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This archaeological desk based assessment was commissioned by Anglian Water to assess the potential impact of a proposed 4.4km cross-country pipeline route starting at the reservoir south of Burnham Beeches Farm, west of Burnham, Lincolnshire (TA 0462 1617). Set within an agricultural landscape, the fields north of the proposed route contain Bronze Age monuments, a possible Iron Age occupation site, a deserted Medieval village and the purported site of the Battle of Brunanburh, fought in AD 937. To the south and west is located the former RAF Elsham Wold airfield, an active Bomber Command airfield during World War. Although there is a possibility of encountering archaeological features and artefacts dating from several phases of activity, including features and objects encountered at relatively deep levels due to masking by colluvial and riverine deposits, the probability of such encounters is considered to be relatively low over the majority of the southern part of the pipeline route. However, along the stretch of the proposed pipeline between the reservoir to the south of Burnham Beeches Farm and Burnham itself, the potential of encountering significant archaeology dating from the Bronze Age, Iron Age and Medieval periods, including possible evidence for the Battle of Brunanburh, is considered to be increased.

During February 2012, the Cambridge Archaeological Unit (CAU) monitored the groundworks associated with the construction of four offtakes along the pre-existing Grafham to Hannington water main within Northamptonshire. The work involved stripping an area of topsoil and the excavation of small trial pits to access the existing water main. The trial pits were located along previously disturbed ground associated with the original insertion of the water main and thus did not require monitoring. Offtake 7 yielded evidence of post-Medieval activity, but no other archaeological remains were encountered.

An archaeological fieldwalking survey was undertaken by Cambridge Archaeological Unit (CAU) to the south of Perry, Cambridgeshire along the proposed route of a pipeline forming part of the Grafham Resilience Scheme. The fieldwalking survey produced very few finds and no notable concentrations of artefacts. Artefacts recovered were limited to six prehistoric struck flints, six sherds of post-medieval pottery and a fragment of post-medieval tile. The quantities of artefacts present are consistent with 'background levels' likely to be present across the landscape and are not considered to reflect the presence of contemporary occupation remains within the proposed development route.

An archaeological investigation at the Hill Residential CB1 development site, South Cambridge, revealed two distinct phases of archaeology. The first consisted of a dispersed cluster of eleven small pits, dated to the Early Neolithic. Later activity was restricted to evidence for a 16th/17th century agricultural field system and two large 19th pits, potentially resulting from activities associated with the earliest development of the Cambridge Railway Station.

An archaeological trench evaluation was conducted within the car park to the rear of nos.40-52 Newnham Road (properties of Clare College) between 21st-22nd May and 27th-28th September 2012. Four archaeological trenches totalling 25.5m were excavated on two sides of the car park to reveal a deep sequence of 19th - early 20th century garden soil beneath the modern topsoil, overlying rubble and gravel standing. Several 'modern' bottle and pottery dumps had been dug through these garden soils, whilst from the lower sub-soil boundary at around 1-1.2m depth within Trenches 1-3 some Medieval (14th-15th century) coarseware sherds were recovered. Beneath this a number of amorphous-looking soil-filled 'pit-like' features had been cut through the sub-soil into the top of the underlying sandy gravel; the latter containing small amounts of locally-made 14th/ 15th or 15th-century pottery alongside some degraded clay daub, charcoal, burnt flint and small amounts of animal bone. It could not be determined within the small area exposed whether or not these had been dug as rubbish pits, shallow quarries, or were simply artefact-filled Medieval tree-throws. Subsequently, at the rear of the property, from a depth of c.1.4m, Trench 4 revealed a slightly better preserved artefact-filled Medieval soil and a 15th-century curvilinear ditch fragment, the latter cutting through what appeared to be a slightly earlier quarried surface. However, there was no evidence for a property boundary ditch within the area examined. As in the case of the neighbouring properties nos. 34-38 Newnham Road whose backyard plots were examined in 2006, the patchily preserved archaeological evidence suggests a continuation of the occupation or area of activity linked to the 14th-15th century Medieval settlement centred on Malting Lane and Newnham House (formerly the location of Mortimer Manor) and its associated Medieval tenancies.

