New Roundabout, Land adjacent to Walton Manor, Milton Keynes: Archaeological Watching Brief

The watching brief comprised the observation by a competent archaeologist of all intrusive groundworks associated with the construction of the roundabout. These works comprised initial foliage clearance, and the removal of roots and soil by mechanical excavator along the verges of the existing road junction, followed topsoil stripping and the removal of subsoil, where required, to achieve the required construction level. Between February and July 2022, Cotswold Archaeology carried out an archaeological watching brief during groundworks associated with the construction of a new roundabout on land adjacent to Walton Manor, Milton Keynes. The watching brief was undertaken for RPS Consulting on behalf of Milton Keynes Development Partnership. The scheme footprint is located to the south of a high-status Roman building and associated features identified during development works in the early 1970s. Several ditches were encountered in the northern portion of the site, matching linear and rectilinear anomalies identified by a preceding geophysical survey, likely forming part of field systems associated with the Iron Age and Roman settlement to the north of the site, pottery confirming a Roman date for the north-west/south-east aligned features. No archaeologically significant features or deposits were encountered across the remainder of the site, suggesting that they either did not extend this far south, which seems unlikely given the projected alignment of the exposed ditches, were not exposed by the relatively shallow development groundworks outside trenches 1 and 2 or had been removed during the original construction of Walton Drive and Groveway.