Grafton Street, Ardwick, Manchester - Evaluation

The Central Manchester NHS Trust has obtained planning permission (Planning Application 101819/FO/2013/C1) to implement proposals for increased car-parking capacity for the Central Manchester University Hospitals off Grafton Street in the Ardwick area of Manchester (centred on NGR 384948 396273). The proposals allow for an eight-storey extension to an existing multi-storey car park, together with associated landscaping and infrastructure works.
In order to secure archaeological interests, Manchester City Council attached a condition to planning consent that required an appropriate scheme of archaeological investigation to be carried out prior to development. An archaeological desk-based assessment of the site was produced in the first instance, which identified some potential for buried remains of interest. Following consultation with the Greater Manchester Archaeological Advisory Service, it was recommended that a programme of evaluation trenching was implemented to establish the presence or absence of buried remains pertaining to a residential villa depicted on early nineteenth-century mapping of the site.