Trench-based evaluation was carried out on four areas in Cottenham and Landbeach parishes, known as Graves' Field, The Undertakers, Webster's Field and the IWM Park, covering a total area of 45 hectares, which would be affected by the proposed Cambridge Centre for Recycling. All the evaluation areas lie at or below 3 metres OD on the fen margin near the confluence of the Cam and the Old West River, an area known to have been densely settled in the Roman period. In The Undertakers, postholes and pits were identified, relating to a small Late Bronze Age settlement located on a slight rise that would have formed a peninsula of dry land extending into the fen. In Graves' Field, a Roman ditch was excavated, possibly the continuation of a droveway visible as a cropmark feature in the adjacent field, associated with two small gullies and re-cut by a modern field ditch. Webster's field, which is bounded on one side by the Car Dyke, contained a Roman double-ditched droveway, three other ditches which are probably also of Roman date, and several undated postholes. In the IWM Park, late 3rd-4th century occupation deposits including a midden and traces of structures were recorded in one corner, overlying earlier Roman ditches, some of which may be associated with a droveway which is visible as a cropmark in the adjacent field. Other ditches, mostly restricted to an area along one edge of the field, were also predominantly late Roman in date, and related to field systems associated with the settlement, with the exception of one ditch which was of Late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age date. A fourth century temple, now lost to quarrying, formerly stood just beyond the edge of the evaluation area: except for a single undated cremation, no associated features were identified within 120 metres of it, suggesting that the area surrounding the temple was deliberately avoided by Roman settlement and cultivation.