Colchester Archaeological Trust

CAT Report 922: summary

Archaeological evaluation at Sheepen Road car-park, Sheepen Road, Colchester, Essex, CO3 3GT: March 2016
by Laura Pooley (with contributions from Stephen Benfield, Val Fryer)

Date report completed: May 2016
Location: Sheepen Road car-park, Sheepen Road, Colchester, Essex, CO3 3GT
Map reference(s): TL 9914 2551 (c)
File size: 2,766 kb
Project type: Archaeological evaluation
Significance of the results: negative
Keywords: -

Summary. An archaeological evaluation was undertaken in advance of the construction of a new office building with associated access, car-parking and landscaping at the former Sheepen Road car-park, Colchester, Essex. The development site lies beyond the NW corner of the Roman town wall and to the east of the Roman trading depot and quayside at Sheepen. At the north end of the site, modern layers were identified to a depth of 2.60m below current ground-level (bcgl) and at the south end to 3.27m bcgl. They possibly sealed a Roman accumulation layer (L6b), but the trench was too deep for this to be fully investigated. The modern layers (L1-L6a) appeared to be associated with the modern car-park (L1-L4) and late Victorian/early Edwardian rubbish-dumping (L5-L6a).