Monument record IPS 712 - Coltsfoot Road, Ipswich.

2013: An archaeological evaluation was carried out on the 17th January 2013 on land at former lock up garages adjacent to 1 Coltsfoot Road in Ipswich prior to the redevelopment of the site for housing. Two eleven metre long trenches were excavated. Two incised archaeological features were recorded, a modern pit and a large ditch in excess of 7.5m wide and over 1.4m deep. The ditch coincides with the northern side of a discrete enclosure on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Edition Ordnance Survey maps of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While clearly surviving into the 20th century, there was no evidence recovered during the evaluation to indicate when the feature was originally excavated. The interpretation of this feature remains uncertain, but a moated building platform, possibly of medieval date cannot entirely be ruled out (S1).

2013: Detailed documentary research undertaken by Tony Breen (Appendix 2) could find no reference to the moat belonging to a dwelling, habitation or any other function. A map of 1812 and subsequent documentation refer to this area as 'the island'. From the 16th century onwards the site was part of large and wealthy estates, passing from the Crane Hall to the Chantry and then finally to the Stoke Park estate of the Cobbold family. As these estates were owned by wealthy families who did not have to rely on agriculture for an income they might have used 'the island' for rearing game birds or for some other shooting related activity. Monitoring of footing trenches dug for a new dwelling at the northern end of the site revealed that the ditch was in excess of 8m in width and was at least 2.2m deep but was not bottomed. Unfortunately no finds or other dating evidence was recovered from the fills of this feature. Areas monitored to the south of the site showed high degrees of truncation and all potential archaeological deposits and features were probably destroyed during the construction of the previous carpark area (S2).

Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2013 (S3)