Land off Wigan Road, Clayton-le-Woods, Lancashire - Evaluation

WSP Environment & Energy is facilitating the enabling works required in advance of a proposed residential development of land off Wigan Road, in Clayton-le-Woods, Lancashire (centred on NGR SD 5582 2288). At an early stage in the development process, an archaeological desk-based assessment was compiled to inform the planning process, which concluded that the site had some potential to contain buried remains of archaeological interest pertaining to the projected line of a Roman road between Wigan and Walton-le-Dale.
In the light of the conclusions drawn by the desk-based assessment, it was recommended that a scheme of archaeological investigation of the site was merited in advance of any future development. In the first instance, a geophysical survey was carried out across a large area that incorporated part of the present development site, with the principal objective of identifying any anomalies that could represent the remains of the Roman road. This was carried out in 2013, and identified two anomalies immediately to the south of the development area boundary that coincided broadly with the projected routes of the Roman road. Following further consultation with the Lancashire County Archaeology Service, it was recommended that the projected courses of the Roman road merited intrusive investigation via machine-assisted evaluation trenching.