ECB7659 Waterbeach Station Temporary Haul Road 2025: Cambridge Archaeological Unit Digital Archive

The Cambridge Archaeological Unit (CAU) carried out a trial trench evaluation on the route of a proposed haul road northeast of Waterbeach Cambridge for the Greater Cambridge Partnership. The haul road is to provide accessed to the site of the proposed new Waterbeach railway station. The haul road and associated works will be just over 2km long and 25m wide. For most of its length, the road will run parallel to Bannold Drove, north of Waterbeach; at its north end, it turns west to provide access from the Waterbeach Barracks site; at its southern end, it joins the proposed new railway station site. In total, the CAU excavated 26 trenches along the route. Fieldwork was carried out in late September and early October 2025 in good conditions. There were few archaeological features identified: • one Roman-era ditch F.104 in Trench 22, containing 30 sherds from two Early–Middle Roman jars; • an undated ditch F.108 in Trench 6, corresponding to a long linear anomaly identified in a previous geophysical survey of the site; • an uncertain ditch or animal burrow F.111, truncated by a marling ditch F.112, in Trench 18. The evaluation also uncovered post-medieval marling ditches and land drains in most of the trenches. The lack of material – particularly the absence of any prehistoric finds or medieval ridge and furrow – is consistent with the presence of fen in the area from the Bronze Age through to drainage in the early post-medieval period. The only activity visible was ditching – presumably undertaken in an effort to drain the land or prevent inundation – and post-medieval marling ditches.