NHER 42388 (Monument record) - Undated ditch

January 2006. Norfolk NMP. North of Winterton and West Somerton.
A curvilinear ditch is visible on aerial photographs (S1 to S3), between TG 4859 2009 and TG 4903 2003. Its date is unknown but it cuts across a number of field boundaries depicted on Winterton Tithe Map (S4) and probably pre-dates that phase of enclosure. (The rectilinear pattern of the latter suggests that it probably dates to the later post medieval period.) Given its location on low lying ground the ditch almost certainly functioned as a drain, although its curvilinear shape suggests it could have originated as a natural channel. The narrow eastern part of the ditch is rather uncertain and may be a bank rather than a ditch. To the southwest, the drain may have continued beyond its mapped extent but was not clear enough in this area to map. More recent aerial photographs, for example (S5), demonstrate that the western part of the ditch has now been levelled, but it is possible that other parts still survive as earthworks.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 13 January 2006.