A watching brief at 22 West Lodge Road, Colchester: June 2000

The site at 22 West Lodge Road is located within the extra-mural cemetery area of the Roman town, south of the presumed course of the main Roman road to the west (CAR 11 fig. 6.1). Recently a Roman cremation was recovered during an archaeological evaluation just to the south of the present site at 26 West Lodge Road (Colchester Archaeological Trust [CAT] Report 80). The ground works involved foundation trenches and some reduction of ground levels for a small extension to the rear of the existing property, and two soak-aways were dug towards the rear of the garden area (Fig. 1). All of these were excavated by machine. Some of this work had already been completed before the visit was made: the two new soak-aways, approximately 1.0 m deep, had already been dug and partly backfilled, some of the area reduced by approximately 0.5 m on the south side of the garden had already been stripped, and three of the foundation trenches, each 1.0 m deep, for the extension to the north-west side of the property had been excavated. The remaining areas of ground reduction and the remaining footings for the extension were watched while they were excavated.