SNN100411 - Archaeological assessment And Recording, Northampton South Trunk Main Phase 2, 1991-1993

An archaeological assessment of alternative routes for the Northampton South Trunk Main Phase 2 was carried out Between January 1991 and January 1992 by the Northamptonshire County Council Archaeology Unit acting for Anglian Water Services Ltd. A desk-based study supported by a programme of fieldwalking and geophysical surveys identified fourteen individual areas of potential archaeological interest. Three of these could not be skirted by any of the pipeline proposals and were therefore subject to pre-emptive excavation in 1992-3. They comprised two cropmark sites near Ecton and a scatter of early-middle Saxon pottery close to Mears Ashby. The excavations at Ecton revealed a series of circular and rectilinear ditched enclosures indicating extensive occupation from the later Bronze Age to the Iron Age, together with part of an undated ditched enclosure. No archaeological deposits were associated with the pottery scatter at Mears Ashby. A watching brief was maintained during subsequent installation of the pipeline in 1993 but no new discoveries were made.