An Archaeological Evaluation at Sweetings Road, Godmanchester

In January-February 1995 the Archaeological Field Unit of Cambridgeshire County Council carried out an archaeological evaluation at Sweetings Road, Godmanchester (TL 247/697). This was done on behalf of Galliford Sears Homes Ltd prior to a proposed housing development. An earthworks survey was completed of the remains of a medieval or post-medieval ridge-and-furrow field system and indicated that the original layout had undergone rearrangement at some period. The earthworks had been truncated to the north by post-medieval gravel pitting. Sample trenches confirmed the arrangements of furrows visible as earthworks and also supported the hypothesis of rearrangement. Between seven and nine ditches and other features proved to pre-date, and be truncated by, the ridge-and-furrow, but no dating evidence was found for them. A small concentration of worked flint and badly abraded, possibly prehistoric, pottery may indicate a focus of late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age activity on the site, but all the artefacts were recovered from disturbed, later contexts.