T H A M E S V A L L E Y ARCHAEOLOGICAL S E R V I C E S Abbey Retail Park (North), Abbey Road, Barking, London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Archaeological Evaluation by Graham Hull Site Code: ABR14 ABR15/191 (TQ 4385 8400) Abbey Retail Park (North), Abbey Road, Barking, London Borough of Barking and Dagenham An Archaeological Evaluation for Wolford Ltd by Graham Hull Thames Valley Archaeological Services Ltd Site Code: ABR14 March 2016 Summary Site name: Abbey Retail Park (North), Abbey Road, Barking, London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Grid reference: TQ 4385 8400 (site centre) Site activity: Archaeological Evaluation Date and duration of project: 18th - 25th February 2016 Project manager: Steve Ford Site supervisor: Graham Hull Site code: ABR14 Area of site: 2.07ha Summary of results: Five evaluation trenches were excavated. Three located archaeological features, deposits and finds that date from the Roman, Saxon, medieval and post-medieval periods. A possible Saxon ditch was found. A deposit model based on borehole logs, previous archaeological excavations, evaluation trenching and cartographic study identified a geological discontinuity with alluvium to the west and north of the site and glacial tills to the east and south-east. Finds include Roman and medieval brick and tile, Saxon, medieval and post-medieval pottery, animal bone and worked timber. The evaluation trenching has provided further evidence for Saxon and medieval activity associated with Barking Abbey. Location and reference of archive: The archive is presently held at Thames Valley Archaeological Services, Reading and will be deposited at The Museum of London in due course, with accession code ABR14. 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 All TVAS unpublished fieldwork reports are available on our website: www.tvas.co.uk/reports/reports.asp.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 Preston 29.03.16 i Thames Valley Archaeological Services Ltd, 47–49 De Beauvoir Road, Reading RG1 5NR Tel. (0118) 926 0552; Fax (0118) 926 0553; email [email protected]; website: www.tvas.co.uk Abbey Retail Park (North), Abbey Road, Barking, London Borough of Barking and Dagenham An Archaeological Evaluation by Graham Hull Report 15/191b Introduction This report documents the results of an archaeological field evaluation carried out at Abbey Retail Park (North), Abbey Road, Barking, London Borough of Barking and Dagenham (TQ 4385 8400) (Fig. 1). The work was commissioned by Mr Ian Harris of Wolford Ltd, Forward House, 17, High Street, Henley In Arden, Warwickshire, B95 5AA. Planning permission was granted on 16th December 2014 by the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham (13/00852/FUL) for the demolition of existing buildings and construction of new 9,544 sq. m superstore (Class A1), 419 car parking spaces, together with new vehicular access and associated highway works, improvements to river bank, landscaping, and other ancillary works at Abbey Retail Park, Abbey Road, Barking, Essex. Condition 26 refers to archaeology: ‘26) No demolition, contamination remediation or development shall take place until the applicant has submitted an Archaeological Mitigation Strategy and received written approval for it from the Local Planning Authority. The Archaeological Mitigation Strategy shall contain the following elements and specify appropriate measures to avoid, reduce or offset possible harm to heritage assets of archaeological interest: ‘1) A 3-dimensional deposit model of the site and its immediate surroundings using pre-existing data; ‘2) Management and monitoring of the groundwater environment within the site to protect any waterlogged remains; ‘3) Design and installation of new piled foundations and controls over contamination remediation and other groundworks; ‘4) Provision for archaeological evaluation, monitoring, and investigation in advance of and during groundworks, including palaeo-environmental sampling; ‘5) Contingency arrangements for major new discoveries; ‘6) Arrangements for post-excavation archaeological assessment, analysis and publication; ‘7) Timetabling and procedure for integrating archaeological work before, during and after the construction programme; ‘8) Details of the archaeological team to include appropriate experience, professional qualifications and specialist expertise; ‘9) Provision for public outreach. ‘B) No demolition or development shall take place until the applicant has submitted an Archaeological Method Statement and received written approval for it from the Local Planning Authority. The Archaeological Method Statement shall specify how and when the Archaeological Mitigation Strategy will be implemented and the development must not be carried out otherwise