New Monks Farm, Lancing, West Sussex
Client: New Monks Farm Development Ltd
New Monks Farm, which lies c. 12kms west of Brighton, was a large area of former grazing land sandwiched between the South Downs National Park and the English Channel. Much of the site had been the subject of a landfilling and landscaping exercise which introduced many thousands of tons of waste material onto the site.
The New Monks Farm masterplan was developed from the local plan allocation and has delivered 600 new homes, a new school, employment facilities, improved transport infrastructure and a 28ha country park. The site is criss-crossed with spring-fed watercourses (the Lancing Ditches) which discharge into the nearby River Adur. The New Monks Farm development includes installing a new pumping station so that discharge can continue 24 hours a day, increasing capacity in the Lancing Ditches.
The principal archaeological interest of the site lay in the remains of a medieval saltworking industry. This resulted in the landscape formerly being dotted with mounds of waste sand (salterns). A number of nationally-important heritage assets surround the site, including the Grade I listed Lancing College Chapel; a Scheduled Monument (a WWII Dome Trainer) is on the site itself.
Our work included the preparation of an archaeological desk-based assessment and the Cultural Heritage chapter of the Environmental Statement. Subsequently we prepared an Archaeological Mitigation Strategy for the site, a Conservation Management Plan for the Dome Trainer, heritage interpretation panels and delivered a full suite of archaeological design and management services. The archaeological work which has flowed from the Archaeological Mitigation Strategy has discovered Mesolithic/Neolithic river channels, an Iron Age roundhouse and a WWI shooting range.
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