The penannular ditch was the dominant feature of the second excavation area, occupying most of the south side of the excavation area. The internal diameter of the ring was approximately 25m north-west to south-east – its southern and south-western side lay outside the excavated area. The ring-ditch had been repeatedly recut, including at least one rearrangement of its layout.

Due to the complexity of the sections, it was difficult to ascertain a maximum width for the ditch, but the early element recorded in the western terminal, had been more than 2.2m wide, while the latest recut on the east side had been no more than 0.80m wide; the depths of the various cuts and recuts ranged from 0.76m to 0.38m. On the east side, the earliest ditch was recorded in each of three excavated sections, including the terminal of a north-east facing entrance. The original cut had steep to vertical, but irregular, sides and an almost flat base, a profile indicative of a regularly maintained feature, and the lowest layer, mixed deposit, was the same in all three sections. The eastern terminal had probably been separately remodelled: a section here featured only one other fill; the relative positions of the two fills suggested the presence of an unrecorded recut, and the pebbly, greyish-brown silty sand did not resemble the yellowish-brown silty sand fill, which occupied the same position in the other two sections. These two sections displayed comparable sequences of three recuts, all with roughly V-shaped profiles and each containing at least two fills. The latest recut had altered the layout of the ditch, as it could be traced in plan to a northward-aligned terminal which gave the ring-ditch a wider entrance. The space between the old and new terminals was exactly filled by a shallow circular pit, 1.0m in diameter and 0.28m deep: no evidence for its function was uncovered, but it seems very likely to have been associated with the ring-ditch. Its fill produced six sherds of Roman grey ware as well as a redeposited Neolithic flint flake and a few fragments of cattle teeth; an environmental sample was unproductive, containing only a few charred seeds of common wild plants.

The west side of the ring-ditch was more difficult to understand, as it intersected a north-north-east to west-south-west aligned linear ditch, and in several excavated sections the stratigraphic record was ambiguous or even contradictory. The section at the western entrance terminal was comparatively simple, with an original cut with a V-shaped profile recut by a U-shaped cut, while a single recut was identified in the north side of the ring ditch above the original cut, although this section was irregular and it is possible that more than one recut was present. Two additional sections at the western edge of the excavation area revealed complex sequences of recuts, some recorded and some identified later from section drawings and site photographs: it was not possible to ascertain a stratigraphic relationship between the linear ditch and thering-ditch in either section, as it was unclear which recuts formed elements of which feature. A section excavated in the south-west corner of the area, at the point where the linear ditch and ring-ditch converged, identified an original cut and a recut of the ring-ditch and one cut of the linear ditch; a fourth cut ran down the centre of the section, separating the original cuts of both features, and could not be confidently ascribed to either, although its position is more suggestive of a third recut of the ring-ditch, post-dating the linear ditch. However, a box section excavated at the point where the two ditches met to the north, which encountered only two cuts with single fills, showed the linear ditch as cutting in a section of the ring-ditch. It is possible that the two features were in fact contemporary or had overlapping lifespans, with the linear ditch forming part of an enclosure containing the ring-ditch, and the ring-ditch impinging on its edge during one or more episodes of maintenance. The finds assemblages from these features are too slight and their stratigraphy too ambiguous to corroborate this conjecture, with an earlier Neolithic flint flake being retrieved from an early and heavily truncated fill in a section, which could have been an element of either ditch, and three sherds from a late 3rd- to 4th-century Roman colour-coated bowl retrieved from the fill of a section, a recut of the ring-ditch that had been truncated in turn by a later recut; due to the disturbed nature of both features, neither find can be considered securely stratified, as it is possible that the flint may have been redeposited and/or the Roman pottery intrusive.

An undated pit, the broad, flat-based pit, lay directly within the circuit of the ring ditch on the north side, and seems likely to have been associated with the ring-ditch. No other internal features were identified, suggesting that, as with the Phase 1 ring-ditch, this feature had been a regularly maintained and remodelled enclosure ditch rather than the site of a roundhouse (Savage et al., 2021).

The large ring-ditch is potentially of Iron Age origin, as its multiple recuts indicate that it was a long-lived feature; however, the limited amount of dating evidence retrieved from the ditch fills and closely associated features was Roman, and it appears to have been incorporated into the Roman enclosure system. The substantial breadth and depth of parts of the ditch, with the evidence for multiple recuts and the paucity of internal features, suggest that, as with the Phase 1 ring-ditch, this rin-ditch had been a regularly maintained and remodelled enclosure ditch rather than the site of a roundhouse (Savage et al., 2021).

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.