Land at Barley Lane, Exeter, Devon

The evaluation fieldwork comprised the excavation of 16no 30m x 1.8m trenches and 1no 60m x 1.8m trench. The trenches were located to test geophysical anomalies and to provide a representative sample of the remainder of the application boundary and the biodiversity area. Trenches were set out and overburden was stripped from the trenches by a mechanical excavator fitted with a toothless grading bucket. All machining was conducted under archaeological supervision to the top of the natural substrate, which was the level at which archaeological features were first encountered. Archaeological features/deposits were investigated, planned and recorded. Deposits were assessed for their palaeoenvironmental potential but none were identified that required sampling. In February and March 2025, Cotswold Archaeology carried out an archaeological evaluation of land at Barley Lane, Exeter, Devon. A total of 17 trenches were excavated. The evaluation recorded a concentration of ditches in the southern part of the site, corresponding to enclosures recorded by a previous geophysical survey. Roman pottery and relatively large quantities of Roman ceramic building material were recovered from some of these features. It is likely that these ditches represent the remains of a Roman farmstead, situated within the dispersed agricultural landscape surrounding Exeter (Isca Dumnoniorum). The relatively large quantities of Roman ceramic building material may indicate the presence of a Romanised structure in the immediate vicinity of the site (albeit outside of the site boundary).