Between January and March 2011, a trench was machined and features investigated by Oxford Archaeology East - the 20m-wide easement of a water pipeline by Essex and Suffolk Water, 285m long to the south of Fossetts Lane.<1>

An isolated pit 4 was observed at the northern end of the site, and represents the earliest occupation on the site. This was circular in plan with a diameter of 1m x 0.1m deep. This pit had a primary fill (3) of light brownish yellow clay; the secondary fill (2), associated with its use, was a mid grey silty clay containing a large quantity of burnt flint and Iron Age pottery.
At the northern part of the site lay a north-west to south-east aligned ditch 12, 27, 35 and 40. The ditch was observed to be slightly curvilinear in nature, running for a length of 39.2m. The terminal to the north-west 40 had a width of 1.6m and was 0.2m deep, with a shallow profile, the observed terminus was truncated. The south-eastern terminal 27 was narrower, measuring 1m wide and 0.1m deep, again this is likely to be the result of truncation. The length of the ditch was infilled with a mid orangish grey silty clay, due to gradual infilling. Early Iron Age pottery and a struck flint were retrieved within ditch fill 11 and Early Iron Age pottery was collected from fill 26.
Pit 25 was observed to cut the south-eastern terminal; it was oval in plan, and measured 1.4m long, 1.1m wide and 0.2m deep. The profile was similar to the ditch but the fill was a distinctive darker grey silty clay fill, containing Early Iron Age pottery.
Four metres to the south of ditch 12, a sub-oval shallow scoop 19 was excavated. The dimensions of the pit were 2.75m long by 1.4m wide and 0.1m deep. The primary fill was a light brownish yellow clay. The secondary filling, associated with the pit's use, was a dark grey brown silty clay with charcoal deposits, containing Early Iron Age pottery.

A large irregular ditch was revealed running north-east to south-west across the northern part of site. The ditch was seen to have three distinct phases showing prolonged use, probably as part of an enclosure. The first phase 6 was observed within the northernmost intervention; this was a wide U-shaped ditch and measured 0.9m wide and 0.3m deep, with a single fill. No further evidence of this phase was seen within the interventions to the south-east, though this ditch is likely to have been truncated by later re-cuts.
The second phase 8, 15, 23, 28 and 48 was represented by a V-shaped profile and measured 1.3m in width and 0.85m in depth. This re-cut had two fills, the first of which was a mid yellowish brown silty clay, followed by a mid greyish brown silty clay, both of which resulting from gradual infilling when ditch was open. Two of these interventions yielded 12 - 14th Century pottery from the upper fills (29, 41).
The final phase 10, 13, 30 and 46 was a U-shaped ditch, 2,1m wide and 0.7m deep, infilled gradually with a mid greyish brown silty clay from which two fragments from a medieval horseshoe was retrieved. These re-cuts changed the alignment of the ditch from north-north-east to south-south-west to a more north-east to south-west orientation, which is why in plan it appears to widen to the south-east.