A watching brief was maintained during the archaeological excavation of the back garden of No 56 Manor Road by its occupier. Two trenches were dug in the back garden. Trench 1 revealed metalling along the northern edge of the main Colchester-London Roman road. The two metalled surfaces contained substantial quantities of sand and resembled footways rather than proper road metalling. The eastern half of the trench was occupied by a pit or trench filled with dark soil, mortar and tile. It was very irregular in outline. This pit and the metalling sealed an early Roman pit filled with greenish, loamy sand with some bone and oyster. A second trench was excavated further to the north and revealed a Greensand foundation aligned north-east to south-west. The top of the foundation was 0.7 m below modern ground level. "The foundation presumably indicated the position of the frontage along the northern side of the street."<1>