Land north-west of Ely, Cambridgeshire

Between 14th January and 28th February 2013 Oxford Archaeology East conducted an evaluation on land to the north-west of the historic city of Ely, Cambridgeshire. The area evaluated covered approximately 72ha and was bounded by the A10 to the west, Lynn Road to the east and Cam Drive to the south.
Prior to the evaluation, geophysical survey had been carried out over the entire site, to determine the presence and extent of archaeological remains buried below ground. The geophysical survey results were impressive; they revealed several areas with high potential for archaeological remains, along with large areas where there was a low potential for remains. Evaluation trenches were positioned to examine the areas of both high and low potential identified by the geophysical survey.
The evaluation was divided in to nine Fields, A – I, running north to south. In total 152 trenches were machine excavated, the majority of which were either 50m or 100m in length, which amounted to over 12500m overall. The trenching discovered three discrete settlements or areas of activity where there was a high density of archaeological features, all of which had been identified by the geophysical survey. The first of these was a farmstead covering 5ha in the north of Field E and the south of Field D. The farmstead was constructed in the Middle Iron Age and continued in use until the Early Roman period, although there was little evidence of activity after the 2nd century AD. The second area was a small Early Roman site in the north of Field A. It covered 1ha and consisted of a large pond feature set amongst several small fields. Domestic debris was sparse although there was a significant amount of ceramic building material, particularly Roman roof tile. The third area was part of an Early Roman settlement in the north of Field I, which was approximately 1ha in size and probably extended to the north underneath the housing of King Edgar Close.
There were also several areas of scattered archaeology where features were present but not dense or concentrated, as in the parts of the site already described. Early prehistory was represented by an early Neolithic pit and an Early Bronze Age pit in Field H, along with residual worked lithics in several locations. Two north-east to south-west orientated ditches in Field I were dated by pottery to the Middle Bronze Age ditch and may be part of a wider field system. It may be associated with other undated features in the east of Field H and the south of Field I. A cremation was also discovered in the south of Field I, of Early Roman date. Towards the northern end of the site, in the east of Field D, was another area of field system, potentially of Iron Age date. Close by a seemingly isolated inhumation burial was discovered. A concentration of post-medieval features were encountered in Field G (trenches 111 and 112), which correlate with the location of a building visible on the First Edition Ordnance Survey map of 1888.