In one evaluation trench, a feature recorded as a ditch occupied the south-south-west end of the trench, curving from north-north-west to south-west and continuing beyond the western trench baulk at both ends, while part of the outer edge lay beyond the eastern baulk. It was exposed to a length of approximately 12m, with only a small part of the western or interior edge showing, so that a full profile could not be excavated. No dating evidence was retrieved. As the geophysical anomaly recorded in this area was discrete, the ditch was thought to represent the western edge of a possible annular feature; however, on excavation it proved to have been part of the intersection between ditches (MNT28953) and (MNT28954).

Four ditches were exposed: within the confines of another evaluation trench, they appeared to be parallel, on north-north-east to south-south-west alignments perpendicular to the trench axis. Three of the ditches were close together towards the eastern end of the trench. The largest of these, at approximately 2.20m wide, was the easternmost ditch: the alignment of this ditch may not have been fully evident within the narrow confines of the trench, as its western side appeared almost vertical in profile while the slope of its eastern side was much more gradual, suggesting that the section had been cut obliquely across it. Three fragments of Roman tile, the only ceramic building material retrieved during the Phase 5 works, were retrieved from its single fill, silty clay, as well as Romano-British pottery. Two of the tile fragments were roof tiles, while the third might have been part of a box flue tile, suggesting the presence of a substantial building in the neighbourhood. Another ditch, approximately 2.5m to the west of the easternmost ditch and apparently parallel to it, was roughly half the width of the easternmost ditch and steep-sided. Its fill, silty clay contained patches of pink clay suggesting redeposited natural, and produced a substantial assemblage of Romano-British pottery. The third feature in this possible grouping was on the same north-north-east to south-south-west alignment as the first two ditches but was much shallower, being 1.30m wide and no more than 0.10m deep, with an irregular base. The profile form and dimensions of this feature suggest that it was a medieval strip-cultivation furrow, but its alignment does not correspond either to the ridge-and-furrow recorded by the LiDAR survey or to features identified as furrows in nearby trenches. The third feature also had two fills, which would be unusual for a furrow: its upper fill produced possible Iron Age pottery.

The fourth feature was a ditch that appeared to be on the same alignment as the three eastern ditches, but was at some distance from them, near the west-north-west end of the trench. It was considerably narrower than the other features in the evaluation trench – no more than 0.90m wide, reducing to 0.70m towards the north – with a shallow, concave profile, and its plan form suggested that it might have been curvilinear, although its position within the trench did correspond to a linear geophysical trace. A single sherd of Romano-British pottery was retrieved from a silty clay fill.

Another evaluation trench contained two parallel linear features and a single pit. One ditch, running roughly north-west to south-east across the south-west end of the trench, was the more substantial feature at 1.36m wide and 0.22m deep with a flat base and a single fill. The narrower, shallower linear feature, closer to the south-west end of the trench and about 1m distant from the more substantial feature, appeared to be on a slightly divergent west-north-west to east-south-east alignment, although the small area of both features exposed within the trench made their alignments difficult to ascertain accurately. It measured 0.81m wide and 0.10m deep, with a broad, shallow, concave profile, and was interpreted as a medieval cultivation furrow, corresponding to the ridge-and-furrow identified by the LiDAR survey, although the trench lay outside the area in which earthwork ridge-and-furrow was recorded. A sub-oval pit was located towards the centre of the trench: at 0.90m x 0.60m in plan, it might have been either a small pit or a large post-hole, and was 0.26m deep with a shallow, concave profile. All three features had single mid- or light brown pebbly fills; no dating evidence was retrieved from any of them.

Two intercutting, undated features were partially exposed in a fourth evaluation trench. The features were both located at the north side of the trench, and extended beyond it: one feature was interpreted on site as a pit and the other feature as the terminal of a narrow ditch, although so little of the pit was exposed that the interpretation could not be certain. The probable pit as cut on its east side by the narrow ditch: it survived to 1.06m wide and 0.42m deep, with a broad, shallowly concave base and a single pebbly, silty sand fill. In the light of the excavation results, it seems likely that the pit formed part of pit alignment (MNT28951). The narrow ditch appeared to be the southern terminal of a north-to-south aligned ditch: it extended some 1.5m into the trench, and was 0.94m wide and 0.46m deep, with a moderate, V-shaped profile. Its fill was also pebbly, but darker in colour than that of the pit: although it produced no finds, its stratigraphic relationship suggests an Iron Age or Roman date.

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.