Development at Damside Street To The Rear of 54-56 Church Street, Lancaster, Lancashire- Desk-Based Assessment, Watching Brief and Evaluation

As part of a planning submission (reference 04/01248/FUL) for a residential and commercial development on Damside Street to the rear of 54-56 Church Street, Lancaster (NGR SD 47668 61870), Oxford Archaeology North (OA North) was commissioned by Northern Developments Ltd to undertake a programme of archaeological investigation to further inform the planning process. The programme was established in consultation with Lancashire County Archaeology Service (LCAS) and accordingly, OA North compiled a project design for a desk-based assessment, a watching brief to maintained during geotechnical boreholing and test-pitting of the site, and evaluation excavation by trial trenching to be undertaken prior to the development of the site. The following document reports on the results of each phase of this work.
The desk-based assessment, undertaken in November 2007, covered a radius of 100m around the proposed development site and included visits to the Lancashire Historic Environment Record, the Lancashire County Record Office, and consultation of OA North’s library. The development site lies towards the centre of Lancaster, just south of the river Lune. Previous fieldwork at Damside Street has indicated the presence of possible nearby Roman riverside settlement, relating to the fact that the contemporary course of the Lune in this area ran slightly to the south and west of its present course. The gradual movement of the river channel left much of the area very marshy, forming the Green Ayre. This area is not thought to have been developed until the eighteenth century, when it was consolidated with large amounts of refuse and other redeposited material. Today, the proposed development site lies to the rear of plots on Church Street and is currently used as a car park.