An archaeological evaluation on land adjacent to 2 Alexandra Road, Colchester, Essex: April 2002

This 0.05 hectare site is on the fringes of one of Roman Colchester’s main cemeteries. The site was evaluated by three trial-trenches. These showed that the southern two-thirds of the site had been truncated by recent pits. On the northern edge of the site, a Roman soil layer survived. This contained pits and other Roman features, but no burials. Spot-dating of the finds would suggest Roman activity of the 2nd to 3rd centuries. There were loose human bones from one of the recent pits in T2. Presumably there were Roman burials on the site, but they have been disturbed or destroyed by pit-digging in recent centuries. There was a large quantity of Roman building debris from the site – brick, roof tile and tesserae. The source of this debris must have been a Roman structure near to or perhaps on the site.