Foundation designs on a site of archaeological interest, Drayton St Leonard

The village of Drayton St Leonard sits on the edge of the gravel terrace. The gravel terrace and its associated soils play a role in preserving archaeological remains, as evidenced by cropmarks showing settlements and features. This area is described as having a ‘uniqueness of its archaeological record over the past 6,000 years’. The village has a long history of human settlement, with archaeological evidence of Iron Age farmsteads, medieval and post-medieval structures. The area was a centre of agricultural activity, and it was close to the River Thames, used as both a route and resource, which contributed to the archaeological record.

We were asked to design foundations for five luxury dwellings in Drayton St Leonard that were to be built on a green field site of archaeological interest in Oxfordshire.

Roman and Anglo Saxon remains had been found on the site and some of the archaeological excavations ended up going down to 1.5m – 1.8m below ground, which meant that we had to design the foundation solutions to straddle all the excavations that had been undertaken on the site.

Straddling excavations

The archaeologists had made excavations and dug wherever they found anything and had kept digging until they were satisfied they found all the archaeological remains the site held. They then undertook a survey of their excavations and provided it to us. It was impossible to avoid the pits, so we needed to know the depth of the disturbance, so they told us where the deeper pits had been so we could work out our foundation designs around this information.

We completed a lot of complex 3D modelling of the ground and our foundation solutions to understand where the steps, changes in the levels of foundations, would need to be to allow for the appropriate level of disturbance, and how we were going to backfill the hole later as significant amounts of earth had been removed from the site.

If you have a project with challenges such as archaeological digs, listed or historic buildings or foundation challenges that you would appreciate a second on, give us a call on 01993 225085 (Witney, Oxfordshire),  or Southampton 02381 920656 or email mail@swjconsulting.co.uk.

Images courtesy of Lucy Developments

Project Team

Client: Private

Architect: Lucy Developments

Contractor: