A watching brief was carried out during groundworks for the construction of a 250mm diameter trunk main, between October and February 2006/2007. The route was 4.7km long and the full route of the pipe was monitored. The easement was, on average, 7.0 metres wide and trench excavation 1.5 metres deep and 0.5 metres wide. The whole of the pipeline was subject to the watching brief. Groundworks involved topsoil removal, providing on average 8.0 metres of stripped easement width and the excavation of trenches on average 1.5 metres deep and 0.5 metres wide. Topsoil was removed using 360 mechanical excavators, 10 tonne, 13 tonne and a mini digger with 1.5 and 1.0 metre toothless ditching buckets. Not all areas were suitable for top soil stripping, here trenching alone occurred with a 0.5 metre toothless ditching bucket. All topsoil stripping was monitored by the archaeologist, as was trench cutting where stripping did not occur. Three points along the route required directional drilling and here, the excavation of trenches either side of the crossing was observed. Work in progress was recorded with notes, photographs, plans and sketches, as were uncovered archaeological features. Considering the length of the pipeline, very little of archaeological significance was identified during the course of the works. Many of the visible landscape changes related to the development of the Rufford estate and to recent arable farming activity. Even the occasional topsoil finds were mainly nineteenth century or later and did not suggest significant manuring of the land during the medieval period, although there was some evidence for ridge and furrow. The isolated flint finds can tell us little, other than perhaps recognising some isolate prehistoric activity and suggests as implied by documentary evidence that much of the landscape was woodland pasture. The two flints recovered from the topsoil were found on different sections of scheme and were unstratified. One flint flake was recorded as utilised. Examination of the land adjacent to the crop marks, identified in the desk based assessment, revealed no archaeological deposts. Whilst the visible plough scrapes were deep, they would not have destroyed all archaeological evidence and therefore suggests suggests that possible settlement or farming activity associated with the cropmarks was confined to an area north of the current Rufford Lane. Highly visible landscape features crossed by the pipeline, such as the dismantled railway, the brickyard and the clay pit all point to nineteenth and twentieth century industries, exploiting local resources, but abandoned within a relatively short lifetime. The substantial ditch located running south to north from the higher ground to the east of the present Rufford Mill down towards Rainworth Water was the only significant feature identified. The location of the ditch parallel to the river is difficult to explain and without dating evidence from the primary fill of the initial cut, it can only be presumed that it served some function as a way of controlling excess water as it drained away from the higher land to the south and west. Whether this was in relation to the function of previous mills or landscape features of the eighteenth century estate is difficult to know without determining the point of origin of the ditch. Most certainly, the ditch has been re-cut in recent times, suggested by the modern material. In addition, a later cut inserted a ceramic land drain of a type last used in the middle of the twentieth century, indicating that drainage of this land has certainly been a recent problem.