A trial-trenched evaluation, comprising 28 trenches covering a total area of 2580 sq metres, was undertaken across a 12ha. site by Colchester Archaeological Trust in August to December 2001.<1> This work revealed a widespread area of linear features of late Iron Age / early Roman (pre-Flavian) date, especially in T19. For the most part, the evidence fis in the form of discrete ditches and gullies, too fragmentary to permit an overall pattern to emerge. Other finds included a single find of late Bronze Age – early Iron Age pottery and two ditches of medieval or possibly later date. The results show that this activity covers a broad area across the central part of the site but is likely to be sparse or perhaps even absent in the areas sampled by trenches to the south of T20 and north-west of T7. One ditch (F124 and F133 in T 10 and T30) produced an unusually large amount of pottery, which suggests a nearby focus of occupation. A further indicator may be the presence of Roman brick and roof-tile fragments in the adjacent T19 and T17, which perhaps point toward a source of this activity. Other periods were more thinly represented. An isolated find of late Bronze Age/early Iron Age pottery, dating to the early to mid 1st millennium BC, lay in a poorly defined shallow depression (F103in T4). Medieval or later linear features were defined in T20 and T17. A large number of post-medieval land-drains were defined across the area and a group of modern brick foundations and associated features in T1-T3.