SNN108053 - Archaeology desk based assessment: 23 Gold Street, Northampton

The archaeology desk-based assessment has examined evidence from written, map, archive and published sources for past activity on land at 23 Gold Street, Northampton. The site is presently in mixed retail use occupied by Poundstretcher and Fontana's Café. It includes frontage on Gold Street and rear lot workshops and storage stretching to Woolmonger Street. The site lies within a conservation area. Within the proposed development site are areas of cellarage. Some archaeological investigation has occurred adjacent to the proposed site, at 23 Wollmonger Street, but intensive archaeological activity is a characteristic of the area further west beyond Horseshoe Street. The archaeological investigations which have taken place in the western part of town have established the potential significance of the area but it is the map data from the 17th century onwards which has characterized the more recent development of the Gold Street area. In frontage buildings along Gold Street there is near continuous cellarage, which will have removed most archaeological deposits. However the evidence of the deposit survey used to judge the potential survival of archaeology at nearby sites suggests that whilst the cellars will have removed all but the deepest archaeology, areas between cellars will almost certainly produce some archaeological deposit possibly dating from the early medieval until the 17th century. The potential significance of any archaeological evidence at the site is that it will be of local, perhaps regional significance comparable with the results of the St Peters Street or Sol Central excavations. It is unlikely that the site will contain archaeological evidence of national importance or schedulable quality and in this way provide an absolute constraint to development.