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DigVentures was commissioned by Wakefield Metropolitan District Council (WMDC) to undertake a programme of archaeological investigations as part of the Gatehouse Project, a community-focused archaeological research project based at Pontefract Castle, West Yorkshire. The social impact of the archaeological investigations, including project outcomes for heritage, for people and for the community, have been analysed and published in an earlier article. This article focuses on the archaeological evidence recovered during the excavations, and the conclusions drawn about the construction and chronology of the gatehouse at this part of the site.

Archaeology is said to add value to development, creating a deeper sense of place, community identity as well as improving health and wellbeing. Accentuating these wider social values has been welcomed by a profession keen to broaden its public relevance and legitimacy and protect its seat at the table in modern cultural life, but how much, if at all, do the public actually benefit from developer-led archaeology? Benefits to individuals and communities from archaeology projects are often abstract, intangible and difficult to attribute, and the discipline arguably lacks a satisfactory frame of reference around which it can express and design for these additional social values. Drawing on the language of social impact investing, this article will explore how the UK-based collaborative platform, DigVentures, has addressed this challenge. It introduces a 'Theory of Change' and 'Standards of Evidence' framework to account for the impact of development-led archaeology programmes, illustrating the causal links between activity and change through the case of the Pontefract Castle Gatehouse Project. It is complemented by a short documentary film exploring the spectrum of digital and physical opportunities for participation by the public alongside a team of highly experienced professional field archaeologists, demonstrating how development-led archaeology can be designed to accomplish far more than answer a planning brief.