Planning Case Study 103

Churchill’s Farm, High Street, Hemyock, Cullompton, Devon

2007

Planning scenario(s)

6 - Post-determination assessment/evaluation identified heritage assets of national importance or substantial in scale and complexity - Post-determination archaeological evaluation (in the absence of any work pre-determination) revealed archaeology of national importance and/or archaeology of a scale and complexity that the resources required for mitigation affected the viability of the development.
7 - Pre-commencement archaeological conditions were attached to a planning permission - Pre-commencement archaeological conditions were attached to a planning permission and were necessary in order to enable the development to be permitted.

Heritage assets affected

Undesignated heritage assets of archaeological and historic interest

Type of application & broad category

Residential

Local planning authority

Authority: Mid Devon District Council
References: 07/01005/MFUL

Development proposal

Erection of 23 dwellings with access, garaging, parking and associated works.

Archaeological information known about the site before the planning application was made, or before the development commenced, as appropriate

There was no HER data for the application area itself, but the site was on the edge of the historic core of the village and in an area where some fragments of putative Saxon/early medieval iron smelting slag had been found.

Archaeological/planning processes

The local authority adviser requested a pre-commencement planning condition for a staged programme of investigation, commencing with evaluation. Pre-determination evaluation was not considered appropriate in view of the existing terracing on the site, its use as a working farmyard, and the lack of specific evidence of heritage assets on the site itself.

A previously unrecorded early 16th century pottery production site was encountered, along with some early medieval iron furnaces, that could not have been reasonably anticipated, and in this case was only identified by a fortuitously placed trench excavated on the last day of the staged programme of works, where a pit full of wasters was exposed.

This site is a late medieval and early post-medieval pottery production site of regional significance.

Outcomes: archaeological

The pottery production site and iron furnaces were excavated in advance of the development. No kilns were identified, only the pits from which the clay was probably derived and which had been infilled with wasters. The bases of iron furnaces were also exposed.

However, due to the significance of the site and the scale of the pottery assemblage (over 40,000 sherds of pottery were recovered), funding had to be secured from Historic England to cover post-excavation analysis and publication. Funding was provided because the developer had undertaken all reasonable steps to deal with the archaeology and the archaeological deposits could not have been reasonably anticipated prior to the post-determination evaluation.

Other outcomes/outputs e.g. other public benefit such as public engagement, research and new/changed work practices

Public outreach, and involvement in the post-excavation assessment of the pottery assemblage and public talks.

References and links/bibliography

  • Smart C (ed) 2018, Industry and the Making of a Rural Landscape: Iron and pottery production at Churchills Farm, Hemyock, Devon. BAR British Series 636, Oxford: BAR Publishing.