Bannister Hall Watercourse, Higher Walton, Preston- Watching Brief

The Environment Agency requested Oxford Archaeology North (OA North) maintain an archaeological watching brief during excavation of trial pits (TP 1-7) during site investigation (SI) works in advance of the construction of a new open channel, parallel to an existing culvert. The site is located to the east of a housing estate at Bannister Hall and to the north of the River Darwen, Higher Walton, Lancashire (NGR centred SD 5794 2769). Apart from a possible late medieval field boundary to the west of the site, information provided by the Specialist Advisor (Archaeology) at the Lancashire County Archaeology Service (LCAS) would suggest that there is no archaeological potential within the site. However, a mill race is shown on the Ordnance Survey First Edition (1849), which led from the Bannister Hall Printworks ponds to the east, and then crossed the River Darwen via an aqueduct to the south of the site (NGR SD 57933 27573). The course of the mill race, seen on nineteenth and early twentieth century mapping, appeared to have been constructed to possibly deviate around a former obstruction that was no longer in existence, rather than take a direct route to the river. Should such an obstruction have existed, this would have been within the site of the SI works. Therefore, it was believed that there may be sub-surface remains of archaeological potential. The watching brief was carried out on 7th November 2008, from which a short summary of the results has been produced to accompany the results of the SI works.
All of the trial pits were machine excavated, apart from TP7 which was manually excavated through initial deposits preceding a borehole, which inhibited a detailed archaeological examination and subsequent recording. The topsoil varied in thickness between each excavated pit from 0.1m-0.8m, and the natural geology appeared to be alluvial gravels and sands. No features or deposits of archaeological significance were encountered and there were no finds retrieved.