The east end of the church of the Crouched Friars was defined during a watching brief and excavation in advance of redevelopment at 38-42 Crouch Street, Colchester, on the site of the former Crouched Friars friary.<1> The was area previously occupied by ‘Cash Converters’, and previously by a garage (an area of some 1,110 sq m). The mitigation strategy specified a watching brief on development work, with the requirement for potential for the hand-excavation of specific areas or features, should this prove necessary. Excavation of two lift-shaft pits was to be by hand if significant archaeological deposits were encountered. The investigations demonstrated that Colchester Building 181, excavated to the west of this site in 1988 (ECC380), is part of the west end and cloisters of the same church. The central tower and cruciform plan could be early medieval, and it is presumed that this church is contemporary with the first documentary reference to the presence of the Crouched Friars here in AD 1251 (although there is no archaeological evidence to directly support this contention). Over fifty inhumation burials were laid out across areas corresponding to the north and south transepts. The burials are of a mixture of juvenile, adult and old males and females, with no apparent monastic characteristics. It was, therefore, assumed that they are the burials of parishioners. Although the evidence is not definitive, the most likely occasion for the creation of this cemetery would be after AD 1403, when a documentary reference suggests that some parts of the church were in need of repair, and were refurbished. There is little dated material in the grave fills, but the presence of peg-tile favours a late (rather than an early) medieval date for these burials. The medieval church walls and burials were all cut into a deep, dark earth layer which is probably late Roman and later, and indicates that the area was open land (presumably farmed) in the later Roman and post-Roman periods. A few sherds of pre-Norman conquest pottery show that there was some, limited activity on the site before the establishment of the medieval friary. The dark earth layer sealed a sequence of Roman deposits. These included a series of gravel patches which are probably parts of the metalled surface of a previously unknown minor Roman road heading towards the Balkerne Gate. At least one Roman building (Colchester Building 213) lay on the south side of this metalled road. A fragment of what may be a glass Roman cremation vessel indicates that there may have been at least one Roman cremation burial on this site. In addition to the medieval burials, there was at least one Roman inhumation burial. The presence of residual bone and possible coffin nails in the fills of medieval graves supports the idea that there were more Roman inhumation burials on this site, in addition to those recorded here previously. The objects in the finds assemblage range in date from Roman to modern, but most are small undiagnostic scraps that cannot be closely dated. Two pieces of stone probably come from the friary, a fragment of a shelly limestone block from L2 and a unstratified sandstone ashlar. The work was preceded by two phases of evaluation on the friary site, described in CAT Report 277 (2004) and CAT Report 390 (2006).<2><3>