A watching brief was undertaken by Colchester Archaeological Trust during the excavation of footing trenches for an extension to the rear of the existing house. <1>

Two footing trenches, about 0.5 m wide and about 1.6 m deep and joining at right-angles, were located to the rear of the house, at the southeast corner. The two footing trenches had been excavated into natural sand at their base. For most of their length the footing trenches had been cut through a large feature (F1) filled with medium-dark brown sandy loam. F1 extended to the west and north at least as far as the existing house. At the west end of the south footing trench the base of F1 approximately coincided with the base of the trench at 1.6 m deep. The south-western edge of F1 was located on the east side of the footing trenches where the natural sand rose up to the base of the garden topsoil.

Apart from two pieces of modern brick, which came from disturbed soil at the base of the footing trench and which are intrusive, all of the finds, where datable, are Roman. The most securely stratified finds were excavated from the undisturbed fill of F1 toward the north end of the east footing trench (F1, finds number 2). These secure finds consist of 3 sherds of Roman pottery, one of which is a large sherd datable to the 1st-2nd/3rd century, and one piece of animal bone which cannot be closely dated. The size of the feature F1, the nature of the surrounding natural (sand), and the date of the finds recovered from the fill, suggest that F1 is a Roman sand quarry.