The site, which covers an area of c. 19.5ha, is located 0.6km to the north of the village of Colston Bassett and approximately 14km to the south-east of Nottingham city centre. It comprises two recently ploughed arable fields, which are bounded on all sides by mature hedgerows. The watching brief comprised the observation by an experienced archaeologist of groundworks associated with the installation of a cable for a security camera and the inspection of the foundation trench for the control room and part of an access road. The sides of the foundation trench for the control room, which was the largest of the four intended SMS areas, were inspected. This confirmed that there were no ditches or other features passing through this area, although any discrete features within its limits (i.e. pits and postholes), if present, would have been destroyed. The spoil from the excavations was visually scanned for finds but none were found. The watching brief on one of the security camera cable trenches and part of the access road demonstrated that a watching brief over groundworks across the site in general would have been unlikely to reveal coherent archaeological remains. The cable trenches were narrow, generally no more than 0.3m wide, which would have made it difficult to identify and interpret any archaeological features that may have been present. They were also only excavated to a depth of c. 0.5m–0.6m, which left traces of subsoil in the bases of the trench, possibly masking any archaeology. For the construction of the access road, the ploughsoil was removed to expose the surface of the subsoil at a depth of 0.25m–0.30m; with the subsoil still in situ, any archaeological remains pre-dating the subsoil would have remained covered. The only archaeological features identified by the investigation were a series of possible furrows in the security camera cable trench, which occurred as an undulating interface between the subsoil and the geological substrate, with several furrow bases visible in the base of the trench. They were aligned north-west to south-east, corresponding with the linear trends, interpreted as medieval furrows, shown on the geophysical survey.