Site Event/Activity record ESF25663 - Archaeological Evaluation: Land at Heatherhayes, Ipswich

Evaluation of residential development site, 4 trenches were opened. The site had varying degrees of disturbance, which is most likely to have occurred during the construction of the surrounding housing. On both the northern and southern slopes, the significant quantity of overburden had not built up through natural processes and probably relates to bulldozed material from the construction of the adjacent school and housing. No topsoil layer was sealed by these deposits, suggesting that the area had been stripped of topsoil for use elsewhere, potentially destroying any archaeological evidence at the same time. Average depth of overburden was 1m-1.2m comprising of various layers of silty sand with modern material, no topsoil was present in the 2 southern trenches, the other trenches had a thin layer of loamy topsoil c. 1m. The natural revealed was a clean and silty sand. Another had a dark brown silty loam 0.25m thich which revealed a mottled grey clay silt natural subsoil (S1,S2).