The excavated area was almost wholly occupied by feature group: a rectilinear grid of ditches on an approximately north-north-east to south-south-west alignment, that appeared to form a group of small, rectangular enclosures. Traces of these ditches had been identified by the initial geophysical survey (Lane, 2020), although most were very shallow, with some having been reduced to little more than bases, suggesting that later agricultural activity had truncated the upper surface of the site.

The exposed portion of the enclosure complex was dominated by the two broad, parallel, north-north-east to south-south-west-aligned ditches, which both extended beyond the northern edge of excavation. Both were substantial, although relatively shallow for their width: one ditch was 1.60m wide but no more than 0.33m deep, dwindling to 0.10m deep at its southern terminal section (whose base was on the surface of the underlying bedrock), while the other ditch was 1.70m wide and a maximum of 0.28m deep.

In the northern part of the excavation area, four perpendicular or almost perpendicular ditches intersected the longitudinally-running pair. One ditch, narrower than the longitudinal ditches at 0.77m wide and 0.33m deep, connected them, with the short length of ditch apparently continuing its line for some 5m on the west side of the 1.60m parallel ditch before terminating just within the excavated area, while the two narrower, shallower ditches, neither more than 0.50m wide, extended from the west side of the 1.60m parallel ditch and continued outside the excavated area. The fourth these ditches, of similar proportions to the two narrower ditches, ran westwards from the longitudinal 1.70m parallel ditch, terminating about 2m short of longitudinal 1.60m parallel ditch, as though forming an entrance at the south-west corner of a small rectangular enclosure, possibly partitioning it off from the larger enclosure to the south. All the excavated sections had single fills of brownish-grey or greyish-brown silt and sand mixtures: no stratigraphic relationships were seen at any of the ditch junctions, and nor was there any indication that any of the ditches had been recut, suggesting that the enclosure complex had largely been laid out as a unit and used over a relatively short period of time.

At the narrower south end of the excavated area, the layout of the enclosure pattern was more fragmentary and less clear. The line of substantial longitudinal 1.60m parallel ditch was continued to south-south-west by a narrower ditch fragment. The gap between the southern terminal of the 1.60m parallel ditch and the northern terminal of the ditch fragment was about 5m wide: a large but shallow, flat-based, oval or sub-oval pit (not fully exposed) was located within the gap, and the finds assemblages suggest that the pit was contemporary with the enclosure system.

Two parallel ditches appeared to close the south side of a large, rectangular enclosure, terminating short of the narrow ditch fragment to leave an entrance in the south-west corner. The more southerly, ditch, continued to east-south-east beyond the edge of excavation, and probably intersected longitudinal 1.70m ditch, while another parallel ditch to the north, terminated within the excavated area. Both ditches were broad-based and shallow, at 0.85m wide and 0.10m deep and 0.90m wide and 0.14m deep respectively; they had fills similar to those recorded in the other enclosure ditches, as did the narrow ditch extension fragment.

The enclosure complex can be dated to the Roman period by finds from seven of the excavated sections. A total of twenty-six potsherds were retrieved, almost all Roman grey ware, although only one, a heavily abraded 2nd-century or later sherd could be assigned a date any more accurate than generically Roman. One of the longitudinal ditches was particularly productive, with nine sherds of grey ware and a fragment of burnt daub retrieved, four sherds of grey ware and another four with a redeposited earlier Neolithic flint flake from the terminal section; a piece of ceramic building material (CBM) was also seen in the fill of the terminal, but was lost during excavation in the extremely bad weather conditions. A fragment of imbrex roof tile was also retrieved, while two fragments of CBM might have been Roman or post-Roman. An earlier Neolithic flint blade flake is likely to be redeposited. A substantial assemblage of 3rd-century pottery, including another mortarium sherd, was also retrieved from a pit, suggesting that its position between two ditch terminals was deliberate – possibly to restrict passage between two enclosures – although the blackish-brown pit fill did not resemble the fills of any of the enclosure ditches. Fragments of cattle tooth were also retrieved from this fill, one of only two in the Phase 3 area in which any faunal remains survived.

One final ditch appeared to partition off the north end of the large rectangular enclosure that occupied most of the excavation area and formed the core of group.

The enclosure system exposed in this area and extending into excavation area to the west seems most likely to be chiefly agricultural in nature, and probably associated with a nearby farmstead; pottery assemblages from a number of the enclosure ditches in the excavation area and two ditches found during the evaluation and identified as elements of the enclosure system could be dated to the 2nd to 3rd century AD.

R. D. Savage, L. Brocklehurst & S. Palmer-Brown, 2021, Phases 3 and 3B, Fairham Pastures, West of Nottingham Road, Clifton, Rushcliffe, Nottinghamshire: Scheme of Archaeological Mitigation (Evaluation and Targeted Excavation) Combined Report (Unpublished document). SNT6051.