Series: Bristol and Bath Heritage Consultancy Ltd unpublished report series

Archaeological Assessment

Archaeological Desk-Based Assessment

A small archaeological research evaluation was carried out by Bristol and Bath Heritage Consultancy Ltd at a field known as Butt Wick, Englishcombe, Bath. The purpose of the evaluation was to understand the origins and date of a bank and ditch earthwork enclosing three sides of a field which appears to have been in existence by maps of around 1840, and which is clearly visible in analysis of LiDAR imagery. The field forms a small part of a larger area identified by the local Historic Environment Record as a possible deserted medieval settlement called Brightwick (BANES HER reference 64101). A single trench was excavated across the bank and part of the ditch, the remainder of which extended northwards into an adjacent field. Topsoil appears to have been removed prior to the construction of the bank, which was at least 1.2m wide, and stood to a height of at least 0.32m. The adjacent flat-bottomed ditch was cut from the level of the subsoil/base of the bank. It had two silty-clay fills, the lower of which showed signs of prolonged waterlogging, neither of which contained any artefactual evidence with which to date the feature. The bank material appears likely to have been formed from upcast created during excavation of the ditch, but again contained no artefactual material with which to date it. Material from the top of the bank had eroded into the already silted ditch, and this material contained two fragments of 19th or 20th-century flowerpot, which occurs commonly in the site vicinity.

Following correspondence between Bristol & Bath Heritage Consultancy and Caroline Waldron, Senior Conservation Officer for BANES Council in late September 2022, it was agreed the record should be primarily a detailed photographic record to supplement the already detailed information and analysis contained in the 2021 Heritage Statement by BBHC. The photographic recording, when combined with the information and analysis already provided in the Heritage Statement, would result in a record equivalent to Level 3, as detailed in Understanding Historic Buildings: A Guide to Good Recording Practice (HE 2016). In March 2023 Bristol & Bath Heritage Consultancy undertook a historic building record of two iterations of an historic road bridge (old Windsor Bridge/former Twerton Suspension Bridge) which linked the Twerton and Weston areas of Bath from 1837 to 1980 at Windsor Bridge Road, Bath (centred at NGR: 373553, 165047). The bridge, which was repurposed to carry gas pipes in 1979, and subsequently telecommunication ducts, had become redundant in that function by the beginning of 2023 due to the rationalisation of the local gas network, and was in poor condition. Recording of the bridge was therefore required prior to its imminent substantial demolition, to make way for enhanced public realm as part of the Bath Western Riverside Phase 2 housing development. The original Twerton Suspension Bridge was built by the Bristol civil engineer Thomas Motley in 1837, with the backing of Henry Stothert of the well-known Bath engineering firm Stothert and Pitt and other local figures, to provide a road crossing between Twerton on the south of the Avon and Weston to the north. Motley’s bridge was built in competition with the 1836 Victoria Suspension Bridge, or ‘Dredge’s Bridge’ some 550m along the Avon to the east, built by a local brewery owner in what became a notorious rivalry between Motley and Dredge, both locally and nationally. The Twerton Suspension Bridge was a remarkable anticipation of the cable-stay type bridge used more commonly in the modern era, the Second Severn Crossing/Prince of Wales Bridge being a prime example. In 1894 the suspension bridge was replaced by a bowstring girder bridge with lattice girder side spans, which were designed to rest on the pier bases of the earlier bridge and to use the 1837 approach ramps. It also carried a gas pipe from the nearby Gas Works across the river on its eastern side. By the early 1930s the bridge had become known as the Windsor Bridge. By the end of 1980 a New Windsor Road Bridge had replaced the old Windsor Bridge/former Twerton Suspension Bridge, which was then stopped up and converted into a service bridge carrying multiple gas pipes across the river. The pipes were still there in March 2023 but apparently now decommissioned. The bridge abutment pier bases and western side of the northern approach ramp of the 1837 suspension bridge appeared to be all that survived of that bridge in March 2023, the southern approach ramp having been replaced by a reinforced-concrete structure, designed in 1942 and apparently completed by 1943 as part of a war-damage repair and strengthening programme. The pair of pier bases was identified as an unlisted building of merit and a building ‘at risk’ in the local authority’s Conservation Area Character Area Appraisal for Brassmill Lane, Locksbrook and Western Riverside, although the Heritage Statement considered the surviving elements of the historic northern approach ramp should also have been included as part of the unlisted building of merit. The 1894 bowstring girder bridge survived, but was in poor condition, with severe corrosion of its metalwork and spalling of concrete.

Desk-based assessment of the St Christopher's School Site, Westbury Park, Bristol, undertaken by Bristol and Bath Heritage Consultancy in October 2020

Archaeological Desk-Based Assessment