A western terminal of a ditch fragment, which was some 14m long and up to 1.90m wide, and was excavated by three sections.One section at the western end had a V-shaped profile and a long, shallow rise to a rounded terminal. Its lower fill was only 0.04m deep: an assemblage of 20 2nd-century or later potsherds was retrieved from an upper fill, but was substantially outweighed by the late Roman phased pottery assemblage from the eastern terminal. The central section produced seven sherds of pottery that could only be identified as Roman from an upper fill: the profile of this section was stepped, with the portion containing the upper fill being much wider, and the discrepancy between the finds from the two ends of this feature may indicate that the western terminal was a survival from an earlier feature that had been recut further to the east.

The ditch feature group appears to have consisted of a row of several small, approximately rectilinear enclosures, with four or five east-to-west aligned ditches partitioning the space between the two north-to-south-aligned ditches. Not all the features assigned to this group produced dating evidence: some undated or only broadly datable features have been included on the grounds of their form and location relative to phase-specifically datable features.

The northernmost element of ditch group was the longest: the ditch recorded in two sections was exposed to a length of approximately 25m, terminating just short of a connecting ditch (MNT28954) to the west and continuing outside the excavated area to the east. Its breadth and depth were consistent, recorded as slightly over 1m wide and between 0.28m and 0.30m deep by sections at the square-ended terminal and at the limit of excavation. The form and position of the western terminal corroborate the suggested site phasing, as it leaves a gap of some 2.5m, suitable for a corner entrance, from the edge of the probable late Roman recut but would have come so close to the mid-Roman ditch, had this still been open at the time, that the upper portions of the ditches would have intersected while the bases remained separate. Both ditch sections had two fills, but neither produced dating evidence: in both sections, the upper fill was greyish in colour and the lower reddish, suggesting that the base of the ditch might have accumulated material slumping or washing down from an upcast bank, possibly on the northern side of the ditch.

Approximately 4.5m to the south, a second linear feature extended in a straight line 13m westwards from the edge of excavation. The western terminals of this and the three parallel ditches to the south forming the remainder of ditch group were roughly in a row, but this may have been a coincidental effect of the truncation of the ground surface, as the terminal section here tapered off to the surface, suggesting that it had become increasingly shallow until it reached the archaeological horizon rather than having been intended to come to an end at that point, and the terminals of the other features were also tapering and shallow, although more clearly marked than the terminal section. This ditch was up to 1m wide but no more than 0.16m deep, and was cut into the fill of a large, sub-circular pit. The fills of both sections and the pit produced pottery, but none of this could be dated any more accurately than to the Roman period in general. A number of heavily corroded iron objects were retrieved from the pit fills: those from the lower fill were identified as fragments of a single curved object, possibly a bucket handle, while the upper fill produced a sheared or broken nail head and a flat, profiled fragment that may have been part of a blade. The function of the pit is uncertain, as its broad but generally V-shaped profile does not suggest either extraction or working.

The central ditch of the row of five grouped as the ditch group lay between the two early Roman pits and the similar but two mid Roman dated pits. Unlike the two ditches to its north, it terminated to the east within the excavated area, narrowing to a square-ended terminal with a U shaped profile. A terminal section produced the largest pottery assemblage retrieved from any feature in this phase of works: although the lower fill was undated, 198 potsherds were retrieved from an upper fill. 77 of these sherds proved to come from one vessel, a large, decorated grey ware jar; the remainder of the assemblage included sherds from a pierced strainer, a white ware mortarium and an Iron Age native tradition jar, this last probably being redeposited in this context, as the assemblage was generally dated to the early to mid-3rd-century. The terminal was 0.4m wide and 0.30m deep, with a silty clay fill occupying only 0.10m of that depth: a slight step in the southern side of the profile corresponded to the horizon between the two fills and may indicate that the feature had been recut. The date from the eastern terminal is later than the 2nd-century+ date from the western, which may suggest a longer lifespan for this feature, although both dates lie within the potential area of overlap between the two assemblages.

A ditch fragment lying approximately 15m to the south of the terminal section was right-angled, with a northward return at its eastern end. Its east-to-west-aligned section, approximately 17m long, would have served to close the north side of D-shaped enclosure (MNT28953), leaving a possible entrance some 4m wide, although a western terminal was offset from the line of the curving northern end of the D-shaped enclosure. This part of the ditch was broad and shallow, 1.20m wide and 0.21m deep at the excavated section; two sherds of 3rd- to 4th-century pottery retrieved from the terminal section provided the entirety of the dating evidence for this feature. The ditch appeared to make a right-angled turn just short of the eastern limit of excavation; both elements have been included in the ditch group, although the point at which the two arms intersected was completely cut away by a later ditch terminal. The north-to-south-aligned element ran for approximately 9m, ending in the strongly marked, rounded terminal excavated by a section where it was 0.85m wide and 0.27m deep. Three fills were seen on this side of the ditch, reducing to two at the terminal; none produced any further dating evidence.

A right-angled ditch grouping element may have formed the southernmost edge of the ditch group: it is uncertain whether a ditch lying further to the south, within D-shaped enclosure (MNT28953), should be associated with the enclosure ditch group or whether it formed an internal partition within the D-shaped enclosure. The ditch was 15m long; at the western end and towards the centre, two sections were narrow and steep-sided, although tapering to an indistinct terminal. Small amounts of Roman pottery were retrieved from both sections, including a sherd from a Black-Burnished Ware vessel probably produced in Dorset, but the assemblage could only be broadly dated between the late 2nd century and the mid 4th, making this feature impossible to place precisely in the possible enclosure sequence. The ditch became wider towards the east – 0.82m wide and flat based at its easternmost section – but it also became irregular and diffuse, and the excavated section could not ascertain whether it terminated, respecting the eastern side of the D-shaped enclosure, or petered out at the surface of the archaeological horizon before reaching it.

R. D. Savage and L. Brocklehurst, 2025, Phase 5 Works at Fairham Pastures, Land East of Nottingham Road, Clifton, Rushcliffe, Nottinghamshire: Scheme of Archaeological Mitigation (Evaluation and Targeted Excavation) Combined Report (Unpublished document). SNT6071.