Land near Stanway (TL 93472 24871 to 93594 23073; EHER 14285 and 11948) A trial-trenched evaluation was undertaken by Birmingham Archaeology along the valley of Roman River, a 2km section of the Abberton to Wormingford Pipeline. Thirty 50m-long trenches (x 2m wide) were excavated (4% sample), placed to cover a representative sample of the pipeline easement as well as focusing upon likely locations of buried archaeological deposits and features identified as cropmarks.<1> Archaeological features were identified in Trenches 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 48, 51, 60 and 63 and comprised ditches, pits and post-holes. Ditch fill 40013 (T40) contained flint tempered pottery of prehistoric date. The internal faces of the sherds from ditch 40013 were covered with charred residue. These were all plain body sherds and it was not possible to date them more specifically. The remainder of the material from Stanway was of a later date. See ECC3652 for the subsequent excavation.<2> Note that only those parts of the pipeline crossing river valleys were investigated.