An archaeological trial-trenched evaluation at Kingswode Hoe School, before the proposed construction of an extension to the north-east of the main school building, the south-eastern edge of a large Late Iron Age ditch (9), aligned NE to SW, whose fill contained pottery dated to the first half of the 1st century AD. Despite the presence of modern disturbances, the Late Iron ditch has survived largely intact. <1>

Ditch 9 was located at, and extended beyond, the north-western end of the trench. The ditch cut the natural gravel immediately below the base of the car park surface. Only the south-eastern edge of the ditch lay within the trench, and it was recorded for a distance of 1.9m. The ditch had an uneven stepped profile, with its deepest part cutting down to a depth of 0.65m at the north-western limit of the trench. The bottom of the ditch was not recorded, however, as its edge continued to slope down beyond the trench limit, and the ditch would have been much wider and deeper than the section recorded. A small, irregular gully ran inside the south-eastern edge of the ditch, roughly parallel to it, and is interpreted as erosion of the side of the ditch through weathering. The ditch and the gully at its edge were both filled with a uniform deposit of loosely compacted light greyish brown
slightly silty pebbly sand (10). The top of the ditch fill was disturbed by an area of roots (11) and by two small modern disturbances. Twenty-nine sherds of Late Iron Age pottery dated to the first half of the1st century AD were recovered from fill 10 of the ditch. A few sherds of Late Iron Age pottery were also recovered from root disturbance 11, consistent with this being a natural disturbance of the ditch fill.

The fill of ditch 9 produced twenty-nine sherds, some quite small, of locally-made Late Iron Age grog-tempered pottery, most of which is from the same Cam 218 jar (Hawkes and Hull 1947, pl. 77). Sherds from a second cordoned jar are also present. Both fabric and form indicate a date in the first half of the 1st century AD.

Pottery from adjacent finds-spot 11 comprises three joining body sherds from a large creamslipped flagon. These vessels were imported from Central Gaul during the last quarter of the 1st century BC up to c.AD 25. Although rare in much of Late Iron Age Britain, they occur in relatively large numbers at Camulodunum and presence here is thus not unexpected.

The ditch is identified as part of the Sheepen Dyke extension, recorded by Hawkes and Hull (1947, 109-12, and fig. 27) as ditch 1A, running 10m to the north-west of its projected line and across the south-east of the proposed extension. <2>