Site record MDR23261 - Roman Ditch, off Alfreton Road, Derby

Roman ditch, off Alfreton Road, Derby, possibly associated with a Roman road. During an evaluation carried out in 2016, a Roman ditch was exposed below the alluvium of a palaeochannel. '…A broadly east-west aligned ditch was seen cutting the light yellowish brown natural clay. ...the ditch that was filled by yellowish brown silty clay, the extent of which was 0.4m deep and up to 1.1m wide. The southern side of the ditch sloped gently to a flat base while the northern side was steeper with a pronounced step. The single fill contained Romano-British pottery sherds, animal bone and numerous flecks and fragments of charcoal. It also contained lumps of redeposited natural clay which suggest the ditch may have been backfilled intentionally. The condition of the pottery was good and the presence of multiple sherds from single vessels found in close proximity to each other suggest that this backfilling occurred rapidly over a short period of time. The large quantities of animal bone suggests nearby domestic activity and possibly habitation.' No other archaeological features were reported. (1)