Blackburn & Price Garage, Berwick-Upon-Tweed, Northumberland Archaeological Evaluation

A programme of archaeological evaluation was undertaken at a site located at Blackburn and Price Garage, Silver Street, Berwick-Upon-Tweed (grid reference NT 999 526). The garage buildings had formally been those of the Border Brewery. The
site covers c 0.3ha, and is bounded by Silver Street to the north, Palace Street East to the east, Oil Mill Lane to the south and properties fronting Foul Ford to the west. In
total, three evaluation trial trenches ranging between 15m to 20m were excavated by Oxford Archaeology North (OA North) in February 2007.

Prior to the evaluation, a planning application had been submitted for the demolition of much of the existing buildings and the construction of a residential scheme. An
archaeological desk-based assessment had previously been undertaken in support of the planning application (CgMs 2005).

The evaluation detected buried archaeological remains in all three trenches positioned to gauge the potential adverse impact of the development. The remains were generally
preserved from a depth of 0.3m below the present ground level and, in at least two of the trenches (Trench 2 and 3), were seen to continue to depths exceeding 2.14m and
1.65m respectively. The remains comprised make-up deposits, cobbled surfaces, elements of stone structures and the deposits associated with them. There were several
successive phases of activity in Trenches 2 and 3, probably domestic habitation predating the brewery and extending from the medieval to the post-medieval periods. Trench 1 detected several phases of post-medieval activity, probably related to the brewery, although the earliest phase may pre-date this.