An archaeological watching brief at the Dorket Head Brickworks near Arnold, Nottinghamshire on behalf of Ibstock Brick Limited. The 2002 desk-based assessment study area covered an area of approximately 31 hectares that was to be quarried in stages in due course. The report concluded that although there was scattered evidence for prehistoric and Romano-British activity in the general vicinity, there was no known direct evidence of significant archaeological remains within or adjacent to the study area. However, because the local subsoils above the Mercia Mudstones are variable, the absence of recorded cropmarks or surface finds did not preclude the presence of occupation or currently unknown archaeological features within the study area. Before the archaeological investigations started, the ground was grassland and the adjacent land is still largely used for grazing sheep. As late as 1791 the stripped area was still showing as part of Tavill Field, one of the former open fields of Arnold, with forest at the north end. Lines of former ridges and furrows show on Dowland’s pre-Parliamentary Enclosure map of 1783. Enclosure followed shortly after in the general area but the study area stayed open until the early 19th century when it was finally divided into regular fields and the ground probably flattened. The area had changed very little by the time the Dorket Head Brickworks had moved its clay extraction operations to the east of Calverton Road in the 1960s. The watching brief was carried out between 17th of June and the 17th of July 2013. A strip of land area approximately 60m x 225m in size was stripped by machine, descending down a dry steep-sided valley. The grassland was stripped in two stages – firstly to remove the topsoil and secondly to remove all subsoil down to the natural. The archaeological features comprised a large pit containing regionally important Beaker pottery fragments dating from to the late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age, flint artefacts and burnt bone. Two smaller undated pits were also encountered. Six north-east to south-west aligned furrows were present in the southern half of the site. The former stream in the base of the valley was excavated by machine, exposing a late post-medieval retaining wall dating to when the stream was straightened between 1791 and 1835. The stream was later filled in and a farm track comprising building debris was constructed in the valley bottom.