TVAS EAST MIDLANDS Guessens, 6 Codicote Road, Welwyn, Hertfordshire Archaeological Watching Brief by Joshua Hargreaves Site Code: GWH18/178 (TL 2305 1629 ) Guessens, 6 Codicote Road, Welwyn, Hertfordshire An Archaeological Watching Brief For Netherdown (Herts) Ltd By Joshua Hargreaves Thames Valley Archaeological Services Ltd Site Code GWH 18/178 March 2020 Summary Site name: Guessens, 6 Codicote Road, Welwyn, Hertfordshire Grid reference: TL 2305 1629 Site activity: Watching Brief Date and duration of project: 3rd to 10th February 2020 Project coordinator: Steve Ford Site supervisor: Joshua Hargreaves Site code: GWH 18/178 Area of site: c.700 sq m Summary of results: Archaeological monitoring of groundworks revealed evidence of the earliest phase of construction of Guessens. Post-medieval made ground was identified above and below these structural deposits, but earlier archaeological deposits were not observed. Location and reference of archive: The archive is presently held at Thames Valley Archaeological Services, Reading and will be deposited with Mill Green Museum in due course. This report may be copied for bona fide research or planning purposes without the explicit permission of the copyright holder. All TVAS unpublished fieldwork reports are available on our website: www.tvas.co.uk/reports/reports.asp. Report edited/checked by: Steve Ford 11.03.20 Steve Preston 11.03.20 i TVAS East Midlands, 4 Bentley Court, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, NN8 4BQ Tel: (01933) 277 377, Email: [email protected], Website: www.tvas.co.uk/eastmidlands Guessens, 6 Codicote Road, Welwyn, Hertfordshire An Archaeological Watching Brief By Joshua Hargreaves Report 18/178 Introduction This report documents the results of an archaeological watching brief carried out at Guessens, 6 Codicote Road, Welwyn, Hertfordshire (TL 2305 1635) (Fig. 1). The work was commissioned by Mr Josh Roughan of Netherdown (Herts) Ltd, Contract House, 58 Bridge Road East, Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, AL7 1JU. Planning permission (6/2018/3140/FULL) and listed building consent (6/2018/3141/LB): was approved by Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council to refurbish a grade II listed building, remove a modern extension and build new extensions. The consent is subject to a condition which requires the implementation of a programme of archaeological work, in accordance with the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government’s National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF 2018) and the District’s policies on archaeology. It was determined that the field work would take the form of a watching brief; which would monitor ground reduction and the digging of foundation trenches for the new extensions. The field investigation was carried out to a specification approved by Borough Council as advised by Hertfordshire County Archaeology Office. The field investigation was carried out to a specification approved by Dr Simon Wood, Historic Environment Advisor for Hertfordshire County Council, the adviser to the Borough Council on matters pertaining to planning and the historic environment. The fieldwork was undertaken by Joshua Hargreaves between 3rd and 10th February 2020, with the site code is GWH18/178. The archive is presently held at TVAS East Midlands, Wellingborough and will be deposited with Mill Green Museum in due course. Location, topography and geology The site is located in the historic town of Welwyn immediately west of the parish church (Fig. 1). Guessens is a two-storey townhouse with a substantial garden and outbuildings, fronting the west side of Codicote Road (Fig. 2). The garden of the property is a 0.8ha space sloping down to the banks of the River Mimram. The property is situated c.69m above Ordnance Datum (OD), but with the slope down to the river, the west of the site is substantially lower. A building to the south has been recently demolished, levelling a single-story extension. The 1 underlying geology is mapped as Kesgrave Catchment sand and gravel, with a band of alluvium from the river in the west (BGS 1978). The geology observed in the trenches was compact sand and gravel. Archaeological background The site lies within the historic core of Welwyn with the parish church of St Mary's (Grade II), c.20m to the south-east (Pl. 8). The site lies in an Area of Archaeological Significance concerned with multiphase aspects of the historic setting, specifically a substantial late Iron Age and Roman settlement, with richly equipped burials (Niblett 1995, 17-19), as well as medieval and later settlement. (Thompson 2002). Guessens itself is a grade II listed building (158575) and is of 17th century or earlier date and remodelled in the 18th and 19th centuries. Iron Age occupation areas are known up to 3km from the site, through Middle Iron Age cremation vessels and furbished 