The Cotswold School and Bourton-on-the-Water Primary School, Gloucestershire
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Development of the school saw several consecutive applications for construction of new classrooms, extensions to the existing blocks and new sports facilities. This was in an area known to be rich in buried archaeological remains including a documented Roman cemetery that posed a major constraint to the project.
Red River Archaeology were appointed as archaeological consultants and were a key part of the Design team, providing initial physical constraint advice, and then working with the architects, engineers, drainage, and landscape team to remove or minimise impact on the archaeological resource throughout the design process, including innovative foundation design schemes. Production of a detailed Archaeological Impact and Mitigation Strategy demonstrated the scheme’s compliance with National Planning Policy Framework and planning consent was granted for all the schemes. Our early involvement had the additional client benefit of significantly reducing potential archaeological mitigation costs and risks to the construction programme. |
The Cotswold School, Gloucestershire
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Our proposed approach to the design was validated by monitoring visits during construction. Red River Archaeology also conducted this watching brief, which confirmed that the depth of designed construction impact was not sufficient to impact the buried archaeological remain across large areas of the development. In areas were the design could not accommodate a reduced depth remains of Middle Iron Age dwellings were recorded along with finds of domestic items such as pottery and loom-weights.
