Evaluation by SutAS, for the British Marine Industries Federation, of land proposed for office development revealed alluvial silts and peats, which were sampled for palaeo-environmental analysis. Analysis by ArchaeoScope Consulting indicates that sedimentation commenced prior to 7000 BC (early Holocene/Mesolithic). The deposits represent the fill of abandoned river channels, probably being actively created and infilled during a period of at least a thousand years in the early Holocene. Peat formation on the, by then stabilised, floodplain was halted by a period of flooding some time after the first century AD. This perhaps represents the result of soil erosion caused by agricultural intensification, although woodland was being cleared and crops cultivated in the locality at a much earlier date