STONEHENGE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPROVEMENTS PROJECT Archaeology and the Historic Environment Baseline Assessment Prepared for: English Heritage Properties and Outreach Group 29 Queen Square BRISTOL BS1 4ND by Wessex Archaeology Portway House Old Sarum Park SALISBURY Wiltshire SP4 6EB Report reference: 71650.01 X:\PROJECTS\71650\ES\Appendices\App_A5.1_Text_Revised(2)_180909.Doc September 2009 © Wessex Archaeology Limited 2009 all rights reserved Wessex Archaeology Limited is a Registered Charity No. 287786 Stonehenge Environmental Improvements Project: Archaeological Baseline Assessment STONEHENGE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPROVEMENTS PROJECT Archaeology and the Historic Environment Baseline Assessment Contents 1 INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................1 1.1 Project background ......................................................................................................1 1.2 Purpose of this document ............................................................................................1 1.3 The Study Area: location and geology .........................................................................1 2 METHODOLOGY..............................................................................................................2 2.1 Aims and scope............................................................................................................2 2.2 Sources ........................................................................................................................2 2.3 Chronology ...................................................................................................................4 2.4 Terminology..................................................................................................................4 2.5 Best practice.................................................................................................................4 2.6 Assumptions and limitations.........................................................................................4 3 BASELINE RESOURCE...................................................................................................5 3.1 Introduction...................................................................................................................5 3.2 Statutory and other heritage designations ...................................................................5 3.3 Archaeological and historical development................................................................10 3.4 Built heritage ..............................................................................................................16 3.5 Historic landscape character......................................................................................16 3.6 Cultural heritage.........................................................................................................17 3.7 Previous studies.........................................................................................................17 4 MONUMENT GROUPS AND OUTSTANDING UNIVERSAL VALUE ...........................21 4.1 Introduction.................................................................................................................21 4.2 Stonehenge and the Avenue......................................................................................22 4.3 Stonehenge Barrow Group ........................................................................................22 4.4 The Cursus.................................................................................................................22 4.5 Normanton Down Group ............................................................................................23 4.6 The Cursus Barrows...................................................................................................23 4.7 The King Barrows.......................................................................................................23 4.8 Coneybury Henge ......................................................................................................24 4.9 Durrington Down Group .............................................................................................24 4.10 Lesser Cursus and associated barrows.................................................................24 4.11 Winterbourne Stoke Group ....................................................................................25 5 SUMMARY......................................................................................................................26 5.1 Baseline resource.......................................................................................................26 5.2 Monument groups and Outstanding Universal Value ................................................26 5.3 Potential impacts........................................................................................................27 6 REFERENCES................................................................................................................29 6.1 Bibliography................................................................................................................29 6.2 Cartographic sources .................................................................................................30 6.3 Online resources ........................................................................................................30 APPENDIX 1: GAZETTEER OF SITES....................................................................................31 Figure 1 The Study Area and key monument groups Figure 2 and 2a-d Scheduled Monuments and recorded sites within the Study Area Figure 3 Previous excavations in the car park showing features located Figure 4 Geophysics results at Airman’s Corner Figure 5 Extract from Andrews and Dury’s map of Wiltshire (1773) Figure 6 First edition Ordnance Survey (c. 1887) Figure 7 1926 Ordnance Survey ii WA Project No. 71650 Stonehenge Environmental Improvements Project: Archaeological Baseline Assessment STONEHENGE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPROVEMENTS PROJECT Archaeology and the Historic Environment Baseline Assessment Summary The Stonehenge Environmental Improvements Project has been developed by English Heritage to deliver an improved landscape setting for Stonehenge; a new, sensitively designed and environmentally sustainable Stonehenge visitor centre; and better interpretation of the Stones and the Stonehenge WHS, through development of a proposed New Visitor Centre site and associated access facilities and highways improvements. The Project comprises the following principal proposals: • Construction of New Visitor Facilities, including car and coach parking at Airman’s Corner and provision of a Visitor Transit System utilising the current A344 road; • Construction of a New Roundabout junction at Airman’s Corner, with realignment of the B3086 to its original (pre-1964) route where it joins the junction; • Decommissioning and removal of the Existing Visitor Facilities and car park leaving only a minimal Operations Facility and emergency toilets; • Decommissioning and removal of the A344 between Byway 12 and Stonehenge Bottom; • Reconfiguration of the A303(T)/A344 junction; • Improvements to the existing Longbarrow Roundabout A303(T)/A360 junction. This report presents an assessment of the existing (baseline) conditions in respect of archaeology and the historic environment, to inform an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the Project proposals. Baseline data has been collated for a Study Area extending from King Barrow Ridge in the east to Shrewton in the west and from Lake Down in the south, north as far as Robin Hood’s Ball (SW corner NGR 407074, 139300, NE corner NGR 413969, 145999). The whole of the Study Area is identified as an Area of Special Archaeological Significance within the Salisbury District Local Plan. Just under half of the Study Area lies within the Stonehenge World Heritage Site (WHS). The Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites WHS was inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 1986 and a Statement of Significance setting out the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of the WHS was agreed by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in July 2008. The revised Management Plan for the Stonehenge WHS (January 2009) identifies a series of seven attributes, which contribute to the OUV of the WHS: • Stonehenge itself as a globally famous and iconic monument; • The physical remains of the Neolithic and Bronze Age funerary and ceremonial monuments and associated sites; • The siting of Neolithic and Bronze Age funerary and ceremonial sites and monuments in relation to the landscape; • The design of Neolithic and Bronze Age funerary and ceremonial sites and monuments in relation to the skies and astronomy; • The siting of Neolithic and Bronze Age funerary and ceremonial sites and monuments in relation to each other; • The disposition, physical remains and settings of the key Neolithic and Bronze Age funerary, ceremonial and other monuments and sites of the period, which together form a landscape without parallel; and iii WA Project No. 71650 Stonehenge Environmental Improvements Project: Archaeological Baseline Assessment • The influence of the remains of Neolithic and Bronze Age funerary and ceremonial monuments and their landscape settings on architects, artists, historians, archaeologists and others. There are 176 Scheduled Monuments within the Study Area, comprising 413 individual monuments. Of these, 144 (337 individual