The Excavations in Church Chare

The plan to build an extension onto the Parish Centre meant that an archaeological investigation of the site was required, since the land lies within an area scheduled under ancient monuments legislation. The opportunity thus afforded was important, because it was known that the site lay within the north-west corner of the fort and that there was a strong possibility that barrack accommodation might be encountered. Much of the previous work on the fort had been conducted on the central range of fort buildings on the commanding officer's house and west gate and on the granaries in the southern half of the fort; this would be the first chance to examine barracks within it.

The site had been examined previously by John Rainbird, with two trenches dug by a JCB, but as our excavations were to show, these had been extremely unfortunate in their placing, missing all the archaeologically significant features on the site.

After a trial excavation during 1989 (by Colm O'Brien of the Archaeological Practice of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne), undertaken to confirm that archaeological levels were preserved, a full-scale excavation was undertaken on the Church Chare site between November 1990 and January 1991.

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