Area 2, Butterfield Green, Luton, Bedfordshire.

The project required the excavation of thirty three 50m x 2m trenches in accordance with a trench plan prepared by WCPM and agreed by Bedfordshire County Council. It was necessary to re-locate seven of the trenches due to on-site restrictions; Trenches 8, 9 and 18 were moved to avoid soil bunds and Trenches 3, 21, 22 and 33 were moved to avoid well-established hedge/tree boundaries. Topsoil and non-significant overburden was removed to the top of archaeological deposits or natural, whichever was encountered first. This was achieved with the use of a mechanical excavator with a toothless grading bucket. Thereafter, the trenches were cleaned and all additional excavation was conducted by hand. Spoil tips were scanned by eye and with a metal detector in order to locate unstratified artefactual evidence. All excavation and recording work was undertaken in accordance with the Foundations Archaeology Written Scheme of Investigation and the Foundations Archaeology Technical Manual 3: Excavation Manual. The evaluation identified concentrations of possible Iron Age/Romano-British features within the southwest corner of the study area, in Trenches 1, 2, 3, 11 and 12. These are likely to be a continuation of the Iron Age/Roman settlement activity found during trial trenching to the south of Area 2 in the proposed cemetery extension plot. The distribution of features in this area suggests that this activity does not continue further east of Trench 11, but probably continues north of Trenches 1-3 and west of Trenches 11 and 12. Bronze Age and Saxon features were also identified in this area. No definitive evidence was found for the continuation of the remains of a prehistoric settlement found during excavation by Albion Archaeology of an area on the eastern boundary of Area 2. Scattered, undated ditch and gully features were found across Area 2. These are probably the remains of field systems. At least one of the ditch features was of modern origin, although the other features could be a continuation of the previously identified prehistoric field systems to the east and southwest of the site. With the exception of the southwest corner of the study area, there was an absence of dating evidence other than modern