Chapel Farm Elswick,Lancashire. Environmental Analysis.

Prior to the development of a redundant farm building at Chapel Farm, Elswick,Lancashire (NGR SD 421 386) Lancashire County Archaeology Service recommended that an archaeological building investigation should be undertaken of the extant remains of the building. This was undertaken by Chris O’Flaherty, Historic Buildings Consultant.
In addition to brick walls and extant crucks the remains of the farm building included one short section of earth walling comprising clay and chopped straw. Oxford
Archaeology North (OA North) was commissioned wall by Chris O’Flaherty on behalf of the owner Mr C Gornal to undertake the environmental analysis of a sample of the clay. The analysis was undertaken in August and September of 2006.
A sample of collapsed clay wall was collected by the owners and delivered to OA North. A sub-sample of this was processed by hand flotation in-house. The various constituents of the wall were weighed and their percentages calculated. The largest percentage of material, 78.38% of the sample, comprised fine minerogenic material.
Small stones and pebbles (aggregate) represented 12.22% and organic material (including straw, chaff, leaf and wood fragments and insect remains) the remaining 9.40%.