Evaluation at Land North of Bitham Park Road, Westbury

Standard evaluation methodology as outlined in the relevant CIfA Standard and Guidance document. An archaeological evaluation excavated fifteen 30 x 2m trenches across two fields which comprise a plot of land north of Bitham Park, Westbury. This represented a 4% sample of the roughly 10 hectare site. The trenches found a concentration of Bronze Age features and deposits toward the south-east of the site; comprising gullies and pits cut into a calcareous chalky deposit, which geoarchaeological analysis suggests is derived from periglacial solifluction. The Bronze Age features almost certainly reflect a continuation of a Bronze Age settlement recorded to the immediate north of the site by Wessex Archaeology in 2017. The calcareous deposit, into which the Bronze Age and Roman features were cut, itself sealed an archaeologically significant probably late glacial (Windermere interstadial) buried soil. Geoarchaeological analysis indicates that this soil is possibly derived from a short interglacial warm period, rarely recorded in the United Kingdom, and which has potential to contain anthropogenic material of the Upper Palaeolithic period. The presence of the buried putative glacial soil was unexpected and reflects a regionally significant discovery with a potential to inform national research agendas. The report therefore concludes with recommendations for further work if further development of the site takes place.