SNN114834 - Archaeological excavation and Monitoring Assessment Report and Updated Project Design: Mulberry Place, Daventry

ADAS undertook a programme of archaeological mitigation comprising a strip, map and sample excavation and a watching brief on land at Mulberry Place, Daventry, Northamptonshire between 1st July 2019 and 23rd April 2020. The work was commissioned by Willmott Dixon Construction Ltd in advance of the construction of a new cinema complex and associated car-parking in response to archaeological conditions attached to planning application DA/2018/1033. The strip, map and sample excavation which was undertaken in the northern half of the Site identified a number of features associated with the Medieval settlement of Daventry. These comprised burgage plot boundary ditches, isolated pits and postholes, and a large area of backfilled clay extraction pits. Animal bone and Medieval to Post-medieval pottery was recovered from excavated features across the Site. Three prehistoric flint flakes and two residual early-middle Saxon pottery sherds were also recovered. Archaeological monitoring carried out outside of the strip, map and sample excavation area alsorevealed the presence of structural walls associated with the former school in the southern part of the Site and the potential remains of a later Medieval stone wall on the western side of the Site.