than in accordance with the approved method statement. ‘C) The applicant shall submit the post excavation assessment and details for the provision of analysis, publication and dissemination of the results and archive deposition to the Local Planning Authority for approval within 6 months of completion of on-site works, in accordance with the programme set out in the approved Archaeological Mitigation Strategy. ‘D) A comprehensive written report of the archaeological investigations carried out in accordance with this condition must be completed and published within three years of the 1 completion of development and a copy provided to the Greater London Historic Environment Record. ‘Reason: ‘To ensure that archaeological investigation is initiated at an appropriate point in the development process, any areas of archaeological preservation are identified and appropriately recorded/preserved in accordance with Policy BP3 of the Borough Wide Development Policies DPD (March 2011).’ The field investigation was carried out in accordance with a written scheme of investigation (WSI) approved by Mr Adam Single, Archaeological Advisor, Greater London Archaeological Advisory Service (GLAAS), Historic England. GLAAS provides archaeological advice to London borough planning officers. The fieldwork was undertaken by Graham Hull between 18th and 25th February 2016 with assistance from Will Attard, Joan Garibo and David Platt. The Museum of London site code is ABR14 and the TVAS project code is 15/191. The archive is presently held at Thames Valley Archaeological Services, Reading and will be deposited with the Museum of London in due course, with accession code ABR14. Location, topography and geology The site is situated on the edge of Barking town centre, in the area covered by the Barking Town Centre Area Action Plan, and an archaeological priority zone. The site also falls within Environment Agency Flood Zone 1. The site is 2.07 hectares of previously developed land with demolished retail warehouse units and is demarcated to the south by the former Abbey Retail Park (South), which is being redeveloped to provide residential dwellings, associated amenities, landscaping and car parking, to the east by Abbey Road, to the north by London Road and to the west by the River Roding; a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation. Representative photographs of the site are provided as Plates 1 and 2. The site is essentially level and the modern ground surface lies within 0.30m above and below a typical height of 4.50m above Ordnance Datum (AOD). The current layout is presented as Figure 2. The underlying geology is on a transition between Pleistocene terrace gravels at the east and Holocene peat and fine grained alluvial deposits laid down by the River Roding (BGS 1976). This geological transition was observed in the evaluation. Archaeological background An overview of the archaeological deposits previously excavated within the site to the immediate south has been published (Hull 2002) and a desk-based assessment for an area that includes the site has been undertaken (WA 2013). The following summarizes the archaeological background. 2 The archaeological potential of the proposal site stems from its location within and adjacent to the curtilage of Barking Abbey, with upstanding ruins just to the south-east of the site. The abbey, unusually, has Saxon origins having been founded c. AD 675. The abbey has been variously investigated in the 18th and 19th centuries, but more systematically so by fieldwork undertaken in 1910-11 ahead of the construction of Abbey Road, which lies to the east of the current site (Clapham 1913). Those excavations recorded buried remains of the medieval abbey that dated from the latter half of the 12th century. The 1910-11 excavations are reputed to have included fieldwork to the west of the proposed road, although not within the proposal site but the precise location and extent of these excavations are unknown. These works did record the presence of the abbey drain crossing the line of the proposed new road. The Saxon abbey (or at least a significant part of it) may have been discovered and excavated on the proposed development site to the immediate south in 1985 but the results were never published, except summarily (Stone 1986; MacGowan 1987; 1988; 1996). A subsequent excavation on the southern site in 1990 has also not been fully published (MacGowan 1991 and 1996) but revealed further Saxon and medieval deposits. These two excavations by Passmore Edwards Museum (BA-I-85 and BA-IE-90) identified a possible 8th-/9th-century Saxon church, a possible early 8th- century horizontal water mill and Saxon period hearths, kilns and wells. One of the kilns suggested glass-working, very rare for the period. High status