'chieftain' burial found at Panshanger in 1965. A roadside settlement emerged after the Roman Conquest, on the road between Verulamium (St.Albans) and Braughing, projected to pass below the church to the south-east (Thompson 2002, fig. 2). Evidence of Roman occupation is known widely around the core of Welwyn, including a high status building 150m to the west and other deposits covering an area of some density between the Rivers Mimram and Lea (Nibblett 1995, 61). At The Grange, in 1908, a kiln site, one of a number known locally and separately 150 cinerary urns of differing fabric were also found. These finds were an indication of wealth of burial at this location that has since been indicated north of the churchyard boundary. Further burials found at the Grange have hint at a Roman and early-Anglo-Saxon cemetery here (Thompson 2002). A documented Minster church is possibly earlier than its first document referring King Eadwig of Wessex (AD955–9) (Williamson 2010, 134). A settlement is recorded in Domesday Book (1086) ‘Welge’, split between four estates, the rectory manor held by the priest for Edward the Confessor (AD1042-1066) (Thompson 2002). Through the medieval period, the village serviced the Great North Road, with a farm located at the site of Guessens in the north-west of the late medieval settlement (Thompson 2002, fig.4). It is possible it served as the rectory by 1749, for Dr Edward Young (1683-1765) when he gained the college living as rector of the parish from King George II. The stables, to the north, have recently been converted to a residence and during these works archaeological evaluation discovered buried structural remains and a yard surface over a deep layer of made ground. The structure was said to be part of an extension of a 19th-century building, that historic mapping shows existed between 1837 and 1881, though likely demolished by the early 20th century (Pozorski and Higgs 2012). 2 Objectives and methodology The aim of the watching brief was to excavate and record any archaeological deposits affected by the ground works. This comprised the removal of overburden and the digging of trenches for foundations and services. All ground reduction and stripping would be monitored under constant archaeological supervision. All discrete features would be investigated if accessible. Results All foundation trenches were dug using a 360° mechanical excavator fitted with a toothed bucket, with trenches 0.6m or 0.45m wide to varying depths. Due to depth and the sandy nature of the overburden, many of the trench sides collapsed during excavation, making some wider than originally planned, between 0.7m and 1.2m, particularly in Plot 2. The foundation trenches were excavated and concreted in stages. Plot 1 (Figs 3-4, Pls 1, 2) Plot 1 concern observation of the new NW extension of the core building. The footings were dug to a depth of 1.6m. The stratigraphy observed consisted of 0.5m of made ground, mixed clay with modern finds and building material, overlying 1.1m of the natural geology, compact gravel and sand. No archaeological deposits were observed. Plot 2 (Figs 3-5, Pls 3-8) Plot 2 consisted of building footings to the SW of the core building (Fig. 3), forming the foundations of a large extension. The footings were dug to a width of 0.6m and between 1.6m and 2m in depth depending on the stability of the sides. The area of plot 2 was covered in a made ground (59) up to 0.6m thick consisting of loose concrete and modern brick building rubble from a demolished bungalow. Across the majority of the monitored area layer 59 was overlying levelling layer 57 which varied between 0.2m and 0.6m in thickness and overlay the natural geology. In the SE corner of Plot 2, a brick floor (layer 56) and wall foundations (53 and 55) of an early outbuilding of Guessens (Fig 3, 4 and 5, Pls 4-6) below modern made ground layer 59. The foundations consisted of a brick floor area (56) 2.35m by 2.37m with internal partition walls (54, and 55) and external wall (53) in the south east corner of this area. Internal wall 54 was only exposed in the SE section of the foundation trench (Figs 4 and 5) 3 and was 0.25m high with 3 courses of red brick, forming the NE side of the exposed post medieval foundations. External wall 53 formed the Northern limit of the exposed foundations; it had a width of 0.3m and 3 surviving courses of redbrick. Internal Partition wall 55 was exposed as 0.55m in length and 0.3m wide, with a height of 0.25m composed of 3 courses of redbrick, this partition wall stopped in the foundation trench forming the Eastern part of a door way. All these walls were built using a stretcher bond. Both the floor and internal walls were built using un-frogged red brick dated between 1700 and 1850 and similar in appearance and dimensions to the building materials observed on the earliest phases of construction of the main house in the 1700s.