COLCHESTER Royal Grammar School has submitted plans to install electronic scoreboards for cricket matches, but will need to wait for archaeologists to survey the playing fields for Roman remains before construction begins.
Planning documents show an application for the scoreboards was drawn up in April, with property consultancy firm Barker Associates then formally lodging the plans on behalf of Colchester Royal Grammar School last week.
But the potential for discovering Roman artefacts underneath the cricket field in Athelstan Road appears to have delayed the process, and it has been agreed that the installing of the scoreboard can only go ahead if archaeological work takes place first.
Once that has been completed, the application can be considered for approval by the council’s planning committee.
A report has also been prepared by the Colchester Archaeological Trust (CAT) which lays out the archaeological background of the playing fields.
That report states the playing fields, which are a ten-minute walk from the school, “lie within an area highlighted by the Colchester Historic Environment Record as having a high potential for archaeological deposits”.
A section of the report continues: “The site is located within an area of cropmarks.
“The cropmarks of the playing field revealed evidence of the site of a substantial Roman temple complex immediately to the east north-east of the development site.
“It is located east of the site, in the playing fields of the Colchester Royal Grammar School.”
Parts of that Roman temple were excavated in 1947.
However, archaeological work undertaken by the CAT on the playing fields since then has been described as “negative”.
Nothing found during an excavation which took place in 2002, and another excavation in 2019 before the school’s new sports hall was built yielded only fragments of medieval pottery.
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