Site Event/Activity record ESF22531 - Watching Brief, Land to the North of West Road, Ipswich

The construction of 19 new business units on land north of West Road, Ipswich, was subject to a standard Watching Brief condition. The units were to be situated within two existing buildings, which were to be refurbished, and in two new purpose built structures. The two new structures were to be construction partially on the former site of a steel framed shed which had been recently cleared. The site is situated in an area of former heathland southeast of Ipswich town centre. The site was visited on the 8th and 13th December 2004 in order to inspect an area which had been stripped for a new road. This work had been done using a small tracked machine fitted with a toothless bucket which had left a clean smooth surface. Only topsoil had been removed and this had exposed the underlying natural yellow sand subsoil. This gave a very good opportunity to observe for cut features but despite this, none were identified. The site was visited again on the 201h January 2005 at which time all the footings for the new construction had been excavated. The footings had been excavated through the topsoil and into the underlying natural subsoil to a depth of c.0.8m. Apart from occasional modem disturbances associated with the site's earlier industrial use, no archaeological features or deposits were identified. The spoil, which had been retained on-site, was briefly examined but no artefacts were found. No significant archaeological deposits appear to have been damaged or destroyed by this development. The exposures of natural subsoil seen were clean and gave a good opportunity to identify archaeological deposits but none were identified.