SNN109163 - Moat Lane Regeneration, Towcester, Northamptonshire: Archaeological Evaluation

In July 2012, an archaeological evaluation comprising the excavation of fifteen trial trenches was undertaken by Cotswold Archaeology on a block of land off Moat lane, Towcester, Northamptonshire. The work, which was commissioned by Morgan Sindall Investments Ltd, fulfilled part of the archaeological condition attached to outline planning consent for new offices for South Northamptonshire Council, alongside new and refurbished commercial and residential properties and associated car parking and landscaping. The earliest remains dated to the Roman period and included the foundations and lower courses of a substantial stone wall, possibly part of a building, a robbed out wall, a possible yard surface, an inhumation burial and a ditch. All of these remains lay to the west of Moat Lane, to the rear of properties fronting on to Watling Street. Tentative evidence was also found for a large ditch in the area of the mill car park, on the eastern side of the site, close to the conjectural line of the town’s Roman defences. A small assemblage of Roman pottery, dating to the 2nd to 4th centuries AD, animal bone and part of a small copper alloy bracelet were recovered from Roman deposits. Medieval pottery, largely dating to the 12th to 13th centuries AD, was recovered from deposits across the site, although medieval features were only encountered to the rear of 130 Watling Street, where possible floor layers were identified. The most recent of these, a mortar floor, had been scorched to a pinkish-red colour. Part of the motte ditch, as shown on 19th-century maps of the site, was investigated and found to contain 19th-century refuse in its waterlogged upper fills, including a large quantity of discarded household crockery and leather scrap from the manufacture of shoes. Elsewhere, the remains of a 19th-century malthouse, a fuel tank from an animal feed depot and the remains of buildings shown on the 19th-century maps of the area were investigated.