M74 Completion, Glasgow: Major urban excavation

M74 Completion, Glasgow. Under the HAPCA name, Joint Contractors Headland with Pre-Construct Archaeology successfully completed one of the largest ever archaeological projects in the UK. With a contract value of over £5m, the programme excavated industrial sites along the route of the new road.

The project involved the excavation of numerous sites along a 5Km corridor around the south side of  Glasgow.

Phase 1 comprised a programme of Historic Building Recording of 12 sites along the route of the new motorway.

Phase 2 was a 9 month programme of archaeological works and comprised of a programme of evaluation and subsequent excavation of three very large scale open area excavations

The Lauriston Tenements – excavation of the remains of a pre-1860 tenement block and later buildings designed by Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson.

The Govan Ironworks - The Govan Ironworks were established in the 1830s for the manufacture of bar iron and the production of iron castings for steam engines and general engineering products. The excavation area for the foundry comprised 13,000 square metres, and in addition the workers' housing block, known as the 'Lower English Buildings' consisted of a further 7,500 square metres. These huge excavations areas were surveyed and planned entirely digitally.

The Caledonian Pottery Works - The archaeological excavation of the late 19th century Caledonian Pottery Works, Rutherglen comprised open area excavation of the factory buildings and trenching through the pottery spoil heaps. The open-area excavation comprised over 9,000 square metres and the pottery spoil heap trenches were a further 3,600 square metres. Here also, the use of purely digital surveying and planning was the only practical way of recording such a vast area of archaeology.

The projects were completed, on schedule, after a 9 month period with up to 100 staff.