75 The Avenue, Southampton - Archaeological Evaluation Report

Wessex Archaeology

Wessex Archaeology commissioned an archaeological evaluation on a parcel of land located at 75 The Avenue, Southampton, Hampshire. The evaluation comprising 7 trial trenches and two geoarchaeological Palaeolithic test pits was undertaken over two phases.

The trial trench evaluation revealed no evidence for any archaeological features or artefacts predating the late post-medieval and recent/modern periods, and features that were recorded can be shown to relate to buildings or property boundaries shown on the 1st and latter editions of Ordnance Survey mapping and predating the use of the site in the modern era as a car dealership. No evidence was revealed that could be correlated to buildings shown on an 1846 map of the site, although a single wall recorded in trench 3 may belong to this period. Brickearth was recorded at varying depths across the Site and the nature and varying depth of redeposited brickearth recorded overlying the undisturbed intact clean brickearth would appear to indicate medieval/post-med agriculture and 19th and 20th century gardening, with more recent disturbance in some trenches likely truncation of this deposit relating to development of the site since the Victorian period, and which is likely to have impacted the survival of archaeological remains, if present, predating the post-medieval period. The results of the Palaeolithic test pitting and the absence of significant Pleistocene sequences and Lower to Middle Palaeolithic artefacts, indicate that the Palaeolithic potential of the Site is considered to be low.

Considering the results of this test pitting evaluation and absence of Palaeolithic archaeological material, it is assumed the proposed development will not impact upon any significant Quaternary deposits or prehistoric remains.