Colchester Archaeological Trust

CAT Report 1499: summary

Archaeological fieldwalking, metal-detecting and geophysical surveys plus a trial-trenching evaluation on land to the west of Dawes Lane, West Mersea, Essex, CO5 8GJ: October-November 2019
by Laura Pooley (with contributions from Mark Baister, Dr Elliott Hicks, Dr Matthew Loughton, Lisa Gray, Alec Wade, Adam Wightman)

Date report completed: December 2019
Location: Land to the west of Dawes Lane, West Mersea, Essex, CO5 8GJ
Map reference(s): TM 021 137 (centre)
File size: kb
Project type: Fieldwalking, metal-detecting and geophysical survey
Significance of the results:
Keywords:

Summary. Archaeological fieldwalking, metal-detecting and geophysical surveys plus a trial-trenching evaluation (36 trenches) was carried out on land to the west of Dawes Lane, West Mersea, Essex in advance of the construction of a hundred residential dwellings. The development site is located in an area surrounded by cropmarks and is 450m south of Mersea Barrow. The fieldwalking survey revealed very small scatters of prehistoric, Roman and medieval material, with post-Roman tile/brick and post-medieval and modern pottery dominating the assemblage. Similarly, the metal-detecting survey only produced post-medieval/modern agricultural ironwork and modern waste material. The geophysical survey identified natural linears, historic field boundaries and drainage gullies. Five post-medieval/modern field boundary ditches and six drainage gullies were excavated during the trial-trenching evaluation along with a medieval/post-medieval pit, a possible Roman pit, a possible prehistoric ditch and 15 undated features (seven tree-throws, four pits, two gullies and two ditches).