Evaluation at 26 West Lodge Road, Colchester: August 2000

A small evaluation trench on a plot to the south side of 26 West Lodge Road revealed a Roman cremation burial, probably of 1st-century date. The top of the grave had been disturbed by past activity, leaving the lowest 20cm intact. This consisted of an oval pit with a centrally-placed pot, within which was found a quantity of cremated bone and a broken clay lamp. Four metres to the east of the grave was a post-hole of indeterminate but possibly early date. The site lies 800m to the west of the walled town, within a Roman cemetery area from which many cremation burials have been recovered in the last 150 years (Hull 1958; Crummy et al 1993).