Site Event/Activity record ESF22767 - Geophysical Survey, Reservoir Site 2 Capel St Andrew, Butley

A detailed fluxgate gradiometer survey was carried out over c.2.36 hectares of land at Reservoir Site 2, Capel St Andrew, Suffolk, in one agricultural field, covering the footprint of a proposed agricultural reservoir. The survey was successful in recording a fairly wide range of anomalies, some of which have a potential archaeological origin. A series of parallel and perpendicular positive linear anomalies interpreted as ditches forming enclosures (potentially a ladder-type settlement), that are in close proximity to and respecting eight positive discretes (potential rubbish pits) and one area of burning. Four positive linear trends are likely to be the remains of backfilled post-medieval field boundaries and narrow weak positive linear trends record the presence of a probable modern land drainage system. Extant wheel ruts recorded within the dataset as negative and positive parallel linear trends did cause a degree of difficulty when interpreting the data to the south-west of the large hollow. One weak dipolar curvilinear trend potentially records the presence of a service trench run. A broad range of the anomaly types should be further ground-tested to test the interpretations given within this report. The main focus of any further work however should be on the anomalies that have been interpreted as being of a potential archaeological origin (S1).