Astley Hall, Chorley, Lancashire. Archaeological Excavation Report

A second season of excavation was undertaken in the walled garden of the late sixteenth /
seventeenth century Astley Hall, Chorley, Lancashire (NGR SD 571484), between the 19th and
25th July 1999. The project was conceived and undertaken by members of the Chorley Young
Archaeologists’ Club, supervised by staff from Lancaster University Archaeological Unit
(LUAU).
The 1999 season’s excavation trench was confined to an area in the east of the walled garden. The
1999 trench (12m x 10m) was a northward extension of the excavation carried out the previous
year, and was designed to examine the area in the north-eastern corner of the garden, where
medieval features had previously been found.
In the event, the 1999 season revealed no further evidence for medieval activity on the site,
although it did produce two sherds of medieval pottery from a disturbed context. It did, however,
reveal a series of pits and slots cut into the natural subsoils which yielded a fine collection of later
seventeenth and early eighteenth century artefacts.