NHER 36748 (Monument record) - Cropmarks of multi-period field boundaries, trackways and enclosures at Crowgate Street

2 August 1995. NLA aerial photography (S1).
Cropmarks showing a sub-rectangular enclosure with a relatively broad ditch and internal features. One of these appears to be a square enclosure.
To the east are the faint cropmarks of two trackways with linears and enclosures coming off them. Also several pit-like features. Its is likely that this site represents Late Iron Age-Roman settlement and field systems.
S. Massey (NLA), 31 July 2001.

18 July 1996. NLA aerial photography (S2).
A series of linear features and a possible enclosure visible at Crowgate Street.
The majority of the features run in a southwest-northeast direction, appearing to pre-date Crowgate St, and possibly represent medieval strip fields.
To the northeast there appears to be double ditches or trackways on the same alignment.
There are two linears on an approximate east to west alignment that may represent an earlier system of land division, possibly Roman.
A possible rectilinear enclosure to the south of Crowgate St may post-date the field systems and be associated with the properties lining Crowgate St.
M. Brennand (NLA), 3 Deecmber 2001.

April 2007. Norfolk NMP.
NMP mapping has led to the alteration of the central grid reference of the site from TG 3103 2148 to TG 3131 2145.

Many of the cropmarks described above, together with others of similar date and origin, are visible on aerial photographs (S3)-(S9). Some of the principal elements – specifically the extensive, double-ditched boundaries or trackways oriented westsouthwest-eastnortheast – are likely to have originated in the Iron Age and/or Roman period. They would have been the main elements of a field system, a continuation of the same pattern of land division as the probably Roman to post medieval field system (NHER 49360) visible to the northwest. (There is little evidence to support the interpretation of these boundaries as medieval strip fields, as suggested above, although it cannot be entirely ruled out.) Other elements were in use in the post medieval period, and are depicted on 19th century maps, such as Ashmanhaugh Tithe Map (S10). Many of the later features may pre-date the enclosure of Ashmanhaugh Common in the earlier 19th century (the latter is depicted on Faden’s 1797 Map of Norfolk (S11)). The rectilinear enclosure partially visible to the south of Partridge Farm, does seem likely to have been part of the Crowgate Street frontage, as suggested above, and presumably therefore of medieval to post medieval date, rather than reflecting Iron Age to Roman period settlement as initially proposed (see above). A second partial enclosure complex, defined by levelled banks or walls, is visible in the northwesternmost corner of the site, adjacent to Church Farm Cottages. It is likely to be of similar date. Many other elements of the site remain undated; some could have originated in the prehistoric period, while others could be of relatively modern date.

It should be noted that due to a scarcity of control points, rectification of the oblique photographs and the Meridian photographs from 1976 was very poor. This is likely to have had an adverse effect on the accuracy of the mapping. Only one of the pit-like cropmarks visible has been mapped (NHER 49368); the remainder are indistinguishable from non-archaeological cropmarks.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 30 April 2007.