National Graphene Institute, Booth Street East, Manchester. Archaeological Excavation.

In April 2013, Oxford Archaeology North was commissioned by the University of Manchester to undertake an archaeological investigation of land situated on Booth Street East in Manchester (centred on NGR 384598 396909). The work was carried out prior to the development of the new National Graphene Institute, the construction of which will inevitably necessitate considerable earth-moving works.
An archaeological desk-based assessment that was carried out to support and inform the planning process demonstrated that the site had been developed initially between 1824 and 1831 as part of the growth of Chorlton-upon-Medlock as a suburb of Manchester. The earliest buildings on the site comprised workers’ housing and a building at 26 Clifford Street, which in the nineteenth century was variously a villa, a social club with an association with Friedrich Engels, an early example of a Victorian Turkish baths, and a hospital for women and children. The assessment concluded that whilst the site did not contain any known archaeological remains that would merit preservation in-situ, there was considerable potential for buried remains of local interest to survive.