NHER 43405 (Cropmark and Earthwork record) - Cropmarks of possible Bronze Age or Iron Age farmstead

7 June 1946.
Cropmark of enclosure on RAF vertical air photograph.
E. Rose (NLA).

March 2006. Norfolk NMP.
Cropmarks of polygonal enclosures and a ring ditch of possible Bronze Age or Iron Age date are visible on aerial photographs (S1-S2). These cropmarks are centred on TF 7031 3602 and were previously recorded as part of NHER 11312. The main feature of this group of cropmarks is an incomplete polygonal enclosure. It has an asymmetrical plan with six visible sides and measures 77m by 53m externally. The northeastern part of the enclosure is not visible as a cropmark and would require at least one or two more sides to have made it complete. Inside the northern part of the enclosure is a cropmark of a small ring ditch. This ring ditch is slightly sub-circular in plan with a 1m wide ditch and an external diameter of 12m. A small sub-oval pit cropmark measuring up to 1.7m long is present within the southern part of the ring ditch. It is possible that this ring ditch relates to a Bronze Age round barrow and that the pit is a grave. Other ring ditch cropmarks are located to the south forming a dispersed group (NHER 1622, 43392, 43394-6, 33599). A curving ditch of unknown function is also present within the enclosure. To the west of the large polygonal enclosure is a small incomplete enclosure. It measures at least 34m by 29m and also has a polygonal plan of unknown form. Both of these enclosures could be of Bronze Age date and have a funerary function associated with the possible round barrow. Alternatively the ring ditch could relate to a round house of Bronze Age or Iron Age date and with the enclosures could be a small settlement or farmstead. However, the absence of any clear entrance in the ring ditch cropmark makes its interpretation as a round house less likely.
J. Albone (NMP), 16 March 2006.