Community Hospital, Turnpike Road, Newbury

The OAU carried out a field evaluation at the site of the proposed Community Hospital, Turnpike Road, Newbury on behalf of the West Berkshire Priority Care Service NHS Trust. A number of Mesolithic/early Neolithic worked flints were recovered from an earlier ploughsoil layer in the northern part of the site. The artefacts were not present in sufficient quantities to suggest in situ early prehistoric activities. the evaluation revealed three Romano-British ditches in the southern part of the site. the quantity of pottery recovered from these ditches suggests the presence of an early Roman settlement nearby. No other archaeological features or deposits of this date were identified during the evaluation, suggesting that the settlement does not lie within the development area. the pottery recovered is most likely to derive from a Romano-British settlement excavated by Crawford in 1919, c 150 m to the south-east, on the south side of London Road. The southern edge of the site, alongside London Road, seems to have been extensively quarried for gravel. This activity may be associated with maintenance of the road and is of unknown date.