Staples Corner, Brent, London
Client: Group 1 Automotive
Staples Corner is a major transport interchange in London, with interconnected roundabouts and flyovers linking the A406 North Circular to the A5 Edgware Road and M1 motorway. The two roundabouts are separated by the London to Sheffield mainline railway, and bounded to the north by the River Brent. Its name comes not from the office superstore which dominated the junction until recently, but the Staples bed and mattress manufacturing company, whose factory was established on the site by Ambrose Heal in 1926.
Group 1 Automotive are developing the site to provide a new four-storey Jaguar Land Rover car showroom and workshop. As desk-based assessment had suggested that the site lay close to a Bronze Age cremation cemetery and the crossing of the River Brent by the Edgware Road, a Roman road, the development provided an opportunity to investigate whether any archaeological remains existed on the site.
PCA Heritage worked closely with the client, main contractor (Ashe Construction), Historic England and Pre-Construct Archaeology to design an evaluation strategy which could test the potential for archaeological remains to exist on the site. In the event, the archaeological evaluation clearly demonstrated that construction of Ambrose Heal’s factory, and the Staples warehouse which followed, had significantly altered ground levels.
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