Land at Pottery Lane, to the north of railway line and Ashburys rail station, Bradford, Manchester
1 - Pre-determination assessment/evaluation identified significant new heritage assets
Pre-determination assessment/evaluation identified significant archaeology on the development site (i.e. the results created significant new knowledge), especially where none was previously known in the HER.
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.
Non-designated heritage assets of archaeological and historic interest
Development of a Rail Operating Centre with associated access, car parking and landscaping, on land off Wolverton Street
The proposed development was on the site of Ashbury’s rail carriage engineering works and foundry.
Further research and archaeological investigation was deemed to be important because almost no historical records have survived of the mid-19th to early 20th century works. It was one of Manchester’s largest foundries that had around 1000 employees, with several of its rail carriages still surviving on heritage railways around the world.
A desk-based assessment produced in response to a pre-application enquiry from Network Rail confirmed the archaeological potential of the application site. Planning permission, granted early in 2012 (with a pre-commencement condition), was followed by an evaluation that demonstrated excellent preservation of buried remains. Excavation then followed in August and September of 2012.
The following summary of the results of the excavation is taken from the excavation report (SLR Consulting 2013):
"The excavation exposed the remains of an extensive range of structures located within and adjacent to the 19th and early 20th Century foundry buildings, including reverberatory furnaces, Rastrick boilers, flues, chimneys, an open hearth furnace, cupola furnaces and foundations for a travelling crane. The changing iron-working technologies during the working life of the works are well represented in the recorded archaeology. Industrial processes not readily recognized in the physical remains on site were identified by the analysis of industrial residues (specifically the presence of cupola furnaces). Post-excavation analysis of a sample of bricks and conservation of a metal-sampling ladle have also been undertaken and are reported upon here."
The specified works included an academic article and popular publication, and the requirement to engage with volunteers from the Manchester Region Industrial Archaeology Society who were able to take part in the excavation and lend their considerable expertise on identifying the function of industrial features. The popular booklet won the national industrial archaeology publication award.
- SLR Consulting 2013, Ashbury's, Manchester: Archaeological Excavation Report. Unpublished report ref: 410.00232.00058.
- Hayes, L 2014, Iron & Steel in Openshaw: excavating John Ashbury’s Carriage and Iron Work, Greater Manchester’s Past Revealed 11.
