Monument record 15830 - Excavated Roman features, to the east of Radway Green Road

<1> Wessex Archaeology, 2023, Land south of Radway Green Business Park, Crewe, Cheshire: Archaeological Evaluation, R4679 (Client Report). SCH9404.

Two ditches were recorded in archaeological trenches (trenches 1 and 2) in 2022 at a site to the east of Radway Green Road. They produced a small assemblage of Romano-British pottery of mid-2nd-century date and potentially could represent two sides of an enclosure or a field boundary.

Ditch 113 (circa 1.8 x 2.45 x 0.62 m) was aligned north–south and was roughly concave in profile, but with a steeper, convex shape on its east side, and a flat base. The ditch contained three sandy fills, the earliest of which produced the majority of the pottery assemblage, which included the rim of a Severn Valley ware bowl or jar and some black burnished ware. Ditch 204 (>2.0 x 1.45 x 0.33 m) was aligned east–west. It had slightly stepped sides and a ‘V’-shaped base. It had two fills, the lower of which contained some animal bone, with two sherds of Severn Valley ware and the base of a samian cup bearing a maker’s mark in the upper fill. The base sherd, probably from a cup, has a maker’s mark identifying the potter as Sextus V, active in Lezoux, Central Gaul between AD 155 and 200. Bulk sediment samples were collected from the basal fills of both ditches.

An adjacent pit (Pit 209) also produced a large fragment of quern stone of Roman date. It measured approximately 1.56 x 1.2 x 0.43 m and was located in the south-west end of trench 2. The quernstone was retrieved from the higher of its two silty sand fills. No other artefactual evidence was recovered from the pit. A bulk sediment sample was collected from its basal fill.