Roman pits and ditches/gullies: archaeological excavation on land adjacent to Abbey House, St John’s Green, Colchester, Essex, CO2 7EZ – March 2017

An archaeological excavation (174m²) was carried out on land adjacent to Abbey House, St John’s Green, Colchester, Essex in advance of the construction of a new dwelling. The development site is located immediately to the north of the medieval St John’s abbey precinct and close to the site of the Roman circus.
Four ditches/gullies and fifteen pits provided evidence of activity in the late Roman period, dating from the mid/late 3rd to 4th centuries. The ditches/gullies probably represent land boundaries and most of the pits are likely to have been excavated for sand-
quarrying, with a secondary use as rubbish-pits. Finds evidence (pottery, CBM, animal bone, small finds) indicates the site of a Roman domestic structure somewhere in the vicinity, presumably located within an extra-mural settlement overlooking the
Roman town.
A medieval/early post-medieval gully suggests some activity in the area in this later period. Eleven features (pits and tree-throw pits) were of a post-medieval/modern date.