Silverdale Brook, Newcastle-Under-Lyme, Staffordshire. Archaeological Watching Brief.

A watching brief was undertaken by Oxford Archaeology North (OA North) in January 2006 at Silverdale Brook, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire (centred on NGR SJ 3831 3463). The Environment Agency proposed to reduce flooding on the
Silverdale Brook by the construction of a flood defence bank, aligned approximately east/west to the south of Silverdale Road. This area lies within an area of recognised
archaeological potential, being on the site of Knutton Mill, which dates back to at least 1775. After an initial assessment by the Environment Agency in December 2004, the Environment Agency Archaeologist commissioned OA North to undertake the programme of observation during the groundworks for the flood defence bank.
Two distinct corridors, one to the west of the access track and one to the east of an access track, were subject to topsoil stripping to a maximum depth of 0.10m. A trench, 0.7m wide and excavated to a depth of 0.75m from the surface, was positioned along the centre line of this corridor. These groundworks revealed that the site had been subject to disturbance from the dumping of material from a colliery, to the south of the site, which had formed a levelling layer. This had the effect of obscuring and damaging any evidence of surviving archaeological remains, therefore, no significant archaeological remains were encountered during the course of the observations. The pottery fragments and glass bottles recovered dated from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and dated the topsoil overlying the colliery overburden.