AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL dig in a village will try to discover whether a Roman road passes through the site where a new housing development is planned.

Macbryde Homes Ltd has applied to Denbighshire County Council to build 61 properties on the land off Meliden Road, Dyserth, close to the Voel Coaches depot.

Local residents objected to the outline proposal, although the site was allocated for housing in the council’s local development plan.

The Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust (CPAT) carried out a heritage assessment of the site in 2015 and identified seven “heritage assets” of which three were of particular note.

They were a scattering of small pieces of metal dating from the mid-17th to late-19th century, an apparently artificial earthwork which was impossible to date, and the fact that the northern boundary of the site is the predicted line of a Roman road.

But there is no direct evidence on the ground of a Roman road and one possibility is that any remains of a track or road could be post-mediaeval and related to the nearby Bodrhyddan Estate.

If planning consent is granted and before building work starts CPAT has agreed to carry out an evaluation of the site by digging four trenches, initially using a machine with a toothless blade to remove the top surface and then doing more detailed work by hand.

Two of the trenches, measuring 20 metres by 1.5 metres, will be perpendicular to the road to the north to see if there is anything related to the former Roman road alignment and the other two will be close to the earthworks.

Outlining its proposals, the trust states: “The evaluation will be essentially non-destructive and deigned to determine the depth at which archaeologically sensitive deposits survive, together with their nature, condition and significance.”

Any artefacts recovered will be deposited with “an appropriate museum”, subject to the owner giving permission.

The land will be reinstated and after completing the on-site work CPAT will produce an illustrated report on the project and the conclusions reached.