Proposed Hangar Construction at DST Leconfield, Beverley, East Yorkshire. Archaeological Watching Brief.

As part of the expanded training facilities at the DST Leconfield military base, located just to the north-west of Beverley, East Yorkshire (TA 02750 43300), Defence Estates
propose to build a hangar on the site. A previous desk-based assessment (Wessex Archaeology 2005) identified that the site lay within an area of moderate archaeological potential and, accordingly, Defence Estates commissioned Oxford Archaeology North (OA North) to undertake an archaeological watching brief during preparatory groundworks associated with the development.
The watching brief was undertaken intermittently over a period of four weeks in July and August 2005 within a triangular area measuring 140m by 220m, named Roebuck
Glade. Several factors limited the visibility of archaeology on the site, including the wooded nature of the previous land use; the variable depth of the subsoil, which
meant that the natural drift geology was not consistently exposed; and, the fact that the development groundworks were enacted on a number of occasions with the use of
a bulldozer using a toothed blade.
Despite this, several archaeological features were identified, the oldest of which were three furrows that may relate to medieval agricultural use of the site. Two features associated with the site’s use as an airbase comprised a Second World War barrage balloon mooring block and a levelled concrete wall, which potentially dates to the
first phase of construction at the airbase in 1937. Although not archaeological in origin, a concentration of pre-Quaternary spores (at least 1.5 million years old) were
identified in a hollow within the natural drift deposits.