Bishop’s College,Estcourt Close, Gloucester, Gloucestershire

During May and June 2018 Oxford Archaeology South undertook a trial trench evaluation and a strip, map and sample excavation at Bishop’s College, Estcourt Road, Gloucester. The fieldwork was undertaken as part of the programme of demolition works. Three areas, totalling approximately 2400m2, had been targeted on the foundation pads of previous buildings due to be demolished. These areas were supplemented with the excavation of eleven trial trenches within the surrounding fields. The evaluation trenches uncovered a quarry pit of possible Roman date, and linear boundary ditches and plough furrows dating to the post-medieval period. Strip, map and sample Area 1 contained ditches that may have been field boundaries. Finds suggest that these date to either the Roman or medieval period. There was a large amount of modern disturbance and truncation in the trenches located in the footings of the Bishop’s College School buildings and their environs. SMS Areas 2 and 3 were found to have been heavily truncated and disturbed by the construction of the buildings and the concrete pads, and as such no archaeology was recovered from these areas.