Monument record IPS 725 - Alnesbourne Crescent, Ipswich.

2013: This report describes the results of archaeological evaluation, excavation and monitoring carried out by Pre-Construct Archaeology on land adjacent to Alnesbourn Crescent, Ravenswood, Ipswich, Suffolk, IP3 9GD (NGR TM 1965 4126) between 4th November and 5th December 2013. The archaeological work was commissioned by Castleoak in response to a planning condition attached to the construction of a new care home. The aim of the work was initially to characterise the archaeological potential of the site, and then to preserve by record any archaeological remains which would be damaged or destroyed by the new development. The excavation identified an Early Bronze Age pit containing placed deposits of approximately half a Beaker vessel and a flint knife; these finds are likely to have been grave goods accompanying a crouched inhumation burial but no trace of bone survived in the site’s acidic soil. The Beaker burial was located very close to the projected centre of a cropmark ring-ditch which was thought to exist on site prior to the excavation. However, in the event no ring-ditch or burial mound was found. Instead, the burial was surrounded by a possible small hedged mortuary enclosure. This was surrounded in turn by a larger rectilinear ditched enclosure with several entranceways, which, although it contained no chronologically-diagnostic finds, may also have been of Early Bronze Age date. Later land use was represented by successive field boundary ditches. Despite excavating at least half of each ditch, few finds were present. However, based on shared alignments with field boundaries at other excavated sites in the vicinity, the ditches are likely to be Bronze Age and Iron Age to Romano-British in date. They formed part of a wider prehistoric and Roman agricultural landscape which has been revealed at other sites on the south-eastern outskirts of Ipswich and on the Trimley Peninsula. Numerous undated small burnt pits were also scattered across the excavation area; post-excavation analysis will aim to ascertain their date and function, (S1).

Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2013 (S2)