Description

Wessex Archaeology was appointed by Infinity Homes Ltd to carry out an archaeological watching brief during demolition and construction groundwork for a residential development at the former Thames Valley Foods site, Marlborough Road, Aldbourne, Wiltshire, centred on National Grid Reference 426260 175308 (referred to hereafter as the Site). These works were required in respect of a planning application (application ref: K/52276/F).
Wiltshire County Council had highlighted the potential for the survival of human remains following a previous discovery, during the construction of an extension to the existing factory, of a series of inhumation burials. A Civil War context was intimated due to the proximity of the Site to skirmishes of that time and the well-preserved state of the skeletal remains.
During the watching brief evidence of extensive modern truncation was observed, especially on the lower slope of the development area from service trenches associated with the construction of the factory in the 1960s. The groundworks were monitored on the upper south-east part of the Site and subsequently human remains were discovered. The burials revealed comprised a number of disturbed inhumation graves dated to the Saxon period by an iron knife found with the disarticulated skeletal remains.