Site Event/Activity record EEM14299 - 2014: GS (MS;RS) - Garden by the River, Ashcombe

A resistivity and magnetometry survey was undertaken in 2014. A possible former field or enclosure boundary was recorded as partially coinciding with a modern footpath, and also partially coinciding with a path created for the Simonsbath House garden and plantation. A possibly branching path was recorded in both the gradiometer and earth-resistance data. A possible structure was recorded on the western bank of Ashcombe stream. A further deposit of rubble or a structure was noted close to the Ashcombe stream on the southern boundary of the survey area. An examination of natural deposits recorded in the data set suggested that the removal of a garden path and the creation of an alternative path between 1891 and 1903 was probably due to water saturation of the ground resulting from works associated with the creation of the Simonsbath House garden and plantation. Field drainage, evident in the gradiometer data set, appears to have been undertaken to mitigate the wet ground associated with natural drainage channels. Evidence was noted for either a re-routing of the Ashcombe stream or a palaeochannel of the same close to the modern bridge across the stream. This channel and the potential structure recorded in the earth-resistance data on the western bank of Ashcombe stream are together likely to be the origin of the low earthworks that prompted this survey.