A row over damage to a Scheduled Ancient Monument is threatening to overshadow a local council’s plans for a Heritage Park. The scheduled Roman wall - part of the defences of the town of Irchester, east of Wellingborough - was exposed without archaeological supervision last year during construction of a new access road to the A45. An article on the damage by the pressure group RESCUE drew an angry response from Northants County Council (NCC).

In a letter published in the current edition of Rescue News Bob Colenutt, the Head of Sustainable Development for NCC, said: 'The exposure of part of the Roman defences in November 2004 was a result of works by a sub-contractor in advance of the agreed development programme. As the works were unprogrammed and the main construction contractor was unaware of their taking place, excavation started without the programmed archaeological supervision and control. However, this was identified by the archaeologist on site within hours of the works starting and the main contractor immediately ensured that the unauthorised work stopped.' He denied that there was any 'failure of process' and said that the allegation of a communications breakdown in the Rescue article was 'an affront to the professionalism of all the organisations involved.' He added that 'communication between the developers [ProLogis Ltd], the contractor, Northamptonshire Archaeology, NCC’s curatorial archaeologists and English Heritage [EH] was excellent.'

However, in a letter in the same edition of Rescue News Glyn Coppack, EH's local Inspector of Ancient Monuments, said: 'I was assured that Northamptonshire Heritage had the matter in hand, and I understood from Northamptonshire Archaeology that they were dealing with the archaeology. What nobody told me was that the masonry had been exposed by the contractor, and EH advice on how best to deal with the masonry was not sought. I would at least have offered the services of our Civil Engineers.' A concrete revetment was built against the 25m length of wall that was exposed. This 'is separated from the Roman masonry by a sheet of polythene and can be removed without further damage,' he said.

Ironically, the council has just bought part of the Roman town with money from the government and plans to turn the area into a Heritage Park. The row over the damaged wall threatens to eclipse both this and the good working relationship between archaeologists and developers on the site. Cooperation over the last decade has resulted in the excavation of an Iron Age enclosure and the discovery of previously unknown Roman stone buildings. The row also highlights problems with the way Scheduled Ancient Monuments are designated. A large part of the monument contains no archaeological deposits while an archaeologically-sensitive area nearby is not scheduled. 'I will be asking our designation team to look at the whole of the site as a matter of urgency,' Mr Coppack said.

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