NHER 4403 (Find Spot record) - Iron Age comb, loomweights and pottery sherds

1920s. Stray Find.
Found in gravel pit (presumed to be the workings at this location):
At least 16 Iron Age triangular clay loomweights. According to a note in (S1) these were found "….arranged in three layers, each layer consisting of six bricks fitted together and forming an hexagonal rosette". A question mark remains over whether the objects were actually found in this arrangement. If this was indeed the case it is possible that they had been reused as flooring at a later date.
The Norwich Castle Museum holds a loomweight from this site that it acquired in 1948 (NWHCM : 1948.64(1)), plus a further 15 that were subsequently received from the King's Lynn Museum (NWHCM : 1962.189).

A number of what are recorded as Iron Age pottery sherds were also found with these loomweights - see drawings (S2) and (S3). According to (S4) the pottery sherds recovered at this site by Mr J. Parrott included a "..stout wheel-made saucer with a flat base of blackish paste". The Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 1926.150 : A) has a number of pottery sherds listed as being from this site that were donated by Mr Parrott in 1926 (NWHCM : 1926.150 : A). These are described as a mix of "Roman and other undated pottery sherds".

Other finds potentially from this site include an Iron Age antler comb with dot and circle decoration - see drawings (S5) and (S6). This object was donated to the King's Lynn Museum by Mr Parrott (KILLM : 1994.419). It provenance is however somewhat unclear, not least as it is described in (S7) as being "…probably from pit on border of Stoke Ferry". This object is also noted in (S12).

It is suggested in (S4) that the pit in which Mr Parrott had found the loomweights was potentially the same pit as that which had produced several objects from Wereham listed in (S8) - all of which are in the Norwich Castle Museum's Beloe Collection. The first of these is a Late Iron Age/Roman Gallo-Belgic ware dish (NWHCM : 1908.22) the exact provenance of which is not known (currently recorded as NHER 4404). The second object noted by (S4) is listed in (S8) as an Anglo-Saxon 'Earthen vessel'. The accession number given (NWHCM : 1908.22) is incorrect (relating to an urn from Warham) but the Beloe collection does include two objects described as undated cremation urns that are thought to have been found at Wereham (NWHCM : 1908.22.149).

Information from (S9) and (S10).
P. Watkins (HES), 9 August 2018.

1937. Stray Find.
Noted by P. L. K. Schwabe at gravel pit west of main road at rear of bungalow:
Black Roman pottery.
Information from (S11).

This material is also noted on (S10), which records that "one or two" sherds were potentially of an earlier date. These finds are also noted on an early NCM record map, which suggests that these discoveries were possibly from the same site as the loomweights described above. It should be noted that both (S10) and the NCM map place these discoveries to the south-east of Wereham, in the vicinity of NHER 4409. It appears to have been subsequently decided that land near Anzac Cottage was the more likely provenance for Schwabe's finds.
Amended by P. Watkins (HES), 14 March 2016.