A small excavation was undertaken by Colchester Archaeological Trust in March 2017 on land adjacent to Abbey House, St John's Green (directly in front of the precinct wall of St John's Abbey) in advance of the proposed construction of a new dwelling.<1> Four ditches/gullies and 15 intercutting pits provided evidence of activity in the late Roman period, dating from the mid/late 3rd to 4th century. The ditches/gullies are probably land boundaries and most of the pits are likely to have been excavated for sand quarrying, with a secondary use as rubbish pits. Finds evidence (pottery, including 17.5kg of Roman pottery, CBM, animal bone, small finds including a carved bone clasp-knife handle with decorative copper-alloy strip SF12) indicates the presence of a Roman domestic structure somewhere in the vicinity, presumably located within an extra-mural settlement overlooking the Roman town. A medieval/early post-medieval gully (F44), aligned E to W along the south edge of the site, suggests some activity in the area in this later period. Eleven features (pits and tree-throws) were of a post-medieval/modern date. The excavation was on the site of an earlier trial-trenched evaluation undertaken in 2011 (ECC3615).<2>