SNN115718 - Land off West Haddon Road, East Haddon, Northamptonshire: Heritage Management Plan

Humble Heritage Ltd wrote this Heritage Management Plan in February 2023. Its purpose is to satisfy Condition 10 of the Notice of Decision for planning application WND/2022/0447, concerning the installation of 2mw ground mounted solar photovoltaic system. Condition 6 requires the submission of a Heritage Management Plan detailing mitigation measures to be employed for the mitigation of impact during the construction, operation, and decommissioning phases of the proposed development on the archaeological remains identified during pre-application evaluation. A programme of archaeological evaluation works consisting of a magnetometer survey followed by archaeological trial trenching was undertaken through the summer and autumn of 2022 in advance of the determination of this application. This work provided an appropriate level of detail on the archaeological potential of the site in line with local and national policy on the preservation and enhancement of the historic environment. The geophysical survey revealed magnetic responses, which included numerous features indicative of later prehistoric settlement and occupation concentrated in a strip along the northern boundary of the development site. The identified features correlate with crop mark evidence from aerial photographic sources. The trial trench phase of evaluation investigated the features identified in the geophysical survey. They include linear ditches, a ring ditch and occasional discrete features indicating the probable presence of a funerary landscape succeeded by an agricultural landscape . Intersecting ditches and the variable orientation of the features are taken to indicate at least three phases of activity. Dating evidence was limited to three sherds of late Iron Age pottery and a small iron spearhead within a single ring-ditch feature. There was a high degree of correlation between the results of the geophysical survey and the presence of archaeological features in those areas where trial trenches were excavated. The most significant area was shown to be a ring ditch in the north of the development site thought likely to be a gully associated with a burial mound. The mitigation measures outlined in this Heritage Management Plan are intended to: (A) Ensure the preservation in situ of all, and especially the most sensitive, archaeological remains in the development site, consistent with the requirement in paragraph 197 of the National Planning Policy Framework, which requires that planning authorities take account of putting heritage assets to viable uses consistent with their conservation. (B) where potential harm to the archaeological heritage assets is unavoidable, such as limited excavation for foundations etc, that the harm is minimised and is subject to an appropriate programme of archaeological observation and recording.