The original requirement for the evaluation called for 5% by area of the overall c.3.57 hectares redline development area to be investigated. It was subsequently agreed with SCCAS that as substantial areas of the site would remain undisturbed, that the trenching need only to be targeted on the north-east corner of the site (c.0.12 hectares) and an area fronting Sudbury Road (c.0.57 hectares). The former is the location of the five proposed housing units whilst the latter was for a new shop, offices and carparking associated with the extant brewery. The Brief stated that a combined 36m length of 1.8m wide trenching was required in the northern plot and a combined 170m of 1.8m wide trenching in the southern area. Due to a significant number of services known to cross the northern plot with their required Health and Safety buffer/exclusion zones, the area left available for evaluation was minimal. After discussions with SCCAS, it was agreed that trenching was not practical at this juncture and that the evaluation would be undertaken in the larger southern plot only. SCCAS have stated that archaeological works will still need to be undertaken in the northern plot, either as trenching, after the services have been moved to facilitate the proposed development or archaeological monitoring during all invasive groundworks. The current phase of evaluation fieldwork comprised the excavation of nine trenches in the southern plot only. One trench was 10m in length whilst the other eight were 20m in length; all measured 1.8m in width. The trenches were located to provide a representative sample of the area of the site requiring investigation. Trenches were set out and overburden was stripped from the trenches by a mechanical excavator under archaeological supervision to the top of the natural substrate, which was the level at which archaeological features were first encountered. Deposits were assessed for their palaeoenvironmental potential but no deposits were identified that required sampling. In May 2025, Cotswold Archaeology (CA) carried out a trenched archaeological evaluation of land adjacent to Nethergate Brewery, Long Melford, Suffolk. A total of nine trenches were excavated. Only one feature was recorded, a ditch, perpendicular to the road, from which no dating evidence was recovered. A flint scraper was recovered from the topsoil which has been dated to the Neolithic period. A number of metal artefacts were recovered from the topsoil through the use of a metal detector. They include an Iron Age coin and a Roman furniture fitting along with two medieval coins and two medieval dress fittings. The remainder were either post medieval or modern in date.
M Sommers (Wed,) studied this question.