Site Event/Activity record ESF20865 - Evaluation, Land South of railway line, Westerfield Road, Ipswich

395 trenches, individually unmapped in event layer, georeferenced .jpg available. The results of a 5% archaeological evaluation on a 43.4-hectare site on land south of the railway line and west of Westerfield Road, Ipswich, Suffolk (NGR TM 166 468) can be summarised as follows: Loose Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age flints may indicate some activity here in those periods. Two groups of parallel Middle Iron Age ditches (spaced 4-5m apart) formed arable field patterns in two areas. Two groups of Iron Age pottery and two curvilinear gullies (buildings?) indicate contemporary settlements. Weaving is indicated by loom-weight fragments. Roman sherds in field ditches indicate a continuity of a small part of the Iron Age field system into the early Roman period. Roman pottery and ditches may mark indicate a small settlement. Fragments of roof tile and a tessera show that there was a high-status Roman building somewhere in the vicinity (beyond this site). There was no evidence of Anglo-Saxon period activity. Two areas of medieval ditches in broadly in the same locations as the Iron Age ditches show medieval arable here. Associated settlements (low-status rural?) are indicated by pits and ditches. The principal post-medieval and modern remains were a small enclosure with a small brick building, and field ditches (some shown on the OS as late as 1904, but since removed). Other remains consisted of 500m of WWII anti-tank trap and a gun pit, a waste pit associated with the former and adjacent 19th-century brickworks. Project status: Complete Yes, Validated Yes Previous/Future Work: Previous No, Future Not known Associated Identifiers: Sitecode IPS 616 Contracting Unit No. 09/10c NMR No. 1535560 Project Type: Field evaluation Development Type: Housing estate Methods and Techniques: Targeted Trenches Position in the Planning Process: Pre-application Reason for Investigation: Planning condition Site status: None Current Land use: Cultivated Land 3 - Operations to a depth more than 0.25m Monument Type(s)/Period(s): FIELD SYSTEM Iron Age , FIELD SYSTEM Roman, FIELD SYSTEM Medieval , SETTLEMENT Iron Age , SETTLEMENT Roman, SETTLEMENT Medieval Artefact Type(s)/Period(s): FLINT Early Prehistoric, FLINT Late Prehistoric, POT Late Prehistoric, POT Roman, POT Medieval PROJECT LOCATION Area 43.40 Hectares Grid Reference: TM166468 Point Height 38.00 - 50.00 metres PROJECT CREATOR(S) Organisation: Colchester Archaeological Trust Brief originator: Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service Design originator: Colchester Archaeological Trust Director/Manager: Philip Crummy Supervisor: Ben Holloway DIGITAL ARCHIVE Recipient: Suffolk HER Contents: other Media: Images raster / digital photography PAPER ARCHIVE Recipient: Suffolk HER Contents: Environmental, Worked stone/lithics, other Media: Drawing, Miscellaneous Material, Plan, Report, Unspecified Archive, Context sheet, Correspondence PHYSICAL ARCHIVE Recipient: Suffolk HER Contents: Animal Bones, Ceramics, Glass, Metal, Worked stone/lithics BIBLIOGRAPHY Publication Type: Grey literature (unpublished document/manuscript) Title: Land south of railway line, Westerfield Road, Ipswich Author(s)/Editor(s): Brooks, H., Holloway, B. Other Bibliographic Details: Colchester Archaeological Trust Report 545 Date: 2011 Issuer/Publisher: Colchester Archaeological Trust Place of Issue or Publication: Colchester Description: A4, ring-bound, soft covers. URL: http://cat.essex.ac.uk/