Colchester Maternity Hospital formerly stood on the site. Following its closure, the land was redeveloped for housing. The hospital buildings were completely demolished and replaced by the construction of a terraced crescent of 14 plots now known as Sovereign Crescent. The redevelopment was subject to an intensive watching brief from December 1997 which was to include a small-scale excavation at the eastern end of the crescent. At the same time an 800sq m plot at the south-east corner of the site was redeveloped separately for a detached house facing Park Road. Early features from this site can be divided into two groups: 1st and early 2nd century; and later 2nd, 3rd - 4th century. In addition, there are ten features which appear satisfactorily to be Roman but lack sufficient dating evidence to attribute to either group. Dateable finds indicate that the ditch fill in one trench and the majority of the pit fills in the eastern part of the site are no later than 2nd century in date, and may well be confined entirely to the Claudian-Flavian period. Later Roman features are more common to the west, where there is a cluster with material of later 2nd and 3rd-4th century date. No conclusive observations of in-situ early road metalling were made. Gravels were present naturally to varying degrees in the site subsoil and early deposits on the southern part of the site tended to have a higher stoney content than those elsewhere. <1> A trial-trenched was evaluation carried out prior to demolition in 1997. <2>