Snowballing...

Its been way too long since our last blog, due in no small part to an exceptionally busy spell, which has seen Armour Heritage venturing out to sites across the southwest, southeast and middle of England.

Over the last few months we’ve had a marked rise in commissions for Heritage Statements, with a variety of proposals from new builds within Conservation Areas, conversions of redundant Listed Buildings and demolition of Locally Listed Buildings to provide more sustainable 21st century living and working spaces. Although no two projects are the same, the bespoke assessments we provide our valued clients for each project in line with local planning policy and professional standards, allows an independent, NPPF compliant assessment of the proposal to be made, which consider both the positive outcomes and potential harm of any given proposal.

Needless to say, it’s not just been the desk based work which has kept us busy, and despite some challenging weather conditions we have also maintained a steady succession of fieldwork projects over the autumn/winter stint. Watching briefs, large open area excavation and historic building recording have all been completed as conditions of planning consents, and we have also been working on some predetermination fieldwork too, with trial trenching and geophysical surveys being undertaken to inform on the archaeological potential of specific projects.

All in all its been a remarkably busy and very positive start to 2018, and as we embark on our 6th trading year, we’re not snowed under, or snowed in, but things are happily snowballing…

(Watching) Brief Encounter

Watching briefs are one of the most common types of fieldwork we undertake at Armour Heritage, and we thought it was about time we provided a more comprehensive introduction to them! In our experience, the archaeological watching brief usually forms the final part of historic environment led work required on a site, often following on from a desk-based assessment, evaluation trenching or excavation, and is most commonly applied as a condition of planning consent. As a result, our clients range from those that have never dealt with archaeology before, to those who have probably dealt with it, in their opinion, far too much! Either way, at Armour Heritage our consultancy team and fieldwork services are designed to make the process a whole lot easier for all concerned.
The watching brief can often be the only form of fieldwork required by the local planning authority, used as a ‘catch all’ approach in areas where the archaeological potential is considered to be low, or the development small, although in some instances it can form part of a wider programme of archaeological mitigation on large scale development sites. Whatever the approach, one of our first roles at AH is usually to confirm the nature of the works required with the LPA, ensuring all archaeological work carried out is absolutely necessary and appropriate both in terms of the scope of works required and timing.
The majority of our watching briefs are on smaller developments, or on sites where access for other forms of fieldwork is hampered by existing site constraints – we have found that trees, buildings and pesky badgers have all trumped archaeology in recent months! In those cases, through our considered negotiations with local planning authorities, we have been able to defer the fieldwork (and the associated costs) to post-determination.  On any given watching brief, we will usually deploy a single archaeologist to work closely with the groundworkers on site to monitor the initial stages of their excavations, be it foundation trenches, services, drainage or enabling works to record archaeological remains that may survive within the site.  We oversee the archaeologist(s) to ensure the time spent on site is limited to that which is absolutely necessary to prevent uncontrolled drawn-out monitoring, and ensure archaeology does not impede the general progress of the construction works.

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Watching brief on larger area strip at Hatch Farm, Reading

As part of our broader historic environment services at Armour Heritage, we will commission the archaeologist to complete the work through our network of trusted, usually locally-based contractors, to ensure our clients are provided with an experienced operative at a highly competitive rate. When the archaeological fieldwork is complete, the developer is free to complete their building programme whilst AH ensures the final stages of reporting are completed, enabling the archaeological condition(s) to be formally signed off.  The processes we adopt at AH in terms of planning conditions are designed to allow our clients to move forward generally unhindered by any archaeological presence at their site, whilst at the same time retrieving and recording any archaeological component within the development – a win-win situation we feel for client and historic environment alike.