilst under constant archaeological direction. The second phase of mechanical strip extended to an average depth of 0.84m below the Modern ground surface. The revealed archaeological features and deposits were cleaned and recorded in plan. A total of two archaeological investigation sections were recorded at this level. During the second phase of works, the client notified that it was necessary to excavate geo-technical pits, in order to test the viability of the proposed foundation raft. Subsequent to archaeological approval, a total of four geo-technical test pits were excavated and recorded within the reduced area of the proposed house. The test pits were excavated by use of a suitable mechanical excavator, equipped with a toothless bucket, whilst under constant archaeological direction. Due to the depth of the excavations, all observation and recording was conducted from outside the test pits. The test pit excavations extended to an average depth of 2.35m below the Modern ground surface. The final phase of archaeological works consisted of a watching brief during the excavation of shallow foundation trenches, which extended below the base of the proposed house foundation raft. These excavations were undertaken by use of a suitable mechanical excavator, equipped with a toothless bucket, whilst under constant archaeological observation. The foundation trenches extended to an average depth of 1.16m below the Modern ground surface. During all phases of works the identified archaeological deposits were subject to appropriate levels of investigation and recording. The limited excavation and watching brief indicated that the site formed part of a Medieval chalk quarry, which was in-filled sometime around the 13th century or after. The site was subject to enhancement or reclamation, at around the 17th century, with the construction of a land drain and the dumping of soils. Subsequent evidence comprised settlement features, which included possible refuse pits and a chalk-built well, along with a later building, the basal remains of which were of chalk-built construction. Although the building was of uncertain function, its presence was entirely consistent with the cartographic evidence, which shows the site as developed from the 17th century onwards. A brick-built well was probably of later Postmedieval/Victorian date.