Land off Blacksmiths Close, Babraham

Between the 13th and 14th February 2013 Oxford Archaeology East carried out an archaeological evaluation on land off Blacksmith's Close, Babraham (TL 5152 5045). Work was carried out ahead of the construction of eleven affordable dwellings, together with the construction of a new access road, provision of open space and landscaping.
The trial trenching revealed only low level archaeological remains, the principal feature being a set of small ditches and gullies forming a field boundary (Trench 3). Seven of the nine trenches were devoid of features. Trench 7 contained a single gully, whilst Trench 3 was seen to contain two ditches and three gullies (on three separate alignments).
All features on site were extremely shallow, this was not however the result of modern ploughing. The subsoil/medieval ploughsoil across the site varied greatly in depth from 0.17m (in Trench 5) to 1.1m at its deepest (in Trench 8).
Just four finds were recovered from the site; three residual struck flints (of Neolithic date) were recovered from topsoil/subsoil and part of a copper alloy brooch dating to the 1st century AD was retrieved from the fill of ditch 102.