An archaeological Strip, Map and Sample investigation was undertaken by Cambridge Archaeological Unit (CAU) at the Wilby Valve site in April 2012. The investigation was undertaken during groundworks prior to the construction of an access road and booster pumping station as part of the Pitsford Resilience Scheme. Archaeological features encountered during the investigation were limited to the remains of medieval ridge and furrow cultivation in the south and east of the development site. A small assemblage of artefacts was recovered from topsoil and upper subsoil layers and largely comprises post-medieval material although one abraded sherd of 13th-15th century pottery, which may be broadly contemporary with the ridge and furrow cultivation, was recovered. No evidence of later prehistoric activity associated with the possible settlement to the south and east of the development site was recorded.

The earliest activity at this site consisted of Roman period gravel quarrying. Subsequently the area was re-occupied around the mid 10th century, with evidence for five intensively occupied urban-style tenement properties fronting onto St. John's Street. One 10th-century pit was used to dispose of a body. This pattern was largely swept away over the course of the first half of the 13th century, however, when most of the area was converted into a cemetery for the nearby Hospital of St John the Evangelist. The in situ remains of just over 400 complete or partial individuals were identified, from a likely original 'population' of c. 1000-1500 burials. On the edges of the cemetery there was evidence for adjacent domestic occupation, with a well and some timber-lined pits associated with some form of light industry. The cemetery went out of use when the hospital was converted into St. John's College in 1511. The area then functioned principally as an open garden/yard area with evidence for the sporadic digging of pits and a cask-lined well. From 1562 onwards it was a Pentitionary, a residence for undergraduates not financially supported by their college. It was subdivided and utilised for a range of ancillary college-related functions, including stables and a bakehouse. During the 17th-early 19th centuries there is archaeological evidence that the area became increasingly densely occupied by a series of buildings with stone and later brick footings. In 1877 all of these structures were demolished and the Old Divinity School was constructed.

An archaeological investigation was conducted by the Cambridge Archaeological Unit between 31st January and 23rd February at Rectory Manor, Pirton, Hertfordshire, inside an early 17th century standing building. The investigations although limited revealed several structuyral elements relating to earlier phases of the current standing building.

An archaeological watching brief was conducted by the Cambridge Archaeological Unit between the 11th and 23rd April 2012, on the site of tennis courts located at the western end of Jesus Green, Cambridge. The shallow depth of deposits being stripped meant that no significant archaeological deposits were disturbed.

Cambridge Archaeological Unit undertook an archaeological evaluation at Chear Fen, Chittering, Cambridgeshire between the 8th and 9th May 2012. The trenching revealed a series of substantial post-medieval strip-quarries and several rows of small, modern pits, together with areas of modern disturbance/truncation. No earlier archaeological deposits or features were identified.

Between 29th-31st May 2012 an archaeological trench evaluation was carried on a small building plot (165 sq m) located on the east side of Auckland Road, Cambridge in advance of the construction of the Beth Shalom synagogue and community centre. Beneath a layer of modern building rubble, 19th-century garden soil and re-deposited gravel lay the truncated surface of a complex sequence of early post-medieval backfilled quarry pits and spoil dumps. These probable square and rectangular pits were all different sizes and lay adjacent to one another, some of them slightly intercutting, with others cut from the top of the subsoil or into already quarried ground. In order to best record these the 11m long trench was machined down to the underlying natural (marly gravel) surface into which the bases of a number of round to oval or moon-shaped quarry pits had been cut. None of the coarseware pottery recovered from the pit fills and quarry-spoil dump layers appeared to be later than 16th century AD in date, whilst most of these were of locally-made 15th century types. It seems likely therefore that this area of ground on the edge of the First/Second Gravel Terraces was intensively quarried and re-quarried during the 16th-17th centuries, prior to subsequent re-development. The late medieval (15th-century) pottery found within these quarry fills was probably re-deposited, and therefore reflects the presence of contemporary settlement within this area between Barnwell and the town of Cambridge. Also re-deposited within the quarry waste and soil backfill were a number of Mesolithic-Early Neolithic flint blades and microliths, suggesting the presence of prehistoric flint-working sites along the riverside.

In June 2012 Cambridge Archaeological Unit carried out a program of archaeological monitoring at 5 Church Lane, Royston. The works consisted of recording a cellar that was discovered beneath the previous building and well as monitoring foundation trenches for the new building. No further archaeology was encountered.