Archaeological trial-trenching at Area S of the Garrison Urban Village, Colchester, Essex: May 2004

This is the archive report on archaeological trial-trenching at Area S of the planned urban village at the Garrison, Colchester, Essex to locate the exact position of Berechurch Dyke. The work was carried out in two stages as part of a programme of archaeological investigation of areas of alienated land, acquired by Taylor Woodrow for residential development. The fieldwork on Area S was necessitated by design requirements for the installation of a new service close to the estimated course of the Berechurch Dyke and the creation of a green ‘corridor’ in the development to preserve the surviving remains of Berechurch Dyke. The first stage of the investigation involved the excavation of three 50m x 0.5m trial-trenches. Two large ditches were observed in the three trenches; one was the ditch of Berechurch Dyke and the westerly ditch was thought to be also part of the dyke. Finds from the first stage of trial-trenching included a very small amount of Roman pottery and tile as well as a single sherd of prehistoric pottery from the westerly ditch. The second stage of the investigation consisted of the digging of two trial-trenches to investigate further the westerly ditch observed in the first stage of the work. Post-medieval finds from the sections cut across the feature in the second stage showed it to be post-medieval in date and therefore not part of the dyke.