The requirements for the investigation were set out in a Brief for a programme of archaeological investigation, recording, analysis and publication, issued by CBCAT on 20th May 2020. Following on-site discussions between Stephen Highland (the planning applicant), Hannah Firth (CBCAT) and Christiane Meckseper (PCA), due to site constraints it was agreed that the mitigation within the residential area would take the form a single 30m trench at 2m wide along the southern site boundary. It was also agreed that a contingency would be included for limited extensions to the trench to clarify the nature and extent of any archaeological features that may be encountered. Archaeological investigations at Yates Meadow, immediately to the south and east of the site, had revealed Late Saxon and medieval activity, with agricultural boundaries ditches of later medieval date, possibly separating areas of habitation along Biggleswade Road from agricultural land to the east, occurring in its north-western corner. The results of the current excavation supplemented those of the 2016 excavation, with one of the boundaries extending into the eastern part of the site. Two parallel medieval boundaries were investigated, one of which contained a sherd of pottery of 12th-14th century date and an assemblage of horse and dog bones. A similar assemblage of horse and dog bones was recovered by the earlier excavation, suggesting that the boundary ditch provided a useful location at the edge of the town to dispose of animal carcasses. One of the boundaries may have had a fence along its western edge. In the early post-medieval period the land reverted to open farmland, but by the second half of the 19th century the southwards expansion of the town had led to some of the farmland alongside the road being partitioned and used as paddocks or yards. These enclosed areas may have been associated with a group of buildings immediately to the north of the site, as shown on the 1884 Ordnance Survey map of the area. Finds recovered from the post-medieval features included mid-18th to mid-19th century pottery and clay tobacco pipe stems; two residual sherds of medieval pottery and a medieval buckle plate were also recovered from post-medieval features.
Iza Jamar Anderle (Fri,) studied this question.