Glebe Farm Road Corridor: Test Pit Survey Watching Brief

Résumé 0

A watching brief was carried out in January 2005 on behalf of W. S. Atkins on the proposed route of the Addenbrookes link road, south of Cambridge. The work forms part of a series of ongoing landscape assessment projects carried out by the Cambridge Archaeological Unit (CAU) on the southern edge of Cambridge. This has so far consisted of desk top assessments for the Addenbrookes Environs and Clay Farm, fieldwalking, trial trenching and open area excavation, in particular the excavation of the Late Iron Age and Early Roman settlement and cemetery on the Addenbrookes Hospital Hutchinson site. As part of the wider Addenbrookes/Clay Farm investigation, Glebe Farm has already been the subject of a CAU desk top assessment and a CAU-commissioned geophysical survey, a brief summary of which only is given here. There are no recorded archaeological remains or artefacts within the fields subjected to test pitting, although they are surrounded by known sites and find spots on all sides except the south-west. Nearby prehistoric activity consists of flint scatters as well as later Bronze Age and Iron Age settlement. The Trumpington Park and Ride site immediately to the north-west of Glebe Farm revealed a concentration of Iron Age activity. Extensive Roman activity exists in the area, consisting of roads, settlement, cemetery, and at least one probable villa. Saxon and Medieval activity is also much attested to, although this largely clusters around the area of the parish church in Trumpington, and a little south of it on the Waitrose site. Aerial photography has revealed potential features within the Glebe Farm fields, although these have so far been interpreted as agricultural headlands and small-scale gravel/coprolite quarrying. The results of a magnetic susceptibility survey were ambiguous, although the conclusion was that some archaeological potential may be anticipated.