Everton Academy Training Ground, Finch Farm, Finch Lane, Halewood, Merseyside. Archaeological Post-Excavation Assessment.

Everton Football Club has submitted proposals (planning application 02/00823/FUL)
to Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council for the development of an Academy and
Training Facility at the site of Finch Farm, 3 Finch Lane, Halewood, Knowsley,
Merseyside (NGR SJ 459 849; Fig 1). The development area comprises an enclosed c
24ha trapezoid area of agricultural land, centred on the buildings of Finch Farm
(Buildings 1-6, demolished July/October 2005). On behalf of Everton Football Club,
RPS Planning, Transport and Environment (RPS) commissioned Oxford Archaeology
North (OA North) to undertake an archaeological evaluation of the site in June and
July 2005 (OA North 2006a). The evaluation comprised the excavation of 24 trenches
the dimensions of which varied, placed to investigate both areas of potential identified
from historic cartographic sources and within the then-existing Finch Farm complex.
The most significant results were located within the area of the farm complex,
including a possible midden deposit containing seventeenth/eighteenth-century
pottery, and on either side of the western site entrance, where the remains of postmedieval
structures were identified. In parallel with the evaluation, an investigation of
the historic buildings within the Finch Farm complex was undertaken by Oxford
Archaeology (OA 2005). This indicated that three of the buildings had been
constructed during the second half of the nineteenth century around an older, possibly
later eighteenth century, structure.
Following the results of the evaluation, RPS requested that OA North submit a project