Archaeological Desk-Based Assessment of Land at Hague Lane, Staveley, Derbyshire

In November 2006 ARCUS were commissioned by UK Coal Ltd to undertake a desk- based assessment of land at Hague Lane, Staveley (SK 445 760). The assessment was required in support of a planning application for surface mining, followed by the restoration of part of the Chesterfield Canal through the site. The desk-based assessment consisted of a revision of an earlier assessment, required due to changes in the proposed extraction and restoration scheme. Site visits, documentary, photographic and cartographic research were undertaken for the assessment. The site lies within an area where Iron Age/Romano-British remains have been recorded. A possible sub-oval enclosure to the west of Huggester Farm may date to this period, and falls within one of the areas to be opencast. A small concentration of medieval pottery sherds has been found adjacent to the application area, and ridge and furrow cultivation earthworks are located within the site, indicating that arable farming was taking place within the site at that date, although the land closest to the river is likely to have been pasture or marshland. A 14th-century carved stone head from Huggester Farm suggests that a building may have been located in the vicinity. Coal pits were located to the south of the application area in the 18 and 19 centuries, and it is possible that earlier, unrecorded mining activity may have taken place within the site, close to the outcropping coal seams. The Chesterfield Canal and the associated Norbriggs Cut were constructed through the area between 1776- 77. The canal, one of the early contour-following canals, designed by James Brindley and John Varley, remained in existence until the second half of the 20 century, although commercial traffic ceased in 1908 due to extensive mining subsidence. This section of the canal was filled in during the 1960s-70s. The most noticeable canal feature surviving above ground is the Staveley Puddle Bank, a long embankment which carried the canal over the Doe Lea valley. It was the last section of the canal to be completed, and is thought to be one of the earliest earth-cored embankments in the country, and one of two on the canal, the other at Renishaw. Details of its design and construction are not known. The canal bed and stonework have been removed from the feature, and it is ina poor state of repair. The damage lessens its value as a historic monument, although it is of high significance in terms of the history of engineering and as a landscape feature. Excavation of the feature could provide useful information on its methods of construction. To either side of the embankment, the clay-lined canal bed is likely to survive as a sub-surface feature. The moderate potential for Iron Age to medieval finds and features within the application area indicates that further archaeological evaluation will be required to assess the extent of survival, nature and condition of buried archaeology. This should include detailed landscape survey, to record the medieval cultivation remains and surviving canal features, as well as geophysical survey and evaluation trenches across a sample of the site to locate and characterise surviving archaeology. Impacts on the archaeology arising from the proposed scheme will include any removal of topsoil and subsoil prior to surface mining and the construction of bunds and access roads. This will destroy any archaeological remains. The restoration of the canal could involve the removal and reconstruction of the Puddle Bank, which would destroy any archaeological features associated with the monument.