Picture the scene. It’s a midweek afternoon in late spring. A group of five or six young archaeologists in scruffy jeans or combat pants are scraping away at the primeval dirt on a large building site to uncover fragments of pottery and bone.
But, just behind them, looming out of a wasteland of dust and chunks of concrete and plaster, rises the pilings for a £100m shopping centre, already in the first stages of construction.
The 2.2ha (5.4 acre) site in the centre of Maidstone is set to become the town’s new 350,000 sq ft (32,500m2), Fremlin Walk shopping centre, a redevelopment of the old Whitbread brewery site including two car parks and surrounding shops and streets.
But unknown to the shoppers who are due to start thronging to its House of Fraser, Next, H&M and TopShop in March 2005, beneath the ground of Fremlin Walk the bodies of their ancient Roman ancestors have been slumbering for years.
Kent county council agreed to let developer Centros Miller start construction on one part of the site while archaeological digs were still being carried out elsewhere. This was because the site sits right in the centre of town and necessitated the closure of various roads and shops within its tight construction schedule, and also because part of the site’s archaeological potential had been destroyed by Victorian building works.
“It was a bit hairy when we were working away and you could see the diggers coming closer and closer,” says Darryl Palmer, project manager for AOC Archaeology, who sports a resplendent head of dreadlocked hair and various piercings. “At one point we were working on the bottom of the site and the pilings were right up behind us.
“But in some ways it was very helpful being on site at the same time as everyone else,” he adds. “The contractors had to reduce the ground anyway for their work so we got them to do it under archaeological supervision using a toothless bucket and then they took the earth away too. We’ve had problems on other sites with contractors who just want us out of their way.”
Fortunately for Centros Miller, various desk-based assessments, using maps of the site and any historical information relating to it done in 1996 and again in 1998, showed that, although the eastern side of the site was likely to turn up archaeological finds, much of the western portion’s potential had been destroyed by the Fremlin brewery, whose Victorian foundations had been built lower than the soil level, where any remains would be likely to be found.
As a result of these surveys, the council insisted on a condition of planning permission (condition 21), which demanded field evaluation works to be carried out before development work started. But, because of the demands of the build programme, it agreed to allow a degree of flexibility to the way Centros Miller did this.
Kent county council is unwilling to let Fremlin Walk’s excavation methods become a precedent.
Wendy Rogers, the council’s archaeology officer, says: “It was not the ideal situation. We don’t want to encourage the same thing again as, in our view, it could have compromised the archaeology. Fortunately, although the archaeologists found Roman burials and other finds, they had sufficient time and resources to excavate. But once construction starts it is difficult to change the programme.
“I do feel that this is a risky approach to archaeology but the political decision was made within the council that the scheme would benefit Maidstone as a whole. We do realise that a large site right in the centre of Maidstone presents big problems and we have to treat them with a degree of flexibility.”
As with any archaeological dig undertaken by a developer, the big problem for both the council and the developer is that no-one truly knows what is underneath a development site until they start to dig. There is the very real possibility that the archaeologists could find something so important that it could prevent development altogether.
“Even though we were allowed to begin works on the old brewery site while the archaeological works were going on, the cost of having the site excavated will still be around £250,000,” says Ivan Stephenson, the Centros Miller development manager responsible for Fremlin Walk. “You can’t compare it to other schemes because they are all so different, but the council’s compromise saved us a lot of time. We accept it as another cost on undertaking a scheme but you never know how much that will finally be or whether it will delay the entire build programme. They are still on site finishing off, so theoretically something could still turn up.”
One of the site’s most interesting finds, the body of a 16th century girl, surprised both archaeologists and the developer.
“The gravesite contained a wooden oval vessel, which probably held salt,” says Palmer. “It was thought to take the sins away and we have several other examples of corpses being buried with it around the time. It is unusual that the burial was isolated and not within a churchyard or cemetery. This might have been because the child died from infectious diseases or was a non-conformist.”
“It was a big cause of concern for us when the archaeologists turned up the body of a young girl on the site,” adds Stephenson. “I watch Silent Witness and for a moment I thought we could have a murder inquiry on our hands.”
Phase two In the first phase of the dig, AOC dug 18 trial pits across the site, except for the parts that had been covered by the brewery or that were still in use (either roads or shops still trading). Each pit was evaluated, recorded, photographed and any archaeological features were excavated before being filled in again.
The dig started in the area closest to the old brewery and moved upwards, so that Cyril Sweett, the scheme’s project managers, could start demolition work at the same time.
Phase three Another part of the planning permission specified that a row of locally listed 18th century houses with modern shop fronts, forming a corner of the site to the eastern side, should be recorded before and after demolition. The dig found that large parts of 14 shops had elements of 18th century material.
The evaluation pits revealed various pieces of Romano-British Black Burnishedware pottery and linear features leading to the excavation of phase four.
Phase seven But one of the dig’s major finds was yet to appear. In another of the evaluation trenches, archaeologists found the remains of a young girl, buried alone and in a coffin probably some time in the 16th century. Placed on top of the coffin, in the chest area, was a wooden oval vessel.
The imprint of a bone comb was also visible underneath the skull. The skeleton has yet to be analysed, and was oriented east-west with the head at the west, indicating a Christian burial. An area to the north of the burial was also excavated as phase seven of the dig. No further skeletons were found, although the trenches did reveal a series of early post-medieval and possibly post-Roman pits.
Phase eight The excavation of a 10m by 25m area nearby, uncovered large, post-medieval pits, probably part of a rubbish dump. Datable evidence was removed from this.
Phase four This involved opening a large trench 30m by 25m to the east of Museum Street. This also revealed a series of Roman ditches as well as five Roman skeletons in a small Roman cemetery.
Phase nine Because Museum Street was still in use while phase four was being excavated, a small area of 15m by 10m had to be dealt with separately after the road was closed in December 2003. It revealed three more skeletons — one was wearing a bracelet and a ring while the other had hobnailed boots lying over his legs.
Phase six The final phase of the development is now under way following the closure of the rear part of the Army & Navy store in the north-east corner of the site.
As the excavation moves toward its final stage and the shopping centre now stands as almost a complete shell, with car parks built on top, Centros Miller will certainly be hoping that no really exciting deep and hidden secrets come to light.
